The Resistance Kids and the Haunted House, Part 2

They always hung up their tools and closed the doors at 6, as soon as rush hour was over. The moment the hands on the Ford truck clock on the wall pointed straight down, Hank would turn the sign in the door to “closed,” lock all of the doors except for the one in the back, and take the hamper of greasy rags upstairs to be washed as well as he could in his tiny apartment. The kids shelved the tools, swept the floor, and gathered their things. Hank would give them all a half-joking “Get outta here, you little rascals,” sending them into the back kitchen area to get their coats and purses before heading out the back door.

Dr. Kalonia's office on Canal Street was three doors down from Hank's Garage. They always stopped and picked up Kaydel Ko Connix on the way home. Kay was a cute-as-a-button blond...but while her face and body said “young Betty Grable,” her mind had more in common with Florence Nightingale. Kaydel wanted to be a nurse and was saving for nursing school. She did office work for Dr. Kalonia, the only female doctor in the Bowery, and claimed to be learning a lot.

Today, she came bouncing down the steps and into the bright late-evening sunlight. “Hi, guys,” she gushed. “You'll never guess what Doc and I did today!” The sun glowed on the gold hair, pulled back into fancy curls and hidden under her brand-new earmuffs, made from real rabbit fur. Kay thought they were so stylish, she seldom took them off. “She showed me how to inject penicillin into a patient. I thought the kid was going to cry, but he didn't. He was really good.”

“That's great, Kay!” Rey turned to the others as they made their way further down Canal, past flophouses and at least six different restaurant supply stores. “Hey, why don't we go look at the Skywalker Manor? We'll need to know where to put up the decorations.”

The others all stopped in their tracks. Snap's eyes widened. “Now?”

Jess's dark almond-shaped eyes slid up to the rapidly dipping orange-gold sun. “But it's getting late!”

“The Skywalker Manor? On the end of Canal?” Kaydel pulled her wasp-waisted tan coat further around her shoulders. “But it's haunted!”

“And even if it isn't, we'd probably need a flash light to figure out our way around,” Finn added.

Rey crossed her arms stubbornly. “If you're all going to be bloody chickens, I'm going in by myself.”

“I'll go with you.” Finn stepped up with her. “Hank would never forgive us if a ghost killed his favorite mechanic.”

“We'll all go.” Jess flanked Rey's other side. “Buddy system and all. If one person sees something, the others will yell.”

The sun was nearly down by the time we made it to the end of Canal Street. Skywalker Manor was one of the oldest remaining houses on the block. Most of it was flophouses, bars, tattoo parlors, and very old homes that had been made over into cheap apartments. For some reason, Skywalker Manor had remained untouched.

Skywalker Manor might have been beautiful, fifty or sixty years ago. If you squinted. Rey thought it looked more like an ancient castle from the English countryside with gingerbread trim. Peeling greenish paint gave it an eerie glow against the fading late-afternoon light. Smashed cathedral windows showed jagged, dusty edges. Dark turrets and towers stabbed into the blue sky. Two long bits of trim hanging off the porch looked more like the teeth of a monster, ready to devour all that entered. Every single object in sight was covered in dust, cobwebs, or broken bits of wood.

Snap gulped. “Who wants to go in first?”

Jess bit her lip. “Maybe we should shoot for it.”

“For heaven's sake!” Rey stomped up the steps. “We only have so much time here. If I let all of you decide, we'd be here all day!”

Finn jumped as a car backfired behind him.”Rey, wait!” He bounded in after her, his heavy steps nearly rattling the remains of the porch.

The main living room was just as spooky as the outside. The cobwebs had been cleared, probably by the real estate people, but it still had a desolate, abandoned look. There were only a few sticks of furniture, most of which appeared to have been chewed on by rodents with exceptionally large teeth. A huge fireplace gaped open to moth-eaten Oriental carpets and once-beautiful bookshelves filled with musty-smelling books.

Finn shuddered. “This place feels like The Room That Time Forgot. It's like an episode of Inner Sanctum.” He jumped as the front door swung open. “And there's the creaking door!”

“Pipe down, Finn.” Jess rolled her eyes as the other three stepped gingerly into the room. “It's just us.”

“Well,” Rey started, “it could be worse. We'll just need to do a little dusting.” She reached over to inspect a beautiful stained glass lamp. To her surprise, it switched on when she turned the nob. “At least it won't be dark in here.”

Kaydel strolled around the room, her wrists behind her back, her big blue eyes taking everything in. “It might not be so bad, at that. It certainly looks the part of a haunted house.”

Finn was checking the walls. “I don't see any mice. Maybe they already moved out, or we scared them.”

Snap was about to peer into the fireplace when suddenly, a fire seem to come up all at once! He jumped back quickly. “Whoa! Ok, the fireplace works.”

Jess joined him. “How did you do that?”

“I don't know.” Snap rubbed his arms nervously. “Suddenly, this doesn't seem like such a good idea.”

Rey was about to reach for a book on the coffee table when it seemed to jump into the air! She leaped back. “Uh...that book just moved.”

Kaydel let out a screech. She'd run into a what appeared to be a curtain of bats! “Get 'em off of me!” She hurried across the room, as far away from the bats as possible.

Rey raised her eyebrows. “Something funny's going on here.”

Finn gulped. “I don't see what's so funny about it.”

Jess went up to the bats. “Wait a minute.” She pushed the bat. It swung into the others like a pendulum. “Kay, these bats are fakes. It's hard to tell in the dark.”

“Oh, thank goodness!” Kaydel let her breath out in a great whoosh! “I thought they were going to give me rabies or something.”

“This is probably a fake, too.” Rey yanked at the floating book. It came into her hands after some pulling. She showed the others the thin wire tied around it. “It's all magic. Illusions.”

Snap waved his hand at the fire. “That's not an illusion! I can feel the heat from over here.”

Jess nodded. “The light Rey turned on isn't an illusion, either.”

Finn shrugged. “At least we know the fireplace and the lights work.”

Rey's eyes dropped to the book in her hands. “Guys,” she said, “this is a photo album, or some kind of scrapbook.” She blew the dust off it as Jess and Snap gathered around her. She read the name in faded gold script on the cover. “'Patricia Amidala Waller.' Hey, this belonged to...” She stopped reading, her eyes wide.

“Andrew Waller's wife. The lady who died.” Snap looked around nervously. “Do you think her husband attacked her in this room?”

Jess shuddered. “Maybe. Hank didn't say which room it happened in.”

Finn was inspecting some of the framed pictures on the walls. Most of them were typical paintings of fruit baskets or people in fancy dress. One, though, was of a man in a black suit, his heavily scarred and burned face covered in pipes and a mask that looked more like it belonged to a robot from a Ray Bradbury story than a human.

“Who's this good-looking guy?” Finn grinned and took the photo off the wall. “And what horror movie did he walk out of?”

Kaydel shuddered, peering around his shoulder. “That's Darren Veder, the most corrupt police commissioner in the history of New York City. He was in charge of the police in the first two decades of this century. You name a crime – graft, kidnapping, theft, racketeering, arson – and he probably had a small piece of it.”

Jess looked up from the scrapbook. “My mom told me he and his boss killed each other in 1920. His boss shot him in front of his own son. He managed to toss his boss out the window of a 12-story building before dying in his son's arms.”

Finn quickly hung the photo back on the wall. “Man, I wouldn't want to get on that boy's bad side!”

That was when they all heard the noise. The eerie moans and cackles, crackles and pops, seemed to fill the whole room. Snap's face went pale. “Did all of you hear that?”

Rey nodded, putting the book down. “It's coming from that door.” She pointed towards the door at the very end of the room. It was barely a door at all, more a rectangle cut into the wall, with an ornate, tarnished brass handle.

“Um, Rey,” Kaydel started, “someone put that door there for a purpose, and I'm not sure you should, you know, open it.”

“Oh please. It's probably just a closet. I'll bet there's nothing in there scarier than a broom.” Rey cautiously tip-toed to the door. The others followed closely behind her. They all watched intently as she placed her slender finger on the door. The soft, slightly tanned fingers grasped the knob...they turned it...she pulled the creaky door open...

All five screamed at once as a white, floating apparition drifted into the hall. It had two ragged eyes that seemed cut into its round, balloon-like head. Wisps of cloth sailed along behind it on the breeze blowing in from the windows. “Abandon all hope,” it screeched, in a voice that sounded like a cat being stepped on, “all those who enter here! Flee! Leave! Or ye shall face the consequen...sequen...sequen...”

“Wait.” Rey ducked into the closet. She came out, dragging a tall, slender boy with heavily pommaded red hair by his ear. An old gramophone record player could be seen skipping behind him. “I knew it.” She yelled into the room. “The rest of you can come out now. We know you're playing a dirty trick.”

“Owww!” Armitage Hux finally managed to dislodge his earlobe from Rey's grasp. “You didn't have to be so rough!” He spoke in a rather snooty British accent that was quite different from Rey's more clipped tones. “It was just a joke!”

“Yeah,” muttered Jess, “a bad one.”

Gwen Phasma came out of another door, nearly laughing her head off. “You all should have seen yourselves!” Somehow, the blond girl managed to tower over everyone and everything, even while doubled over with guffaws. “You really fell for it!”

“Except Rey.” Baby-faced David “Dopey” Mitaka emerged from the porch. He was covered from groomed head to meticulously shined oxfords in cobwebs. “She knew what we were doing. I told you she's the only one who isn't that stupid.”

“Hey!” Jess glared as more kids began to emerge, from other rooms and under furniture. “We're not stupid!”

“You're the ones who are stupid,” Kaydel added angrily. “Playing around in an old house! We could have all gotten really hurt. Did you even get permission to be here?”

“Who needs permission?” Tasha Umaro, one of the older members, tossed a crowbar in her gloved hand. “We go where we want.”

“You traitor!” Jerry “Zeroes” Zukowski shoved his fist at Finn. “I ought to slug you right here.”

Finn dodged him. “If you think that'll make me join you guys again, your jockey shorts are too tight. There's no way I'm going back. I have real friends here. People who care.”

Gwen sneered at him as she managed to straighten all six feet, five inches of her. The wide-legged gray pants and loose man's jacket she wore only made her look even more intimidating. “How very touching.”

Hux rubbed his ear. “You know this is the First Order Gang's territory. You're not supposed to be here.”

Rey rolled her eyes. “Since when did you care about some rotting old house?”

“Since it belonged to my grandfather, until a few days ago.” Even Rey stepped back as Kylo Ren strode into the living room. “The guy who bought it knew him personally. He used to work for the city.”

Kylo Ren was the head of the First Order Gang. He always wore all-black, including a black leather jacket that would have cost Rey at least three months' salary. Like Phasma, he was above-average tall, with a deep voice that sometimes tried for raspy and menacing, but usually sounded obnoxious. A knife with a garnet-trimmed handle rested in a black case on his hip. He hid behind a black motorcycle helmet. No one in the Bowery had ever seen his face.

“Your grandfather?” Rey crossed her arms. “Then your name is Waller?”

“It's my uncle's name.” She swore the brown eyes under the mask were glaring at her. “And Grandfather Andrew's. Professor Snoke told me he was the greatest police commissioner in the history of New York City. He really cleaned up the Bowery.”

Snap and Jess exchanged confused looks. “Professor Snoke?”

“I know who he means.” Finn turned to the other kids. “He's the head and chief scientist of Starkiller Industries. He's the one who gives the orders and does a lot of the really big experiments. He used to teach at Columbia University, until they fired him for unethical practices and crazy experiments.” He shuddered. “On humans. New York hired him to help battered police officers after he left Columbia, then fired him for the same reasons.”

“Yeah, and this is his place.” The tall boy in black jutted a finger over his broad shoulder. “So hit the pavement, dorks.”

“Wait a minute!” Rey pushed to the front. “We were told by Starkiller Industries that we could have our Halloween party here!”

“Yeah!” Kaydel put her hands on her hips. “We have more right to be here than you do.”

That was when they all heard the wailing. A long, low wail seemed to emerge from every crack and crevice. The wail was followed by the sound of cackling, and then a long screech, like nails on a chalkboard.

Phasma tried to look tough. “It's just the wind.” But even she moved a little closer to the others.

This was followed by thumping, pounding against the once-elegant wooden stairs. Rey had to listen carefully to make sure it wasn't her heart drumming in her chest. There were more creaks, and another groan, and the sound of a dog howling.

“Er, someone nearby owns a dog.” Hux nearly jumped when the howling became louder. “A rather big dog.”

The last screech nearly rattled the windows. It was followed by long laughter, the most evil, insane laughter Rey ever heard. She suspected that if she ever heard the Joker from the Batman comics laugh, that's what he'd sound like.

The laughter was too much for Mitaka. “I'm sorry, Ren, but...I'm gone!” He dashed out the door before Kylo could grab him.

“Uh, yeah.” Snap started after him. “I, uh, left the oven on.”

Finn gulped as more screeching was heard, followed by a strange, almost demonic caterwaul. “I need to iron my underwear.”

“It's getting late anyway,” Jess added. “I promised Maz I'd help her with her apple pies.”

Kaydel nodded. “So did I.”

Rey rolled her eyes. “Jess, you don't bake.”

Phasma leaned against a chair. “I can't believe you're all buying this! This is kid's stuff. Absolute nonsense. I...I...” The moment the chair seemed to lift into the air, she was out the door as fast as her long legs could carry her, followed by most of the First Order Gang.

Rey turned her not-amused hazel eyes to Kylo Ren. “Don't look at us, doll face.” He put up his leather-gloved hands. “We only set up jokes on the first floor. And I know for a fact that none of us can laugh like that.”

Her hazel eyes widened. “So, if you're not doing it, and we're not doing it...”

It only took one exchanged look of shock for the two of them to race out the door after their friends.

Rey was the last person out the door. As she looked up, she swore she saw someone watching her from an upstairs window. The figure was silhouetted by the rapidly fading light. The shadows were too dark to make out any facial features...but she thought she saw something flash gold and red. A black-gloved hand reached out and pulled down the cracked shade, obscuring any other views.

“Guys!” Rey hurried to catch up with the others. “You're not going to believe what I just saw...”

~*~*~*~*~*~

He gazed out the window as the kids took off down Canal. Normally, he loved kids...but he couldn't let anyone know what he was doing. Even the local hoodlums. Especially the First Order Gang. He recognized “Kylo Ren.” He'd know his nephew's voice anywhere. What was that boy up to now?

“Threepio,” the small man with the gray beard said, “I want you set the lights back on schedule. No one can know we're here. I'm going to make the school work this time.” He sighed. “I don't want any other kids to end up like Ben.”

“Master,” the faintly electronic-sounding British accented voice began, “why don't you at least contact your sister? I have heard that she's quite concerned about your welfare.”

“I will. When I buy this place and re-open my school.”

Threepio took the record of spooky sounds off the player. “Master, there are men residing in the basement. I believe they're doing some kind of...experiments, or something of that sort. I have heard them talking. Something with human minds. This is of no concern to me, but I thought you might like to know, being human and all...”

A small hand covered in a black leather glove went over the robot's rectangle-shaped voice box. “Thank you, Threepio. I'm trying to find out more about them. I need to call the real estate agency and see if I can buy this place from them. I think Mother would have wanted to this old mausoleum to be a school. I've read about all the fun she and Father had taking care of Ashoka and Rex and the rest.”

“Very well, sir.” The mechanical man bent over to gather a basket of laundry. The sunlight glinted off his one red arm. “I'll take this out to have it done.”

“Thank you, Threepio.” He looked up as the robot made for the door. “And Threepio?”

“Yes, Master?”

“Try not to be seen.” The man gave him a sunny grin. “And if you are seen, tell people you're dressed as a robot for Halloween.”

“Yes, Master.” The robot left with the old wicker laundry basket.