01/07/2004: "The Haunted Farm"
Here’s the precise of a story suggested by our 6-year-old last night at supper. In our family, the protagonist of every story about someone who comes to a bad end is named Timmy.
* * *
THE HAUNTED FARM
Timmy inherits an abandoned farmhouse at the end of a deserted lane far, far from the nearest city. The porch is collapsing from dry rot; you’d have to be crazy to try going in through the front door, because you’d plunge through the floorboards when they splintered to pieces. The attic window in front is broken out. Bats fly in and out at sunset.
Inside, the rooms are painted garish colors – lime green, pastel pink. There are cracks in the walls, and the corner windows in some rooms have a diagonal gap between window and frame, evidence of ominous foundation problems.
Exploring the house, Timmy discovers a secret room. Within it, he finds a collection of old mandolins and violins left behind in the otherwise vacant dwelling. The instruments aren’t in cases or sitting on tables but … floating in the air.
Timmy is drawn to one instrument – an old Gibson F-model. The mandolin twists and turns in the shadowy room, seeming to beckon Timmy to take it into his hands.
Though Timmy has never played the mandolin, he discovers he can magically play this instrument. A strange, gypsy kind of music comes out of the mandolin, putting Timmy in a dreamy trance. Gradually, a bizarre urge Timmy can’t quite identify or explain possesses his body.
Later, just before midnight, Timmy’s wife arrives the farm, driving a gold Honda Accord with one headlight burned out. A full moon hangs high over the tumbledown barn, leering down on the scene.
Timmy is waiting for his wife behind the door. He attacks her – and drinks her blood. The music from the bewitched mandolin has turned Timmy into a vampire.
THE END
(Whenever kids make up stories, they always have to say “THE END” at the end.)
