Isolated // H.S {ON HOLD}

ch 4: Dark night

Hey does anyone whatch American Horror Story? Well anyway the song for this chapter is a cover of house of the rising sun and is used in season three of ahs. i love this song its kinda creepy:0

June 4, 2014

The mountains east of Portland

 Having walked the trail many times now, I know that Harry Styles must have moved very quickly down the mountain, which is surprising, given the fact that it was a very dark night. I remember even now how the heavy trees that lined the narrow path sucked up most of the moonlight. 

The mountains are full of coyotes―I heard them almost every night once we were in the upper camp―and it is likely that some of them watched him from the ridge as he made his way toward the city. 

As he moved down the mountain, no one saw him pass. Coming down the mountain is pretty easy, and can be done in as little as an hour. You follow a narrow canyon that drops sharply from the east to join a well-established trail that runs for about half a mile toward the city. But although you can come down from the mountain fairly quickly, going back is much more difficult.

 The mountain is very steep and the way is not well marked. So Harry Styles was in a hurry, for he knew that on that night, it would take us many hours.

 For one thing, it would still be dark. And he would have to guide me, knowing I would be looking to escape. He knew that he could make me hold the flashlight, allowing him to keep the knife at my back, but it would be awkward to move together, keeping his hands gripped tightly around my arm. Worse, he knew we could not go back up the same trail that he had used to come down. We’d have to go on the backside of the mountain. There, the mountain was very steep and, without a trail to follow, the brush and trees would be so thick we’d end up crawling on our hands and knees. 

Yet it was absolutely essential that we make it back to camp before the sun was up. Before the darkness gave way to the summer light, he would have to have taken me up to where I could be hidden and no one could hear me if I screamed.

A little after 1am, Harry neared the bottom of the mountain. There, the trail widened, allowing him to move more quickly. 

Everything he wore was black: black jeans, black gloves, a black tee-shirt. All of this allowed him to blend into the darkness like the shadow of a ghost. 

He and Louis had skipped heaps of meals, leaving them both looking quite skinny. And the alcohol and drugs he had so often thrown into his body wouldn't have done much good to him either. 

Just before two A.M., he stood on the empty streets above the city.

He was almost at my house.

I lived on the east bench of the city, almost as high as any of the houses were allowed to be built. My neighborhood was full of beautiful houses, some new, some older.

He crossed  Earthton St , then slipped through an empty lot to avoid another house before turning north again, bringing himself to look down to my backyard. It backed up to a steep part of the hill and was filled with bushes and trees. 

A small shed was positioned along the hillside, hidden among the brush. He hid his bags in the weeds, then crept down a narrow path of flat stones to step onto the grass of my backyard.

My house was dark inside. He first circled around, looking for a way in. Finally, after making sure no doors had been left unlocked, he moved across the patio, past a row of empty windows toward the back door. Stopping at a narrow window on the left side of the patio, he took out a knife. Long. Deadly.  

A serrated blade. He carefully cut the screen and pushed against the glass. Earlier in the evening, my mother had burned something on the stove and my dad had left the window open just a crack to air things out. The window pushed back on its hinges. He was able to get into the house!

Harry later told me that for a moment he had hesitated.

Harry knew that once he climbed through the window, he would be treading on very dangerous ground. From where he was on the patio, he was looking at trespassing. Criminal mischief. Attempted burglary, if the prosecutors really got on a roll. He would have claimed, of course, that he was nothing but a hungry man, desperate to find some food.

If he’d been caught outside on our patio, he’d spend a few days in jail and nothing more.

But once he crawled through the open window, everything would change. If he was caught inside the house, especially with the knife, that would be impossible for the prosecutors to ignore.

And once he made his way toward my bedroom, that would be a completely different deal.

 Yes, he understood the repercussions.

But he did not turn away.

The window was too high, so he leaned an iron patio chair against the wall. Standing on the chair, he shimmied through and dropped onto the kitchen floor.

The house was quiet.

No barking dog. No sounding alarm. Again, he was surprised.

Somewhere in the house, a clock ticked. Maybe in the kitchen? Maybe somewhere down the hall?

He moved through the kitchen and into the hallway.

 The front door was on his right. A wide stair on his left. He turned. The stairway rose before him. He moved up the stairs and headed down the hall. Which bedroom was I in? In the darkness, he couldn’t tell! 

He reached out for the nearest door and slowly pushed it open. Soft light fell upon the bed along the wall. My little brother was sleeping there.

 He quietly shut the door, then moved a couple steps farther down the hallway until he stopped outside my bedroom door.