Hell House

Should have posted this during Halloween but oh well!

            Blood oozed from all the cracks and wrinkles of the old wooden house. Sandy and I were already scared enough when, from a distance, I heard the most grueling, evil laugh I had ever heard. I turned to Sandy and tears began to stream down her face. I took her hand and said, “We’re going to make it out of here no matter what it takes.” I tugged on her hand to follow me down the hallway. The blood was beginning to flood the hallway, already devouring our ankles and quickly creeping up to our knees. I was franticly looking for a way out. The laughing that, at first, sounded like it was coming from behind us now seemed to be coming from every direction. I slammed through the door that was at the end of the hallway and what greeted us was another empty old room. The river of blood quickly rushed passed our ankles and began to fill this room too. I was really beginning to lose faith in what I had told Sandy. She squeezed my hand and I looked back at her. Her eyes were puffy and red from crying yet she was wide eyed from being so scared. She was giving me a look that made me think of a small lost puppy lost in the middle of New York. I looked to the west of us and saw another old rotten door, this one with a doorknob. “We are getting out of this,” I told myself. Pulling Sandy along with me, I walked over to the door and with my right leg broke it down.

 

           

 

            The vibrating in my ear made me jump from my bed to my carpet floor. I slowly pulled myself up and looked at the clock I had sitting on the nightstand posted next to my bed. 6:30 am it said.

            “Great,” I thought. “Time for school.” I grabbed my phone from under my pillow and made sure that I turned it off and not on snooze so that it didn’t decide to freak me out by ringing again. I didn’t make my bed (I usually do, as surprising as that might sound) and walked down stairs to have some breakfast.

            My younger brother, Jimmy, was already at the table with a plate of half-eaten pancakes laid in front of him. He was mid chew when I sat down.

            “Here you go Matt.” My mom set down a plate of freshly made pancakes with some cut strawberries on the side.

            “You know,” I commented, “I’m about to miss these mornings when I head off to college.” My mom frowned and said, “Don’t even talk about that. Makes me sad just thinking about that.”

            My brother started to giggle and I turned to him. “What are you laughing at?” He contained himself enough to say, “Your hair! It’s ridiculous!” I only had to float my hand over my head for me to realize what he was talking about. I could feel my hair sticking out in every direction possible. My hair wasn’t that long, but it was long enough to make me look like a clown when I woke up with a bed head.

            “Don’t bother him Jimmy. Your hair isn’t looking that much better.” I made a sizzling noise and placed my finger on my brother’s forearm.

            “Burned,” I whispered. My mom and I started to laugh while my brother’s cheeks began to flush.

            “Now come on you guys,” My mom cut in. “Finish up. School starts soon.”

            The rest of my morning went by relatively quick with me finishing my meal, taking a quick shower, and getting my backpack ready to go to school. I walked downstairs, gave my mom a quick kiss on the cheek, and walked out with my bike which I got from my backyard.

            Now, we did have one extra car which was basically used between my brother and I but I usually let my brother drive it to school and call it his own since I had every intention on getting a new car when I graduated.

            My brother quickly drove away while I mounted my bike and made my way down the neighborhood street towards the bike path that branched out towards the end that led straight towards my high school. I almost began to slow my pace just so I would avoid the rush of kids trying to get to their classes but I began to get close to the second to last house on my street, the house that the bike path ran by, and everything seemed to slow down in a very unnerving manner.

            I hadn’t known about this house’s history until my seventh grade math teacher told me about it when I decided to stay in one lunch to get some help on some math homework that I was having trouble with. It was an old wooden house to begin with, so that right there already set the mood for the creepiness it exemplified. I remember Ms. Norwood telling me about the couple that used to live there and what had happened to them.

            “They seemed to be a happy couple,” Ms. Norwood explained. “Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. They were just living out the rest of their life in that old house, or so the rumors go.” She shifted in her seat and cleared her throat as she put her pencil down.

            “Their names were Marry Dean and Jack Dean. The house that they lived in was already an old house by the 80’s, which is when all of this happened. It wasn’t until one Saturday morning that the house got so much attention. You see, Jack would always go on a run every night, but one Friday night, something happened. He never returned. His wife alerted the police and they searched all night until Saturday morning, when they found his body in a small ravine about ten miles from his house. The story blew up and poor Marry couldn’t get time for her self to mourn the loss of her husband.”

            “But how did he die?” I asked.

             “Well they ended up concluding that it was suicide, but I never believed it. Everyone in the community didn’t believe it. And it only made it worse when they found Marry on the floor one afternoon dead as well. They covered that up as a heart attack which seemed more believable but still. Something wasn’t right about their deaths. She had died while mixing some flour, probably about to make some snickerdoodles. Those were her favorite and she was very good at making them to no one’s surprise. There were rumors that she had gotten stabbed. The one rumor I do believe"” She looked around us to make sure no one was listening and whispered, “I think there was already something evil in that house. An evil spirit that caused their deaths.” I probably had a weird look on my face because her face softened and she chuckled.

            “Well, they’re only rumors right? Anyways, we have to get this math done. That story took more time than I thought it would.”

            She had told me that years ago yet the idea that something evil had killed a happy old couple made me shiver every time I biked past the house. My bike ran over a fallen branch and the sharp crack sent an electrical current through my whole body and I peddled away from that creepy old house as fast as I possible could.

            Needless to say I got to Wilson High School relatively quick after that immediate adrenaline rush. Unfortunately for me, I ran straight into the rush of freshman that I wanted to avoid. Being a sophomore now, I knew better than to be caught in this rush of confusion. It also came quick to my attention that I had forgotten that it was Halloween which, to be quite honest, didn’t surprise me. I hadn’t truly done anything for Halloween since probably the sixth grade.

            My first two classes were my day killers. First was Biology which always put me in a more curious mood just because the topics we talked about like cell biology, for example, made me want to become a scientist except for the fact that the class was just a little too early for me to really get my full attention and most of the time made me sleepier than I already was walking into the class. And then came History class. This class was already a subject I could care less about, while adding the fact that I had the most boring teacher to ever teach American history, made for a pretty horrible experience.

            When class finally ended, I sped out of there as fast as I could and walked over to my locker which was on the second floor in the math hallway. As I was putting my biology binder away, a finger tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around to find a snarling, ugly looking wolf/human hybrid staring me straight in the face. I yelped and backed up which led me to slam my head on the lockers.

            “You couldn’t have reacted any better than that!” I could recognize that voice from a mile away. I looked up to see the dirty wolf hand grab its own face and peel it off, leaving me face to face with my girlfriend, Sandy Mclean.

            “Nice to see you too,” I muttered as I rubbed the back of my head. She leaned into me and kissed me on the lips. “It seems like you forgot that it’s Halloween today.”

            “I haven’t really ‘done’ Halloween in a couple of years now.” She rolled her eyes and frowned.

            “You don’t have to be mister tough guy all the time you know,” She remarked. “You can have a little fun every once in a while.” I sighed. Sandy was a short girl, around five foot three inches. I was only five inches taller than her. She had deep blue eyes and long light brown hair. It had a natural wavy pattern that started below her shoulders. She was one of the more athletic girls in the school. Maybe being the star soccer player helped her gain the reputation.

            “It’s not about being tough!” I sniffed and continued. “I think the correct reference you were looking for is that I don’t have to be so lazy all the time.” She gave me a friendly shove.

            “Okay, whatever. I was just going to ask you to come with me to go trick-or-treating tonight!”

            “Do I have to?”

            “Well,” She smiled, “since you make it sound like you don’t have a choice, yes, you have to come with me.” I face palmed myself and laughed.

            “Alright, I guess I’ll come. I’ll just meet you at your house later tonight?”

            “Yup! Get there around nine o’clock!” She kissed me again as the bell rang for us to continue our school day.

            “I’ll text you too,” She yelled over the sudden stampede of people rushing to get to class. “Just in case you ‘forget’! So don’t even think about using that excuse!” I shook my head smiling, closed my locker, and began walking to my Algebra class.

 

 

 

            The rest of the day went by relatively fast and before I knew it I was grabbing the grim reapers weapon of choice, my five-foot-long plastic scythe.

            “What time do you think you’ll be back?” My mom yelled from the kitchen as I walked passed her to get to the front door.

            “Not exactly sure! Text me if you go to sleep before I get back though.” And with that, I opened the door and began walking up my street to Sandy’s house. She had texted me thirty minutes earlier just to make sure I didn’t try to find a way out.

            It was about a five minute walk from my house since she lived only two blocks away. Once I got to the door, I knocked three times and waited. . . and kept waiting. I looked up to the windows on the second floor and none of the lights were on, making the house blend in with the darkness that enveloped the sky.

            I pulled out my phone to see if she had texted me that they had gone up ahead without me but nothing. I looked back at the door and began to lose myself in the wavy pattern that was carved into its wooden frame when, all of a sudden, two hands grabbed me from the waist and yelled, “Boo!”

            I sprung from the person’s grasp and slammed my head into the door, making the whole house shake. I heard a couple of girls and guys laughing in the background and I knew immediately who it was. I turned around to find a pirate, a cat, a prisoner, and a captain that looked like he had just made the trek from whatever was left of the Titanic to here. It only took me a second to realize that the pirate was Sandy only because her blue eyes seemed to sparkle in the bright moonlight. The cat was one of Sandy’s best friends, Cassie. She had dark brown eyes and long brunette colored hair with red highlights blended in. She was lean and one of the tallest girls in our grade standing at six foot one inches. That height definitely helped her when she took the basketball court as she was already one of the top recruits in the state. The prisoner was a guy named James. His blond hair was messy and pats of black makeup over his forehead and cheeks made it seem like he had just escaped maximum security. I only knew him because we had a couple of classes together. He played on the JV basketball team, but every day, biking back from school, I always saw him putting in work on the blacktop courts. I knew he was going to be someone in the sport eventually and he was already as tall as Cassie, so who knew how tall he would end up being by the time we all graduated.

The last one in the group was Andres, the half dead captain. He undoubtedly had the best costume out of any of us, making us all look like rookies. He was on the varsity basketball team, but basketball was never his main priority. He was only on the team because his dad forced him to join. He had a freak natural ability to shoot the ball. Everyone knew he could be something great but instead of giving it everything he had, he would just mess around and not really care about the team. The one thing that no one really knew though was how much Andres helped James. They were best friends so that always helped.

Sandy came up to me and put her hands on my waist. “Now that was the best reaction you could have given.” I was glad I had my mask on or else she would have seen all the blood rushing to my face from the anger that was boiling up.

“I hope you’re happy,” I grumbled.

“I’m happy you’re here if that’s what you’re asking.” She turned around and addressed everyone. “Alright, so what exactly do you guy want to do?”

“Well,” James started as he began to pull out a carton of eggs, “I was thinking we have a little bit of adrenaline run through us and mess with some middle schoolers.”

Cassie had her eyebrow arched and said, “I think―”

“I think that’s a great idea!” I cut in. All the guys high fived each other while the girls looked at each other as if they were saying, “They want to mess with middle schoolers but they aren’t acting much older than them.” James gave Andres and I a couple of eggs. He walked over to the girls to give them some but they put their hands up.

“You have fun doing that,” Cassie said. “We’re just going to watch.”

“More for me.” We all began to walk down the street, passed my house and slowly but surely made our way to the one house that I did not want to have any encounter with tonight.

James stopped in front of the house's old rotten gates and my heart felt like it stopped with him. A small breeze ran through the house and it sounded like every part of it started talking all at once. Even the old pine tree perched on the front lawn creaked with the slightest amount of wind.

“I dare you to walk in the house and stay inside for at least ten minutes.” I didn’t realize he was talking to me until I looked up and found James' glowing green eyes staring right at me.

“You’re joking right? You have heard the story to that place right?” He only laughed and patted me on the back. “I’m well aware of the history to this place, which is exactly why I’m daring you.”

I hesitated and was about to tell him off when Sandy came over to me and grabbed my arm. “Oh he’ll go in there, but I’m going in there with him, for twenty minutes.” I immediately took off my mask and was about to blurt out the absurdity of her idea but then I let myself hear the rest of her little deal she was conjuring.

“We’ll do it, but we all have to go to dinner twice next week and you have to pay for our meals both times.”

“Why twice,” Andres asked.

“Twice,” Sandy continued, a smirk on her face, “because the both of us are going to go in there, and I changed the time from ten minutes to twenty minutes, so I think it’s only fair. You can split how you pay us between each other.” They all looked at each other and James responded, “Fine. But I’ll tell you when twenty minutes are up.” Sandy pulled me with her and we walked up to the little old fence that stood in the way of us and the godforsaken house.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” I mumbled.

“Doesn’t two free dinners sound like a good idea?”

“Well let’s hope I walk out of this place with my sanity so I can even enjoy those dinners.” She rolled her eyes and proceeded to push the gate open and we began to make our way through the front lawn.

Another gust of wind hit the house and it sounded like the house was howling, “Noooooooo,” to us. I could feel all the hairs on my body stand up and almost decided that the dinners weren’t even worth it when Andres yelled from the street, “Come on already and get into the house! I’m going to die of old age the way you two are walking!”

“Let’s just hurry up and get into the house,” I said as I ushered Sandy forward. I could see that she was already as scared as I was, but it was her idea, so instead of trying to convince her that it wasn’t worth it, I tugged her arm and continued.

The front door was very old and rotten to the core. There was an old wind up doorbell attached to the center of the door. Rust lingered in every corner. There wasn’t even a doorknob to grab onto so I pushed the door opened and we walked in.

“It’s pretty dark in here,” Sandy commented.

I shook my head. “I can hardly make anything out.” I could only see the outlines of stairs that went up to the second floor and a little night stand laying on the hallway wall that led to what I would assume was the kitchen.

BAM. I wrapped Sandy in my arms and turned around to find the door had slammed shut. “Okay,” I said, trying to keep my breathing calm and steady. “Just a stupid door.” I knew the door couldn’t lock because it didn’t have a doorknob but claustrophobia wrapped my head with being trapped and I walked over to pull open the door from the hole and what do you know. It wouldn’t open.

“That’s not funny,” Sandy said nervously.

“I swear I’m pulling!” To make it clear I wasn’t joking, I took a couple of steps back and ran into the door shoulder first, only for the house to moan from the hit and dust trickle down on top of us.

“This is not happening right now.” Sandy slammed her first on the door but with no avail.    

“Let’s just relax for a second.” I pulled out my phone but to my surprise I didn’t get any signal in the house.

“Well not to make things worse, but I don’t get a signal in here.”

Sandy turned to me with panic in her eyes. “That just made things a lot worse.”

“All of them should still be out there right?” I walked back to the door and bent down to look through where the doorknob should have been and sprung backwards knocking Sandy over.

“What the heck! What was that for.” My voice felt caught in my throat. The most evil, bloodshot looking eye was what greeted me instead of what should have been the front yard.

“What did you see?” Sandy began to walk to take a look for herself but I grabbed her arm and pulled her back, my grip fairly tight.

“I’m doing you a favor. Don’t look through there.” Through all this panic I hadn’t realized that I still had my plastic scythe in my left hand.

“At least we have some sort of protection, right?” Sandy looked anything but amused with my attempt at a joke.

“Okay we just―” Something wet and warm began to run down my back. I reached back and touched it. Sticky is what it felt like.

“What is it?” Sandy asked.

“Use your phone light and shine it on my hand.” She reached for her phone and turned on the light. When my eyes adjusted to the brightness, I stopped breathing. Blood covered my entire hand.

“What the hell!” Sandy shrieked.

“I’m not bleeding though!” I looked up to the ceiling and gasped. The light shining from Sandy’s phone was just strong enough for me to see the blood forming all around us.

Blood oozed from all the cracks and wrinkles of the old wooden house. Sandy and I were already scared enough when, from a distance, I heard the most grueling, evil laugh I had ever heard. I turned to Sandy and tears began to stream down her face. I took her hand and said, “We’re going to make it out of here no matter what it takes.” I tugged on her hand to follow me down the hallway. The blood was beginning to flood the hallway, already devouring our ankles and quickly creeping up to our knees. I was franticly looking for a way out. The laughing that, at first, sounded like it was coming from behind us now seemed to be coming from every direction. I slammed through the door that was at the end of the hallway and what greeted us was another empty old room. The river of blood quickly rushed passed our ankles and began to fill this room too. I was really beginning to lose faith in what I had told Sandy. She squeezed my hand and I looked back at her. Her eyes were puffy and red from crying yet she was wide eyed from being so scared. She was giving me a look that made me think of a small puppy lost in the middle of New York. I looked to the west of us and saw another old rotten door, this one with a doorknob. “We are getting out of this,” I told myself. Pulling Sandy along with me, I walked over to the door and with my right leg broke it down.

I saw our way out. At the very end of the room was a small rectangular window, just big enough for Sandy and I to squeeze through. We ran to the window and I made the mistake of looking back. Instead of the blood river slowly filling this room as well, an old man and old woman stood in front of the door that we just entered through. I looked back and found Sandy staring at them as well.

“Come on,” I said, ushering Sandy behind me. “We need to get this window open." I was so scared that I didn’t even think of looking for a lever to open the window and instead just used my elbow to smash the glass. Thank god the house was old and the windows not as sturdy as they once were as the glass shattered much easier than I thought it would. I turned back around and found the couple still staring at us but they now were crying tears of blood.

I grabbed Sandy by the waist and hauled her through the window, also throwing my scythe through the window with her. I grabbed the window sill with my hands, not caring that the shattered glass was cutting through both palms of my hand, and pulled myself up. Sandy offered me her hand and before I could grasp it, a hand wrapped around my ankle and began to pull me back into the house. Sandy jumped for me and was able to grab my right arm.

I looked back and found the old man holding my right ankle with the old woman holding my left ankle.

“You have talked to her,” The old woman hissed at me. “The unforgivable. Because of that, you must have a touch of our pain.”

“I’ve talked to who?!” I yelled back.

“The woman that did this to us. That ruined our lives. She stole from us. The teacher telling the wrong story about us.” The old man’s anger was beginning to give way to something like . . . sadness?

A name popped into my head. “Ms. Norwood?” Their grip on my ankles tightened and I yelped from the pain.

“That’s the one! You’re going to give her a little present from us!” My body was slowly falling back into the house. As my arm was slipping through Sandy’s blood covered hand, the old man pulled out a switch blade and tapped it on my ankle.

“I hope this is a reminder for her and for you to never return here again.” I squeezed my eyes shut, ready for him to start sawing my ankle off, but Sandy’s yell made me open my eyes and I found her jabbing the old couple with my scythe.

“Help me!” She yelled. The distraction was just enough for me to kick and wiggle my out of their grasp. I got up, grabbed the scythe from Sandy, and threw the plastic weapon as hard as I could into the couple. I pushed Sandy in front of me and we ran around the house and out the small little gate into the street. Everybody was still standing on the street, talking to each other, and our heavy breathing caught their attention.

“It’s not twenty minutes yet!” Andres yelled.

Bewildered, I responded, “Are you guys blind? Look at us! We’re covered in―” I stopped myself when I looked over at Sandy and back at myself. There wasn’t a single scratch on either of us and not a trace of blood. The palms of my hands weren’t cut up as if what I had just gone through never happened.

“What’s wrong with you guys?” Cassie asked.

“Nothing,” Sandy responded. Her breaths were shaky. She grabbed my hand and said, “We’re just going to go back to my place. We don’t feel good.” We turned around and began to walk back when James shouted at us, “What’s the matter? You don’t want to play anymore? Was the truth to much for you to handle? That you’ve interacted with a cold blooded murder that stole our fortune? Our own daughter!” I felt like my veins went icy cold as I turned around to find all the three of them lined up, looking back at us with blood dripping out of their mouths, the whites in their eyes gone and replaced with color of blood.

“We didn’t escape,” Sandy murmured, trying hard not to cry.

James mouth opened but his voice was not the one that spoke. “You will never escape. No one escapes.” The voice was right. We hadn’t escaped. I realized now that we were trapped in the house’s nightmare.

    He