Short Writing Week 5
Some context here. This got a little out of hand from the original 500 word target. It’s a scary one so try read it somewhere dark and quiet.
“Dark House”
“Don’t you want to know how it works?” asked Mike. “And what’s inside? How can you resist?” He waved his arm towards the house.
“I can resist because I think it’s stupid,” said Anne. “It’s stupid and it’s breaking and entering, even if nobody lives there. And you’ve heard the stories, they freak me out.”
“The stories are exactly why I want to go in,” said Mike. Anne held herself, shivering despite the warm sun. “You have your bag?”
She grudgingly held open a backpack. Inside was a collection of lights: torches, old phones.
“How many?” asked Mike.
“I got fourteen in the end,” she said. “Some of these I have to give back, do they work again once you get back outside?”
“No idea,” said Mike, looking past her, through the front garden at the two storey wooden house that loomed in front of them. It looked neglected, roof shingles missing, a crack here and there in the window panes. Trees on either side separating it from its better-maintained neighbours, casting shade.
“What do you mean ‘no idea’,” she said. “Haven’t you tried this already? I thought you’d been in and out and just wanted to show off how brave and cool you were. You told everyone in school you’d been in four or five times.”
“I did say that,” said Mike. “And it was definitely a lie. I’ve never been inside. But I do want to show off how brave and cool I am. Check out my stash.” He slung his backpack down with a noisy rattle and unzipped it to reveal an overflow of devices similar to hers.
“How many?” she asked, in spite of herself.
“Twenty one,” he said, zipping it back up with a grin. “It’s going to be great. We use half to get in, and half to get out. The word is that anything electronic will start up and then just die instantly, so you’ll get a second or two of light, get your bearings and move on. We can chain them together, have a look around, and then bail out. If one of the phones lives long enough we can get a photo.”
“But it’s broad daylight outside. I can see in through the windows, they don’t have curtains or anything. It looks just like a shabby living room that nobody lives in.”
“Haven’t you heard the stories?. It’s completely different on the inside. Just total darkness. Doesn’t matter what it’s like out here, you can’t see anything, even if it’s directly in front of your face. That stuff you can see in the window, I dunno, doesn’t exist.”
“So what do we want in there?”
“What do we want? To check it out! Don’t you want to see if all this shit is true?”
“Don’t see what you need me for,” she said. “I don’t have this need to do stupid and pointless things. I can say that I’m scared and don’t want to do it and not lose any social capital over it.”
”You said it yourself,” said Mike. “I want to show you how brave and cool I am. Let’s go in.”
Mike ushered her forwards and she reached over and unlatched the gate. It was old and wooden, and came up to about chest height, but made no noise as it opened inwards. They stepped onto the stone path. Grass and weeds were encroaching on either side, but hadn’t yet found a foothold to take over the way itself. Anne glanced up at the sun as they approached the front door. It was early afternoon and it was bright and strong.
Mike opened his backpack and took out a single torch and nodded at her to do the same, which she reluctantly did.
“If it’s scary in there I’m leaving. Immediately,” she said.
“Agreed,” he said, too enthusiastically to be genuinely convincing. “Let’s do it.”
He turned the door handle. There was no resistance or lock and it too opened in perfect silence. They could see nothing inside. It was like what was beyond the doorframe was just solid shadow.
“That’s wild,” said Mike, as he stepped across the threshold and disappeared.
“Mike!” said Anne, still outside. “I can’t see you.”
“Come in,” came his voice from what seemed like directly beside her and she jumped a little. She leaned back to try see in the big front window which looked for all the world like it was letting in the full afternoon sunlight. She felt very alone suddenly and stepped through the door.
She found herself in complete darkness.
“Are you in?” came Mike’s voice from a little way across the room.
“Yeah,” she said quietly. “I can’t see where the doorway is any more. I didn’t close it.”
“I’m going to do the first one,” said Mike, ignoring this. A blast of light caught Anne in the face, causing her pupils to contract sharply and a halo to hover there in the aftermath.
“Sorry, did I get you?” he said. “I didn’t know where you were.”
“Yeah right in my face,” said Anne, her annoyance tamping down the fear a little bit. The door was still right there, surely, to be easily stepped back through. “I didn’t see anything.”
“I got a look around,” said Mike. “It’s pretty normal. The stairs are right there inside the front door, in front of where you are in the hallway. It opens up to the left into the living room. I’m kinda in there somewhere now. I can’t believe how true the stories were! It’s totally pitch dark in here and my torch just came on and died. Crazy right?”
“I don’t like it,” said Anne. “I’m getting disoriented, I’m going to use one to find the door.”
“We just got in!” said Mike, from what sounded like even further away. Why couldn’t she hear any steps when he moved? Forget him. She brought the backpack to her front and unzipped it, reached in and grabbed the first solid object she could find: a large industrial style torch. No sense in saving it, it was one use and out as far as she was concerned. She took it and tried to orient herself towards where the door should be. Reasonably certain she was facing the right direction, she pushed the switch and saw someone watching her.
“What the fuck,” she shouted.
She heard Mike’s voice saying something indistinct from through a wall or two, off across the house.
“Mike there’s someone here!” she shouted. “Where the fuck are you? I want to get out of here!” She turned around, too scared to reach her arms out fully, but still tentatively waving them, hoping to make contact with something and terrified of what that something might be.
“Who’s there?” said Mike’s voice directly beside her, stopping her heart entirely for a second.
“Jesus Christ, Mike why do you think sneaking up on me is a good idea. The stories are true, great work, there is someone in here.”
“There’s been no-one in here for years,” said Mike, absentmindedly. Was he further away again?
“Use a light and find me the fucking door,” she said.
“You’re giving up at the threshold?” he said in mock disappointment.
She reached out to where his voice was and made contact with some fabric: his bag. She fumbled for the zip as he said ok, ok and shrugged it off and opened it himself.
“I’ll do it,” he said, beside her. “Which way is the door?”
“I don’t know,” she said, suppressing tears.
“It’s ok,” he said, serious now. “You know I have loads of these. We can try every direction and get out of here. I’ll come back with Dan and explore the place properly.”
She nodded, knowing he couldn’t see her.
A light appeared behind her for a second and then died.
“Well that wasn’t the door,” he said. “But there’s a mirror at the bottom of the stairs. Is that what you saw?”
“At this point I don’t care,” said Anne. “Turn one-eighty and do it again. I was facing away.”
“Isn’t one-eighty all the way around?”
“That’s three-sixty you asshole, just face the other direction and find the door. That one was behind me.”
Another light exploded and died, this time three or four metres away from her, further into the building.
“What happened, why are you over there?”
“I didn’t move,” said Mike, his voice carrying from somewhere across the house. “Did you run away or something?”
“I haven’t taken a single step!” she shouted. She reached her arms out again, further this time, waiting for contact with some kind of hard surface. If she could find a wall she could just follow it, even going in the wrong direction would eventually make it all the way around. She took small, tentative steps but touched nothing. Her sense of what the surroundings were like warped completely, she felt like she was standing alone in the middle of a gigantic cathedral, just blackness for hundreds of metres in every direction. She stopped and took her backpack down again, reached inside and took out one of the phones. She touched the top of the screen to swipe down and activate the light function, but the second the screen lit up to show the menu the whole thing shut itself down. She dumped it back into the bag, suddenly worried, and grabbed another one. The same thing happened.
“Mike!” she yelled. “Don’t waste your lights! The phones are useless, they die before you can even get to the button thing.”
“Should have thought of that,” said Mike, from directly beside her. “No photos, then, huh?”
“Why are you doing that?” she shouted at him. “Is this a joke to you?”
“I’m not doing anything, I swear,” he said. “I haven’t moved more than a step or two, the house must be moving around us.”
She heard him rustling as if he were waving his arms around in some kind of gesture.
“Stay right here,” she said, reaching out to where his voice was coming from. She came into contact with some fabric, a sleeve, and wrapped her arms around it. “We’re not getting split up again. We’re staying put until we can figure out exactly where the door is.”
“Let me try another light,” he said. He dropped his bag down from his shoulders. She let go of his arm briefly so that he could move the bag around to his front, and grabbed hold hard again as soon as it was done.
“Here we go,” he said from beside her.
A light swelled up and contracted for a second.
“It’s the door!” said Anne, flooded with relief. “It’s right in front of us, we just have to go forwards and open it. Let’s get the absolute fuck out of this house.”
She went to take a step forward but was restricted by Mike’s arm, which kept hers held tightly, and didn’t move. She pulled, but he stayed completely still, not deliberately resisting or pulling back, just immobile.
“Mike what the hell,” she said, pulling forwards and getting nowhere.
“What’s wrong?”
Mike’s voice came from upstairs.
Anne felt in that instant like she was already dead, and was experiencing this moment at a remove, from another room, from the grave. She could still feel the arm around hers, warm, alive, perfectly still. Her heart was shuddering so loudly she could feel her pulse in her skull but she kept totally silent and moved her hands a little bit to try and extract them. The arm silently adjusted itself a little, holding her tighter.
“Anne what’s going on? Did you run away?” Still from upstairs.
Shut up shut up she said internally, putting a little more strength into moving her arm before gathering any remaining scraps of courage and pulling it away as hard and fast as she could.
She met no resistance and fell backwards onto the floor.
“What was that? Are you ok? Where are you?” shouted Mike.
Can’t talk stop yelling just fucking shut up what am I even doing in here.
She stayed on the floor and wrapped her arms around her knees. Who was that? Are they still there? Nobody makes any noise moving around this place. She did, though, she realised. She had hit the ground and make a big solid thump. Mike was upstairs for some fucking reason and he heard her from there. She hadn’t heard him go up the steps which were, in theory, right behind her. Enough. He was his own problem now, though. She knew she was right by the door but after what felt like five minutes shuffling and reaching out she still wasn’t touching it. It couldn’t be far. She got out another light.
Door, door, door, she said to herself as she pushed the button.
Three figures loomed over her in the brief moment of visibility and she screamed and screamed. Still on the floor, she moved haphazardly backwards until she crashed into something solid and wooden. Did that hurt? A wall? She ran her hands over it frantically and as she moved sideways across it she nearly fell forwards into a gap that suddenly appeared, before her hands reached out and stopped her. She felt a solid wooden surface, and then, slightly above and slightly further back, another one. Stairs.
“Mike,” she said quietly, pointlessly. “Are you upstairs?”
Her way to the door had been blocked off by whoever or whatever had been in front of her. She hadn’t gotten a good look. She put one hand on a step and a knee on another and began to crawl up.
There was no sound anywhere else in the house.
She reached forwards for the next step and there was none, her outstretched arm stopping her from hitting the ground. She had reached the top of the stairs.
“Mike,” she said. Louder than before. She waited. Nothing.
She saw a flash of light coming from under a door at the end of the landing. The sound of an object being dropped.
“Mike!” she shouted this time.
“Yeah,” he said. No urgency, no hushed tones, no worry.
“Mike where are you?”
“Down here,” came the reply.
Another light flashed from under the door. Another item hit the floor.
“Mike don’t waste those, we have to get out.”
“Sure.” He was still too loud.
She crawled on her hands and knees towards the source of the lights and the sounds and when she got to the door she reached out and pulled herself up by the handle. The door opened inwards and she entered. She moved her hand around the inside of the door in a purely muscle memory attempt to find a light switch, and then reached into the room to try and find anything solid.
“Mike,” she whispered.
“Yeah,” he said aloud, making her jump.
“Mike we have to go, why are you up here? Come with me. We can turn around and go down the stairs, the door is right there. We can run. There’s something here and I need to you to come with me and come down and go and get out of here.”
“Have you seen this?” said Mike, and another light flashed.
The walls of the room were lined with people looking at her. Six, eight, ten of them. She felt shards of ice burst through her whole self and out through her fingers and hair. She took a step back, shivering wildly and reaching for the door but again just found empty space.
Another moment of light. There were more people in the room now and they were all looking at a bath sitting in the middle of it. She heard water sloshing in the dark in front of her and despite her attempting to move away, the water got louder and louder until her leg came into contact with the metal frame.
Another light. Everyone was gone. Mike was gone. All that was left was Anne looking at a figure sitting up in the bath that had her own face, before the darkness came back and she felt a grip on her wrists and an ice cold wetness covering her.