Ever since they moved into her grandmother’s old house way on top of Bannockburn Hill, he had woken up every morning at 3:33 A.M. without fail.
He hated the old house. He hated the way it creaked and moaned. The way it seem to attract the wailing wind on cold and stormy nights. The way it, this House always seemed to be doing
..something.
He hated the way it looked on the outside with its drab, grey walls and he loathed the way it looked on the inside.
It was an ugly monstrosity. But his wife had insisted they stay. And so he did what he always did. He muttered under his breath and keep silent and commute to work with minimal complaint and fuss.
He was beginning to suspect the house hated him too. Because every night at 3:33 A.M. it seemed to find a way to wake him up.
Sometimes it was as simple as a creaky floor board.
Other times it was more elaborate.
The soft thudding of footsteps in the attic right above their bedroom.
The old grandfather clock in the foyer chiming out thirteen times at random intervals.
Or the shutters on the windows outside their room slamming shut on a windless night. The eerie sound of tapping and scratching from the old gnarled tree next to the bedroom window .
Once, it was the soft laughter of a child, echoing, cackling laughter in all directions.
And sometimes, it was nothing.
..Nothing at all.
He would simply wake up as soon as the clock changed from 3:32 A.M. to 3:33 A.M.
Their room was at the top of the stairs and from his side of the bed, he could peer down into the darkness below.
It was so dark at night, the place is pitch black. Sometimes he could only see to the fifth step. But he often got the feeling that something or someone was standing there, just past that fifth step, staring at him from the black with a menacing grin.
Daring him to walk down the terrifying steps
He didn’t want to, but he couldn’t help it. Like somebody that drives past a road accident. They just have to see the broken, smashed car. A dark, seductive curiosity.
He had to look down the foreboding steps, his tired eyes, unadjusted to the dark, always playing tricks on him. He would get up and turn on the light and find the stairs completely empty.
His wife didn’t believe him of course. He told her the stories. Every morning he seemed to wake with a new one. She told him it was just his imagination.
She said things like, “stop it with that nonsense and get ready for work, otherwise you’ll be late, Dear”
By the afternoon, he’d usually managed to convince himself that she was right. It was just his imagination. He’d always had a wild one since he was a child
But the madness of it all was, he wasn’t imagining anything and his wife was lying to him. She was in on the trick, a part of the gag. For the house had gotten to her first and together they had a hatched a wicked plan.
It sunk its hooks deep into her soul and she would belong to the house forever, its ever-faithful servant.
Racing thoughts, suspicion and doubts. Whispering, shouting! In his mind.
..Shes part of it
A race against the clock and he had no idea or a clue, he should have started running long ago.
He was never going to get wise and get out. He was marked for death and thus was doomed.
He awoke one night, like all the others at 3:33 A.M. It was always 3:33 A.M. The time of night when spirits, friendly or not, are most active. When this old house would come alive.
Only this time, it was different.
His wife wasn’t next to him. The space where her warm body had been sound asleep was as empty and cold like ice. .
And then he heard something,
..faint whispering
He heard a moan, low and steady, that seemed to stretch forever and into infinity and beyond.
It entered through his ears and lodged itself into his head, growing louder, sending a chill, icier than frozen water, down his spine.
It was accompanied by persistent, rhythmic squeaking, like someone shifting their weight back and forth on a loose floor board over and over and over again.
The wind picked up outside and howled like a banshee with a megaphone. With a banging on the bedroom window with loud tap!, tapping every few seconds
And the child from several nights ago chimed in to add its soft, echoing laughter to the orchestra of eerie and foreboding sounds.
He turned over and stared into the darkness, down to that fifth step and felt his heart freeze in his chest.
He saw something this time, his heart stopped. Sweating beading on his brow and he held his breath.
A silhouette clear as day, swaying back in forth — ever so slightly — in rhythm with the creepy house orchestra, was standing just past that fifth step.
The lights flashed on with an audible crack, for just a split second, then cut out just as quickly. But he’d seen it.
He’d seen her.
She has wild tangled, raven black hair which is unkempt and long flowing hair past her shoulders and blowing in an unnatural wind, without wind on the stairs..
The dark shadows around her crazed eyes are as black as coal. The whites of her eyes were streaked with crimson blood vessels, red snakes swimming in a sea of frozen ice.
There was no mistaking it. His eyes were not playing tricks on him. He was not imaging anything.
“Is everything OK?” he called out to his wife.
All of the noise ceased.
He could see her lips curling upwards into the wickedest of smiles.
Deep down, he knew the answer to that question was no. He knew he would not receive a reply. Doom and despair hung in the air so thick you could cut it with a knife, but the man’s mind still tried to convince himself he was dreaming. Last attempt of a sane mind.
He tried to convince himself that he was fine, that all was well. He hoped that his wife was still
.. his wife.
He hoped the devilish and possessed creature of the darkness standing on the steps was someone else.
.. something else
He hoped the pure evil that had come for him in the night and now faced him, leering with an insatiable blood lust, was a mistake, an aberration. A trick of the mind
He hoped that if he closed his eyes tight enough and concentrated hard enough, it would soon be morning and the terrifying scene before him would cease to exist.
..He really hoped
Bio:
I'm an engineer by trade and answer calls for telecommunications company, ive been working 12 long hours for company everyday during Covid and i found writing to be an oasis in a desert. a place to let my imaginations explore