Into The Darkness

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

The entire ride back to the house, I could feel Stephanie’s cold stare at the back of my head, she was furious that I didn’t believe her but how could I when the cleaning crew said the place was clear? We finally arrived back at the house just in time to meet the moving crew to unload our furniture, I jumped out of the car and unlocked the door, letting them start carrying things in while I worked to convince my family to come back inside; it took a while but they finally agreed.

As we walked through the door, immediately there was a double rounded stairwell leading upstairs from the left and right with oak carved banisters and in the center between the stairs was a high arch way leading into the dining room with high vaulted ceilings and crystal chandeliers. The view as described by my daughter and wife was breathtaking, as we walked through the dining room on the left through glass French doors with a type of carved, looking iced glass with a stone border around it. Once through the doors, you enter the kitchen it was massive with black onyx counter tops and stainless steel appliances with bamboo wooden backsplash. The girls were in heaven, as we turned back around and headed back for the foyer and turned right entering the living room, also very large with cherry wood flooring and to the left of the foyer entered the sunken family room with lots of shelving for books and a great big stone fireplace. We turned around and once again walked into the foyer and rushed up stairs, Steph and Lisa both had big smiles on their faces and it pleased me how excited they seemed about the new house.

I was just happy to get out of Chicago, things only seemed to be getting worse there all the time. The doctors had not had much hope for me surviving, after being shot twice just 6 months prior I was in a coma for two months with seemingly no brain activity. I finally managed to pull through but by the grace of god, and swore to myself that I would not put my family into another position to have to worry about losing me or me have to worry about if I truly could have the peace of mind knowing my family was safe. I have never been more sure about the move here to South Dakota; everything is going to be better now.

I snapped back to reality when I heard Stephanie squeal, I ran down the hall to the left checking each bedroom, till I finally found her in the furthest room spinning in a circle in the room exclaiming how amazing it was. What I had thought was a scream of terror turned out to be excitement, all my years on the police force has made me a tad bit jumpy I guess, home life with a extremely energetic and loud teenage daughter is going to take me some getting used to; I just smiled at Stephanie.

"So I am taking it you have decided on a room, I find it amazing you chose the room furthest from your mother and ours must be this need for privacy thing you’re constantly throwing in my face huh?"

"Yes dad, now could you point the moving guys in my direction with my things and give me that privacy please, I have a bedroom to design here."

I laughed and walked out of the room and straight into a cold draft, the air felt like in that one spot, the temperature had dropped thirty degrees; it was the craziest thing I had ever felt but I just chocked it up to poor insulation and moved on. I can look into fixing the problem later, as I walked down the hall the lights flickered for a moment, as I heard a terrible crash.

I ran down the hall to the stairwell and found the 6 moving men at the bottom of the stairs, shaken up as they were helping up the boss; I rushed down the stairs to see what happened.

"Is everyone ok, what was that crash?"

In a frantic voice, “Look Mr. Riley, I am going to leave your P.O.D container up here for you to unload yourself, no charge but were leaving. I will refund you half of your money back for the inconvenience; however I highly suggest you do not move your family into this house, I am sorry but it’s not safe.”

"What the hell do you mean it’s not safe?"

"Look someone pushed me down the stairs with the force of a full grown man, but there was no one else around me at the time!"

"Now come on don’t give me that crap, I don’t believe in that ghost shit. So if you’re so lazy you don’t want to finish the job, then fine get the hell out of my home but don’t you dare talk that crap around my family and freak them out over nothing, you hear me?"

"Yeah sure, ok good luck with this place."

I showed the men to the door and slammed it behind them, when I turned around Lisa and Stephanie were at the top of the stairs behind me with horrified looks on their faces.

"John, what was he talking about being pushed down the stairs when no one else was around?"

"Now stop right there, the man was clumsy and tripped and was to embarrassed to admit it, so he made up that retarded story, alright enough said I do not want to hear any more about it. Now help me carry the beds in so we have somewhere to sleep, at least we can’t afford to keep staying in motels when we have this amazing home.”