"How long until we get there?" I asked my husband Steven "Shouldn't be too much longer, maybe 10-15 minutes" he replied while looking at the time.
"Are you excited to finally be moving out of that midget sized apartment and into a real home?" I asked dramatically.
" Yes very excited, I will finally be able to stand up straight in my own home. You don't what its like, the struggles of being a giant and living in an apartment made for a dwarf.
Steven and I both laughed, it had been an on going joke of ours for as long as we had been living together.
Steven and I had been together for three years before we got married this past New Years Eve. We had a small ceremony and then a huge reception afterwards for all of our friends and family to welcome the New Year with us as newly weds, it was an amazing night that I will never forget. Not long after that Steven was offered to become a co-owner of a multi-chain restaurant called Sal's Grill House. They gave him a huge raise, and even bigger starting bonus. With all the money they had given him and some of our saving we were able to purchase my childhood dream home just on the edge of the city where I had originally grown up. The house was 3 stores tall and probably 100 years old. It has 6 bedrooms, 8 bathrooms and 5 or 6 other rooms to create into our own personal spaces. It was the perfect house to start a family in. As we pulled into the long drive way I could feel the excitement growing inside me. I could see the large house coming into view and a smile broke on my face. The house was just as beautiful as I remembered it. It was all white with 4 white pillars 2 on either side of the large white door with a stained glass window in the centre. The two windows on the main floor had blue shutters on either side. It was everything I ever dreamed of. However the house was far from perfect and barely liveable in. The white paint was peeling off the sides of the house exposing the very old and rotting wood. The roof was no better, it looked like it was barely holding up by a thread. I had a feeling the inside wouldn't be any better but I was willing to be optimistic. We pulled up in front of the house and I jumper out right away. I closed my eyed and took a deep breath, breathing in the slightly familiar scent of grass, wood, and the lake water. Standing here brought back lots of memories from my childhood. This house used to be the centre of all the scary stories I heard as a child. There was never a shortage of stories to try and scare us into not going into the house they would say the house was haunted, someone had died in it, or drowned in the small pond in the back yard. My favourite was that there was an evil sprit sucking the life and souls out of little kids upon entry to the house. I had never been in there myself but I had heard stories from the other kids from school. Even though the stories scared me I knew they weren't true and that the house just had more history to it, which was one of the reasons I loved it so much. "Let's go check out our new house" Steven said as he grabbed my hand. We walked up the steps of the front porch, each step groaning with protest from our weight. Steven unlocked the door with the keep the realtor had given him. When he went to push the door open it wouldn't budge. He tried again but to no avail. "That's odd," He said trying again but still the same thing. "It's a old door the wood has probably expanded and sealed it shut, let's go around back and use the back door." We walked around the side of the house taking in the large backyard with the small pond. The scenery was beautiful but I had a strange feeling that I couldn't describe, it was making me slightly uncomfortable and feeling a little paranoid, like something was near. Once we got to the back door we both stopped and just stood there, what was in front of us was not what we had expected. The door had been completely covered by vines and branches almost like they didn't want you to get in. You couldn't see the handle or even the colour of the door, just the frame around it. Creepy I thought to my self although it had been abandoned for 100 years what was I really expecting. " I'll go the truck and find a knife or something to cut these branches with, maybe you should look around and see if there is another way to get in." Steven suggested. Steven walked back to the front of the house and I continued around to the other side where I found a large glass window on the east side of the house. The glass was dirty with dust and cobwebs but I could still see inside. There was a large wooden table in the centre of the room with five chairs on either side and one at both ends. It reminded me of a king's table from the 18th century. I continued to scan the remaining content of the room which was just two long side tables on either sides of the table and just like the outside the paint on the walls were peeling off exposing the old rotten looking wood underneath. Just as I was about to leave to continue to look for a way to get into the house I heard a faint creaking sound just like when Steven and I were going up the steps to the front door, only this creaking sound was coming from inside the house maybe I was imagining it though, I had been up for the past two days packing everything maybe my mind was playing tricks on me. From the corner of my eye I saw something move from the back of the house and I screamed, until I saw who it was. Steven was standing there with a large axe in his hand now doubled over laughing.
"STEVEN WHAT THE FUCK!! YOU SCARED THE SHIT OUT OF ME!" I shouted and punched him in the arm once he reached me. "You (gasp) should have (gasp) seen (gasp) your face!" he tried to say as he continued to laugh like I hyena.
"Your such an ass!" I said hitting him I again as we both laughed. Our laughs were cut short when the creaking sound started again except this time it was louder and there was what sounded like footsteps. This time I knew it wasn't my imagination playing a trick on me because Steven heard it too. "What is that sound and where is it coming from? Steven asked as he walked closer to the glass window and pressing his ear against the glass. "You hear it too? I hear it just before you scared me, but I thought maybe I was just imagining it, doesn't it sound like it's coming from inside the house?" I asked trying to make sense of these strange noises. "Yes it does sound like it's coming from inside the house. Come on lets try and get the back door open then we'll check out these noises." Steven said as he turned and headed back towards the back of the house. Once we got the back door Steven started right away swinging the axe at the thick branches only for axe to barely affect the branches. It was almost like the branches were steel instead of wood. As I watched for a few moments I could tell this was going to take awhile, so I walked over to the large oak tree by the pond and climbed a few branches up. I was maybe six or seven feet in the air. I sat down facing the house so I could watch Steven as he worked. I watched Steven for a few moments before something in the second floor window caught my eye. I couldn't tell exactly what it was but it looked like a person staring out the window. I blinked a couple times; maybe I was just imaging it. When I looked back at the window there was an old lady in black standing they're staring directly at me. I gasped with shock almost stopping my heart and knocking me off balance, which cause me to fall back wards off the tree. It didn't register in my brain that I had fallen out of the tree until my back slammed into the ground knocking the breath out of me. As I desperately gasped for air the pain registered and shot from the back of my head all the way to the bottom of my spine and caused my whole body tingle painfully, and caused me to release I very high pitched agony filled scream. I started coughing and rolled over on my side to take the pressure off my aching back. I could hear Steven calling my name in the distance but I was in too much pain and too winded to answer him. I could feel that my injuries weren't that bad and nothing was broken which was a mericle. I was just so shocked at what I saw. How could there be someone in the house when it was supposed to be abandoned for over 100 years, and the lady in the window, she looked so old almost like a corpse, with her sunken in cheeks, wrinkly skin and long drooping nose she looked like something from nightmare on elme street, but when she looked at me her eyes turned bright red and she disappeared. When Steven finally reached me I was now still up trying to slow my heart rate. "Are you okay what happened?" he asked as he searched my body for any injuries "yea I'm okay its just my back and head that hurts and I was watching you cut the branches and then I looked at one of the upstairs windows, and there was this old lady in the window and she had these really creepy red eyes and she just appeared out of nowhere and then disappeared. She scared the shit out of me and that's why I fell out of the tree." I said rubbing the small bump that had already grown on the back of my head. "Lets just get in the house and then I will sit down; will you help me up please?" he reached down, pulled me up, and braced me against his side as we walked towards the door. Once we got there Steven kept me a few feet back while he finished cutting the branches. Each time the axe made contact with the branches the whole house groaned and creaked. After about 6 or 7 more swings there was a small square cut out just big enough to fit through and just behind it was a large white door with a glass handle. Steven tried the key and the door unlocked. He gave the door a good shove and it swung wide open with Steven tumbling inside with it. He caught his balance and then returned to help me inside. Once we were inside it was dark and smelt like rotten sewage. "Oh god Steven it smells awful in here!" just then there was a loud screeching scream like nails on a chalk board and what sounded like some one running down the hallway upstairs. "Steven what is going on?" I asked slightly frightened. "I don't know but lets go look upstairs," he suggested "Steven wait" I said grabbing his hand. "How about we just leave and stay at a hotel for the night and come back in the morning." I suggested. "Lets just check up stairs and then we will leave ok?" I sighed reluctantly "fine be lets just be quick I want to get out of here I don't feel comfortable anymore." he grabbed my hand and we walked down the hallway towards the front of the house. There was a large curving staircase to the second floor where there was two hallways leading to the east and west sides of the house. We walked up the stairs and turned to the east side of the house to the room I saw the lady in the window. The door was completely rotten and there were bugs crawling through out the holes in the door. Steven walked up to the door and pushed it open. I was very surprised the door didn't come right off its hinges. What we found inside shocked both of us and made me sick to my stomach. Inside the room hanging from a noose was a very decayed body. The flesh had rotten away and left only a skeleton. "Steven lets get out of here now!" I said walking backwards horrified by the very old skeleton hanging in what was suppose to be our bedroom, but then I hear the door slam behind me and watched the skeletons head move to my direction. "You're not going anywhere!" the skeleton exclaimed in a high-pitched scratchy voice as it shook angrily. Steven ran to the door and tried to open it which surprisingly didn't even budge, instead all the bugs in the door crawled on Steven and ate away all of his skin. Steven was screaming in pain and trying to rip them off but there was just too many and they were too fast. In seconds they had eaten all the skin off his face and hands. There were bugs coming out of his eyes, nose and mouth. What was left of Steven's now hollow body fell to the floor with a loud thud. I stood there too shocked and scared to move. The only thing I wasn't too scared to do was scream my lungs out, and that's exactly what I did. Steven was dead. OH GOD! I turned to look in the opposite direction, I could look at his body, but I came face to face with the lady in black from the window. "Why?" I asked on the verge of tears. She finally opened her eyes and smiled at me. "Because this is and forever will be my home! She sneared at me. She raised her hand to my throat "I love you ste-" the women in black had slit my throat with her claw like nails and I dropped to the floor beside Steven where I choked on my own blood, my lungs burned with need for oxygen but when I gasped for air I only got more blood. I started seeing black spots as the burning in my lungs increased. Just before the black spots completely covered my vision the lady in black appeared standing above me and smiled down at me. The burning in my lungs had finally won and the black dots grew bigger until I couldn't see her creepy red eyes anymore or anything else. My eyes glazed over as the life and warmth was drained from my body
