Excerpt of The Trophy Exchange by Diane Fanning

Eight-year-old Charley Spencer bounded up the broad white steps of the porch of her curlicue-embellished Victorian home. She pushed open the heavy front door then turned back to the street and waved goodbye to her best friend Becca and her mother as they drove away from the curb.

She pushed the door closed and hollered, “Mo-oo-om, Ru-uu-bee.” The smell of fresh baked cookies made her smile. She dropped her knapsack by the foot of the elegant, curved wooden stairway that led to the second floor.

The tantalizing smell drew her into the kitchen with the single-minded intensity of a dog to sizzling bacon. On the counter beside the oven, a baking sheet sat half-full of sagging but still rounded globs of cookie dough. On the island, a dozen chocolate chip cookies covered the cooling rack. She snatched one and sank her teeth in—just the way she liked them, crunchy on the edges, gooey in the middle and sweet enough to break a heart.

She gobbled the cookie up with 100-yard dash speed then grabbed another one. The second one she would savor—taking tiny bites letting the chocolate soften and ooze across her tongue and allowing each little crunch of walnut to release a separate burst of flavor.

She munched on the cookie as she went back into the hallway. She spewed cookie crumbs into the air as she shouted out again, “Mo-oo-om, Ru-uu-bee.” She wiped her lips with the back of her hand as she climbed the stairway to the second floor. She called out for her mother and sister again as she entered Ruby’s bedroom. No one there. She looked in her own bedroom. Nope not there. Then she headed to the master bedroom suite. It used to be two bedrooms but that was one of the things her parents had changed in the large, old house—taking out a wall and adding a walk-in closet and a huge master bath.

She saw no one in the bedroom. Poked her head in the bathroom and no one was there either. She walked into the closet and went to the back corner where a cubbyhole jutted off with more storage. Unease creased her brow and turned the cookie crumbs in her mouth into irritating pebbles. Then, she heard footsteps downstairs and grinned as she rushed down to the first floor. On the bottom landing, she jerked to a sudden stop. The front door was hanging wide open.

She sucked in a deep breath. I closed that door when I came in. I know I did, she thought. She expelled air in her lungs and headed over to the door to see if Mom and Ruby were on the front porch looking for her to come home. She saw nothing but the steps, the intricate white railings and a very still green porch swing.

She stepped back in the house, pushed the door shut with both hands, then turned around and pushed against it with her back for good measure. That’s when she noticed the door under the stairs was wide open, too. The door to the basement. Charley hated the basement. She didn’t like going into the finished area where concrete covered the floor of the laundry room and a washer, dryer and laundry tub stood ready for duty. Even worse was the unfinished part of the cellar with its dirt floor and spider webs. Just thinking about that part of the basement suffused her senses with primordial dread.

That was why she was uncomfortable in the brightly lit laundry room. Whenever she was there she was consumed by a painful awareness that the dark, musty underworld of the house laid just beyond the door. She imagined a realm ruled by legions of rats. She’d never actually seen one but her fantasy vision contained creatures with shiny demon eyes, fang-like teeth, thick, long, whip-like tails and claws capable of shredding flesh from bones in seconds flat.

She stood at the top of the open wood plank stairs and trembled. “Mom? Ruby?” Her voice quavered. She heard a small whimper and forced a foot down one step. “Mom? Ruby?” formed a lump in her throat as it escaped from her mouth. She took another step. “Mom? Ruby? Mom?”

She smelled the musty odor that reminded her of dark dreams and forbidden places. In the bottom corner of the stairway, she saw a brown six-legged predator dangling from the ceiling on a silken thread. It swung in small arcs in the draft caused by the open door. She shivered in revulsion. Goosebumps raced up and down her arms and legs.

She heard a sloppy wet sound that made her want to turn, run up the stairs, slam the door, hide under her bed. She breathed in deeply and exhaled hard. The calming breath jogged a familiar memory. The sloppy noise sounded the same as those Ruby made when she sucked her thumb. But Ruby hadn’t sucked her thumb since before last summer. “Mom? Ruby?”

She took another step and bent over. She peered through the banister to the basement below. She saw Ruby sitting on the floor—one thumb in her mouth. The fingers of her other hand tangled in her hair twisting with quiet desperation. “Ruby!” Charley shouted.

Ruby scooted back on her rump snuggling closer to the lump on the floor. The lump was their mother. Charley screamed. Ruby cringed and sucked on her thumb at a more furious pace.

Their mother stretched out flat on the cold, hard slab. A concrete block rested flat on her face. Her arms sprawled at angles from her sides as if she was caught in the act of making angels in the snow. Ruby pushed back farther into the triangle formed between her mother’s arm and her torso.

The rats fled from Charley’s mind. The real horror exceeded the capacity of her imagination and was right before her eyes. She raced down the remaining stairs.