Snow Bound

A horror story with a classic "spooky house" beginning.

It was two years ago that I found myself driving down a dark, snow covered road that wound itself through the woods. I had left work well ahead of the predicted snow storm, only to find that the highway was already jammed. The usual twenty minute highway portion of my drive had taken three hours, and now I was finally on the back-road that led to my house. I had fallen in love with an A-frame cabin with a fantastic view of a forested valley. I had a liking for isolation and a natural surrounding. The price I paid for my isolated cabin was a long commute over rough roads.

I drove a small SUV that served me well as I slowly drove over the icy roads. I passed several cars that had been abandoned. However, I eventually came to a hill that I was no match for. I tried for some time to climb the hill, until the car drifted violently off to the side of the road.

By this time, there was no trace of the sun left in the sky. The only light came from my own headlights. The wind was gusting so strongly that it rocked the car. Unfortunately, I had neglected to charge my phone while at work. Now, after hours in the car, it was completely dead.

Somewhere, miles ahead, was my cabin. I thought of the wood burning stove and the old-fashioned rocking chair that sat next to it. I wanted nothing more than to be in that chair feeling the heat of the fire. I predicted that I was only a couple miles away. Not knowing what else to do, I decided to walk. I turned off my car and put the hazards on. It was a small mercy that I was completely on the shoulder.

It was a small mercy, too, that it wasn't snowing anymore, so visibility would not be an issue. However, the temperature had dropped to below freezing. As I stepped out of my car, shoes crunching the ice and snow my tires had churned up, a gust of wind almost blew me back into my seat. I turned up the collar of my coat and slammed the door.

Now I was tasked with a feat that my car could not rise to: climbing the icy hill. It was slow, painstaking work. My feet constantly slipped and shifted underneath me as I struggled to find footholds by the faint light of a moon that passed in and out of the clouds. When I finally got to the top, I was exhausted and chilled to the core. Looking back at my car, it was clear that I'd only gained about two hundred yards.

I continued down the now flat road for some time. Occasionally, I was knocked off stride by the wind, but I became used to that. An hour wore on, and I slipped into the sort of hypnosis that comes with performing and repetitive task for a long period of time. As I plodded on, ignorant of my surroundings, a sound came from my right. I glanced over at what could have been a human voice. I stopped walking and waited for the sound to come again. Nothing came but the creaking of an old tree.

Now that I had been brought into awareness of my surroundings, I realized that I was standing at the entrance of a driveway. By this time I was numb and extremely fatigued. I sorely regretted leaving my car, but it was done. I stumbled down the driveway, desperate for any relief. The driveway was darker; more hidden from the moon that the open road. Despite the almost complete lack of visibility, I hastened my steps. Just as I started to see a house through the trees, my foot stepped off the side of the driveway. I fell hard into a ditch. The pain of the rocks that I fell onto barely registered on my numb skin.

Somewhat sobered by the fall, I clambered back onto the drive. I could see now that the front door of the house was open a crack. The closer I came, the more the door opened. Finally, I rushed through the door. Fatigue and relief overcame me and I collapsed. The last thing I felt was a rug against my head as I lay on the floor.

That same rug is the first thing I was cognizant of when I awoke. I opened my eyes to see that I was still lying on the floor. For a fleeting moment, I assumed that I was only unconscious for a few seconds. But when I realized the the room was lit, not by artificial light, but by the sun, I realized that I was on the floor all night.

I was still groggy and fatigued. It was all I could do to roll over onto my back. My hand stung, and I could see that during my time asleep it had bled from a deep cut. Now the blood was dry, but it was clear that it had bled freely with no attempt at bandaging. Who had left me unconscious and hurt on their floor, I wondered.

After a few moments, my head had cleared, and I labored to my feet. I was standing in a square foyer. Opposite the front door, a hallway ran back into the house which contained a stairway. To the left and right were closed doors. The only furniture in sight was a round table, which sat on a round carpet in the center of the foyer. It was on this carpet that I had slept.

The house was completely still. The only noise I could hear was the howling wind, which was still raging outside. I wondered for a moment if the house was abandoned, but I knew it mustn't be. I knew the lights were on when I saw the house, and now they were off. I also knew that I hadn't closed the door behind me, and now it was closed. Leaving me on the floor was callous, I thought, but, on the other hand, they didn't have to let me in at all.

Still, I didn't feel that I owed them any sort of goodbye, so I made to leave. The front door was stuck, with ice I assume. When I finally wrenched it open, I was blasted by an icy wind. The gust was so strong I had trouble closing the door again. I rushed to the window. To my dismay, the entire yard was blanketed in snow. It was at least two feet deep. I had barely made it from my car to this house, so, now that the conditions were even worse, the reverse trip was out of the question.

With nothing else to do, I walked down the hallway hoping to find anyone who lived here. I found myself in the kitchen. It was dusty and unused, but organized. Like the foyer, it spoke to the house being abandoned. I stood in the silence, contemplating my predicament, when the silence was broken by a rattling sound. I turned toward the source: a heavy wooden door on the opposite side of the kitchen. To my horror, the latch was shaking. As it rattled, the latch also slowly turned. When the door starting opening, a battle erupted in my head of whether to run or stay. I ended up being paralyzed by indecision. As I stared wild eyed at the door, an old man appeared.

I breathed a sigh of relief. I could see at once that the latch on the door was shaking due to a pronounced tremor that afflicted the man's hands. I called "hello" to him and he responded in kind. The man had already guessed my situation, so the explanation of my intrusion into his house was short. He even apologized for leaving me on the floor.

"I didn't have the strength to move you...," he explained, holding up his shaking hands as evidence. "and the phone is out."

The power was out, too, as it happened. Fortunately, he had a gas stove. I made us both a hearty breakfast - he had intimated that he hadn't been able to cook well due to his hands - and we passed a pleasant morning. He was well educated and a fine conversationalist. He introduced himself only as Paul: a retired school librarian. After a time, he needed to lie down for a nap and disappeared up the stairs. I was now alone in the house again, but more at ease as an welcomed guest.

The wind continued to howl, and more snow had begun to fall. Paul had turned on the oven and left the door open to heat the kitchen, but the house at was growing colder. I put my coat back on and walked into the foyer. Paul had not given me explicit permission to wander around his house. Surely, though, I thought, he would not begrudge me sitting in his living room, or perhaps lying down for a nap myself.

I opened both doors off the foyer. The first room was completely empty, except for some leaves that had blown in. The second room was also bare, but it did have a fireplace. I walked over to it, but didn't dare light it. I didn't want to assume that it was still active and safe to use. I made a mental note to ask Paul about it later.

I started to leave the room, when something thumped against the underside of the floor. I stopped and listened. Again came the thump, and a third. It sounded like something was hitting the floor from underneath. It now seemed that there was someone else in the house. But why would Paul not have mentioned this person?

There now came another thump, then another. I wondered if this person heard me walking around and maybe I was bothering them. I left the room and re-entered the foyer. Silence settled back over the house. I went back to the warmth of the kitchen. As some minutes passed, I started to wonder if it would be too terrible if I paid a visit to whomever was in the basement. I assumed he knew I was in the house, and, if he didn't, better for me to go down and introduce myself than for him to get a shock by stumbling upon me later.

I went to the door Paul had emerged from earlier. As I'd assumed, it led to the basement. A light was on at the bottom of the stairs, but I could see or hear nothing of the person I'd annoyed by walking above them. I descended into the basement.

The basement was oddly proportioned. Instead of covering the footprint of the house, as most basements do, it was long and narrow: more like a corridor than a basement. I emerged in the center of that corridor. To my right was complete blackness. To my left I saw an old well made of bricks. I was covered by a half-foot slab of concrete. On top of that was a battery-powered lantern: the only source of light in the room. There were also cups, plates, tools, and other random items on the slab.

I went into the lit half of the cellar. I could see at once why the basement was so small. The wall was lined with many doorways which had been sealed with cinder blocks. It was as though someone used cinder blocks to create many small closets only to seal them later.

A metallic scraping sound started emanating from the darkness. I turned just in time to see a man lunging at me. His hands were outstretched like claws. I grabbed his wrists just in time to keep him from scratching my face.

With all my might, I shoved the man. He fell back, sweeping his arm across the concrete slab. A stack of plates fell to the floor shattering. The man rebounded quickly. He leapt at me again, fingers outstretched like a cat's claws. I stepped into him a punched him square in the jaw. This I did with all my strength and ferocity, but I immediately regretted it. His face, instead of offering resistance, yielded in a way that felt unnatural; wrong. I knew instantly that I'd dealt him a serious injury.

Limply, like a doll, he collapsed onto the floor. I stood with my mouth agape, stunned by what I'd done. As my brain exited its survival mode, and my senses returned to me, I began to realize the true horror of what I was looking at.

The man was wearing nothing except his underwear. Every part of his body was heavily injured and bloodied. His ankle was clasped by a heavy iron manacle, which had dug into his skin. I bent over him. I pulled aside the greasy hair that was matted to his face. He was very young: young enough so that he had hardly grown any facial hair in the time he'd been in this basement. I checked for a pulse and for breathing. He was dead. I'd killed him.

My eyes started to fill up with tears, but I was sobered by a sound. It was the rattling sound I'd heard in the kitchen that morning; the sound of the old man, Paul, turning the latch of the basement door with his trembling hands. The door opened. The stairs creaked. I rushed to the concrete slab to grab one of the sharp tools only to discover that they were caked in dried blood. I didn't have the nerve lay my hand on the gore, even in this situation.

Paul appeared at the foot of the stairs. My hand found a coffee mug, and I hurled it at him. It shattered on his forehead. The room echoed with a gunshot, and the electric lamp shattered. The room went dark except for a minuscule amount of light that was coming down the stairs from the kitchen above. I threw myself at the old man, grabbing his gun and pushing him into the darkness. I bounded up the steps. Just as was reaching the top, a horrible shriek came from below. I turned to see Paul flying up the stairs at a rate I would have never thought possible. Without a thought, I kicked back at him. My heal connected with his face, and he went tumbling end-over-end down the stairs. The last I saw of Paul, he was lying in a heap at the foot of the stairs.

I burst through the front door of the house and threw myself into cold. The deep snow couldn't stop me; not in the state I was in. I plunged through it until I reached the road. A tear came to my eye as I received the one mercy in this entire ordeal: the road had been recently plowed.

As I walked back to my car, the fear and panic ebbed. My mind gave over to grief and guilt. I could see nothing but the face of the young man I'd killed. I hardly noticed when a large pickup truck pulled up beside me. I suppose there was something in my face that caused the driver to not question me at all when I asked him to drive me to the nearest police station.

Where the gun ended up, I couldn't say. It was the only piece of that terrible place that I'd carried away with me, but, at some point, I must have dropped it. I assume it's rusting on the side of the road.

The police never found the house, despite a massive effort. I spent months trying to find it myself. What side road I must have wandered onto, I still don't know. I couldn't say whether the police still believe my story after all this time spent searching. All I can say is that, someday, someone will go to that house. Maybe a relative of Paul's if he had any? Maybe an estate agent or realtor? Or maybe some kids exploring the abandoned house? Whoever stumbles upon that place, I feel sorry for them. They could never guess the rotting horror the lies beneath.

Reviews

[Autumn Rain]

The first part of this story leaves me, as the reader, wondering how the main character manages to wander around in a blizzard for over an hour without dying of hypothermia, and it's a distracting thought that keeps me from fully appreciating the ambiance. Is he bundled up like an Eskimo? Does he have emergency warmers stuffed in his shoes? Below freezing temperatures coupled with high winds are a sure-fire recipe for death, so you should address how the character manages to survive without frostbite, or significantly shorten the amount of time he spends outside.

The climax of the story is good. It needs some nit-picky editing (eg you used 'heal' when you meant 'heel'), but it has a nice sense of shock and urgency to it. I like the horror of someone stumbling into an atrocity that they didn't expect, without it turning into an over-the-top blood bath, Hollywood style. Nicely done.