The air was stuffy in the house, old, like it wasn't refreshed very often. It was dead quiet, and almost pitch black. As we moved further into the building, it became more obvious how big the house was. We could see it from outside of course, but the amount of space inside made it feel much bigger.
The double doors opened to a lounging area, a wide square room with couches, more sitting furniture and tables, lamps, decorations, bookshelves. Everything looked pretty vintage, from the dark wooden furniture to the paintings on the walls and the books stacked on the shelves. The square room had two set of stairs leading up to the second floor, which was open to see from where we stood, a balcony going around with railing upstairs. There were a lot of doors on both floors, leading to who knew where, and a big crystal chandelier hang in the middle.
"I expected something less clean," Claudia commented as we stepped further into the room.
I had to agree. There was no dust, no tearings in the furniture, no cobwebs, no mice, no dead bugs or anything. It all looked well kept, which made the previous worry bubble up in me again.
"We shouldn't be here."
We turned to look at Neil, and I had half a mind to agree with him. I had been excited before, but a small bit of unease was creeping up on me. The missing garbage, the new windows, the clean house. I felt like we might be intruding more than we first thought.
"Should we go?" I turned to Jackson, kind of hoping to hear him say yes. He seemed surprised, either by the question, or my tone.
"Does anyone else want to go?"
"What? No! We barely saw anything," Scott frowned arms crossed.
"Yeah, I didn't dress up for nothing," Cody agreed, gesturing at himself. Everyone had to smile a little at that. Except Neil, he looked more uncomfortable than ever.
"Cody's right. It would be a waste to not have him around like this more." Emily giggled, and the other two girls joined her. Cody seemed to take this as a compliment and grinned widely.
"I want to look around more too," Claudia backed them up as well. And I'm embarrassed to admit, but that was enough to convince me. "Can we stay a bit longer?"
I swallowed and nodded "Sure, I guess why not. Nobody take anything though, and don't break this stuff either."
"Do we look like hooligans?"
I huffed a laugh at the way Scott asked that. With how he was dressed up, the all mighty knight in jeans and sneakers, it was absurd in the best way.
"Listen to Josh. No messing around," Jackson instructed, always the voice of rationality. For some reason the scrubs made him sound more like someone we should listen to, an authoritive figure.
"Fine, whatever. Can we look around now?" Cody urged. I was still feeling a bit uneasy, but they looked excited enough.
I decided I didn't care anymore and turned to Neil "Do you want to wait outside?"
He contemplated it, but then decided against it and shook his head, football tucked tightly under his arm. His whole body looked kind of stiff to me.
I grimaced "Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm fine. Let's just get this over with," he pushed past me and joined Cody wandering around in the room, shining his lamp on the spines of books. I sighed, but didn't call after him. I did what I could, I thought. I gave him a chance to back out.
"Okay," I adressed everyone "Let's have a look around downstairs, and then we can move upstairs if we want."
I went in a circle looking at books and paintings too, with Jackson and Claudia. There were a lot of science books and classic literature, stuff scholars would read most likely. Everything smelled old, which was an experience in itself. There were glass shelves with stuffed animals and skeletons behind them, that was kind of gross to be honest. I wouldn't decorate my house with this type of stuff for sure.
We did find a complete armor though, in the corner under one of the staircases next to a door. That was pretty cool. Jackson stopped Cody just in time before he could mess it up. It wouldn't have been fortunate to leave traces of our presence behind. I had a feeling the place was more lived in than people thought already.
"I wonder whose house this is," Claudia mused as we stared at the armor. "It looks expensive. And not dirty at all." I found myself agreeing with her once again.
"No matter. Let's go upstairs!" both Emily said, arms linked with Bettany.
"You can go up if you want. I wanna look around down here first." I told them.
"Alright. Are you coming with us Jack?"
Jackson shrugged and joined the two girls. I didn't see where Cody, Neil and Scott could have gone, but figured they were somewhere in the house. That left me and Claudia, alone. The thought made my stomach flutter.
"Wanna find the kitchen?" I asked her.
"Let's go!" she smiled and led the way.
I followed her to the door closest to the entrance, and was a little disappointed when she gripped the handle and couldn't open it. It was locked unfortunately. We went to the second one, which opened to a small compact bedroom. It looked like something a housekeeper would have slept in, back in the day when servants were a thing with wealthy families. The room was empty though, no personal belongings there at all. We could only find creepy greyscale photos hanging on the wall, with people dressed in old fashioned clothes and empty expressions. I didn't like those. Standing there, it felt like we were being watched.
We agreed to leave that room behind and continue our search. Which came to an abrupt end when we found it right after. It was behind the next door we opened, quite a spacious room with a window looking out on a shed at the back of the house. The furniture was old like in the rest of the house, but it was also well kept. Among all the old stuff there was an electric owen and a dishwasher too, and the sink was made of metal. No rust or anything, and beside the sink there were dishes mounted on a dryer, which made my suspicions stronger.
Claudia didn't seem to mind, opening cabinets and drawers as she moved around the kitchen. I was looking at her more than the actual room, kind of mesmerized by the way her skirt and the end of her ponytail fluttered as she twisted and turned, looking curiously this and that way.
"It's fascinating, isn't it?" I startled a little when she turned to look at me. There was a dining table set in the room as well, with several chairs. They looked new, though still had a vintage style to them. She plopped down in one of the chairs and smoothed her hand over the surface of the table. "Fun to think about what kind of people used to live in this house, what they talked about when they sat at this table." I sat in front of her, smiling faintly while she talked.
"A mom, a dad, maybe two kids. A third one? A maid, maybe even a butler. Who knows. They must have had a dog, I'm sure. If I had a house like this with kids I would have at least one dog too. And a cat! I wonder what kind of food they ate, how they cooked it."
She shook her head, expression turning sheepish "Sorry Josh. I know it's silly talk." she said, standing to smooth the wrinkles from her skirt.
"It's not silly talk," I told her earnestly "I like it when you talk this way about something."
It was the truth too. The idea to come back to the house was mostly inspired by the fact that Claudia told me she wanted to. And then I wanted to as well. I guess our barins worked similarly, a lot of the things that excited us were the same.
"Plus I agree. It's fun to think about these things. I like it when places or objects have a history, makes you wonder about their past."
My heart did a flip in my chest at the way she smiled at me then, our eyes locked. I stood from my seat as well, pulse quickening, and noticed her shuffling a little closer.
C R A S H
We both jumped a little at the loud noise coming from somewhere deeper in the house, maybe upstairs. It sounded like something fell and broke. After sharing a look we left the kitchen in search of the disturbance.
Neil, Cody and Scott met us in the livingroom, faces laced with fear and concern. Looking at them in that moment, it just hit me lika ton of bricks. I saw the kids they truly still were, the kids we were. Dressed up and trespassing in a creepy old house. Whose brilliant idea had it been? Oh, right, mine.
"Did you guys hear that? It came from upstairs." Scott said in a shaky voice. He sounded uncharasterically scared.
I nodded, staring at the stairs leading up. Jackson and the girls were up there. I was starting to worry as well, hoping they weren't harmed. That noise had been pretty loud.
"I knew we shouldn't have come here," I heard Neil mutter to himself, but ignored him and went to climb the stairs instead. Claudia followed me, but the guys stayed behind. I didn't mind. I thought it better to have them stay, the upper floor might be too unstable to hold so many people's weight if the noise had been the floor falling in.
The stairs creaked loudly as we climbed them. I winced, holding the railing with slightly shaking hands. As much as I wanted to be brave, I could feel cold dread seeping into my chest. My stomach clenched emptily and I felt sick. Even so, it had been my proposition to go to the house, my friends' safety was my responsibility.
Upstairs it was darker, it seemed like there were endless doors on each side of the room, unfamiliar faces staring back at us from paintings. I looked around unsure.
"Jackson? Betty? Em?" I called out as loudly as I dared, which wasn't very loud.
I got no answer. That was very unnerving.
I jumped a little, fighting a micro heart attack when I felt Claudia touch my hand. I had completely forgotten about her following me. I took comfort in her presence though.
"I think the sound came from that direction," she whispered and pointed behind us, three closed doors right in front of the set of stairs. I swallowed and nodded.
We stepped up to the first one, tried the handle, found it locked. I let out a shaky breath and continued to the next one, with slow careful steps. That door was open, but it opened to a study of some sort, with a desk and chair, shelves of books, an Earth globe and a telescope by the window in the back. But it was empty, so I stepped back and shut the door, moving my gaze to the last one. I hadn't noticed before, but it was slightly ajar.
I sent Claudia a look that hopefully said to be careful, to which she nodded, and we approached the last door warily. I pushed it more open, and found our friends.
"Guys!" Claudia exclaimed, voice breathless.
Moonlight streamed through the windows, illuminating the room and everything within. They were crouching on the ground, picking up books hastily only to stuff them into a bookcase resting against the wall. They looked up swiftly upon hearing Claudia's voice, a flash of fear washing over their faces.
"What happened here?" I asked, as we stepped further into the room. It was a bedroom, with a big, very old fashioned bed that had railings and curtains, a big dresser and wardrobe, a standing mirror that was easily taller than me, and more shelves of books. The house was packed with books it seemed.
"Sorry dude, I know we agreed not to mess anything up, but this bookcase just toppled over when we were about to leave the room." Jackson explained sheepishly.
"It was so scary," Emily shuddered "I thought it would crush us."
"Thankfully we moved out of the way just in time." Bettany said "We managed to get it upright, but the books went flying everywhere."
I could see that. There were books in a pile in front of them, and others lying a few steps from the bookcase. With my and Claudia's help we picked them up as quickly as we could and put them back on the shelves, not caring much about their order.
"We were so worried," Claudia chided gently once we were finished "Thought something happened to you guys."
Bettany and Emily embraced her both "We know, and we are sorry," they said.
"Don't scare me like that again," I told Jackson with a frown.
"Wasn't my intention in the first place." he said, laying a comforting hand on my shoulder. I snorted and shook my head.
We met the guys downstairs and told them what happened. I could tell that everyone was rather nervous by then, the whole thing wasn't as fun anymore. I wasn't having as much fun as I thought I would either.
"Maybe we should go," I suggested, a bit disappointed.
"I guess so," Jackson agreed. And once he did, everyone else followed suit. I was half hoping they wouldn't, half hoping they would. I would have liked to explore more, but I was concerned for my friends' safety. The night could have ended very badly already. It was only due to our luck it didn't.
Reluctantly but I led them out of the house, through the yard, to the spot where we could climb over the wall. Everyone was over on the other side when Emily exploded.
"Oh no! I left my hat inside, in that room. It must have fallen off when we were picking up books," she moaned miserably. I grimaced, mind racing. It would have been bad if anyone other than us found it inside, no matter how empty the house was most of the time.
"I'll go get it," I said finally.
"Alone?" asked Claudia, brows drawn together in what I could only recognise as worry.
"It'll only be a minute. Wait for me here," I told them.
They all nodded, flashlights in hand. They looked more and more like children to me, I couldn't help but notice.
"Be careful man," Neil told me, of all people.
Slightly taken aback, I smiled thinly "Sure thing."
Comments (0)
See all