The moon emerged briefly from behind the clouds, and Simon Buckley dropped into a crouch. It was an involuntary action, inasmuch as there was little likelihood that he would be seen. In fact, there was little likelihood that there was anyone within half a mile of where he was. Anyone, that is, except his two friends who, like Simon, had decided to pay a visit to an old, decaying mansion that night.
The imagined danger passed quickly. The boys resumed their climb. It was after midnight when they reached the big house; even by the dim half-light of the moon it loomed above them like Dracula’s Transylvanian castle. . .
They made their way around the building, beginning at what had been a front porch with large Ionic columns. Some of the wood had begun to rot, leaving weakened floor boards which the boys tried to avoid with the help of a flashlight whose batteries were well past their sell by date. The front door bore a badly weathered sign announcing that trespassers would be prosecuted. They had already discounted the possibility of prosecution, but the door proved to be in better shape than the porch floor.
It took the better part of ten minutes to circle the house, pushing through overgrown bushes, testing doors, taking note of windows that were broken or looked to be promising means of entry. By the time they reached the porch again, it was obvious that it would be necessary to make use of one of those windows. . .
The window which had been selected for entry to Hawk’s Nest was no challenge. One of the panes was already broken, and the muntins separating the panes offered little resistance. In two minutes the whole window lay in pieces of wood and shards of glass on the floor of what had been part of a kitchen.
It didn’t take more than a few minutes for the boys to realize that Hawk’s Nest was a disappointment. They wandered through the many rooms and found nothing of interest. . .
“I thought this was supposed to be a haunted house,” Simon said.
In spite of the fact that people joked about Hawk’s Nest being haunted, no one took it seriously. Indeed, there was nothing in the mansion’s history that might have provided the basis for such a legend. It was said to be haunted only because it sat lonely on a high hill above Crooked Lake, because it was large and old, dating to the Civil War era, and because it had been unoccupied for more than a decade.
“Want to try the attic?” Danny asked.
“Why not. Might’s well see it all, now that we’re here.”
The attic turned out to be an enormous barn-like room where, for the first time, the boys saw a few pieces of furniture. They had been shoved against the attic’s only inner wall, which projected some twenty feet out ino the room, leaving an enclosed area the architect might have envisioned as an additional bedroom should the occupants ever have need of one.
The furniture held little interest, so they walked around the inner wall toward the back corner of the attic, where their access was blocked by a locked door. . .
Danny busied himself rattling the door, hoping the lock would give.
“Come on, let’s call it a night,” Simon said.
“It isn’t that strong,” Danny said, ignoring his companion. “Let’s put our weight against it. I bet it’ll give.”
Jim joined Danny and, shoulders to the door, they pushed hard. At first, nothing happened, and then they heard a cracking sound. The door opened suddenly and so unexpectedly that Jim found himself on the floor. Danny staggered a couple of feet but kept his footing.
Like every other room in the mansion, it was pitch black. Simon moved around his friends, but before he got the flashlight focussed on it, he tripped over an upended wooden chair.
“Damn,” he cursed, getting to his feet.
It was Danny who first realized that they had company.
“There’s someone on the floor,” he said, taking a step backward and grabbing the flashlight from Simon. There, in the circle of muted light, was what looked like a human figure lying in an awkward position next to a much smaller object.
“Holy shit!” It was Jim, but it expressed the reaction of all three of them as they realized what they were looking at.
The larger object was indeed a human figure, or what had once been a human figure. It was clothed, but where the feet and hands should have been there were only the skeletal remains of those appendages. But most shocking of all was that the body had no head. Jim turned the light on the smaller object. It was unmistakably a human head, now only a skull.
“Jesus, what happened?” Simon’s voice sounded strangled.
Danny waved the flashlight around, searching for an answer to his friend’s question. It was not until he swung it up toward the ceiling that they saw it, a long, thick rope dangling from one of the rafters. It ended in a noose.
“Looks like the son of a bitch hanged himself,” Jim said.
“But what’s he doing on the floor?”
“And how could he have cut off his own head?” Danny asked, as if trying to imagine how such a thing could possibly be.
“Who cares,” Simon said as he headed for the stairs. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
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