THE LAST
HAUNTED HOUSE

STORY

 

 

LOOK AT YOU. LOOK HOW cute you are.

You and your friends.

Yes, please. Come in, come in.

Come on inside.

The front door is locked, of course, but there are lots of openings. Windows I’ve left loose. A cellar door unchained; the chilled dark beneath is perfect for youthful exploration.

Ignore the rumors. You’re brave children.

And look!

You brought sleeping bags.

Delightful.

I’ve been so lonely. Too lonely. For too long.

Oh good! You found the broken window. Shame you didn’t notice the cellar door first. I love the feeling of warm life in my cold bowels. All that pumping blood. All that fear. But the window will do nicely. Yes, come in. That’s right.

If I may ….

It’s just a little cut! Yes, the broken glass is sharp here. You’ll soon find that everything here is rather sharp. Your friend is crying, so sweet. Ah! Oh! The blood … I can taste it. On the floor, on the windowsill ….

Don’t argue, don’t argue, children.

Come closer, come deeper inside.

There’s so much I want to show you.

 

THERE, ARE WE ALL BETTER now? You and your friends?

You found the living room, how nice. A perfect place to settle in and play some games. Tell a few stories.

I see you brought flashlights. That’s too bad. I always prefer candles. The flames create wonderful shadows on my walls, in my hollow corners. Good and scary, those shadows. Who knows what hides within them, right?

Come on now, let’s all get cozy. Sleeping bags are rolled out, I see. Snacks! What a cozy night. A sleepover in my great belly.

And now my favorite part.

Story time.

Each one of you have a haunted house story to tell, and each one is suitably frightening.

Wonderful.

I have a haunted house story as well.

But I’ll wait my turn. Let the dark grow darker, the shadows deeper. Wait until everyone is firmly settled for a long night of fun.

By the way, I’ve quietly sealed the windows, locked the doors. Trust me when I say there’s no way out.

Of course, the cellar doors are still unchained.

But I’m afraid you wouldn’t make it through the cellar.

Now, if you don’t mind, I need to poke and prod your friends a bit. I need one susceptible so I can join you.

Didn’t I mention?

Oh yes, I’ll be joining the fun. I always do. It’s a devilish pleasure to slip inside the flesh. So warm and squishy and alive.

Two girls and two boys. How appropriate. Children, all of you. It makes me sad to think … well, regardless. I must admit how much I adore children. The adults who visit me are filled with so much suspicion, so much anger.

It’s not very tasty.

No, it’s the innocence I crave. The early, naked pangs of lust. The raw tang of fear. The idiotic pride. They are all spices in the stew.

Speaking of which, this girlfriend of yours is not to my taste. Did you know she’s abused at home? Her mind is quite dark and self-destructive. Also, she senses something. She’s smart, this one. If broken inside.

Let’s see … oh, this young man is something altogether different. And yet, he also has secrets. A lust for you! My darling! So sharp and strong … did you know? I wonder. He has quite the imagination, this one. A pornographic mind. Such savage desires. But also … doubts. Insecurities. He’s lonely. A sad sack of meat if there ever was one. He doesn’t even know I’m here, touching his insides, rummaging through his thoughts, dissecting his mind, his emotions. So common in boys. They don’t know how to look inward. Not like girls do.

Not like you, my cherub, my cream filling.

I’ll try the other boy now. My heavens, you’re all just like a box of chocolates! I’ll never know what I’ll get!

Oh my, oh my. I like this one. He’s nice.

Yes, yes. He’s perfect. I’m just going to sink in deeper ….

Oh God yes.

Like a warm bath.

He’s fighting me a bit, which is natural. Instinctive. Still, it makes taking over all that more fulfilling. Ha! He’s like a tiny fish at the end of the line. Fight fight fight, little one! Ha ha, marvelous!

But enough … yes, there we go. I feel a bit like Goldilocks finding the perfect porridge, the perfect bed.

Yes, of course I know all of the stories. All of the feelings you humans have. I relish them, honestly. It’s my favorite part when greeting visitors.

Taking their memories.

Glorious.

Good gracious, if you could hear him screaming in here! He knows now that it’s too late. Now that I’ve taken over. Now that I’ve moved in.

Of course, you don’t hear the screams, but I do. I love them. They’re the perfect orchestration to this new perspective. It’s wonderful, seeing you with his eyes.

I look around at the others. I practice a smile. I wiggle my fingers, feel the scratch and pull of his clothing against the skin.

By the way, looking around at myself through his eyes? It’s intoxicating. My walls, my ceiling, my floors. Look, look! The intricate crown molding, the lovely stone fireplace, the caked filth, the sticky spores, the damp air. I breathe it all in through my new orifice.

It smells heavenly.

It smells just like me.

Like home.

“Brad? What do you think?”

I turn toward you, still smiling. You’re so pretty, darling.

I can’t wait to get you alone.

“About what?” I say. The words come easily. They always do. A talent of mine, you know. I’m an extraordinary ventriloquist. I’ve had, after all, lots of practice. Decades, in fact.

“Jesus, what’s wrong with you?”

Hmm. The other boy. Maybe he’s not as dumb as I thought.

I decide to take care of him first.

Ignoring the little snot’s question, I search deeper into Brad’s thoughts, his mannerisms. His screaming has slowed, but he’s still with me. Going mad, I assume.

“Nothing, I just don’t like it here,” I say, and drop the smile. Yes, Brad is quite the coward, isn’t he? The one who always gets dragged along into your adventures. The nerdy one, the bullied one. Did you know Brad owns a gun? Did you know that if I hadn’t stepped in, he might have used it one day? Maybe even on another child?

You should really be thanking me.

“Come on, Brad. It’ll be fun. This place is harmless,” you say, flashing your lovely green eyes my way. Your cheeks are so plump, your hair bursting with blonde curls. An angel fallen from heaven, truly.

I pretend to sulk, buying time. Honestly, I really don’t know what the question is. I was busy, you know? Taking over.

“Well ….” The other girl pipes up, trying to take ownership from you. I hate her. Her voice is shrill and vexing. I fight back the scowl reaching for my new lips. “I think we should play Truth or Dare,” she says, wiggling her eyebrows like a whore.

How trite. But … yes. A game. Of course! Well, this will be much easier than it should be. Usually it takes time, you see. To separate them. You know, one uses a bathroom. One wants to explore a place the others don’t dare. Two will sneak off for a fuck. One time? Three boys locked a fourth boy in the cellar. As a joke. When they let him out, I was already working him from the inside. The revenge was so sweet that the boy I’d taken over wasn’t even upset. He was cheering me on, the rascal.

But this? This is a much more civil way to go about it. Yes, this will be a very pleasant way of doing things.

“I know what to play,” I say, doing my best to look eager, to sway them. “Let’s play Hide and Seek.”

As soon as I say it, I’m prepared for the pervert boy’s predictable argument. His need for male dominance.

“That’s a kid’s game,” he says, probably hoping someone mentions Spin the Bottle. Not unheard of … but no, not tonight. Not while I’m playing.

“You scared?” I say, turning toward him. When he meets my eyes, I show him just a glimpse of the real me. Just enough to give him a goosebump or two. Enough to let him know who’s in fucking charge here.

“No,” he says, and I relish the weakness in his voice. The defeat. You’ll never play with your hand again, little one. And isn’t that just the saddest thing of all?

 

“ONE! TWO! THREE!”

The game is afoot now ….

“Four! Five! Six!”

Even encased in this flesh I still feel little feet tramping inside me, tickling my innards of stairs and hallways, touching my walls with dirty fingers, making me tingle with shameful anticipation.

“Seven! Eight! Nine!”

I feel your feet especially well, my luscious gumdrop. My love. Oh, I’m sorry. You want so badly to go into those rooms, but they’re all locked. Sealed tight. Trickery, on my part, leading you like this. Steering you.

The other boy, up the stairs you go. I’ll be with you shortly.

And finally, my poor, abused young lady. I’m sorry, but it’s down into the cellar with you. The only path I’ve left open.

But you, my angel, you just keep going down that hallway. Yes… keep going and you’ll find the closet at the end.

My special closet.

Inside now, inside! Lovely.

“Ten!”

I open my eyes. The eyes of the boy they call Brad, who is weeping, weeping deep inside me; sobbing for his mother, wanting out, wanting to go home! Every now and then he’ll begin to shriek deliriously.

Ah, it’s music.

Worry not, boy. It will soon be over.

For all of you.

“Ready or not!” I yell, unable to contain my glee. “Here I come!”

 

AS PROMISED, I START WITH the lustful boy. Frankly, I don’t appreciate the way he thinks about you. It’s not respectful. Not decent.

You’re worth so much more than your skin.

I reach the top of the stairs, enter the upper hallway. I feel his heart pumping, pumping above my head.

The attic.

I sense his breathing, feel it mixing with my own stale air. To give you a comparison, for you it might feel as if a small mouse were scurrying about inside your chest, tickling your ribs, nibbling at your heart. Sucking your oxygen.

I’d let the attic ladder drop, of course. I knew the enticement of that mysterious black square in the ceiling would hook him. That one craves isolation. He enjoys the dark. I knew he wouldn’t fear spiders or their webs, worry about drooling ghouls hunched in shadowed corners.

And so … up, up, up he went ….

Damn the distraction! The boy’s mind—that of our new friend Brad—is growing distant. This isn’t a good thing. It will be much harder to keep myself hidden within the flesh once he’s gone, his working consciousness a necessary ingredient to keep up the charade. To help keep things … cohesive.

Still, there’s time enough.

But we mustn’t dilly-dally.

I take a step toward the ladder, look up toward the opening with Brad’s eyes. With a thought, the ladder folds upward, the door to which it’s bolted swings up into the ceiling, neatly. Silently. It won’t move again, not unless I want it to.

“Hey!”

“Where are yooouuu?” I yell loudly in a playful singsong, mostly to cover his protestations. Not that the others could hear him. Not that they could do anything about it if they did. But still. Decorum.

“Hey! Let me out!”

Banging on the attic floor. I close my eyes, relish the feel of his fear, the sweet taste of budding terror.

Slowly, I thicken the dark that surrounds him. On his flesh it will feel suddenly cold, sodden with an unknown moisture. It will coat him like diluted syrup.

“Hey! Enough, man! You got me! Open the fucking door!”

“But there’s no way to reach it!” I yell. Then I can’t help myself. I begin laughing.

“You think … ow!”

Slow nibbles at first. The dark is hungry—always so hungry—but it is mine to control. The shadows always wish to feast, never taste. They devour instead of dine. Soon, I’ll release the dark completely, but not yet.

I want to savor him.

He begins screaming now, and I shudder with pleasure as he fills my mouth. That thick, penetrating darkness residing in my uppermost chamber snips away his skin in sharp, tiny bits and bites. It pokes at his eyes, yanks at his hair, tugs at his lips, clogs his nostrils, seeps beneath his clothes and infests every inch of him.

“Please no! You guys! Help me! Please God …. Oh no. No! Help!”

Pounding and pounding but growing steadily weaker. The voice more shrill, more desperate. Then, more quiet.

God, he’s delicious.

I wait as the blood is slurped from his bones, the organs consumed in gnashing, savage bites. There’s no holding back the shadows anymore. With a rush of pleasure, I release them.

They attack like dogs, snapping and chewing, devouring, until the body is gone. Now, only the spirit remains.

And that, my dear, is mine.

Forever.

 

I WALK BRAD’S LITTLE BODY down the stairs and, moments later, I’m standing at the kitchen door which leads to the cellar. The abused little girl is down there with her flashlight, investigating my walls, the barren shelves, the packed earth. I feel her move toward the stairs leading to the storm doors, the ones which would lead her out into the night, lead her to freedom. To escape.

And we can’t have that.

I open the door, look down the stairs with Brad’s eyes into the black, cool depths of me. Hearing movement, she scurries away from the storm doors (excellent!) and hides behind the old shelves, painted in dust and vermin droppings, veiled in lacy webs, each heavy with blood-fat spiders.

“Here I cooommmee ….” I whisper into the depths, not daring to speak too loudly, no longer trusting the sound of the boy’s voice. It rattles and creaks unnaturally, worsening as control of the body slips away. The hands tremble constantly and now I feel one of the teeth come loose, popping free with a squirt of blood. I swallow the slick tooth easily, eagerly.

Not much time now, my sweet. You and I will be together soon. Wait for me, it’s almost time. Just a small chore and a few minutes more, as they say.

I go down the creaky stairs, step onto the earthen floor, close my eyes and relish the sensation of her beating heart, pulsing fresh life into my lower depths. I push away the urge to simply take her. I don’t normally play with my food, not really. But tonight, I must admit, it’s hard to resist a little tomfoolery. Something to sweeten that meat.

“I know you’re down here,” I say, not caring anymore that the fool boy’s voice sounds like broken glass in a tin can. “I can smell you.”

A sharp intake of breath from her hiding place. She’s turned off her light, of course. Smart girl. Without the light, however, she doesn’t realize the movement of the spiders. Already they’re nesting in her hair, crawling across her sleeves, up her collar toward her neck, her ears, her face.

Staying silent, she pulls away from the shelves, leans against the moist stone of my walls. I’m embarrassed to say that Brad’s tiny pecker stiffens at this, and I laugh out loud. It sounds wrong, I know, like splitting wood instead of a young boy’s giggles, but the time for deception is dripping away, away. The game is almost over.

I crouch like a villain and spin toward her, wanting her to see the glint of my eyes. I switch on my flashlight with a trembling hand, dance the beam across her. Exposed, she winces.

“Okay, Christ, you got me,” she says, feigning control. “Let’s just get out of here.”

I click off the light.

Above and behind me, the cellar door closes with an air-splitting crack. The room is smothered in darkness.

“Brad? Hey, turn your light on.” Oh my, I think she sounds worried.

She should be.

“You have a light,” I whisper, then drop to all fours.

“Damn it, Brad … God, you asshole ….” she says, but her voice is cracked. Tears wet her face. Her breath is fast, hard.

One of the spiders bites the back of her neck.

“Ow!” she yells, then begins sobbing like the scared little girl she is. “Something fucking bit me … damn it, I can’t turn my phone on!” She’s hysterical now.

But then, like a miracle, her light does come on!

It shines down toward her feet, where I’m hunched, looking up from the rich soil, split lips stretched into a rictus grin.

“Boo!”

She screams and I reach for her but she’s fast, this one! Stronger than she appears. I watch, bemused, at her screaming, her panicked flailing through the dark, fleeing like a cat from a cage toward the storm doors.

Too late, little girl. It’s much too late.

I bring a loose roof beam down onto her skull and she drops like a broken doll to the earth. Her light is thrown aside, rolls over once, illuminating nothing.

She tries to stand, and I fell another beam, slam it down across her back, pinning her.

I could bring the roof down on her head if I wanted, but there are other considerations. Others who need sustenance. I’m many things, but selfish? I think not.

I wait a moment, wait until the soil beneath her body begins to churn, shifting and bubbling like boiling water. The worms have come, as have the mites and the millipedes; the red ants flow in from the corners. Humming a broken melody, I walk to the stairs and sit for a few minutes, watch as she begins to sink into the chaos of the churning earth. Into them. She tries to call out, to scream for help, for mercy, but they find the opening and fill it, seek her throat and what lies within.

I give them their feast, thinking of you.

When she’s gone, I stand shakily, walk young Brad’s legs up one final set of stairs to find you. Finally, my sweet cherub, your wait is over.

It’s time.

 

BRAD’S BODY IS FAILING QUICKLY.

But I don’t wish to abandon him yet. Not yet.

First, I must find you, am I right? Hide and Seek is still in play.

We must finish the game.

Yes, of course, of course. I know precisely where you are. It doesn’t take away from the fun.

You are in the closet that is not a closet.

You are in the closet that is a mouth.

“I’m coming!” I bellow, not knowing if the words are decipherable. The muscles of this body are stiffening, the organs shriveling; the skin flakes to fine powder, as if the boy had walked through a sandstorm to reach this hallway, this deep throat of mine.

Still, you wait. Huddled in the dark at the end of this tunnel crafted of rotting wood, stripped, sagging floorboards, cracked plaster walls. I’m old, you see. Old and tired. But visitors! They are always welcome, always helpful, yes. Fresh meat hardens my beams, fresh blood fills the swelling veins behind my facade. New souls energize my spirit.

Not to mention, all those delicious feelings.

Lust, fear, anger, regret, despair.

All of it goes into the stew, and I swallow it down, yes, I do! I swallow it down in great big gulps!

And so, as I limp toward you, I am grateful for the sustenance your friends have brought.

But you, my dearest. You are special.

I have something unique in mind for you, turtledove. And I am coming… coming as well as I’m able.

But I am also changing. And that, I think, is just fine. Yes, I think you’ll love me just as I am, won’t you? Even now, I feel the thick roots sprouting from the gums where teeth once snugly sat. As the hard kernels come free, I spit them out like spent candies. The roots fill the gaps quickly, long and sharp, puncturing the fleshy lips and cheeks. I laugh, somewhat hysterically, as the face I wear is cut to ribbons.

The sounds I make must be awful for you. Yes, I sense your confusion. Your growing fear.

But I’m close now.

I’m just outside the door.

“Knock knock,” I say, but there is so little of the mouth left I doubt you hear anything but snapping wood, the last, dying gurgles from the torn flesh of young Brad’s throat.

You push open the door and look into my eyes.

Silently, you study the long splinters of my teeth, the cracked plaster of my skin, the empty windows of my eyes. To your everlasting credit, you don’t scream. When I reach for you, your eyelids flutter like butterfly wings, and you simply droop, like a plucked flower, into my outstretched arms.

Gently, I push you back, back into the closet that is not a closet. The door closes behind me and I rock you in my stiffening arms; I embrace you, pull you in close.

Finally, the last of the flesh falls away, and now there is only me as I truly am. Empty rooms and a damp, stony heart. Hard knobs for elbows, coarse brick in the place of bones, brittle shingles smeared like wind-blown grass across my skull. Inside my mouth is a rotted, sun-bleached plank of a tongue surrounded by twisted wooden daggers instead of teeth. My eyes are nothing more than weathered panes of glass, sided with worn shutters.

Look upon me in my true form, my love. Look at my deranged body that is both a prison and a castle. A fortress, and a tomb.

I kiss you, in my own way, and pull the light from you slowly. When it comes, the windows of my eyes burn with it, pulse with it… SHINE with it! Look at you! So beautiful; basking in the warm yellow of my feverish consumption.

I push you back even further, past the walls which slide away, past the frailties of my body, into the shadows. Together, as one, we fall through the dark, floating forever downward; two twisted leaves plucked by the wind from a dead autumn tree.

I pull you tight as we spin and dance. I pierce every inch of you, and each gasp of your pain thrills me.

And now, in this sacred space, as we continue to tumble and fall through the blessed dark, I bring my mouth to your ear, and I tell you a story.

It’s the story of a haunted house, and it’s the last one you’re ever going to hear.