Where is it?

Where?

I yank open cupboards, slamming them shut, pull open drawers, rummage around, and move on to the next. I know they have to be here somewhere, I KNOW it.

Okay. Not in the kitchen. The pantry? No. Bathroom? No.

Bedroom?

Oh, HELL no.

Hmmm.

Oh wait. Wait. There’s one place left I haven’t looked. Where’s that trap door?

There it is. Oh boy.

I hate going up there. I hate it. Full of spider webs, and dust, and who knows what else? Like mouse droppings and bats and stale musty mothballs. Gross.

But I need them, I NEED them, so I decide I’ll go up.

Pulling the trapdoor open to release the stairs is a total pain. Only the fact that I need them is driving me on. The trapdoor creaks open, a fine silting of dust falling onto my upturned nose and making me sneeze. I finally get the stairs down, and gingerly place my foot on the bottom step. I look upward with trepidation, gazing into the dark yawning maw of the attic with a combination of faltering determination and a growing worm of disgust squirming in my belly.

Taking a deep breath, I climb.

On the second to last step, the toe of my Chuck Taylors caught the riser and I tripped. Throwing out my arms, I barely prevent a hard-core meeting of the attic floor and my nose. I pitch forward, my momentum causing me to fall up and forward, banging my shins and sprawling amid the dustballs and cobwebs and who knows what else. I gather myself and climb to my feet, only to bang my head on a low-hanging rafter. I open my mouth to curse, and suck in a great lungful of dust, mothballs, and something else I don’t care to identify.

Gagging now, only caring that I find the light, look around, and get out of this hellhole, I stumble forward looking for the light pull. Something crawls across my face, cold and slick…I scrape frantically at my cheeks till I realize it’s the ball-chain pull for the bare lightbulb in the ceiling. I yank it, hurriedly, and the attic is suddenly illuminated with the thin light of the single bulb.

Nothing is jumping out at me, nothing hanging over my head…but who knows what’s lurking outside this fragile circle of light?

I cast my eyes about frantically, searching for the telltale signs of my quarry…nothing. Nothing but old childhood toys and, old and forgotten in the corner of the puddle of light, an ouija board. A striped, furry tail draped over the side of an open box gave me a scare until I realized at last that it was just the old raccoon-tail hat that my grandparents gave me two Christmases ago. Not what I am looking for!

Nothing, nothing, and NOTHING!

Dammit. I was so sure…

Wait. WAIT!

There, in the corner. Was that a flash of orange and blue? Was it? WAS IT?

Oh, yeah. Oh yeah, it was. YES!

I snatch the bag and run downstairs again, barely remembering to yank off the light, and skid to a stop in the kitchen. With trembling hands, I unroll the bag that I have snatched from the confines of the attic. I sigh with relief.

I KNEW we still had cheesy poofs somewhere.

LFB Topic this week: You’re looking through an attic, and find something. Doesn’t matter what, just…something. Include mention of ouiji board and a raccoon-tail hat.