Dark Keys of Uncomplacency

Chapter 5: Scorching Nightmare

Allison walked down the hallway passing what she thought was her parents' bedroom, unable to recall how she got in the house. Just a second ago she was pushing Julian's sweaty shirt away, outside the front door. Now it was pitch-dark, as if the sunlight had been sucked through a black hole.

She reached into her back pocket for her phone, but realized she left it in the cup holder in the car. It's as if the events of the day had been erased in this black void. Her head throbbed with each step she took and it only intensified as she tried to figure out how she got there. This has to be a dream, she thought. The air was cold, as if the AC had reached subzero temperatures. Without the flashlight on her phone, she could barely see a few feet in front of her.

"Mom! Dad! Why didn't you wake me up for dinner?" she cried, even though she could not even remember lying down for a nap. She continued to yell out to her parents, as the AC roared in the background. It was a relentless force that blocked out all other sound to the point she could no longer hear herself speak.

The wood floors creaked louder than they'd ever creaked before. It was the sound of uncertainty and horror to Allison, who knew that the floors were too new to sound so antiquated. Is this even our house?

She began to shiver furiously as she continued to move forward slowly towards the stairs. She squeezed both of her ears down trying to block out the sound of the air, but it filled the room as if a commercial jet plane was taking off. The hallway became a never-ending corridor filled with terror. Allison continued to walk, but never reached the stairs.

Finally she stopped and lied in the fetal position against the cold wood floor. Overcome by anxiety, she took deep breaths and smelled the fresh coat of paint that lined the walls of the hallway. She rubbed her chest to create warmth, but her hands were like two blocks of ice. The floor beneath her began to rumble and the walls started to close in, becoming more and more like a crawlspace. Allison instinctively stretched out her arms and legs, trying feebly to keep the walls from collapsing inward. She panicked and scraped at the walls, which left a thin layer of paint under her fingernails. Again the floor rumbled, but this time it sounded like someone else was there.

Allison stared back into the darkness from which she came but saw nothing. Still convinced she was not alone, she hunched over on her knees and pressed her ear against the floor. The numbing cold froze her ear, when she suddenly honed in on the faintest sound of footsteps. The more she focused, the louder the footsteps got. She was so concentrated on the heavy, deliberate footsteps that she didn't noticed that the AC had died down.

The monotonous thuds in the distance became more frequent until eventually it sounded like someone was running towards her.

Allison began to hyperventilate as she braced herself, frightened to face whatever was running towards her. The creaky floor sounded the alarm as the footsteps got closer, but right before they reached her, they vanished.

Allison's eyes snapped open, ready to gaze into the face of her tormentor, but nothing was there. Nothing but a wave of warm air and a candlelight coming from down the hall. Perplexed by the swift change in temperature, Allison stood up and followed the light casted by the hidden candle, to a door that was cracked open.

She could smell the smoke hovering in the air from the other side of the door. But before she could open the door completely, it slammed in her face with an echoing crescendo and behind it played a piano melody that she had never heard before.

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It was a humid summer night in July of 1874. The main street in the small city of Baltimore was so full of life. In every direction, one could find smiling faces and people walking with purpose. The wealthy couples rode in their horse-drawn carriages from one venue to the next, while the people of middle class strolled down the sidewalks window shopping.