Chapter 6
For two weeks nothing else happened in the house, there was a calm, normal feeling and everyone was getting sleep again. Sarah still could not get used to the basement, she would always feel like someone was watching her, and she would even run up the stairs after doing laundry, she felt silly, like a child but she couldn’t help it.
Sarah had cleaned up the secret room and moved her laptop there to start writing again. She used to write almost every day, even if it was something short, she missed that and was happy to be writing regularly again. She had refused to read anymore of Aunt Penny’s diaries, after seeing the face in the window and hearing the scream, and the things that were written in it, she didn’t want any more to do with them.
After another normal day, Mike was working on paperwork at the table, Mary and Teddy had taken their baths and was getting ready to go to bed, Sarah was setting out their school clothes for the next day.
Teddy lay there in bed staring at the ceiling, he was starting to feel better about living there, and had made a couple of new friends at school, he heard his parents going through the house turning off the lights for the night and the sound of their door close. Teddy now had a night light in the outlet close to his bed, he was thinking of how safe it made him feel when it started blinking, and he leaned over and made sure it was plugged in tight, and then it started flashing again and it finally went out. He lay there in the darkness in fear; he felt a cold breeze go over his bed so he pulled the covers up to his nose.
He closed his eyes and kept telling himself, ‘it’s not real, it’s not real.’ Teddy opened his eyes and there was a face right next to him, he could feel the breath on his neck, but it wasn’t warm it was so cold, like ice against his skin. The red light coming from under the bed was shining bright like it had before and causing a reflection on head that was sitting beside his pillow. Teddy lay there motionless staring at it, it looked almost to be like clown makeup on the face that was smeared over it, it had huge eyes that were a dark red, and a big smile that showed rotten, stained teeth.
“Come on Ted, now do you wanna play?” The creature said laughing.
“Mo… Mom… M…,” Teddy stuttered trying to call for his mom.
“Mom!” The creature screamed and was still laughing. “Go ahead Teddy, call your mom up here, you and I can kill her Ted, we can have so much fun Ted” Teddy couldn’t see a body, just a head beside his pillow.
“I’m gonna go for now kid, when you do wanna play just yell for Uncle Silas!” The head said laughing.
Teddy had closed his eyes tight, the cold air was gone, the red light was gone, he finally got up the nerve to look over beside his pillow and the head was gone, then suddenly his night light came back on and it made him jump. He didn’t get much sleep that night, and he wasn’t the only one.
Sarah was lying in bed asleep, until she was startled awake by the sound of the bedroom door shutting, she looked down toward the foot of the bed and seen someone standing there, she inhaled quickly and lay startled, she tried to speak and ask who they were but the figure held up a finger to her lips like to say ‘shhh’. At first it was transparent and Sarah could barely make out who or what it was, but it began becoming clearer, it was a black woman with a headband over her hair, she was wearing a checkered dress that looked to be from the eighteen hundreds, she looked like a servant slave in the old movies.
Her head suddenly went backwards as though someone pulled her hair hard, her throat was being cut open but Sarah heard no sound, and she could see the blood spraying out but there was none on the bed, then there were cuts starting all over her body, her stomach and chest were sliced open and her insides poured out, then just as suddenly as she appeared, she was gone. Sarah still lay there barely able to breath, she was thinking that she was in a dream and she would wake up screaming soon, but she didn’t, she was afraid to even wake Mike, she just lay there and went to sleep after a long while.
The alarm went off and Sarah sat straight up in bed, all that she had seen rushed back to her, she got up and looked around the bedroom, but there was no sign of blood or anything moved.
“It must have been a dream,” she mumbled.
“What, what a dream?” Mike asked while getting dressed.
“Oh, nothing, I just had some nightmares last night, but they seemed so real.”
“Old house, new surroundings are just…” Mike replied.
“If I hear that explanation one more time I am going to scream,” she said getting out of bed and stomping out of the bedroom. She went upstairs and woke the children to get them ready for school, and then went to the kitchen to start on breakfast.
“I’m tired mommy,” Mary said rubbing her eyes, “I was cold all night.”
“Cold, with all those covers you were still cold?” Mike asked.
“The little boy kept pulling off my covers,” Mary answered.
“What little boy?” Sarah asked.
“The little black boy with no shoes, he would pull my covers off and run out of the room laughing.” Sarah and Mike had stopped eating and were staring at each other.
“Maybe it was a dream sweetie,” Sarah said trying to keep Mary from being scared. “Did you have any bad dreams Teddy?” Sarah asked.
Teddy sat there not knowing what to do, should he tell them, or keep his mouth shut, what if Uncle Silas is real, they would all die, and if he isn’t real they would think he’s crazy or something, he decided to keep quiet about it for now.
“No mom, I didn’t have any bad dreams,” Teddy said and kept eating his cereal with his head down.
Sarah got the kids off to school and Mike left for work, she went inside and was sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee and reading the news online on her laptop. She heard a sound down the hallway toward the steps, she went down the hall cautiously, thinking of what she seen the night before. She got to the bottom of the steps and on the floor was a puddle of something red on the white carpet, she moved slowly toward it and kneeled down, she reached out and put the tip of her finger in the puddle, it was blood, about one foot in diameter and almost an inch deep.
Sarah felt dizzy, this wasn’t a dream this was real and she could touch it, she looked up at the ceiling and it was clean, nowhere else in the room had any blood on it. She ran to the closet where she keeps the towels and grabbed a couple of them when she went back to the bottom of the stairs the blood was gone; it was still stained on her finger where she touched it, but on the floor, on the white carpet there was not even a drop of blood.
“What the hell?” Sarah said aloud. “It was just there, that’s impossible.” She went back to the kitchen to wash her hands and sat back down at the table, she heard another noise down the hall.
“No! Screw that you aren’t gonna get me to go back over there, I’ll make the kids beds later on today,” she yelled down the hall like she was talking to someone standing there in front of her. Sarah put the breakfast dishes in the dish washer then sat at the table with a notebook and pen, and began writing on a story that she had been working on for the past week, everything in the house was quiet for a few hours.
Chapter 7
Later that afternoon Sarah was starting to get chilly, it was cold outside and the heater wasn’t lighting, she called Mike and he said he would be home soon and see if he could fix it. She went upstairs and made the children’s beds, and then to the bathroom to cleaned up the dirty clothes the kids left lying around the floor, she was walking by Teddy’s room and seen the covers on the floor, Sarah knew that she just made that bed and it made no sense to her that they would be on the floor, she made the bed again and went downstairs.
She heard something outside and went to the window to look out, it was Mike walking around the house to the old shed out back, and Sarah went out to meet him.
“What are you doing in there Mike?” Sarah asked.
“I was out here the other day and found some wood stored in the back,” Mike answered.
“W
hat about the gas heater?”
“I’m going to look at it, but it is going to be dark soon so I’ll bring some of this firewood in just in case we can’t get it going.” They both carried in some wood to the huge fireplace, Mike looked at the gas furnace but didn’t see anything wrong with it.
“I’m not sure what’s wrong with it; I’ll call for someone to fix it first thing in the morning.”
“You know we have an hour or so before the kids get home, maybe we could fool around?” Sarah said seductively.
“Maybe another time, with all the stress of getting the business going, I just haven’t been in the mood lately.”
“Okay, whatever, another time,” Sarah snapped.
It had been a long time since they were intimate, Mike always blamed it on his work, but she figured this time it was something else, but what she didn’t know. She went into the kitchen to start another pot of coffee. Mike stayed in the living room putting a bunch of paper into the fireplace, then placing the firewood on top of it, he was no expert at it but he eventually got a small fire going. Sarah came back in the room with two cups of coffee; they sat on the couch together and watched the wood burn.
“Some strange things keep happening,” Sarah said.
“What sort of things?” Mike asked.
“It may sound crazy but, last night I seen a slave woman get murdered at the bottom of our bed, and today there was a huge puddle of blood at the bottom of the stairs, that just disappeared a few minutes after I seen it. Have you heard or seen anything unusual?”
“No, I haven’t heard or seen a thing, everything seems normal to me. I am so glad my aunt left us this place and once you get used to it you won’t ever want to leave here.”
Mike knew he was lying to her, he had seen and heard things but he always tried to explain everything away. He didn’t want to tell her that throughout the years some people in his family always said that the house was haunted, he didn’t want Sarah and the kids to be scared just because of rumors.
“I think we should all sleep in here tonight,” Sarah suggested.
“Sounds like fun, it will be like a campout.”
“Yeah, a campout on the North Pole,” Sarah said laughing.
Sarah turned around and gave Mike a kiss, then laid back on him watching the fire. This is what she has been needing, closeness; it had been forever since they sat this close and didn’t talk about bills, business, writing or anything at all. She looked at the clock and noticed that it was time for the kids to get home; Sarah put on her jacket and walked down the lane to wait on the bus. Mike stayed inside and put another piece of wood on the fire, he someone down the hallway around the corner, it was Mary’s voice.
“Daddy, daddy look what I made!” The voice said as Mike walked around the corner expecting to see Mary running toward him.
“What did you make sweetie?”
Mike froze, the hallway was empty, suddenly the front door opened and the children ran in.
“Daddy, look what I made today!” Mary said excitedly.
“That’s great sweetie, who is that in there with you?” Mike asked.
“That’s the boy in my room,” Mary said.
The picture was a little girl running around with a little boy who was colored in with a black crayon. Mike looked at Sarah and didn’t know what to say.
“Go hang it up on the fridge sweetie,” Sarah said to her.
“How was your day Teddy?” Mike asked.
“It was good dad, I kept falling asleep, but besides that it went fine.”
“Why are you so sleepy?” Sarah asked.
“I was just, cold last night and didn’t sleep well.”
“We are all going to sleep in here tonight by the fire, the furnace needs to be fixed.” Sarah said.
The children were happy that they were all going to sleep together in the same room, especially Teddy, after seeing that ghost, Uncle Silas, he would feel safer with the rest of the family and Sarah was thinking the same thing after what happened the night before. Mary seemed happy with seeing a little kid in her room, but she was young and didn’t know that it wasn’t normal to see things like that.
After doing his homework and having dinner, Teddy took his bath and was ready for bed. The bathroom was warm and steamy from the hot shower and when he opened the door into the hall the cold air hit his damp skin and felt like ice all over him. He ran down the stairs and into the living room jumping on the couch and quickly pulling up the covers. Mary was at the other end of the couch covered up, they began pushing each other with their feet together, and trying to push the other one off of the couch, and Sarah turned off the hall light and came into the living room.
“You two had better settle down,” she said with a smile.
Mike was in the kitchen at the table where he sat every night doing paperwork, a few times Sarah would come up to him and ask if she could help, but he would put his arm over the papers and politely tell her he had it taken care of. Mike got up and stretched, and went to put on his pajamas and came into the living room and lay down on the floor in front of the fireplace beside Sarah and heard Teddy talking to Mary.
“My friend Jeff got in trouble for listening to his mp3 player in class, the teacher took it away and told him he could get it at the end of the day, but he forgot to go back and get it,”
“I hope you aren’t doing anything like that, you go to school to learn, not to sit and listen to music all day,” Mike said sternly.
“Oh, I don’t do that dad; I don’t even take mine to school.”
“Good,” Mike said with a smile, “maybe you will become a lawyer like me one day.”
“I don’t know,” Teddy said shrugging his shoulders, “you never know.”
Mike was about to ask Mary how her day went, but she was a lying on her side almost asleep. The family lay there in the living room everyone covered in layers of blankets, the fire was about out and there were glowing coals in the ashes that gave an ominous red glow throughout the room.
Hours later Mary had woke up laying there on her side; staring into the fireplace, she was dozing off barely able to keep her eyes open when suddenly there was a figure in front of the hot coals; she could see through the figure and could barely make out what it was. The figure didn’t seem to have any feet and Mary couldn’t make out the features of the face, but she could tell that it was standing in front of the fireplace with its hands behind its back, like it was warming itself in front of the fire. The figure turned and looked toward her and she covered her face, then she peeked out again and it was a little bit closer, she did the same thing and it was even closer, so the last time she covered her face and never looked again, she wanted to yell for her mother but couldn’t speak, she lay there under the covers until she fell asleep.
The rest of the family slept peacefully that night except their covers kept coming off and would wake up momentarily freezing cold and pull them back up.
Chapter 8
Sarah woke up to the sound of Mike starting a fire, he had a hard time getting it going but eventually got it lit and soon there was heat radiating from the huge stone fireplace.
“Look at Mr. Mountain Man, starting a fire to keep his family warm,” Sarah said laughing.
“Yeah, I’ll have a long day of chopping wood and hunting deer so we can eat,” Mike said jokingly.
“Oh my God, you can’t kill those sweet innocent animals,” Sarah said still laughing, “but speaking of something to eat, we need to go to the store, and our ‘regirator’ is almost empty.”
“You need to stop calling it that or Mary will never learn the correct way to say it.”
“Oh, I’m just playing around, it’s Saturday, so let’s get the kids up and dressed, and go to the store.”
“First, I’m going to take a hot shower,” Mike said shivering next to the fireplace.
“Hmm, that sounds good, maybe I’ll come in and join you,” Sarah teasingly said.
Mike went through their bedroom and
grabbed a towel; he went in the bathroom and got into the shower, making the water as hot as he could stand it. While washing his hair he had shampoo run down into his eyes as it had done so many times before, his eyes burned and he had to keep them closed. He heard the door open and close, and shortly after the shower curtain opened and he reached out and put his arms around Sarah.
“So you did decide to come join me.”
“Mm hmm,” She answered back.
He pushed her hair back as the water ran over them, he leaned down and kissed her holding her close, then suddenly the water went totally cold and he went backwards quickly under the shower head trying to get out of the way of the stream, he rubbed his eyes and turned the water off, but Sarah wasn’t there, maybe she got out of the shower quick when it went cold, he thought to himself.
“What caused that,” he said while pulling the curtain open, but was stunned to see no one there. The door flew open and Sarah rushed in and closed it back.
“I’m sorry about the cold water; I needed to fill the coffee pot so we would have coffee after our shower.”
Mike was in shock, how could he have just kissed her in the shower when she wasn’t even in the bathroom. He suddenly felt dizzy and fell down hitting his right knee hard on the side of the tub. “Oh my God,” Sarah screamed reaching trying to help him up. “Are you okay?”
All that Mike could do was grunt and groan in pain, Sarah helped him out of the shower and rubbed him with the towel as he sat on the edge of the tub. “We should get you to a doctor and make sure it isn’t cracked,” Sarah said with a concerned look on her face.
The Red Light Page 3
