It was summer and it was an extremely hot day.  I floated aimlessly about the swimming pool in the backyard on an inflatable mattress.  As I patiently allowed my tan lines to darken, I closed my eyes and thought of the time I went with two of my friends on one of our adventures. 

Lisa, Julie, and I were wandering around outside one day after having lunch at school, enjoying the spring weather and chatting with friends. 

Julie had an admirer that she couldn’t seem to shake off.  This guy, John, sent her flowers, called her day and night, and gave her whatever she wanted.  She just happened to have his car on this particular day.  She didn’t even have her driver’s license yet.   

As the three of us wandered, we started talking about the notorious ‘Satanic House’ that was located conveniently close to our school.  Rumor had it that devil worshiping, séances, and live sacrifices were the typical events that the evil walls of the house were accustomed to witnessing.  People claimed that if you went out there on a weekend night and got close enough you could hear the inhabitants chanting out their wicked spells to the voodoo goblins.  

I personally didn’t believe any of it. 

The three of us decided that we would go check it out since none of us had anything important happening in our afternoon classes.  I was elected to drive since I had a drivers license.

The car was nice, black, and had plenty of gas in it.  Even though none of us had actually been to the famous ‘Satanic House’, we knew exactly where it was located and how to get there because of all the stories associated with it. 

We finally spotted the place.  I drove past it instead of turning in, possibly out of apprehension but, more likely to measure the situation a little better.  The house was situated on an enormous lot, way out it the country.  The windows had been covered with boards and the tired-looking, front porch had long since collapsed. The driveway was longer than average and, year’s prior, the length of it, on either side, had been lined with oak trees.  These trees were now very tall.  They had grown up and together, turning the driveway into a long, dark tunnel.  Behind and beside the house was a huge grassy field.  A row of very tall trees stood at the top of a small foothill, way off in the distance, providing a natural border to the property and horizon. 

I turned the car around down the street.  We drove by one more time, the three of us trying to convince ourselves that we should complete our mission.  It was just a house, after all;  ‘The Satanic House’.  I pulled in and navigated the car down the spooky driveway.

We had already scoped out the vehicle for possible means of self-protection.  Lisa had dibs on a very small, pocket-type knife that sported a two or three inch blade.  Julie claimed a large screwdriver that could also double as a heavy, blunt object.  I resigned to defending myself against our diabolic foes with a can of BRUT deodorant. 

When we finally stepped out of the car, the very first thing we saw was the rotting body of an adolescent sheep.  A noose still hung from its neck.

Lisa and I weren’t too impressed but Julie completely freaked out.

“Oh god, its dead,” she said again and again.  “C’mon you guys!   Lets go,” she pleaded, retreating to the safety of the car.  Lisa and I weren’t done yet, though.

We went up to the back of the house (which is where the long, spooky driveway led to) and climbed inside through the opening where the back door once hung on its hinges.  The inside of the house was empty of furniture and badly vandalized.  Trash was strewn everywhere.  Spray painted walls, floors, and ceilings boasted statements like ‘Satan Lives’ and the ever popular ‘666’.  The two of us joked that we should write ‘Jesus Loves You’ all over. 

After deciding the stairs wouldn’t collapse, we went up them to have a look.  The rooms upstairs were in the same terrible condition as the ones downstairs. One of the bedrooms was totally empty and had ten or twelve foot, five-pointed star with a circle around it painted on the hardwood floor.  The melted remains of candles adorned the places where each point of the star met the circle that surrounded it.

"OOOO, scary!”  I said to Lisa, sarcastically.  She impersonated a trembling, terrified jellyfish for a moment then laughed at herself.

We finally decided that we had seen all there was to see of the ‘Satanic House’.  We went back to the car where Julie still hid timidly.  As I got in, I told her that there was a telephone in one of the rooms that began to ring while we were in there. 

“Did you answer it,” she asked, her eyes like dinner plates.

“Yes,” I told her, winking at Lisa. “It was the Devil.  He said that Marilyn Manson gives him nightmares.”  Julie smacked me on the arm as Lisa and I laughed at her.

I started the car and turned it around.  We were well into the tunnel of the long driveway, and almost to the street when the three of us, all at once, saw that there had been barbed wire suspended across the driveway, wrapped around the trunk of one of the trees then stretched across and wrapped again around a tree on the other side.  The barbwire was hung low enough that attempting to cross it would do serious damage to the vehicle.  We were trapped in a dark tunnel.  I just knew a zombie or some kind of demon was going to jump down onto the car from the trees above.

All three of us began to scream in unison.  Both of my hysterical comrades instructed me to, “DRIVE!  JUST DRIVE THROUGH IT!  DRIVE THROUGH IT!”  I couldn’t ruin this guy’s car, I decided in an instant.  I slammed the gearshift into reverse and smashed the accelerator.  We flew, backwards, down the driveway and out of the sadistic tunnel of trees.  I had a straight shot to the street via the grassy field, so I took it.  What a sight, the three of us bouncing up and down in the car as we plowed through the tall grass at 120 miles per hour, still screaming like lunatics.  We never even turned around to look back. 

Someone had been there the entire time!  Someone evil. Watching. Waiting.  Hearing everything.  Guarding the ‘House that Satan Built’.

'That was nuts,’ I thought fondly, getting out of the pool to refill my glass of lemonade.  I refilled my drink and went back outside. 

My glass of juice shattered all over the deck when I saw barbwire strung across the swimming pool. 

OOOOO, SPOOKY!
This just in: Assesment of my stupid little satanic story from a nice guy named Adam Thanks Adam!

I am so sorry to affix my attitudes to this short story of yours. But-it is so terribly written I really do not know what else to do.

Your descriptions of time and place are so wooden and unfeeling-jeez it is terrible. Sorry to question your quickness. 'Satanic House' is a big untalented piece of garbage. "We knew exactly where it was located and how to get there because of all the stories associated with it."

Ugh, no talent there. Sorry to describe it that way. You used 'spooky' as an adjective. For fuck sake. That is so terrible. Spooky! You fuckin retard! I hope you can quit wasting people's time.

So I said to Adam:

I didnt write that story hoping for a flipping pulitzer prize. It was a memory from high school I put on paper in an imaginative writing class. Apparently I had a shitty instructor because I aced the class. Sorry you had to endure it.

"Cuz this is my United States of WHATEVAH~!!!!"