There is Something in the Dark

Prologue

Fear is an irrational thing… or is it? It is said that the thing we fear the most has already happened to us, but then how do we explain the irrational fear of the unknown? Why do we fear things we cannot see or control?

What is it that lurks in the dark, waiting for us to fall asleep? What does the creature under our bed want? Is it rational to believe that if your feet aren’t covered when you sleep the monster beneath your bed will grab you by the ankle?

Watching a scary movie is fun until the lights go out. Then we huddle beneath our covers, drawing them as close to our face as possible. If I can’t see the evil lurking in the shadows, then it can’t see me.

Shadows and darkness seem to have the most power when you are all alone and the world around you is quiet. But why is the world around you quiet? Is the world still out there? Will the daylight come and save you from the darkness and the fear?

If you switch off your light at night you give the darkness a reason to enter your room and tug at your soul. You give it purpose. You give it strength. It feeds on our fears and it hides in the shadows.

Fear is not an irrational thing. It is what keeps us alert. It is what keeps us alive.

Darkness is an extremely dangerous and frightening place. Anything can be hiding in the dark and the closer you look, the less you are likely to see.

1

THE HOUSE AT THE END OF THE STREET

If eyes are the windows to the soul; then this house had a dark and malevolent soul. It stood at the end of Washington Street with its dark windows piercing into the night like encouragement for all that is evil.

For years the house stood empty. For years local folks knew all too well to steer clear of it. For years there were rumours of strange happenings inside the house. For years nobody even dared to set foot on the lawn, let alone enter the house. For years it was on the market – until Alice and her husband Stephen bought the house.

They were city dwellers hoping to start a fresh new life in the suburban paradise they read about in the brochure. Needless to say the estate agent did not think it was necessary to warn them about the house’s troubled past. Why would the agent have given it a second thought? It had been years since anything sinister happened in the house. Who would want to buy a house with a troubled past? It was the first sale the agent had in months and she was not about to let it go to waste. City dwellers did not know the small town folks and what harm could it do to keep the truth about the house from them?

Alice’s red sedan pulled up into the driveway. The car’s headlights were the only source of light in the darkness that embraced the house. She switched off the engine and the headlights went out, plunging her into blackness. She got out of the car and walked over to the front door. The faint porch light shone like a beacon leading her to sanctuary, but to her it was only a porch light. To Alice the house was a well-deserved asset and a relief from the busy city streets she was used to.

She unlocked the door and entered the house.

Stephen. She called out, I’m home.

Stephen was a writer who worked from home. His speciality was horror stories, but getting his career off the ground was harder than he thought it would be. His first novel about a girl who goes on a killing rampage at her school was rejected by several publishing houses. He finally decided to go the self-publishing route and published it as an eBook online. The online novel was an instant success and was even adapted into a movie.

That was five years ago. Since then he had written numerous horror novels and short stories – all published online. Online publishing was the future of writers and if you did not get on-board, you could never make a living. In this modern world of technology people seldom picked up a dusty old book to read.

Stephen? Alice called out as she walked through the living room.

Alice was a successful lawyer at Matthews & Partners. They were the biggest law firm in the city which handled landmark cases and won most of them. Alice had been a partner for almost seven years and has only lost one case.

Their lives together were almost perfect – except that they stayed in an apartment while both of them longed for a double storey house with a beautiful garden. They wanted the perfect house to start a family and grow old in. They started viewing houses, but none of the houses were what they were looking for – until they found the house on Washington Street. It seemed perfect. It was a Victorian house with a few Romanesque twists in the architecture, something one hardly saw in houses nowadays. They simply adored the house from the moment they saw it on the agent’s website and had to own it at any cost. It was a fix-her-upper of course; years of neglect took its toll on the house and creeper plants latched onto the walls like octopus tentacles. With a little love and a lot of paint the house would be in great shape in no time… but finding the time to do the necessary renovations and repair work was easier said than done.

Alice left the living room and walked down the twilight hallway; which was more of a maze of unpacked boxes than a hallway. They moved in about a week earlier, but hardly had time to unpack what needed to be unpacked. Alice got home late most evenings and Stephen worked on his latest novel The Smog, which was a horror story about a metropolis which gets engulfed by mysterious smog.

Light coming from the kitchen at the end of the hallway caught her attention – as did the aroma of stew that tucked at her nostrils. It was a peculiar aroma – not one that she recognized.

Stephen loved to experiment in the kitchen. Next to writing horror stories that made your skin crawl, cooking was his passion. He could make even a dry slice of bread taste and look delicious.

Stephen? Alice called out, I’m home.

She walked towards the kitchen and the aroma grew stronger. When she came in arm’s reach of the kitchen door she could hear the sound of boiling water. She entered the kitchen and spotted Stephen standing at the counter with his back to her.

A large pot of stew boiled furiously on the stove, splashing over the rim of the pot every few seconds. The gravy that splashed onto the stove plate singed and burned.

Stephen’s arm moved in a chopping motion. He always preferred freshly chopped vegetables to frozen ones. He said chopping fresh vegetables released flavours one did not easily get from frozen ones.

Alice smiled and walked over to him.

Baby, She said, Your stew is about to—

The words died in her mouth when she stood next to Stephen. She looked down in horror and saw that Stephen was using a chef’s knife to slice into his own arm. His hand was severed and the blade of the knife chopped into the stump. He was chopping his own arm like a carrot and was not even flinching. He kept slicing into his own arm as if in a trance and unable to feel any pain.

Oh my God! Alice cried out.

She tried to grab the knife from Stephen, but in a daze he shoved her aside and continued chopping. Alice paced backwards in horror, keeping her eyes on Stephen. He was oblivious of her presence and put down the chef’s knife. He picked up the cutting board with the pieces of his own flesh and walked over to the pot.

Alice watched terrified as he dumped the flesh into the stew. It was only then that she realized that the meat in the pot was Stephen’s fingers. Stephen walked back to the counter and picked up the chef’s knife. Alice gawked in terror at the severed fingers bobbing in the stew like buoys in rough seas. Slowly and uncertain what to make of what was happening, she gazed up at Stephen at the other end of the kitchen. He was still furiously chopping away at his arm while blood flowed down the edge of the counter and formed a pool of blood on the floor. Stephen stopped chopping and turned towards Alice, and she started crying hysterically.

Stephen! She cried out.

Alice kept her distance from him as he staggered towards her with the knife in his hand. She was not sure whether she should stand still or run. What was happening? Why was Stephen mutilating himself?

Stephen, please. Alice pleaded.

Stephen stuck out his tongue and brought the knife to his mouth. The blade sliced through his tongue like it was butter and blood spurted from the fresh wound as Stephen cut deeper into his tongue.

Alice let out a scream and turned away as she stepped back. She stepped on something soft and fluffy and her heart sank to her feet. Alice looked down and saw that she was standing on their baby girl’s fluffy toy.

Fear of what might have happened to her daughter flooded her mind as she backed away from Stephen. Did he hurt their little girl? She could not say for certain with him being in the state he was in, but anything was possible.

Where is Lisa? Alice pleaded.

Stephen stepped towards her as he sliced the knife into his lower lip. Alice cringed and looked away. She knew she could not stay put. She had to get away from Stephen before he did something to her. She had to find their baby girl; she had to know whether the baby was still alive. She ran out of the kitchen and up the stairs towards the baby room. She swung open the door frantically.

Lisa? Alice called out anxiously.

She rushed over to the crib. The baby was not there. Where was she? What did Stephen do with her? Fearing the worst, Alice rushed around the room in search of the baby.

Lisa? Alice panicked.

Her eyes searched the room in hopes of finding the baby and then she found what she was looking for. Lisa was crucified up against the wall; two knives impaled through her little body and blood flowed from the wounds. Lisa was not moving. Beneath the crucified baby corpse, the words Better off dead were written in blood.

Alice’s eyes widened at the horrid sight and she let out a loud scream of terror that echoed through the quiet night.

2

Two years later.

Lily’s Estates was the only realtor in the small town of Chestnut Falls. The town was so aptly named because of the waterfall surrounded by a forest of Chestnut trees. It was a perfect little town with the perfect people. The properties that were available were priced very steeply to keep unwanted people out of town. There were hardly any reports of crime, except the occasional spat with a neighbour. The only problem Chestnut Falls had was that when people moved into the house at the end of Washington Street, they did not stay very long. Lily did her utmost best to sell the house over the years, but after many failed attempts decided not to show the house to new potential buyers any more.

Lily was attending to a newlywed couple who were thinking of buying a house in Chestnut Falls. They seemed perfect and could easily adapt to the wonderful town of Chestnut Falls. The husband, Ben, worked as a financial director for an online loan company and his wife, Sammy, was a nurse. They had a decent income, but the houses on Lily’s list of realty were a bit pricy for them.

They longed to move out of the city and start a family together. Sammy was about six months pregnant – she fell pregnant on their wedding night.

Ben paged through a brochure of a lovely house on Lexington Street. It was just what they wanted, but the price was a bit too steep. The house had a large yard, swimming pool, five bedrooms and three bathrooms. It was a mansion compared to the houses on offer closer to the city. The house was perfect – just like the other two dozen houses they had viewed before giving Lily’s Estates a try.

It is a lovely house. Ben sighed.

His sight told Lily everything she needed to know. She had been in the business of turning houses into homes for almost two decades and knew that a sigh like that meant doubts.

You can’t put a price on happiness. Lily said with a smile.

Lily was in her forties and ran a well-oiled machine of a realty company. She hardly ever took no for an answer. If it was out there and you wanted it, she would get it for you. She would keep on looking until she found you the perfect house.

But the price. Ben hesitated, It’s a bit steep. Our business is not doing too well at the moment.

Lily tried to maintain her smile. She could see they were a decent couple and she desperately wanted to sell them a house they could call home. It was probably the first time in years that she decided to show clients the bunch of older houses she had on offer. She reached for a file in her drawer and handed it to Ben.

We have a few older houses. Lily said.

Ben took the file and paged through it. Sammy leaned in and glanced at the file. She was not very impressed with the older houses. Most of them seemed too small for a family and were all neglected to the extreme. These houses were obviously situated in the outskirts of town and probably housed an inbred cannibal or two back in the day.

Lily giggled at the expressions on their faces.

"I told you they were a bit older. Lily said, They just need some love and some paint."

Some of these houses… Sammy said, Some look like they returned from the dead.

None of the houses in the lower price range was quite what Ben was looking for. Without looking at the last two houses, he closed the file. As he handed it to Lily a photo fell out. It landed face up on the floor.

What’s this? Ben asked as he noticed the photo.

He picked up the photo and stared at it in thought. The house seemed to have potential. He showed the photo to Sammy. It was a photograph of the house at the end of Washington Street.

This one seems nice. Ben said.

Which one is that? Lily asked intrigued.

She could smell a sale coming on.

Ben handed the photo to Lily and her face immediately turned pale. She tried to regain herself and faked a smile. There was no need to worry the new clients with rumours.

Oh. Lily said uneasy, "That one."

What’s wrong with it? Sammy asked, It’s perfect. Just needs some love and paint like you said.

Lily shifted in her seat. She was not sure whether she wanted to risk losing a sale to superstition.

It’s one of our less successful houses. Lily said.

What do you mean? Sammy asked.

That house has only been occupied twice in the last sixty years. Lily said bluntly.

Why is that? Ben asked.

Lily hesitated as if she was a doctor about to tell a patient they were dying.

I probably should not be telling you this, Lily said, "But rather you know than hear it through the grapevine.