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在寂静的深夜，躲在被窝里读一本惊悚小说，可谓一件赏心乐事;但如果就在你深深陷入故事情节当中之时，从房间的黑暗角落里突然发出吱吱怪响…… We lived in a two-story wooden house in a part of Berkeley[1] where the tall shade trees were as old as the University of California itself. I was a bookworm, the kind who would read with a flashlight[2] under the covers after he was supposed to be asleep. Occasionally, I would be left alone at night, and I would lie on my stomach with my book propped on my pillow, immersed in fantasy as only an imaginative boy can be immersed in the creations of writers like Robert Louis Stevenson, H. Rider Haggard, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and, of course, Edgar Allan Poe.[3] My bed lamp hooked over the headboard was the only light on in the entire house, and my bed was like Robinson Crusoe’s island.[4] Whenever I was home alone like that, I would hope I could enjoy my snug solitude until I heard our car outside, the front door opening downstairs, and had my evening of pleasure capped with a glass of milk and a peanut-butter-and-marmalade sandwich.[5] But sometimes I was disturbed by noises I would try my best to ignore.[6] One of the noises was an eerie creaking—a prolonged ee-ee-ahh-ahh—which, try as I might, I couldn’t help imagining was the sound of a secret door being opened by a hooded figure who shared the house with us and only came out when he knew I was alone. | 
