* * * *
The shell of a house peeked whitely out from its nest of riotous shrubberies and questing vines. In the moonlight it reminded Byron of a skull sinking into the overgrown, humid earth. The entrance was only partially covered by a piece of warped plywood. ‘Probably neighborhood kids,’ he thought; ‘the house would certainly qualify as haunted.’ He could picture the local kids taking the dare to enter the decrepit blue-collar bungalow; he might have done the same thing himself once upon a time.
Something flexed and popped beneath his shoe and he flashed a quick beam from his penlight onto it. A barely legible ‘For Sale’ sign lay rusting and forgotten in the tall, rank grasses. The house still lay empty after thirty-five years—a testament to the fate of its original owner.
Daniel’s b
