Chapter 3

Joseph and Chris both turned at the three-way intersection to see who bumped into them. They were looking into each other's worried faces. It was a big relief to them that it was not a ghost or zombie that had been stalking them in the halls.

"Chris!" Joseph said shocked.

"Joseph!" Chris said in the same manner.

"So that's what caused the extra footsteps…each other!" Joseph said.

"Imagine that!" Chris said.

"Anyway, I've checked all of the places down my hallway, and found no destination point," Joseph said turning off his phone.

"Me too," Chris said as he also turned his phone off.

"The only place left in the hall is the hall right in front of me," Joseph said. Joseph was standing right across from it, and it was right from Chris's viewpoint.

"I haven't checked it out either," Chris said. "It might lead to our destination…if there even is one." They both headed toward the hall, and then began walking through it. They had to turn many times, but finally reached their destination point.

Joseph and Chris found themselves looking over a large crypt. There was a stone railing in front of the boys. To the left, there was a spiral staircase that went down to the crypt floor. On the back and right walls, there were arches. Joseph and Chris saw 9 coffins about 15 feet below the stone railing. Some of the coffins opened. "I think we need to close these coffins," Chris said. Joseph set his box down and unzipped Chris's backpack and borrowed a yellow piece of paper from Chris and took a small pencil. Chris ran down the spiral stairs to the crypt floor and closed and opened the coffins. Meanwhile, Joseph took notes on which coffins controlled another. When Joseph finished taking notes, Chris came back up and took the notes and pencil from Joseph. He looked at the coffins. He thought about what coffin to open or close so that they could all eventually be closed.

Finally, after 1 hour of closing and opening coffins, the boys closed all the coffins. "Finally, we solved this puzzle!" Chris said. Chris put the notes and pencil in his backpack and zipped it shut.

"I'll come down and look at the coffins real fast," Joseph said. Joseph picked up his box, and he walked down the spiral stairs and went down to the stone floor of the crypt. Suddenly, to Joseph and Chris's shock, four ghosts appeared in front of them. They were the ghosts of Burden, Mr. Knox, Tad, and Temple. Temple was trying to save Tad from being strangled by Mr. Knox. Temple broke Mr. Knox's neck, and then, Mr. Knox fell unconsciously to the floor. Then, for some reason, Burden's face turned green, and she grew a long, lizard-like tongue. Her face grew into a large cube shape. Temple tried to reassure Tad that it was just an allusion, but Tad ran off in fear. The ghosts soon disappeared.

"How do we get out of here?" wondered Joseph. "Surely there must be a faster way out of the crypt than traveling back through the maze."

"The areas inside the arches seem rather dark," Chris commented. "I wonder if there's anything hidden inside." The boys looked around in the arches to see if anything was inside. However, there were just stone walls behind the arches.

"Darn," Chris said. "There's got to be a way out."

Joseph and Chris then began to randomly search the coffins. Chris happened to open the coffin closest to the spiral stairs. "Joseph, look! There's a passageway in this coffin!" said Chris. "Let's go through!" Joseph and Chris climbed into the coffin, and they were instantly zapped to the library. They were both happy that they had finally left the dark, cold, and frustrating maze.

"You know, Chris," Joseph said at once, "I have a feeling that there is something in here that we are supposed to do."

"I think so, too," Chris said. "We haven't explored the back area of the library," he continued. Joseph and Chris moved forward to the back of the room.

They discovered a telescope at the back, and saw the bay window inflate like wind was blowing at it from the outside. The back of the room was interesting. Behind the sofa, there was a section of the library that had been jutted out into the house. There was a hidden door that was locked. There was also a fireplace on the right side. The telescope in the very back, located in front of the bay window was black, and had gold trimmings. Joseph set his box down, and he looked through the telescope through his right eye. Then, he moved over to let Chris look through with his left eye.

Joseph and Chris assumed there was a puzzle to solve. They saw Mars through the telescope, and then, they began seeing words appear on the planet. A strange voice they heard gave them directions on what to do. Joseph and Chris spent about ten minutes on the puzzle. Eventually, they spelled the sentence "there is no possible way".

Then, Joseph and Chris turned to their left. Suddenly, they saw the ghostly head of Stauf. A strange voice narrated a strange poem.

"Old Man" Stauf built a house

And filled it with his toys

Six guests were invited one night

Their screams the only noise

Blood inside the library

Blood right up the wall

Dripping down the attic stairs

Hey, guests, try not to fall

Nobody came out that night

Not one was ever seen

"Old Man" Stauf is waiting there

Crazy, sick…and mean!

When the drama ended, Joseph and Chris began talking to each other again. "That was freaky. Is it just me, or do I think that there's more to this Stauf guy than we realize?" Chris wondered.

"Well, from what we've seen so far, this looks like the interior of a house. We've solved a bunch of puzzles, and puzzles are somewhat like toys. Perhaps this is the house that Stauf guy built," Joseph said. "It sounds like Stauf may be an evil entity as well. Also, I think some of those ghosts we've seen may be the six guests that were mentioned in that poem," Joseph said. "For now, let's just keep exploring. Then, maybe we'll know more about these ghosts. Maybe we're supposed to defeat Stauf or something," Joseph said. Suddenly, a door slammed and opened faster than light-speed, books began falling off the shelves rapidly, and flying around, the sofa lifted off the ground, and a fire started in the fireplace. Eventually, the only change was that the books began orbiting around the sofa. It wasn't so scary now, but it was still unbelievable. Joseph and Chris ducked and closed their eyes, but just as they did that, everything stopped and returned normal Joseph and Chris got back up and opened their eyes when they no longer heard noise.

"You and your big mouth," Chris said.

"Well, at least were sa…" Joseph started to say, but Chris covered his mouth so he wouldn't get them in trouble again. Still, the door slammed. Joseph tried to open the door, but it was locked. "Now how are we going to get out?" he moaned. Chris was using his shoe to stomp out the cinders in the fireplace, when he accidentally kicked open a secret door in the fireplace. Joseph looked over, and he and Chris smiled in delight. "Chris, you're a genius!" Joseph exclaimed. He ran over to the telescope and picked up his box.

"I thought you were," Chris said.

"We both are, now let's get out of here," Joseph said, guiding Chris through the entrance. When they entered their destination, they realized that it did not lead them anywhere familiar downstairs. Joseph and Chris walked out of the hall they were in, and went to a main hall.

"This hall is awfully dark," Chris said. Then, he and Joseph turned left and began to move forward when a ghost appeared. It was the same ghost that was spotted in the basement. She still beckoned the boys to go forward. The ghost slowly faded as she floated farther back into the hall.

"Y-you first, Chris," Joseph stuttered.

"ME!" he exclaimed. "Why ME?"

"Because, because, you're braver and stronger," Joseph said. Chris and Joseph stepped forward, but they did not see the female ghost again. They walked forward again, and this time they noticed some stairs to their right. They looked down the stairs, and they saw the foyer. The boys looked back at the hall in front of them. Suddenly, two ghosts were running. One of them, Tad, seemed to be chased by Temple. They faded away when they got close to Joseph and Chris.

"Isn't that the same boy we saw downstairs?" Chris asked.

"It looks like him," Joseph said. "And I think we saw that other man downstairs as well."

"Now that we've discovered that we are upstairs, why don't we look in the other rooms and see what's there?" Chris suggested. Joseph nodded his head in agreement, and then, the two boys began checking one part of the upstairs. Four doors were unlocked, so they tried to solve the puzzles inside.

The first room they went into was a game room. The game room door was at the back of the right side of the hall. It was a large room with many tables. In the center was a pool table, and a chessboard was positioned on a table to the left. In the back, there was a fireplace that was bricked up and no longer in use.

Suddenly, Temple faded into the game room. He claimed that he wanted to have Stauf's power. He looked over at the chessboard. He seemed to think that he could receive Stauf's power from the board. After Temple faded away, they saw another apparition. He was a clown selling balloons. Joseph and Chris looked at the clown. "Want a balloon, sonny?" he asked the boys. "Here's a nice one." The boys looked at the clown in an odd way. "RED BALLOON!" the clown said with a dramatically altered voice. Then he began laughing hysterically and slowly disappeared.

"That magician man was looking at that chessboard over there. I wonder if it could be another one of these weird puzzles," wondered Joseph.

"Let's find out," Chris said. The two boys approached the chessboard. Joseph set down his box so that he could have both hands free for the puzzle. An apparition voice suddenly spoke to them and told them the object of the game. Joseph and Chris were very spooked by this, and they were very startled when they heard the voice. The object of the game was to have 8 queens be on the board and not have one come in direct contact with another. The puzzle was easy. It took a while to figure out, but finally, Joseph and Chris solved it.

Joseph picked up his box, and then, he and Chris left the chessboard. Then, they saw Temple and Tad fade into the room again. Temple was angry because the chessboard did not hold Stauf's power as he thought. He saw Tad, and he told him that he knew that he was the seventh guest. He begged him to follow him, but Tad didn't listen to him and ran away. The ghosts disappeared shortly afterward.

Joseph and Chris left the room and opened the door left of the game room door. There was a medium-sized bedroom with a cool color scheme. Most of the colors were gray, green, and gray-blue. The room had many black-and-white photographs on the walls. There was a four-poster bed in the back of the room, and there was a white vanity dresser with a mirror. On the front, right corner of the room, there was a red chair. In front of the bed, there was a nice looking rug.

The boys suddenly saw Julia Heine. By now, the boys were so used to seeing spirits every time they entered a room that it didn't really scare them much anymore. Heine danced across the room in a green nightgown and said that she loved the room. Then, she danced up to the mirror and faded away. Suddenly, the same supernatural force that occasionally dragged the boys around the house held the boys. It pulled them up to the mirror, and they saw the rest of the ghostly drama. Heine said that she wanted to be young again. Joseph and Chris could see why, as she had several noticeable wrinkles and graying blonde hair. She appeared to be about 50 or 60 years old. However, her apparition faded away briefly. When it reappeared, she was suddenly young again. At first, she had completely blonde hair and looked much younger. She appeared to look about 20 or 30 years old. The supernatural force moved Joseph and Chris back to the original place where they stood. The supernatural force seemed to let them go, and the boys watched the rest of the ghostly drama. They saw Heine as a baby. She was getting much younger than she wanted to be. The apparition faded away. Then, Joseph and Chris looked at each other. "Weird," Chris said.

"I think there's a puzzle on the rug," Joseph said. Joseph pointed to the rug, and Chris looked. There was a human heart on the rug that had appeared when the boys realized that there was a puzzle on the rug. Hooked up to the heart were many arteries with switches inside. The arteries tops were chopped on the top so that one could see the path where the blood would travel. They also heard music with a medical tune to it.

Joseph and Chris walked over, and they knelt in front of the rug. Joseph set his box on the ground. Joseph and Chris both examined the puzzle. "This looks easy," Chris said. Chris and Joseph looked at the puzzle and imagined blood traveling through. That helped them find out what switches to turn, and which ones not to disturb. They eventually made a path from the heart to the end of one of the arteries. Joseph touched the heart, and blood traveled through the arteries. At the end of an artery, the blood spilled on to the rug, leaving some places uncovered, which spelled out "you win".

The heart, blood, and arteries disappeared, and then, Joseph picked up his box, Chris and he got up, and saw another ghostly drama. Temple was trying to tell Tad to go with him, but Tad didn't trust him. Hamilton Temple and Tad disappeared. Later, Heine and Temple appeared, and Heine enjoyed herself as she strangled Temple.

Joseph and Chris left the room, and closed the door. They walked across the hall, which wasn't very far. They tried opening the door across from the room they had just visited. To the boys' dismay, it was locked. Joseph and Chris then decided to go downstairs to see if the double doors had been unlocked. They walked down the hall, turned left, and walked down the long blue stairs. The stairs curved a little bit, and had thick, fancy railings connected to the stairs. At last, they made it downstairs. They walked over to where the double doors were, and tried opening them. They were still locked. Angry that they walked down long stairs for nothing, both boys headed back up the stairs. Just as they were reaching the top of the stairs and about to make it upstairs, two hands popped out of a painting that hung on the wall in front of them. The painting had a forest landscape, so it seemed unlikely that such a painting would have hands stretch through the canvas.

It was so startling that Joseph and Chris tumbled down the stairs screaming and yelling the instant it started. "L-lets stay down here!" Joseph said in a scared way.

"I'm with you!" Chris said in the same manner. Joseph looked at his watch. It was 3:15 pm.

"For another hour, why don't we stay down here?" suggested Joseph.

"Fine with me," Chris said. Then, the boys remained downstairs in the foyer for the remaining hour. They were scared of the incident that occurred. It seemed that the house was much more innocent to them. The only thing bizarre about it was how it was so dark and lonely. The ghosts seemed playful and harmless. However, seeing the hands stretch out of the painting was something that really scared the boys. For the first time upon arriving the house, they were really, genuinely scared.