As we gathered up the things that we would need for our expedition (which was entirely too much crap, cards, Mad Libs, chips, pop,t he cordless phone...OK the cordless phone was a necessity!!) we decided to take everything up while it was still daylight out & try to straighten the place up a bit so it wasn't so uncomfortable. We headed up stairs. As we were lugging what we needed up the stairs, JJ dropped one of the flash lights. As we listened to the flashlight drop from stair to stair we both panicked, then remembered we had two. I put my stuff down & retrieved the flashlight...the bulb didn't make it. That made me a little nervous. What if something happened tonight up there & we had to run? What if in our haste to flee, we accidentally drop the other flash light? Then we have to try to make it through a dark apartment & a dark hallway w/no backup light."We need light bulbs!", I blurted out, still holding the broken flashlight. " No way!!!" JJ said, " I'm not runnin back into our dark house if something happens up there!" he argued (we knew that we were out of extra bulbs because mom had just put it in the porch light outside, knowing that we'd be home alone). I told him that we could take 2, one from our bathroom (which we would not really miss, since we weren't sleeping in ma's bed), & the utility light in the pantry. We only needed one for the rear dark hall that the staircase was in, & one for the upstairs living room, since that was going to be where we were camping out. He rationalized, then agreed that it would be better to run through 2 half lit houses & a poorly lit hall, then to have to run from a completely darkened house and hallway, to our lit lower flat. We grabbed the light bulbs.

When we got up stairs, I started setting up camp. As i pulled the baseball bat out of my sleeping bag (which I had used to throw everything into, to make it easier to carry), he said" what's that for?". "Just in case." I replied. " In case of whaaat?". Then I remembered that JJ didn't know exactly what had happened the night Neal had stayed the night. So what does a big sister do when faced w/this dilemma? She tells him anyway, despite the many years of therapy it may cause later! Hey what are big sisters for?! LOL!

Immediately after he had the whole story, "I wanna go see!" he says. I thought about it for a sec, cause I knew this was a big one. "Alright, but only in the daylight.". "Sweet!!" he snickers, while rubbing his hands together.

As we walked down the basement stairs there was nothing. No noises, no scratching or sweeping, no crying, no creaking. Just the sound of the birds chirping outside. JJ looked a bit nervous, but this was the most comfortable I had ever felt in that basement now. As we approached the first door in the series of three on the back wall, JJ raised both arms with such force that I heard a swoop. Then down hard he came on the padlock with the aluminum bat! The sound from the metal against metal was ear numbing. Over & over he hit it, until between his work & Neal's the pad lock fell to the ground.

As we slowly walked in through the door the smell of burned rubber smacked us right in the face. What was behind that door was a singed makeshift apartment. It was much darker than the rest of the basement, because the windows on that side were covered from the inside with boards. But broken boards at that, so some light was shinning through.

Looking around it seemed only big enough for one. I imagined that was all that used to live there. There were two rooms, one a living room/kitchen. The other was a room w/a door (which was closed at the time), then just a tiny bathroom that reminded me of one that you would see in a camper. The entire place was blackened in soot there was scorched paneling hanging half off the walls, ash in every nook & cranny & furniture still in place, though badly burnt. It looked like someone had at least tried to clean up, there were lighter marks on the walls, like someone had started to wash them, & a yellow broom leaning against the small camper sized kitchen sink. What we wanted to know, was what was behind that door. So over to that end of the room we went, to inquire further. As we approached it, we noticed that that part of the little apartment was less scorched than the rest. slowly we pushed the door open, & what we saw puzzled us. A rocking chair, only it wasn't scorched, & barely any of the inside of that room was damaged either. The weird thing was, it looked as if this rocking chair had been down there quite a while, there was dust on some of it, about a half inch thick...except for on the arms & seat of the chair. It was also covered in a light coat of soot & water spots. I didn't need to point out the obvious to JJ, even at 10 he was pretty bright. We both knew what the lack of dust on the seat & arms of the chair meant, but neither of us said a word. Finally I said " Maybe the landlord took a break in this chair while he was down here cleaning!". "Duuuuh!" JJ said, laughing. Whew! I thought that was going to take a little more effort, but I pulled it off well. Or maybe he was just pretending to buy that excuse so easily, & I was the gullible one.

As we walked out of the little back room with the chair in it, I said " Do you think we should try to communicate with it?"..."Yup." he replied in a steady voice. "Aha!", He didn't think that rocker had been sat in by the landlord either, just as I had suspected. "Liar!" I said to him. " What?" he asked. I said in the snottiest mocking voice I could, "Duuuuh?"..." Why did you act like you thought it was the landlord too?". His retort, "I thought you were trying to make yourself feel better!"( aww, I was torn between wanting to slap him for being a dishonest little turd, & wanting to hug him for being so codependent in trying to comfort me, even if it was B.S.). I quickly asked "So you think there's something down here too?". "Uh huh." he replied. I proceeded to tell him how mom had been teaching me how to tap into spirit. I explained to him that I had never done it before, but that it was easy. He seemed interested, so I asked if he wanted to try it, "Sounds good to me.". At this moment, I was so impressed by my brother's fearlessness.For the first time, I actually admired my 10 year old little brother for his moxie & brass ones!

And so we started, JJ followed my lead. " is there anyone here who would like to communicate with us" I asked first. Nothing. " We're the people that live upstairs now", JJ piped in. Nothing. We started walking around out of nervousness, maybe it was intuition that made us finally settle ourselves by the front entrance & stand still, "Did you used to live in this house or just the basement?" I asked, this time the sound of my own voice creeped me out! Imagine asking that question & no one's there...or at least that's what we thought. No sooner had the last word "basement" roll off my tongue, did the yellow broom slide across the edge of the counter & fall to the floor! JJ & I were standing about five feet away from it. There were no words, just heavy panting and erratic footsteps, as we bolted outta there so fast, I don't even think our feet fully touched ground!