They had never seen anything like it. The mansion was bigger than all eight of their houses combined. The whole yard was surrounded by a wall of black bricks that lead up to a tall spiked fence in the front that had a knight statue on either side. EY peered through two of the rusted rods to get a better look.

It had definitely been abandoned for quite some time. The shingles were falling off, there were no lights on, and the windows were covered with dust and cobwebs.

Dallas shook the gate, but it hardly moved out of place. "It's locked," he stated.

"Well of course it is," Alexis said matter-of-factly. "We're not supposed to go in there."

"Why?" Dallas questioned. "You shouldn't be scared. You're the one who said haunted mansions weren't real."

"They're not," Alexis said tensely. They were not seeing the big picture here. Sometimes she felt like some of her friends were among the most ignorant people on the face of the earth. "Breaking into someone else's property isn't legal," she pointed out.

Ignoring her, Lindsey pulled a bobby pin out from underneath her ponytail, releasing a few loose hairs. She stuck it in the keyhole and began to turn it into several different positions.

"Lindsey, this is trespassing." Alexis grew more agitated as well as frantic. She could not be caught breaking the law. Criminal records did not look good on college applications. "Let's go home."

"Relax," Lindsey told her, still trying to pick the lock. "We're not gonna get in trouble. Nobody lives here."

Alexis sighed, annoyed, and Brian turned to her. "You do realize that by telling her that she's not supposed to do something, that just makes her want to do it even more," he commented. He had been best friends with Lindsey for twelve years. That had always just been a part of her nature.

With one last turn, Lindsey was able to break the lock and the gates opened up with a loud creak.

Most of them stepped in, but Alexis refused. "This is illegal," she repeated. "We should not be-"

But she wasn't able to finish her sentence.

The knight statue had run its lance through her causing her to collapse on the spot.

The others stood speechless. They couldn't process what had just happened, not that they had time to. Both knights were advancing towards them.

After racking her brain, Zoey screamed the only logical solution that came to mind. "Run!"

They didn't need to be told twice. They sprinted away from the knights, but as they traveled through the yard, there seemed to be more of them, as if they were popping up out of nowhere.

"Call the police," Miguel cried.

"Like we'll have cell service," Brian retorted.

"Like they'll believe us!" EY exclaimed. She could only imagine the conversation.

Uh....Hello officer....Our friend's been killed....By who, you ask? A living knight statue that guards a haunted mansion......Hello?.........Officer?

At best, they would be thought of as a group of teenagers trying to pull a Halloween prank.

Zack looked around at the knights that were closing in on them. They seemed to be everywhere. While backing away from one of them, he ran into another one.

He screamed frantically as it lifted him off the ground, but it did no help. Within seconds, the knight sliced him with its long knife. EY gasped in terror.Why did I have to find that note, she wondered. And why did it have to interest me?

She was so intrigued by the legend, that when she got home, she actually did research. She couldn't find anything about it though. Maybe the legend was right. Maybe anyone that comes in never comes out. "What are we gonna do," she said through a straining voice.

Lindsey looked at the house then back at her friends as if to say, how crazy am I?

As terrifying as the idea sounded, it made sense. They decided to run in the only direction that the knights weren't coming from: Towards the mansion.

When they reached the entrance Miguel pulled on the handle of the giant wooden door. He couldn't get it to move until Dallas helped him, although he was too distracted by fear to feel embarrassed about it.

Once they were in, they slammed the door shut.

Miguel looked out the window; he couldn't see the knights any more. It was so dark, he couldn't see much of anything.

The remaining six had made it past the gate, but little did they know that the mansion was much more dangerous on the inside.