I have no more excuses.
I drive the truck down the road and park it in Mr. Engel’s driveway. The crisp air from the morning has all burned away. We are back in the heat and I am staring at Mr. Engel’s front door from the driver’s seat.
The Mountain is playing a song by Elton John. I shut off the radio and push open the driver’s door as a breeze stirs.
I sing to myself under my breath as I look at the house. “Hey, kids, shake it loose together.”
If this was a western, this would be the showdown in the center of town. Me out in front of the saloon, flipping my keys around a finger—the house down near the jailhouse, waiting for me to draw.
But this isn’t a western, it’s a horror movie. This is the part where you yell at the screen while the hapless hero goes into the house against everyone’s better judgement.
When I take a step forward, the breeze pushes open the front door a little.
“Come on,” I whisper.
This is too much. I know that I closed the door. I didn’t lock it because I figured that Mr. Engel might not have his keys, but I know that I closed it.
Someone must have been here in the interim. Maybe the police finally came by to check out the place? I could come back another day. I could just break my promise to Amber. What does it matter if the power is shut off? Then again, what’s stopping me? Some childish fear caused by an absurd declaration from a dying man?
I climb the porch and put my toe on the door to push it open, just like yesterday.
“Hello?” I call.
I immediately regret yelling into the empty house. The way my voice reverberates back is chilling, even in the late afternoon heat.
I remember Mr. Engel and his one good eye. The poor old man has passed now. This house was important to him—so much so that he wanted nothing more than to pass his final days here alone. I step inside. The heat is oppressive, but not nearly as bad as it was yesterday. I glance around, making sure the windows are shut tight. Amber didn’t ask me to do that, but it only makes sense.
Work is the curse of the drinking class. I take the soiled glass from the bar and walk it into the kitchen. The dishtowel is dry now. I put it back on the stove handle, where I found it in the first place. When I rinse out the glass, washing the brown stain out with my fingers, the pipes groan and chatter before they deliver water.
I check the rest of the windows on the first floor before I even dare to look at the cellar door.
The hook is out of the eye.
From my back pocket, I pull out the little flashlight that I bought at the grocery store. It was in the “Seasonal” aisle, right next to the bug spray and sunscreen. In my other pocket, I have a box of matches. I have zero intention of going down there without adequate light.
I reach out and tug on the door, letting it swing open while I back up.
I stab at the darkness with my flashlight beam.
My mom hated spiders. Every time she came to visit Uncle Walt, they had a fight about it. She would take the old broom out to the side porch and sweep away all of the webs and the fat spiders that built them. Within a day, we wouldn’t be able to sit out there in the evenings—there would be too many mosquitoes and biting flies.
“You can just put on bug spray, like a normal person,” she would say.
“Great, we’ll just add poison to the equation. That’s far better than a few helpful spiderwebs,” Uncle Walt would say.
I’m guessing that Mr. Engel and my mom would have gotten along. I don’t see a single spiderweb in the open framing of the stairway leading down to his cellar. He didn’t coddle the spiders. My flashlight barely finds any dust either. The whole stairwell is remarkably clean. I point my flashlight down and study the well-worn stairs. Each tread has a shallow depression right in the middle. These boards have seen a lot of use through the years.
The light switch turns on a bulb just over my head and one at the bottom of the stairs. I keep my flashlight on anyway. Once I kill the power to the house, I’ll need it.
I take a step down.
This is where a hand will shoot out from between the treads and grab my foot. Or, maybe all the treads will tilt down, turning the staircase into a ramp. Either would be terrifying.
The song from the Mountain is still in my head.
“We’ll kill the fatted calf tonight, so stick around,” I whisper.
It was the wrong lyric to remember when I’m trying to psych myself up to descend into a vampire-infested cellar.
(What if vampires were real?)
What if vampires were real?
I’m a big believer in self-ownership, you know? As long as they’re not harming someone else—directly or indirectly—I believe that a person should be able to do what they like. Of course, the devil is in the details. If I choose to commit suicide and someone else really cares for me, then I’m harming them, right? Should I be allowed to do it anyway?
Are animals people? Should I be able to harm an animal? We have a ton of rules about that. You can kill a cow and eat it, but you had better not inflict too much pain on the poor thing while the heart is still pumping.
I eat meat, but I try not to be a hypocrite about it. I
