The House

Chapter 1

In every neighborhood there is a creepy house that makes the little kids cross the street, the adults look away when passing it and whisper when speaking of it, if they even speak of the house at all.  I happen to live next door to such a house.

It was purely by accident that I ended up living next to that house.  I didn’t even notice that house when we moved into our home.  Then as I sat on the front porch with my soul mate we noticed the house through the stand of trees as we had  an evening smoke about a week after moving in.  We discussed how it was unusual.   You can barely see one side of it through the trees since it blends in so well, being a log cabin and all. We noticed that it was three stories for all appearances which seemed to be unusual for an old mountain cabin.

It’s not run down.  It doesn’t look decrepit or old, in fact, it looks fairly well maintained, from the outside at least.  It’s the feel of someone peering out at you, of eyes that follow you as you walk past it.  I for one shudder and hurry past as well....now.  It wasn’t always that way for me.

My curiosity was piqued, so in my quest to know more about the house we called our realtor.  She didn’t know anything about it, except that it was empty.  There are no signs out front of the house saying it’s for rent or sale, so we came to the conclusion that the house was a summer house for someone who may come a couple weeks out of the year for rest and relaxation.  We then dismissed the house until the incident which was to say only for a few days.

The Incident, as we have come to refer to it, happened late at night in the middle of the second week we lived in our new home.  My soul mate, David, has had a bad case of insomnia. He is up and down the entire night, then sleeping much of the day.  Maybe it’s not insomnia, maybe he just has his days and nights mixed up, or maybe it’s just restlessness, I don’t know for sure.  I think I will just refer to it as insomnia, regardless of what it may or may not really be so I can get back to the incident that started us on this twisty turny journey that I am going to share with you.

David was outside having a smoke late at night.  I was sound asleep cuddled up next to the 3 dogs that like to infiltrate our king size bed with us.  He came in very quickly while making a ton of racket, and locked the door.  Please understand, in this area we just don’t lock our doors at night or any other time for that matter,  so for him to come in and lock the door was quite unusual.  Since I was asleep he woke me by closing the door, and that didn’t help my disposition either.

“What the hell?”  I murmured as I was startled awake.

“I don’t think that house is empty.”  He breathed as he peered from behind the curtains through our French doors leading to the front porch from our bedroom.

“What do you mean it’s not empty.  We have seen no signs of life over there.  Our realtor said it was empty, as well.”  I commented as I repositioned with the intent of drifting back to sleep as soon as I calmed him.

“I heard noises.”

“What kind of noises, David?”  I opened one eye as I sighed, knowing it would be awhile before I got to go back to sleep again. I pulled myself up into sitting position and stared at him.

“Strange noises.”  He gave me the short answer as he continued to peek out the darkened door.

“Such as?” I questioned further, getting rather impatient with his short answers, and desperately wanting him to get to the point.

“Such as scraping, bangs and loud noises,  Izzy.”  Came his hurried reply.

“David, that could have been any of the houses in the area.  You know how sounds travel up here in the hills.” I yawned as I pointed out that little tidbit.