“Well,” Derek said softly with an uneasy smile as he and his sister drew up beside Mike, “this isn’t so bad. Just an old empty house.”

“Yeah,” Mike agreed, nodding.

“Up or down?” Tilly quickly asked, bringing all eyes upon her.

“Wadda’ya mean?” her brother asked with a renewed fear now evident in his voice.

“Do we go upstairs or downstairs?” she clarified.

“I say we go downstairs first,” Mike told them with his eyes on the staircase of his choice. “I mean; don’t ghosts always hide in the basements?”

“Okay,” Tilly agreed.

“Um…I…I…” Derek stuttered, “say we go home.”

“Then it’s unanimous,” Tilly stated proudly with a victorious smile. “We go downstairs.”

“Unanimous?” her brother told her in desperate disbelief. “Two votes out of three isn’t exactly what I’d call unanimous.”

“Your vote is cancelled out by our votes,” she proclaimed. “It’s two to one; the majority wins.”

“I’m not going down there,” Derek said with a deep frown.

“Fine, then you go upstairs and we’ll…” Tilly began.

“You want me to go upstairs while you guys go downstairs?” Derek squeaked, interrupting his sister.

“Sure. Why not?” she asked, looking annoyed at the delay being caused by her brother.

“I’m not going up there alone,” he demanded, his voice now quivering as badly as his hands- which he had to stick into the pockets of his jeans for fear that he might shake them right off his arms.

Mike nodded. “Then wait here for us while we go down to…”

“You’re not leaving me alone here, either,” Derek insisted.

“Geez, you’re the biggest baby this side of the entire planet, Derek,” Tilly told him. With a shake of her head she began leading Mike down the stairs, leaving Derek behind.

This did not last long, however, as with a quick look around Derek decided that it was probably a better idea to stick with his sister and best friend than to be left behind to face whatever horrible headless ghost might ooze through the hallway wall with an ax or chainsaw. So, taking a couple quick downward steps to catch up, Derek obediently followed those preceding him while keeping his eyes panning left and right for any telltale signs of floating orbs of light or any other indications of an impending ghostly appearance.

“Hold it,” Mike suddenly said halfway down the staircase, stopping and grabbing the back of Tilly’s shirt to stop her. Unfortunately, with him having stopped so abruptly, Derek, who had not been paying attention, rammed right into his back which sent Mike forward, hitting Tilly. This caused all three ghost hunters to go tumbling down the remaining steps to the basement floor with a loud clattering and a lot of grunting and yelling.

Selected text copyright 2011 by MT Shivers