Curiosity Kills

Chapter 3

We stood there, terrified, for what seemed an eternity until Luke broke away from grasp.  It brought me back to my senses and I turned to Hayden.  "Why did you walk inside?!"

"I...I.....I....I DON'T KNOW!"  It was obvious he truly didn't know.  His face was pure terror and confusion.

"What happened?"

"I heard someone calling my name, and I wanted to run, but I couldn't move my feet.  It was weird and then I started moving forward.  It was like someone else had taken over my body.  I couldn't scream or anything."  I couldn't believe this was happening.  This house was possessed or something and we needed to get out of there immediately.  I turned back to the front door and tried to turn the knob.

"It's stuck!"

"It can't be stuck!!"  Luke rushed over to me and also tried the knob.  "What the hell, why won't it open?"

"Something isn't right here."  I was fearful.  I'd never known things like this could happen outside of a movie.  My brain was failing me to come up with a solution.  Hayden suddenly latched onto my leg.

"I want to go home!!!"  He was about to start bawling and I didn't blame him for it.  I almost wanted to cry myself but I knew I needed to stay strong for all of us.

"Let's try to find another way out.  There might be back door somewhere."  I was trying to sound optimistic and hoped that I was right.  I unhitched Hayden from my leg and started looking around the room to see what our options were as far as other doorways.  There was a lot of furniture in the room and I noticed that all of them were covered by sheets.  Some of the sheets had blood splatters on them.  I flinched at the sight and hoped that the blood didn't belong to a member of the Riddl family.  There was a clock on the mantle but it seemed to be broken as the hands did not move.  It was stuck on 12:00 which was weird because that was when we had stepped onto the property earlier.  There was an archway on the other side of the room, a staircase in front of us, and another archway on our right.  Then I heard the stairs start to creak.  I looked over and saw Hayden starting to climb the stairs.  He had gone stiff again.

"Hayden! Snap out of it and come back here!"  He ignored me.  I wasn't prepared for the stairs to give out right then and there but they did.  The top of the steps started to cave-in and then the entire staircase started to collapse.  I sprang at Hayden as he came back to his senses and tried to run back down the steps.  He wasn't going to make it.

"David!! Help me!!"  He stepped wrong and fell.  I got to him just in time to grab his hand before he fell into the black pit below.  It made no sense for there to be that big of a hole below the staircase.  I was just staring into darkness unaware of Hayden struggling to hold on to me.

"David! Pull me up! Please!!!"  I snapped out of my trance and pulled him up until i could grab his shirt and hoist him out of the hole.  He fell onto me when he got out and started sobbing.  I held him close in a tight embrace and let a few tears fall from my eyes.  I could not let this house take my brothers away from me.  I wouldn't let it happen.  Luke took over comforting Hayden for me and I stood up.  The anger was boiling inside of me.

"Whoever you are, you will never take them from me!  We never did anything to you, so why are you doing this to us?!  Just let us out and we will never bother you again."  I thought trying to reason with the unknown would somehow help out situation but it didn't.  Suddenly, a bone-chilling scream rang through the house.  I stepped back in fear.  Luke and Hayden ran to me and I held them.  We backed against the wall waiting for something else to go wrong.

Nothing happened.  We stood there frightened and unsure of what to do next.  Luke had yet to cry but, when I looked down, I could see his eyes were glistening.  Hayden was still sobbing into my side.  I realized we couldn't let it win like this.  We needed to try.  I moved away from the wall and turned right to where the archway was.  "Let's go.  I'm getting you two out of here no matter what."  

They followed behind me as I walked through the archway into the next room.  It looked like an old kitchen.  There was an old iron stove in the corner.  It looked like it hadn't been lit in centuries.  Like the room we were just in, most everything was covered by dirty sheets but there was no blood on them.  I sighed in relief and looked down at the floor.  I immediately sprang backwards.  There, on the floor in front of us, was the largest pool of blood I had ever seen.