Two midnight shadows seemed to blow across the yard of the Blackwood home. Finally, those shadows broke out of the over-lapping darkness of the trees, hit the moonlight and exploded into two teenagers: Clyde and Brian, running fast and hard. Their heels beat a quick, sharp rhythm on the sidewalk, like the too-fast ticking of clocks; time pieces from the Dark Side, knocking on toward a gruesome destiny.

After a moment the running stopped. Doors slammed. A car growled angrily. Lights burst on, and the black 66 sailed away from the curb. It sliced down the quiet street like a razor being drawn across a vein, cruised between dark houses where only an occasional light burned behind a window like a fearful gold eye gazing through a contact lense.

A low-slung, yellow dog making its nightly trashcan route crossed the street, fell into the Chevy's headlights.

The car whipped for the dog, but the animal was fast and lucky and only got its tail brushed before making the curb.

A car door flew open in a last attempt to bump the dog, but the dog was too far off the street. The car bounced up on the curb briefly, then whipped back onto the pavement.

The dog was gone now, blending into the darkness of a tree-shadowed yard.

The door slammed and the motor roared loudly. The car moved rapidly off into the night, and from its open windows, carried by the wind, came the high, wild sound of youthful laughter.

The House, as Clyde called it, was just below Stoker Street, just past where it intersected King, not quite bookened between the two streets, but nearby, on a smaller more narrow one, a colder more somber one. And there it waited.

Almost reverently, like a hearse that has arrived to pick up the dead, the black 66 Chevy entered the drive, parked.

Clyde and Brian got out, stood looking up at the house for a moment, considering it as two monks would a shrine.

Brian felt a sensation of trembling excitement, and though he would not admit it, a tinge of fear.

The House was big, old, grey and ugly. It looked gothic, out of step with the rest of the block. Like something out of Poe or Hawthorne. It crouched like a falsely obedient dog. Upstairs two windows showed light, seemed like cold, rectangular eyes considering prey.

The moon was bright enough that Brian could see the dead grass m the yard, the dead grass in all the yards down the block. It was the time of year for dead grass, but to Brian's way of thinking, this grass looked browner, deader. It was hard to imagine it ever being alive, ever standing up tall and bright and green.

The odd thing about the House was the way it seemed to command the entire block. It was not as large as it first appeared-though it was large — and the homes about it were newer and more attractive. They had been built when people still cared about the things they lived in, before the era of glass and plastic and builders who pocketed the money that should have been used on foundation and structure. Some of the houses stood a story above the gothic nightmare, but somehow they had taken on a rundown, anemic look, as if the old, grey house was in fact some sort of alien vampire that could impersonate a house by day, but late at night it would turn its head.

"Let's go in," Clyde said.

The walk was made of thick, white stones. Thev were cracked and weather-swollen. Some of them had partially tumbled out of the ground dragging behind a wad of dirt and grass roots that made them look like abcessed teeth that had fallen from some giant's rotten gums.

Avoiding the precarious stepping stones, they mounted the porch, squeaked the screen and groaned the door open. Darkness seemed to crawl in there. They stepped inside.

"Hold it," Clyde said. He reached and hit the switch.

Darkness went away, but the light wasn't much. The overhead fixture was coated with dust and it gave the room a speckled look, like sunshine through camouflage netting.

There was a high staircase to their left and it wound up to a dangerous-looking landing where the railing dangled out of line and looked ready to fall. Beneath the stairs, and to the far right of the room, were many doors. Above, behind the landing, were others, a half-dozen in a soldier row. Light slithered from beneath the crack of one.

"Well?" Clyde said.

"I sort of expect Dracula to come down those stairs any moment."

Clyde smiled. "He's down here with you, buddy. Right here."

"What nice teeth you have."

"Uh huh, real nice. How about a tour?"

"Lead on."

"The basement first?"

"Whatever."

"All right the basement then. Come on.

Above them, from the lighted room, came the sound of a girl giggling, then silence.

"Girls?" Brian asked.

"More about that later."