Possible Hint at Next Short Story

I’m still at the initial step of brainstorming ideas for my next short story, but I think I’ve arrived at a good basis for a story. This story will be more rooted in reality than “Forgotten Houses” was.

I know, I usually don’t choose a title for a story until I’m either done with it or far enough into it that I can think of a fitting title. The following might end up being the title (and banner) of this new short story, but no promises. This late at night, it sounds like a good title, but I could just as easily go with something else.

We’ll see what I end up with.

Forgotten House – Listings

Just to keep things straight in my mind, here’s a list of links to the text and audio entries for this short story.

Part One [Audio Recording]
Part Two [Audio Recording]
Part Three [Audio Recording]
Part Four [Audio Recording]
Part Five [Audio Recording]
Part Six [Audio Recording]
Part Seven [Audio Recording]
Part Eight [Audio Recording]
Part Nine [Audio Recording]

There, done with this story (save for some revision and proofreading, should I ever get around to it).

Forgotten House (Part Nine)

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven
Part Eight

Audio Recording

I had my destination in mind, and I was not going to let anything distract me. I pushed the backdoor open, and hurried along, through the kitchen, through the living room, and through the hall to the basement door, which had closed since I had left. Without pausing, I opened the door and descended to the basement.

I jumped a bit at seeing the corpse on the chair, but did my best to ignore it. I was going through that door, to the floors beneath the basement, to find the answers I knew awaited me there.

My attention did waver for a moment upon seeing the piles of tapes still scattered around in front of the television set. I was curious to see what else was recorded, but I convinced myself that that data was not important at this moment. Sure, they would help complete the puzzle, but they were not crucial to understanding everything.

I reached for the doorknob, and felt a rush of cold air, moving towards the stairs I had just descended. I glanced in that direction and stared for a while. Shaking my head, I turned the knob, and pulled the door open. Switching my flashlight on, I began down those stone stairs. Memories of my previous journey returned, and I thought back, trying to remember how many doors I had passed, and ignored, on that bit of exploration.

Arriving at the bottom of that first flight of stairs, my mind already began imagining all manner of scenario for what I would find, or what would find me. I saw myself being torn apart by formless creatures that could never exist in any degree of sunlight, and I did my best to shake those thoughts away, yet they persisted. Things awaited me, I couldn’t help but think that.

Yet, that was followed by the rational part of my mind demanding to know just what I was doing not only back in this house, but exploring the subbasement floors that I should know better than to ever explore. I had survived that first foray, but again? I knew it was madness, but I had to do it.

Of course, I kept expecting a hand to clamp down on one of my shoulders, or something to break the silenc. I kept walking, shining the flashlight against the walls to either side me, looking for a door. At length, I noticed one, a solitary steel door to my left, closed.

Curiosity got the better of me, as I opened that door. Light flooded a small room, the size of an average closet. It was empty, with no unusual markings on the cinderblock wall. I closed the door.

Hurrying along, I made it to the door at the end of the hallway, the one that I knew opened onto another stairway, leading deeper underground. I stepped carefully down that staircase, following a straight line.

Eventually, I had been descending that particular staircase for about five minutes, when I heard something, a sound not caused by me. It was a voice, cold, soft, distant. I couldn’t determine a gender, and not a lot was said, just a single word, a question. “Who?” I stood there, not moving, listening for something more. There was nothing more.

Landing at the bottom of the stairs, I walked quickly, shivering against the cold air. My guard was up even more at this point. Given that voice, I knew I wasn’t alone, but that only caused my mind to work into even more hectic of a frenzy, as it imagined even more grotesque and terrifying things that could be waiting for me somewhere in this underground abyss.

Light ahead of me flickered, and I shook my flashlight by instinct. Don’t you dare die on me, I thought, realizing just how obvious a thing that be to have happen. Luckily, it didn’t show any further signs of going out.

I eventually found another door, set into the cinderblock wall to my right. I quickly opened this one, and found a vast room, filled with wooden school desks. Some quick investigation of that room showed that the desks were all empty, their surfaces blank. There was nothing of interest in that room. I left, closing the door behind me.

All around me, the air turned to a thin mist, seeping upward to the ceiling, and the stairs well behind me. Whispered voices echoed about the cinderblock walls, not saying anything intelligible, just jumbled sounds. For a few moments, I attempted to count the voices, but I couldn’t manage that. Realizing I was standing still, I ran down the remainder of the hallway.

There was one more door along the wall to my left, before I would reach the end of that hallway, a solitary steel door, closed like the rest. The mist pursued me, winding around the walls. I had a brief moment to decide, and I chose to open the door, dodge inside, and close it.

I thought I had just seen a name, somewhere, but I couldn’t see it now.

Shining my flashlight around, I noticed the room I was about ten-foot by twelve-foot. There were no furnishings, the floor was empty. Yet it was the walls that caught and held my attention, as I wove the flashlight around slowly. There were words, some written tall, others small, yet all in a dark red, nearly brown color, the hue of dried blood. There must have been hundreds of messages on all four walls, messages partially covering others, intersecting, blocking out parts of other messages. I tried following various phrases, to decipher some meaning.

“Always here.” “Can’t you hear ______?” “Where am I?” “Mommy, where ____ you?” “I’m hurt, I’m ____ing, can anyone help me?” “STOP YELLING!” “Don’t look at _____!” “Always here!”

The messages were written in numerous styles, obviously many different people responsible for writing them. By chance, the beam of my flashlight crossed the ceiling, and I noticed more messages had even been scrawled upon that surface, somehow. I then checked the floor, and noticed countless more messages intermingled there.

It was also then that I realized I had closed the door to block out that mist from the hallway. I then faced a mix of relief and worry over that; relief because it hadn’t yet slipped into this room, and worry over those messages.

I pulled open the door and returned to the hallway. The mist had not subsided, but it had ceased growing. At this point, it just rolled lazily around the walls, the floor, and the ceiling far above. Whatever intent had driven it before no longer seemed concerned with my presence. I proceed to the end of the stairs.

What silence there had been was immediately shattered by a clamorous, angry shout, one that continued, yelling things that almost sounded like words, things that you would hear, or maybe say, deep in the darkness of night, mind mostly asleep, images trying to become words, trying to break through to some form of coherence, yet as soon as day shines, those sounds lose all semblance of sense. That voice persisted, drowning me in their low, maddening tones. I ran for the stairs.

I could hear the voice as I descended those narrow stairs, could hear it shouting and echoing around. Its sounds began to form words.

“Tear flesh from those flimsy bones, drain the blood from those foolish forms. Those people don’t deserve to live, ever, never,” the voice screamed on and on, a chant stuck in a tone of shattered insanity. I yearned to shut it up, run away from it, down the stone stairs, further downwards. “Watch them die, burn them alive, why did they ever do that, they shouldn’t, should never have. They don’t know who they were dealing with. ME! ME! MEEEE! Burn this world, watch everything burn to ash, then burn the ashes. Tear everything down, burn it all, melt and burn this very planet.”

I collapsed in front of an open door, and managed to shine my torch to the chamber within. The light fell upon a scattered pile of books and loose leaf pages. I could see notes scribbled over the pages, and I pulled myself across the floor to the material.

I picked up a page, and read it.

“He’s going mad,” read the rather neat script. “I’m afraid he’ll hurt me. I never meant to hurt him. I left him, we weren’t getting along. I just wanted my freedom. I knew I was hurting him by leaving him, I’ve been through that myself, but this…this is only the beginnings of his madness.”

Further down the page, the script had altered. Same hand, just full of panic.

“What’s going on? Why is my place torn apart? What are all of these papers scattered around? They all say the same thing, in different sizes. They just say: ‘Found you.’”

At the bottom of the page, the writing returned to a calm, collected, and neat state, yet the words worried me even more.

“He is wonderful. His actions worry others, but I understand him. I want to make him my religion, I believe in him so much. He is kind to me, he would never hurt me. He hurts others, but there’s logic and truth to it. Praise him.”

I heard a faint, soft cough from behind me. I turned, shining my torch to the door I had just come from. There it stood, that creature I had seen near my bed the night of my sleep paralysis. Some cruel blend of [____________] (delete that description. I still don’t know if what I remember was correct or just my wild imaginings, or if they’ll ever match up to the horror that stood there, staring, not moving, so still, lifeless yet full of foul life at the same time).

The light from my torch was the only light in those catacombs. It stood there, staring, and I felt my terror slowly replaced by reverence. It was not a horror, it was pure and holy. This was not some fell aberrance, as I had at first thought, but my beautiful guardian angel. I had to walk with it, I’d follow it anywhere.

The police had blocked the house off, marking it for investigation. A corpse had been found in front that morning, a rectangular cavity neatly carved from its chest, all ribs removed. A knife was clutched in its right hand, the blood later found to be a match to the victim. The only prints found anywhere on the knife belonged to the victim. His face was forever locked in a masochistic grin.

It was a young man, but few people around town could identify him. He had been found to live by himself at a house just up the hill. He had no family. Research along those lines had found a history of violence. One of two children (he had a sister), he had always been the target of his parents’ anger and fear, though they had separated when he was only five. His father had beaten his mother, until she was brave enough to run away, taking her children with her.

There was nothing much to see in the house, besides the usual litter that collects in places where young delinquets prefer to pass nights away. Someone had been living in the basement, it seemed, if a couch, a chair, and a television set were anything to judge by. Other than the furniture, and an old, beat-up water pump, there was nothing that interesting in the basement. There was a wooden door on the wall near the water pump, but it only led into a closet, which was surprisingly empty.

The body was only identified by a coworker at his place of employment, a local computer repair shop.

Forgotten House (Part Eight)

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven

Audio Recording

I made it to the top of the stairs, and slammed the door shut behind me as I fell against the opposite wall. I heard something heavy fall over from the basement, and I jumped to my feet, forcing back a cough.

It was late on that Saturday afternoon, by this point, for which I was thankful, as I could still see well around the house. Even so, I stumbled over various piles of litter as I made my way to the backdoor. At this point, the only sounds I heard came from my own hurried and panicked movements. I couldn’t shake what I’d seen on that tape, and I couldn’t ignore how recent the footage was. What had happened down there? Who was that person? What was…anything, with that?

The path I had made through the kitchen was still in tact. I began along it, but paused when I heard what must have been a rather small object fall to the floor in the living room.

I turned, slowly, bracing myself for whatever I would see. I saw nothing out of the usual, nothing to explain that noise I’d heard. I wanted out of that house, so I backed through the kitchen, turning to face the backdoor. My eyes went to that small, diamond window embedded higher up on the surface of the door.

A face faded into view, a face distorted and inhuman, yet somehow bearing a resemblance to a woman’s face, framed in wiry, black hair. What was meant to be eyes were twisted with some form of hateful pleasure. What was meant to be a mouth was contorted with that same mix of emotions. At the same moment, I heard clamorous laughter echoing around the house, coming from everywhere at once. I collapsed on the floor among the clutter, my hands instinctively going for my ears.

“WHAT DO YOU WANT?” I screamed, my voice drowned out by the manic laughter. The only other sound I could hear was a door somewhere behind me being torn open. I wanted so desparately to look away from that face but I couldn’t bring myself to. Those eyes, those horrible eyes, burned through my mind.

I heard windows breaking, countertops smashed, and I prepared for a painful barrage. That laughter continued, mocking me and my inaction.

Then…nothing. The laughter stopped. All other sounds ceased, and all I could hear was the rushing of my own blood through my hands, and my heavy breathing. I opened my eyes, and looked behind me.

Nothing had changed from the last I saw it. Nothing more was broken. I could see down to the other hallway, and the door to the basement was still closed. No windows were smashed. There was still disorder within the house, but nothing new, no sign of the sounds I had just heard.

I looked back to the window in the door, and could see the blue sky beyond. No face leering at me from without. I tried to calm down as I stood, and made for the backdoor, pulling it open on its loud hinges.

I fell to my knees on the remnants of the driveway, in the late afternoon light. It was good to feel that fresh air upon my face. As I gathered my breath, I went over what I had learned in that visit to the house, and whether or not I’d have to visit again. I hadn’t really learned that much, besides seeing bizarre footage from that tape. I’d not even made it to the levels beneath the basement, as I’d sort of been intending when I entered that house today.

Answers probably remained there in the basement itself, I was sure. I guess all that remained was deciding when I would try again. Shrugging, I stood, and faced the house, the back door swinging slightly, beckoning.

Time to try again, I thought, walking back inside.

(concluded in Part Nine)

Forgotten House (Part Seven)

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six

Audio Recording

The evening of the day after the incident at the courthouse, two days after my visit to that house, saw me looking through the contents of the envelope I’d received in the mail at work. I’d been putting it off, but curiousity finally got the better of me.

I sat at my desk in the den, the only light pouring down from a lamp clamped to the shelf above the desk, aimed downward. The air mail envelope lay discarded on top of my closed laptop, and I looked at the two photos that had been included.

The first photo showed what appeared to be a backyard, the late afternoon sun bathing the flat expanse with its light. There was a single figure in the picture, in the background. A young man, short, black hair, a white t-shirt, denim jeans, with his back turned to the camera, his attention lost to something even farther from the camera. A section of old, rotting, grey fence, two parallel horizontal lines broken by evenly-spaced vertical posts, came to a stop just short of the center of the frame. The young man was leaning against the end of that fence, both hands in his pockets. There was a road just beyond him. The foreground showed nothing out of the usual, just a neatly trimmed yard. A small, black book rested in a small indentation on the right.

Turning the photo over, I noticed a short note, written in a neat script, in blue ink. “Josh. One of two pictures I have left of you. I don’t miss you.”

The second photo was of a couple, a young man and a young woman. Glancing at the first photo, I guessed that the man in this photo was the same as the first. The young woman, with thin, black hair framing a smiling face, stood with an arm around the young man. They stood in what appeared to be the kitchen of their house, in the evening, the lights switched on. A clock in the background indicated it was 7:42. The only unusual thing with this picture was that the young man’s face had been crossed out repeatedly with a heavy, black marker.

I checked the reverse of the photo, and found a short note written in black ink. “You will never have me.”

Placing the photos on the desk, I unfolded the rest of the papers from the envelope. There were three pages, all told, with writing on both sides of each. It looked to be a single letter, written, in black ink, in the same neat script from the back of the photos. The letter was addressed to “Josh”, again, presumably, the same from the photos. I began reading through the letter.

Ten minutes passed, and I finally folded the letter into a simple bundle, and placed it, along with the photos and the note addressed to me, back into the air mail envelope. Without pausing to think, I proceeded to my kitchen, picked up a cigarette lighter cigarrette lighter, and walked outside, taking the envelope with me.

Moments later, I had a neat pile of burning papers set on a section of the driveway. I watched the envelope and contents burn.

(continued in Part Eight)

Forgotten House (Part Six)

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five

Audio Recording

It was a Saturday afternoon, and I had nothing much to do. I was sitting around the house, glancing at my laptop’s monitor, when I noticed what time it was. It was then that I made my decision.

I had to explore that house again. There had to be explanations hidden within those walls.

After packing a few things into various pockets, I stepped outside, and saw the house down the hill, leaves settled onto its metal roof. I had no one to call, no one to alert about my destination. That’s a whole different story, but I’ve always ended up alone. Even now, I had no one to go to, no one to walk those hallways in that house with me. I’d do it on my own.

The walk to that house, mostly downhill, didn’t take more than five minutes. There was no one around, no cars driving past, no lights visible around the neighborhood this early in the evening. I stepped carefully over debris cluttering what was once a driveway, making my way to the backdoor. Leaves, twigs crunched underfoot, and I half-expected to hear some voice call out to tell me to stop where I was, to not approach that house. No voice did.

The backdoor was still unlocked, and I saw the same refuse in the kitchen as I saw last time. No more, no less, actually. I even saw the path I had cleared out through the kitchen to the living room, so I followed that.

It was unnervingly quiet within that house. I brought from my pocket the letter I’d received from “Melissa”, and read through it again. She said I had delved deeper into the house than even where she resided. I assumed that meant she lived in the basement, which explained the arrangement of furniture I had noticed. That would be my first destination, I decided, so I hurried along through the house to the basement stairs.

I found the lights switched off when I approached that door. My mind worked through things I had seen, and things I knew. I had never turned the lights off when I was in the house last. I had entered the basement, turned the lights on, then proceeded downstairs. My path had taken me to the lowermost floor then, somehow, back to ground level, bypassing the floors I had traversed downward. The geometry for that eluded me, but I wasn’t going to worry about that right now, not when there was the possibility of answers awaiting me at this moment. Still, the fact that the lights were off concerned me. Then again, perhaps the light bulbs had died in the time since I was last here. That was very plausible, but disproven the moment I flipped the switch on the wall, and their yellow glow illuminated the stairs leading downward. Someone had switched the lights off since I was last here. I became a bit nervous. Starting down the stairs, I heard a faint sound, as of static from a radio or television set. Someone was down there, I was convinced. I pressed on.

At last, my feet fell on a stone floor, after the thin wooden steps I had been descending upon. I saw the same singular light bulb dangling via a thin cable from the wooden beams above that I had noticed last time. The basement was cold. Looking at the water pump in the corner to my right, I noticd that it wasn’t exactly connected to anything. It looked to be in working order, albeit covered in layers of dust, but there was nothing physically connecting it to the inner workings of the house. It just stood there, bolted to the floor.

I looked around the basement, and realized that I was not alone. A figure sat unmoving on the sofa, eyes focused on the light bulb. I waited for a response, but noticed none, so I approached.

Suffice it to say the figure was not alive, and hadn’t been for months, at least. The figure, a young man, had skin that had since turned dark with rot, melting downwards to the fabric of the sofa. Eyes had since turned to mush and dissolved, leaving dry cavities in their absence. The underlying bones of his skull were obvious.

It was a revolting sight, but I couldn’t help but study it. How long had that corpse been there? The skin looked fused to both the clothing and the sofa. It had to have been there for months, yet I did not remember seeing it when I was here last.

I turned away, noticing the television set was on, showing a grey screen and emitting the static drone I kept hearing. I hit the mute switch, then noticed the cassette tapes scattered around on the floor in front of the set. None of the tapes were labeled. Some were in their original boxes, others weren’t. Apparently they were all bought as blank tapes.

There was a remote on top of the VCR, so I picked that up. One quick look at what was on one individual tape, I told myself. Just to see, just to state my curiousity, I decided. I switched the VCR on, and the screen switched to blue. I hadn’t played with a VCR in at least a decade, so that blue screen, replete with static, brought a sense of nostalgia.

Then I hit play.

The blue screen switched abruptly to dark grey, the frames of which shook slightly. This continued for about ten seconds, then a face filled the lower half of the screen, in an inverted silhouette. The face was out of focus so much as the features couldn’t be deciphered, besides that the head was bald. A hollow circle marked the eye, staring off into the distance. This image remained for another ten seconds, then an abrupt edit cut to a view of the basement. I could see the stairs I had descended, the single bulb in the room switched on. There was a timestamp in the lower-right corner, which marked the footage as having been recorded two weeks ago.

I paused the video, and studied the perspective. Where in the room was the camera for this shot? My eyes followed a line from the stairs to a distance away that would capture the same area that I saw on the screen. I stopped on the corpse, and scrambled towards it, looking towards the stairs. My view from that point matched the image on the screen enough that I assumed the footage was filmed from this point.

I resumed play on the video.

There was no sound, even though I had unmuted the television. Nothing was happening, the basement remained empty. I hit the fast-forward button, and still nothing changed on the scene. The tape continued at it’s doubled speed, and as I blinked, something changed. I stopped, rewound a bit, and hit play.

A figure walked down the stairs and into the frame. It was a young woman, with smooth, shoulder-length dark hair in a thin layer around her face. She was thin, and wore a blank, blue, short-sleeved shirt, denim jeans, and a pair of black shoes. Somehow, she looked familiar. She took a couple steps forward, away from the stairs, and paused, a worried look on her face. She was staring to her right. I paused, and followed where she would’ve been looking, which turned out to be the water pump, and the door beside it. I resumed the footage.

The young woman stared at the off-screen wall for another ten seconds, then walked towards it, disappearing from the frame. I waited for something else to happen, and didn’t have to wait long. Soon enough, she returned, holding a hand to her nose, and clearly panicking. She fell to her knees, looking towards the wall she had come from. She moved her hand away from her nose for a moment, and I could see a good amount of blood before the replaced her hand over her nose.

A moment later, an arm reached from off to the right of the frame, and grabbed one of the young woman’s arms, the one held up to her face to be precise. She was pulled forcefully forward, off the frame. I was left with a view of that room of the basement. There was no audio at any point during this footage, and I double-checked to make sure I had the television unmuted and the volume rolled up.

I hit fastforward, but nothing more happened. It was just an empty room. I finally reached the end of the tape, and playback stopped. I switched both the VCR and the television set off.

I stared at the door. I remembered what was beyond it, those stairs, those hallways, those rooms. What happened in that tape a fortnight ago? Even when I entered the house a while ago, I wasn’t eager to explore those floors. Now, I was even less eager.

I ran for the stairs that led back up to the main floor.

(continued in Part Seven)

Forgotten House (Part Five)

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

Audio Recording

It was a week after I had ventured inside that house, almost a week since the incident in the police station. The police hadn’t contacted me about that, which struck me as odd, until I convinced myself not to care so much. It wasn’t my fault, I had no idea what had caused that, who had done that. Yet I couldn’t stop thinking, wondering, what had happened. Who had been responsible. I had heard nothing in that station when I sat alone and waiting in that cold room. There was no noise. I had only caught a glimpse of someone dodging behind some shelves.

No, I wouldn’t wonder about that. The police would work it out. Perhaps they already had done so. Regardless, that was their territory, not mine. I had my own problems to worry about. Most of it had to do with work, though.

It was early evening, the sun beginning to reach the far horizon, as I walked around my front yard. There wasn’t much to see from where I tread, as a thin barrier of pine trees blocked the view to the nearby two-lane road. I could hear the occasional vehicle drive past, though, which was sometimes a comforting sound; knowing that I wasn’t completely out in the middle of nowhere, should some emergency suddenly arise.

Then my eyes fell upon it, the house I had dared to step inside a week ago. I could see the thin, metal sheets that served as a roof for that decrepit house, and the top of the red walls. Trees shrouded the rest from my vision, however. By this point, that house was a bruise on the landscape, as far as I was concerned. Yet even as I came to a stop, and stared at the rusted tin sheets, I found myself wanting to walk back through its door, and wander those hallways. Maybe there was some clue I missed, something to explain what waited in the basement and below.

That wouldn’t happened tonight, though. I turned and walked back to my own house, in through the front door. I had left the living room light on before my foray into the front yard.

In that span of a week, I had taken to recording as much as I could of my dreams. I kept a cheap composition book on an endtable near my bed. Earlier that morning, before work, I had moved the composition book to the living room, so I could look through it this evening. I sat down in a chair, and picked up the book.

I opened the book to the first page. In my neatest handwriting, I had written a brief note in blue ink detailing what I’d be writing on the following pages: “So I have been having some bizarre dreams of late. Not that this is anything new or strange in and of itself, but the matter of my dreams has become increasingly peculiar since I visited the house just down the hill from where I live. That old and abandoned house.”

Already I had notes on the first six pages of the composition book. To my mind, it was interesting to track the changes in my handwritng during the night, in the dark, when I couldn’t see the page, and was only moving the pen across the page forming what my mostly-asleep mind assumed were letters arranged in words, arranged in broken sentence fragments. A good percentage of my notes where thusly illegible, though I had attempted to puzzle through the markings. I tried to read through the first dream in the book.

“i and group of freinds trapped at combination military compund/school. i tried to lead escape. eventually we were caught and i forced a guard to shoot me point blank. i could apparently take andsurvive all that pain and i did that to prove my point. last i remember was telling guard to shoot me point blnak first through my hands then through my skull.

elsewhere in dream i was having a nervous breakdwndown because i wanted to show XXXXXXX just how much i loved her. XXXXXXX and i finally made love.”

As I read through that, I noticed two things, the first and most obvious being the errors in spelling and grammar. I excused those, given the time of night I’d written the notes.

The other thing I noticed was that I could remember parts of the dream quite vividly, especially the sensation of pain. I remembered, from the dream, standing with my friends as we were attempting to escape, in the night, alarm klaxons blaring, red beacons flooding the valley with their harsh light. I remembered watching the guards, heavily armed and armored, rushing us, and acknowledging that we were vastly outnumbered. I reached out a hand, motioning the guards to stop, but they kept running towards us, guns focused on us.

“SHOOT ME!” I shouted, my throat already raw and sore. A few guards approached, and stopped. “I know you want me dead. Shoot me, kill me, like I know you want to. Let them go,” I motioned towards my friends behind me. “Kill me, and let them go.”

I remembered the pain of the bullets tearing through my palm, some through my arm. Bullets then cut through my skull, searing pain throughout my body. I fell over, still conscious. The gunshots stopped, and I heard the guards yelling for my friends to leave, quickly, before another decision was made. I remained there on the ground, eyes closed, as my friends ran away, and the guards retreated.

That’s all I remembered from the dream. I noticed the last paragraph, but ignored it. She was gone, she had moved on, leaving me alone. That was months in the past, by now, and no longer a concern.

I turned the page.

“he stands before me, near the bed, that abomination of a man. not flluy humna, not this thing. I see eys, not the eyes of a man, but of some foul creature. why doesn’t he move? why can’t i move? I feel a hand upon my chest, a massive weight hodling me in place. he doesn’t move he just watches me. sees me. doesn’t look away.”

I closed the book. Those weren’t notes from a dream. I had written that two nights ago, apparently, upon waking up. I thought back to the other night, when I was convinced something was chasing me through the darkness in my house, but shook away all thoughts that there was something really there. Foolish thoughts. Impossible thoughts. Unlikely.

I needed something for dinner.

(continued in Part Six)

Forgotten House (Part Four)

Part One
Part Two
Part Three

Audio Recording

The nights have become unbearable. Darkness seeps outward through the house, drawing me in. I open curtains, blinds, in an attempt to let in the feeble light of nearby streetlamps, but the effort is meaningless and becomes just a gesture to convince myself I have some way of fighting off that which causes me such disabling fear.

I think back to those corridors below that house, now with the words of that letter in mind. Someone was there, watching me, but I saw no trace of anyone. I had found comfort in that basement, in the moments before noticing, and opening, that fell door. I had thought I was alone, but no. Now in any darkness I could feel eyes pinned on me, unseen bodies spying on me, as if the darkness itself is readying claws to swipe forth and catch me from behind, pierce down through my shoulders, and dig deeper.

I was on my way to my room that night, walking down that hallway. I had switched off various lights in the house, and my bare feet tread across hardwood floors. The darkness felt thick, and my heart began racing, my arms and legs trembling so slightly. I focused my eyes on my open door, just ahead. I could see the light from my clock, green and faint. My mind drew up an idea, and wouldn’t let me ignore it. There was something behind me, something moving silently, something close enough to reach out with a pale, thin arm and with a cold hand clamp down on my shoulder, pull me to a stop.

I ran the rest of the short distance to my room, and slammed the door shut, convinced I had just stopped some foul creature from grabbing me. I panted, shivering, before I opened the door. I saw nothing down that hallway, regardless of the darkness.

Slowly, the rational part of my brain regained control. There was nothing. I was alone in my house. There was nothing else around. Nothing could trespass into the sanctity of my home. I was just being silly, letting my imagination drive me into hysterics. I was safe.

I collapsed on my bed, and sleep soon claimed me for the rest of the night.

(continued in Part Five)

Forgotten House (Part 3)

Part One
Part Two

Audio Recording

I was on lunch break, taking a bite out of a ham sandwich I had prepared early that morning. Business was slow at the computer store this time of the afternoon, and I stared out a window onto an empty two-lane road. The store was on the outside of town, at the border of shopping and residential areas. Look to the right and I would barely see a small, blue, two-story house, the driveway empty at this early point in the afternoon. Look to the left and I’d see the road split in two, stop signs sprouting from the barren dirt. One road would lead to some small office buildings, the other would lead to a gas station, a grocery store, and continue on past the local, brown-brick post office.

I had half an hour for my lunch break. The police department was a quick five-minute walk down one of those roads. I went over what I was planning on telling the police, from my adventure through that old house.

The more I thought about it, the more absurd it sounded. So I had entered that house, found a door in the basement that led even farther underground, which in turn led me to a door that went deeper underground. The hallways terminated in a vast chamber containing only one other door, which, when opened, released some manner of creature that I neither saw or heard, yet knew had escaped. I shook my head, knowing they’d never believe me. Yet I had to tell them, right? Even if the story made no sense.

I finished my sandwich, and took another sip from my soda as I stood from my desk. I had a couple computers to work on, each with a simple problem. One computer just desparately needed a reformat and OS reinstall, the other was an old iBook that some student had purchased from their University’s surplus sale (meaning the computer lacked a hard drive).

Moving quickly, I checked my pockets for my keys. Assured they were there, I slipped out of my office, and went for the front door of the shop. The place was just as empty as I assumed it was, so I stepped outside. A lone, black car slowed to a brief stop at the nearby stop sign before heading down the same road I was about to walk along. Besides that, there was silence.

The police department occupied a rather large two story brick building, with two black, steel-framed doors set on the front. The glass within the doors was rather heavily tinted, but signage indicating the building worked just as effectively as a barrier to eyes.

I pulled a door open, and stepped inside. Silence greeted me, as my eyes adjusted to the light within the building. “Hello?” I called out. “Anyone in here?”

I stood in a dimly lit lobby, blue plastic chairs lining the white walls. A receptionist’s window stood open and empty opposite the main entrance. I crossed the floor to that window, and looked within, just in time to notice someone vanish behind a bookshelf, its individual shelves crammed with manilla folders and loosely bound notebooks. There was a silver desk bell secured to the counter before me, so I tapped it a couple times, its shrill ringing echoing around the place.

No one responded; the person I’d barely seen didn’t return. Shrugging, I rang the bell once more, and walked over to one of the chairs.

Minutes passed, with no response. I sat, I waited. My lunch break was nearly over by this point, and I needed to report back to the computer shop. I was about to leave when it happened. It was a single scream, a woman by the sound of it, high-pitched and terrified. The scream was cut short, and silence fell back in place, a curtain returning to rest.

The front door of the place burst open, two officers rushing in, neither noticing me as I sat there, afraid and confused. The first officer unlocked a door near the receptionist’s window, and went further within the building, the other following. I ran over to the window, and looked in. The officers were huddled over a woman’s body, collapsed and twisted on the cold tile floor. One officer was well in the way, but I could see enough of the wounds to want to run away that very moment. Two clean lines ran parallel down the sides of her chest, from her shoulders to her waist, with anothe two lines running parallel from one shoulder to the other, and from one side of her waist to another. The entire surface area of her chest, her clothes, had been removed, exposing the organs within. Blood pooled neatly alongside her body.

The only other thing I noticed was a single black feather nestled in one patch of blood.

I made my way to the door, not noticing the third officer who stood there, watching me calmly. I nearly bumped into him, but noticed him just in time.

“Son, stay where you are,” he commanded, his voice heavy and calm, his eyes cold and fierce. “What just happened here?”

I shook my head. “I came here to report something that might help with solving that string of murders recently. No one was coming to the window. I–I don’t know. I just–what the hell?”

“No, you couldn’t have done that, could you? Locked door. It just happened and you’re too clean. Go. We’ll talk about what you had in mind later.”

I was out of there, too eager to return to work at that point.

“You’ve got some mail,” my coworker, Geoff, announced, as he handed me an envolope. My eyes went wide for a brief moment. I rarely get mail at work. I took the envelope, and looked it over. It was an air-mail envelope, bordered in short, diagonal stripes of red and blue, and there was no return address, only my mailing address at work. The envelope felt rather thick.

I sat down at my desk, and, after carefully opening the envelope, I extracted a neatly folded bundle of papers. Two pictures slipped out, and landed facedown on my desk. I ignored those, and went straight for the papers. The first was a rather short note, and read as follows (I’ve omitted my name from the text):

Dearest XXXXXXX,

I watched as you walked those hallways of my house, as you climbed down to the basement, where I lurk. You didn’t see me.

You went deeper into the house than I’ve ever dared, even though I reside where I do. You delved to the realm of the voices, of the screams, of the silence. Oh the silence, more terrifying than those pained voices.

The greater demons elsewhere in Hell are such that not even I know.

I’m sorry for what you’re going through.

Signed,
Melissa (residing in Hell)

I shoved the papers and pictures into the envelope, the rest of the contents unseen. I’d look through them later. Instead, as a customer walked in, I shoved all thoughts of the letter away into my mind. I’d look through them later, I told myself.

(continued in Part Four)

Forgotten House (Part 2)

(Part 1)

Audio Recording

It was the following evening, as I drove home from work, that I heard. I was listening to the local NPR affiliate, and it was after the top of the hour news. The affiliate was doing their own local news recap, and a certain story caught my attention.

“Local police report a string of similar murders in the area from last night. Five bodies were found, suffering the same wounds. Authorities report that the bodies had been dismembered and sliced open repeatedly, and the reports get more grisly from there. No suspect has been found, and police are focused on investigating these murders. No further details are available.”

I switched the radio off as I pulled into my driveway. Five murders. I couldn’t help but think of that…darkness…that had rushed past me in that catacomb last night. I hadn’t seen anything, hadn’t felt anything but a span of air colder than what was already there, and I hadn’t heard anything.

The car came to a stop, I pulled the keys free, and stepped out. 5.30, and the sun was beginning to set on that late autumn evening. The front of the driveway had been covered in fallen leaves, their dead forms crunching as I walked along to the house. My mind analyzed what I’d heard from the radio just then as I entered the house.

I no longer had any urge to fix anything for dinner, so I ignored the kitchen, and headed directly for my desk in the den, switching on lights as I walked. I sat down at the desk, and reviewed what had happened, and what I should do. If I was somehow responsible for those murders, shouldn’t I take my information to the police? I shook my head at that thought, and stopped short of laughing. I could just imagine their reaction to my story: incredulity, laughter, and them telling me to leave. I abandoned the idea.

I stood from the desk, and wandered back into the kitchen, realizing that I’d yet to check the mail. The sun was just disappearing beyond the horizon as I walked across the driveway to the mailbox. There wasn’t much interesting, just a couple bills. I paused there, next to the road, and stared around, my eyes automatically darting in the direction of the house I’d been inside last night. My mind went back to those empty corridors, the suffocating shadows, that chill in the stagnant air.

I suddenly wondered…what was in the house now? Was anyone in there? I thought back to that basement. It looked rather lived in, what with the furniture arranged as it was. Then there was the main floor, but that was probably more down to local, and distant, vandals using it as an occasional hang out. They visited, they didn’t stay.

No, I wasn’t going back to that house. Not tonight, at any rate. I hurried back to the safety within the walls of my own house, laughing at what I’d been considering. I wasn’t about to make the mistake of visiting a creepy old house at night. I could just imagine all manner of creepy monsters lurking in the shadows, waiting for someone as foolish as that to come along. No, that wouldn’t be me. If I searched the house again, it would be during the day. Perhaps this weekend.

I took a final look behind me, out into the night settling in over the valley. Lights were beginning to dot the distant mountains, minute beacons from windows of houses tucked into the mountainsides. Those specks of light did little to fight off the darkness fading in. I noticed an area to the right of my mailbox, near where I had just a moment ago stood, that was a bit darker than the surrounding air. That bit of darkness seemed to take on a vaguely human form, if but for a moment. Then it was gone.

I closed and locked the door behind me. Perhaps I would try talking to the police tomorrow, I decided.

(continued in Part Three)