“Why don’t ya’ll go out and play, while I clean up these dishes?” Aunt Rose suggested. “Then ya’ll can come and help me make my world famous sweet-as-sugar rhubarb pie!”

AJ looked at her like she had two heads. “Play? As in tag play or red light green light play? What does she think we are? Five? Little kids play, little kids like Nicky boy here.” He placed his arm around me, I just flanged his off and rolled my eyes at him. Even though AJ is a jackass, I had to agree with him, hanging out in swamp wasn’t my idea of a good time. What the hell were we suppose to do, play in the mud or something? No thanks. But going out in the swamp was a lot better then staying in this dump and bore of a house. So I guess out of one dump into another I go.

We stepped out into of the house, the smell of the swamp was the less of the problem, it was very hot, it just felt so dry out here, so freaking humid. The sun wasn’t helping either. The hot, steamy air felt like a heavy weight against my skin. My shirt was starting to stick to my back, I hadn’t walked but three feet any already I was starting to sweat bullets. “Can someone, please tell me why we’re out here?” asked Howie. Yeah, I’d like to know that too. I saw a path that lead from the house into the swamp. “Why don’t we take a look around, past the time a bit?” “You mean out there.” said Howie as he pointed toward the swamp. “No, over by the nice meadow, with the deer and butterflies dance and sing. Of course over by the swamp, where else.” said AJ. “No, I’m with Howie on this one, I am not walking into a swamp, who knows what’s out there.” said Brian. “Don’t tell me your scared Brian, it’s just a swamp. What? Are you afraid some creature gonna come up and grab you or something?”

“Snakes.”

“What?” I asked.

“I said, Snakes. I don’t like snakes.” said Brian.

“Don’t worry, We’ll watch out for snakes, you just watch out for gators.” said Kevin.

“Gators?” Brian started looking around. Poor guy, he gets freaked out real easy.

We venture towards the swamp but stopped when we heard Uncle Bucky calling out to us. “Don’t go out to far! You don’t want to get lost.” What was that in his hand? Oh, it was a huge saw. Its sharp teeth glinted in the sunlight. He was heading to a small, unfinished looking shed. I guess he was going to do some work, why he would want to work on a day that was hot like this is beyond me, but hey whatever floats his boat. It was a few feet way from the side of the path, it was between two tall cypress trees. You know, those really creepy trees that’s leaves grow long and look like a long curtain. “Don’t worry Uncle, we’ll be okay!” shouted Kevin.

As I thought, there wasn’t anything here, just trees and mud and a lot of bugs. I think Howie was regretting not taking his bug spray with him. Actually, I think he was just regretting coming altogether. Especially when he fell over one of the many roots that were all over the place. He landed in a pile of mud, getting everything dirty. “Nice going, Howie.” laughed AJ. Big mistake. Howie got up and took a chuck of the mud and smashed it into AJ’s face. He had a shocked look on his face. “That’s it! MUD FIGHT!” he grabbed some and started throwing it all over the place. Kevin tried to stop it, but the man can do but so much.

After all of that, we were all cover from head to toe in mud. I was walking like I had crapped my pants or something. We finally made back and boy did we get it. “Oh my goodness, look at ya’ll, you all need to get hoes down before ya’ll come into my house. Bucky! Come out here and get the hoes!”

So, because of AJ and Howie, we had to get hoes down like some hill billies, this sucked on so many levels. After that was done, I told them about Brian and I seeing Uncle Bucky carrying a huge tray and night stick with him upstairs into that room that he said was off limits. But of course they didn’t see anything weird about that.

“He probably eats in there.” said Howie.

“If he eats in there, then why would he have a night stick with him?” asked Brian. Yeah! Answer that Mr. smarty Mcsmart pants. Yes, I know, really stupid, but that’s all I could think of at that moment. “I don’t know.” he said. “It could have been a cane, its dark in the hall, you could have gotten it confuse for something else.” said Kevin. Of course he’d think that way. I didn’t say anything else, I dropped it, for now, but I would bring it up later, just you watch.

“Boys! Can ya’ll come down here!” called Aunt Rose. We all went into the kitchen to see what it is that she wanted. We didn’t notice before, but the house smelled of pies. I like pies. She turned from the stove and had a big smile on her face. “Are ya’ll ready to bake?” She waved at the counter. “I have everything ready for it. Now, I need for ya’ll to roll up your sleeves and wash your hands, then we can start!” She sounded so excited, who gets excited over baking? Its not all that cool, you get dirty to easy and all it does is make you hungry. I rather go play out in the swamp then be baking.

She had me rolling the pie dough. It was so much freaking dough. But then-- what the hell did I know? I never cooked in my life, why you ask? Well, its because I can hardly boil water, at least that’s what my mom said when I tried to help her cook. Let’s just say it didn’t go so good. Once I was finish rolling the dough flat, she took over. Thank god. “Okay, ya’ll go take a seat at the table, Kevin can you get out some glasses, ya’ll have some milk.”

I wasn’t really thirsty and I don’t think neither were the guys. But to appease her, we had some milk. I watch as Aunt Rose made the pie. Wait, no- not one pie. But three pies. What the---? “Aunt Rose, how come your making three pies?” asked Kevin.

“Oh, I always like to make extra.” she explained. “Just in case companies were to ever drop by.”

Company? Who the in there right mind would come out here and keep those two company? They live in the middle of a freaking swamp, ain’t nobody gonna come out here. I couldn’t understand, what the hell is going on around here? Does she really think people are coming? All the way out here? Why would she make so much food? Maybe she really thinks that people are coming out here.

Uncle Bucky came stomping to the house. “Work makes you Thirsty. What you got to drink in here, Rose?” he went looking for something to drink. Did he have to be so damn loud? “Are ya’ll ready to work?” “Bucky! They did not come all the way out here to work, they came here to visit and have a good vacation. Why don’t ya’ll boys go and look around the house. I have some tidying up to do.”

“Yeah, there are lots of rooms that ya’ll can check out.” He then got really serious. “But do not go by the door on the end of the hall on the second floor. That room is off limits, so don’t even think about it.”

“Why not? Why can’t we go in there? Its just a room right, so why can’t we just go look in it?” demanded AJ.

“AJ, if they don’t want us to go in, then don’t question them, let it go.” said Kevin.

I saw the look Aunt and Uncle exchanged worried glances. Aunt Rose’s face turned totally pink. Uncle Bucky cleared his throat. “Its just a supply room,” replied Uncle Bucky. “We just put things in there, old things, nothing major. Just please don’t go near it.”

We didn’t want to press it anymore, so we just went up stairs and started looking around. We already seen the living room, kitchen and the library, which was on the second floor, so that wasn’t that interesting at all. So we started looking at the other rooms, one of the rooms had some old dusty looking books. I had to put them back, all they did was make me sneeze.

We walked along all the twist and turns that this huge house had in them. The next room happen to be Aunt Rose and Uncle Bucky’s room. “I don’t think we should go in there.” I replied. “I’m pretty sure that they wouldn’t want us going in there.”

“Oh come on, they won’t no, its just one quick look.” AJ was trying to convince us all. I for one didn’t really care, all I wanted to do was take a look at the off limits room. I left them and went to the next room. It was dusty and smelled like someone had spilled spoiled milk and rotten eggs in here. I cover my nose and walked in. I flicked on the light and the ceiling fan went on. The light wasn’t that good, but it would do for now.

Everything looked worn out. The bed was bare and looked lumpy and very uncomfortable. The rug in the room was a greenish-yellow, at least that what I think it was suppose to be. On the other side of the room were boxes and boxes, all piled up against a wall. “What’s in those.” I jumped, but I didn’t scream, Brian walked passed me and open one up. “Oh wow, Nick take a look at this.” I looked at the thing that he had in his hand. “Newspaper? That’s what’s in these boxes? Newspapers?”

“These things are old. Look this one goes back to the 1950’s and this ones say September 29, 1905. I can’t believe that they have all this.” We started looking through all of them and found nothing but Newspaper.

“What are you guys doing?” asked Kevin. He took one of them out of my hand and looked it over. “Why is this here?” “Don’t know.” said Brian.

Why would they have newspaper, not just newspaper, but old newspaper dated back in the 1950’s, that was so long ago. This doesn’t make any sense. These papers were from fifty years ago. Why would they want to keep any of this junk? This just shows that were staying in the house of crazy people. People don’t do things like this, at least I don’t know anyone who dose.

“Whoa!” said Howie. “You guys need to see this.”

“What?” asked AJ.

“Magazines!”

AJ shoved his hand into the box and pulled one out. He’s eyes went wide and he quickly dropped the Magazine. He started shaking his hand franticly and speaking words, but they weren’t really understandable. “Oh man that was sick!” He started stomping the floor. Ewww! Roaches, really nasty. “AJ, calm down, you killed them.” said Brian. Killed them two times over. “Okay, I’m cool, I’m cool.” He still was looking around, seeing if he missed any.

“Let’s go to the next room.” said Howie.

“You really want to?” asked Kevin. “Yeah, let’s go.”

The next room was filled with nothing but junk, from the floor to the ceiling. It would make a rat very happy. We had to be careful not to trip over any of the things. There wasn’t any place to walk really, so we were just walking on thing, possible breaking whatever it was that was on the floor.

The room, had old toys, a broken radio, a very dusty looking mirror. And a few more things. I almost tripped over a broken doll, which was missing a eye. Just too freaky. I just put it back where I had found it. I saw that Brian had found a old looking toy chest, that he was trying to open. I went and helped him get it open, getting a huge gust of dust, right in the face, all up in the nose. We started having a sneezing fit. Brian pulled out a old chess board, he looked it over, seeing that it was still good to use. “We could use this, when were on the road.” I looked more into the chest, finding a roller skate, a old yo-yo, a coloring book, and a small photo book. I flipped through it, each picture was just really freaky, all of the people looked so sad or some of the faces were scratch out. I dropped the book back into the box.

I heard something move passed me, I looked up to see that all the guys had gone, where? I don’t know. “Guys?” I walked out the room looking down the hall. Nothing. Where the hell could they have gone. I whirled around, I could have sworn that I heard footsteps. “Guys, look this isn’t funny.” I started to walk down the dark hall. I really do wish that they put lights in here. It would be so much better.

“BOOOOO!!!” I jumped fifty feet in the air, when out of nowhere the guys just jump out at me. I grabbed my chest, feeling like my heart was going to pop out of my chest. “What the hell!!” They started laughing, why scaring me almost to death was so funny to them is beyond me, I wish I knew, I really do.

“You should have see the look at your face.” said AJ. He was wiping tears from his eyes. “You guys all suck.” I walked away, ignoring the calls of my name. I walked to the other side, realizing that I had just ended up in front of the door that I have been wanting to open. I could do two things right now.

One: I could walk away and never think about this again. Or

Two: I could open the door and go in.

Oh what the hell, I’m opening it. I took a deep breath. I slipped my fingers around the key and turned it. The lock sprang open with a sharp click. I counted to three, took a very deep breath and I yanked the door.

And stared straight at a hideous monster.

Maybe I should have went with one, instead of two.