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Halloween House(continued) "Turkey, tuna salad or ham and cheese?" Jill asked, as she
rummaged through the deli bags. An open Halloween House brochure lay
on the table beside the food. "Turkey for now," he said, reaching for a wrapper. "We
better steel ourselves. They're gonna turn the juice off pretty soon,
I'll bet. That's the main gimmick. People get antsy with the lights
out." Jill nodded, then turned to the brochure. "Listen to this, honey.
It's fascinating." She held it up and read:"'Janet Jameson
vanished from this house on Halloween Eve in 1954. She was never heard
from again. For a time, her husband, Richard, was suspected of murder,
but her body was never found, nor was there any evidence produced to
bring charges against him. Richard was distraught after Janet's disappearance
and told wild tales about a hideous creature he called the centivore,
which he believed was responsible. His behavior became ever more bizarre,
and ultimately, he suffered a nervous breakdown. He was committed to
an asylum, where he languished and died a few years later at the age
of forty, from heart failure. Some say it was a broken heart. Janet's
ghost is said to haunt the house every Halloween, looking for her body,
so she can move on to the next astral plane. The centivore is said to
lurk in the bowels of the basement.'" "Jesus," Rob said. "What a crazy story. And tragic,
if it's true. But I doubt that. So that's it? One ghost, a missing body,
and a centivore? Think we can tough it out?" He smiled. "About our age," Jill said. "Huh?" "He was forty when he died. So a few years earlier would put them
in their mid-thirties, like us." "Jill, come on now." "You didn't notice they have the same initials as we do?" "Jill," he said again. But his mind had already connected
the two sets of initials, and had gone a stepfurther. "Johnson
and Jameson," he said softly. Jill stared at him and shivered. "I think we better look around this place, before they douse the lights," Rob suggested. "And find the candles and flashlights."
Jill nodded, then stopped at the first photograph mounted on the stairwell
wall. "Look," she said. "It must be the Jamesons." Rob peered at the couple, standing in front of the house, smiling.
The man was dark-haired, tall, maybe six feet, and the woman about half
a foot shorter, blonde, pretty. He couldn't help but notice the superficial
resemblance. He thought Jill had, too, for when she stopped at the next, a portrait
of Richard Jameson, she said, "But he doesn't really look like
you, honey." "Nor does she, you," Rob said, as they both paused at the
third and last. "Funny expressions on their faces, huh?" "Like, apprehensive," Jill agreed. When they returned to the first floor Rob said, "Well, it's got
everything we need. And the larger bedroom has a television, and the
bathroom's decent. Shall we finish supper — whoa, this must be
the door to the basement, with the key in it. I think I'll take a look." "Rob, no. You're not supposed to." "It's part of the show, Jilly. If they really meant it, they wouldn't
have left the key there." He turned the handle. "See, it's
not even locked. I'll be back up in a minute." Jill sighed and
walked back toward the kitchen. Rob found the light switch and flicked
it on. A pool of pale yellow spread out on the concrete landing below.
He started down the creaking, bare wooden steps. Nice touch, he thought,
as the full, barren basement came into view. But when he reached the
next to bottom step, he stopped short. Just beyond the circle of light
was the strangest contraption he'd ever seen. It looked like a giant
slinky, a five-foot-long coiled metal spring, maybe two feet in diameter,
bearing a mottled, ruddy globe at the far end, with two antennae sticking
out of it. Maybe a hundred short black bristles, like tiny legs, were
attached to the bottom of the spring. "How corny can you get?" he said aloud. This silly-looking
thing is the centivore, and that globe is the head. He was about to
inspect it more closely when the lights went out and plunged him into
darkness. 
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