Not everyone has the stuff inside, the makings of a hero. You can want, you can try, you can do your best, but sometimes it’s not enough. That’s just reality. And reality sucks.
Alex and his friends had stepped into that house as five feisty, know-it-all, nothing-can-hurt-me, everyday kids. Everything was a joke, a game. Good times for all.
No real concept of fear, pain, suffering, or death. The house—the Shadow—reached down inside them, yanked out all hope and replaced it with despair.
Since Alex escaped that house, he’d heard the stories about others over the past few hundred years who’d braved that house and never made it out. Other stories suggested the house wasn’t even a house at all. And stranger stories suggested that the town resides inside the house, in some strange vortex or alternate plane of existence. Murmurs, rumors, fireside tales, whispers on the wind. He couldn’t say if those stories were true or not, but he was sure he was the only one who’d entered and made it out alive.
Well, technically, that wasn’t accurate. Reid made it out alive, too, but Alex didn’t count him. Not in his state.
So Alex was the lucky one.
But he didn’t feel lucky. He felt cursed.
He was barely standing, yet that house still stood. Probably always would.
Four years.
That’s how long it had been since they’d gone into that damned house. Some days, it felt like an eternity ago. And some nights, Alex woke up in a cold sweat, thinking he was trapped inside. He still was, in a way though. He would never be able to forget it, live it down. Not in this shithole town. A place where everyone knows everybody else. That’s part of the reason why this day was such a big day. Gotta let go. Gotta get out.
Alex brushed past the last tree into the clearing, and froze. It was just a house after all, wasn’t it? Why did it still hold so much power over him?
Daylight was his only friend in this task. There was no way he could’ve come during the night. On an early summer morning, the sunlight pushed through the trees, and the heat from it pressed at the back of Alex’s neck, but he welcomed it. Anything to fight off the creepy chills that the memory this house brought him.
“It’s been four years” he said.
The air seemed to yank the words away from him, and Alex doubted if he’d ever said them. He stepped a few feet closer and glared at the house before him. Weather-beaten, rundown wooden walls that had to be infested with termites. A makeshift door, boarded-up haphazardly. A smudged window. All of it seemed to mirror how worn-out Alex felt.
The longer he looked, the more he was sure the house was leaning to the left.
“Finally sinking back down into the hell you came from, I see.”
Again, his words fell away too quickly, as if the dead air had eaten them.
A breeze ruffled his hair, but no tree, branch, or leaf moved an inch. He ran a hand through his hair and felt the scar at the edge of his temple. The souvenir he never wanted.
Unblinking, he stood in front of the house and waited. The longer he stared at it, the more he realized it wasn’t leaning at all. In fact, it appeared to strand straighter and taller than it had before.
No matter.
Alex wouldn’t be deterred.
It would all be over soon.
He took several deliberate steps toward the door, stepping into the shadow of the house. And just like four years ago when they’d all come to invade the house, Alex noticed the distinct absence of sound, of life.
Minutes before, as he’d pushed through the woods to get to this point, morning birds had chirped and flapped. Even a hare had bounced across his path. Gnats had buzzed and tickled at his nose and ears, causing him to keep swishing his hands around his face.
But now there was nothing.
As if death was in the air.
The stillness, the quiet called back jumbled memories from four years ago. He looked to his right and imagined Danny sitting in the dirt, wincing at his bloody elbow. Such a baby. God, I miss that baby. Clint would lend him a hand up, then stop to set his glasses right on his nose.
Alex pictured the rest of them, standing around bickering, all of them afraid to do what they were about to do. Heather, the toughest of the tough, tagging along behind them. He could almost hear her wise-ass comments. “Who else would it be, dickweed?” Alex swallowed down a giggle. Tough little shit, she was.
He swung a backpack off his shoulder and set it in the dirt in front of him. One by one, he pulled out the contents—four Molotov cocktails—and set them in a row, on the ground.
He could see an image of Reid cheering him on. “Oh, shit! You’re about to burn this bitch down! You’re a crazy son-of-a-bitch.”
Alex shook a fist at the house. “You took everything from me!” His voice cracked. “But you’re still here. Just me and you, here. And this can’t end until only one of us is left. I’m done with you. Done with your curse. Done with it all.”
He lit one of the Molotov cocktails. “This is for Danny!” He flung it at the house.
The glass shattered and flames erupted.
“And this is for Clint!” He lit another and threw it as high as he could.
It crashed down on the rooftop and spread a trail of flames.
He stifled a cry, but the tears overcame him. “This…this is for Heather, you piece of shit!” He flung it at the window.
Just saying her name was like a knife thrust through his already frail heart, and his eyes became clouded with tears.
He threw the last at the front door. “This is for Reid!”
Once it hit the front door, the whole house shuddered and a wild pulse ripped through the air. It thrust outward and hit Alex like a linebacker, knocking him to the ground. He paid it no mind and got to his knees, his body racked with sobs, tears obscuring his vision as the flames rose into the sky. The heat of it sought to encompass him. He wiped the tears, rose to his feet and stepped backward.
The house was engulfed in flames. Alex had accomplished what he’d set out to do.
“We’re done here.” He spit at the house.
He turned and walked away. Didn’t look back.
If he had, he’d have seen the flames turning into thick black smoke, then dying away.