Chapter 2:
"So where are we going?" Danni asked the twins.
"To the park, there're a couple-a basketball courts there." David dribbled his ball from hand to hand. "I need ta work on my free-throw." He demonstrated slightly, tossing the ball to his brother, causing Damien to drop his comic.
"Hey, watch it, jerk!"
"Baby!"
"Donkey-butt!"
Danni rolled her eyes, sticking her tongue out at them, which they both retaliated.
"Hey, dorks!"
Danni and the twins broke off the beginnings of a hair-pulling contest to look up at who had called out to them.
"Mike," growled David.
"David," smirked Mike. "What are you losers doing out?"
Danni's eyes glowed green. She barely knew Mike, but he'd lumped her in with the twins, his buddies always crossing themselves whenever she and the boys passed them.
"None of your business, jerk-hole." David said, clenching his teeth.
"If you're going to the basketball court, you might as well head back home to your mommy, they closed them."
"Why did they do that?" asked Damien asked.
"The hoop fell down and killed someone. Their brains were splattered all over the court. Same thing I'm gonna do to you next game, Davey-boy."
"Cool!" exclaimed Damien. He looked at the surprised faces staring at him.
"Not a good cool, more like bad-gross-cool." He explained, shrugging with a grin.
Mike gave him a sadistic look. "They've already kicked everybody out. There's nothing left to see but the yellow tape."
"I dare ya!" David challenged suddenly. Surprised faces all around looked at him.
"Mike, I dare ya to steal some of the yellow tape."
Mike glared at him, then turned to leave.
"I double-dog dare ya." Mike bristled. He turned slowly.
"Okay, but if I do it, you gotta do something too."
"Don't do it, Dave, you know he'll ask something really bad." Damien warned his brother.
"Unless you're chicken. BWAK! BWAK!" Mike flapped his arms, his buddies laughing.
"I'll do it." David stuck his jaw forward.
"Then let's go." Mike turned back towards the park, waving for the rest of them to follow.
"This is really stupid." Danni whispered to the twins.
They and Mike's friends were crouched behind a line of hedges facing the basketball courts.
There were a few police guarding the edges of the scene. Mike crept slowly towards them, a small pair of scissors in hand. He snuck up to the corner pole where the tape was tied off. Mike snipped off a good-sized piece and darted back to the hedges.
Mike grinned at them, holding up the piece of crime scene tape.
"Now it's your turn, Davey." Mike gloated.
"I'm ready." David folded his arms, trying to look confident.
"Okay you gotta go in…" Mike paused, thinking for a moment, "Murder Mansion." He decided.
"No way!" snapped Damien. "Are you insane?"
"I'll do it." Growled David.
"What's Murder Mansion?" Danni asked, not liking the sound of that one bit.
"You don't know about Murder Mansion?" one of Mike's friends asked. "It's where the Carter family was chopped up by their butler. He took an axe and hacked them to tiny pieces and hid their parts all over the house. People said he went crazy. He came down crying about blood and a monster in his head. Ever since then no one foolish enough to enter murder mansion has returned… sane at least."
"Plus Mom would kill us if she found out." Damien added.
"Is Davey scared?" Mike taunted.
"Hey Mike, maybe a different dare?" one of his friends asked.
Mike glared at him.
Murder Mansion towered over them, its tower's glaring down at them. The Mansion was overgrown in ivy. The front lawn and the mossy trees were overflowing with kudzu. A rusting iron gate hung haphazardly from the imposing ivy-covered stone wall that surrounded the property.
"You gotta go in and turn on the top light in the right tower." Mike pointed at the one that seemed to be tottering a bit more than the other.
"That's the one where Mr. Carter was killed. They say you can still hear his screams from when the butler chopped him up while he was still alive." Mike's friend whispered to Danni.
"I'll do it." Said David.
"What part of 'Mom will kill us' don't you understand?" Asked Damien.
David shrugged it off, squeezing through the bars of the front gate.
Danni and Damien watched him disappear into the rotting oak doors of the Mansion.
"So it's haunted?" Danni asked finally.
"I don't know," said Damien, "but it is condemned. Mom said so."
Danni squeezed between the bars.
"Hey, where are you going?" asked Damien.
"To make sure David doesn't get hurt! Kay would kill ME!"
She ran to the Mansion, hopping over kudzu vines.
Mike and his friends laughed.
"Great," mutter Damien, following Danni. "Now I've got an insane brother AND sister!"