I stop the car, hmm, it doesn’t seem like anyone is looking after this place, let’s check it out. It’s a rather long road going back to a large house. It doesn’t look like anyone has been living here for years, I said. We all get out and start to look around for signs of anyone living there. The yard is very overgrown, like no one has been looking after the place for 50 years. We all go up to the door and I knock, but there is no answer, not a sound of any kind from inside. So I decide to try the key but it doesn’t fit, not even close. I guess we are at the wrong place. As we begin to walk down the wide stairs the door opened. The cats look at each other and…meow!=ghosts! I take out my gun and we go slowly indoors, there is no one around. I know that door was definitely closed and locked, it isn’t now, very strange.

Meow, meow?=It must be ghosts, how else door open? I’m sure there is an explanation for that Muffin. Meow, meow?=We already give explanation, you got hearing problem suddenly? Do you see any ghosts Muffin and Mr. Cat? Meow?=How we supposed to see ghosts? Ghosts only seen when they want to be seen. Meow, meow.=Yep, that right, Mr. Cat know about ghosts. How do you know about ghosts, have you seen any before?, I ask. Meow.=No, not see any, except on movie. That’s what I thought. Steve, there is something very weird about this place though, said Karin. What’s that? Well look, the outside has not been looked after, but in here everything is immaculate, not even any dust. Someone must be living here.

Well, that road we just came in on hasn’t been used for a long time, so how do people get in and out? Let’s check the kitchen. Okay, said Karin. We all go into the kitchen and everything is neat and clean there also, except there is no food in the cupboards, or anywhere else. The dining room table is set like people were getting ready to eat. I don’t like this place Steve, said Karin. I call out to see if anyone would answer. Nothing but silence. The electricity was working fine. We looked out the back door, there was a pool with nice clean water, but the back yard was overgrown just like the front. This is kind of odd, I said, someone has to be living here, perhaps they have gone on vacation. Then why did a locked door open for us?, asked Karin. Meow, meow.=That good question, you got good answer? Well, not really, but there is an answer and we will find it. Let’s continue to look around.

We went through the house checking each room but we found nothing that would explain things. There were no clothes in any of the closets or dressers so that through out my idea of people going on vacation unless they took absolutely everything with them and that would be rather odd. Then Karin and the cats went into another bedroom while I checked out a room right across the hall. It was empty, completely empty, the only room that was empty so far. I go into the bedroom with the others. No one there, guess they moved on to the next room. So I went down the hall, but they were not there either. I called out to them. Silence. This is not funny! They’re doing this because I didn’t believe their ghost story. But after running and checking every room I realized this was no joke. They really were gone. But how?

I could see someone capturing Karin if she was by herself, but how do you capture the two cats? They would have yowled and warned me. I went back to the bedroom where they disappeared. Perhaps another one of those houses with secret passages? But I could tell there was no space in the walls for that, and it was easy to tell there was no cellar. I checked that room thoroughly, including the floor, but no kind of secret passage was around. How could they disappear so fast? It wasn’t more than 2 or 3 minutes. I went back into the living room and looked out the window. I couldn’t believe it…the car was gone! That must have happened when I was running through the house looking for the others. Then it felt like I got stung by something on the back of my neck. Everything started spinning…

To be continued.

©2020 Steve McLeod.