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And he’d just reached a fork in the road, and taken a left turn, when suddenly lightning flashed once again, only this time hitting much closer. It actually struck a willow tree close by and the sparks made Elon utter an inadvertent yelp of fear.

Yikes. This horrible storm was not only inconvenient but also seriously dangerous! Hadn’t he once read about a man being struck by lightning in just such a storm? And what had the advice been? To hide under a tree? Or not to hide under a tree? He couldn’t remember. One thing he shouldn’t do was stand still in the middle of the street. Or ride an iron bicycle on the open road…He looked around for a moment, wondering whether to go on or to take cover for a moment. Maybe let the worst of the storm blow over.

He wiped the rain from his eyes and glanced over to the old Buschmann house, just beyond the bend. Rumor had it that the place was haunted by the ghost of old Royce Buschmann. Nonsense, of course. Old man Buschmann had simply died and the house had fallen into disrepair, its owner having had no children or siblings to inherit the place.

Lightning struck once more, eerily illuminating the old structure. He shivered, and not just from being soaked through and through. It was almost as if the house had a soul. As if an evil entity possessed it. Even as a child he’d never been able to pass the house without a shiver, and to this day he preferred to take the other road into town, and avoid this part of the neighborhood.

He didn’t look away, though. For some reason he couldn’t, his gaze inexorably drawn to that hideous facade, those dormer windows like eyes, that gaping mouth for a door.

He suddenly realized that he’d stopped, and instead of bicycling away from the house as fast as his chilled legs could carry him, he was actually getting off his bike and approaching the house, as if some dark and mysterious force compelled him.

Thunder made the earth quake, and he snapped out of his strange reverie.

He’d simply had one too many to drink, and wasn’t thinking straight right now.

And that’s when he saw it: a pale face was staring right back at him from inside the house! A horrible face with eyes black as coal. It was old man Buschmann himself!

But before he could drag his eyes away from the hideous sight, something exploded across his skull. A sudden pain bloomed at the back of his head. And he knew no more.

Chapter 1

“Well, you can’t have it.”

“Yes, I can!”

“Over my dead body!”

“That can be arranged!”

I sat watching the spectacle like a spectator at the US Open.

“Who are you rooting for, Max?” asked Dooley, who was sitting next to me and enjoying the same show.

“I’m not sure,” I confessed. “Normally I’d root for Tex, as he often seems to be the voice of reason in this crazy family, but I feel that Gran has a point, too.”

“I agree,” said Dooley, which wasn’t a big surprise. After all, Grandma Muffin is his human, and if only out of a sense of self-preservation cats often take the side of the humans that feed them. Hypocritical, I know, but there you go.

“I need one of those newfangled smartphones and if you won’t buy me one I’m moving out!”

“Fine!” said Tex. “Move out if you want. See if I care!”

The two opponents stood at daggers drawn, both with their arms crossed in front of their chests, and their noses practically touching.

“I need that phone!” Gran tried again, clearly not as keen on moving out as her threat had promised.

“No, you don’t. You have a perfectly functioning smartphone and that’ll have to do!”

We were in Marge and Tex’s kitchen, where all good fights between Tex and his mother-in-law usually take place.

“My phone is old—I need a new one.”

“It’s not old—it’s practically brand-new!”

“It’s five years old! It’s an antique!”

“My phone is five years old, and you don’t hear me complaining.”

“That’s because you’re an antique yourself.”

“Sticks and stones, ma. Sticks and stones.”

“You probably got my phone at a frickin’ yard sale!”

In actual fact Tex had bought Gran’s phone on eBay, but he wasn’t going to let an insignificant little detail like that derail a perfectly good fight.

“It’s as good as new, and it’ll have to do.”

“It’s an iPhone five! They’re already up to ten or eleven!”

“So? If every time Apple comes out with a new iPhone I have to buy you one, I’d be broke!”

He had a point, and Dooley murmured his agreement, as did I. At the rate these smartphone manufacturers kept putting out new models you could spend a fortune, especially as they kept getting more and more expensive. The latest ones cost well over a thousand bucks. A thousand dollars for a silly little gadget! Nuts. It just goes to show that there’s no limit to the avarice of your latter-day capitalist when he hits on a guileless public willing to part with its hard-earned cash. Or, in this case, Tex’s hard-earned cash.

“Ma, you don’t need a new phone,” said Marge, also entering the argument, albeit reluctantly, as nothing good ever came from getting into a fight with her mother.