Gushing Crimson (Tainted Blood Trilogy)

Prolouge ( Where Darkness Lurks)

THE GIRL WALKED INTO THE ABANDONED HOUSE PASSING THROUGH the rotting empty space in the houses front. The entry's wooden rim was crookedly curved in an archway -where she mildly assumed the houses door had once been attached to.

The house was a timeworn old Victorian, the kind no longer made now days. Looking around it became obvious that must have been a beautiful piece of architecture during it's time. She had passed by it a few times going in and out of town by the main highway. Although looking at the old house up close she noticed details she hadn't noticed driving pass. Looking closer  she noticed that the outside walls were rimmed with grey carved curls. The tool that had previously carved it so perfecting the clean and deeply cut lines of the swirls , keeping them clean and precise. Although after the years the years that had passed it the houses rim was all that was beautiful about the house. Left abandoned in the ruins of bad upbringing.

If she remembered correctly the council had come to the suburb a year back in March, and started to modernize it for redials. The aim was to get the area a raise for value, promoting it as a family friendly neibourhood. But after having been abandoned for so long and stuck on the edge of a highway wanted to buy in the shabby area of Willmar. Nobody was interested to live in the rotting buildings, even if they were patly renovated. So eventually the council caved in,  accepting the harsh truth that Willmar had little hope for rehabilitation.

However still partially renovated from the council's failed attempt. Some of the houses had been left behind  with the addition of  modernised gardens ,a newly renovated wall, or even the house foundation. All from the council's slight start of making them liveable, leaving the rest in its old and now worse than before ruins. After all eventually no matter how clean , concerted  or deserted a place was, nature would always eventually take it back, and here it was obvious that it held a high claim.

 The house she was at in particular had a cemented driveway, now covered in jagged cracks and wholes dipping into the old damp soil. The brown overgrowth of weeds and lilac had claimed the front lawn as its own, growing between them like a parasite to the yards space, curing around any possible hole, crack or soil in which it could grow. The Lilac hadn't only claimed the houses lawn but its scent too. Mingled with the cold chill of midnight air, the smell reeked in her nose ,strong and violate, causing her to flare her nostrils in disgust. With the broken windows of the house, each intake of air shivery in her lungs, as if she was breathing in frost instead of air. The cool temperature of outside making  her breath appear in front of her face in steamy puffs,  as the warmth of her breath challenged the colds.

It was pitch black, the dead of midnight, silent. The world fast asleep, and the stars lighting up a faint path of light in the sky. 

'He'll meet me here' she told herself, flipping a small folded square of yellow paper between her knuckles and into her palm. The time was right,and the house fir the scribbled description on the note. He was taking a while longer then she  expected, but she had all night and he had no doubt that he'd come for her, just like it had been promised.  

The girl hugged herself, wrapping her hands around her shivering body after zipping up her leather jacket from the coldness of the night.This whole part of town was equally old fashioned each yard was equally brown and overgrown.As the council had concluded that they were not coming back to the area the agreement for all the electricity in the area to be turned off had been followed through. The houses equally as light and dark to the shade of the sky as it transformed into day and night. With the exception of the streetlights, which through their luminescence allowed cars passed to get to their way to the nearest civilisation.

Without the electricity the creaking house was spooky and as dark as outside, making it hard for the girl not to walk in to anything.She reached into the backpack she carried over her shoulders and after clumsy search in the dark took out a small silver flash light, using it to guide her way. As the shine of her flashlight led the way the shadows seemed to dance across the wall in a haunting manner as if trying to warn her of something but she figured it was just her imagination, her mind playing its tricks. She dug her teeth into each other grinded, her jaw set hard, clenched and stubborn in a determined line as she continued through the spooks of the night.