Chapter 20
After fixing the house, Joseph, Chris, "Old Man" John, and Bob organized the attic. They moved all the things they didn't need in the house up there. In the library, the red sofa in the center of the room was rotated to face the fireplace. They moved a cabinet out of the way so they could put in a 50-inch TV. They also moved the coffee table in front of the sofa, and placed a tall lamp next to the sofa on the left side. They moved the cabinet up to the attic.
The art gallery was used as an indoor swimming pool. Joseph and Bob extended the walls of the art gallery so that there would be space for people to walk around the room, sit in chairs, and for the glass wall that they installed to protect the art. They took apart the floorboards and chairs in the center of the room to make the space for the pool. After building the pool and finishing it, they took the spare wood and chairs to the attic.
The doll room Stauf made was now a 24-hour open arcade. Many video games were in there. As for Stauf's dolls, they were moved to the attic. The attic was now like a warehouse because it stored everything that Joseph and the others put up there, as well as the things that were already up there. The objects that were placed up there were placed on the left and right side of the attic in a straight line. Most of the objects were placed on long, silver metal shelves. Three long fluorescent bulbs were producing light down on the walkway between both walls of the objects. The room at the end of the attic where Stauf sat was turned into a special card-playing room.
Since the new residents of the Stauf house all liked playing cards, and they wanted to see the mountains at the same time, they decided to have a special place for it instead of the game room. They put many shelves in there to store things that couldn't be put in the attic or elsewhere in the house. There was also a shelf with many card games. Every Friday night, the guys would play card games late until near midnight.
One Friday night, the guys were playing Bridge in their special game room. The door was wide open, and the overhead spotlight was turned on slightly dim, shining over the small wooden table in the center of the room, where everyone sat down in wooden chairs by it and played cards.
Then, at one point of the game, Joseph said to Chris, who was sitting across from him, "I'll raise you 50!" Joseph pushed some yellow plastic chips over to Chris's side.
"This is fun! I like playing cards with everybody. Isn't it nice living here?" Chris said.
Suddenly, the electricity in the entire house flickered and finally shut off. The guys turned their heads towards the front attic room. Its bright fluorescent lights, which were on a minute ago, were now off. The overhead light in the card-playing room was pitch black.
Then, although no one could see anything, they could somewhat see and hear the door slam shut faster than light-speed. Then, a certain someone's ghost slowly faded into the room. He approached them, and then, everyone began to cower.