Chapter5 The dare

‘So you want to be one of us?’ said Carlo with a slightly ironic smile like a genuine leader of the pack.

‘I do,’ admitted Pepe trying to ignore the other boy’s obviously insulting tone without sounding too submissive.

These few words were exchanged between two high school students during the recess following the math class and before that of Italian grammar, not so long after the events described in the previous chapter.

Carlo had been held back for two whole school years and liked to boast that he was behind every mischief that took place in the school. That of course had made him the terror of all teachers who feared with just cause that they would have to put up with that young ruffian until their retirement.

Carlo was the object of genuine admiration and secret envy for Ennio, his second in command, and of course for all the other boys in the gang. He smoked and even had a big tattoo, shaped like a snake wrapped around a skull that had cost him a generous amount of beating by his abusive father the main cause behind Carlo's brutal mistreatment of his younger classmates.

Pepe on the other hand was a quiet boy with average and sometimes even good grades and that was the reason why a lot of the “cool” kids in school often called him a sissy and a nerd.

It wasn’t difficult to guess why a good kid like that would want to be part of such a gang. For a long time he had been isolated and felt weak and you might say an outsider. Unfortunately, for some reason, that good boy had captured the interest of Giorgio, a lead member of an opposite gang similar to that of Carlo. He was a bully and a complete punk who loved to stalk and beat up defenceless and lonely kids. The law of the jungle. No kid in the whole world would like to be in Pepe’s place.

Kids that have found themselves in such a pitiful position know that most of the time going to grownups for help would only make things worse. If he were at the top of his class and the pet of some teacher or other he might have some chance. A day at the principal’s office was something unpleasant even for beasts like Giorgio. But unfortunately he was only an average student, a boy not so rich to have others wanting to be his friends for that reason and not so poor to cause pity. He was a good, quiet boy trying in vain to go about unnoticed. For beastly types like Giorgio he was like a piece of red rag to a bull.

Getting into Carlo’s gang was the only solution for him. He didn’t really want to become a punk anda hoodlum, but what choice did he have? He would have to smoke, to say nasty words and bully other kids together with them, but at least he would be part of a strong group, wouldn’t he?

‘If you want to be like us you’ll have to prove that you have what it takes.’

‘I’ll prove it,’ said eagerly the boy.

‘He sure talks the talk that one,’ laughed Ennio, ‘now we must see if he can walk the walk.’

‘Do you have a bike?’ asked Carlo.

‘I do,’ replied the boy.

‘Then after school we can take a ride.’

‘A ride where?’ inquired Pepe trying, without much success, to hide his uneasiness.

‘Some place where you will get the chance to prove that you are cool enough to be part of our gang.’

‘And when I am part of your gang…will you help me with Giorgio?’

‘If you get in our gang you won’t have to worry about anyone ever again. But, if you fail, you'll regret it.’

‘I won’t fail,’ said Pepe.

As agreed, after school the boys took their bicycles and headed off.

That’s where I get in. Imagine my surprise when I saw these teenage ruffians entering my garden and moving towards one of my front windows.

‘What is this place?’ inquired Pepe. ‘It looks abandoned.’

‘You are not afraid, are you?’ laughed Carlo.

‘No,’ replied Pepe with a drop of icy sweat on his forehead.

‘They say it’s haunted! How about now? I bet now you are afraid,’ said Ennio.

‘No,’ said Pepe clenching his fists.

‘Good,’ said Carlo, ’because your test will be to pass the night here all alone.’

‘All alone!?’he repeated shivering.

For a moment there the thought of running away or cycling away, since he had brought his bicycle, passed through his mind like lightning in the night sky. But almost in seconds weighing the options he saw that ghosts, even if such a thing existed, were in his mind less intimidating than that sadist Carlo, that mean Ennio and the rest of their gang.

‘All right,’ he said without much thought.

‘Good,’ said Carlo with a smirk. Then the test is about to start. Take a rock and break that window!’

‘But …but isn’t that illegal?’ hesitated Pepe.

‘I knew it, you’re pissing your pants at the mere thought of it,’ giggled Ennio.

‘If you’re backing out, you’d better say it now,’ said Carlo with a fake fatherly tone.

‘No,’ said Pepe. He took with an effort a heavy rock and after hesitating for a couple of seconds, threw it to my dark front window.

The glass broke with a terrible smashing sound and the hoodlums laughing all the while took heavy sticks and broke what had been left of it throwing away the shattered glasses that had remained like pointy teeth on the wooden window frame.

All the same, when Pepe tried to climb in, a small piece of glass ripped his pants luckily hurting him only mildly. The site of blood did not seem to worry the other boys. They told him it was nothing but a tiny scratch and went away laughing and mocking him.

You may by now have guessed that, although I’m haunted, I’m not at all mean. I had no intention whatsoever to hurt Pepe.

I had no objection to letting him pass the night inside one of my haunted rooms. None of my monsters would disturb him without my permission. I was a bit annoyed that he had broken my window, but I knew he was desperate so I held him no grudge.

My broken window led to my old fashioned kitchen, dusty and full of scary cobwebs, the view of which alone was enough to fill with terror a young innocent boy like Pepe. But since I liked him, I decided to help and protect him. Pepe started searching in the dark for the light switch and fortunately it didn’t take him long to find it.

Yes, in case you are wondering, I do have electricity. When he turned on the light, I did my best to make my kitchen look as cozy and welcoming as possible. Don’t forget that I had the ability to create illusions, unpleasant ones mostly, but when such was my intention also particularly pleasant and inviting. So without much thought I transformed the rest of my material manifestation - and by that I mean the rest of the house - into a hospitable cozy residence that no one would object staying in for a couple of hours. Maybe I overdid it a little since, perhaps the stuffed toy animals and the balloons I materialized in each and every room were a bit unneeded. However, when you are in a strange place, nothing says welcome more than a big stuffed toy animal. Not the best choice for a haunted house but effective none the less. So effective actually that soon Pepe gathered the courage to get out of the kitchen and visit the rest of the house. When he saw my enchanted rooms he felt rather silly that he had allowed himself to be so scared by my exterior.

‘That doesn’t look at all haunted,’ he said to himself, ‘it will be a piece of cake to stay here for a single night.’

Unfortunately, that wasn’t really the case. You see, although I had no intention of hurting my young friend, the punks that had led him to me had different plans.

He had barely left the kitchen when the mood in the gang of hoodlums changed.

‘That was it! The sucker fell for it,’ giggled Ennio, ‘you are the man, Carlo.’

‘Did you bring what I told you?’ asked the boy with the tattoo.

‘You bet,’ said Ennio showing his schoolbag.

‘Well, what are you waiting for? Let me see!’ said impatiently the boy.

Without delay Carlo’s second in command opened his bagpack and took out something hairy with pointy teeth. It was a very unrealistic but incredibly ugly mask of a werewolf. Ennio put it on right away to show to the others how one looked when wearing it.

‘Not bad,’ said Carlo maliciously, ‘when that idiot takes a look at that, he’ll wet his trousers.’

‘You mean that we are really going to get inside that house?’ asked Gino, one of the less daring members of the gang.

‘No, we'll stay outside picking dazies,’ said the boy, ‘you are not afraid, are you?’

‘Afraid of this dump? We're not in kindergarten’ said Gino with a forced smile, ‘It's just...well...., they say such stories about this place…’

Carlo with a fake smile moved towards the boy like a wild animal towards his pray, piercing him with his characteristic, inscrutable gaze.

‘Gino!’ he said showing his teeth like a rabid dog ready to bite. ‘Listen here, you morron,’ he growled grabbing his relatively smaller underling by the T-shirt, ‘ I will never let the loser become part of our team.’

‘Ha ha! Gino's afraid,’ mocked Ennio. ‘he thinks this dump is really haunted. Only babies believe such fairy tales. Ouaaa, I’m Gino and I want my binky.’

Gino became red out of shame and turned away to avoid the looks of the others. In packs like that you should always show that you count and that you are one of the tough guys or you get in trouble.

‘How will we get in?’ asked Angelo, another boy.

‘A business partner of my father and his wife know Giacometti. She’s the one who rents the house,’ said Ennio. ‘They wanted to rent it but then they backed out. My father heard from them she keeps a spare key under the doormat.’

‘Enough talk!’ said Carlo. ‘I will take Adriano and Angelo and go upstairs. As for you, Ennio, you will take Gino and, after you make sure that twerp is still in the kitchen, you’ll get in from the window and scare him real good.’

‘I don’t get it. What are we supposed to do?’ inquired Gino.

‘You’ll do what ghosts do, you’ll make noises, you’ll howl, you’ll do whatever you can think of to spook him. if he tries to escape from the kitchen window, you’ll be there waiting for him. When he sees you with the masks, he’ll have a heart attack. If he doesn’t come towards you and tries to get upstairs instead, we’ll be and we'll have even more fun.’

Poor Pepe! If I weren’t haunted and weren’t on his side, he’d be in real trouble. But, when I heard those bullies planning to frighten him like that, I was enraged. ‘I’ll show them,’ I thought. ‘Pepe won’t be the one getting scared this night.’ I had to set my trap with care. My plan was simple. I would let the hoodlums get inside me and then I would create the grandest, most intricate illusion I could think of.

In fact, as Carlo expected, Mrs. Giacometti kept a spare key in the porch under the doormat. As for the other two young punks, they wore their masks and they had no trouble getting in from the window that had been broken earlier. So in a little while all five members of the gang were inside me.

The procedure I had chosen in order to punish them was called “System Labyrinth” and it would start with a very basic first move: The disappearance of some doors and windows on both my floors. Trapped like mice, those nasty young hoodlums would be ideal victims for my scares. Then I could continue my fun game creating vast corridors, surprise rooms and spaces that would allow my monsters to play with the mind of my victims making them lose it completely.

But there was yet one vital final step to take, before I could call my “scare” a real work of art. Are you wondering what that was? I had to use my telepathic abilities to rummage through the memories of the apparently tough Carlo and those of his gang members so that I could locate every weakness in their armor of toughness and use it against them. It would be amazing, if only it worked.

Meanwhile Pepe, utterly clueless about everything, was lying on a couch in one of my living rooms and could stay there till that whole business was over, since I had no intention of letting him find out anything before time.

If houses had hands,at that moment, I would have surely been rubbing mine with excitment.

First, I would take on Ennio and Gino. All they had to do was to get out of my kitchen, to find themselves lost in a vast labyrinth of illusions and nightmares made especially for them.

‘Ennio,’ said Gino frightened a little before coming out of the kitchen, ‘are you sure we ought to be doing this? I’m afraid we will get in serious trouble.’

‘Its too late to pull back, now!’ replied harshly the other boy. ‘You’ve heard what Carlo said. He is determined not to let that niny be part of our gang. He hates that kid almost as much as Giorgio does’

‘I’m not talking about Pepe,’ said Gino. ‘Something’s wrong with this house. I feel it.’

‘I' ll pretend I didn't hear that,’ said Ennio. ‘You stay here if you like. I am going to do what I have to do for the gang. But you’d better think of some good excuse to give to Carlo, because then you are on your own.’

Gino shuddered at the mere idea.

‘All right man, dont get pissed! I’ll come with you.’

‘That’s more like it,’ said Ennio. ’First we’ll get out of the kitchen, and, when we find where that looser is hiding, we’ll do exactly as Carlo said and scare the life out of him.

‘Okay,’ nodded the other boy and Ennio, quite satisfied with himself, turned the doorknob and opened the door to get to the big hallway that led to the other rooms of my lower floor. The door shut behind them with a bone-chilling squeak and the two punks remained trapped in my realm of power.

And so I began building my elaborate and intriquate illusion: in front of them stretched an endless hallway with hundreds of doors on both sides.

‘E…E…Ennio,’ said Gino, ‘is it just my idea or this hallway is a bit longer than normal?’

‘The kid’s a genius,’ I commented sarcastically.

Now it was Ennio’s turn to be frightened.

‘I hate to admit it, but I think you have a point. Something does not feel right. Let’s go back to the kitchen and get out the way we came in. We’ll come in again through the front door and try to find Carlo and the others.’

‘Too late for that,’ I said with a devilish laughter, since, as you may already suspect, my kitchen was no longer there.

As soon as the two boys opened the door, they felt as if they were being sucked into a thick endless darkness and in front of them stretched an infinite nothingness. The floor, the walls and even the kitchen ceiling had melted away and the only thing remaining was a cold chaos constructed by yours truly especially for those two hoodlums.

‘Aaaaah, Gino!’ screamed Ennio who at that moment felt as if he were being sucked into that deep empty void. The other boy managed to grab him just in time and prevented his fall into nothingness. He then closed the door that seemed to open in front of them like the gaping mouth of some horrid, huge creature of the abyss.

‘It’s a nightmare!’ screamed Ennio ‘Such things don’t exist. Everybody says so!’

‘Then what everybody says is rubbish,’ replied Gino, ‘we both saw it. It’s impossible for both of us to see the same dream at the same time.’

‘It may be so,’ whimpered Ennio, ‘but all I want is to get out of here. One of these doors must lead out. Let’s peep through the keyholes and find out which one!’

Gino did as his "friend" had proposed but as soon as he managed to lean down and peep through the keyhole he pulled back in horror.

‘What is it? What did you see?’ asked Ennio frightened.

‘You don’t want to know,’ said the other boy with his blood frozen in his veins out of fear. ‘Trust me, whatever you do, don’t look through the keyhole!’

‘The heck I won’t,’ replied Ennio harshly and pushing Gino aside peered through the keyhole. But what he saw made the hair on his neck stand up like the spines of a hedgehog!

A huge slimy creature with a mouth full of sharp teeth was moving in front of a great big bench in a room resembling a huge bakery. There, among wooden spoons and forks, laid a huge pie of some kind about two meters long from which two human legs were sticking out like chicken drumsticks. The rest of the poor victim was covered with hot cheese and on the other side you could tell there was a face whose features were completely unrecognizable.

Of course such a bakery didn’t exist. It was a macabre creation of my imagination. The slimy creature was no other than Slimetooth, who once again was doing his best in the role of the cook. Of course he looked so gigantic only to the two foolish boys and it was only an illusion that couldn’t have lasted, if they had had the courage to open the door and enter my imaginary bakery, but they didn't.

Anyway a monster like Slimetooth isn’t a pleasant sight even when it has its normal size.

‘I'm going mad,’ cried Ennio, ‘ monsters don’t exist, they can’t exist!’

‘Come on,’ said Gino, ‘we have to go before that repulsive maneating thing takes a whiff of us. I’ll look through another keyhole. We may have better luck this time.’

Unfortunately for them it wasn’t a matter of luck, it was only a matter of my haunted imagination, inexhaustible in frights and scares. So when Gino looked through the second keyhole a sight more horrendous than the first awaited him.

Inside an empty room illuminated by a single, tall candlestick one could see the macabre spectacle of a lonely coffin. A very pale female figure dressed in black and red velvet was lying there with her hands crossed over her chest.

‘What is it? What do you see?’ asked Ennio trembling from head to toe.

‘It’s a woman. I think she’s dead. Sorry, almost dead.’

‘Get out of the way! I want to see for myself,’ said the other boy harshly, remembering suddenly that the gang hierarchy allowed him to adopt such a tone whenever and wherever he liked. He would soon regret it though, as the moment he looked into the room the dark figure inside the coffin got up slightly and smiled revealing a shiny set of vampire teeth.

‘Hecate, I thank thee,’ said the pale woman with a heavy voice. ‘The exceptional sense of smell you have given me revealed to me that two reckless young men have dared penetrate my inner sanctum. My centuries of loneliness have come to an end at last. Once I sink my teeth in their tender throat and drink their sweet blood, they will be forever mine. One will stay at my side as my undead spouse and the other will serve as our humble slave providing us with new victims to create a great undead dynasty.’

Here I must give a small explanation. As you might have guessed already, the woman in the coffin was none other than Draculeta, my harmless vampire, who had no other victims but the rats frequenting my basement.

I cannot say with certainty what sort of vampires all those saying that these creatures have an unearthly charm and dangerous magnetism,have encountered but that was hardly the case with Draculeta. In fact she was a bit short, rather plump, barely presentable and could very easily bring to mind the image of an ill-tempered 1960's phone operator. To make a long story short, she had no more charm than half an onion and I say half because even whole onions have a certain amount of charm. Let’s take for example the beautiful onion shaped domes of an oriental palace!

So the eventuality for someone to play the part of her undead spouse for all eternity was something that both boys would prefer to avoid, all the more so as there was a strong possibility that one of them would have to play the even less coveted part of the humble slave and spend eternity providing blood to his masters and doing all the heavy chores and drudgeries.

‘That’s worse than becoming a pie,’ said Gino with a shudder, ‘we have to find the way out, Ennio.’

‘This pathway can’t be endless,’ said the other boy nervously. ‘Even this cursed house must end somewhere. Let’s move on and find where.’