Beginnings - And then there were none…

The candle light flickered and danced with the shadows across the walls of books and around the ghostly sheet covered arm chairs of the late Dr. Bekker’s study. The air in the room lay thick and musty.
Young Charlie Bass, backup forward for the Warner Heights high school galloping gophers, walked slowly across the bare hardwood floor toward the center of the room, holding the candle out away from his skinny 6’3” frame. His eyes darted back and forth apprehensively, his mouth curled in a grin of fearful excitement.

The old mansion was cold, a stark contrast to the bathwater warm August night outside. Charlie shivered beneath his short sleeved cotton tee shirt. With his free hand, he adjusted the blue KC Royals ball cap that sat perched atop his smooth bald head. Leaning down, he balanced the lit candle upright on the dusty hard wood floor. He then hustled back across the room to an open corner window from where he had found initial entrance, the candle light throwing his elongated shadow against the book shelves.

He reached the window and, with a few hard thumps of his open palm, began clearing away the few remaining boards that had sealed the window. Sticking his head out of the square hole in the side of the Bekker mansion, he looked out at the estate covered in mature oaks and maples. Looking down, he could see the four others huddle around the base of the ladder, chattering and giggling in the darkness.

“Hurry up, get in here! This is so wild.” Charlie hissed.

“So what’s it like in there Q-ball?” Andy shouted. “Have you seen Bekker’s ghost yet?”

“Shhhhhush! You are going to wake both the dead and the living if you don’t keep quiet Andy! Get everyone up here.”