The House Breathes

The House Breathes

The stench of rot permeates the air in thick waves. Dirt cakes the wooden floorboards that have given home to termites, living and dying in succession as the passage of time is marked by new broods. The door creaks with heavy weight as it slides against cracked foundation, barely skimming the ground it has vowed to protect. Eli’s footsteps fill the emptiness. Pitch is the night. No streetlamps guide the way to the house near the woods, the one that sits on the edge of town like a dark fortress awaiting its master. No good comes to those who wander, but the lost have already given their souls to the ferry master; they await their time. The quiet of the house is startling, not even the breeze infiltrates through cracked panes or leaky roof. Not even a rat can be heard scurrying about. Unnerving as it is unusual. But beggars cannot be choosers and all that. Shuffling steps and the door is closed, lock ticked in place though it barely latches as the frame has rotted in time between the damp wood and burrowing insects.

There is a hitch in breath as Eli gathers in his surroundings. Eyes barely adjusting from darkness to darkness in the dead of night. There will be no electricity, of that. he is sure. Candlelight would suit him well if only he had had the forethought of bringing one with. Or even a torch, its bright light illuminating the cracks and peeling wallpaper he is sure would meet its beams. Instead of grieving for lost light in darkness, Eli sets up his pack and worn blanket in front of the closed door. Eli closes his eyes and dreams he is sleeping on fluffed pillows and thick mattress, his stomach is full from delivered food. A variety of it: wheels of cheese, fragrant pastas, decadent cakes with chocolate ribbons on top. He imagines fields of strawberry plants lined like toy soldiers, heavy with the burden of ripe fruit, the smell of baked bread lingering in the air where fresh preserves and clotted cream adorns. Eli imagines the scents and scenes vividly, until the rumble of his empty stomach fills the silent air and reality brings to close his amusing thoughts. He had promised himself a long time ago he would not cry. Yet lying in an abandoned house with only his thoughts for company, Eli almost breaks that promise. Almost.

Dawn gives way to sleepless slumber, every joint pops and aches as Eli sits with bleary eyes. He doesn’t know why he is awake, there is nothing to do, no where to go, no purpose to be up for. Yet he folds his blanket and puts it into his backpack, pulling the straps tightly around himself. Even alone he is terrified of losing his only possessions- though few, they are everything he owns. As daylight seeps into the room, he is met with a presumed sight. Peeling, yellowed wallpaper, stained walls and water damp ceilings. The house still seems dark, like a permanent shadow hovering far too close, but bright enough to see. With tentative steps, as the sudden thought of, “what if the floor gives way?”, crosses Eli’s mind, he starts to explore the house. The front door opens to a long hallway that spans out to a sitting room. It is a broad room with a stone fireplace along its southern wall; crumbling bits of rock and debris form a ring around its edges. The mantle is coated in dust and droppings. Only a sullied couch facing the long cold flames remains in the room. Small windows face opposite sides, their panes long faded and marked by debris.

A small kitchen shoots off from the sitting room. Exposed beams where chunks of plaster lay in heaps on scratched countertops. Dust coats every surface; it is so dense that footprints can no longer be seen amongst the fine particles. They remind Eli of moss growing on the trees surrounding the house, large swatches of green like a blanket for the ancient woods. A chill sweeps up Eli’s spine as a large clock frames the far wall where a staircase leads up. Its’ blackness like a gaping jaw waiting for unsuspecting travelers to pass through its depths. Yet it is the broken clockface that is most unnerving about the sight. The walls are coated in a dark paper, the design too faded to properly make out, only to be seen by the shadows of the past. The clock a blight upon its dark skin. It is old, like everything in this house, the design one from Eli’s memory of loving grandparents and Black Forest cake. The face is cracked, and the hands are still- frozen at 11:58. The painted black numbers dotting the passage of time, each little mark hurling us closer to our demise. Every phantom tick resonating through Eli’s heart.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

The hands do not move, yet the sound echoes in the air. A defiant guide, our ferryman has finally come. Eli finds himself drawing closer, the ornate pendulum like a royal guard standing tall at the gates of Hell.

Tick.

Tick.

Tick.

Heart thumping erratically, Eli can hardly pull away, the sound moving, echoing. Shuffling. Like footsteps. Along the second floor. His gaze draws up towards the stares, the dark seeping into the walls and spilling down the steps. Not a clock- a person. Eli jerks away, moving his own feet in time to the footfalls above. Drawing nearer. Backing slowly towards the front door. A hushed whispering like wind in the trees surrounds the house, a constant whirl of noise- moving, consuming. Louder and louder, back pressed against the rotted door, handle jamming into sweat covered back. Hands pressed against sensitive ears, a hurricane whipping through.

Until all is quiet. The whispering stops, the footfalls quiet. The house like a dormant mine, rooted deep under the ground. A held breath in the night. Waiting. Watching. This house is no shelter in the storm, nor the daylight. It is an accursed place, haunted by time itself and the longing of memories served.

A noise. A creak, trickling down. One step at a time. Eli is frozen in fear as each crackling of worn wood draws nearer. The last step is breached, a figure stands on the precipice, the hall elongating and twisting, like looking through a telescope set far away. Not moving, not breathing. It is still. Black shadow fracturing the sunlight, pulling it away. Or sucking it in, a leech, a parasite.

Reaching slowly behind, Eli grasps the handle and starts to turn. Twisting, twisting until click. A slow, careful movement, the figure turns its head to stare down the passage and to the front door. It is featureless, a porcelain face with hollows for eyes and mouth. Too round, too wide. Staring, its gaze a thousand cuts to the skin. With unknown reserve, Eli yanks the door, it remains closed. Desperately pulling and turning the handle, his eyes on the figure unmoving at the foot of those stairs. Shifting helplessly Eli looks at the door, realizing the bolt is still in place, however loosely. Trembling fingers grasp, ripping the metal to the side.

Eli doesn’t hear the footfalls behind him.

He opens the door as hands grasp him from behind, ice cold skin on heated body.

The doorway revealing fields of wheat trembling in silent wind. But it is the figures that draw Eli’s breath from his lungs, more so than the fingers pulling him in. Dotting the landscape, one at a time, appearing like latent crops for harvest until every inch of golden field is lost to the darkness of people looking in.

The door swings shut with finality as he is pulled away. Panic seizing in Eli’s lungs, dark spots wavering hesitantly as cold hands form an unwavering barrier against long neck. Eli wants to struggle; he longs to fight but knows the end draws near. That long awaited soul collector in the shadows staring steadily on, his dark passenger. Death itself.

Then, blackness.

The stench of rot permeates the air in thick waves. Dirt cakes the wooden floorboards that have given home to termites, living and dying in succession as the passage of time is marked by new broods. The door creaks with heavy weight as it slides against cracked foundation, barely skimming the ground it has vowed to protect. Eli’s footsteps fill the emptiness.