Refrigerator in the Dark (Or Stained Carpet & Screwdrivers)

This small three story brick building was built in 1890, one of the oldest –the oldest?- surviving storefront on Main Street. The building is only 18 feet wide, but it is 54 feet deep. Those are the outside measurements, so the inside is slightly smaller; I can claim about 800 square feet of interior space on each floor. Eight hundred square feet is not very big by today’s standards, but I suspect in 1890 it was pretty large – especially considering it was the first structure of its type in the city, not yet dwarfed by larger buildings.
This second floor must have been an apartment, relatively recently occupied (sometime in the last 10 years?). A commercial grade blue carpet with thick padding covers the floor in the two big front rooms. The back two rooms, smaller, are not padded and the carpet looks to be a grayer shade of this same blue, though it may just be from the stains that inhabit that area (the smallest room – the fourth room back from the front is –was- the kitchen). (There is a fifth room, though it’s only accessible from the stair hallway, not through the kitchen: The Furnace Room. It’s dark and scary back there, but more about the dark in a bit…).
While this level was relatively clean, black cobwebs had taken up residence on the baseboards and window and door sills. They are very thick and stick to the broom bristles – and to my hand when trying to get them into the garbage bag – ick. The refrigerator – a little old electric ‘ice box’- was covered in a sticky black soot, but I haven’t yet taken the ketchup-crusted (at least I hope it’s ketchup) bottom cover off of the front to see what’s living underneath. It was bad enough that it wouldn’t open. I pulled at the handle (remember the old ‘death-trap’ latching handles?) and could hear the latch moving, but the door would not come open. When PC came up and tried to open it, he pulled so hard he pulled it out away from the wall and then just kept dragging it. Nothing. Screech and Dozer – in their dark-is-scary-and-I-don’t-like-spiders-voices- decided that there must be something in the refrigerator: spiders? a raccoon? a dead body? Severed heads lined up with eyeballs open and staring (yes, that was it!)?
Did I mention that it’s dark in here? In there where the refrigerator sits in the fourth room away from these front windows it’s very dark and the stains on the floor look darker in the beam of a flashlight. There is no power to the second floor. It just doesn’t work. The wiring looks to be updated like the first floor, but nothing. At least not yet; PC has an appointment with the power company – he’ll meet someone here and they will inspect their lines up to and including the meter. After that, we’ll get an electrician to inspect all of the wiring on the second floor (Each floor is metered separately, so that’s been a good thing). In the meantime it’s awfully dark – did I mention that?
To put the Jeffrey Dahmer rumors to rest I armed Screech with the brightest flashlight and Dozer with the biggest screwdriver (think crowbar) that I could find. I grabbed a reasonable sized screwdriver and we climbed the steps to the second floor (there are twenty-two of them! – steps, not floors). Really, what happened was that I started up and Screech and Dozer stood at the bottom arguing about who would go next. When I was about halfway up –beginning to disappear into the gloom- Screech decided she was next because she sure wasn’t coming up last – something might get her from behind. We all made it to the top at about the same time. (Okay – I admit they moved faster after I let loose a deep evil laugh that echoed pretty well in the stairwell. But I had a good reason– it was getting dark and Screech had the flashlight, though she mostly used it to shine all around herself and into all the dark corners to make sure nothing was sneaking up on her or there were no giant spiders or creepy dead hands –or heads- reaching for her. Not the best choice for a designated flashlight handler, but it was one way to get her up the stairs.)
After running the flashlight over every wall, carpet stain, ceiling and double-just-to-make-sure-inspections of each corner and the trim around the doorways, Screech stood with the beam of the flashlight on the refrigerator door. At least until Dozer moved into the light. I backed him off a few feet and he tensed up, drawing his giant screwdriver back like a baseball bat. I jammed the flat blade of my screwdriver into the crack of the door and silently prayed for an empty refrigerator – an odd wish, but entirely appropriate to the circumstances. I mean, what if – just if – there was something bad in there? I was willing to bet we could go down the stairs a helluva lot faster than we came up (I would try to keep us all from rolling down those twenty-two steps, though I sure wouldn’t slow us up any if, in fact, the refrigerator was a gruesome serial killer storage bin).
The first attempt to pry only resulted in a sucking/cracking noise as the old seal started to give way. I didn’t smell anything rotten (or formaldehyde-preserved) so I felt a little bit braver.
“Dozer, you’ll have to pull on the door handle while I pry, okay?” With the latch undone it only took sliding the screwdriver between the seal and the door in a couple more spots for it to come open. I couldn’t see Screech’s face behind the light, but Dozer’s eyes were wide. I had the first view and was thankful to see nothing but the old wire shelves and egg holes. I pushed it all the way open. I’m not sure if they were relieved or disappointed.
“The refrigerator looks pretty good, but what about the freezer?” I asked, grabbing hold of the metal door at the top of the ice box compartment.
“Ahhh, Mom…..”