Hide and Seek

"Big, imperious ones."

"I'm giving you five seconds," said Casey, "the three of you, and then

I start screaming

"Coming, Mother," said Kim. "Don't scream.

"Jesus, no," said Steve. "You'll wake the spiders!"

We started down the stairs. Casey held her light for me so wouldn't go

crashing into her. Suddenly, with four pairs of feet on the staircase,

things got very noisy.

It's funny how when you're a little scared noise helps.

Maybe you figure that if you announce yourself, the goblins cut and

run.

We looked around.

"Gross," said Steven.

It had been a kind of workshop once; you could see that much. Beyond

the boiler, against the wall to the far left, was a long, broad wooden

table covered with dust and grime, warped and rotting away in places,

cluttered with debris from the broken shelves above it. Spilled boxes

of nails, broken mason jars that had probably held screws and fittings.

A rusted wood plane and a broken rusted hacksaw. The spiderwebs were

thick here. I wondered if the doctor

There was a strange thick smell in the air. I guessed it was mold and

mildew, some of it wafting up from a greasy, almost liquid-looking pile

of rags off to the far right corner, and some of it from the piles of

wood shavings that surrounded the table like gray-yellow anthills. Some

of them were near three feet high.

I could also smell paint or varnish, but I couldn't find its source at

first. Then Kim brought her flashlight around beneath the table and I

could see cans and cans of them, tumbled and spilling all over, their

contents freezing them together like some crazy sculpture.

There was another smell too, but I couldn't figure that one.

Kim straightened up. "I take it they weren't big on housekeeping."

"Guess not."

The area toward the back of the house was worse. It looked like the

debris of generations there. There was a big grandfather clock, its

face broken as though someone had smashed it with a