The Old Ryker House

“Let’s go inside!” my little sister said. She took my hand and held it to her face with her eyes big and pleading. Laney, giving me the cute puppy dog routine. “Please, please, please!” she begged.

I shook my head no! I mouthed the word, no. I spelled it loudly out loud, “En-Oh!"

“Come on, Jack! Haven’t you always wanted to see inside?”

We were on the sidewalk in front of The Old Ryker House. A dilapidated mansion with a quarter acre of rolling lawn in front now turned to brown weeds. It was past six and already getting dark, and, thanks to Laney, we were a half-hour late getting home from school. Twenty something years ago, a family named Ryker had suffered a horrible fate inside that old place. Supposedly, their throats were cut as they slept. The windows were boarded up. Paint was peeling from the wood. Nobody lived there now, who would want to? The place was haunted and sad. All you had to do was take one look at that creepy old house to know it just had to be majorly haunted. Even standing here on the sidewalk, I could feel a ghostly presence watching us.

“Why not, Jack?”

“Why not? You ask, why not?” My mouth dropped open. I spread my arms and twirled in a 360-degree spin, trying to bring her attention to the fact it was dark out. “Why not?” I said again. I looked and sounded as though I couldn’t believe my ears, but I could—I was with Laney, the craziest little snot-nosed kid in the world. She liked to beat up this boy in my class, a fifth grader named Teddy Myers—which is the reason she had kept me waiting outside her fourth-grade classroom. “I had a little word with Teddy Myers,” is the way she put it. Everybody feared her, including me, and most definitely Teddy Myers, who, I might add, has not picked on me for a long time now.

“I’m going, Jack!”

“I’m not.”

I started for home. I knew this wouldn’t stop her. Nothing would! When I turned to look back, sure enough, I witnessed the silhouette of a little girl with knobby knees running through the moonlight toward The Old Ryker House.

“I’m going to tell mom!” I shouted. “Soon as I get home. Where’s Laney? Oh, well, she went into the Ryker House!”

To my amazement, Laney stopped and turned around. “Yeah, you do that, Jack,” she shouted back. “Go tell mom you let me go into the Ryker House all alone. That’s a great idea! I’m sure she’ll give you a cookie!”

Another problem I have with Laney is she’s smarter than me. It’s something I must live with and have mostly come to accept.

By the time I caught up with her, she was already up the front steps, standing before huge double doors. She did no more than reach for the doorknob when, all on its own, the left-side door opened a tiny, hinge-squealing crack. I could see it was pitch-black in there.

Laney grinned at me as though this was a stroke of good luck.

“Laney!” I whispered. “Don’t go! Please don’t go!”

She took a quick peek through the gap and pushed the door wide open, then waltzed right in like she owned the place. “Come on, Jack!” she said in a full voice.

I felt true hatred for my little sister at that moment.

You know I followed her. We left the door open for some light, though there wasn’t much. Laney disappeared into the darkness as I stood by the door. A moment later she was back, holding the nubs of two flickering candles. Where she found them or how she lit them, I have no idea. She handed one to me.

From somewhere upstairs a door slammed I jumped three feet off the ground. Laney headed for the staircase. “It’s just the wind,” she said and marched up the creaky stairs, her candle making all the many shadows dance across the staircase.

I can’t tell you how much I hated this kid! We both got upstairs just as the sound of eerie moaning began.

I’d had enough. She knew it. “It’s the wind, you big baby!”

I ran so fast down the stairs my candle blew out. The second I got outside the door slammed shut behind me. I tried to open it. I turned the knob. I even rammed my shoulder into the thick mahogany. It didn’t budge.

“Laney!” I screamed at the top of my voice.

I pounded the wood with both fists. My heart was going a thousand miles an hour. “Laney! Laney! Laney!” It was all I could do, scream her name and pound on the door. I took three steps back then and made a running charge at it when the door opened and I went sprawling into Laney, knocking us both over.

“Rats!” she screamed.

We both got to our feet and ran for the sidewalk. “Rats!” Laney screamed. “There were rats everywhere!”

Laney hates rats.

It was on the run home I made the decision to go by Bob’s Pets and get the biggest, ugliest rat they sold! Maybe two. Maybe I'd start a rat breeding farm…

--897 Words--