.Grandma Spook.
Once the door closed, everyone was uneasy.
Daniel cleared his throat. "Uh, the bathroom…"
"We have to trot upstairs to relief ourselves if it is even midnight?" asked Liz. "This is so…"
"Liz!" Maria grabbed her. "Bathe with me."
"Maria!"
"At least wait for me outside the bathroom, please?"
"We'll see," said Liz.
"Look," said Brenda quietly.
The blood red sofa was clean.
"They cleaned it?" asked Alex.
"No they didn't," said Kyle. "It was still there when they closed the door."
"Maxwell," said Michael.
"Yeah?"
"Can I sleep on your floor tonight?"
That idea seemed brilliant, as everyone was scared. Everybody at once found a pair. Isabel went with Tess, Liz with Maria, Michael with Max, Kyle with Alex and Daniel with John. Poor Brenda stood horrified as no one offered to buddy up with her.
"What about me?" she asked.
She looked desperately at Maria.
"I…"
The sentence that Maria was saying was drowned as the stairs collapsed.
"Get away!" shrieked Maria as John dived out of range just in time as the old stairs caved in.
Dust billowed out wood splinters was everywhere.
In the midst of the dust and wood, lay a bright red nightgown.
"Is everyone okay?" Liz asked waving her hand, trying to clear the dust away from the air.
"I'm not," came Maria's shaking voice. "Whose nightgown is red?"
"What the hell are you talking about?" snapped Michael.
"T-that," she pointed.
The whole house was silent.
"Isabel?" asked Max.
"Mine is dark purple," said Isabel softly.
"Liz and Maria?"
"Pajamas."
"Pajamas."
"Tess?"
"T-shirt and short pants."
"Uh, Brenda?"
"Mine is green, with lace."
"Then whose is it?" wailed Maria.
Michael put his arm around Maria and hugged her lightly.
Max and Liz slowly crept forward. "This nightgown is old. As in the pattern is real old. Old-fashioned kind," said Liz.
Before anyone could think of how to react to that fact, the Haunted House crew charged in and the tape went rolling.
"The stairs had caved in after the voting session," Mr. Duncan rasped into the camera. "What had happened? Is it merely rotten wood or perhaps…the ghost of Lady Michele II?"
The camera panned in into the pile of collapsed wood.
"What do you think?" he asked Tess.
"I think it's just rotten wood," said Tess coldly. If she answered ghosts, Maria would have fainted on the floor.
"Duncan," one of the crew called. "There's a nightgown."
"Perfecto," said Duncan leaping forward, the cameraman nearly tripping over the wood.
"This is Lady Michele's nightgown, the one she was wearing when she was brutally murdered in," he said into the camera.
"How does he know?" asked Alex.
Michael shrugged. "Just to add to the effects."
"Well," Maria said weakly into Michael's shoulder. "It's working."
A ladder was promptly brought in and placed in the stairs' place.
"Great, we go climbing to our rooms," said Daniel dryly.
"Just a makeshift stairs, until 5 more days," said Duncan to them. "Good Luck."
He waved the crew out.
The door slammed shut and the sound echoed throughout the house.
"What now? The lights go out?" asked Brenda sarcastically.
As she mentioned, the light bulb in the kitchen gave a tiny pop and died.
Isabel turned to Brenda. "Shut up, Ledford."