From the outside, the house didn’t look that big. There were tattered green shutters, broken up white vinyl siding, and roof shingles littered the ground. The night sky was full of stars and a full moon. Both moonlight and his flashlight gave light to the broken side door. The door swung woefully in the light autumn air. James had wanted to creep around this dead house for the longest time. The dead house stood not too far away from his own. Everyday when he came home from work, James just sat in his car for five minutes, just staring at the house. Something beckoned him to the house and wanted him to be there.
And now James was giving into his curiosity. James shuddered. The light hooded sweatshirt was barely keeping him warm. The wind creeped up his back and chilled his neck, causing goose bumps to form all around. The flashlight felt cold in his hand and the crickets and frogs chirped in the background. “The frogs,” James said quietly to himself. James had a rush of memory starting to fill up his mind.
He was young again, running through the fields of the cemetery. The frogs and the crickets chirped, and the laughter of his friends filled his head. He was running again, with the soft green grass flowing between his fingers. He remembered looking toward the ominous oak tree. He hated to remember the overwhelming sadness and fear he felt looking at the tree. From the tree a pair of moon yellow eyes stared down at him. The eyes had pierced him, and in a way, marked him. James shuddered and squinted, remembering how loudly and shrill he could scream. His friends laughed, poked fun, and teased James for screaming. But James always remembered what he saw. The yellow eyes had invaded his dreams and nightmares all his life. A coyote howled in the background, bringing James back to reality. He held the flashlight in cold sweaty hands and pushed the broken door open.
The broken side door flew open with barely a push. James looked around the kitchen to see a place in utter disrepair. There were boxes of store brand cereal ripped open on the ground. The refrigerator door thrown open and the drawers turned out. All the cupboard doors were thrown open and some even hung off their respective hinges. The oven had seen better days. There were pieces of the old oven ripped apart. It was clear someone else had been in here too; someone looking for copper, looking for something to salvage. James noticed a piece of copper hanging off the oven door. There were bolt cutters laying on the ground next to the oven. He pushed back a ripped open package of Cheerios to see the floor stained. For a quick minute, James thought he saw blood. He shook his head and moved on.
James always felt that his mind was constantly playing tricks on him. James moved through the kitchen feeling the garbage move beneath his feet. The dust floated through the beam of light emitting from his flashlight. Soon James found himself standing in the living room.
The living room was worse, so much worse than the kitchen. There was a light blue couch in the middle of the room ripped and torn apart. The only reason James could think it was ripped was due to the multitude of cats he had been seeing around the property over the past three months. And speaking of cats, there was a dead one in the middle of floor. James gasped at first. The stench of the dead cat, cat piss, and decay filled his nose. He gagged. “Jesus Christ, how long has that cat been there?” he mused to himself. He took his flashlight off the dead cat and turned towards the TV. The old Sony sat face down and the back pried open. Similar to the oven, it had appeared someone was fishing for something to salvage.
The amount of “zombie” houses in the area had brought these scavengers out looking for anything they could get their hands on. James focused his attention towards the bedroom. James stepped gingerly around the dead cat, holding his breath as he walked by, and moved towards the open bedroom.
James walked into the bedroom. An almost pristine white bed sat in the room. It had seemed so out of place in the dying house. The sheets of the bed were still made, and the gorgeous wooden bed frame still stood intact. The rest of the bedroom was infected however. The paint was peeling off the walls and water had begun to pour in from an outside window. He walked over to the window to see that the frame was rotting out. Termites and all sorts of bugs surrounded the window. James looked towards the old dresser to see pictures strewn about. The pictures had began to shrivel and shrink, just like this old house. James picked up one picture and dusted it off. He held the flashlight in his cold sweaty hands and pointed it at the picture.
It was a black and white picture of an elderly couple sitting next to each other. They were sitting on the front porch of the house. The porch at that time looked very much together, in tact actually, and not decaying like the current porch. The man sat on an old wooden swing next to who James presumed to be his wife. The wife was sitting there, in what looked like a gown, and was laughing at who James presumed to be her husband. The man in the picture was laughing and had tears coming down his face. “Hmm, they must’ve really loved each other,” James said to himself.
James put the picture back on the dresser. The dresser was littered with old receipts, rosaries, and medicine bottles. Very suddenly, James heard a noise from the other room. He heard a long scratching sound and shuffling as if something was moving. James began moving very slowly towards the other room. He turned the corner to the living room quickly and shined his flashlight out there. His flashlight scanned the room looking for someone or something, but nothing seemed to be amiss.
James stood there for another minute in a state of anxiety and confusion. “I know I heard something,” James told himself. James could only think it was his mind playing tricks on him again. It was at that moment he felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. “Hang on,” he said, “Where did the dead cat go?” James could feel his heart beat faster and his hands getting sweaty. Now the sound was coming from the bedroom. This sound however, poisoned his ears a different way. It was the sound of someone ripping and tearing at something. James could hear someone rapidly panting from the other room. James had wanted to run, to get out of there as quickly as he could but something was telling him to stay, to stay and look at what was there. “Just do it, just do it already. It’s probably nothing, probably just a bird or something that got stuck in here,” he tried to reassure himself. “Okay, on the count of three do it,” he spoke to himself, “One. Two. THREE.”
James wheeled around and pointed the flashlight in the bedroom. Now James was breathing fast and was beginning to feel a little lightheaded. In the corner of the bedroom there sat something, hunched over and eating the dead cat. James was horrified but couldn’t look away. It was a person, he thought. They were gaunt, skinny, and wearing a tattered nightgown. The skin was a disgusting grey color and the hair was long, grey, greasy, and falling out. The thing wheeled its head around and stared at James. The eyes of the being pierced him straight through. Something with moon yellow eyes gawked at James. It was a woman, and her mouth and the front of the nightgown were covered in blood. She held the dead cat in one head and pointed directly at James.
James was frozen. His feet wanted to move, but they were lead. She let out an inhuman scream and pointed at James. All that James could do to answer was scream back. His body found itself and turned around and began running towards the door. The flashlight slipped out of his sweaty hands. James busted the side door open and ran as fast as he could down the gravel driveway. He could see his breath in the dark as he ran up his driveway. He tore open the side door and ran inside.
He was greeted in the kitchen by his wife. “Jim, hun, honey, what happened over there,” Jackie said. James didn’t know what to say. “How in the hell did I get away,” “Why didn’t that thing chase after me?” These questions ran through his head. He absentmindedly walked over to Jackie and just hugged her. James just hugged her and slowly began crying. “Jack, I don’t know what to say,” “There’s something, a witch, a demon, a being, just something evil in that house.’ James just held Jackie.
He didn’t feel safe, even in his own house. James, still hugging Jackie, felt goose bumps start to form on Jackie’s arms. “Jack, Jack, what is it? What’s wrong. Are you okay?”Jackie slowly spoke, in a voice that almost sounded like a whisper, “Jim, I think whatever you’re talking about, is standing at the door.” James wheeled around and pushed Jackie behind him. At the door, she stood, staring at him from the darkness with her cold, soulless, evil eyes. Its hands grasped the screen and it began its inhuman scream again. James was scared, confused, and trembling.
James thought of the only thing he could do. Wrapped around James neck, was a medal. A medal of the one thing James had always believed in: Saint Michael, The Archangel. James tore it off his neck and screamed, “You leave me and my wife the hell alone,” “Get out of here and never come back,” he screamed at the being. He pointed Saint Michael directly at the being and it froze. It had stopped its scream. The being took a calculated step back and just stared. Suddenly, a ball of fire enveloped the being, grasping it off the side porch. But before the being could leave, it sneered and smirked at James. James knew that this wasn’t the last time he’d being seeing her.
James turned around and just kept hugging Jackie. He still didn’t feel safe and he began feeling more uneasy about the smile she gave him. He just stood there, hugging Jackie and pondering all the events over the past hour. He thought he remembered something important when Jackie spoke up and broke the silence. “Jim,” she said, “This isn’t going to end well, is it?” James didn’t want to believe that at all, but he never felt more uneasy in his life. It was at this point, it all had come back to James. The dreams. The nightmares that never went away. “Those eyes Jack,” he said, “I’ll never forget those eye from the Oak Tree.
Submitted May 15, 2017 at 03:16AM by NateJH530 http://ift.tt/2qi8OG7 nosleep
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