Just in time for Halloween, the long unawaited (is that a word?) sequel to Dark as Night and Cold as Ice. This story was largely inspired by The Amityville Horror (the 1977 book, not the 1979 movie...I don't think I've even seen the whole movie). Hope you enjoy.

Houses are like people: Each one has its own personality. Some are bright and happy while others are sullen and gloomy, huddled as if in somber contemplation, their souls chilly and festering with shadows. The house on Lutz Drive was one of the former. A white, freshly painted Dutch Colonial with a wide gambrel roof, flaring eaves, and big, double hung sash windows that reflected the warm, golden September sun, it sat well away from the street, its back facing Amity Lake and its chimney rising against the dusty blue sky like a beacon. When Lincoln first saw it from behind the wheel of his and Lucy's 2029 Dodge Gethsemane station wagon, it literally took his breath away. If asked later, he would not be able to point to any one thing that endeared him to the house, but if pressed, he would say he liked its cozy, rustic charm. It reminded him of the old days, days for which he was not alive but romanticized anyway, a timeless era where kids hung out at the malt shop, people left their doors unlocked, and all the indecencies in the world either did not exist or had shame enough to carefully hide themselves.

Either way, the attraction was instant, and Lucy felt the same way. "It's pretty," she deadpanned from the passenger seat, her hands resting in her lap. She wore her black hair back in a ponytail and her bangs long, but not enough to cover her sparkling blue eyes. Her pallid skin, always on the pale side even when she got too much sun, glowed in the glare of the early autumn brilliance; the light shimmered across the steely surface of the lake like liquid gold and cast the world in rich luminessence so bright that Lincoln had to squint. Lucy turned to him and offered a smile that was beautiful despite its anemic brevity.

If Lucy were a house, he mused, she would look like one of the brooding ones where rats and spirits of the past dwelled in tortured solitude, but inside she would be one of the bright, happy homes - warm and comfortable, its walls stored with the love and laughter of many merry generations like a desert rock stored with the heat of the day. She seemed morose and dull, but still waters run deep, and in Lucy, those still waters hid a treasure trove of tenderness, affection, and even the odd girlish giggle or two. She was not overly expressive, though, nor was she exceedingly animated, so her understated comment about the house being pretty told him she liked it as much as he did.

A gravel horseshoe driveway looped around a tall, stately pine tree. The realtor waited by her car, a clipboard hugged tightly to her chest and the hem of her long, maroon skirt fluttering in the warm breeze. Beyond, a bushy hedge marked the end of the property, blocking all but the second story of the craftsman next door. Lutz Drive was on the southern end of the lake, far away from downtown Royal Woods, and the houses were spaced widely apart, dense stands of trees dotting the terrain. Looking into the rearview mirror, Lincoln could not see the street for the thick wall of green. As fall deepened and turned into winter, he imagined most of the leaves would come down, but for now, between the lake and the trees, the illusion of isolation was almost total.

Chalk that up as a plus - privacy was one of the only firm deal breakers on his and Lucy's list. Another was price. They couldn't afford more than 150k, though that was pushing it. Appraising the house now as he pulled alongside the realtor and parked, he put the house at 200k at least. Knowing the area, it was probably closer to 3.

Bitter disappointment washed through him and he sighed deeply. Part of him wanted to turn around and drive away; some people might like window shopping for things they couldn't have, but not him. Something deep in his mind told him he would fall even more in love with the place when he saw the inside...which would make their inability to afford it all the more disheartening.

Something compelled him to get out, forced his gaze to the structure, its dormers like friendly eyes and its door a smiling mouth frozen in the middle of telling a joke. He laid his hand on the roof of the Gethsemane and caressed the facade with his eyes, a peculiar fluttering sensation stirring deep in his stomach. His heartbeat sped up and his palms dampened with sweat; he swallowed thickly and tried to look away, but the house commanded his attention as if by magnetism. Thoughts formed in the back of his mind like faint whispers, and they all spoke the same words into his ear, like angels on his shoulder...or were they devils? Buy it, buy it, buy it, buy it.

He cracked a sardonic grin and shook his head. The last time he felt like this, he was eleven-years-old and falling in love with his sister.

That was supposed to be a joke, but damned if it wasn't half-true.

That sensation only grew as the realtor, a talkative blonde in her late thirties named Sharon, lead them through the first floor. Every house, Lincoln had read, had its own smell, this one's was earthy with a hint of age that was not entirely pleasant at first, but worked on his brain and intoxicated his senses, quickly becoming rich and aromatic. He was crazily reminded of childhood trips to his grandmother's house, where the warm scent of cookies lingered in the air even long after the previous batch had been eaten. 122 Lutz Drive did not smell like cookies, but the odor permeating it woke the same feelings of fuzzy nostalgia in his chest, and a dreamy smile that he wasn't aware of spread slowly across his lips.

"All of the fixtures are original," Sharon said, nodding seriously as though that was a main selling point. He loved the house anyway, but the original fixtures were an added bonus. The wallpaper in the living room was deep green with a white floral pattern, the hearth roughly-hewn stone, and the carpet brown. Brass lamps of a decidedly Victorian design flanked the fireplace on either side, and the crown molding along the seam where the wall met the ceiling was a soft, gentle white. A radiator heater sat under one of the windows, and rich mahogany columns formed the archway into the dining room. Another window looked out on the backyard, which sloped down to the lake. A long pier jutted out over the water, and to its right, a wide, boxy outbuilding with peeling green paint straddled the shoreline. "The boathouse is included of course," Sharon pointed out.

A boathouse? They didn't even have a boat.

Lucy threaded her arm through his, bringing him out of his thoughts. "A boathouse," she said, "fancy."

From what Sharon told them as they meandered through the kitchen and climbed the narrow back stairs, the house was built in 1928 by John J. Arbogast, a middle-aged captain of industry from Chicago for his eighteen-year-old wife, Margaret. The following year, the stock market crashed and Arbogast lost most of his money, which forced him to sell. It passed through a succession of owners, none staying for very long. "It's in good condition," Sharon cautioned, "but a house like this does require a fair amount of upkeep and not many people are willing to put in the time or effort - or the money."

Lincoln believed her - there were telltale signs of neglect here and there, such as brown water spots on the ceiling, peeling strips of wallpaper along the second floor hall, broken tiles in the bathroom, and the pervasive smell of mildew. The clawfoot bathtub was cracked along the side but usable, and the toilet - which flushed with the pull of an overhead cord - was so old it sat behind Jesus in the third grade. "There is furniture in the attic from the original owner," Sharon told them, "no one has ever gotten rid of it and at this point its basically part of the house." She laughed.

Next, she showed them the master bedroom, and Lincoln was shocked to find that it came complete with its own fireplace. "Oh, wow," Lucy said in the closest tone to breathless wonder she was capable of. The floor in front of the hearth was polished wood, the rest covered by carpet printed with a funky orange and red pattern that, at a glance, dated to the seventies. Lucy nodded toward the big picture window overlooking the sun dappled lake. "I bet it's really nice in the morning," she said.

Sharon nodded eagerly. "Oh, it's lovely how the sunlight comes through the window."

Despite the minor imperfections, and the time and money it would take to fix them, Lincoln's love for the house deepened. By the time Sharon guided him and Lucy to the basement, he decided he was going to buy it someway, somehow.

The cellar door was off the kitchen, so narrow that one might mistake it for a cupboard. When Sharon opened it, warm, stale air redolent of dirt and copper washed over them. "It hasn't been aired out in a while," Sharon laughed nervously. She reached in, snapped on a light, then descended the rickety stairs, Lucy following and Lincoln bringing up the rear. A thick layer of dust coated the railing and the treads, which creaked rustily underfoot.

The floor was dirt and the walls stone. Muted light fell through a rectangular window and cast the space in ashy, twilight gloom; cobwebs stirred in a damp draft and the hairs on the back of Lincoln's neck stood up. The atmosphere was different down here, heavier, colder...less inviting; the good feelings in Lincoln's breast began to slowly drain away like coffee from a cracked mug, and gooseflesh raced up and down his arms.

Lucy's neutral expression fell into a slight frown which told him she felt it too.

"This is the basement," Sharon said with a strained smile, one hand lifting half-heartedly up. "The furnace and hot water heater are behind you and the panel box is over there." She pointed to it. Lincoln followed her finger, and winced when a cold draught of air kicked dirt into his eyes. He rubbed them with his thumb and forefinger.

Lucy watched him, then turned to Sharon. "Why is it so drafty in here?"

"The stonework is porous," Sharon said quickly, and the inflection in her voice was one of dishonesty...or perhaps half-honesty. "It used to flood down here, but the previous owned installed a special drainage system. The outflow pipe and the intake value are both open and that's where the outside wind comes from."

It was only then that Lincoln noticed the sound the wind made, a low, almost inaudible babbling like water over rocks...or the faint whisper of a thousand voices. A shiver went down his spine, and his heartbeat sped inexplicably up.

He didn't like the basement, he decided.

"How about we go back upstairs?" Sharon suggested, her smile too big, too forced to be real. He got the feeling that she didn't like it either.

As he climbed the stairs, the last in line once again, his neck prickled as if in expectation of a blow, and it took everything he had to not shove the women out of his way and run. In the sunny kitchen, with the door firmly closed and latched, the irrational panic melted away, and the heavy blanket of tranquility settled over him once more.

Two months from now, he would be forty and for the past ten years, an ever growing part of him wished to feel young again. Being spooked out by a basement like a jumpy little boy wasn't what he had in mind, but he supposed it was something.

"So, that's pretty much it," Sharon said. "I don't have a key to the boathouse so I can't show you that. I can try to get one if you would like to take a look around, but that won't happen until at least next Monday."

Today was Tuesday, and the owner was leaving for a cruise along the coast of the Pacific Northwest, Canada, and Alaska.

"The property also includes a stretch of land on the other side of the lake. There's a trail that goes through most of it, but its very densely forested and hasn't been used in years. The only way there is by boat or through the woods so getting to it won't be easy, but if you want to arrange to come back, we can charter a boat, I suppose."

Lincoln and Lucy exchanged a glance that to anyone else seemed to communicate nothing, but to them communicated everything. It was the sign language of marital familiarity. "That won't be necessary," Lincoln said.

"Great," Sharon replied.

Now came the part he was dreading. "What does the house cost?" he asked and crossed his arms over his chest as if to protect his soft, beating heart from being too damaged by the coming let down. His mind raced as he sought a way to come up with the rest of the money, flipping frantically through a million different idea and maneuvers. He didn't know exactly how he would do it, but he would. A house like this comes along once in a lifetime, if you're lucky.

"The owner wants eighty, but is willing to go as low as seventy-five."

Lincoln's jaw dropped. "Eighty thousand?" he asked incredulously, certain that he must have misheard, or that she misquoted.

"Yes," she confirmed with a curt nod.

Confusion filled him. He and Lucy had been looking for a house for almost a year, and in that time they looked at countless homes from the outer suburbs of Detroit to Chippewa Falls. He knew the market value of the area pretty well and eighty thousand was the going rate for a ranch or an American Foursquare if it was in particularly bad disrepair. This house should go for twice what she was asking.

"Why is it so cheap?" Lucy asked.

Sharon opened her mouth, then closed it again. "Well," she said and dipped her head to one side in the kind of gesture that always preceded a horrible catch, "because it does need work and it has been on the market for a while. The owner, as you know, lives in California now, and the process is really inconvenient for them, so they just want the house sold, they aren't worried about making a profit anymore or breaking even, for that matter."

That made a great deal of sense, but wow, eighty thousand? For a house like this, that was a steal with a capital 'S'. There had to be some other contributing factor - a leaky roof that needed to be entirely replaced or serious structural issues. He hesitantly asked, and Sharon shook her head. "The foundation is old but stable and the roof was redone fifteen years ago. You will probably have to have it reshingled at some point, but right now, it's fine. Most of the work is minor, but there is a lot of it."

Lincoln shook his head in disbelief and looked at Lucy. "What do you think?" he asked.

A ghost of a smile touched her lips. "I like it. I think we should do it."

Sharon darted her eyes from her to Lincoln and back again. "So you want to buy?"

"Yes," Lincoln and Lucy said in unison.

Later, when they were in the car and following the driveway back to the street, the late afternoon stretching into dusk, Lincoln glanced in the rearview mirror, and maybe it was the way the shadows nestled in the eaves or the way the dying rays of the sun skimmed the dark windows, but the house looked suddenly forbidding, as though, left to itself, it no longer had to pretend to be friendly but could return to seething with contempt and hostility. He blinked, and it was gone, just a trick of the light.

He frowned in bemusement.

At the end of the drive, he turned left onto Lutz. Big, rustic houses lined the street, their spacious lawns crowded with pine trees through which Lincoln caught flashes of the lake. "I'm really excited to move in," Lucy said flatly and turned to him. The corners of her mouth twitched up in a smile and her muddled eyes twinkled with a happy glint that never failed to take his breath away.

Reaching across the center, he laid his hand on the back of hers and stroked her knuckles with his fingertips. "Me too," he said.

A stray strand of the setting sun caught Lucy's face and made it glow, and in that moment, Lincoln was happier than he'd ever been save for the day their son was born.

"I can see us in that house forever," he added

"So can I," Lucy said. "First as people then as ghosts."

Lincoln rolled his eyes.

But why did his stomach roll with them?

In the five years he, Lucy, and their son had lived in the apartment on Railroad Avenue, Lincoln Loud forgot how much he hated packing: No matter how much you did, there always seemed to be more to go, and just when you thought you had it all, something else popped up that should have gone in the box you just filled.

They started small in early September with the CDs, DVDs, and books lining the shelves in the living room then moved onto the hall closet, which was a lot fuller and more crammed-with-junk-er than Lincoln remembered. Odds, ends, and miscellania were taken out, sat on the dining room table, then slowly picked away at over the course of a weekend, the pile diminishing just to swell again as more things were added. Lucy boxed up the least used cookware and the unlikely-to-be-eaten soon food from the pantry on September 20, and Lincoln emptied their bedroom closet on the 22nd, feeling like an archaeologist excavating the buried ruins of an ancient civilization. The closet wasn't particularly disordered, but in the course of daily life, things have a way of getting lost and misplaced, like the I GOT MY PORK PULLED AT FATBOY'S PORK PALACE T-shirt from their trip to West Virginia - he found it balled up in a corner behind a suitcase and covered in mouse droppings. Lucy's diamond engagement ring, which she lost shortly after moving in, fell out of a tennis shoe when he cleaned the stuff out from under the bed, and when he brought it to her (look what I found), she lifted her brows in surprise. Now I have two...which means I can alternate.

By September 28, their bedroom, where so much life was lived and love was made, stood stark and empty save for the bed itself, the dresser, and the nightstand, the latter now boasting only an alarm clock and a crucifix upon which hung a T-shaped Christ with his head lolled to one side. They kept it there because years ago, they came face-to-face with a vampire. They also both wore crucifixes around their necks for the same reason. Lincoln didn't know how many vampires there were in the world - though he always imagined they were exceedingly rare and dying off - but neither of them had ever met another, even so, they always wore the crosses regardless, and sometimes, when someone passing in the street noticed it and sneered, Lincoln wondered if they were simply an atheist...or something more.

On October 2, Sharon called to tell them that the closing was scheduled for the 14th, which gave them two weeks to finish; they were both eager to move in as soon as possible and decided on the 15th.

They spent the next week packing the rest of the small stuff, and when they ran out of that, they broke for several days. Lincoln planned to rent a U-Haul for the furniture and didn't want to keep it, and pay for it, any longer than he had to. There wasn't much in the way of big stuff anyway - the TV, the entertainment center, the bookshelf, dining room set, their dressers, mattresses, and bed frames. He disassembled his and Lucy's bed on the 12th and stacked the pieces against the wall, then carried the dresser into the living room and sat it by the door.

On the morning of the 13th, he and Lucy went to the U-Haul center in Elk Park and, after much hemming and hawing, rented a 20 foot truck from a smiling salesman with big, white teeth - if they packed it just right, he figured, they could get everything in one shot.

He drove while Lucy followed in the Gethsemane. Their building sat on the corner of Railroad Ave and Juniper Street, a brown stucco structure with a pale red terra cotta roof that looked as though it belonged in California instead of Michigan. The parking lot was small and the entrance narrow- it took him three tries, with Lucy directing, to back in and up to the stairwell servicing their apartment.

While she cleaned and documented the lack of dings, nicks, and damages so they'd have recourse if the super tried keeping their 600 dollar security deposit, Lincoln packed what he could by himself. He moved with the urgency of a man brimming with nervous energy because he was a man brimming with nervous energy; the suspense and anticipation that had been building in him was as sharp as that which accompanied those long, childhood waits for Christmas, the kind that grew in intensity as the weather changed, snow began to fall, and decorations started going up. Working faster wouldn't get him into his dream home any sooner than brooding on Santa would make Christmas come sooner, but he couldn't help himself, and when he'd done all he could do, he went upstairs and putted aimlessly around for the rest of the day, one eye always cast toward the future...and 122 Lutz Drive.

That night, after he and Lucy had sex, he lay awake with his hands laced under his head and staring into the darkness, too giddy to sleep. The closing was at 3pm, which meant that they could technically spend the night at the house, then come back for the rest of the stuff tomorrow. The power wasn't on yet, but that didn't matter - the weather was still warm and they could see just fine by candlelight. Plus there was the fireplace in the bedroom: They could set up sleeping bags and treat it like a camping trip. Roast marshmallows, tell ghost stories, christen the new house with a little love making. They couldn't have music, but that wasn't a problem: He could sing Barry White and Marvin Gaye as they did it. Can't get enough of your - oh, shit, I'm cumming!

He was reminded of the first place he and Lucy lived in on their own, a rundown single wide in the Happy Hills Motor Court on the outskirts of Elk Park. Some months they couldn't pay the power bill and got shut off, so they used candles, Coleman lanterns, and extra blankets if it was cold. They didn't have a pot to piss in their whole time there, but they had each other, and they were happy. Life was better now - much, much better - but sometimes he looked back on those early days with a nostalgia keen as cancer. Every time he thought back, he went to their very first day, sitting on the floor of the living room and eating takeout Chinese in gathering gloom because they had no cookware, no furniture, and no electricity. They slept on blankets spread out on the floor and woke up with achy backs, but Lincoln couldn't think of many days happier than that.

Tomorrow, or the next day, however, promised to come close.

At some point, his racing mind stilled, and he dropped into a thin, fitful sleep.

He dreamed of the house, and in his bed, he smiled.