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Chapter Two~

The next bleak, stormy morning Mrs. Brennent went to run errands. Carley dressed in an orange turtleneck sweater and a pair of old jeans. She pinned her hair up and then looked around the chilly, empty tudor house. She smelled the smoky walls and thought once again about her dream.

She saw a girl just about Carley's age brushing out her flowing auburn hair. The girl couldn't find her mother or father. She was reading a book when her lamp exploded into flames. Carley was in her dream also. Carley then came and tried to help the girl but the girl disappeared and Carley's mother and Dominic were in the room. They were all being eaten by the flame.

Carley shuddered as she moved along the hallway when she saw a door. But this door was not a door Carley ever noticed before. It was burnt. Badly. Carley cautiously approached the door. When she turned the doorknob...
It was locked. She shoved it and it finally opened.

Carley looked around the room. She saw a turned over bed, clothing ripped into shreds, and glass all over the floor. Blood stains smeared the walls. Then she saw the bones. She looked at the corpse of a girl. She was bare bone. And the only thing she saw in okay condition was a backwards bookcase in the side of a wall. Being as curious and horribly frightened at the sights she saw, Carley turned over the bookcase. It took several tries, but it budged. Ashes lay spread on the shelves. She was about to walk away in disappointment when she saw a drawer in the bottom of the bookcase. Reluctantly, she slowly slid open the drawer. In there, she saw a blue book. The book cover said, "I've figured out what the monster is!" in light charcoal. The book was slightly damaged by flame, but it was still readable.

She opened the book to the first page. It was blank. She flipped to the next page. Empty. She had flipped through 16 pages before she found any writing. The 17th page said "This is my age when I wrote this." Carley flipped through the pages over and over, looking for a number, but she couldn't find one. She then thought to herself, How many pages are blank? She recounted them slowly. 16. The girl was the same age as Carley. Okay, so you're sixteen, Carley thought. She flipped to the next page. It read:

If any person is reading this, I am possibly but not likely alive.
You see, there are creatures of the night in this house.
If you live here now, run for your life.
This is a horrible house.
The creatures will suck you dry.
Then they will burn you.
And people will think you just died in a fire.

Carley dropped the book. She remembered her mother saying "The family perished in a fire. A shame, isn't it?" There are creatures. In the house. Where a fire happened. She looked over at the burnt corpse again. This is just a scary story, Carley thought. Oh, I know! Dominic set this whole thing up for halloween!

But even if it was a trick, Carley was afraid.