Julian leaned forward, then took a few awkward paces before stopping abruptly.
The way forward had disappeared.
There was only a yawning, endless abyss before him.
Falling backward and almost dropping his phone into the chasm, he heard for the first time in a while the stirrings of movement. And this time, he felt sure, the sounds were not of his making. In his moments-long perusal of the pit, something had seen him. Something in that pitch-black chasm had looked up at him and was now clambering out after him. His heart flopped sluggishly and he reared back, crawling off on hands and knees.
This was the spot where John Kelley's cabin had been. There could be no doubt. The small structure, which had been demolished to make way for the Beacon estate, had dwelt here. It was from this chasm of nightmares that the warlock had conjured the terrible things that now plagued this house and the surrounding woods. And it was from here, too, that the monstrosity that'd brought him underground had first emerged from.
Julian wanted to scream, wanted to sob, but there was no time for it. His body was overwhelmed by a desire for flight and he abandoned all else. Scrambling through the dark, scarcely keeping ahold of his phone, he pawed his way in the opposite direction.
In his retreat however, the flashing of his screen brought yet more of his surroundings to light.
Above him, in the boards and joists that made up the lower story of the Beacon estate, he caught sight of what appeared to be black tentacles. They were fixed to the boards, to the columns, wrapped so tightly to the wood that they appeared as fully integrated as veins, and throbbed in much the same fashion. How it was that he'd overlooked these pitch-black tendrils previously he couldn't say; they were denser the closer one went to the chasm he'd left behind.
And then the sounds of movement. The animalistic cry of his pursuer from the dark recesses to his back. What began as a labored wheeze grew into a great and terrible scream. Stunned and deafened, Julian clawed his way forward, bumping head-first into a wooden panel as he did so. A sharp pain came over him and almost immediately he felt a wave of warmth washing over his forehead. There'd been something sticking out of that panel, a nail, perhaps. Hot blood dripped onto the soil beneath him, onto the backs of his hands as he crawled. The hot flow blurred vision in his right eye, and tears were sufficient to fill the other.
A familiar force grasped his ankle, pulling him to a stop and dragging him backward. Julian reached for the nearest support column, but lacked the strength to resist. One, two, three tendrils of coarse, black hair took hold of his limbs and dragged him back towards the pit. As he went, kicking and shouting all the while, he lost his grip on his phone. It tumbled some few feet away from him and gave only the briefest glimpse of the fate that awaited him.
Leashed to the bottom of the house by way of those same black, writhing tendrils, was a pale, bare figure. It crawled against the bottoms of the floorboards as an animal might crawl, defying gravity. White hands bereft of fingernails reached out and pulled the thing forward, while crooked, feral-looking feet scrambled awkwardly behind. This was the thing that had dragged him through the underground to begin with, and he could now see that it was joined to the house by way of hundreds of the black tentacles. It was a parasite, bonded to the very stuff of the house and coursing through it always.
Every time he'd heard the house settle, the pipes rattle, he'd written it off as an ordinary phenomenon. Now, he knew better. It had been this thing settling in the house's sinews, scaling the insides of the walls, the underside of the floors, further incorporating itself. It had been there the whole time, just under their noses. It had been there since the house was built, since before the Reeds had built the Beacon estate. And in those days not so long ago, when he and Kim had been happy in their new house, it'd been there, too. Biding its time. Eavesdropping on their happiness.
The light was growing distant now, but before he lost sight of it for good, Julian caught in its dim glow the face of his captor. Two large, blind eyes greeted him and a hideous maw of a mouth separated in an audible wheeze.
He was at the cusp of the aperture, brought back to that site he'd fought so hard to flee. Here, the white monstrosity stopped, lowering him into the opening slowly. Julian was suspended by black tendrils, brought down into the pit gradually. He could no longer see in the overwhelming darkness, but could feel those dead eyes focused upon him from above. And then, from below, in the dark depths, he felt hands. Dozens of hands upon him. One by one the hands latched onto his body and yanked him downward, their owners gasping and screaming terribly till his ears began to ache.
The screams were feminine and masculine; still others were harder to place. These were the screams of those who'd been claimed by the property before him. Though he couldn't parse out her voice in the cacophony, he felt sure Kim was among them. His mind, wrecked by terror, was calmed a little by this realization, at least.
It's OK, he thought. It's OK. You're going to join Kim now. You'll be going to the same place she did. Resigning himself to the pull of the hands from below, he allowed his body to go limp and no longer fought. In a matter of seconds he was yanked deeper down.
And then he went into a free fall through the limitless depths.
Snow.
The field ahead was covered in a thin layer and still more was caught up in the icy breeze. The flakes were fat, dense. The trunks of the trees nearby were flecked in white, a stark contrast against their ebony bark.
He thought it strange that he couldn't feel the cold.
Julian stared out from between the trees, at the house which sat quietly. Its roof was dressed in snow, its windows dotted in dabs of white. It looked so quaint and peaceful, just like he remembered it. Then, from around one corner, he saw two forms emerge from the driveway.
A man and a woman.
The man was tall, heavy-set, with graying hair. The woman, slimmer, was dressed in a red jacket and black boots. They were holding hands and pointing up at the house, talking amongst themselves.
He cocked his head to the side.
“What are they doing?” Julian turned. There, beside him, was Kim. Her long hair was draped over her bare shoulders, her flesh was nearly the same color as the snow. From behind the mask of white plaster, she gave a breathy laugh.
Across the driveway there came a third person. This one, he recognized.
“Sorry to have kept ya waiting,” said Edwin, flagging down the couple. “Roads were harsh.” He rifled through his jacket for the keys to the house. “We'll start the tour right away. Don't wanna keep you two here all day.”
Julian watched as Edwin opened the back door and led the new couple inside. The old guide stopped as he did so, looking to the woods and narrowing his gaze. Though it might've been mere fancy, there seemed to be a crooked little smile on his lips.
“What are they doing in our house?” asked Julian, turning once again to his wife.
“Get out of our house,” said Kim quietly, staring out at the property, one of her wan hands on the nearest tree.
From behind, Julian heard someone else speak. An old, croaking voice. “Get out of our house.” It was an old woman, with a shock of white hair. She, too, wore a mask. In the pinholes that answered for eyes, he spied only darkness.
The woods became alive with speech. “Get out of our house. Get out of our house.” Voices were carried in on the breeze from all around. Everywhere he looked, Julian found yet more people standing around him, all of them in nothing but white masks and focused on the house.
Turning once more to Kim, Julian continued. “What are they doing in our house?”
She gave another breathy laugh.
He smiled, though it was unlikely she could see it from behind his mask.
Thank you for reading!
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About the Author
Once upon a time, a young Ambrose Ibsen discovered a collection of ghost stories on his father's bookshelf. He was never the same again.
Apart from horror fiction, he enjoys good coffee, brewed strong.
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