“Carter? Why are you calling in the middle of the night?” my friend, Alex, asked from the other line of the call.
I promptly replied, “Can you come to my house for a second? There’s something here that’s awfully wrong and I just really need someone to help me deal with it.”
“At this hour? Did you just got back from the party?”
“What party? I just got home from a visit to my mom. Also can you please stop asking questions! I just need help right now as soon as possible.”
There was a brief pause before he responded back.
“Fine. Okay. I’m going there just wait for a second,” he replied, before audibly mumbling under his breath, “What kind of trouble did he get himself into.”
And with that, he put the phone down and I waited in the darkness.
The more time I spent alone next to that pile of flesh, the more my anxiety rose. My sanity dwindled as I stood there, waiting for company alone and with only the presence of that monstrous thing behind my back.
I turned my head around with warriness as I looked through the small crack between the door and the door frame to see if the thing has moved. Holding my breath, suffocating in the tension, I swung the door open to get a better picture. It hasn’t moved an inch, yet it feels as if it was staring at me viciously, like a predator eyeing its prey before violently devouring it without any regard for its life before their fateful encounter.
It sent a chill up my spine.
I took a deep breath and blinked. Then looked at it again, intensely, and almost intimately. A bizarre bond has been formed between me and the thing as I watched its lifeless form sit still in the cold dreary silence of the night.
I turned my back against it once again, clearing my mind of any thought that could further develop any anxiousness and dread. Despite that, although motionless and inanimate, there was a certain feeling inside me that kept on reeling my imagination towards the thing. It was a sensation that was grueling to get rid of. It was a leech that sucked and kept on sucking, guaranteeing me pain and locking me away from freedom.
The atmosphere could be best described as dead. The winds did not blow and even the decrepit wooden floor did not creak. The night was mute, but as I stood there, my mind still occupied by the horror that was beyond my bedroom door, I heard the wail of a thousand voices. Both deep and high, old and young, it called out to me; spoke to me as if commanding me to join them. I could almost decipher the language in which it speaks but whenever I came close to understanding a single word or phrase it seemed to slip away, leaving me unable to process it.
And despite that, I could hear it.
“It’s almost as if-”
Then came knocking from the door leading outside. I snapped out from the trance that I was trapped in and went straight to open the front door to finally welcome my friend. It was about time.
“I got your call! Are you okay?” my friend shouted as he scanned around the inside of the house, confusion visible in his face. He looked as if he was seemingly unaware of the deterioration of the place.
Perplexed by the way he reacted, I replied, “I’m okay, but why do you look so confused? Can’t you see all of this?”
“You called me and said that it was an emergency, but there’s nothing in here at all. Did you get it settled by yourself or what?”
Asking myself if I have gone crazy, I gulped in realization. Perhaps I was the only one who could perceive all that occured in that house. Perhaps I was the only one who could see the writhing mass of flesh beyond my room.
I looked back at the house, the walls, the floor, and the doors to make sure that I was not seeing things, but it was all still the same, unmoved. The wallpaper still hung torn from the walls, the floor still stained with blood and viscera, and the doors all still slightly unhinged.
My friend squinted his eyes and entered inside.
“So really, what’s wrong?” he asked again, this time with a chuckle.
“Do you really not see anything?” I asked him desperately.
“See what? There’s literally nothing here Carter.”
“Just look around! The walls are all destroyed! There’s blood on the ground and all!” I replied, looking and sounding more frantic than my last question.
I looked desperate, but I had to be that way to confirm whether my suspicions were correct or not.
Al remained confused, but deep inside I knew that he was afraid of how I was acting. I sighed and urged him to follow me to my room. While on the way, I looked at the ground to confirm if all the blood was still there.
“I’m not going crazy, am I?” I whispered to myself, unsure if Al heard it.
The two of us entered my room and I came face to face yet again with the thing. As lifeless as before, it sat there, my friend not seeing what’s wrong.
I pointed at it and said, “Can’t you see that?”
“What are you talking about?” he said, widening his eyes for a moment as he gazed upon it.
I didn’t notice it at first, but soon I realized that he was reaching his hand out to the thing. As it inched closer and closer to the now pulsating mass of flesh, my heart started racing and beads of sweat started dropping from my forehead. With every moment that his hand gets nearer to making contact with the thing, a burning sensation creeps its way up from my stomach to my throat, building up until I finally snapped.
“Stop that!” I shouted as he stopped his hand, just a small distance away from it.
“What?”
“Thank you. It might look like nothing’s in there, but I promise that there is something. It’s disgusting and you’re lucky to not see it but please just be careful,” I reasoned out to him, wholeheartedly hoping that he’d listen to me.
He looked back to where he was about to put his hand earlier, wondering about whether his friend here became totally delusional though I could see why he would think that. My mother does have an illness that’s been plaguing her for her whole life that causes hallucinations. It recently peaked this weekend and I had to accompany her to the hospital. I would ask myself if it’s possible that I have contracted her illness, but modern science has enough reason for me to believe that I would not be able to be infected by the sickness of the mind. Then, there has to be a different reason as to why I’m the only one who can see the horrendous display splattered right in front of both of us.
“Come on,” he said, snapping me out of my deep thought, “Just sleep in my house if you’re feeling bad here. There’s an extra room there so if you want you can sleep there.”
“Really?” I asked, “Then does that mean you believe me that there’s something in here?”
“Not that I don’t or do believe you, but if you really feel uncomfortable here then I don’t see anything wrong with letting you stay,” he replied, with a warm inviting smile that seemed to have thawed away the fear that has frozen me in place the entire night.
“Okay. Let’s go. I can’t stand to be here anymore,” I said, looking at the mass of flesh that Al could still not see.
His offer really did make me feel much more comfortable, and although i do still feel anxious, the massive fear I had was gone, only being left with disgust towards the state of the house. The beauty that it once possessed and the memories it once held was all replaced the very moment I stepped in there that night. That place that I once called my home didn’t resemble it at all anymore and only seemed to be a faulty replica of its former glory.
Before finally stepping out of the house and into Al’s car, I decided to take one final glance at the poor worn down place.
“Goodbye,” I whispered, hoping to never return at the house’s vile grip and the thing that now calls it home’s malignant stare.
I followed Al into the car as he sat down in the driver’s seat while I proceeded into the passenger seat beside him. The night was long enough and it was about time that it ended. Al revved up the engine and soon, we were cruising down the foggy Warner Street with only the car’s headlights piercing through the thick darkness of the road. It was nerve-wracking, looking at the side mirrors, anxiously thinking that the horrors of the house followed us.
I took a deep breath as I relaxed on my seat and drifted off to a sleep that served as exaltation from the hell that was the delusions that infested my mind and sanity on that one fateful evening.
Comments (0)
See all