Next Halloween

     Faith Myers was recently hired by Quality Services, a local cleaning company in the Pittsburgh Pennsylvania area, to clean a townhouse that was used as a display model for Ryan's Homes. The home was completely furnished, and Faith was told that the job would be fairly easy since there was no one living in the unit, and the only dirt would be from the tours that were given.

     Faith arrived at the Lahey Townhouse on Wednesday, Halloween night at 7:00 P.M. She wanted to get in and out in about 3 hours so that she could go to a friend's Halloween party at a local apple orchard. They were having hayrides, haunted apple hunts, and the orchards were transformed into a haunted tour, as people walked under the trees they would get the scare of their life.

     When Faith pulled into the driveway, the front motion light came on exposing a full view of the house.

     She had all of the cleaning supplies in the car, including the vacuum. This meant she had to make two trips in order to get it all in the house.

      Faith carried all of the supplies to the front door before she opened it. So with a supply bag hanging off of one shoulder and a bucket of chemicals in the other hand, she unlocked the door and it slowly swung open. As the interior of the house was revealed, Faith just stood there with her mouth open in shock. The bucket of chemicals fell to the ground as she lost her grip on it. As she looked around the foyer all she could see was a black, oozing, slimy substance hanging from everything. It was dripping from the ceiling, and picture frames hanging on the wall. It looked like a car engine had exploded and all of the black, slimy oil had splattered all over the house. On the floor were black footprints made up of the same slimy substance. The footprints led down the hall to an open door on the right.

     A million thoughts were going through Faith's mind. What should she do? Should she call the police, or contact her employer? Does she dare follow the footprints to see if maybe it was someone from the maintenance crew? This late at night, she was afraid it could be anything and remembered all the horror films she had seen with this same scenario. But the impulse to find out what it was, took over, and she started to walk down the black, slime-covered hallway towards the open door.

     Everywhere she looked she saw the black slimy substance all over the walls, and furniture. A foul smell also wafted through the air and made its way into her nostrils, and she gaged a little in response to it. As she looked at the open door, it was as if something was pulling her towards it, some invisible force beckoning her to come.

     When she finally made it to the open door she peered down into the oil black darkness at the bottom of a wooden staircase. As her imagination played tricks on her she thought she saw a shadowy figure moving, and the glow of red eyes looking at her and penetrating her soul. "Get a grip on your self Faith!" she whispered aloud.

     She finally worked up the courage to start down the stairs but had to walk down in the blackness because the light switch did not work. One rung at a time she slowly made her way down and all she could hear was the occasional squeak of wood rubbing against nail as she stepped on each rung. As she got to the last step and slowly set her foot on the concrete floor she let out a high pitched squeal that sounded like a cat when its tail was stepped on.

     She thought that she had just stepped in a lake of Jell-O, and the feeling freaked her out.

     "Hello! Is there anyone down here?" she asked with a frightened crack in her voice.

     "Who are you!" a voice seethed out of the darkness causing Faith to jump back a step or two.

     "Mm-my n-name is Faith" she stuttered. "I am the cleaning person for this house. Who are you and w-w-what are you doing here?" she asked.