If The Gravestone Could Speak #14

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Continuation from - @darthsauron/if-the-gravestone-could-speak-2d649e0174a2e

Peter had obviously been meddling with things, but he did have a point; the inside of the house was no less spooky than the front. There was a small library in one corner, stacked to the brim with odd books. Each book had a name more sinister than the last. Human Anatomy, and Devils Touch were two of the more noticeable books, but the cover of Book of Shadow that Peter had pulled down to read was by far the scariest.

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Every few words drew a gasp, until in the end the text became too scary, and he put the book back. Alex was at the opposite end of the living room, inspecting the only visible picture in the house. It was a portrait of an ageing man in his sixties, with wrinkled skin and a sharp nose. His grey eyes gleamed as the last of the day’s sunlight broke through the curtains to highlight the picture.
“This must have been the old man whose funeral it w… Peter?”
His friend had disappeared again, a creaking that reverberated through the entire house suggesting that he had gone upstairs. Left there, alone in the dank room, Alex’s heartbeat increased until all he wanted to do was run for the front door.
“Peter?” he shouted into the emptiness, softly to begin with and then louder when no reply was forthcoming.
Another creaking sound came drifting down from the stairs, followed by something hard slamming into the old wooden floorboards.
“Peter, is that you? Come on, this isn’t funny anymore”.

Sprinting into the hallway, Alex dared a glance up the winding stairs. There was nothing moving up or down them, only more drifting dust. A mirror sat to the left of the stairs, painted black to prevent a person’s reflection being seen, and years of tobacco smoke had caused the wallpaper to fall off in huge clumps. Every ounce of his being told Alex to get out, but he couldn’t leave his friend behind. One by one, he started to climb the creaking stairs, reaching the second floor of the house as a shadow crept through the dying twilight and into one of the bedrooms.
“AHH,” he yelled, leaping backwards and tripping over his feet.
Landing with a thump, he looked up in terror at what might be waiting to finish him off, but nothing came hurtling forward to attack. Rising up, he heard it then, a shrill scream that only belonged to one person, Peter. The sound of fists pounding on the floor made Alex think twice about moving, but his friend needed him; Peter was in danger. As he came to a skidding halt before the door, and prepared to kick it open, a hand reached out.
“RUN!” came Peter’s terrified voice as the door flew open and he sprang out like a jack in the box, “NOW”.

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It took Alex a moment to realise that there was another person in the room his friend had just vacated. A man, likely the son of the man in the picture downstairs, lay sprawled across the dusty carpet with one side of his black-haired head slick with blood. Groaning, the man moved an inch before collapsing back down in a heap.
“I said run,” yelled Peter, charging back and dragging Alex along the landing to the stairs. Nearly breaking their ankles, they jumped down them three at a time, any wallpaper that hadn’t already fallen off now peeling off in unison. When they got to the front door, it was open once more, but neither boy stopped to question why, instead bursting out into the front garden.
“Is he dead?” asked Alex between panting breaths, hunched over on the grass.
“I don’t know,” Peter replied, nursing a swollen ankle and breathing heavy too, “the man jumped out of nowhere. What was I supposed to do? Let him kill me? And he had a rifle too.

Standing up and hauling Peter to his feet, Alex put his friends arm around his shoulder and prepared to help carry him home. It was pitch black outside, and only the streetlamps gave any light.
“We must have been here for hours,” Alex said when Peter tried pushing him away, “let’s just get the hell out of here”.
As the two of them half hobbled, half ran home, they didn’t look back. If they had, they would have seen the ominous outline of a shadow watching through a window in the attic.

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Let our children not grow up in a terrible world. Together we can make it better. It is our destiny to
suffer from the past, to long for the future, but to forget the present.
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