Those Who Dwell In The Dark (Shortened Version)

Fran Wright's husband has disappeared.

Gabrielle Esposito

Those Who Dwell In The Dark

    Fran sat in the car, scribbling desperately on a wrinkled piece of paper. She thought it must be a napkin by the stink of grease it carried. She didn’t really care. It held the ink of her pen, and that was what mattered. She just had to write, just to make sure that someone knew what had happened to her if she disappeared. Fran had to hurry. Alex would be out soon from buying his ice cream.

    She wrote:

    To Whom It May Concern,

    If you’re reading this, I’m obviously dead. I was killed by whatever was in the Hanlon House. As of  7:37 December 18th, 1980, I have no idea what’s living in the walls. But I’m going to find out, because I have a feeling that whatever is there took my husband. He’s been missing since this morning, since I left him alone when I went grocery shopping.

All I ask is that you take care of my son, Alex. He’s what matters. My sister lives in California. She’s his rightful guardian.

Thank you for your help.

Sincerely,

Fran Wright

P.S. Do not go looking for my body. I have a feeling you might suffer a fate much like mine if you go into the Hanlon House.

    Fran finished writing the letter just as the doors to the local ice cream parlor opened. Alex walked out holding a double scoop cone of vanilla that teetered in his adolescent hand. In a panic, Fran flung the napkin into the glove compartment and pretended to chip away at her nail polish. Alex tapped on the window for her to unlock the door, and she looked up surprised, pretending not to have seen him coming.

    “Hey, champ. You really went big,” she said.

    “Yeah! They have all kinds of flavors in there, mom,” Alex said. He flashed her a gappy grin and licked his ice cream. “Maybe you, me and dad could all go one night before dinner.”

    Fran tried to keep her face still as she felt her chest sting at the mention of her husband. Her insides twisted and a pit opened in her stomach. She turned away from Alex, not wanting her face to give anything away.

    “Make sure you lick the sides. Don’t get any ice cream on the seat,” said Fran.

    “Okay,” said Alex. A pause as he licked around the top of the cone, then “Do I really have to go to church alone? I hate it there, it smells like old people.”

    “Yes, you do. It’s good for you.”

    “I’m busy.”

    “That’s not fair! Can’t dad come with me?”

    Fran pulled out of the parking lot with too much power and skidded into the other lane. An oncoming car beeped its horn at her, and Fran shut her eyes against the glare. She jerked the wheel. For a terrifying moment, she didn’t think the car was moving. But it must have, because the car passed them, the driver giving her the finger.

She braked in the middle of the road to catch her breath. Fran cast a sidelong glance at Alex. He

was still holding his cone. A little dribble of ice cream was racing across the width of his thumb.

    “Are you okay?” said Fran.

    “Yeah.”

    “Good. No talking for the rest of the ride, okay?”

    Fran was glad for the silence as she drove. Her nerves hummed like electric lines in her body. She needed to gather her thoughts.

    The f*****g house. That was where it had all started. They had moved there for her husband to start a new job. It was supposed to be a house for beginnings. Instead it was turning into a place with endings. But some things, like the constant scratch scratch scratch coming from the walls, never stopped. Well into the night Fran could hear it, even if it wasn’t loud. That scratch scratch scratch burrowing into her skull.

Gunther had disappeared after she left to go grocery shopping. She knew it was things that had been plaguing them because she had found little slashes of dried blood that had seeped through the walls. Could ghosts do that? She wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure of anything these days except that she knew had to at least try to save Gunther. He would do the same for her.

“Um, mom? The light is green,” said Alex.

Fran jumped as she was catapulted back into reality. She clumsily made the turn into the church parking lot and pulled up in front of the doors. Soft organ music filled the air.

“Are you sure I have to go mom?”

“Yes, I’m sure, silly.”

The skin around Alex’s lips was glistening from his frozen treat. Fran’s mouth pulled back into reluctant smile and she handed him a napkin from her bag. Her mind flashed back to the letter lying in the glove compartment.

“Thanks mom,” said Alex. “I guess I’ll go now.”

Fran felt a hot ball of tears rise up in her throat as she watched him turn away. She grabbed his arm before he got out of the car and held him in her grasp. It didn’t seem real. Nine months of carrying him, ten years raising him, hundreds of tears and thousands of memories, all leading up to this single moment. Fran had promised herself that she was going to act like everything was normal. The last thing she wanted to do was make him worry. It took all of her strength not to cry, but she allowed herself to draw Alex towards her. She made herself remember how Alex’s arms, still thick with baby fat, held her around her torso. His fingers were clenched into claws, and they dug into her, as if he was afraid to let her go. Soft curls kissing her cheek. Eyelashes wet with tears. Innocence so sweet and pure. Too young to be shattered.

Fran stood back and touched his cheek. Her hands were shaking in her effort not to cry.

“Don’t be late,” said Fran. Alex slipped away from her, and she saw in his eyes that he could tell something wasn’t right. He just didn’t know what.

    “I love you,” Fran whispered. She had never meant the words more in her life. Alex didn’t know that. She felt a throbbing ache shoot through her as she wished for more time.

    “I love you too, mom,” said Alex. He gave her a small uncertain smiling before slipping out of the car and running up to the doors. At the top of the steps, Alex stopped and turned back to wave.

    Fran returned the gesture, finally allowing herself to cry.

…………………………………..

    By the time Fran made it back to the house, her eyes were red and stinging. She had lost her nerve and had needed to take a nip of the whiskey Gunther kept in his flask. She held it in her hands the entire ride home, running her thumb along the filigree as she drove. Fran pulled into the driveway buzzed and wired. She glared at the house from the car, the engine humming loudly in her ears. The house seemed to stare down at her, a steely giant ready to pounce. In her fragile state, she stuck her tongue out at it.

    Fran turned to her phone sitting on her knee. She fingered it, telling herself that she wouldn’t check her messages again, and then opened up the app anyway. Nothing from Gunther. Of course there wasn’t. The blood on the walls…

    She couldn’t sit around any longer. It was now or never. Finishing off the whiskey, Fran stepped out of the car and meandered her way towards the Hanlon House. The alcohol in her stomach did a decent job of helping her get actually walk through the door of the house. Once inside, Fran felt small and insignificant.

    Fran turned and faced the gaping interior of the house. Standing in the kitchen with all the energy that swirled around in the room made her positive that she hadn’t overreacted. Something was here, it was watching her, and she had to get it out somehow to keep Alex safe.

    “Come out, come out, wherever you are,” she whispered.

    She took a step forwards, felt the boards shift underneath her feet and then kept advancing, the floor tilting this way and that as if she were walking on waves. She wasn’t sure if it was happening or if it was a vile mind trick of the house’s personality. She didn’t let it phase her either way.

    “Gunther?” Fran made it the counter and grabbed a knife out of the block of wood that housed the set just to make herself feel better. A weapon was a primal need for a human in times of danger. The knife gleamed in her hand and flashed in the dark, reminding her of lightning. Fran tore open a drawer, too. All the pens and random pieces of paper went flying towards the front, and then came the blue flashlight rolling leisurely towards her. The weight of it felt good in her hands. She wondered if a spirit would flinch if she clubbed it on the head. Probably not.

    She waited for a sound to come and break the silence, but nothing met her ears as much as they burned for it. Fran advanced, swinging the beam of the light over every surface. Ghastly shadows were embedded in the lighted parts of the room. Her insides squirmed just looking at it. Fran met the bottom of the stairs and had just touched the banister when she felt something cool chill her fingertips. Her eyes widened and then dropped down. She stared at her hand. Fran watched the hair on her knuckle curl towards her. Then she watched the small hairs sway towards the wall. She stared at it for a few moments. Forwards backwards, forwards backwards, in time with the wind coming from the walls. The presence of the house.

Fran let the breath still in her lungs. The knife suddenly felt extremely important in her grip. She raised it over her head, the gleam of it catching in her eyes. She heard it, that sound that she had been waiting for all f*****g night.

Scratch scratch scratch.

She plunged the knife in between the boards of the wall. It stuck with a thunk and the scraping died away. Fran heard something clatter behind the wall do ghosts make noise? and the sound of shuffling filled the air. It was moving away from her, simply running away while she stood still. Fran moved after it, an ear pressed against the wall and her flashlight raised. She left the knife. It was moving too fast to be bothered. What good would it do against her phantom enemy anyway?

Fran followed the shuffling through the length of the wall back to the kitchen. Her ear began to ache, but she kept at it. She was keeping up with it, it couldn’t hide not under her watch, she was going to get it, end of mystery and peace for all--but she lost it. The sound died. Fran tore herself away from the wall in shock, stared at it for a moment, then put her face to it again, just to make sure. Silence. Her eyes were beginning to brim with tears full of anger and frustration when she saw that all hope was not lost.

There was a door about an inch away from her. She had lost sight of it in her mounting excitement, but it was clear now, as if her tears had magnified reality. She lunged towards the door and grabbed the handle, the metal cold in her hand. She threw it open and stood gazing down at the steps. The beam of the flashlight didn’t touch all of them. Those towards the bottom looked like were being swallowed by the blackness. Fran told herself that she didn’t have to go down the stairs if she didn’t want to, she should go get Alex. But she saw through her own  bullshit, and suddenly thought of leaving was cowardly.

Fran swallowed hard and then set her foot on the first step. She expected it to crumble underneath her, making her fall down down down into the nothingness and be forgotten. But it held. Fran wasn’t sure that was what she had truly wanted. She started making her descent slowly at first, but soon found herself running down the steps. The longer she dwindled on each wooden landing, the more she wanted to give up.

The light coming from the flashlight finally touched upon the bottom of the floor. She saw it and jumped the last step, happy to be on solid ground. Or had been in the moment. The ground squelched underneath her feet. A horrid smell hit her nose, and she almost fell to the floor gagging. The basement smelled like a sewer. Some critter squeaked in the darkness and Fran jumped. She swung her light in the direction of the sound, and saw the rat scampering across the floor. It froze in the beam for a moment, it’s beady eyes fixed on her and it’s ratty whiskers twitching. It’s scaly tail flicked in agitation, and then it took off towards her. Fran screamed and jumped onto the last step, letting it run past her. She could almost hear it snickering as it disappeared into the dark.

“F*****g b*****d,” she whispered.

Scratch scratch scratch scratch scratch scratch scratch

Everything was suddenly forgotten.

Fran moved her light towards a wall to her right. She stepped back down onto the floor, the rat feces once again smooshing against the sole of her shoe.

Scratch scratch scratch scratch scratch

“Hello?” More steps forward. God, the air was thick.

Scratch scratch scra--

Fran had made it to the wall when the sound stopped. She stared at it, wondering if would suddenly explode in a fury of teeth and bite her. Her flashlight never wavered from the spot. Fran’s hands were unnaturally steady considering how fast her heart was beating. She could hear her breath.  

“Is something there?” She felt ridiculous when nothing answered. She waited, all the while getting that creeping feeling that something would answer behind her and then slash her before she could scream. Fran fought against the swelling desire to turn around and instead kept her eye trained on the wall.

Scraaaatch. Scraaaaaaaatch. Thunk. Scrrrrrrrratch. Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.

The wall, it was moving. Fran had been staring at it long enough to know that the flimsy barrier of cheap plaster was pulsing each time another scrape rang out through the air. She hadn’t expected a ghost to do that.

Fran edged closer, her lungs still and full of burning air in her chest, her hands shaking. The beam flashed wildly. The same curiosity that killed the cat had infected her, making her creep ever nearer.

She knocked on the wall, simply to see if she could get the ghost to come out. Fran waited. And waited. And waited. She furrowed her pale brows, feeling stupid for even thinking that the thing in the walls was going to answer her. She felt her heart melt and drip into her toes. She had been so close, hadn’t she? Moments away from discovering the very thing that had plagued them? But it wouldn’t speak to her now. Maybe it had all been in her--

A hand shot out of the wall, plaster flew everywhere. Fran screamed and scuttled back, caught her shoe on the floor and went tumbling down. A flare of pain ate it’s way up her back, but she swallowed the wave that came and rode it. The world was gone for a moment in the flurry of plaster fragments and confusion. Fran rebounded as fast as she could and trained her flashlight on the newly made hole in the wall.

Nothing was there.

“Hello?” said Fran. She got herself standing, which was more than she had hoped. Her back protested this by screaming at her. “Are you the ghost? A spirit?” Fran allowed herself to spin in a circle once, giving her a bite of satisfaction, showing her that no one was there. She stopped in front of the gaping hole. Something had been there, she hadn’t made it up. There was a pile of plaster on the ground, the little flakes piled up like snow. She found herself being drawn in, like a moth to light. Fran knew it wasn’t smart, knew that the hole was simply a figment of her own black imagination. But she had to try. If she left now, it would haunt her, whether there was truly a ghost or if she was simply insane.

“Is anyone there?” The head of the flashlight dangerously close to the hold now, it’s beam illuminated translucent spiders webs and their hairy spinners. A few mice, but nothing else. “Hello?”

Only her own voice answered back.

Fran was beginning to pull away when the thing in the walls grabbed her.

Cold flesh gripped her, the feeling of it biting into the warmth of the red river and killing it. Fran screamed then fell as the creature yanked. Her chin struck the floor and her senses buzzed. Rat droppings stuck to her skin.

She looked back and saw a hand, bloody, dirty, nails jagged and chipped, wrapped around her ankle. Fran wracked at it with her flashlight. The grip didn’t loosen. If anything, it tightened.

“F**k! Off!”

The thing tugged on her leg in response, and Fran dug her hands into the mess on the floor. She met wooden floorboards, nothing to grip and nowhere to hide. She felt herself beginning to slide closer towards the hole in the wall. Fran hit it again and again and again with the weight of the flashlight. It did no good, and as she screamed louder the hole got closer with each passing second. Dread shot through her, heavy and cold. A splinter of wood embedded itself into her leg as the thing pulled her into the wall. Blood slid down her leg. It was the only thing that told her she was still alive.

The teeth of the hole ate away her leg, practically skinning her the further she was dragged. The pain didn’t bother her, too much adrenaline in her veins. Her flashlight was still in her hand, and as Fran clawed uselessly in rebellion against the tugging, she was already readying herself for a fight.

When her torso hit the agony of the edge of the hole, Fran bit her tongue against the pain, just to hear something other than her own heart beating as she was dragged. Her flesh tore away from her body in long strips and were left behind on the wooden spikes. A wave of emotion struck her again, and the black of the basement blurred into a whirlpool of red. Fran felt what was left inside of her channel into a single outburst and she turned to look at the thing that had dragged her into the wall, that supposedly helpless spirit.

The beam of the flashlight was aimed at the hand on Fran’s leg and she followed it up up

up until she hit the face of the creature with the light. The tugging stopped, and so did Fran’s breath. Everything hung still as her eyes traveled over the image.

A nose. A mouth. A chin. A few grimy strands of hair. Black, black irises with pinprick pupils. Rotten teeth, bared and sneering. Breath, rank and hot. Human. The thing that had grabbed her. It--she--was human.

    They stared at each other, one half alive, the other floating above reality. Both were foreign creatures, boundaries undefined. But the feral girl was a hunter, and her wiring told her to strike first, and strike fast.

    A bony fist raised high into the air and hung in the yellow cone of Fran’s light. She let it ram into her face. Fran was too shocked to do anything else but let it hit her.

………………………………………..

    Fran slipped in and out of consciousness. The girl had landed a good one. When Fran opened her eyes for the first time, she could only force her right lid up. The rest of her face was swollen and tingling. She felt her body being dragged over the inner workings of the wall. Once or twice Fran tried to fight back. All she managed to do was punch a few holes in the wall. Her attempt left her blood and bruised, her fingers swelling into sausages and the pain throbbing up her arm.

The wiry strength of the girl managed to pull Fran a surprising distance. She handled her with as much care as something like her could manage. Fran didn’t look at it as an act of kindness. Whenever she felt those icy and rough hands on her, Fran’s eyes would turn to her. She would find the girl looking at her, a hunger in her eyes.

Death’s extended hand would be kinder than the look she gave Fran. But they might as well have been the same thing.

Fran must have conked out for a good long while, because when she awoke, she was no longer in the wall or in the clutches of the girl. Instead she found herself in a wide open space, staring up at the pitched ceiling. She could see the stars blanketing the sky heavily, saw the thin tip of the moon shining through the cracks in the roof. A few moments of bliss simply staring, and then pain came and gripped her in it’s jaw, jerked her around and then left her weeping on the floor. She tried to lift her head. Her neck wouldn’t cooperate. Fran moved her fingers, just to see if she had some of her precious motor skills. They twitched in response. Her fingertips felt the warm pool of blood blossoming around her. Soon. It would be very soon.

The girl had seen that she was awake because she came towards Fran, her naked body hunched over, steadied on fists like a savage ape. She sniffed Fran’s hair, then tugged at it. A sharp moan escaped her lips. The girl grunted, jolted back and glared at her.

“What--do you--want?” Fran whispered. She coughed. Warm copper coated her throat. She was bleeding out from the inside.

The girl didn’t say anything, merely turned away. Fran stared at the splinters embedded into her a*s, watched the brutish movement of her walk. Something scraped against the floor, something hollow echoed as it was banged against the floor. The girl turned, a piece of plywood being carried in her bloody hands. She edged closer to Fran and stabbed her body with the wood.

She hit a tender spot in Fran’s ribs. The pain chewed her nerves and blinded her. Fran twisted and flailed stupidly on the floor, unable to breathe. Amid the haze, Fran heard the girl grunting again, the sound rising and falling, rising and falling with sick excitement.

Death. She was going to die.

“Let--me go. Please. Don’t--I don’t--I can’t--.” The girl’s shouting stopped and she sat settled on the floor, considering her with curiosity as if she had never before heard a human speak.

“Can--I--leave? Will you--le--” Fran gasped, pure pain. She tried again. “Let--me--go.”

Those black eyes stared at her, the strands on her head swaying as she stepped closer to Fran’s still and bleeding form. She put her fist in the puddle of blood and lifted her hand to sniff it. A gray tongue darted out of her mouth and lapped at the red glove. Her eyes shifted dangerously fast to Fran. Her stare grew wide, pupils dilated. Little red mouth. The girl darted at Fran, hungry for more.

Author's Note

Please feel free to leave any comments that you think may benefit the writing. No comment is too harsh. Thank you!

Reviews

[Tommy Naclerio]

Wow creative writing! Hey without him, I could actually talk to you today. Sorry i was so touchy too, i just was happy. And for the weirdo read my comment back off. Or ill spoil this whole story. Anyway what did you want me for at the end of the day? I regret not coming along.