Chopper. When I stepped inside, an ancient floorboard creaked underfoot. So much for silence.
Piles of junk rose everywhere, enough to bring every garage-sale shopper and picker in droves, and the scents of dampness and moldy straw filled the air. A loft overhead sagged under the weight of more junk, and built-in shelves along the walls held even more. I had a feeling it had all been here long before the people selling the house had moved in. And long before most of the houses on this street had been built.
A breeze swept in through a boarded-up window, shattered glass on the floor underneath it. Creepy creaks emanated from several directions. I stopped moving. The creaks continued.
“Did the real-estate listing mention a haunted barn?” Dimitri wasn’t moving either. The creaks and groans came from all around us.
“I don’t think such features go in the MLS. Not everybody would see it as a selling point.”
Something broke free from the loft and clattered onto a pile of rusty metal.
“I’m surprised nobody ever tore this place down,” I added.
“I bet some of this stuff is cool. I’m tempted to turn on my flashlight app and look for materials for my new projects.”
“If you want to stay up here and do that, you can. I didn’t mention it earlier, but your fancy neckwear isn’t going to save you if the vampire is hungry.”
My senses told me the vampire was still lower than we were, but he wasn’t directly under us. He was farther back, behind the carriage house. Was there a root cellar or something back there?
I wandered toward the rear wall, looking for a trapdoor.
“You’re making me consider it…” Dimitri tapped on the flashlight app and pointed the beam toward the piles. “But in all the horror movies, doesn’t the guy who gets separated from the person with the gun and the sword usually end up eaten?”
“You’re thinking of the dumb blonde girl who hears a sound in the basement and goes to explore by herself.”
He looked at my hair.
“Don’t say it.”
“Who, me?” His roving flashlight beam paused on some shelves full of boxes. “Oh, man, is that an old Lionel train set? It’s the box, at least. I gotta see if there’s anything in there.”
Using my own flashlight app, I kept looking for the trapdoor while he clambered over tarp-covered piles to get to those shelves. There had to be an entrance to a lower level somewhere. The vampire had to go out to find blood now and then.
The creaks and groans continued, the whole structure sounding like it could collapse at any moment. As I rounded a pile of junk in the back, my light played over the seams of a trapdoor. It was made from the same old wood boards as the rest of the floor, but the seam was clear, as was a pull-out handle tucked into a groove.
Expecting a tight space, I traded Chopper for Fezzik, put my phone away, and activated my night-vision charm. Dimitri’s nearby flashlight beam made me wince with its brightness, but I kept my back to him.
When I opened it, the trapdoor creaked even louder than the rest of the carriage house. I might as well have rung a doorbell. There was no way the vampire didn’t know I was coming.
Nothing so grandiose as stairs awaited me. The dusty rungs of a ladder led down to a tiny bricked-in room. I didn’t see a door, but I assumed there had to be one. All the dust made me frown with doubt. Maybe this wasn’t the way the vampire came and went. Even the undead disturbed dust.
I dragged a rusty ship’s anchor over and used it to prop open the trapdoor, then climbed down the ladder with one hand. With the other, I pointed Fezzik downward, in case someone popped out or I triggered a trap.
The carriage house groaned and creaked again, followed by a noise that sounded like branches scraping against a back window. When we’d walked up, I hadn’t seen any trees around the building.
A puff of dust rose when my boots hit the bottom. This definitely wasn’t the way anyone went. I almost headed straight back up, thinking to check for root cellar doors around the back of the carriage house, but ran my fingers along the walls for a quick search.
A thunderous scrape came from above, and I looked up in time to see the anchor shift aside and the trapdoor thump down. I almost yelled to Dimitri that his joke