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

the corner of his eye and looked at the house across the street, the one where Addy lived. He thought, for a second, that he saw people standing in the window of the front room, but by the time he had processed what he was seeing in the growing dark, whatever had been there was gone. He blinked twice, as if assuring himself that he was awake and seeing straight. Still, he saw nothing.

Richard fetched a hammer and the longest screw he could find in the toolbox. Some of the suggestions on the internet were to use an ice pick or something of that shape, like a screwdriver, which he figured many more people had laying around their house than an ice pick. But, ironically, he didn’t see his screwdriver in the tool chest, nor an ice pick for that matter. He recalled having used the screwdriver just earlier that day, but he must have left it laying around somewhere, and he didn’t have the time to find it now. He just had to hope the screw would work for what he needed it.

Richard and Robbie gathered outside the basement door. Robbie had fetched them dish towels large enough to wrap around their faces, an attempt to block the smell. They took turns tying them around the other’s face. It wasn’t much, but it was all they had. Richard wasn’t even sure a gas mask would be enough to keep the smell out, or if those things were even made for something like that. That led Richard to wonder exactly how toxic these fumes were. If there was some sort of dead animal down there, and it was rotting away, then it must have been festering with bacteria. The smell, he thought, was created by bacteria, which also released their own toxins, a fact he remembered loosely from school. He wasn’t a bacteriologist or anything, but these lingering thoughts were worrying him.

He pushed them away, forcing himself to focus on the task at hand. Whatever the cause of the smell was, they were about to find out. They would hurry down and then hurry back up. Quick and easy. Richard had a thought. He hurried back into the kitchen and opened the cupboard under the sink, grabbing a garbage bag. Whatever they found down there would need to be hauled up and thrown in the trash to be disposed of.

That was it. It was time. Richard looked at Robbie. Robbie looked back.

“Three. Two.” The smell, barely even a memory yet, was ready to greet Richard at the door to hell. He only hoped he was ready as well. “One.” Richard pushed the door open, flipped the light switch, and rushed down the stairs much quicker than was safe.

To his surprise, the light held bright, much to Richard’s relief as they hadn’t had the chance to switch the bulb yet and he hadn’t remembered to bring one of the new bulbs down with him. He hurried to the door, trying with every fiber of his being to ignore the thick, tangible smell that already had his eyes watering in the few seconds they had been down there.

Robbie stood beside him as they reached the door. Richard considered the info the internet had provided him with. The hinges were easily dismantled. All he had to do was use the screw and hammer to tap away at the bottom head of the hinge, and then, once that was removed, he had to do the same to the upper part and the long, thin bar that held the door on would pop right out.

Richard stared down at the door, confused and reaching his limit with the smell already. Robbie crouched down, feeling the edge where the door met the wall. Strangely, there didn’t appear to be a hinge at all. Richard hadn’t noticed this before because he wasn’t looking for it, wasn’t thinking about it at all when he was down there the last time. But now that he was looking for them, the hinges seemed to be gone or maybe never existed at all. The door seemed to just appear where the wall ended, as if someone had carved out the shape of a door from the surrounding wood and shoved the door in like a perfectly placed puzzle piece.

Even the cracks you would expect to see in the minute space between the door and the wall were basically non-existent. Nothing was there except a thin, black line going around the door, too small to see through even if you had the sharpest eye in the world.

Frustration boiled in Richard’s chest. None of this was making sense and the basement smelled so damn terrible. It was like the scent wasn’t a scent at all, but more like a life-sucking mist floating in the air, clamping down on the inside of his nostrils. This wasn’t what he wanted. This wasn’t what he paid for. A sudden desire to punch the damn realtor in the face surfaced under his skin, tingling straight up his spine.

Richard hauled his foot back and kicked the door as hard as he could. It didn’t budge. It didn’t break. The wood didn’t even groan. Pain shot up Richard’s leg. He yanked his leg back, fearing a sprain or a broken toe. It was like he had just kicked pure steel.

The light went out. Richard turned in one direction and then the other. Instinctual fear coursed through his veins. He grabbed Robbie, making sure his brother was still there, that he, Richard, hadn’t somehow passed out or been transported to some dark, interdimensional hell.

“Let’s get out of here,” Robbie said, the words echoing around the basement’s emptiness.

They hurried for the basement stairs, Robbie in front, Richard trailing directly behind, neither of them completely sure why they were panicking so badly. The scent was burning Richard’s nostrils as if the towel wasn’t even there. He felt like it