but this time it would not budge. "Daddy, mom, I can't get it open" she said in a frightened voice. "Good grief, now we're in BIG trouble" moaned Steele, rolling his eyes skyward. "Trapped alive inside a haunted house with no means of escape" "Aaaaaaaaugh!" cried Boris like Charlie Brown and almost passed out in a dead faint.

At the same time the unseen voice continued speaking although no one present was revealed as the speaker. "When hinges creak in doorless chambers...and strange and frightening sounds echo through the walls...Whenever candlelights flicker, when the air is deathlessly still...that is the time when ghosts are present...Practicing their terror with ghoulish delight...Welcome foolish mortals to the haunted mansion...I am your host, your Ghost Host...kindly step this way, there's no turning back now...You will not be harmed, but you will not be released until you take a tour of my home...We have so few visitors, live ones that is..." It was then the unseen voice erupted into giggling laughter as if the Ghost Host just played a mean joke to scare his visitors. "Hmhmmhmmmahahahahahahaah..." then regained composure and said, "Our tour begins here in this ghostly gallery..." Just then, a wooden door at one end of the parlor beside the fireplace opened as if by unseen hands revealing another room beyond. Balto, Boris, Kodi, Jenna, Aleu and Steele too frightened to find another way out, obeyed their host's voice and entered the candle-lit gallery with little or no knowledge of what was about to happen to them. 

PART 2

The art gallery the canines entered was a large octagonal shaped room with 8 towering walls on all sides. Four huge portraits hung on a backdrop of bubblegum-striped colored wallpaper and beneath that was wood paneling. Above was a plaster relief ceiling recessed in the center of the chamber. Sixteen gargoyle statues perched atop a narrow ledge just below the paintings with candles in their stone claw hands and leering down at the dogs & wolves with evil grinning faces. As Balto, Aleu, Jenna, Kodi, Steele and Boris stepped into the room the door behind them slid closed. "Balto, we should not have come in here" Jenna said with a worried _expression on her face, "I'm scared" she replied. Balto began looking around in confusion and disbelief "I don't see a way out. There are no doors, not even a window" "Oh, that's just great. Now we're trapped in yet another portion of this cursed haunted house" complained Boris "With no way out at the moment" "I agree with you, goose" Steele responded in kind, even though fear was shown on his face as well.

Meanwhile the unseen Ghost Host's voice began speaking as his voice travels around the length of the chamber. "Here, in the gallery...you see there paintings of some of our residents...As they appeared in their coruptable mortal state...Even in this flickering gloom, your cadavorous pallor betrays an aura of foreboding...your trusting mortal eyes tell you that these walls are streching..." Suddenly without warning it appeared as though the paintings were streching-expanding themselves than their origional forms. "What's going on?" demanded Kodi in shock as he stared in stunned disbelief at the scene before his eyes, "What's happening to the paintings?" "Th-they're streching!" cried Aleu as she too gazed in horror. "Why, the walls are moving too! The ceiling's going up, away from our heads" Jenna gasped in alarm. "This can't be right, it can't be real" Balto replied, a look of terror in his eyes as he watched the paintings get taller and longer. "But logic says no, it's mere hallucination..." the Ghost Host continued his narrative guided tour, "Then look above you, examine everything carefully...your logic cannot deny that this chamber has no windows and no doors...Which offers a rather logical challenge, to find a way out...hmhmmhmmmahahahahaah...Of course, there's always my way..."

At that precise moment with those chilling words spoken all the candles in the gallery went out as if by an unfelt wind while lightning flashed from above the room illuminating the attic area, there seemed to be no roof. From the rafters a corpse of a dead body, perhaps that of the Ghost Host himself swayed, dangling from its neck by a taut rope. Once more the chamber plunged into total darkness but not before a loud ghost scream shattered the stillness of an unseen victim falling to his death, the voice fading away. "AHHHHHHHHhhhhhhh!!!..." to be swallowed by another booming crash of thunder. This caused the wolves, huskies and snowgoose to freeze in terror with eyes wide and mouths agape, unable to move or speak! Just then a black crow from out of nowhere flew into the gallery and perched atop one of the gargoyle statues, illuminated by another lightning strike. The bird peered down at the frightened canines beneath it and spoke in a voice that was not its own. "Caw-caw, the courage way out. He chose the courage way out, caw-caw-caw!" then it spread its wings and flew away to disappear into the darkness again.

Jenna huddled close to Balto during what seemed to be an endless darkness, Kodi and Aleu shivered in fear, Steele himself appeared the most afraid, eyes darting this way and that as if sensing an attack from nowhere at any minute while Boris had passed out dead on the floor. In a few seconds the candles relit like magic to reveal the gallery restored to normal size once more, it was as if nothing had happened. "What the heck?" exclaimed Steele, looking around in confusion. "The gallery, it-it's normal again" "Yes, like nothing really happened while we were in here" said Kodi who also stared at the portraits, "At least the paintings are normal again, no longer streching" "Whew, maybe we were only imagining that this chamber was streching, our minds playing tricks on our eyes" said Balto. Jenna was about to agree with her husband-mate when she suddenly heard a strange sound from across the gallery and turned in that direction.

"Hey, look!" she said, pointing and the others turned to see what she saw. There, a secret panel had slid sideways to expose a dimly lit hallway beyond. "I wonder where it leads?" asked Aleu curiously, "Well, guess there's only one way to find out" she told herself and started towards the opening. "Wait, Aleu!" cried Balto, "You don't know what's out there. We should go together, to protect each other from danger" "Okay, father if you wish" Aleu agreed and both wolves cautiously walked through the doorway with Jenna, Boris, Kodi and Steele on their heels, none of them knowing what they would encounter next on this strange and bizzare journey into the unknown.

PART 3

On the left side were windows revealing a grotesque landscape frequently illuminated by the lightning flashes. On the right side of the corridor were large portraits and when the lightning flashed, these paintings turned into wierd shapes and ghostly creatures. "We should never have come in here" complained Kodi who was begining to have second doubts about the whole situation "But we can't leave now since the Ghost Host said there's no turning back" "Yeah, so we have to keep looking for another way out of this house, if there is one" Steele added, he too was not happy about being trapped inside a haunted house. Suddenly without warning came a loud sound like rustling wings passing overhead which was followed by a ghost scream. "AAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!" the unseen voice cried out, startling the canines who all started in shock and alarm. "What's that?!" cried Jenna with eyes wide in fright as she glanced around the hallway nervously. "Did someone just shriek?" Aleu wanted to know. It was at that moment the Ghost Host appologized for frightening his visitors. "Did someone scream?...ahh, we didn't mean to frighten you prematurely...Apparently, the restless spirit of an old witch has taken possession of that poor, wretched crow's mortal being...Be on your guard, it may want to better itself...hmhmmhmmmahahahahaah, come along now..."

"What crow, where?" Boris shouted, looking around in every direction to see where the attack came from. "I don't see any crow flying about" "There it goes, goose" Steele said, gesturing with a paw and everybody turned to see the black bird soaring away into the shadows before it vanished once again. "Grrrrrrrr, why that dumb bird" growled Balto with eyes narrowed, teeth bared and ears flat, "I ought to pluck out every one of its feathers" "Me too, daddy" snarled Aleu in response, both wolves were not pleased of being frightened so easily. "Like father, like daughter" Steele said to himself. "Eh?" asked Boris, "Never mind..." Steele snapped back, irritated. "I was referring about them" he explained. "Oh, right" Boris agreed. "There are several prominent ghosts who have retired here from creepy old crypts all over the world...Actually, we have 999 happy haunts here but there's room for 1000, any volunteers, hmm?..." asked the Ghost Host as he led his visitors down the hallway past the morphing portraits. When he said those words the wolves and huskies were shocked and stunned to hear him say that. In fact they did not wish to volunteer as permantent ghosts in this house! "If you insist on playing coward, lagging behind...you may not need to volunteer..." said the Ghost Host with a chuckle. Balto, Aleu, Kodi, Jenna, Boris and