Sic'em

Rumor had it that when Skiles Test's wife died, the reclusive and eccentric millionaire embalmed her in a glass gasket inside his dilapidated mansion on the northeast side of Indianapolis. He lit her up with blue lights, and at night her ghost left the gasket to roam the grounds around the house, scaring anyone who dare step one foot on the property.

The House of Blue Lights was not far from Lawrence Central High School, but its exact location was not known. The property surrounded by barbed wire and guard dogs was hidden somewhere in the hills west of Shadeland Drive and north of Fall Creek. That's all my friends and I knew, but the mystery and intrigue of such a scary place and the nagging desire to be the first students at Lawrence to actually step foot on the property, peek through the windows, and report back that we saw the blue dead wife in her glass gasket was what drove my friends and I to our near death experience one Saturday night in the summer of 1963.

My memory of the night begins inside a car driven by a boy who (or is it whom?) I had never met before this night. He was drinking, as were his two friends sitting next to him in the front seat. There were five of us in the backseat, only two of whom (or is it who?) I knew: My friend, Petie Peterson, and Gary Perkins, one of my crushes.

This was the night, our drunk driver promised us, when the mystery of The House of Blue Lights would be revealed. He knew exactly where the house was because he had been there  many times before, he said. Petie, Gary, and I would be the first Lawrence Central students to finally witness it and then tell all of our friends.

The driver parked the car off the side of the road about a hundred feet from a narrow dirt lane that was overgrown with weeds. Across the lane was a cable that kept cars out but not teenagers looking for an adventure. It was pitch black out so Petie and I held on to each other as the boys led the way through the darkness.  The lane dead ended at a lake and perched on a hill overlooking the water was a large, beautiful mansion. This was not at all what I expected. Where was the run-down mansion?  I didn't see any barbed wire. I thought there would be blue lights. And what about the guard do.....

Without warning, the night lit up and we were all now standing in daylight. At the mansion, a door opened and a man's silhouette stood in the threshold. Two objects sped past him as he shouted "SIC'EM!!" Five of the boys raced back up the dirt road; Gary, Petie and I headed for the lake. We ran the length of the dock and with no options left, we jumped in. I grabbed ahold of a pylon and Petie grabbed ahold of me. Two Doberman Pinschers were on the dock now looking for flesh and blood, our flesh and blood. We stayed under the water as long as we could, but we had to come up for air. When we did, the dogs were right there, heads hanging over the edge of the dock, inches above us, eager to devour the trespassers on their property. To get away from the dogs, Petie and I moved under the dock, but where was Gary? He had jumped in the lake with us, but he was nowhere in sight.

Ten minutes passed, then fifteen. The dogs were still on top of us but no longer in a state of frenzy. When we heard the owner call them back inside the house, Gary left the safety of his pylon and joined Petie and me.  Water logged, we sloshed our way back to the car. They thought we were dead, the drunk driver and his friends said. Torn to shreds by the killer dogs. Yeah, we thought we were dead too.

While Petie, Gary and I were hanging out under a dock waiting to die a horrible death, our driver and his friends were back at the car discussing our unfortunate fate while enjoying a few beers. When we showed up soaking wet but unscathed, everyone laughed. Ha! Ha! What a funny story to tell our friends, we all said. Then our drunk driver stepped on the gas pedal and sped on down the road. Whew! What a relief. We were safe now.