See no evil, speak no evil, hear no evil
"Dare you to go inside." Jacob muttered into his sister Liz's ear. Even though Liz was only 6, she was brave and hardly backed down from a challenge, including challenges regarding the old haunted Euinmier Mansion. As the stories went, no one who went in ever came out, the typical ghost stuff that Liz considered herself too old to believe. Ghosts, goblins, and moving statues just weren't enough to scare the little children these days.
Dragging her brother with her, Liz skipped her way up to the rusted fence and stared at it wondering how to get inside. As she turned her dark brown eyes to Jacob to ask for his ideas, she caught a glimpse of a tear in the linked metal fence. "Bingo!" She breathed with excitement in every crevice of her voice. "Look, Jacob, a way inside!" A flicker of fear crossed Jacobs face at the thought of actually going into the mansion that even birds were too scared to fly over, but he regained his composer before his baby sister could see his fear through the dark.
After Liz had wiggled her way through the fence, Jacob followed suit, mudding his shirt as he shimmied through. The mansion loomed ahead. Jacob's hand slid into Liz's as he looked for some form of reassurance, no longer afraid of the judgment from his sister, but more scared of the statues that cast long shadows onto the gravel path.
A branch snapped somewhere behind them. "What was that?" They both breathed at the same time. "Where was that?" asked Jacob. "I don't know, maybe over there." Replied Liz with a vague point into the darkness. "We should split up and find it. I'll go that way if you go that way." Jacob countered with equal vagueness. "And the one who finds it first doesn't have to go into the house."Agreed Liz
Jacob cut into the trees to the left of the path to look for whatever bogie hid inside the mansions fence. To afraid to leave the safety of the path, Liz wearily continued toward the mansion, every cell in her body alert for another crack of a twig, or swish of a bush. But when she was not even six steps down the path she heard it again. The crack of a twig in the woods. The sound of something trying to be stealthy, but also steadily drawing nearer. A squirrel jumped out in front of her and she shouted to her brother. "Jacob! JACOB!"
Realizing it was only a squirrel, she chuckled to herself, but in only a second realized that Jacob had not responded to her ear splitting cry for help. He must have been a long way off, not to be able to hear her cry. More cautiously this time she cried again, "Jacob, Jacob can you hear me? Please, can you hear me?" When he didn't respond the second time she sprinted back down the path to where they first stupidly split apart, and then followed the crushed plants along the path Jacob chose to walk into the forest, all the while calling Jacobs name.
Liz quickly came to the end of Jacob's path, and she ran smack into the statue. The statue was about as all as a full grown adult, so it towered over the Liz's toddler figure. Wings stretched across this stone angel's back, and one arm was raised to cover its weeping face. Backing away from the looming figure, Liz turned around on the path to try and continue her search for her brother, but the search was quickly interrupted by another twig crack in the forest, this one directly behind her. Whipping around to see what it was, she smacked her hand hard on the angel statue she had left at the end of the path. With a slight groan of pain and fear she stared in horror at the now terrifying face of the angel. Fangs bared and hand grasping the air right by Liz's head the angel was a fearful fright to see, but Liz didn't get to see it for long because in a blink she was no longer there.