Free The Haunting by Rodman Philbrick Page B

beam turned hulking shadows into perfectly ordinary piles of junk—boxes, old tools, broken furniture.
    We both stiffened when the door at the top of the stairs opened with a creak.
    â€œBoys!” It was my mother. “Don’t disturb those boxes in the corner,” she said. “They belong to the owners of the house.”
    â€œOK, Mom,” I called back. I aimed the flashlight at the other side of the basement. “We’ll start there,” I told Steve.
    But Steve wouldn’t make a move until I went first. It was much less scary down here when there were two of us, I decided. And thinking about it, I didn’t really expect to find anything, certainly not a forgotten skeleton, but exploring this creepy place with Steve would be cool.
    â€œBlak!” Steve shouted suddenly, like he was choking.
    I whirled around. The shadows moved in closer.
    Steve was batting at his face and sputtering. “Spiderwebs! They’re sticking to my face. Yuck!”
    I laughed and the shadows retreated to their corners.
    We found a bunch of moldering boxes filled with old magazines and newspapers, old-fashioned hats with net veils, unrecognizable parts of rusting metal.
    â€œLook at these weirdos,” Steve said, holding open an old magazine.
    â€œThat’s how they dressed back then,” I said.
    â€œWhat a bunch of geeks.”
    â€œIf you lived back then, that’s how you’d dress, too,” I pointed out.
    â€œNo way.”
    As it turned out, none of the boxes in that corner were big enough to hide a body.
    We looked behind a ripped armchair that sprouted stuffing like fungus. Wrinkling my nose against the smell, I yanked the cushions off a sagging sofa while Steve held the flashlight over my shoulder.
    No body. Not even a dead mouse.
    Dust swirled as we shifted heavy boxes and played the flashlight beam into corners that hadn’t been disturbed in at least fifty years, maybe more.
    â€œWhat’s that?” cried Steve, tensing suddenly. “That noise.”
    I paused and listened. “I don’t hear anything.”
    Steve suddenly grabbed my arm.
    â€œThere!” He pointed behind us, toward the corner where the owners’ things were piled. “It sounds like someone moving around back there, trying to be quiet.”
    I listened. “Mice,” I said, trying to keep the nervousness out of my voice. “I saw a mouse last time I was down here.”
    Steve looked doubtful. While we shifted around what seemed like millions of mildewed magazines, his gaze kept drifting toward that corner.
    I could feel the darkness moving in closer each time my back was turned, like a game of red-light, green-light. Small noises nibbled at my attention but always stopped when I paused to listen.
    When we found nothing more behind the stacks of magazines, Steve straightened up. Absently he wiped his filthy hands on his once-clean khaki shorts. “If there’s a body down here, it’s going to be over there,” he said, gesturing toward the owners’ piled belongings.
    I nodded. “You’re right. We’ll just have to be careful to put things back so my mom doesn’t get bent out of shape.”
    Very carefully and slowly we approached that corner of the basement. It seemed darker there, as if the creepy shapes had a way of soaking up the beam from my flashlight.
    â€œWe can’t move all this stuff,” Steve complained. “It’ll take forever.”
    â€œHey,” I said, with a tingle of excitement. “Is that a trunk?”
    I pointed out a large rectangular shape standing on end behind a stack of boxes. “It’s big enough to hold a body, isn’t it?”
    Immediately we both began heaving boxes out of the way until the trunk was clear. For a moment we just looked at it.
    Then I reached slowly for the latch. I pulled. The lock clicked.
    Nothing happened.
    â€œMy mom’s calling,” Steve said