"Houses settle."

Alice heard the phrase time and time and time again from countless people. Friends, Family. A one-night stand she'd regretted the next morning.

All of them, of course, seemed keen on ignoring the fact her home was by no means of new construction. Renovated, perhaps, but the structure itself was well over 100 years old. A massive beachside Victorian, one that would go for millions, if only her family would sell it.

But no. It had been in the family for decades. Acquired during a poker match, if her great-uncle John was to be believed. And Alice did not believe him, not since she'd learned the amount of liquor he imbibed in. She'd been the one to clean out the house after that same great uncle's death last year. Liver disease, who would've guessed.

She wasn't its sole owner- it was split between her and her cousins- but Alice was its only resident, and thus the only one privy to its charm.

Particularly the charm of the leftmost hallway on the second floor, next to the guest rooms. Alice slept on the other side of the house, and yet she could hear the whining of the hallways aching floors from there.

She'd identified the culprit her first week in the house. A single dark-wood floorboard. It whined to her every day, and Alice swore it egged the rest of the house into joining its off-key harmony.

She'd had handyman after handyman in to look at the thing, and once even a carpenter, but none of them had anything to say about the insolent board.

Over the months, Alice had become convinced it creaked simply to torture her. Its melody was inconsistent, sometimes achingly high and others a bone-shaking moan. It stuttered, it laughed, it broke. Or it sang like a devilish choir. Its song was bound to the bones of the house; a house Alice had grown to loathe. She suddenly understood her great-uncle John.

She'd hoped it wouldn't come to this. Alice had wanted to preserve the market-value of the place- and oh did buyers love to talk about "original hardwoods"- but she couldn't stand it any longer.

Alice moseyed into the leftmost hallway of the second floor, a bottle of red in one hand and a hammer in the other. She didn't turn on the lights, the silver sheen of the full moon through the window provided more than enough visibility for Alice to do what she needed to do.

Removing the board was a surprisingly simple process, but certainly not a quiet one. It gasped under the head of her hammer, cried as she pried it from its brothers and sisters. cracked when she threw it over her shoulder.

Silence.

She could hear her own breath.

She glanced down into the hold left behind, then frowned. She'd expected it to be empty. Yet, glinting in the moonlight, shone countless bottles of amber liquid.

She downed the rest of her wine and reached down into the hole.

Bourbon. Cheap. She didn't like bourbon. She cracked open a bottle and took a heavy swig, coughing as she swallowed.

Alice decided she ought to take up poker.