Well Conor thought it would be a laugh to look around the house and nick anything that hadn't already been. It wasn't a laugh. At first, we kind of crept forward through the door, that wasn't locked, and Conor kept making sudden movements to make us jump.We didn't jump and so carried on into the grand hallway, but for this hallway, grand was a gargantuan understatement, the wooden banister (which did look a little rotten) was designed in the shape of angles cupping their hands and staring to heaven, their eyes blank as if they were on drugs. My mouth opened into a perfect circle as I gazed at the full scale portrait, that had to be at least 12 feet long, of a famous knight on a mountain of skulls that disappeared into the bottom of the painting. Smiley simply whispered "sweet" at the sight of it. We were all completely breathless, unaware of the mist that creeped in through the windows and surrounded us. When we finally came to notice this weird, supernatural happening, Conor blurted out "What the hell? This house is queer". This disturbed our silence and brought us back to reality, where we all commenced shouting for no apparent reason about how this was freaking us out and other extremities. Then footsteps, on the stairs. We stood their, in our uniforms not saying a single word, in a trance and waited, waited for destiny to come and consume our petty worthless little lives. Down the grandeur staircase came a man, of 50 years at least, when he spotted us his eyes narrowed in a show of disgust, and in a strong northern accent he waffled "What ye doing' ere? Well? Outta 'ere, NOW!"
I had sometimes transpired of being a runner and this was the perfect time to show of my speed, My legs sped as if they never had before, fear and adrenalin pumped through my body as I ran, Conor and smiley fast on my heels. We ran past the other derelict houses, under the bid gorse bush and out onto the main road. We stood there panting, resting on our wobbling knees while we caught our breath, "Man, that was seriously weird, totally freaked me out" panted Conor, and we all agreed on that.
the next day we didn't go the-jungle-park-way, but didn't speak of why as we all knew, but whenever we spoke of it, Conor kept grinning and at school, when the story was transferred to the playground, he said that he had nicked the guys wallet, which was a load of dog pooh everyone agreed, but in the back of my mind it worried me and I had this feeling that he thought our escapade into the weird had been cool.
Our second encounter with the house was only three weeks later, we decided to go the-jungle-park-way again, for the first time since the incident and Conor insisted in leading the way, which we often did as there were many routes that we could take through the maze of dirt tracks and trees. At first everything was going as normal, light chatter and laughter emblazoned our journey through the derelict land that we guessed was owned by the government, but as we neared the area where the house was, he took us on a sharp left and steered us towards the house. I knew this would happen, in the back of my mind i had always known this was coming, just through the way he responded to listening to how brave he was for going in there. He was desperate for attention, could of been some kind of disorder, I don't know, I will never know.
Well, we walked up to it, slowly, he said "Shall we". "No" I abruptly responded with more vigor than intended, but even that didn't get the message across to my narrow minded friend, as he replied "Too bad" and walked in the door. The big red door. I whispered to myself "Hello big red door". This was the moment of truth, my morals or my friends, should i succumb to what they call 'peer pressure'. My mind flicked through memories, thoughts, anxieties but there was only one answer, too my personal rhetorical question. I took the great leap into the house.
The residence hadn't lost any of its vibe since our previous meeting with it, if it could walk into rooms, it would be the person that turned heads, but it still greeted you as if it had a personal vendetta against you. My arms were shaking as I placed my emotionless body next to my best friend's. I giggled with fear, just to let the emotions that were currently camping in my stomach, out for a second. I glanced up the staircase that I'd only seen once before, but I felt as if this staircase was beckoning us to climb it, to explore the world that the upper floors contained and so following its command I ascended the smooth wooden frames up to the first floor. The upstairs was as glamorous and as old as the ground floor, and i felt my whole body be consumed by a wave of utter euphoria, that shook my bones and sent my blood rushing round my body like a roundabout. I was spinning, wavering in between consciousness, i dropped to my knees, my body didn't understand how to react to this change of state, of life, of feeling, my mind ran. And stopped. I realized Smiley was shaking me from my trance, my head stopped whirring, my mind started functioning again, I wasn't sure whether this out-of-body experience was a positive thing, but I wanted to get out, now.
I sprinted faster than I knew possible, using every last inch of energy to save myself. Down the stairs, Through the door and into the garden. I buried my head in the ground whispered to myself and started having spasms. The fear was as raw as a beef joint, and my collapsed body slowly calmed, my breathing became regulated again and my mind switched back to reality. Why hadn't the others come out yet? Maybe they thought this was a joke. It really wasn't. After sitting back for five minutes going over what had happened and why I'd ran out in fear when there wasn't anything to be scared about, I heard a scream that pierced my eardrums with knives, then ,thumping on the stairs, and again on the second stairs, which told me he had been on the second floor. Smiley came through the doorway, shirt tainted with blood, so were his hands, he was crying, which made him look as if he was crying blood, which looking back at it must've been a little funny.
He burrowed his head in the ground in the same fashion that I had, but his spasms were worse, coming in uncontrollable waves that forced his body to writhe around on the ground unnaturally. I couldn't make any sense out of what he was gibbering while spreading the blood onto the grass. I was surprisingly calm throughout this, it was as if all my emotions had been drained out of me and I was left with a person completely in control of the situation. When he had calmed down I heard Conor's Reeboks clunk against the wooden steps up to the third floor and my heartbeat increased to the speed of sound as each beat merged into another, I had a subconscious feeling that the third floor, this was it, now or never, all or nothing, this cruel game the house was playing with us was about to end right now, and I knew something bad was going to happen, but there was nothing I could do about it. I felt and was powerless.
"Aaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!". It was Conors voice. "The doors locked behind me". Neither me nor Smiley reacted, we just sat there hopelessly. Whatever was going to happen, was going to happen right now. Then I saw the window open, I hadn't noticed that before, it was subtle, sly, it waits until your up there then opens up beckoning you to take the exit, take the exit out of life. Thats not what I thought at the time though, I was too preoccupied by how was he going to get out, but then. He jumped.
The aftermath was horrible, Smiley was a suspect until they identifies the blood to be no-one they could identify and definitely not Conor. We were given counseling and psychiatric help, but Smiley never recovered, even to this day he is troubled by what he saw, but he can't say, he starts gibbering when he's asked to and that was one of the main reasons why he was suspected. They sent five men in to find evidence as to why he died, in there. They were all found dead after jumping out of the third floor window, after that they boardered it up and left it alone. They all thought we'd made up the old man who was in there, said the owner died years ago.
Now you understand why I've got to go in, to find out why Conor died, I will not be able to live a life until I find the awnser. I asked Smiley if he wanted to come, he nearly killed me after I quizzed that so I decided to do it alone. I have armed myself, two knives and a sword my great-grandad had in a war a long time before I can force myself to look it up. So now I will enter the house for the last time, i do not know if I will continue this story, but whatever way, I will achieve my goal, to find the awnsers that I have longed for all my life. Goodbye life. Hello big red door.