The Key Part 3

Across the hall was the sitting room, or maybe a library. It had lace curtains that let in a mottled sunlight, dappled with sickly shadows. Beaded lamp shades on electric lamps and also on the wall sconces. Had I known better at the time I would have recognized them as gas lights. Electricity was in use by the time this place was last inhabited. Ironically, less then a few blocks away was the home of the lesser known inventor of the telephone, Daniel Drawbaugh. It seems that well before Bells approved patent, a Pennsylvania mechanic claims to have inverted a crude device that allowed speech to be carried across a wire. Unfortunately, Drawbaugh could not provide credible certification of his device and was denounced by some a a huckster who managed only to apply the now well known two cans and a string method used by kids to make crude toy phones. 1

A small round table sat in the center of the room, covered with a white cloth. On it I noticed playing cards of an odd shape and size. they were laid out in no formation for any game I knew. I crossed from the hall, dust kicked up by my Keds. 2

"Where are you going !?" Mike whispered.3

"Shh" I hissed softly back, then in a normal voice added "Why are you whispering?"4

I moved into the room, on the walls were floor to ceiling shelves filled with books. Hundreds of books. Old of course but one shelf in particular caught my eye. I was protected by glass doors and the books there looked even older then the ones that were more prominently displayed. I passed the table and looked at the cards. They had pictures on them, not clubs, hearts, spades or diamonds. The few I saw had circles with stars, cups, sticks and daggers or swords. Looking closer I saw some had no discernible suit at all, but single names like Sun, Moon and most disconcerting a card emblazoned with a malevolent demonic figure tormenting a naked man and woman, with the name Devil. To this day I have no idea what came over me, but I scooped the cards up, put them in the box that sat aside them and dropped them into my old Boy Scout back pack, right beside the warm bottle of Coke, the crushed PP & J in a baggie, correction a Glad Alligator bag, and a few beat up copies of Spider-Man comics.5

"Are you NUTS!?" said Doug.6

"Like anyone is going to miss 'em" I said. I felt no pang of guilt, me the kid who cried all night the day he shot a robin with a BB gun in the back yard.7

I felt oddly empowered, and uncharacteristically brave. I went to the book case and tried to open it. The doors where latched and locked. Wiping the dust off the glass I looked at the covers. They were ancient , covered in rotted leather. I considered looking for a key then inspired by this new bravado I looked about, plucked a heavy candle stick off the mantle of the fireplace and gave a mighty swing. For a second, only a second it felt like I had struck a brick wall, I half expected the brass stick to bounce off the glass, but time unfroze and the glass shattered in a thousand glittering crystals. 8

"JUDAS PRIEST!" cried Mike and Doug. I giggled uncontrollably a second. It was a favorite expression of their moms, I always liked the way it sounded. 9

Ignoring their protests I picked a heavy tome off the shelf it read:10

"De Vermis Mysteriis" di Ludvig Prinn11

I wrinkled my nose and dropped it in my bag and picked up another, and another and another. It said "R'lyeh Text",the next "The Book of Eibon", and then "Septem Cryptical Libri Hsan", "Die Stockenten Maleficarum" über Heinrich Kramer und James Sprenger, and "De daemonialitate et incubus et succubus" by Ludovico Sinistrari. I placed them all in my bag and went to take another off the shelf. Of that black book all I saw on the rotted leather cover was "N---nom--on" and Al--zre Azif. It was burned and torn, stain with something like dried brown red wine. 12

That was when all hell broke loose and the brothers started screaming. I turned to see what had scared them and froze in my tracks, following their terrified gazes I watched as a huge black shadow, some twisted shape slid across the stairwell in the hall. I heard a wet slithering thud.13

Had I not emptied my bladder in the woods I would have emptied it then. My bowels felt like water and I don't who broke the frozen terror we all felt, but it shattered like an over charged light bulb, and we ran screaming from the house. Looking back as we exited the house I saw a second shadow flit across the second story window, and what looked like a pale accusing arm with a pointing hand thrust at me from behind the rippled glass window.14

We didn't even stop to grab our gear or our bikes. 15

My chest burned and screamed for oxygen as we sprinted straight to the elementary school, three quarters of a mile away. Since that day I have tried to run a three quarter mile as fast I could. I think if I ever matched the speed we did that terrible day the local high school would have me as it's star track anchor. 16

It was a week before we even dared to go back to the edge of the clearing to retrieve our bikes. And then, it was only to avoid the questions of our parents. 17

Strangely, that was when the friendship we shared slowly deteriorated. We saw less and less of each other. We never discussed that day amongst ourselves, or as far as I know with anyone. I have not said a word about it till this very day as I sit safely in my living room watching a Stephen king movie on TV, my own children safe in their beds and my wife upstairs in our bedroom watching the Food Network. She hates horror movies, and doesn't know what I find in them. 18

Now, as I sit in the glow of my computer monitor listening to the ghosts of "Rose Red" terrorize some half known actress I wonder too what it is I am searching for.