Dares Go Last

Book excerpt: Every region, every city, every neighborhood has its haunted house. But no area has an edifice like the Grussen Place. The Grussen Place was built almost a century ago in a swampy region across the Mississippi River miles from the nearest village of Westwego. It was built on a land that was inhabited by an indigenous people that dwelt there ages before the Native Americans settled the region, a region they soon enough vacated, leaving it to its cryptic secrets. Dark rituals were held on that site, making it an unholy ground. Nobody knew about the evil that still hovered over that area until doctor Arthur Grussen, a reclusive physician who had a secret of his own he didnt wish to share, built his opulent home there at the turn of the century. Nobody ever found out exactly what had happened to the Grussens. Legend has it that one of the children disappeared on a Halloween, followed by the wife and another child. Eventually the house was left alone, abandoned on the accursed plot of ground where it withered and decayed for decades. As time and progress moved forward, civilization rediscovered the Grussen Place with a tragic death that occurred as a result of a Halloween dare over thirty years ago. Now the legend of the Halloween dare is widely known in areas stretching all the way to the other side of the river and into New Orleans. Jip is a likeable thirteen year old kid whose biggest weakness is his determination to be accepted by his peers and Darren is a rather unlikable seventeen year old who tauntingly relates the legend and the dare to Jip. Being basically a sensible, and somewhat scary, kid, Jip scoffs at the invitation at first; but fears of his friends labeling him a coward, and other developments, eventually goad Jip into taking the most dangerous step of his life. He decides to take Darren up, with some rather interesting conditions and terms, on a dare to visit the Grussen Place, at an hour near midnight, on Halloween. It is a dare he will soon discover he should have never, ever made! The full fury of the horror that lives on that land and the legend itself comes to life, unfolding in this tale. By the end of this story many questions about what exactly happened at the Grussen Place are answered, and many new ones are raisednever to be answered. Go ahead and read on, but do it alone, at night, in a dark room with the only light being just enough illumination for reading the book. Go ahead! I dare you!