A Halloween repost from the archives.
Darren stood for a moment and looked around the old house,
certainly older than the others in the street. It was built in 1887; Victorian
Second Empire apparently. Steeped in history he was told, a true fixer upper
they said. Still he was grateful for his uncle who left it to him in his will.
But as Darren looked at the photo from who knows when, even then its wooden
frame, its dark aged slatted walls, sighed with the years.
It had sat unoccupied for a good five years before the will
was read, due to Darren's uncle going missing. The investigation to find him
had been thorough, but he was never found and the house had suffered from
serious neglect in the meantime.
Darren decided that he would simply renovate the house and
sell it; he had no interest in the family history. He started to move an old
chest--one of the few remaining items in the house--and a photograph, paled and
aged, dropped to the floor. He picked it up; it appeared to be a group of
football players in a locker room. They were all holding up their fists proudly
showing their championship rings. Darren remembered his uncle talking about the
time the football team won the college tournament. He ran a finger across the
faces, and smiled as he spotted his uncle; he hadn't seen him for almost twenty
years now. He propped the photo on the chest and stood back wondering what
cards fate had dealt his uncle.
The restoration was tough; he'd worked through the house
room by room and was only half way done. He had only started working on the
ground floor box room in the morning. It was a peculiar room with no windows
and appeared to have no purpose. The wallpaper was dark and mottled with a
pattern that seemed to shift if you stared at it too long.
