“C’mon hurry!” Zack snapped in a quiet but rushed voice. I looked up at my best friend climbing the rickety ladder, which was missing rungs, and a paint job. I stood underneath him holding the old ladder for him if you could call it a ladder. I was worried that at any point it would snap in half. Zack could be considered a rough guy. He had always been in trouble at school whether he was in a fight or hiding from the teachers. Zack was the type of guy you would find at motocross derby mixed with a skater bro.  Josh our other accomplice who I can only describe as pudgy, mama’s boy was looking nervously at the old beaten ladder. “I don’t think I can do it…” he muttered. Nervously, he was hiding behind his long blonde hair. When he did this, he was protecting himself from people peeking at his chubby red cheeks. Looking up at the old ladder it stretched up the side of the weathered building and reached the very first window, which happened to be broken. Zack had just reached the window when he pushes some old glass in causing it to shatter. Some tiny pieces of glass still hung onto the corners, but it was enough room to fit a child.

 The building must have been built in the 1700s, it was set upon huge stones that raised it above the river beside it. It did not seem to have any important use unlike the other old building across the street with the water wheel. The other buildings in this area were demolished or fallen to ruin. This building was one of the last of the town’s original buildings to still be standing and intact. Nobody really knew anything about this place, not even any of the adults. It stood there unbothered by the natural erosion from the river. The light brown trim that was used to decorate the dark brown siding was rotting and falling away from years of wear. We had always gone and hung out underneath this building when getting away from our families but never thought of going inside. The crashing of the river on the rocks behind us seemed to muffle our voices. “I’m not going in by myself!” Zack spit loud enough to be heard over the roar of the waterfall. I looked over at Josh, he was staring at me with these puppy dog eyes, he looked kind of like a French bulldog with long blonde hair. I knew by his nervous look that I was the one who had to follow Zack into the unknown.

I grip onto the two beams of the ladder and take a deep breath. I wait until Zack is completely off the ladder and through the window to begin climbing. I ascend the old piece of wood praying it would hold my weight. Thankfully, Josh had waddled over and was holding the ladder steady from beneath me. Before I got to the broken window, I took a deep breath and analyzed my surroundings. It felt wrong to be climbing this ladder entering some long-forgotten river-side building. I took a glance at the roaring waters that were crashing over the dam 50 feet away, seeing this gave me some sort of comfort feeling. The winds of curiosity would push me further. I slowly and carefully reached the top of the ladder making sure I would not slip and fall to the jagged rocks below me. That would be hard to explain to mom and dad. I paused at the window swiping pieces of glass out of the way. I crawled through the window being cautious not to slice myself on some of the shards of glass that were left behind. My vision was blurred due to the light shift, everything seemed so dark in here. All I knew was, I was in the infamous “creepy building”.

                Faint light peered through the cracked and smashed windows that filled the riverside of the building. My eyes slowly readjusted to my dark surroundings. Plumes of dust hung to the light rays that were dancing in past the trees outside. Each beam illuminated some new artifact. As soon as I got my bearings straight in the cluttered room I gasped. This place was like nothing I have ever seen. I immediately thought to myself how much my mom would love this place. Although she would not like the fact, I was breaking in. This room was full of odds and ends that any Junker or Picker may get lost in. There were old typewriters, aged furniture, stacks of books, boxes full of bottles, and all sorts of indistinguishable clutter. I started to daydream about all the weird things that were in this building when I heard a squeal. “Hey, you aren’t gonna’ leave me down here alone!” I had almost forgotten that Josh was there. Zack stared at me with a stern look. It was the type of look your parents gave you when they wanted you to put away the dishes. I knew that he expected me to help our friend. I walked back over to our criminal entrance and poked my head out to look down at Josh waiting to climb up. I grabbed the top of the ladder and held it steady for him. “Don’t do any funny business please” Josh squeaked while slowly clambering up the ladder. I listened to his plea letting him slowly climb up. I pulled him through the window with all my might. Though short he was not the lightest kid. By the third person, most of the glass was cleared out of its original frame allowing him safe entry. We had finally made it in.

                Now how the hell did we trouble-making kids find ourselves breaking and entering? Just the day before our criminal activity, the three amigos were participating in their almost daily walk around the neighborhood looking for any sort of fun. Zack lived in an older clustered neighborhood that was centered around a river with a roaring dam. The rapids underneath danced along cutting through large stones. Josh and I had always biked to Zack’s house to see if we could find something new to do. Zack was the one to always get us into trouble. One day we were hanging out down at the river throwing rocks and doing things kids do when Zack had a bad idea. “Why don’t we go see what’s up with that building across the river?” he asked us with an evil grin filling his face. Zack had always been the troublemaker of the group and we followed his lead blindly. “We can sleepover at my house and sneak in early in the morning” he piped sinisterly. Neither Josh nor I had anything to do on a Saturday in June, so this is what got us into this mess.

                After pulling Josh through the window, we took a second to fully grasp our surroundings in this unknown territory. Neatly between the piles of junk and antiques were walkways intersecting the clutter. This place was as much a maze as the math homework I finished for Mrs. McCarthy this spring. Division can really kick your butt. This place reminded me of something you would see in the show American Pickers, mountains of hidden gems littered this place. The most fascinating part of this place was that no other humans knew about all this stuff. “Look at this Jake.” Josh pondered aloud. I looked at him as he is opening and sorting through an old box of ammo. “Hey, don’t touch that we have no idea why or how that got here!” I grunted at him angrily. Josh dropped the box on top of an old box of cassettes. “Just look don’t touch” I snapped at him again.

Before we got too carried away with our treasures both Josh and I began to realize one thing was out of sorts. Our friend Zack had vanished without a trace when I was fumbling with Josh through the window. “So… Where is he?” Josh nervously muttered. You could tell he was scared when he let his blonde bangs cover his eyes trying to avoid eye contact. “I’m sure he is just around the corner Joshy” As soon as I was finished comforting my friend, creaks of old stairs filled the room. The slow nature of these creaks sent a shiver up my spine. I looked at Josh and I could tell he was more unnerved than I was, this somehow gave me a new confidence. “Let’s go check it out. C’mon!” I told Josh grabbing his arm without conviction and pulled him in the direction of the creaks. We followed a neat path that cut through the junk. I turned around toward josh and spoke, “You know it’s most likely Zack” I was trying to reassure my friend. The path continued along the side of the wall we entered from. It was lit up from the busted windows that looked out towards the bustling river. At the end of this path was a doorway to a new room. The rays of light shining through the windows blocked our sight from seeing what was in this next room.

We reached the doorway, through it was a relatively empty room compared the large room we were in before. The emptiness of the room unsettled me compared to the action in the room before. The wooden floor was cracked and some parts of it were starting to warp. The old wallpaper was fading away showing the old slats of the walls. Of course, this room held the stairwell that the creaks and moans were coming from. Unfortunately, the stars ran parallel to the doorway we entered from preventing us from seeing up them. We would have to sneak to the base of the steps to see what the noise we were following was. Before I could pull Josh around the corner to see what was upstairs, we heard a startled voice. “Woah… You guys have got to check this out…”

                Letting go of Josh’s arm I scrambled to the base of the stairs to see my friend Zack staring through a dimly lit doorway. There was a broken window at the top of the stairs that illuminated Zacks facial expressions. You could see clearly that his jaw was wide, and his eyes were the size of ping pong balls. By this look, he must have seen something interesting. Josh followed right behind me making sure we did not forget him. I waited for him reluctantly holding back my excitement to see what Zack was seeing. Both Josh and I raced up the old stairwell to see what our friend was so surprised about. Zack entered the room moving out of the way and giving us space to see what had lie through the doorway.            

This place was like nothing I had ever seen before. Above us, you could see the beams supporting the old roof with not much insulation. I imagined this place would be awful in the winter. The real point of interest was this circular, stained glass window that was set on the high on the wall parallel from us. This mosaic piece sat right underneath right beneath the crest of the roof. The window captured light from the sun but was somewhat covered by branches on the outside. This created a magical effect of colors and shapes that glistening and dancing across the room. The light from the window illuminated the vast number of odds and ends that this space housed. There was a center runway that split the room in half. Surprisingly, this runway was kept clean and had no sources of junk or any disturbance. Both sides of the alleyway were filled with different chairs, couches, bed frames, mattresses, and weird cabinets. There were all sorts of different items and junk laying on top of and filling any space that the owner could have found. At the end of the alley was a shallow set of stairs that reached up to a stage that sat directly below the colorful window. The stage was full of old posh chairs, sitting in them were piles of old books. Old fashioned globes were placed randomly around the chairs with no rhyme or reason. Two large draping curtains hung behind the stage, the red and yellow frill were worn from years of dust and exposure. I thought to myself that those must have been there to cover the stained glass on, particularly bright days. As we entered the large room together, taking it all in. Josh noticed something. “Look up on the stage” he whispered. Although I was not sure why he was whispering considering we were the only ones in the room. But I followed his direction. Upon the stage was this one chair in the center with a singular book on it.

We approached the stage slowly, it felt as though a force was weighing on us, making every step harder. Zack bravely persevered and reached the shallow steps that would reach up to the blacktopped stage. The stairs let out an ugly creek as Zack used them to step up These pieces of wood had not seen action in years. The moment Zack had finally reached the top stage he stopped dead in his tracks. He was directly in front of the mysterious book, his gaze was fixed upon it. Josh and I followed his lead and stopped just before the steps. “Josh, Jake don’t touch it…” Zack fumbled this sentence out of his mouth. This worried me, Zack had always been the courageous leader of our group, and to see him stirred instilled a new fear in me. Looking at Josh, he seemed to be growing more nervous by the millisecond.

Josh and I rushed up the stage stairs to get to Zacks side. We wanted to know so bad what had spooked our friend. The creaks and moans of the steps roared as two people ran up them.  But as soon as we reached either side of him and could see what he was seeing, we fell into the same trance. It felt as though time stopped and you could have heard a needle drop. I could not move; fear had taken over my body and was in total control. The black leather book sat on the red antique chair, untouched by dust like the other objects around the room. The book was in pristine condition as if somebody had bought it the day before. In silver letters that contrasted the neatly bound black leather beaming confidently as if it was mocking us. The book title read “The Exorcist”.

Silence hung in the room. None of us had any idea what to do next. Until the faint sniffle of Josh appeared. His breaths got heavier and heavier until he started into a sob. “I WANT OUT!!!” Josh yelped turning away from the book and running down the stairs. This noise would wake up any ghosts or demons that were dormant in this forsaken place. I followed Josh trying to calm him down and comfort him, Zack did not want to be left alone with the cursed book, so he came after him as well. “We never should have come here…” I thought nervously to myself. Reaching the middle of the alleyway, we all were stopped in our tracks again. A loud high-pitched screech filled the room. At this moment I had never been more scared in my entire 11-year-old life. Zack, Josh, and I stood in the middle of this massive room expecting our doom.

From out behind one of the mattresses at the other end of the room, by the door, we entered, entered a small white figure. This ghost was no more than a foot tall, with a ghostly scarf following behind it. The three of us and the ghost were about to be face to face. The pale figure reached where the colorful mosaic glass was shining in from around 20 feet in front of us. We could now clearly see the ghostly apparatus in full detail. It was all white with patches of deep black covering its body. It opened its mouth to bear tiny razor-sharp teeth. It was not a scarf that followed the ghost, but it was a tail, a tail that stood up straight in the air almost as if the ghost itself was scared too. Two tiny triangle ears poked out either side of its head. It had snow white and pitch black splotches all over its body. Suddenly, the ghost laid down and started purring???

We bolted over to examine our new friend. This kitten seemed as if it could not have been any more than eight weeks old. “We have to save the little guy.” Zack commanded. The energy from the book lit a frantic fire under us. We all wanted out of this haunted dungeon. Josh and I both agreed silently. I was too scared to even dribble out a sentence. Suddenly out of the blue Josh sputtered “Zack, you’ll have to carry him I’m allergic” while fixing his bangs. Zack picked up the kitten who seemed very accepting to him. He placed the kitten in his shirt holding him like a kangaroo mother. “Package secured” Zack muttered. We all started to briskly walk to the door trying our hardest not to disturb anything that we had not already. I knew that nobody had any interest to be in this awful place any longer.

We flew down the stairs, zig-zagged through the corridors, and retraced our steps back to our entrance point. We all had the same idea, get out of this place as soon as possible before we are snatched up by whatever resides in this building that we couldn’t see. Zack went first being careful as possible to climb down the ladder while holding the kitten safe in the other arm. I admired him for his courage, and it seemed like he knew what to do. I let Josh leave next knowing he was surely about to pee his pants if he would be in here any longer. Finally, after Josh had disappeared from my view and confirmed he was on the ground. I crawled through the window, placing my feet securely on the top rungs of the ladder. I had no intention of staying in that place any longer. Thankfully, Josh would hold the ladder while I was climbing down just to make sure I was safe. Once my feet touched the rocks of the riverbed a weight lifted off my shoulders. It seemed as though the energy that came from the book was gone. My friends and I were ecstatic to leave that building and would have never expected to find something like a kitten in there. We all took a few seconds to relax and rest. Zack looked at both of us back and forth holding the kitten up in the air. “Oreo is a good name…” he struggled to get out cleanly. Josh and I had no energy left to produce verbal answers so we both nodded in agreement.