Читать книгу: «Don't trust anyone»

THE VISITOR

CHAPTER 1

“Yeah, buddy!” pronounced a young man into his mobile phone while driving the car.

“I am going to visit her within the next several days! I got acquainted with her a couple of months ago and she already invited me to come over and meet her in the town and, of course, I couldn’t cancel that invitation from such a beautiful girl,” he added and chuckled.

After that Jimmy threw his glance to the right where he noticed in the distance a picturesque view. He was moving in his car along the mountainous winding road feeling dwarfed by the huge snowcapped mountain peaks.

“Maybe next time I’ll take you with me, Bill,” he uttered and glanced again at the side of the road.

His car approached a dark tunnel going through the big mountain.

“No!” he added into the phone, “she told me there’s quite a good hostel in the town and I can stay there first.” He heard his friend on the other end of the line and roared with laughter.

“That’ll be great, just like you said! So, after I check in in the hostel, I intend to call her straight away,” Jimmy said.

“Well, when I get back home, I’ll definitely call you and let you know all the details, bro! Bye!” he added and hung up.

The car drove out of the tunnel. Jimmy looked at the screen of his smartphone with a photo of a cute blonde girl.

He touched her face with his thumb and then began searching for her number in the phone address book.

“Mary,” he found the name and pressed the button to call her.

Her number was unavailable. At first Jimmy checked the connection status in the top right corner of the display and saw that he was in the “out of coverage area”. He glanced at Mary again and whispered, “I’m already nearby, sugar!”

Jimmy put his mobile on the passenger seat. Usually Jimmy loved to play some music or radio in his car while driving. That time was no exception.

He carefully inserted a CD into his car player and immediately hit the gas pedal. He was in a good mood and began softly crooning his favorite tune which had just started playing. Jimmy looked in the rear view mirror and adjusted his hair.

CHAPTER 2

Having covered almost half of the way, Jimmy glanced at the watch and seeing that it was already 6 p.m. he decided to call Mary one more time.

He groped for his mobile phone on the passenger seat with his right hand.

“Out of coverage area,” he read on the screen.

“F*ck,” he swore.

Jimmy’s car was approaching the town. Passing the suburbs he stared in amazement at the shabby buildings and frowned. They looked completely abandoned.

“What the Hades?” he questioned himself.

Jimmy cautiously slowed down. It was already evening and the roads in the town were free and deserted. Driving past the empty houses with broken windows Jimmy couldn’t help the feeling of being closely watched from someone inside them.

He kept peering into the road ahead of him.

Suddenly Jimmy caught sight of a strange-looking dirty vagrant standing at the roadside. The vagrant waved to him with a self-satisfied smile.

“What a strange bastard?” Jimmy thought and gave him a honk on his horn as he drove by. The strange tramp did not react to that and just kept staring at Jimmy until he was out of sight. Jimmy also followed him in his rear view mirror. The homeless man was waving at him now with his right palm. That circumstance didn’t disturb Jimmy as everyone knows how many strange people exist in the world, especially among “ragamuffins”.

“Jerk!” Jimmy said into the mirror and his gaze shifted back onto the road.

“Holy sh*t,” he screamed slamming the brakes on. He had almost run over someone in front of him. It was a little girl with a broken doll in her hand. From that unexpected Jimmy got a bump on his forehead, which had hit hard against the steering wheel.

Moaning with pain, Jimmy grimaced with, his eyes closed. The pain was coming in waves, each worse than the previous, and finally became unbearable.

Still, he managed to focus on the girl who was supposed to be lying in front of his car. He switched on the emergency lights and scrutinized the road. In the middle of it, he saw the girl standing with her headless doll.

She was standing and smiling at him, her head tilted to one side.

Jimmy instantly wound down the window from his side and nervously enquired, “Are you nuts?”

But the girl kept standing without moving.

“Get out of here!” he ordered her and opened the door to come out of the car. Just then, the little girl neighed once, turned sharply and ran away from him.

“Don’t you want to live?” he bawled at her. But the girl just giggled.

“Where are her parents? It’s too late for such young girls to be wandering alone,” he said to himself.

He closed the door and exhaled heavily to relieve the stress.

He looked at the watch. The digital screen showed 6.25 p.m.

He took another deep breath and slowly let the air out. “I should get going now,” he thought.

Eventually he took a close look at his forehead in the rearview mirror. Thank God, the bump didn’t grow much and was barely visible. He didn’t really want to meet Mary like that.

Jimmy moved the gear shift into the first gear and continued his journey.

CHAPTER 3

A short while later, Jimmy was already in the town.

“It must be here,” he commented to himself.

He again stretched out his arm to the passenger seat and took his mobile phone.

“Out of coverage area,” he saw the message on the screen.

“Damn!” he cursed. “How am I supposed to find the hostel now?”

The car was going through an empty street. The buildings and houses still looked abandoned and even the main street was oddly deserted.

“Why didn’t you tell me that you live in such a place?” he uttered driving slowly.

“Where can I get internet connection here?” he started losing his temper.

Jimmy peered through the windows of every house in the hope of noticing someone alive.

For a moment, he thought he detected someone in a first-floor broken window. He looked closer and discerned a male figure in a blue shirt. Jimmy couldn’t see his head as it was covered with something like a curtain.

It happened so fast that Jimmy thought it was his imagination running wild. All of a sudden, the car juddered to a halt and Jimmy quickly turned back to the road.

At first, he got terrified that he could have hit someone.

“Damn!” he muttered and opened the car door.

Jimmy hurried out of the car. What he saw made his heart beat faster and harder.

“I already hate it here!” he exploded kneeling down to have a better look at the wheel.

The tyre was flat and a piece of barbed wire was wrapped around the wheel.

Jimmy pulled the wire with his finger trying to remove it. But instead of achieving the result he had hoped for, he cut his hand and blood began dripping from the wound.

“Why the hell have I driven all the way here?” he freaked out.

He slowly stood up and looked around for someone to ask for help.

But there was nobody there. He could only hear the croaking of crows. The evening fell faster than he expected but the sun was still seen above the mountains.

“Was she kidding me?” he asked himself. “Is it a prank?” His head was all in a spin.

“F*ck you!” he cried out and gave the flat tyre a kick, “f*ck you!”

Jimmy took a deep breath to calm down. He managed to pull himself together, went up to the trunk. Hardly had he opened it and started fumbling for the tools, when he heard someone stomping at the front of the car, followed by some rustling and whispering.

Jimmy raised his head, didn’t see anybody and just pricked up his ears.

“Must have been my imagination again,” he thought and immediately ducked down into the trunk.

The rustling noises repeated and Jimmy could distinctly hear the sound of a closing passenger door.

“Who’s there?” he asked loudly and rushed to the driver’s door.

Several times he looked around the car and seeing nothing touched the handle and opened the door.

“Jesus!” he shouted and made one step back.

On the passenger seat lay his already dead phone and a dirty head of a doll.

Jimmy felt overwhelmed with immense evil. He grabbed the head in his hand, turned around and yelled, “Who’s done this? Whose stupid joke is it?”

His voice echoed off the mountains.

He threw the head as far away as he could.

“Anybody here?” he yelled. There was no answer.

“Devil,” he whispered, walked around the car and got in.

“Damn! Damn! Damn!” he cursed hitting the steering wheel with his hands.

Breathing heavily, Jimmy frowned when he caught sight of a male figure going inside of a house not far away in the distance.

“Hey!” Jimmy called out and jumped out of the car, “wait a minute!”

“Wait for me!” he kept begging the man while running. At last Jimmy approached the door which the man had entered a second earlier.

Jimmy tried the handle and pushed the door open. It was dark and empty inside.

“Is anybody here?” he asked not daring to step inside.

“I saw you!” he added, “I need help! My car…”

He wanted to explain his situation but didn’t see anybody.

He thought that his only chance to find help was to get inside. There might be no more people for miles away.

Jimmy dared to walk in and crossed the threshold.

CHAPTER 4

It was darker inside the house than outside. Jimmy was stepping slowly trying not to stumble over anything. He found himself in a long corridor. First he looked left then right.

The man in a blue shirt was standing at the far end of the corridor. Seeing Jimmy he went into a room on the left.

Jimmy did not know what was going on in the house but he definitely noticed that the head of that man was covered with a sack.

“Why?” Jimmy asked himself.

“Wait for me!” he commanded and quickly made a step forward towards the man.

Eventually, Jimmy neared the room and went inside.

The room was empty. Jimmy walked to the middle of the room. He could see strange things on the walls: animal skulls, bones, and hides.

Observing them he did not notice how he came close to a broken window.

“What the hell?” he thought.

He looked out and shivered. There was again that little girl he had almost run over earlier that day. The girl smiled at him and ran away laughing happily.

“What an odd town!” flashed through his mind and he heard a rustling noise behind him.

There was someone in the corridor walking past the room where Jimmy was standing.

Jimmy ran out into the corridor and looked to the left. There was that man with a sack on his head.

“Could you help me?” Jimmy asked cautiously and took one step towards the man.

The man bent his head but did not answer.

“Could you…” Jimmy wanted to repeat the request but caught sight of the man taking out a shovel from behind the back.

Jimmy started to get annoyed and slowly stepped back.

The man kept standing, his head bent to the other side now.

The next moment the man, having the shovel at the ready, sprinted towards Jimmy.

Feeling nervous, Jimmy turned around and darted for the door.

Running through the dark corridor, Jimmy almost missed the exit but, luckily, rapidly zigged to the right and, at last, left the wicked house. Near the exit, there was lying the doll’s head.

“Sh*t!” he spat and, with fear in his eyes, ran away from the house.

CHAPTER 5

Jimmy kept running for quite a while and stopped only when he saw a signboard outside a building which read “Hostel”.

“Thank God!” ran through his head.

“I’ll spend the night here and early in the morning tomorrow I’m going to leave this town any way,” he talked to himself gasping from the recent sprint.

Having calmed down, Jimmy opened the door and entered the hostel.

“Anybody here?” he called out loudly.

But instead of an answer he heard silence.

Jimmy walked a little further inside and repeated the question, “Is anybody…”

“What the hell are you yelling for?” someone interrupted him from the back.

Immediately, Jimmy turned around and saw a man in tight scruffy clothes and with a smouldering cigarette butt in his mouth.

“I’m talking to you,” said the man, “Why, the hell, are you shouting?” He coughed once from the cigarette smoke.

“Oh,” Jimmy sighed with relief, “thank God there’s someone alive here!”

The man stared at him in bewilderment.

“I need a room!” Jimmy managed to utter recovering control of his emotions.

“Come here!” the man summoned Jimmy to the registration desk.

“What’s your name? What the hell brought you here?” the stranger enquired.

“My name’s Jimmy! And I was planning to meet with a girl down here, but I think she deceived me,” Jimmy responded.

“A girl!” the man teased him, his voice sounded disgusting. Then he put out his cigarette.

After that the man took out some papers and began to fill them in with a pen.

“The town looks so odd,” Jimmy uttered looking expectantly at his vis-à-vis.

The man didn’t give any sign of his attitude towards the city.

“You know, after I entered the town, I didn’t see anyone here except you and an odd girl and one other weird guy,” Jimmy said.

“How many nights?” the registration clerk asked.

“What?” Jimmy asked in amazement.

“How many nights are you going to stay here?” the clerk asked sounding disgruntled.

“Till tomorrow,” Jimmy replied.

“5 dollars and pay by cash!” announced the man taking out another cigarette from the pack.

“Of course, you don’t have electronic payment types,” Jimmy said taking his wallet out of the pocket.

“You think you’re smart?” the man at the registration desk asked him threateningly.

Jimmy realized he had said something wrong.

“No!” he responded, “I…I’m sorry, I’m so tired after the long trip and my car broke down,” he added.

“What happened?” the man asked.

“I have a flat tyre wheel and some problems with the engine. Is there any service station near here?” he asked.

“My brother can have a look at it. Now let me show you your room,” the man suggested pointing towards the long corridor.

“This way,” he said when they were standing outside the door.

The man put the key into the lock, turned it several times and opened the door with a creak.

“You can spend the night here,” the man said and invited Jimmy to be first to enter.

It was dark inside but the man at once switched on the light and Jimmy took a good look of his room.

“It used to be a mining town,” the man said suddenly putting the key on the table.

“What happened after?” Jimmy wanted to know.

“Iron ore was previously mined here. A long time ago a terrible disaster occurred here: a landslide killed many people, others suffocated,” answered the man and put the cigarette into the ashtray.

“Oh!” was Jimmy’s reaction.

“Yes! They say some miners were even found with bags on their heads, they did not want to suffocate or swallow dust,” continued the clerk.

Jimmy pondered on what he had just heard. He recalled that scary man with a sack on his head.

He shuddered at the image.

“And you know that virtually no one stayed here,” the man declared.

“Mary didn’t write me about this, she definitely deceived me,” Jimmy uttered.

“One local legend has it that you can see here some figures with sacks on their heads. They are ghosts of those people who had suffocated. They invite travelers to come and visit this town,” the man said and picked up the cigarette again.

“Wh… what for?” Jimmy felt fear arising inside him.

“Maybe one day there ‘ll be many people in the town again! These ghosts believe that everything will become as before,” the man answered.

Jimmy’s face turned pale.

“Keep calm, dude,” said the man, “This is only a legend! Right? Somebody made it up and already everyone believes it,” he burst out laughing.

“But in fact, after the closure of the iron ore mine, there was an outflow of the population. We‘re surviving here as hard as we can! But we all know each other! You, boy, don’t worry! Everyone here is kind. No one will hurt you,” the man said reassuringly.

“This is difficult to believe,” Jimmy answered.

The man continued to laugh.

“You said something about your car,” he reminded Jimmy.

“Yeah! I have a flat tyre and some problems with…” Jimmy began to explain.

“Where is the car now?” the man asked.

Jimmy wanted to show the direction with his hand but couldn’t because, in fact, he had no idea which way it was.

“Ok, don’t worry, I’ll find it and have it towed here. My brother will fix it,” the man promised.

“Thank you so much!” Jimmy thanked him.

“The town is so small and I’ll definitely find it soon,” the man calmed him down, “you stay here and get some rest.”

“That’ll be good, thank you!” Jimmy thanked him again.

“I’ll also bring you a meal later,” the man added and left the room.

CHAPTER 6

Considering what had happened to him earlier, Jimmy came up to the door and carefully locked it. He took a deep breath and slowly exhaled.

Then he turned around and decided to go straight to bed to have a little nap. The bed was next to the window in which he caught sight of the man from the registration desk. He had already exited from the hostel and was marching along the paved road.

Feeling empty and exhausted, Jimmy closed his eyes and immediately threw himself on the bed. He covered his forehead with his left arm making himself comfortable and getting ready to fall asleep. Hardly had he started dreaming, when the sound of the turning door handle forced him to wake up. Jimmy sat up and watched steadily the door. Someone must have been trying to open it from outside.

“Who’s there?” he asked loudly from the bed.

No one responded but the door handle was now shaking more violently and it looked like the lock was about to break open.

“Heeey!” Jimmy shouted and jumped out of bed. He ran up to the door.

“Is it you?” he asked scolding himself for forgetting to ask the registration guy for his name. He had no idea what the name of his host was.

The door handle stopped shaking. There was dead silence.

Jimmy pressed his ear to the door in the hope to hear some steps.

But he heard nothing. Carefully, Jimmy raised his right hand and ran around the handle with his palm. He gripped it and turned slowly unlocking the door. Jimmy stuck his head out into the corridor and looked around. There was nobody around.

“I guess I’m hallucinating,” he whispered. He turned around and got distracted forgetting to close the door behind him.

His eye fell on a figure of a girl in a white nightgown. She was standing right behind the window. He recognized her. It was Mary, his friend from the social network

CHAPTER 7

“Mary!” he shouted and ran up to the window.

“Mary! What’s going on?” he yelled at the top of his lungs trying to open the window. But it got stuck.

Realizing that he can easily lose sight of her, Jimmy knew he had to act swiftly. He turned around and rushed for the door. In the doorway he felt a strong gust of wind on his back though he well remembered that the window was closed. From the wind, the door slammed shut in front of him.

“Mary! Wait!” he yelled trying to unlock the door and, when it finally yielded, he jumped out into the corridor and ran through it as fast as he could.

“Mary!” he was calling out her name while running.

At last Jimmy reached the registration desk and what he saw there filled his heart with enormous dread. He started gasping. Whooping dread climbed up his spine. He felt terror gripping him from inside. His heart was beating faster and faster. His palms became wet with sweat. His body began trembling and shuddering.

Next to the registration desk, on a chair, was sitting that man whose head was covered with a sack. In his hand he was holding a big knife.

Jimmy thought that the town had become a big trap for him. Maybe these living demons were real? Maybe the legend about the ghosts of the dead miners had come true.

Jimmy backed off in horror. He noticed how the covered head of the scary man was following his movements. It slowly turned towards Jimmy. Jimmy felt danger coming from the figure. It could assault him any second. But the figure remained sitting tilting his head and laughing at him. Gradually his laughter became more intense.

Suddenly Jimmy felt an urge to run away from the man. He turned around and caught sight of Mary turning the corner.

“Mary!” he yelled and rushed after her.

Jimmy ran past an abandoned building. With his peripheral vision he saw a little girl with a bag on her head standing behind a broken window.

But Jimmy did not stop he only dashed forward to catch up with Mary. In the window of the next shabby building was a man in a blue shirt whose head was also covered with a bag. He kept running looking around: everywhere there were figures of people. There were so many of them, he could not believe his eyes. Some of them went out of their houses and slowly followed him.

Jimmy kept moving, gasping for air. He approached the corner where Mary had turned off.

Soon Jimmy was also turning that corner. At the crossroads he saw Mary: she was standing in the middle of the street looking at him. On her head was the same brown sack he had already got used to seeing. He was so amazed that he did not notice all those people with covered heads behind him.

“Mary!” Jimmy shouted running up to her. “Is it a prank?” he asked grasping her by the shoulders.

But Mary was just standing there without uttering a word.

“What does this all mean?” he asked her in a trembling voice.

Slowly, with his left hand, his fingers trembling, Jimmy touched Mary’s head. Squeezed the bag.

“Mary!” he whispered.

Jimmy slowly began to pull the bag off her head and was about to look in her eyes when, all of a sudden, someone from behind put a bag on his head. He went blank.

CHAPTER 8

Two weeks passed. Billy had no idea where his friend could have got lost. He promised Billy to meet him here and Billy had been waiting for his phone call for quite some time already. Billy tried to call him but Jimmy’s phone was out of coverage area.

Afterwards Billy got a message from Jimmy asking for help. He wrote about his broken car and a flat tyre and also gave directions to where he had got stuck.

“Please, drive up here and help me out!” Jimmy wrote him.

Billy could not ignore his best friend’s request. Somewhere deep in his heart, he had a nasty feeling of something bad. He was afraid Jimmy had got into a bigger trouble as he had not returned a single phone call. Regardless his feeling, Billy decided not to call the police and first go into that town and try to look for his friend alone.

CHAPTER 9

Two days later, Billy was there. He approached the hotel and got scared of what he saw there. Near the entrance, was sitting a girl. She was playing with a doll without a head. Behind Billy, there was standing a young man holding a new sack at the ready. Billy would never recognize Jimmy in that man as his head was covered. As soon as Billy came up closer to the little girl wanting to ask her something, Jimmy put the bag on his head right from behind. Then, he went blank.

YOU WILL BE NEXT

CHAPTER 1

“Mom! Mommy!” Jack jubilated fleeing to his mother. “Look at this, I found it there!” he sounded excited.

A pretty young woman was standing in the yard of her house and hanging the freshly washed clothes on a clothesline. She had just hung one white shirt when he heard the lovely voice of her son. Immediately, she stepped out from behind the shirt to look at him.

“Mom! Mom!” he couldn’t calm down. “I found it in the river,” he said approaching her.

“What is it?” she asked him perplexed.

“I…When I was fishing in the river, it swam up directly to me and I caught it and seized,” he replied.

At first, the woman scowled peeping at what her son was holding then she stretched out her arm to take it and examine more closely.

“What an odd…” she wanted to comment, but her son interrupted her thoughts.

“Wasn’t I lucky?” he said cheerfully. “It swam up to me by itself,” he added and grabbed back his find.

The young woman looked at him and smiled.

“Maybe!” she uttered and continued hanging the clothes on the line.

• • • • • •

“Jack!” she said loudly calling her son to the kitchen to have dinner.

Suddenly she heard sounds coming from upstairs.

“Jack,” she called out loudly. “Come down here!”

Then she put a plate with fried food on the table and called again, “Jack! Come here!”

But nobody answered her.

“Did he fall asleep?” she thought.

“Jack! Where are you?” she asked again and decided to go upstairs to look for her son.

The young woman climbed up the stairs and went straight to her son’s bedroom where he was supposed to be.

She touched the handle but somebody pushed the door so hard from inside that she fell on the floor and hit her head against the wall.

She groaned feeling her brain fogging.

“Jack!” she managed to say in spite of severe headache. Touching her head with her palm she looked at the door. Somebody was in the doorway, but definitely not her son.

In front of her, roughly five steps away, stood a pale little boy. He was grinning. It seemed so unreal. How could such little boy alone trespass on her property and stand there absolutely shameless? Who is he and what does he want?”

“Who…Who are you?” she asked him cautiously rubbing her head with her palms. But the little boy, who was pale like death, was just standing and smiling maliciously, shaking his head as if saying “No, I won’t tell you!”

The woman stared at him for some more time as she was so surprised and hurt to move. Then she stood up and dared to move up to the strange boy to grab him by the neck and kick out of the house.

But while she was making the first step the little boy darted past her to the stairs and ran down to the first floor neighing unpleasantly.

“Jack!” she cried. “who was here with you?” she asked entering the bedroom.

Much to her surprise, the room was empty and totally quiet.

“Jack!” she cried out frightened.

In the middle of her son’s room was lying the find. The woman came closer to it and took it in her hands. She opened it and what she saw inside filled her body with stifling fear.

CHAPTER 2

Ten years later.

“Hey, Denny!” Charley said. “How long shall I wait for you?”

“Be patient and tolerant,” Denny answered through the window putting on his T-shirt, “You told me you should be here an hour later!”

“No, I did not! Come on, man, it’s already getting dark,” Charley uttered waving to him energetically with both hands.

“I’m ready,” said Denny and closed his window.

Charlie and Denny were classmates and on the first summer day of their vacation they were going to take a trip to one of the abandoned houses at the end of their street.

That house had been abandoned for approximately ten years and it did not enjoy a good reputation. According to rumors, there used to live an odd insane woman who had lost her son. Local policemen thought that she had killed him and hid his body so well that nobody could find it.

When interrogated, she kept mentioning about ‘a find’. This word invariably filled her eyes with fear and madness. That’s what the boys learned had learned from a local doctor. After several unsuccessful attempts to treat her with hypnosis and psychotherapy, she was sent to a madhouse.

Kids are naturally attracted to such sort of buildings.

Some time later, Denny came out to the street where his friend had been waiting for him. He was holding the steering wheel of his bicycle in his hands.

“Hey, bud! What’s up?” Charley greeted Denny.

“Let’s go! I told mom I won’t be long!” Denny said.

“Yeah, she always worries about you, pal,” Charley remarked.

“I know, since father left us, she’s been fussing over me,” Denny responded to Charlie’s words.

“It’s about two kilometers away. We’ll ride along that road then turn to the left and ride straight ahead for one more kilometer. And then we should leave our bicycles and climb over a high fence. And after that, if we are lucky, we’ll be right there,” Charlie explained.

“It’s very strange that the house had been empty for so long. I heard rumors that the previous owners were leaving it in a hurry,” Denny declared.

“Come on!” Charlie smiled, “it’s only a school rumor popular with little children. Just imagine we‘ll be the first who dared to go in there in ten years! We’ll film everything, make a cool video and I bet get a ton of likes! We’ll become famous in the school,” Charley drifted away in his dreams.

“What is true is true, can’t argue with that!” Denny answered and mounted his bicycle.

CHAPTER 3

The weather was nasty. The glaring noonday sun had been blocked with the dark rain clouds. The sun sheltered behind them and an occasional sun ray bounced through the clouds and lit the area.

In some places it was beginning to drizzle. Instead of the gentle air breeze came a nasty cold wind. In some places the asphalt road was already wet and slippery.

At first, they rode silently since they both were deep in their thoughts planning the trip.

Eventually they reached the arcane house. Behind the high fence stood an old two-story wooden house. In its centre there was a rotten entrance door; all the windows were shattered. The roof was an iron structure, also corroded or rusted. In front of the entrance door there was a shabby wooden porch looking too dangerous to step on. The deserted house was surrounded by tall weeds and thick vegetation. They could notice mice running across the porch. Denny and Charley stopped behind the fence and peeped at the run-down building.

“No way, pal!” Denny exclaimed. “That’s so…,” he tried to explain his thoughts, “the fence is too high and that house, you know, looks hard to get into. It’s not for me.”

“You are a coward, I knew that!” Charley uttered and looked at him.

“What are you talking about? I’m not a coward and I don’t have to prove it to you,” Denny started saying loudly.

“If you aren’t frightened, why don’t you want to go?” Charley dared him.

“Dude, I’ll do it only for you,” Denny said, “But promise that you’ll be the first to cross the doorstep of this house,” he demanded.

“I knew that,” Charley announced proudly.

“Knew what?” Denny asked immediately.

Ignoring Denny, Charley started to walk slowly along the fence until he noticed an iron gate locked with a latch.

He placed his sight on the bolt and saw that it was broken.

“We’re lucky!” he exclaimed cheerfully.

Denny ran up to him.