The Old Cobain House

The large old house loomed dark and foreboding with its windows all boarded up and shingles falling off. Sarah and Sasha looked at each other, still wondering if they had made the right decision when they’d told everyone that they were going to stay the night in the old Cobain house. They had even bragged about it, saying that it wasn’t good enough just to go in and look around or even to just have a picnic lunch. No, they had to one up each other as twins tend to do, when telling their friends,

“We will even stay the night, it’s just an old house, it doesn’t even have any really good spooky stories about it.” said Sarah, looking at Sasha with earnest eyes. Sasha replied, “Oh, yes! Of course why not stay the night, light a fire sleep in the ballroom.”

Now that they were standing if front of it, creepy stories or not, this house was huge, old and very eerie, with the old shutters, collapsing roof, and parts of the railing missing. As second thoughts raced through the twins heads, they looked at each other and took a deep breath together and walked through the front door.

As spooky and old as the outside had been, the grand entrance was still welcoming with a large staircase, a chandelier and a high ceiling. The girls soaked in the grand entrance, exhaling the breath they had taken as they came through the doorway.

“Wow!” they both sighed in unison.

They stood in awe, looking for a moment more.

“Let’s get to the ballroom, we will have to start the fire or we are going to be cold all night.”, said Sarah as she took Sashas hand and led her towards the grand ball room that they had seen in the picture, hanging in the town hall.

A few minutes later, they were laying out their sleeping bags and starting the fire. They began to notice that the house was falling apart, wallpaper peeling, some mold creeping up the walls and the floors creaked and felt spongy as they moved around.

Upon finishing getting fire going, they got cozy and began eating what they’d packed for dinner. Speaking about the day by the light of the fire, Sasha exclaimed “ Oh My God! Sarah I have to go to the bathroom! I didn’t even think about the fact that this might be a thing!” Wide eyed she was very concerned and mad at herself for not thinking of it.

“I’m sure there is a washroom around here somewhere.”, said Sarah as she waved her hand around to show that a room this big must have a washroom on the other side of one of the many doors surrounding it.

“As if I want to use a gross old, smelly bathroom!” Sasha wined.

“Well where the hell do you plan on going then?”, Sarah inquired.

“Fine,” said Sasha as she got up and started walking towards the bank of doors on the opposite side of the room.

The first door she opened, lead to a staircase that went down into the dark. The second, was in fact, a washroom. Sasha looked in, and to her surprise, it wasn’t as gross and smelly as she had thought. It seemed more sad and lonely, if you could say that about a room.

Finished with the bathroom, Sasha says,“That wasn’t so bad I guess.” As she walks out of the bathroom, back towards Sarah she adds,”but this floor sure needs some help!” Suddenly, a loud crack rang out and Sasha fell through the rotting floor!

“SASHA!” Sarah screamed getting up and running towards the hole that was there now, instead of her sister.

She threw herself onto the floor and spread out, hoping not to fall through too. Carefully Sarah looked down in to the dark and yelled Sashas name again. “I’m ok,” Sasha called,“I landed on something sort of soft. Go through the first door I opened, there are stairs coming down here and come help me I don’t have my phone and I can’t see anything.”

Sarah grabbed her phone and turned the light on thinking,“I’m glad I always make sure my battery is 100% when I go out for the night!”

Slowly she descended the stairs, of course it was a corkscrew type of stairs so she couldn’t just run down them. Finally she reached her sister

“What did you land o....?!” Sarah stopped mid sentence as the light from her phone hit the soft thing Sasha had landed on, It was a man!

“OH MY GOD!”she screeched “Sasha get up!”

Scrambling to her feet, seeing the fear on Sarah’s face, Sasha looked back to see what she had landed on, realizing it was a large man laying on the ground not moving.

Screaming, she turned, running into her Sarah’s arms. “What the hell?”, Sarah asked out loud,”Is he dead? He clearly hasn’t been here for very long, the blood on his short still looks wet!”

“Why would he come down here, it’s so dark?” Sasha wondered out loud. Sarah slowly shone her light around the room and that’s when they both saw the black bag. Obviously, it belonged to the dead man, as it was still shinny and new looking, no dust what so ever.

Sasha slowly walked over to take a closer look at the black bag.

“What are you doing?” Sarah hissed.

“Maybe it has a tag with his name on it. He has been shot or stabbed or something. Don’t you see all this blood.” Sasha said, matter of factly. “He could have been murdered and just left here, or maybe he ran in here after being attacked!”

Sasha leaned over to get a better look. There didn’t seem to be a name tag, but the black bag was open.

“Bring the light closer, there’s a shadow and I can’t see” she told Sarah.

Sarah inched closer.

Sasha reached down into the the black bag and pulled something out.

“Well, what is it?” Sarah wanted to know.

Sasha brought what she had grabbed out of the bag closer to her eyes so she could see.

Her eyes widened, “ Ooohhhh Wooow” she exclaimed. “It’s full of money!”

“What?!” Sarah said with shock, “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure! I think I know what money looks like!”, she snarled!

Sarah stumbled closer, almost tripping over the dead man on the ground.

“Holy crap!” Sarah blurted, “how much do you think there is?”

“ I have no idea, but I’m sure it’s more then I have in my bank, that’s for sure.” Sasha quipped.

“Who do you think he is then?”, Sarah wondered out loud.

“I have no idea, but let’s take this bag upstairs and see what we can find out.” Sasha suggested.

“But what about him?” Sarah burst out!

“Do you really want to try and haul him up the stairs? He broke my fall and I’m not even hurt, cause he must be at least three hundred pounds!” Sasha exclaimed. “It’s not like he’s going anywhere. Besides, we are clearly going to have to call the Sheriff and we can’t tamper with a body, haven’t you learned anything from CSI?”

Sasha grabbed the black bag and Sarah shone the light so they could make it up the stairs. Slowly and carefully they walked over to their stuff by the fire where dinner was still waiting.

Sitting down they continued to go through the contents of the black bag counting the money. Pulling out handful after handful of Hundreds and Fifties and a few twenties, until they counted twenty thousand dollars in total!

At the bottom of the bag was a little black book.

“Look in the book,” Sarah urged,”maybe his name is in it?”

Sasha opened up the book and looked at the first page. Nothing, no names, just a blank page. She flipped through more of the pages.

“There is like fifty names in here, with dates beside them and a dollar figure. And then, either finger, ear or toe, written in a column beside each name.” Sasha said.

“That’s weird, anything else in the bag?” Asked Sarah.

Sasha looked in, and there was something else at the bottom. Reaching in, she grabbed it and pulled it out. She screamed for the third time in an hour, then threw the only thing that had been left in the bag.

“What The Hell Was That!” Sarah yelled.

“It was a ffff fffiinger! “ Sasha stuttered.

“Oh my god! Who is this man?” Sarah asked, honestly confused.

“I have no idea, but I don’t think he was very nice” Sasha commented.

“We need to call the Sheriff, clearly this is not a good man. I think this book is people he has killed and the body parts he takes to prove he killed them” Sarah shrewdly deduced.

“Do you mean you think he Is a hit man?” Sasha asked.

“I think so Sash”

“What should we do with the twenty grand?” Sasha asked.

“As much as I would love to keep it, I don’t think the Sheriff will let us, you know evidence and all” Sarah sighed.

“Yeah” Sasha whispered disappointedly.

The girls sat in silence for a few mins finishing their dinner and watched the fire in silence, finally they called the town Sheriff and told him about the dead man..

15 mins later the Sheriff Kingsley and his Deputies cars were outside the old Cobain House. The girls were talking to sheriff Kingsley.

“Well girls you did a good thing, we would never have found this guy if you hadn’t handled yourself so well.” The sheriff smiled.

“Do you know who he is Sheriff?”asked Sasha.

“No, we don’t. Not yet anyway , but with the little black book, the money and the, how would you say, spare finger you found I’m sure it won’t take us long to figure it out.” the sheriff laughed.

“I guess the money can be traced, huh?” Sarah wondered.

“Yes it can sweetie, but don’t you worry, I think after this big take down of yours I’m sure there is going to be some reward money in it for you two girls.“ again the sheriff smiled. If this dead man is who he thinks he is, the girls will be getting a lot more then $20,000.00 for their reward.