A Place So Wicked Patrick Reuman (children's ebooks free online TXT) 📖

Richard almost protested, but before he could get a word out, Robbie had pulled the door open. Another wave rushed up, but thankfully, this one was weaker. It stank, but not enough to make him want to vomit like he had a minute ago. The bulk of it must have escaped its confines in the first wave.

Robbie fanned in front of his face and made a grunting sound as he flipped the light switch and started down the steps. Richard followed. The stairs creaked and groaned, and the thin metal railing that followed along the stairs was rusted and felt weak, like if you were to fall, and you grabbed it, it would simply rip right out of the wall instead of helping you stay upright.

The bulb was flickering as they neared the bottom of the steps. It hummed and buzzed, the light growing bright and then fading to near darkness before finding a sudden strength to light again. Robbie was the first down and walked straight over to the light. He grabbed hold of it and twisted the bulb to make sure it was screwed in all the way. It was. He rattled it and didn’t hear any clatter, a sure sign, if present, that something was wrong with the bulb.

Robbie hmmmmed to himself. The light seemed to be fine, but he wasn’t exactly an electrician. He looked at the cord that came out from the base of the lighting fixture and trailed along the ceiling. The rubber material around the wire looked like it was straight up falling apart.

“Might be the cord,” Robbie said as he turned to face Richard.

Richard was standing in front of a door, just standing there, staring straight ahead.

“Richard!”

Richard startled and turned. “Yeah?”

“I said it may be the cord.” He pointed toward the ceiling. “Looks like it was attacked by a rabid animal.”

“Oh, okay,” Richard said, sounding almost disinterested.

“You okay?” Robbie asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I think the smell is coming from here.” Richard reached and twisted the door’s handle. It clanked back and forth but didn’t budge.

“Locked?” Robbie asked.

“Looks like it. I think I remember this door being locked when I came to look at the place. The realtor said he would find the key for me, said he wasn’t sure what was behind it. He must have forgotten. I’ll have to give him a call.”

Robbie fanned in front of his nose again and snickered. “Probably a dead raccoon or ten back there.”

Robbie finally took a look around the basement itself. The light continued to flicker, shedding rays of disappearing yellow across the walls. The basement looked to be about as large as the attic, which stretched across the entire length of the house. Cobwebs strung from wooden beam to wooden beam, blanketing the surface of the ceiling. The wood that made up the ceiling looked black, like it had been burned at some point but somehow still held the house in place.

In fact, everything in the basement looked ancient and dead except the locked wooden door. It was a bright crimson from corner to corner, clean and fresh, like someone had been maintaining that door but ignored everything else in the basement.

Richard was at one of the windows that lined the ceiling along the walls, their glass shaded grey by the elements. He clicked a latch and pushed it open and then moved on to the next one.

“This should let some air in. Get this stink out,” Richard said as he pushed a third one open.

There were five windows. Richard continued from one to the next. Robbie walked over to the door, mesmerized by its color. It didn’t make sense, and he knew it wasn’t possible, but as he stepped closer, the red almost seemed to be moving, like the paint was water in a river. The shade appeared to change as well, growing bright, and dimming, just like the lightbulb, which Robbie argued in his own mind was probably what was causing the mind games he was experiencing.

He reached for it, his fingers just inches away from touching the red. His fingers were going to sink right into the door, he somehow knew this without a doubt, because this wasn’t a door at all, it was a river of crimson red, a river of blood.

Robbie screamed out and pulled his fingers away. His skin had burned, like he was scorched by a blow torch, but was frozen at the same time, as if he had just stuck his finger into a frozen pond. The door was a door again, and only a door. The red had dulled.  Richard rushed to his side and asked if he was okay and what happened. But as Robbie lifted his hand, and looked at his completely unscathed fingers, all he could do was mumble a pitiful, one-word answer.

“Nothing.”

6

Toby couldn’t recall having fallen asleep. He remembered going to his bedroom and laying down on the bed, which was the only thing he had moved into his new room, and then…that was it. He must have grossly underestimated his exhaustion. But in the end, that was probably a good thing, though. He needed sleep and, recalling how uneasy he had felt standing at his bedroom window the night before, he was relieved that he managed it.

He wasn’t easy to scare. He didn’t believe in silly things like ghosts, or demons, or religion. The scariest thing one faced on the average day was the potential of running into a drunk driver or slipping and falling. Heart disease and cancer were the leading causes of death in the United States, not malicious spirits. He once read somewhere that the average person walked right past about fifteen to twenty murderers a year and never had any idea.

But the night before, when he stood in