The House on Morning Avenue

The tale of one man's experience with one house.

                It all came about, I suppose, from a lust for money. The woman paid so well my pockets couldn’t say no. And now I can hardly sleep. I try to keep myself awake with coffee and drugs, for being in a constantly exhausted, clumsy daze is better than falling asleep. When I slumber my dreams are filled with monstrous actions, screaming victims, hellish instruments, and blood. Oh so much blood! And, most horrible of all, I awaken from such damnable nightmares grinning with delight. Whatever was in that ungodly house now, in some measure or other, is within me. I write of the incident in the wee hours of the morning, busying my mind and hands, lest they stray to sleep or other horrid affairs.
                It all started in my office, which, like my name, was a symbol of honesty and charity when it was my father’s, but crumbled into indecency and disrepute when bequeathed unto me. I wish I could blame the deterioration on the iron fist of the Fishermen, who own everything in this town, save for the fisher out in Harbor Sound (a queer irony if I do say so), but, alas, my own hand was the start of the erosion of name and business alike. I fancied money above all else, taking what I could get for the least amount of effort. And with such a deep, wanting pocket the wholesome and prosperous legal office begun by my father soon decayed into a sordid, cheap circus whose customers, once affluent, honest men and women, were now the opportunists of late night and early afternoon television commercials offering “fair compensation” through class action lawsuits.
                The woman came into my office on a bright, cool day in September. Her hair was strands of spider web, her eyes were gray slates. She was pale and trembling, tears running down her pallid face. I immediately ignored that and, with a mid-day yawn invited her to sit. It was no rare thing for clients to come in with a flamboyant entrance. Some would wear false casts or neck braces if they wanted compensation. Others would take to stage makeup or other means. I assumed this woman was looking for, based on her withered and weepy appearance, emotional damage claims. And in ninety-nine other cases I would’ve been correct. This time I was horribly mistaken.
                Passing a tissue to the woman, I urged her to explain her case. I was immediately expecting to hear an archetypal scenario about an ex-husband who was verbally abusing her, or a fender bender that had left her traumatized. What came out of her mouth was something I’d never expected.
                “Mr. Nash,” she whimpered. “My house is haunted.”
                Had I not been my professional self, I might’ve scoffed, thus saving me from the wretched horror my life has become. However, wanting to understand how the woman’s house being “haunted” could earn me money, I kept a serious demeanor and gestured for her to continue.
                She spoke timidly of how strange, ominous occurrences were manifesting in her residence and how she had been sleeping at a local Morning Star hotel for the past week. She told me that she knew what she was saying sounded insane and I reassured her that it sounded perfectly reasonable, all the while reminding myself to call the Harvest Rock Mental Rest Facility for the poor thing. After, of course, I received a nice three weeks’ pay or so.
                I asked her how I could be of assistance to her during her time of need and she held forth the white file folder she had clenched in her hand. Taking it, I inwardly grimaced at the dampness of the stiff paper from the woman’s perspiring palms and the dark splotches from mascara-tinted tears.
                Opening the file, I discovered that its contents were a mess of articles ranging from clipped news articles to police reports printed from “free information” websites. As I gave each sheet a cursory glance the woman identified them as documented occurrences of her home from the past two decades. She wished to have a professional’s opinion on the matter, asking me to examine the file and tell her whether or not I believed the residence was possessed of a supernatural entity.
                I thought to tell her that I didn’t know, or believe, a single thing about ghosts or haunting, but then my nigh-empty pocket put in its two-cents’ worth. I handed the woman a basic information form and waited silently as she filled it out. When she was finished, I took it back, stood, shook her quivering, damp hand, and told her I’d be in touch with her.
                The door closing behind her, I looked at the form, my eyes widening in surprise.

Name: Rebecca Trelawney

Age: 40

Residence:  716 Morning Ave, Harbor Sound, Harvest Rock

                Forty years old? That pale, shaking poor thing looked sixty! I raised my hand to call the Harvest Rock Mental Rest Facility as earlier considered, when my pocket called out to me again. So I moved my risen hand from phone to wet file and began to read…

                After a week of reading Ms. Trelawney’s reports I was no more convinced of a malevolent being than I had been at our initial meeting. Yes, the house at 716 Morning Avenue had a history of unfortunate incidents occur in it since its construction in 1895, but nothing that implied supernatural causes. There was a history of vandalism that spanned its years in Harbor Sound. Everything from windows breaking simultaneously to mysterious graffiti had plagued the residence, but these sort of events could easily be chalked up to restless hooligans of the teen age and corporeal variety.
                The house had also been the scene of several violent crimes as well. Cases of suicide, murder, spousal and child abuse had befallen its rooms and halls. Still, however sad as it may be, there was nothing paranormal about these events. E very house, given as much time as Trelawney’s, would accumulate the same sort of misfortune.
                The only thing that seemed the least bit odd to my rational, yet greedy, mind was the case of the newborn deaths. According to nursing records, both from Trelawney’s file and, after become more interested in the cases, my own small research, any infant that was born within the walls of the residence died within hours after birth. After some time of puzzling this fact over I arrived at the conclusion that there was some kind of mold or asbestos that led to these short infant lives. Though this conclusion seemed reasonable, my mind continuously diverted to these deaths over the week. I imagine it distracted me so because of the particular misfortune of the matter, but I could not explain why it sent shivers throughout my body…

                The next time I invited Rebecca Trelawney into my office, seven days after our first meeting, she looked even more haggard than before. Her hair was a thin straggle of pure white and her skin was prematurely wrinkled and almost ghoulishly gray. When I shook her hand I found her to be quaking terribly and saw a look of what seemed to be great anger and anguish in her eyes.
                As we sat opposite one another I asked the woman how she was feeling, telling her she seemed to not be getting enough sleep. Her raging reply startled me. Such a stream of shouts and curses as came from such a weak and weary seeming woman seemed, at once, nerve racking and pathetic.
                I kept quiet and still as Ms. Trelawney’s swearing and roaring gradually degenerated to a hoarse weeping and apologizing. I begged her to tell me what had caused her anger, but all she said was that she had, stupidly, gone back to “that house of horrors.”
                Lest I lose my client and my money, I kept my incredulous thoughts to myself and began to talk about why I’d called upon Ms. Trelawney that day. I asked her why she had come to my office in seek of professional advise with her case. Before she answered that she had wanted to find someone who would not mock her I saw her eyes flare up once again with that rage she had come to me with. I explained calmly and peacefully, so as not to have her shout and swear again, that I was not trained to pick out instances of paranormal activity, leaving out that I thought such matters to be nothing but garbage. She told me, gritting her teeth, against what I think was the ire that shown in her eyes, that it didn’t matter if I was trained or not. She asked what I had personally thought of the file she had presented me with.
                Fully expecting to be met with another violent verbal bout from the woman, I told her that, though the events that had come to the house, I found nothing which seemed to suggest supernatural causality, omitting the creeping feeling that the cases of infant death had given me. Such matters would have only fed into Trelawney’s obviously degenerating mind.
                to my findings, the woman did not cry out in rage, but simply nodded. A full minute went by without either one of us saying anything and finally, having endured the discomfort of the silence long enough, I said to her that if there was anything else I could do for her, she should not hesitate to ask. I expected her to thank me, pay, and leave my office, at which point I would have called the Harvest Rock Mental Rest Facility, but she instead asked one favor of me: to go inside the house with her.
                I do not know what made me agree to Rebecca Trelawney’s request of entering her supposedly haunted house. A rational man, such as I’d prided myself on being, would have ended everything right then, explained to the woman that she was mentally ill, and called the proper authorities to take her to where she could receive help. Something, though, wouldn’t let me say no. It was either my lust for Trelawney’s money, which continued to become mine as hours passed, or it was the chilling feeling that the cases of the newborn deaths gave me. Looking back, I can, with all amount of due shame, assume I agreed with my pocket instead of my curious mind. Perhaps, if this is so, I deserve what is coursing through me now, what came from that house…

                I had seen, in Ms. Trelawney’s file of reports and articles, multiple photographs of the house at 716 Morning Avenue, so I knew it was a two story, late 19^th century model, but as I pulled into the gravel driveway of the place on September 29^th, those photographs did not prepare me for what to expect. Sitting behind the wheel of my car, Ms. Trelawney in the passenger seat beside me, I looked up at the house with disgust.
                Most of the photographs from the woman’s file were black and white, but even the colored ones did not capture the brown of the building before me. The hue reminded me simultaneously of the dirt of a freshly dug grave and a soiled baby’s driver, and the two impressions seemed to fit like puzzle pieces in my mind. This paint that gave me such unsettlingly fitting associations was chipped and withered, separating from the wood in places as though it wanted to escape from the house.
                The windows of the place, from the elongated rectangle panes bordering the front door to the half-circle centered high near the roof that indicated the presence of an attic, were bare of curtains and blinds, but appeared glazed over with imperceptible grime. Without visible reason they obstructed any outside view into the home and appeared unpleasant and dirty to any passersby. It was as though the domicile had some secret that it would only share with those who dare enter its doors.
                Without opening my car door the cloying stench from the Harbor Sound fishery reached my nostrils, adding its own presence to the unpleasant atmosphere I was experiencing. Even though it was a bright and cool day there seemed to be a horrid black cloud over 716 Morning Avenue. Sitting there, the only sound the muffled traffic from Treeman, three blocks south, I found myself jittery and slightly on edge, as though I hadn’t had my noon cigarette. I would have lit up one of the Blue Bells I had in my glove box had Ms. Trelawney not been at my side, but with her there I settled for a deep breath before unbuckling my seatbelt and stepping outside…

                Stepping up the creaking steps to the front door, Ms. Trelawney next to me, I found myself shaking slightly. I convinced myself that it was the beginning of an early autumn cool down, but now I know it was fear of what I was to find in the house. At one point, as Rebecca was unlocking the door, I almost said that the whole visit was a waste of my time, but I bit against the words, my greed pushing me forward. Oh, how I wish I had listened to my mind instead of my wallet and left that place when I had a chance.
                Walking into Trelawney’s house was akin to crossing a borderline. At one point I was in Harbor Sound and then, with one step forward, I was somewhere else entirely. The front parlor looked like an ordinary entrance to the eye, with a coat rack to one side and a standing lamp on the other, but there was something not quite right. It was as though there was a subtle electric current. The hairs on my arms stood out with goose bumps, my teeth fillings tasted heavily metallic, and I felt a claustrophobic sensation wash over my body. I asked Ms. Trelawney if she was feeling what I was and she stated simply that this was only the beginning. The vague and cryptic nature of this statement made me sneer inwardly with irritation as we left the foyer and into the living room.
                Entering this room I felt my irritation grow. All around were happy and cheery porcelain figurines. On every available shelf and table these objects were lined. Their bright and smiling forms were the antithesis of the shady and depressive house. They made me highly uncomfortable, almost as though they were mocking and jeering at me. The sight of them made my head ache miserably and I wanted nothing more than to smash and stomp them until they were nothing more than plaster crumbs in the drab and morose carpeting.
                Suddenly, I felt something land on my shoulder and jumped, startled. When I turned to see what had touched me I saw that it was only that aggravating woman. She gave me a brief, thin-lipped smile that might have said that she was feeling the same oppressive tension that had caused me to become startled by her touch and which caused me to be so irritated. Instead of being comforted that I was not alone with these claustrophobic feelings that quick smile made me want to slap Ms. Trelawney, because I didn’t read commonality in it, but rather the same mocking quality as from the porcelain figures. It was then that I realized there might be something unnatural about that place…

                As Rebecca Trelawney led me deeper into the house, the oppressiveness of the place dug deeper into me, making my head pulse with pain and turning my irritation into anger. Every time the woman opened her mouth I wanted to tell her to shut her damnable trap. Whenever she said something about that house that I had read in her file I had to restrain myself from striking her in the jaw. Did she think that I was so stupid as to forget what I had read? And the whole time she wore that small apologizing smile that I read as being completely fake and malicious. She was pretending that she knew how I was feeling in this house, but she was too ignorant to understand. All a woman like here, who fills her house with doilies and cheap knick knacks and insipid figurines, understands is pathetic loneliness. It would be doing her a favor, I thought with hatred, if I killed her…

                Before the rickety staircase to the second story of that infernal house my anger was quivering rage. My hands were clutched into white-knuckled fists inside my pockets, lest they strike out against Ms. Trelawney. I wanted to tell the woman to end this stupid tour and to rush back to my office. Something, though, wouldn’t let me turn back. It wasn’t my greed this time, however. I would have given all I had to be let out of that nightmare house. No, it was something deep inside that refused to let me leave. A small smudge in my soul that could perfectly be scribbled by a child with a black crayon. And worse than not letting me leave, it urged me forward, whispering night imperceptibly to continue onward to see what I might find. So when Ms. Trelawney asked me if I was ready to go to the second floor, my head nodded on its own accord and my feet, as though controlled by someone or something else, began to mount the creaking staircase.
                As we walked what seemed for hours, but was actually only thirteen steps, I felt, simultaneously, that dark urging smudge on my soul grow and the oppression and claustrophobia fade. I felt myself grin widely as we reached the second story landing, a hallway with few doors as pitifully awful as the lower level. Ms. Trelawney saw my smile and asked me if I was alright, was I feeling okay.
                I wanted to tell her that I was feeling fine, almost like new except for my headache, but, instead, flung my fist out and smashed it against her jaw. She fell hard to the ground and I saw her mouth was bleeding. To my utter horror, a part of me was gleefully proud of what I had just done and, even more horribly, wanted to do much, much more. That part of me wanted to straddle the prone woman and break her fingers one at a time. It wanted to rip her stupid tongue from her insipid mouth. It wanted to sink its teeth into her belly and rip out her innards.
                I began to move toward Ms. Trelawney, who was crawling away from me. With all my willpower, fighting against that maliciously gleeful thing inside me, I turned away from her and faced down the hall. And that’s when I saw it.
                At the very end of that dark, gray, sinister hallway was the attic door. To that malicious entity inside my soul it was the most beautiful thing in the world. To my remaining sanity it was a hellish terror. It was of dark, older wood than the rest of the doors in the house and cracked all over. The door knob was of tarnished, aged brass, and all over was the deep crimson of dried blood.
                Controlled by that ever growing stain on my soul, I began to stalk toward the attic door. I tried to seize back mastery but that sadistic thing bit into my mind with pain unlike any I’d ever felt before. From behind I heard Trelawney scream for me not to go into the attic and the horror that was nearly in all control shouted back a litany of torturous threats and monstrous slurs, still walking towards that door, a smile pasted on my face.
                I came upon the door and as the evil force reached for the knob I fought against its assault of pain to take back control one last time. The evil proved stronger and, with crushing force, threw open the attic door, stalking up the stairs. And when I reached the last creaking step I saw what that house truly was and it felled me into unconsciousness…

                When I awoke from faintness I was in my office and a week had passed. Everything seemed in its place, as though I had never been absent. I searched my entire files for the one of Rebecca Trelawney, but it was nowhere to be seen. When I asked my receptionist, who had greeted Ms. Trelawney on the occasions she came to my 0office, she said that she hadn’t seen the poor dear since the last time she’d been to my office, that horrid September 29^th. She suggested that the woman had gone to seek mental help, but now I wonder if something more insidious befell that poor woman.
                I don‘t know how to describe what I saw in the attic of the house at 716 Morning Avenue. Words cannot give an image to the tremendous evil that resided there. All I can say is that the horrible thing passed through me, allowing that darkness that led me to go into tits attic lair to stay and grow within me.
                That darkness that began as a smudge has grown and twisted into a malicious power within me. It is what makes me so gleeful when I dream of sadistic acts and it is what is taking over my rational, if greedy, mind. Soon, it will be in complete, terrible control of my person and it will wreck havoc upon any it comes in contact with.
                I will not let that happen, though. I will end that evil before it can take over. And when I do, maybe I will finally be at rest and, perhaps, whoever takes my place in this office will not be as greedy as I.