This is at the house on Marigold Street. I'm fifteen or sixteen and it is October, but not quite Halloween yet, but it is dark early and I am sitting in the living room in my dad's recliner watching a spooky movie on the TV. My sisters Anne and Carla are on the couch to my left transfixed by the evil doings in a dungeon. Vincent Price is in the movie and I'm pretty sure it is "The Pit and the Pendulum" adapted from a story by Poe.
I can't remember much of the movie, but I read the short story, once, and knew there was a big pit and a clockwork pendulum with a sharp crescent blade that creeps closer, with each pass, to the victim tied to an altar, threatening to eventually cut him in two bloody pieces.
My mom is out shopping and nobody else is home except for my dad, and he announces from the kitchen doorway that he is headed down to Fred Meyers for some brass screws for the screen door hinge. I nod and go back to watching and hear the door to the garage open and close.
