(18+) Someone in the dark

Ch. 18: Facing fear

I started in the library and spent every second trying to gather enough courage to do the last thing I wanted on the entire planet. I had to face my fear. But not a single particle of me wanted to set foot in that room. So I wiped dust, washed the floor, moved books around for no reason at all, and cleaned the windowsills. Then I polished the gray windows until I got a cramp in my arm, to no avail, of course. They were still gray, like a foggy day. And when I was done, I did it all over again, until I realized I couldn't postpone it anymore. The library could simply not get any cleaner.

A ghost couldn't physically harm me, could it? I just had to make sure he didn't scare me to death, and I'd be fine. After all, Michael said he wasn't anything but a tool. He wasn't the one I should fear. But when I was that terrified of a portrait and a tiny frame, what would happen when I faced real danger? It was the house that was the evil power behind it all, and I didn't know how it would manifest itself. Would I even realize before it was too late?

I'd never in my life imagined that I would be scared of a house. Come on. It was a house! A squared brick building with no mind or soul of its own. Except, this had a mind and soul, and I was involuntarily poking holes in the many secrets that were hidden inside these four walls. And I didn't like any of the answers I got.

I carried everything I needed and put it down in front of the door to the REDRUM. I could almost read the six letters written with blood, just like in the novel. But there were no letters and no dripping blood, and I didn't even have the key to open the door. I remember throwing it away in panic the last time I was there. At least that's what I think I did. I most certainly did not leave it in the keyhole.

"Creepy ass motherfucker," I mumbled, and wasn't even ashamed of my choice of words. I rarely cursed, but seeing the shining silver key gleaming in the keyhole made me shudder, and all I wanted to do was to run in the opposite direction. And when it turned by itself and the door cracked open, I felt nauseous from anxiety.

"Just get it over with. He can't hurt you," I whispered to myself and tried to sound convincing. I didn't succeed one tiny bit. It didn't help that the room was so dark that I had to turn on the ceiling light, because the shadow it cast on the portrait made it look like he was about to crawl out of it.

"You can't hurt me!" I said out loud, but his bloodshot eyes and ferocious grin made my skin crawl like I was infested by maggots. It was the definition of insanity and madness. The heavy feeling from the kitchen and the sensation of having my head in a vise only added to it.

"You can not hurt me!" I repeated, and I could have sworn I heard laughter. But it wasn't from the portrait. It sounded more like a high-pitched shrill, similar to the typical evil witch in children's movies, only that was the entertaining kind. This was everything but that. Still, I squeezed the water out of the sponge and started scrubbing the furniture that was the furthest away from the fireplace and the portrait as possible.

Just like the rest of the house, it was covered in gray dust, but unlike the rest of the house, this dust was sticky like half dried glue. I scrubbed off some, but by the time I had rinsed the sponge, it had filled the clean gap with more sticky mass. And if I had been as weak and gray as I was yesterday, I wouldn't have noticed the miniature tentacles that tried to grasp my hand while I worked. It would have been the same color, while now it was a stark contrast to my vibrant skin.

"Disgusting," I mumbled to myself. Then I turned to the portrait and felt a flood of anger wash over me and drown some of my anxiety. "And so are you!"

I immediately regretted looking at him because his eyes had followed me from one end of the room to the other, and his grin looked like it was going to rip his face apart. And that wasn't even the worst. Despite having cleaned almost half of the room, it still didn't smell clean. It smelled like someone died in here and the walls had absorbed the mold. Then I realized I was probably disturbingly right and tried not to think about the way his house would eventually kill me.