Vanessa, Tommy, and Mary all grew up in the small town, but Poe, he was the outsider. The son of the English Professor, and he didn't fit in. Tight jeans, his dark hair always hung in his face. When he pushed his hair back, his eyes were the shade o...
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The inside of the house was more than Poe expected. Filth covered everything, but there was a scent of cleaner in the air. Bleach, yes, it was bleach. Surely, nothing was cleaned with it, but the smell burned his nose with an antiseptic tingle. The first thing that came to mind was that is what they use to clean up blood spills. The demons played with his thoughts, and if he was going to make it through the night, he needed to silence them.
"Shut up. Shut the fuck up!" Poe screamed, smacking himself in the side of the head.
"Dude, what the hell is wrong with you?" Tommy laughed.
It took a minute for Poe to calm his nerves. The fact that all his friend laughed at him didn't help. There was no support with this band of idiots by his side.
"Leave him alone," Mary whispered, her cheeks flaring red the moment she did.
At 17, Mary found herself in a circle of want. She dated Tommy in the past, but the moment that Poe registered at school, she found herself drawn to the boy. He wasn't her typical type, but there was a chemistry with him that she had no control over. Some of the other girls at school complained the same thing about the boy. He had a magnetic pull for the female students. All of them fawning over Poe even though he wouldn't fit the criteria that their parents would approve of, nor would her friends. It was the main reason she played along with the teasing. If she showed weakness than they would know she wanted to get to know him better. Sadly, for a teenager, peer pressure is rough.
All four now inside, a gust of wind blew through the house, slamming the front door with a force so hard that it threatened to break the hinges. Moving quick, Poe darted to the door, desperately pulling on the stuck door. If he wasn't scared before, now would be the time to panic.
"It won't fucking open," he growled, yanking hard on the splintering wood.
"It's a vacuum seal, dummy," Tommy said. He was irritated that Mary stuck up for the guy.
"I'm sure there is a backdoor, and if we need to, we can break a window," Vanessa added.
Sure, they thought. There must be another entrance, or at least something allowing the air to enter the old home. Wind doesn't just build up without a source behind it. Poe's fear began to etch away at the others, causing a chain reaction.
"Are we going to explore, or not?" Vanessa asked, her voice dripping with disgust.
All three nodded, though if truth was told, every single one of them wanted out of that house and to never step foot inside again. There was something alive in there, and it didn't include the four of them. Something so sinister that scary stories could be told about the old place. Some were, but now they would learn firsthand why everyone walks across the street when the sun goes down.
"I brought some flashlights," Vanessa said, handing each of them one out of her small bag.
Lights in hand, the four slowly moved deeper into the house, a trail of footprints left in the settled dust. If anything, they could follow those out. It worked for Hansel and Gretel, right? The birds ate the bread, and the old woman ate the children. No one wants to see that dark side of Disney though. Most of the stories told to children were whitewashed to make them seem sweet and loving. Such a foolish move in a terribly cruel world. Kids these days thought they were safe. None of them realized just how sick the world around them really is.
Creaks from the floors squeal as though the dead howled louder with each step, they took into the rotting old mansion. With each cry Poe felt that familiar ache inside of his stomach. He was never ill, but this house made him feel as though he was stricken with something wicked and deadly. Maybe it was covid. Hell, everyone else in the world seemed to be inflicted with the disease in the past few years. This was the first time in years that the school allowed the kids to return without masks. If he was being honest, he preferred the covering. It allowed him to shield the world from his face. Something he never found attractive, though all the girls in the school swooned over. None of them caught his attention, well, maybe none of them. There was one, but she was so far out of his league that he would never try.
"Do you smell that?" Mary whispered.
A sudden rush of the smell of smoke permeated the hall, though no smoke followed. Maybe at one time there was a fire? The walls, though covered in dirt had no remnants of a fire. No ash stains, or fire marks. Whatever it was, the scent was getting stronger the deeper they entered the home. The hall alone seemed like miles, but it only housed four doors. Each one of them closed, and all of them an abyss that Poe didn't want to venture into.
"I don't know what that is, but it smells like a fireplace is going. No one lives here, so it must be coming in through a broken window," Vanessa responded.
That had to be it. Someone in the neighborhood was warming their home with a roaring fire and the aromatic smoke fragranced the home. Thinking about it that way was almost a comfort. It was better than the alternative. None of the teenagers wanted to stumble across a homeless person seeking shelter in the dilapidated old place. Though normally nice, some of the vagrants in town had a mean streak and a violent nature.
"Wait, are we just going to ignore all of these rooms?" asked Tommy.
Poe hated that asshole, but right now, he wanted to lay him out and beat the crap out of him. Wasn't it bad enough that they broke in? Opening the front door almost gave him a heart attack. He dreaded what was behind those tattered old doors. Even at a very young age, Poe hated a closed door. When he was growing up, he demanded that the hall light was on, the door open, and the closet door removed from the hinge. Too many scary movies gave the boy an altered fear of the unknown. Or maybe it was the babysitter who locked him in the toybox for hours. She had her boyfriend come over and instead of putting him to bed, she shoved him in his old wooden toy box and placed a heavy item over the top. Thankfully the sides had a place to pick it up and he was able to get fresh air. The worst part of it all was telling his parents only to be punished for lying. He paid the price for the babysitter screwing on his parents' couch. Well, maybe not as much as she did. Four months later she was gone. Rumor had it she was pregnant, and her parents sent her away to get rid of the child. Karma does have a way of biting you in the ass when you least expect it.
Shaking his head, Poe looked over to the other boy, "You want to see what's behind the door, you open it. I did the front door, so man up. You do this one."
It was the first time that he stood up to Tommy, and something inside of him changed. Maybe his balls dropped or could be that he reached the point where he didn't care anymore. Some people are born assholes and Tommy Granger was a certified prick.
"Yeah, you open it, Tommy," Mary chimed in, but sunk back against the wall the moment she did. Standing up to anyone was out of her nature, and she never talked back to Tommy.
Without thinking, Vanessa looked over at the towering boy, smirking, "Go ahead, Jock. Show us what a real man would do."
