3 Vampireville by Ellen Schreiber Read Free Book Online

overgrown bushes, and weeds. On the west side, a stagnant, murky creek barely rose during sporadic rainfalls. Fragrant wild flowers never seemed to mask its pungent smell. The mill thrived in the 1940s, manufacturing uniforms for the war, employing hundreds of Dullsvillians. The once proudly puffing red-tiled S smokestack now stood silent. After the war the mill was bought by a linen company but ultimately couldn't compete with outsourcing, and the factory went bankrupt. Now the Sinclair mill loomed over Dullsville like a listless monster. Half the factory's windows were blown out, and the others needed a gazillion liters of Windex. Police cars routinely patrolled the area, trying to deny graffiti artists a thirty-acre canvas. Alexander parked the Mercedes next to several rusty garbage barrels. As soon as we stepped foot onto the grounds, we heard a barking off in the distance. We paused and glanced around. Maybe it was Jagger. Or maybe it was my own boyfriend's presence that was disturbing the dogs. Supposedly, when the factory first opened, a fateful accident occurred when an elevator malfunctioned and plummeted to the basement, claiming several employees' lives. A rumor spread throughout Dullsville that on a full moon, a passerby could hear the mill workers' screams. But the only ghosts I'd heard shrieking were actors covered in sheets when I was a child. We were visiting the factory for WXUV's Haunted House with my family. "This was the haunted house's entrance," I recalled, heading for the broken metal door at the front of the mill. The words GET OUT WHILE YOU CAN! were still spray painted on the door from Halloweens past. Alexander lit the way with his flashlight. I pulled the heavy door open and we crept inside. A few spray paintings of humorous epitaphs remained on the concrete walls. Alexander and I cautiously walked over discarded boxes and headed for the main part of the factory. The twenty-five-thousandsquare-foot room was empty of everything but dust. Round, discolored markings remained on the wooden floors where the machines had been bolted in place. Half the panes of glass were gone after decades of vandals, baseballs, and misguided birds. "This room draws in too much daylight," Alexander said, looking at the missing windows. "Let's keep looking." Alexander kindly held out his hand, like a Victorian gentleman, and with his flashlight led me down a dark two-flight staircase. We passed through what must have been an employee locker room. The windowless room seemed ripe for a vampire to call home. Several metal lockers remained against the wall and even a few wooden benches. It now seemed like a dumping ground for garbage, littered with pop cans, bags, and a few discarded bicycle tires. No coffins were evident. The basement was huge, cold, and damp. Several mammoth-size furnaces filled the center of the room. I could almost hear the deafening roar of the once-burning kindling. Now the metal doors were rusty and unhinged, and a few were lying against the cement wall. "Wow, with a few more spiderwebs and a couple of ghosts, this place would be perfect," I said. "This could be ours," Alexander said, holding me close. "We could put your easel over here," I said, pointing to an empty corner. "There would be plenty of room for you to paint." "We could make shelves for your Hello Batty collection." "And bring in a huge TV to watch scary movies. I wouldn't have to go to school and it could be dark twenty-four hours a day." "No one would bother us, not even soccer snobs or vengeful vampires," Alexander said with a smile. Just then we heard a barking sound. "What was that?" I asked. Alexander raised his eyebrow and listened. "We'd better go." He offered his hand and he led me out of the basement toward the front of the building. In a small alcove Alexander found another staircase and lit our way back to the main floor. While Alexander explored an office room, I investigated a hallway filled with boxes, a piece of cardboard