Ding

“God, who could it be at this hour?” I thought to myself, as I raised the screen to my sleep-filled eyes. I squinted to see the title of who would feel the need to disturb me in the unacceptable hours of the morning: “Boss.” 

“Of course, it’s her! Who else?” I exclaimed, for myself to hear and agree with.

“Hey, I have a job for you. A guy came in early this morning and said he needed a house done. It's another big, old house, but it pays well. Thought I'd come to you first. He says he doesn't  live there, so you can come at your leisure.” The text illuminating my exhausted face read.

With little real initiative or other reason than precisely what I gave her, I replied, “Yeah, I need the pay, I’ll take it.”

“Gotta get up now. Ugh, I hate cleaning these oversized dumb houses that nobody uses anymore, they take up all my time that I could use for literally anything else, even another, less-rotting, job; it kills me. I bet there's gonna be cobwebs everywhere, just like every big, old house with nobody in it. Nobody will clean their own houses anymore, why else would I have this idiotic cleaning job? I just gotta get my bag and I’ll go,” I ranted not-so-quietly to myself.

 Dish soap: check, vinegar: check, rubbing alcohol: check, spray bottles: check, rags: check scrub brush:  check, and whatever, whatever, whatever.

It was later that same, dreary morning when I drove to the address my employer provided, and there it was, the great, looming house. The typical chilly autumn fog curled into messy, writhing ringlets across the bleak earth. As I took my breath to liven my, still unresponsive, body, the flat tang of damp dust filled my head. There were dozens of gothic-style windows, each adorned with curves and curls, ornate details everywhere you looked, like the horrible glowing eyes of a great beast. From the outside, I saw the horrifyingly massive stature comprised of three massive stories, perhaps with an attic. Every banister and molding seemed to usher me towards the gaping maw that was the massive bolted, mahogany door that looked several dilapidating centuries old. Every haunting detail was strung with stretching cobwebs like a viscous mucus had settled into the crusted husk of dusty ruin. I am certain now that if a scent could be detected beyond the dank, dirty incense of the ground beneath me, it would be a putrid odor of lifeless rot emanating from those expansive webs. Large beds that seemed to hold considerable towering hedges lay without, actually, there was not a plant to be found; the grass fainted sadly into a yellowing mass, and every sparsely strewn tree seemed as if it could give way into itself due to the extensive darkening decay coming from the confines of their sickly orange flesh. Not a single animal could be subjected to this dreary scene; no birdsong, not a squeak, not a chitter or shuffle could be heard. Even with the painful silence atop the great hill, this hollow, hulking house lay. A deep unsettling pain rose in my chest at the thought of entering through the mahogany jaws, but it was not as if I could’ve run from a job. Not with the dreadful numbers that created my increasingly dismal bank account. 

I lifted the, quite unwelcoming, welcome mat to find the monstrous brass key used to release the seal on this house. I slid the hunk of brass into the sizable hole in the bolt that served to keep the house devoid of people, as it should be. I heard the growling mechanism turn and grind. The door groaned open with a hefty shove, and the molded air found its place in my throat, not helping the growing, seizing knot in my stomach. 

My first thought was to open every ornate, glass window I could find from the inside, to escape the mildewed air of dry rot. I tried one window after another and another and another: never a budge, creak, or otherwise. With my plan melting before my eyes, I vowed to finish the job with a speed unknown to all, human and inhuman; I did not wish to be trapped in the sickeningly cavernous, damp wooden confinement beyond a moment I had to. I couldn't have my skin crawling with the ideas of the monstrous existence of the house any longer.  

I started with scrubbing and bathing the heaving heart of the house, a towering room that every winding ventricle led back to eventually, with two ever-lengthening stairwells and countless wooden mouths, modeled after the bulk of a front door that lay menacingly behind me. I gathered every suffocating particle of dust. I pressed my coarse, deteriorating brush, sopping with, not-sweet-enough-to-cover-the-stench-of-diseased-air scented, cleaning solution every knotted, winding board of wood, every cracked tile, and warped window. As I took my brush to the lengthy cobwebs and they fell about my feet, I had a great sensation in my lungs that kindly forced the breath from my chest and kept me from inhaling the mildew-filled air for one grateful moment. Every winding, endless hall led me to another cursed room to rid of gloom and mold. Hours by hours by hours by hours I rid this monstrous home, no no not home, this monstrous house of every unholy particle and malicious crumb. Finally, yes finally, I went to leave, to pass through the toothed door once again and be free of the pain this place breeds in my soul. I fitted the shining metal key into the lock and turned once more, and, with all my strength, I pressed the door open. I was faced with the most horrendous sight imaginable in my feeble human mind: two great, twisted stairwells.

This wasn’t right, I passed through the same horrible door, the same horrible,       unmistakable door I came in from. It made no sense, nothing made sense. My feelings of unsettling pain deep in my core became fear, panic, terror across my body, soul, and mind. All I could do now was scream, “OH GOD! OH NO! WHY? WHY? WHY? AM I HERE? WHEN DID I GET HERE? HOW LONG HAS IT BEEN? I NEED OUT! I CAN’T BE HERE! I’LL DIE HERE! I’LL DIE! I’LL DIE…” This went on for what felt like hours until I realized screaming was a tiring and fruitless effort. “Take deep breaths, take deep breaths, and calm down,” I told myself. I did so, letting my chest rise with the burdensome nothing of, not quite comforting, air. I took one last breath; something seized in my throat. After coughing a good while, I realized what it was: one of those dreaded cobwebs. “Oh no! Oh no! No no.” Was this the problem? Was I breathing my doom? Was the gloomful webs my ultimate downfall? What would I  do? What would I do if I died here? Could I die from dust? This sickly, powered bile that disguised itself as dust, at least? “I can’t die! I can’t die here!” is all I could manage to get straight.

Broken from my spiraling mind, I stood frighteningly upright, but I didn’t. I jumped a strange, startling jump, at least that’s what I thought. I seemed to be in control of myself in that moment. The unnatural jolt repeated itself, now with my arms unwillingly in the air. I could not help but feel as if they were pulled, not by my own mind but by the mind of a monster, a disgusting demonly force. I pulled away, I ran I ran I ran, to nowhere, away from myself I suppose. I was not in my mind, but in a fugue, a terrible haunting fugue. My body was brought to a shocking stop, I wanted to run but could not. As my head was lulled to the side, there it was: the source of fear. Right where a strand of the same threatening cobwebs that brought me, great terror, had blown through the chilling air, it had stopped… stopped on a thread. This thin fragile thread I followed down, down, down to my arm was stuck like a leech. I desperately tried to snap it, but instead, the devilish force behind it snapped my arm.

Now, I say this only in my mind, for that is the only thing I have left that is truly mine. I am in the most excruciating of pains that could befall a human; my shattered bones ache as they tear through my flesh, my life pours from me with every shambling motion I am put through, my lungs are shriveled and tattered for no breath can sustain life within the hollow walls of what once was my body. The house gives no thought to my body, it is a puppet, a toy for it to break as it pleases. What I would give to have that, once terrifying, sense of unsettling dread. Never underestimate the mercy of dread; dread means you are safe. Now leave me to my house, my home