He had been dared to go into the house. And this wasn’t just any old dare. This was a triple dog dare.

Classified among the highest degrees of dare, one would be declared a wimp if they were to decline. As the entire class egged him on, he climbed up the stairs one by one. They creaked louder and louder as he ascended.

The porch sagged beneath his sixty pounds of weight, and he felt termites fussing about within the floor boards. His trembling hand reached out to graze the cool metal of the doorknob, when suddenly the door flung open. Before the poor kid could even recoil in surprise, some unseen force dragged his writhing body inside and into the depths of the fabled hellish basement. The children screamed and scattered to tell their respective mommies and daddies.

Neither the child nor his body was ever found, but the children all had new stories to tell, of the glorious grudge and eventual revenge of Gertrude Turner.

And or the parents of young James Turpin Jr., life would never be the same.