Story-a-day #10: The house on Jerusalem Street.

The house loomed out of the mist bitten street like a crooked tombstone. It had been empty for as long as Chris and Tony could remember. There was a FOR SALE sign on the front lawn, obscured, in part, by witchgrass; segregated from the street by wrought iron gates.

            “I’m not convinced we should be going in there,” Tony says.

            Chris smiles. “Where’s your sense of adventure?” He asks. Although he knows Tony isn’t as brave as he makes out because he’s all mouth. But that’s ok, that’s fine, because he’s determined to make the kid squirm. “Come on, what’s the worst that could happen?”

            Tony grimaces; he’d rather not know.

            Once, when he was nine years old, Tony heard his mother refer to the house on Jerusalem Street as a bad place. His father said the place was built on bad ground, whatever that meant, and everything to have befallen people there ever since was as a direct result of said bad ground.

            Tony didn’t know what any of that meant, but he supposed it didn’t mean anything good.

            “Four people have died in this old place,” Chris says a little too enthusiastically. “And it wasn’t always a pleasant end either ... if you know what I mean.”

            “How’d you know that?”

            Chris taps the side of his nose, still smiling. “That’s for me to know,” he says. “And for you to never, ever, find out.” He chuckles to himself. “Now are we going in there, or not?” He paused a moment, then, in a low voice, asks, “Or are you chicken?”

            Tony looks up at the house. It stands much higher than any of the other houses around it. It’s slightly askew too, its uncovered windows an oily black that held no reflection.

            Chris marches down the street at speed; never noticing for a moment Tony has stalled behind him. He slips through a small gap in the iron gates and heads up the cracked concrete pathway towards the paint chipped door.

            Chris thinks the inside of the house looks like a scene from one of those boring 1950’s films his dad loves so much. His father always said those films looked glamorous, but there was nothing of glamour here; only rot and dust and the promise of countless stories to be unfurled in the endless motes of dust.

            Tony stands on the doorstep, silent.

            “Are you sure it’s safe?” Tony asks. “I don’t think it’s safe.”

            “It’s fine,” Chris replies. “Now get in here and stop being a big baby.”

            And Chris is gone; devoured by the darkness.

            But the place doesn’t feel fine at all. There was a smell in the air Tony doesn’t quite. It reminds him of rotting vegetables and damp wood; of decay too entrenched to ever be removed by open windows or doors.

            “Hey, Tony, look at this!” Chris yells. There’s an odd mix of enthusiasm and disbelief in his voice, a tone Tony has never heard from him before, and then it was gone.  “Come on, quick, or you’ll miss it.”

            But despite his best efforts, he remained rooted.

            A moment later, ahead of him in the clotting darkness, Chris screams.

            “Chris, what is it?” Then, as an afterthought, he says, “I think we should go ... I don’t think we should be here.”

            Silence fell.

            Tony, alarmed and desperate, tore himself away from the doorway. He traces the dusty footprints peppered throughout the hallway. They weave in all directions, back and forth, left and right, towards the living room. And there, stood in front of an open fire that had undoubtedly seen neither flame nor kindling for a decade or more, stood Chris. He was gawping into a vast gilded mirror which hung above the hearth; his face contorted, his mouth hung open, his bloodshot eyes as wide as saucers.

            Tony saw Chris and screams.

There was a look of horror on Chris’s face Tony hopes he will never have to see again.

After a long moment, Tony turns as his ears pricked with each fresh sound breaking out around him: the steady tread of heavy footfalls on the stairs, of distant doors being opened and closed somewhere in the depths of the house, and of laughter; light and merry.

Tony ran.

The shadows seem to grasp for him as he flees, tearing at the seams of his shirt, grasping at the bottoms of his jeans. The house was alive. Suddenly, almost within reach of it, the front door slams to a close and seals him in. Tony screams. Again shadows dance all around him, the heady tread of determined footfalls infinitely near.

“Precious,” a faint voice said. “You’re all so very precious.”

Tony pivots on his heels but sees nothing.