Just a little something to keep you up at night…..

The Peabodys

The stair creaks beneath my feet as I wave my hand frenetically to clear the cobweb from my face. Catching my breath, I listen, my body rigid with fear. The empty house above remains silent and after counting to 30, I continue up through the dark, step by step toward the first floor.

The railing beneath my left hand feels grimy with the dirt and blood of those who have come before. I don’t want to touch it, but cannot let it go; my ankles throb from the heavy chains that kept me tethered to the floor. I had finally been able to slip out of the bonds, leaving my ankles bloody and bruised. Even though my captors slept in the attic their hearing was keen. I would not take the chance of falling in the dark and waking them up.

~

I had crossed the fence that marked the boundary between Old Man Carter’s wheat field and Deadwood Forest out of sheer obstinacy. Clarissa, my little sister, begged me not too, then told me I was stupid to try. She reminded me of the stories about the Peabody family, the poor group of souls that had been murdered in their home by some rampaging lunatic that had escaped the asylum. She reminded me that the ghosts of the murdered family were the reason that people that went in, never came out. But I didn’t believe in ghosts and that story was fifty years old, just a fairy tale used to keep children away from the deep woods. Or so I thought. After becoming lost, I had stumbled around in the dark until I heard voices. Frantic, I called out for help, following the sound. I heard laughter from right behind me, a sudden pain from a blow to the head, then nothing.

My fear has turned cold over the last three weeks. At least I think it has been three weeks. Days of huddling in the corner of the basement chamber was followed by nights of screams I hear coming from someplace close by. The same screams that drew me to the mist shrouded house squatting deep inside the forest, and its inhabitants.~

Finally reaching the top of the stairs, I lean toward the solid wooden door, listening, and wondered fleetingly about the unlocked basement door. Not one to question luck until recently, I took it as a mistake, hoping that it was not a trap. Hearing nothing from the other side, I reach for the handle and slowly push. The door creaks quietly. From another room nearby I hear the chiming of an old clock. 1, 2, I step up the final step; 3, 4, 5, still no sounds or movement except for the chimes. Gingerly peering around edge of the door and I glance into the kitchen; 6, 7, 8, 9; stepping silently away from the door I carefully close it and the latch clicks as the last chimes echo through the house, 10, 11, 12.

The stench assaults me, the cloying odor of old blood and rotting meat, and beneath that something far more frightening. Backing up against the door, I turn away from the kitchen with my hand across my mouth and begin to limp toward the room from which the clock had chimed. I felt the gorge rising in my throat and fight to keep from vomiting. The front door is just a few steps away, the darkness is nearly complete save for a lighter square that marks a small window to the outside. My heart is pounding so loud in my ears that I barely heard the click that preceded the blinding light that blazes suddenly from overhead.

“SURPRISE!” the voices growled, the voices from the people that sat around the crusted dining table, spoons, knives and forks held aloft.

It was my turn to scream