The Solitary Road Occurence

This has been self-published by Blurb, in a collection including several of my other short stories.

 

          Ellie stood out on the vacant, dusty dirt road. Her grip on the handle bars of her tarnished old Schwinn bicycle was viselike. She gawked incredulously at the structure positioned on the grassy field before her petite figure.          

          The air current, gradually pushing the foreboding, coal colored clouds across the suffocated sky, rushed thickly over her rigid body, tugging at her t-shirt and grazing her paling face. The unkempt, overgrown grass inhabiting the boundless field danced in correspondence, every blade rippling backwards like the field itself was alive. Despite the warm, muggy temperature of the wind, she shivered against a series of chills that scampered down her spine.

            In the midst of the serene vastness and barren, lonely fields all around Ellie, stood the object of her most lucid nightmares. An old, decrepit, desolate house that stalked her every dream for the past month now, even though she never knew 1332 Solitary Road truly existed, rather than in her darkest nightmares.

            Staring numbly at the house, Ellie attempted to determine what had exactly brought her to this place. Of course, she had been suffering night after night with this exact image, but that wasn’t reason enough to pull her from the comfort of her home and to this unpopulated, unknown region of town, let alone make her research the address, “1332 Solitary Road” to discover where the location actually was.

            No, something much more compelling led her to this place. It was something with such a force that it frightened the eighteen-year-old—who was not easily shaken—and left her baffled as to why she permitted herself to make the journey, especially when she was not privileged enough to even have the safety of a car. The longer Ellie’s eyes remained transfixed on the house however, she realized it. The rumors she read about must be true—something sinister occurred at this house long ago.

            And Ellie was here to determine what corrupt secrets it held, bound beneath the floor boards and scrawled invisibly on the walls.

            Bravely, she loosened her grip around the distressed handlebars and laid the bike on its side; it immediately disappeared in the knee deep grass occupying the property. It was bewildering how the scene stretched out before her was the exact replica of her nightmares.

            All around the abandoned, run-down structure grew wild grass and weeds that swayed to the silent rhythm of the wind, scraping against the paint chipped, weather worn sides of the house. The sidewalk leading to the decaying front porch was barely detectable by unruly fern bushes with stray tufts sticking out, trying to protect it from the view of an unsuspecting stranger.

The white skin of the house was worn and chipped, making it resemble a birch tree. The black steel numbers 1332 ran down the left post on the front porch. The windows were sealed shut, caked in a thick coating of dust and grime that took the place of curtains. Also just like her dream, the front door peculiarly appeared to be the only piece in perfect condition. A perfect, glossy black cloaked the door, with a coordinating gleaming brass doorknocker and knob. It was almost entrancing with its beauty.

If Josh was here he’d murder me, Ellie thought as she boldly began trudging through the un-groomed front lawn, escaping the swirls of dirt from the road that were picking up and burying itself in her long brown locks. Josh was the only one who knew about 1332 Solitary Road besides Ellie herself, and he specifically forewarned her of the dangers she might face searching for it.

“There’s something wrong about that house, Ellie, all wrong!” He had scolded her just the other day, his bright blue eyes enflamed at the idea his best friend would put herself at such foolish risk. “Trust me, I’ve lived here long enough to know nothing good could come of going there—no matter how many dreams you’ve had about it!”

But that was just the thing—it was luring her in.

She reached the front two porch steps, her body trembling from head to foot. The wind blew heavily again past her, every hair on her arms standing on end.

This was the part of her dreams she never could conquer. Standing there on the creaking old porch, she knew if she reached out and formed her fingers around the gleaming brass doorknob, everything she was imagining would vanish to blackness all at once.

But it didn’t. As Ellie’s tiny fist made the sharp twist to the right, the door unwillingly broke away from the frame, with the sound of crunching as parts of crusted, aged paint fought to keep it glued shut.

Everything went still at that moment. The wind froze in mid place; the whirl of dust picking up on the road fell to its death; the grass ceased its dance; and the clouds overhead no longer raced, but hung heavy, as if they were about to descend from the heavens. 

Ellie crossed over the threshold without looking back, stepping into the gloomy atmosphere of a century old living room. The floors were cherry wood, a thick layer of dust blanketing them like snow. A blue and white, floral wallpaper was peeling from the walls, certain parts stained yellow like a coaster stained by a coffee mug. Oddly enough, there was furniture embodying the room, each piece covered by a sufficient white sheet. As she picked her right foot up off the floor, the door behind her suctioned shut like lightening, slamming with the sound of thunder. Ellie instantly spun around in horror, grabbing at the doorknob to yank it back open and free herself. It wouldn’t budge.

Frantically, she began pounding her fragile fists against the evasive door. “Help! Help me! Is anybody out there? Please!” She let loose a reckless scream of terror.

And that’s when she heard it. A throaty, distant call that impelled her to silence.

“Ellie…” The voice rang out, lucid as the brass doorknob her eyes clung to. “You should not have come, Ellie…”

The young girl’s entire frame quaked in fear, as she stifled tears daring to escape. “Who- Who’s there?” She weakly cried out, her voice shaking as well.

Spinning back around, she noticed a staircase before her. Without hesitation or reasoning, her body compelled her to the steps, and she began her ascend. Each step was taken slowly and skeptically, but soon, she arrived at the landing, surrounded by more floral wallpaper and dark cherry floors, which appeared darker with the absence of light. Like promised, thunder rolled low and furious in the sky. The house rumbled in response as Ellie’s hazel eyes landed on a hallway of impassive doors—except for one at the end of the hall to the left.

As intimidating as the words struck the girl, she proceeded down the hall anyways, stopping just before the open door, in which the dim light from outside shone through the windows of the room and spilled out into the hall. “Ellie…”

She threw herself in front of the doorway, ready for whatever lay inside. Her hand flew to her mouth at once in revolted horror. A man’s body was sprawled limply across the sheet covered bed. Dead, no doubt. The mustache on his face had already collected a blanket of dust, as well as his balding head. He was dressed in clothes that looked like they were popular around the last turn of the century, yet his body was not even remotely decomposed as it should have been for the man to be dead 100 years. That’s when her eyes fell upon an old wicker chair, where a petite woman’s dress lay over the arm rest, as limp as the man’s body across the bed.

It aggressively all clicked at once: the corpse had not been there long. This was another of presumably many people haunted by the nightmares—now trapped forever. And Ellie was supposed to take its place, wearing the century old dress, just as the dead man’s corpse was clothed, preserving the evil house as its soul.

Ellie gasped, stumbling backwards into something stiff in the hallway. She spun around, her heart rate flying and thumping wildly against her chest.

A replica of the man lying on the bed was before her, his dark eyes wide but blank. “Get out,” he annunciated, his face still and expressionless. “Before it’s too late.” His dark eyes fell behind Ellie’s shoulder, at something she could not bring herself to face. Before she could release another bloodcurdling scream, the sound of an impressive amount of breaking glass echoed up the stairs from down below.

“Ellie! Ellie are you in here?” Josh’s desperate voice screamed. Just as she felt a pair of icy, lifeless fingers graze her shoulder, Ellie sprinted down the dark hallway, rounding quickly on the stair case and bounding down it two steps at a time. As she flew off the staircase, landing hard by the front door, she drew her eyes up to see Josh’s top torso looking in through a broken living room window, a large tree branch in his hands.

“Come on, we got to get out of here!” He cried, urgently, waving her towards his opened arms. In that second the top stair moaned above her crippled form, drawing her attention. The dead body of the man was raggedly inching closer and closer, his eyes turned facing the inside of his skull. He moaned as his head flopped limply to his chest.

Ellie sprang to her feet as fast as she could; racing herself into Josh’s waiting arms. He heaved her through the window, her clothes and skin tearing on the shards of broken glass, but she was too shaken to even register the pain. The two collapsed on the porch outside in an ungraceful heap, and were back on their feet again like the lightening that flashed violently across the sky.

“Hurry!” Josh yelled in panic over the deafening thunder echoing all around, grabbing at Ellie’s hand to pull her through the jungle like grass and back to the street.

Their hearts hammering against their ribs, they ran as fast as their legs could carry them, hands entwined as their bleeding bodies pushed them forward, unaware of the agony they were each suffering. They didn’t stop when they reached the dirt road; they continued running unwaveringly all the way down Solitary Road until they reached town, not looking back once at the nightmare they left behind.

Reviews

Another well put together piece, with the exception of a few minor spelling mistakes, which is probably not even worth noting. The only negative thing I can say is that there were some odd phrasing choices, where maybe certain words could be used as opposed to others, but that does not hinder this nightmare one bit.