Scary Stories To Read Alone

Dark House

                                                                              Chapter One

            The car breaks. Its engine makes a loud bang, then sputters as metal rips into metal. The noise reminds me of my father's deathbed cough. I let off the gas and the motor shuts down. I coast in neutral, ease the car onto the narrow dirt shoulder and stop.

"Damn it to hell."

I'd been speeding, pushing my old car through the shadows by Becker Lake, the place where the rich hide their weekend houses. The road is always smooth, each crack and pothole immediately patched and filled. A dark, burnt oil smell emanates from the car's hood, poisoning the clean scent of woods. My running shoes crunch through gravel as I walk. A glow of house lights shines through the trees and, when I find a driveway, I head toward the light.

It's a big white colonial; no curtains or security bars. I see her clearly through the kitchen window, a slender woman with dark blonde hair. She's pulling a tray of cookies from the oven. She senses me, I guess, because she turns and peers through the glass. A quizzical look crosses her features. I wave and offer a smile. She meets me at the door.

"You're the guy who drives the Mustang, right?"

"Yeah," I say. "It just broke down on me, too."

She holds the door open. The smell of baked cookies wafts out to welcome me. My stomach churns for one as I step inside. Cookies are everywhere; plates of them cover the counters and the kitchen table. I glance through the doorway and see a huge mound piled on top the dinning room table.

"I like to bake," she says and her hand slips to my arm, touches me above my elbow. All at once I see my life with this girl, laughing in this kitchen, long strolls through the trees together, holding hands and kissing at the water's edge... It's a lifetime in of one feminine touch. She smiles. It radiates. My knees buckle a little.

"So what do you do, Mustang guy?"

"I'm a writer," I say. "I'm finishing my next novel now." I like the smooth tone of my voice. I sound sure of myself, even cocky. I catch the look of my arms then, firm and muscular. My stomach, I see, has no bulge. I run one hand through my hair and find it long and, most likely, a boyish mess.

I'm dreaming. My mind seizes that thought; I am dreaming.

Then a man's yell tears through the stillness outside. "Ou taah aaaah merr," he says. "Ou et aahh aaaa merr ow!"

The woman just smiles at me, unalarmed.

"My ex," she says. "He lost one leg in the war and every bit of his common sense went with it. Don't worry about him. "

Immediately, I envision a one-legged man, limping through the woods on a robotic prosthetic, spying on her from behind an oak tree. The image of a crazy-eyed stalker angered me. Someone had to protect a girl like her from a man like that.

"Pay no attention to him."

The room begins to ripple, as if the walls are turning to liquid. Two children enter from the dinning room; a boy in shorts, dark haired like me, and a girl in a summer dress, a child version of the mother.

"My babies," she says. "Do you have kids?"

"Someday I will," I say.

The whole room shudders.

"Next time plan to stay awhile."

I woke up in my clothes, long sleeves still buttoned tight around my wrists. The oppressive darkness of my apartment surrounded me. I slid off my couch, limped stiff-legged to the balcony and smoked a cigarette. September's wet air sent shivers crawling down my spine. The dream's images, shards of my past stacked into nonsense, stuck in my head.