“ I will leave you now Mr. Edding to get settled. Dinner will be served at 8pm.” Said the old man.
“ Thank you, I’ll remember that.”
He turned away and put his hand onto the knob of the door, he was shutting the door but he stopped in his wake,
“ By the way Mr. Edding, do not even think about wondering around. You’ll never know, something might happen. If you understand, what I mean?” he said strangely with hysterical laughter.
“Yeah…” I said nervously.
He shut the door and I could hear his incessant laughter echoing down the hallway.
I shook my head and started to organize my things.
‘ Toothbrush…. Toothpaste…. Soap….’ I listed, while getting them out of my bag.
“CLUNK!”
I paused.
“CLUNK!”
I took a step forward.
Suddenly a huge gust of wind came crashing into my bedroom and the two double windows burst open.
My heart pole-vaulted out of my rib cage; the noise became much louder and dominant. The wind was howling, carrying the noise through my head. The wind was getting stronger, I struggled my way to the window to try and shut them. My feet were slipping on the rug, tripping up every time I try to take a step, the wind was forcing me back, I couldn’t hold much longer. The wind suddenly stopped.
I hurried quickly to shut the window, incase there was another incomprehensible gale. I shut the window and the clunk noise started again, softer than before.
I looked out to see where it was coming from.
A breeze started to rustle the trees. The chain of the doorbell swung against the wall of the house.
“CLUNK” it went.
With a deep sigh of relief, I drew the curtains and moved away from the window.
I returned to my bag and finished unpacking.
I took a glance at my watch. ’19:47’ It read.
I placed my bag under the bed and made my way down the stairs for dinner.
I reached the bottom of the stairs and I called out “ Mr.…” I stopped. I forgot to ask him his name. Stupid really, it would have been the first thing to ask.
“ Hello?” I called out.
I looked into the first door in the hallway.
It was an elaborate dinning table filled with knifes and forks of various sizes. A deep crimson table runner with gold thread sewn through it ran over the table, like an elegant swan gliding through water.
“Ah… there you are Mr. Edding. I was about to think that you were not coming.”
Said a voice from behind. The old man was standing there with an old black over coat on. “ It’s rather windy out side! Strange things are happening! Must be that it’s a full moon, the dawn of a new way of life.”
“Yes, rather.” I replied.
“Sit down and make yourself comfortable, I will bring you your dinner shortly.”
He turned around and left the room.
I noticed that the dinning room chairs had mahogany carved snakes on the bridge of them. They were also on the armrests and the heads of the snake were where the wrists would lie. I sat down onto the crimson cushioned chair waiting the arrival of my dinner.
The clock in the hallway rang around the house as it struck eight times, I stared at the swinging pendulum going back and forth and in sequence saying “tick-tock, tick-tock”
“She sells sea shells on the sea shore….” A young girl’s voice rhymed.
I looked around the room to see if I could see her. No one was there.
She continued rhyming. I followed her voice into a room on the opposite side of the hallway. I pushed open the door and a little girl was sitting on a wooden rocking horse surrounded with dolls and toys.
“ Hello” she said timidly, “ who are you?”
“I’m jack. What’s your name”
“Monica”
“That’s a nice name. I like your horse, has it got a name?” I asked simply
“ Princess.” She said quite confidently. “ Do you know where my mummy is?”
“Who’s your mummy?” I asked curiously.
“Mr. Edding? What on earth are you doing in here?” the old man demanded
I spun around and I was faced a brood-faced man with pupils the size of a pinhead.
“ I told you not to wonder around,” he said sharply.
“No, you don’t understand” I said trying to explain, “ I was in the dinning room and I heard a young girl rhyming ‘she sells sea shells’ and so went in here and I was talking to her.”
“Talking to who?”
“The little girl called Monica sitting on the rocking horse” as I said this I turned around and pointed where she was.
She wasn’t there. Neither was the rocking horse or the dolls even the toys.
I was frozen. “She was there, I seen her, I was talking to her” I said abruptly.
“No one is here Mr. Edding only you and I. Unless you are suggesting you saw a ghost. “ he said deeply
“That’s nonsense. They don’t exist.” I said bluntly
At that point he turned around and made his way out of the room.
But did they exist? I returned to the dining room and ate my dinner, then went back upstairs. During that time my mind still pondering about that girl.
I returned to my bedroom. I went to the top drawer and took out my pyjamas and my wash bag, and went to the bathroom, which was adjacent to my bedroom. I filled the basin with warm water and got out my toothbrush and paste and squeezed it out onto the brush. While I brushed I thought,
“ Why did I only see that girl? Am I going mad?”
I rinsed my mouth out and washed my face, as I patted it dry I looked into the mirror. A pair of piercing eyes was staring at me into the mirror from behind, with blood flowing down them like tears. I gasped for breath, my heart galloping like the sound of horse’s hooves during a stampede. She looked at me in pity; I could sense pain through her as if she was transmitting it through the mirror. I knew who she was.
She was the woman from the painting. Her hair wasn’t as bright as the sun anymore, it was dark and straw-like, and her face was grey and drawn, changed from the tender peach-like skin from the painting.
“Help me!” she cried
I spun around to look at her.
She had disappeared.
I ran into the bedroom to see where she went to, frantically I looked around to see if I could find something that could explain what was going on.
“Help me” the same voice, cried.
It was coming from behind the bedroom door.
She was scratching at the door like a cat wanting to come in from the cold.
“Please let me in!” she bellowed.
I inhaled a deep breath, hoping it would reassure my nerves.
I held the handle of the door. It was ice cold. I unlocked the hatch. Turned the knob slowly. Cautiously opening the door. There she was the blood dripping down from her eyes onto the polished wooden floor. Her hand reached out to me
“He’s after me please help!” she cried.
Her nails of the fingers had been scratched down to the cuticle with blood seeping out of them.
Fear was pumping through my veins, fear was breathing out of me and death was breathing into me.
I was walking backwards from her as she repeated the same few sentences over.
“ Help me please. He’s after me please help!”
She stopped and then her eyes perplexed and she suddenly started to scream out loud, ran towards me and disappeared.
Blood gushed through the sinuses of my body, my head spinning like plastic bag in a gust of wind. My mind was getting hazy; everything was a blur as I fell to the floor.
The chime of the nine AM bell brought me to my conscience.
It took me a few seconds to sink into reality.
I was still here.
Without any hesitation I stood up grabbed my things and hurried down the stairs and out the front door.
It was over.
“ Hey you, what on earth do you think your playing at? This is private property.”
A man yelled from the courtyard outside.
“No, not another one, please leave me alone! GO AWAY!” I screamed at him.
“Calm down” he said he grabbed me to keep me still. ”What’s wrong? What were you doing in there?”
“ I was staying the night, the old man let me, it was frightful. Girls disappearing and reappearing, people screaming, blood dripping everywhere. I just want to go home,” I said frantically.
“An old man? What was his name?”
“I forgot to ask, I meant to but I kept forgetting” I replied
“Hang on,” the man said he reached into his pocket and pulled out a rather old picture and pointed at the old man “ was this him?”
I nodded. It was.
“ The old man you were referring to was Robert Cunningham, he used to own this house until he died.
I swallowed hard and asked, “ when was that?”
“ About eighty years ago. You see he and his wife Melissa and daughter Monica used to live happily here. Until one unfortunate day, Cunningham lost his job at the bank. That was the only thing that made him feel alive, and had a nervous breakdown and started to go crazy.
Then one night, he decided to kill his family while they were sleeping.”
“Why?” I questioned
“He went mad didn’t he, mad people who have nervous breakdowns are unpredictable, well that’s just my opinion. Some people say that he wanted to kill himself but didn’t want his family to grieve, or that he blamed them for losing his job. No-one knows really.” He went on “ he killed his own daughter in cold blood with a kitchen knife. But when he was about to shove that knife into his wife she woke up, and started to run. But he eventually caught up with her and killed her.
So afraid of being caught the coward goes and kills himself too.”
I was horrified by this story of a blood and guts massacre. I wondered could a person actually become mad and kill their family all because of losing their job. Or is it that he was just mad to begin with and he just needed starting up?
