Zane got out of bed carefully and walked over to the light switch by door. His hand quickly flipped the light switch on, but there was no light. He quickly flipped the light switch on and off a few more times hoping that the lights would magically come on, but he had no such luck.

He stood there for a while waiting and listening to see if the sound of the floorboards would creak again, but they didn't. Zane decided it had to have been his imagination and he decided to go downstairs and tell his grandfather all about how his imagination was playing tricks on him again. He could imagine his grandfather laughing, while telling him about the strange things that had happened this evening.

Zane stood there in the doorway and could feel a sudden sense of fear rush over him. He wanted to walk out into the hall, but it was like his feet refused to move from the doorway.  A flash of lightning came through the window at the end of the hall and shined a light in front of him. So he peeked his head out into the hall, looked around, and of course nothing was there like always.  Zane caught his breath and began to walk carefully down the hall one small step at a time. Zane dragged his left hand on the wall to keep his balance through the dark hallway.  

After a slow walk through the hallway, the lightning lit up the hallway again and he looked down the stairs into the living room on the first floor. Zane was about to go down the stairs, but all the sudden he froze again. Something just didn’t seem right. He couldn’t figure out why his grandfather wasn’t already inside.  He thought he would have heard his grandfather saying, “The powers out again! It's going to be days, no months, until they fix it again!” But he didn’t hear a single sound. 

Zane finally started down the  staircase with narrow walls on either side of him. Every step he made the wooden stairs would let out a loud creak, which caused his shoulders to tense up. He could feel the boards bend with his weight with every step. When Zane got to the downstairs he could feel the cold stone floor under his feet. The downstairs was a little bit brighter than the upstairs and he looked around in fright. He looked over to see a couch covered with white cloth and boxes stacked on top of each other in the corners of the living room. And glanced over into the kitchen, but nothing was moved or out of place.

“Tap”

“Tap”

Zane froze, his eyes widened, and he felt his knees start to shake. He looked over to the front door and the doorbell rang. Then he heard his grandfather's voice, “Hey, open the door, I forgot my house key.” Zane used the wall to hold himself up as he began to fall. It was his grandfather’s voice, but he knew it wasn’t him. There would be no way his grandfather could drive the whole way home and not have his house key, since both are always on the same keychain.

 Zane slowly began towards the window on the front side of the house. Each step was carefully placed to ensure that his footsteps were as silent as possible. He heard his grandfather’s voice again, “Zane I know you're in there. Can you please open the door? It's cold out here.” With every word, Zane could feel a shiver down his spine and his lips began to tremble.

On his way to the window, Zane started to look for his long black trench coat his grandfather had given him that winter to help him blend in with darkness around him. Zane saw it over on the floor under the coat hanger and slid it on carefully.  He looked down at the coat and started to button it up with his trembling fingers. He looked at his coat to make sure he had buttoned up every button and made his way over to the window once again. 

To make sure he wouldn’t be seen he got to his knees and crawled over to the thin white curtains. Zane was too scared to move and he could see the silhouettes of an old man on the deck in front of the door. Zane reached out his hand to move the curtain out of the way, but all the sudden there was a shadow that blocked the light from coming through the thin curtain. Zane jumped backwards causing him to hit his head on the stone floor.