Prologue
         My name is Carter Mason.  My life has not turned out how I pictured it.  My life got thrown off the rails when my dad’s job started to cut down on his pay, and he couldn’t make ends meet.  He knew he had to figure out a way to help our family, and he did, although he found it in a terrible place.  He found out that he could make a lot of money in the drug dealing business.  That’s when I had to learn how to fight and defend myself when I was only 14 years old.  I remember one time where I was walking home from school and one of my dad’s “business” partners jumped me on the corner of Elm Street and Hood Avenue saying that my dad wasn’t keeping up his part of the deal, but I kicked him so he would loosen his grip enough so I could escape and run away.  My father hadn’t been providing his “clients” with their “merchandise” (his end of the deal), so they wanted to hurt him in a way that would teach him to not joke around and lie about things that they wanted.  They decided to force his hand, by making a lose-lose situation for me. 
         Two years have passed since my dad started dealing and I have found friends who aren’t the best, and they get me into a lot of trouble.  I remember one time when they dared me to swipe a Taser off of a police officer.  Lucky for me, the officer was old and fat and couldn’t keep up with me, so I got away. They were constantly trying to push me and each other into dangerous situations.  We liked living on the edge.  One night my friends and I decided to spend a night in this old, two-story, and abandoned house on the corner of Elm Street and Hood Avenue (where I got jumped). The story was that a crazy man used to live there, so we thought it would be cool to hang out in a creepy, crazy man’s house.
                                            Chapter 1
         My friends and I had a planned to hang out.  Little did we know it would take a turn for the worse.  There were three of us in total; Travis, Reece, and me.  We chose to hang out in this old, two-story, house that had the paint peeling off of the walls and the siding on the outside of the house was falling off located on the corner of Elm Street and Hood Avenue.  This house was abandoned because there was lead poisoning and it wasn’t worth it to fix all of the problems with it. It was also known that the previous owner was really strange and some believed he was insane. There was no electricity in the house so we had to bring flashlights and lanterns with in order to do the activities we had planned for the night. 
         When we first walked into the house we could smell a really bad smell.  Travis said that it smelled like mothballs and dead mice, and I had to trust that he knew what he was talking about since his house didn’t look much better than this abandoned house.  The idea of lead poisoning made me wonder if part of the smell was caused by lead.  As we looked around, it became evident that the house should have a wrecking ball come through and be turned into rubble. The awful paint was peeling off of the walls and you could see cracks in the plaster and floorboards.  There was dust and cobwebs everywhere, and the railing for the staircase was missing several rungs and was tipped in places.  This house looked like it should be in a horror movie, but this place was perfect for us to spend the night. 
         We headed upstairs, being careful to not lean on the wobbly railing.  When we reached the top landing, we split up to check out the bedrooms to select which one we would stay in for the night.  Once we found what we assumed was the master bedroom because of its size, we set up our lanterns and targets.  We were doing what typical kids do when they hang out, namely practicing throwing knives into a target to see who had the best aim.  The boys like to put me down and assume that I cannot do certain things as well as they can just because I’m a girl.  It was my turn to prove the boys wrong.  I got up to the line that was marked by duct tape and took my knife and played around with it in my hand.  I love how familiar the grip feels in my hand.  I took a deep breath to focus my blue eyes on the black, spray-painted target.  I threw my silver knife towards the target and I hit the bullseye.
         “You see boys, now that is how it is done.”  They weren’t surprised when I got a bullseye; we have knife throwing competitions all the time and I have always shown them up, but they hate to lose to a girl.  Next, it was Travis’ turn to throw his stainless steel switchblade at the spray-painted target.
         “I bet I can get a bullseye three times in a row,” Travis said with a c***y tone in his voice.  Reece and I gave him an eye roll as he steps up to the line of duct tape.  He takes a deep breath, lifts his stainless steel switchblade that glimmers off our lights from our flashlights and lanterns and he throws it and he hits the bullseye.  “That’s one,” he says, gloating.  He lines up to throw again, aims, and throws.  Bullseye!  He grins like the Hulk in The Avengers after he just beat up Loki as he retrieves his knife from the target.  He lines up again for the last throw, and he was super c***y by now.  As Travis took aim at the target for the third time, he pumped his arms in a premature and immature victory.  This time, when he threw the knife he looked away, trying to prove that his accuracy was on point, but he misses by a mile.  Reece and I burst out laughing.  “If you think you can do better, be my guest,” Travis said with a hint of anger in his voice.  We decided to take him up on his offer.  Reece and I stepped up to the line, both of us with our knives in our hands.
         “It would be our pleasure,” I said with a sarcastic and c***y tone in my voice.  We both look at Travis with our blades in our hands, and we throw our blades.  Our knives leave our hands in unison, and we both hit the bullseye with no complications.
         Travis scoffs and says with an embarrassed yet angry tone, “Nobody likes a show off, guys.”  During that moment, amidst our laughter, something didn’t seem right, but I didn’t know what.  I just shoved that feeling down my throat, and we carried on with our night.  We ate a whole bunch of chips and candy because it was November 1, so all of the Halloween candy was on sale.  We had pooled our spare change and had bought enough to make it a fun night.  Travis and Reece kept trying to give me a heart attack.  They made me laugh so hard by jumper cabling me and telling awful jokes, and my stomach started to hurt.  We all needed this night because our lives at home have been pretty tense lately, and we all came from families from bad backgrounds.  I still couldn’t shake the feeling that something awful was going to happen tonight, and it was driving me nuts.
         “What’s on your mind Carter?” Reece asked.  He noticed that I have been sort of zoning out when we were talking.
         I said with a slight chuckle in my throat, “Oh it’s nothing to worry about it’s just a funny feeling.”
         Travis tells me, “I’m not buying what you’re selling Carter.  Tell us the truth.  You aren’t a good liar.”  He was right, I am awful at keeping secrets.
         “Really, it’s nothing, just a funny feeling,” I said.  The reason why I didn’t tell the truth is because if I told them, they would make fun of me.
         “I honestly don’t care that much about what’s running around in that little head of yours,” Reece told me brutally.
         We carried on with our night, and it was really nice just to hang out with the guys.  We all needed this.  Then, through the sound of Travis and Reece’s laughter, I heard a sound of a metal garbage can rattling.  “Did you hear that sound?” I asked them.
         “What sound?  You’re just being paranoid. Let it go, Carter,” Reece said.
         “Oh ok, whatever you say,” I replied cautiously.  I just put that sound aside and into the back of my brain.  Aside from me being paranoid the night was really fun.  I heard that sound again, but I didn’t say anything because then Travis and Reece would just think that I’m a scared little girl, which I’m not.  I was on my toes from then on, but I hid it in a way so that Travis and Reece wouldn’t notice I was freaking out a little bit.  It was cool to be inside of the old and abandoned house, but it made me nervous thinking I was starting to hear things.
         We started to play poker using the candy and chips to place our wagers.  I always lost because I always try to bluff when we play, but they can see straight through my act.  It’s kind of like playing “rock, paper, scissors” and always choosing “rock”.  It doesn’t take your opponent long to figure you out.  I also have terrible luck.  In these old houses, the plumbing doesn’t work, so you have to go outside to pee, and my bladder was rushing like a Russian race horse.  “Be right back guys, and don’t look at my cards,” I said.  Travis and Reece just carried on with playing cards and joking around as I went down the stairs and then outside.  After I was done relieving myself, I got this weird chill, and I kept thinking that something was here.  I went back into the house to make sure that the boys weren’t looking at my cards, but before I went upstairs I locked the door: better safe than sorry.  We continued with our poker game, but then we heard a big bang come from downstairs and masked men come running up the stairs, invading our “innocent” poker game and changing our lives forever.  At that moment, it was kill or be killed.