the 27th of March

Every night, on the 27th of March, inhuman screams arise from the mansion opposite Camille’s house. The rumours were that the mansion was haunted. The previous year, a group of boys from her class invited Camille and her best friend, Jess, to go with them and explore the mansion. Of course Camille and Jess declined the offer. They had seen more than enough horror movies to know what was good for them. The boys were still missing, and in a week they would officially have been gone for one year. The date of the 27th of March was approaching fast.

But something was wrong. Something was very wrong. It was only the 20th of March and already noises were coming from the mansion. On top of this abnormality, the screams were not the same. This time, they were more like the scream of pain. My mind straight away began to jump to conclusions. Was there medieval torture being performed? Was someone being murdered? Were the rumours real; was there a little girl possessed by a demon in there?  I really wanted to go in, but I was afraid- afraid for my life. The horrified look on Jess’ face when I told her about my urge still haunted my mind. My mind was set:  I could not go in without my best friend. And what about Tyler, Sam and Jake, the boys that are still missing? Where were they? Jess was sure that if I pursued this, and went inside, that I would disappear. Jess was not brave, nor was she courageous, but she had a huge heart. She was always trying to persuade me to move in with her, as she was frightened that whatever lurked in that house would come for me. But I was seventeen. I could survive on my own.

Chap. 2

It was the night before the 27th. The screams had suddenly stopped the night before. I was spending the night at Jess’ place, just to be on the safe side. We fell asleep early, at 9:00pm maybe. Suddenly, I was in a parallel universe; I was dreaming. I was walking towards the house. A harsh, rasping voice was calling to me. I walked forward, like a zombie, as if I was being commanded. I reached the finely carved door. It opened, silently and very slowly. I slowly peeked around the corner I saw- the silhouette of my desk. I had awoken. I was extremely frustrated. I had to know what was inside that house. After lying in my sleeping bag for an additional 10 minutes, I decided I could not go back to sleep now. It was 3:00am. Throwing off my covers, I shook Jess awake. She groaned. “What do you want now Cam?” Suddenly she sat bolt upright. “You’ll never guess what I dreamt.”

Half an hour later, we had both explained our dreams to each other. Both were extremely similar. The only difference was that the person calling Jess had a sweet voice. A luring voice. After a bit of discussion, we came to the conclusion that the reason the voice in Jess’ dream was sweet, was because if the voice was scary, Jess would be too afraid to go. I, on the other hand, was a daredevil, so the voice straight away aroused my curiosity. I told Jess I had to go in there, and I couldn’t go alone. After Jess had realised that I was serious about this, she was extremely panicky. I told her that she didn’t have to come, but I knew that she would not be able to live not knowing what had happened to me if I disappeared. Reluctantly, Jess decided she would come with me.  For the rest of the morning, until the sun started to rise, and the birds started their early hunt for food, we planned our expedition.

Even though we had limited sleep, we were not tired. We were too terrified to be tired. The whole day proceeding the night of our expedition, we just revised our plans, over and over. Our parents thought that we were going to Movie World for the day. That evening, just before we left, we wrote our goodbye notes, just in case. Then we left for my house, our backpacks swung over our shoulders. Even before we approached my house, we could hear the blood curling howls. Shivering, and clutching each other for comfort, we strode on. I felt a spatter on my head. I looked up just as the first raindrops poured down. We walked on, bracing against the wind. A flash of lightning streaked across the sky just as we reached the stream separating my house from the mansion.