remember that first part of the scary story I wrote last year? yeah, well, I finished it yesterday. finally.... here it is, the finished product.

It’s getting real dark, real fast. I know I can’t make it home before night falls completely. But, in the middle of nowhere, I really have nowhere to go.

The dark is making everything harder to see. It seems like there’s a fog; that’s slightly disturbing because, just moments ago, it wasn’t. It had been clear, and I could see more than ten feet in front of my face.

I shiver for a moment, the cold air easing frigid fingers down the collar of my jacket, before I start walking again. I walk for barely five minutes before I see the dark shadow of a house looming out in front of me. That’s strange, because I am literally in the middle of nowhere; I haven’t seen anything or anyone for a good two miles or so. Just a moment ago, there hadn’t been anything there. Now, this great shadow of a house is standing before me. I stand frozen in my spot.

It doesn’t take me very long to debate on what I should do. The air just seems to be getting colder. The fog thickens around me, making it harder to see. I jolt, moving towards the house.

As I get closer to the house, I see it clearer through the fog. It’s dark in color, has few windows and a large porch. Well, it’s really no wonder why I couldn’t see it until I was almost upon it. The house is hard to see in fog and darkness; which makes me slightly uneasy about going up to it.

I walk up the steps to the porch, almost tripping once or twice. Glancing over my shoulder, I pause at the last step. It feels like someone is watching me. But as far as I know, nobody is around. Plus, the fog makes it impossible to see past the front lawn. Like anyone would be able to see me standing here, anyways.

I knock on the front door, once… twice. Nobody answers, and I’ve been standing here for about ten minutes. I try the doorknob. It turns easily in my hands. Brows knitting together, I slowly enter the house. No lights are on inside. No noise, no footsteps, nobody talking… nothing at all.

My pocket knife sits heavy in my back pocket. I reach back and my cold fingers wrap around it as I reach for the light switch. I don’t know what’s going to happen; it’s better to be safe than sorry.

The light goes on as I flip the switch. There’s nothing in the front hall that I am in. I turn and close the door, locking it behind me, before I slowly make my way deeper into the house. My fingers tighten on my pocket knife as I flip the blade out. My ears strain to listen for any noise, my eyes wide, in hopes of seeing something. But there’s nothing to hear, nothing to see.

I shiver again, but it’s not from the cold; actually it’s fairly warm in the house. It’s because it’s eerie in here. Since when does a house randomly appear out of thin air? Why would it be unlocked, yet uninhabited? And why would anyone be so stupid as to go in said house?

My footfalls are nearly silent as I make it to the end of the front hall. My free hand feels the other side of the wall for another light switch. I find one and turn on the light. I’m at the kitchen. Again, there isn’t anyone in here. I drop my bag quietly on the floor and walk to the center of the kitchen.

Looking around, I notice that the kitchen has state of the art, very modern appliances. I let out a low humming sound in surprise. I’m actually kind of in awe. I really didn’t expect this from a home that’s uninhabited.

All of a sudden, footsteps sound from the second floor. They only last all of ten seconds, but I’m frozen to my spot. My pocket knife was on the table, but I picked it up the moment I heard the footsteps. I listen for two full minutes, but there is no other sound. Closing the blade of my knife, I shove it in my pocket. I’d rather have it at close reach that being unable to properly defend myself.

My stomach grumbles as I open the fridge. I expect it to be completely empty. Instead, it’s full of food; pizza, spaghetti, refrigerated bagels, milk, Coke, the works. Any and all foods and drinks that I thoroughly enjoy.

I’m slightly confused as I open a cabinet and find it full of plates, cups and glasses. The drawer below it is full of silverware. With nobody living here, I never expected the fridge full of food or the cupboards and drawers full of dishes, ready and waiting for someone to use it all. It’s not just confusing; it’s weird and not normal.

I slowly pull a plate from the cupboard and pick out a fork and knife from the drawer. Turning back to the fridge, I pull out the pizza and spaghetti. Two slices of pizza and a heaping pile of spaghetti are on my plate. My stomach grumbles again and I put my plate in the microwave. While I wait for my food, I open a can of Coke and enjoy the bubbly sensation of the drink.

The microwave beeps, making me jump. I pull my plate from it and sit down at the table. Eating my food slowly, I savor it all; after all, it’s been a good eight hours since I had my last meal. I want to be able to enjoy a good, hot meal.

With my food finished, a good twenty minutes later, I get up and wash my dishes, throwing away my Coke can. After I dry the dishes, I put them away. I leave the kitchen light on as I leave the kitchen, grabbing my back up off the floor as I go. I head back through the front hall again.

This time, I’m looking for a bedroom and bathroom. I flick on a light in the next hallway to find three doors, two doors on the right side and one door on the left. I walk deeper into the hall and open the first door on the right to find a bedroom.

I sigh as I walk into the room, flicking on the light as I go. The bed is against the right wall, smartly made up, a purple duvet on it. A lamp is between the bed and the large desk standing two feet away from the head of the bed. A dresser stands on the wall opposite the bed, in the corner. There’s a door leading to the next room.
I walk over to the door and open it, reaching for the light switch. It’s a bathroom. This is a master suite-type. I wonder how many of these are in the house. There’s a whole second floor that I don’t want to particularly go look at. I’m assuming there has to be another bedroom or two up there.

I kick off my shoes in the middle of the room and change into my pajamas before heading to the bathroom. I come back to the bedroom, flicking off the bathroom light and shutting the door, and lay down on the bed. I stretch and relax, my mind wandering.

I almost forgot about the footsteps I heard earlier in the kitchen when I hear footsteps again, right over the bedroom. Again, they didn’t last long, but they make me restless, and a little unnerved. I mean, the house is empty. At least, I think it’s empty. But these footsteps make me think otherwise. It’s weird, though; if the house is being habited, I’d think that whoever lives here would have come to greet me when they heard the door open, or the footsteps would last more than five-ten seconds whenever they sound.

I turn my light out, leaving the hallway light on just outside my door. I try to relax again, crawling under the bed covers. I close my eyes, my head sinking into the pillow.

Moments later, I hear footsteps again, this time outside my room. I open my eyes, but barely, and look out the door. I don’t see a shadow, as I would if there were someone out in the hall. But the footsteps come closer and closer, then pass my door. Nobody actually passed the bedroom door, but sure as I’m alive, there were footsteps that just passed my door.

I hear the door across the hall open and close. There are no more footsteps. I get out of bed, creep to the bedroom door, and look out into the hall. Not seeing anyone or anything, I shake it off. But something catches my eye before I turn back to the room. The door down the hall didn’t close all the way. It was closed fully when I came down the hall earlier.

I glare at the door, waiting to see if anything happens. I hope my mind is just playing tricks on me. As I watch, the door closes completely, the handle turning as it’s pulled closed. Honestly, that can’t be happening. There’s nothing and nobody in this house, except for me. Doors don’t open and close on their own accord; footsteps don’t just sound unless there’s someone to make them.

It has to be my mind playing games with me. There’s really no other explanation. Unless… I mean, the house did just appear out of nowhere. What gives it the reason to just be an abandoned house?

The house comes fully furnished. The fridge is fully stocked with food. There’s electricity and running water. All that and nobody lives here. That alone kind of gives the house a creepy factor. But that doesn’t mean that it’s haunted, does it? There has got to be a better explanation than that.

Whoever owns the house probably left the front door unlocked by accident. But they have some sort of alarm and that’s what has been triggering all these weird sounds. Like the footsteps and the random sound of a door opening and closing. As for the door shutting, that’s just moving air making it close.

But there hadn’t been moving air. And how could I explain the doorknob turning as the door closed? That was just my mind playing tricks on me. The door hadn’t actually been open, so the doorknob never actually was turned.

There; logical explanations for everything. It makes sense now. That being said, I’m trespassing. And if the owner’s alarm system or whatever is as sophisticated as it seems, they have cameras everywhere and have me entering their house when they’re not home. Which puts me in a lot of trouble.

But I can’t leave now. It’s already close to midnight. Plus, I would have to explain why I came into the house and left it, without taking anything but some food to eat. I shrug and tell myself that I might as well just get a night’s worth of rest before I face the consequences in the morning.

I go back to bed. But, despite calmly and logically explaining everything that’s happened in my head, I still can’t shake the creepiness of it all. Now I feel like there’s something watching me. Again, it has to be my mind playing tricks on me. I glance over my shoulder before I get back in bed, looking out in the hall again. There’s nothing there.

I lay in bed with my back to the wall, watching what I could of the hallway. I can’t sleep now; it’s too eerie and creepy in the house. Logically, I know I should just leave if I feel like this. But I can’t bring myself to get out of bed, get dressed, and finish my travels home this late at night.

As I think about what I’m going to do, I hear footsteps again. They’re coming back down the hall. I watch the carpet, hoping to see anything at all. The footsteps stop just before the bedroom door, almost like there is someone there, making the footsteps; almost like there’s another being in the house, and they know that I’m in the bedroom, watching for any sign of life.

But there’s no shadow, there’s nothing to indicate that there’s a person standing just outside my door. I lay there, my back pressed against the wall, my eyes wide open. I can’t breathe. I count to two minutes in my head. There are no more footsteps, not a single sound from whatever it was that made the footsteps.

I decide right then that it’s time to leave the house. I get up and get dressed again, shoving my pajamas back into my bag. Leaving the lights on, I hurry to leave. But before I actually get out of my room, something down the hall catches my eye. My heart is in my throat as I turn to look.

There’s a shadow moving on the wall, a shadow of a person that isn’t me, moving down the hall. But it’s gone within seconds. I can’t move. I’m frozen to the spot.

After a few seconds, I move again. I am thoroughly scared of this house. I need to get out of here.

In the front hall, the light is still blazing. Thank goodness. I don’t think I’d be able to have my wits otherwise. But before I get to the door, I notice something on the wall opposite it. My heart is thumping as I watch what happens.

It’s almost like whatever it is just appears on the wall. And by the looks of it, it’s writing. The message or whatever is being written on the wall as I watch, almost like there’s someone there, knowing I’m watching what’s being written. I’m frozen to the spot again as I watch each letter appear on the wall.

Beware of the House

Take care that you don’t get Lost

Beware of the House

There are Things here Untold

Get out before they Unfold

My eyes are open wide. My hand is resting on the doorknob as I read the message in full. I am confused. How this message appeared on the wall is well beyond me, let alone how whatever it is that made it appear made it visible to me. Plus, I don’t know why it’s telling me to leave; I am about to leave, anyways, just seconds from yanking the door open and bolting from the house. Possibly calling the police, as well, when I get somewhere with a phone. Obviously, whoever owns the place has a sick sense of humor.

I unlock the door and pull it open as fast as I can. I run out and down off the porch before it hits me – this isn’t the front yard, though I’m sure that I went out the front door.

I look over my shoulder for a moment. The house stands ominously behind me. But it’s not the front of the house, like I thought. I’m positive I went out the front door.

Slowly, I walk back up the steps and into the house. The eerie message is still on the wall. I look around. I am definitely in the front hall of the house; yet, when I ran out of the house, I was somehow in the back yard and the façade of the house showed the back.

What does that message mean, exactly? I stare at it, trying to figure it out. Beware of the House… like, what? The house is a living being or something? I don’t think so. A house is an inanimate object, so how can I heed warning in that? Take care that you don’t get lost… well, I already got lost, trying to leave the house. Apparently, I exited through the back door instead of the front door, even though I don’t know how that happened. There are things here Untold? Well, obviously. Those footsteps that I heard earlier without an obvious reason for them definitely don’t happen, let alone isn’t talked about. The last line, Get out before they Unfold, seems like a warning. I didn’t imagine those footsteps, even though I had convinced myself earlier that I did. And I tried to get out; but for some reason, I got jumble up. Or there’s some weird, funky business that I don’t know about that’s going on.

I glance at my watch. It’s past midnight. I don’t really have a choice but to stick it out here. I don’t want to go back to the bedroom; for all I know, that freaky thing that was “walking” earlier may still be outside the bedroom. I lean against the wall and slide down so that I’m sitting on the floor. I pull my bag up on my lap. I pull my pocket knife from my pocket and open the blade, placing it on the floor next to me.

The door is cracked from when I tried to leave. I want to be able to make a quick getaway in case something does happen. With what’s been going on, I don’t know how I can leave without issues. I just hope that I’ll be able to get away without a hitch next time.

My eyes start to close with exhaustion. I start to breathe slower and heavier. Head falling onto my shoulder, I doze off. I don’t remember really falling asleep or anything. But I wake up to a blood-curdling scream from down the hall. I jolt away, grabbing my knife.

The lights are still on; I look down the hall and see absolutely nothing. Leaving my bag by the door, my knife in my hand, I stand up slowly, my eyes still trained on the hall. Trying not to make a sound, I take a few steps over that way. All of a sudden, the air is frigid, icy cold. It’s really unnatural, given I’m in a house that’s got the heat on.

Still seeing nothing, I enter the hall where the bedroom is. I hear another scream, closer this time. The sound is coming from all around me now. I can’t tell where it’s coming from, or who (or what) is making it.

The door on the left suddenly slams open, banging against the wall, and more cold air flows into the hall. The icy air takes my breath away for a moment. I take a second to get my breath back before I move towards the door.

The screaming sounds louder now, like it’s coming from the door. I look through it; there are stairs leading down, like to a basement. Turning on a light, I try to see what’s down there. As soon as the light flicks on, the screaming stops. The cold air seems to disappear.

Something is up and I have no idea what it is. I start walking down the stairs, slowly and quietly. The stairs don’t creak under me. I hear a thud, like someone falling. But I don’t see anything when I get to the bottom of the stairs.

The room that I’ve entered is big and empty. The walls are brick and the floor is concrete. There isn’t anything down here but cobwebs and a drain, right in the middle of the room. On the floor, around the drain, are dark stains. They look brown, rusty. Almost like… dried blood.

What the hell? Why would there be dried blood on the floor? This is definitely some sort of crime scene. I need to call the police and tell them about this crime scene I walked into here. But my phone is upstairs, in my bag.

I back up towards the stairs and take them slowly backwards, one by one, until I’m at the top of the staircase. Turning around, I run back to the front door and fish my phone out from the front pocket of my bag. Conveniently, there is no service in the house. Almost like this is some sort of vortex.

Opening the front door wide, I step out onto the porch and down into the lawn. The front lawn, this time, weirdly enough. I check my phone again; seeing that it has full service now, I punch in 911.

“Good evening, Ellsworth Police Department, how may I help you?” a cool, woman’s voice answers after two rings.
“Hello… I’m at this house. I don’t know what happened here, but there’s been a lot of weird noises in the house, look footsteps without anyone in the house, walking around. And I went down into the basement, because I heard screaming and the basement door flew open, and I found a bunch of stains on the floor, by the drain. It looks like dried blood, but I can’t be sure,” I say quickly, my heart racing. I feel like something, or someone, is watching me again. I look over my shoulder and don’t see anything. Looking back at the house, I glance up at the second story windows, and still don’t see anything. There’s nothing here.

“Ma’am, do you know the address of the house you are at?” the police operator says.

“No, I don’t. I didn’t think to check. I was walking home from work and decided to knock on the door when I saw the house,” I say. “There wasn’t an answer, but the door was unlocked and I went inside.”
“So you’re saying you’re trespassing?” she says.
“It’s not what you think. I was getting out of work late and it was like 10:30. Originally, I just thought to knock on the door and call home for a ride. But, like I said, there wasn’t anyone home and the door was unlocked.”

“Okay. Do you mind if I use the tracking device so that I can get your location?” the lady says.

“Go ahead! I don’t want to be here anymore; I want to go home,” I respond, almost crying now. The creepy feeling I have that someone is watching me is stronger now and I can’t shake it.

“Okay, give me a moment, please. Stay on the line,” she says.

“Okay, please hurry, though!”

She takes a minute to track my location. “Are you still there, ma’am?” she asks.

“Yes!” I almost scream.

“Okay, I have your location. I’m sending an officer over that way. Stay where you are and I’ll have the officer call you when he gets there, okay?”

“Please tell him to hurry; I really don’t feel safe here,” I respond.
“He’s on his way now, okay?”

I hang up with the police operator and run into the house to grab my bag. The door slams shut behind me. I hear the bolt of the lock slide and lock me in. Screaming, I try the lock. It doesn’t budge under my hand. I bang the door with my fist. I’m shaking and crying. I still feel like someone is watching me. I feel really uncomfortable and scared now. I know I don’t have a reason to; there isn’t anyone or anything here.

I hear them again. The footsteps have started. By the sound of it, they’re right behind me. My knife still in hand, I turn around. What I see scares me so much, I scream again. I lose all sense of what’s happening.

The face itself is gruesome to look at. The eyes are gone, leaving empty sockets. Blood has dripped down the pale face, almost like tears. What looks like to be brain matter is hanging out of the nostrils. The lips, or what was left of them, are pulled back into the creepiest smile I’ve seen in my life. There are few teeth in the mouth; the empty gums are black. The lips are cracked, missing parts. And the body… it’s covered in blood and pieced of cloth. Its back is bent awkwardly, like it’s been broken.

“Welcome,” says a disembodied voice. “Welcome to my house.”

I’ve stopped screaming at this point. It takes a moment to realize that the voice is coming from the corpse in front of me as it slowly walks towards me. I’m shaking really bad.

“You’ve entered my house without being invited,” says the corpse. “Now, it’s time you shall get what you deserve.” It starts to laugh evilly.

“No! The police are on their way. They’re going to save me,” I say, my voice sounding braver than I felt.

“Oh, they won’t find anything here,” the corpse responds. “This house won’t be visible to them. I’ve made sure of that.”

It sounds impossible. I know for a fact that it’s impossible. Houses don’t just appear and disappear at will, let alone at the will of a reanimated corpse. Corpses don’t get reanimated. Only in Harry Potter does that happen, with Dark magic. And, as far as I know, I’m not a character of Harry Potter.

“I have a knife,” I say, wielding my knife in front of me.
“Oh, poor, pathetic child. You must know that won’t work on me,” the corpse responds. “I’ve already died once. I’ve come back the way they killed me. I stay in this place now, waiting for my revenge. And revenge I will get.” The corpse talks as if it’s a normal human being. Like it never died, like it is still alive. It talks like this is a normal conversation.

I bolt, running around the corpse, to the kitchen. I remember seeing a window there, just above the sink. Before I can get to the window, I feel something pulling me back. I fling myself towards the sink, in hopes of grabbing it and pulling myself towards the window, to no avail.

“That isn’t polite,” the corpse says, chuckling. “After all, I did let you eat my food and rest in the bed I provided. Why don’t you stay awhile? I have many things planned for us. And I hope you enjoy it all.”

I scream as the force pulls me back to the corpse. I stop moving when I’m a mere foot from it. I am on my back now and I look up into its face. I scream and crab-crawl back, hitting my head on the wall.

With no accord of its own, my hand that’s holding my pocket knife raises and points the knife at me. Slowly, it comes down to my stomach and pierces a hole there.

~~~

I wake up from my nightmare, screaming. It felt so real. The dead corpse talking to me, the cold air blowing through the hall before I went to the basement, the knife tearing into my stomach, dying at the hands of that creepy undead thing, all of it felt like it was happening again. I know better; it’s PTSD from when my friends and I went into that haunted house and almost didn’t make it out alive. It’s been a month. The nightmares still haunt me. Some nights, it’s like what I just woke up from – I’m in the house alone, a corpse stalking me through the house. Other nights, my friends are with me, and my nightmares are exactly like that night – being exposed to our truest and darkest fears, not knowing if we’ll ever see the light of day again, barely making it out of the house with our lives.

This time, it was a little different, though. The corpse was my mom. She had been tortured to death – her eyes had been taken out with a knife, her teeth pulled out, and several dozen lacerations covering her body.

My mom comes into the room. Tears are rushing down my face, my body is shaking. I almost scream again. My mind tricks me into seeing the body of the dead corpse – I refuse to think of it as mom, now that I’m awake. Mom wraps her arms around me.

“It’s okay, honey, it’s just a dream,” she says, comforting me. She starts singing some of my favorite songs until I fall asleep again. Hopefully, when I sleep again, it will be a dreamless sleep.