A gust blew back Max’s hair as she stood on a hill, surveying The House below her. It was leaning at an almost unnatural angle, giving the idea that it would fall over at any given moment. Only a few flakes of paint remained on the outside of its walls, and the rest of it wasn’t much better off. The windows had cracks spanning across them, and some of them were shattered completely, only jagged edges left, almost looking like teeth. The entirety of the porch stairs was gone, with only a moldy pile of wood remaining. 

     Max could feel her lip curling with disgust as she looked at The House. She was a renovator, and she was supposed to be spending her Saturday taking inventory of what was left of the run-down mansion. 

Built in the late 1800s, The House was passed down throughout the Henrichson family, at least until Jim Henrichson had died. That’s when the state had taken over, and that’s where she came in. 

     Although, from where Max was standing, she couldn’t fathom how anyone could have lived in this wreck at all. In fact, Max couldn’t even imagine someone living in this House even when it was brand new. Something about the place seemed to emit a sinister feeling, a chill, and Max had a feeling no amount of new paint and furniture would fix that. 

     Taking a deep breath in from her nose, Max started down the hill leading to The House. She clutched her bag which held all the proper papers, as she tottered down in four and a half-inch heels, which was now clearly an impractical choice. She finally stumbled to a stop and took a moment to crane her neck upwards. The House loomed above her, looking almost like a predator, ready to devour the next unlucky soul who went through its doors. 

     Max didn’t seem to notice, however, and she only cursed both The House and the hill before manually climbing up onto the porch. 

     Dusting herself off, Max glanced at the knocker of the door, a gargoyle with eyes that seemed a little too realistic, before using all of her strength to pull open the heavy wooden door. 

     To her surprise, the door was silent, the wood not groaning loudly as she had expected it to. Max found this reassuring, and she neglected to think about how the doors were well oiled enough to stay silent. 

     Stepping into the front hall, Max was surprised to see that it was completely and fully furnished, right down to the half-burnt candles sitting on the tables. It took a moment for it to register in Max’s brain that there wasn’t a layer of dust on every available surface, like there should have been. 

     Something inside her screamed to get out of there, to get out of there immediately. She was about to turn around, but then she saw flickering shadows further down the front hall. 

     Her immediate thought was that some teenage idiots had lit a fire, and could possibly end up burning down the entire House. 

     Max did what she considered to be the sensible thing, and walked further down the hallway at a brisk pace, a lecture ready for the kids she thought she’d find. 

     She didn’t notice how her heels clacked against the strangely shiny hardwood floors, alerting anyone in The House to her presence. 

     It quickly became clear to her that the end of the hallway opened up to what would be considered the living room, and she rounded the corner, fury evident on her face. 

     She opened her mouth, about to deliver a tirade to what she expected to be a group of daredevil teens. 

     The first thing she noticed was that there was a fire nestled into the fireplace, and even from she was standing she could vaguely feel the heat. 

     Had Max had a little longer, she would have remembered that she never saw smoke coming from the chimney. But she didn’t have a little longer. 

     No, she had less than five seconds left to live, and her story ends with a jagged knife and dark blood, and a twisted grin etched onto the face of a monster.