Cursed // Jake Kiszka

Chapter One

"It's the only door that I cannot find a key for."

I placed my hand on the gilded sphere and felt the resistance to my turning of it. Even in candle light, I could see the gathered dust upon the door handle and how it had been many years since anybody had tried to open it.

"How strange." I remarked, looking up to meet the eyes of my counterpart. "Almost as if it were locked from the inside."

By chance, we happened to be standing in the same corridor at the same time. My flash light had immediately died upon entering the top floor, but the flickering of Charlotte's candle had drawn my attention to her plight.

"Perhaps we should go and re-join the others?" She suggested, a concerned glance turning into the encroaching darkness as she peered down the hall. "It feels... sinister....up here."

I had reason to agree as I followed her line of sight. With the dim flame only capable of illuminating our faces so that we might see each other's fear, the rest of the narrow walkway was shrouded in a darkness that no light appeared to be able to consume.

"Yes, I think I've seen enough." I shuddered, feeling the icy touch of the handle remain in my palm as I pulled it away.

The inclination to remain was eerily present as I followed my friend into the void. Tapping the side of my flash light, perplexed at how it could have malfunctioned after changing the batteries only that morning. It rose from the dead as I descended the stairs, almost as if it did not want to shine on that top floor.

I looked back. That locked door called my name, I could have sworn to it.

The house had laid waste to time. Sitting empty for the last Fourty years. Abandoned. It's secrets kept within rotting floorboards and creaking doors. Those which would open, anyway.

I was hesitant, at first, to step inside. A strange small emitted from the entrance. One that reminded me of death. The calling card of a soul who had found themselves trapped in the ether. And although my better judgement told me not to cross the threshold, I found myself intrigued by the old place.

Not grandiose in any way that might catch the attention of an architectural enthusiast. It was just a house. Set apart from the street by a track which lead into the trees, it's bones were like a white spectre in the clearing found at the end. Diminished from decades of neglect, the window boards were hanging off and the front door was swinging ajar in the midnight breeze.

Long since pillaged of every valuable object, the house was now a final resting place for all the furniture which had been too heavy to carry and the drapes which had begun to give up the fight against moth and decay.

The perfect location for a séance.

"Find anything?" Jasper asked, his inquisitive gaze resting upon the uneasy glance I exchanged with Charlotte.

He was setting up a camera on a tripod in what was once the study. A wall of half empty bookshelves stood against the fight against passing time to my left whilst a table had been set up in the centre of the room.

"There's a door at the very top of the house which wont open." Charlotte explained, "I tried to find a key, but it appears to be locked from the inside."

Somehow the inclusion of other people seemed to take away some of the ill ease. Jasper was tampering with all the equipment, seeing to it that anything which decided to make contact was captured on film, audio or the little meter he kept faithfully in his pocket. Charlotte was his assistant, the one he would send out to inspect for anything nefarious which might make for good storytelling. And Damon was the one responsible for making sure it all ended up on social media.