House of Death

    “This is it, Aaron,” Joel said as he pulled into the graveled driveway.
    Aaron noticed the overgrown weeds that filled the yard, had begun to fill the driveway, too. The house was two stories high. The paint was chipped and it looked like at one time it was white.
    “I think I saw this house in a Stephen King movie,” Joel said.
    Aaron looked at his friend and smiled.
    “Let's go inside,” Joel said. He opened up the car door and stepped out.
    Aaron followed and stood next to Joel. They began to walk toward the house. The steps creaked as they stepped up on the front porch.
    Joel just stood there.
    Aaron looked back at him. “Aren't you coming?”
    Joel shrugged and followed Aaron inside.
    The interior of the house looked just as bad as the exterior.
    The floor was covered with dirt and cobwebs hung all over. “How long was this house empty?” Aaron asked.
    “It's been empty since the murders five years ago, well except on Halloween night,” Joel answered.
    “Five years,” Aaron said. “That's a long time.”
    “Tonight is going to be great,” Joel said.
    “Halloween night,” Aaron said. “I can't wait.”
    Later that evening, Joel and Aaron began the drive back to the house with Bridget and Rosa. Is this place haunted?” Rosa asked.
    “No, don't worry about it, nothing ghostly happened to us when we were there earlier,” Aaron said and pulled out his pocket knife. He began to toss it skillfully into the air and catch it, continuously.
    Bridget turned in her seat and watched the knife fly up, do some sort of a flip and land safely in Aaron's hand. She said to him, “you are pretty good with that knife.”
    “My grandfather taught me to use it when I was very young.”
    “Yeah and Aaron can hit something far, far away,” Rosa said and kissed him on the cheek.
    “Well, not that far away, I'm not that good,” Aaron told her.
    Rosa put her arm around Aaron's neck and said, “don't be so modest honey.”
    “Hey Aaron, you nervous about something?” Joel asked.
    Aaron looked up, saw Joel watching him in his rear view mirror and said, “no, why do you ask?”
    Joel smiled and told him, “I noticed that whenever you get real nervous about something, you always pull out that knife of yours and play with it.”
    Aaron quickly put the pocket knife back into his pocket as Joel pulled into the driveway of the abandoned house.
    The four of them stepped out of the car and stared at the house. “This house gives me the creeps,” Rosa said.
    “Me too,” Bridget said.
    “Tonight, it's supposed to give you the creeps,” Joel told them. “It's Halloween!”
    Aaron, unsure about the house himself, said, “there's nothing wrong with this place; it's just an old house.”
    “Yeah and grisly murders took place here,” Joel said. “You know there is an urban legend associated with this place.”
    “There is?” Aaron asked.
    “Let's hear it,” Bridget said.
    Rosa asked, “do we really have to hear it?”
    Joel smiled, put his arm around Rosa and said, “yep, ain't a proper Halloween without a horror story, now is it?” He pulled Rosa toward the house and onto the porch. Bridget and Aaron followed.
    Once inside, they sat on the dusty, old furniture and listened to Joel tell them about the story.
    “The legend goes like this,” Joel began. “A doctor lived in this house with his wife and twin sons, who were seventeen years old. He became involved with the black arts and he would sacrifice people in his basement, to worship Satan. The good doctor would pick up homeless people so nobody would file a missing persons report on them. He would feed them, pretended that he actually wanted to help them and then kill them. The doctor slashed up their bodies real good and hung them up by their ankles from chains, hooked to the ceiling.”
    “That is so gross,” Bridget said and laughed.
    “Hold on, there is more.” Joel continued, “on Halloween, five years ago, his wife went into the basement that her husband had forbidding her to enter. It's been said that the people in town heard her scream when she found the bodies. The gentle doctor slashed his wife up and hung her by the ankles, and then he went upstairs to the twin's rooms.”
    “The gentle doctor, are you kidding,” Aaron said.
    Joel smiled and finished his story, “the cops grew suspicious because the boys weren't in school, so they came here to find out what was wrong. The cops found ten bodies in the basement, including the wife and the twins. The doctor was never found. In a hidden room, they found a large pentagram on the floor, with a black mark in the middle of it. It was a burn mark. Rumor went around that the doctor went crazy and killed some people. When his wife found out, he had killed his whole family and then burned himself alive.”
    “Is that it? What is so scary about that?” Bridget asked.
    “Now for the scary part, my dear Bridget, they found something written on the floor; inside the pentagram, written in blood was the words: IN FIVE YEARS.”
    “What about five years?” Rosa asked.
    “Who knows, I just tell the story,” Joel told her.
    Aaron saw the fear in Rosa's eyes, he put his arms around her and said, “don't worry about it, Joel said it was an urban legend and those stories are never true.”
    “What's the big deal about coming here every year anyway?” Bridget asked. “I don't think it is that scary of a place.”
    “Cause the idea of what happened here is exciting,” Joel said.
    “Besides, we need to do something tonight,” Aaron said. “We are too old for trick or treating.”
    “Do you guys realize that we are the same age as the doctor's twins?” Rosa asked.
    Aaron and Joel looked at one another; Joel rolled his eyes and Aaron smiled.
    “On that note, let's get busy and get everything ready for the younger generation,” Bridget said.
    “Get everything ready,” Rosa said as she looked around and began to walk up the stairs. “we don't have much to do here.”
    “I'll do the kitchen,” Bridget said, then she pointed at Joel and Aaron and said, “you two work on the library and the living room.”
    “I love a woman who takes charge,” Joel said after Bridget left the room. “This is going to be the best Halloween ever.”
    “Those kids are gonna get the scare of their lives tonight,” Aaron said.
    A loud scream echoed throughout the house.
    “Rosa!” Aaron yelled.
    Bridget ran out of the kitchen and the three of them ran up the stairs. They found Rosa hysterical in one of the rooms, she pointed towards the far wall.
    Joel looked to where she had pointed and said, “oh, shit man!”
    Bridget stared at the rust colored stains that covered the floor and wall. “Blood?” She asked.
    “Yeah and a lot of it too,” Aaron said as he moved closer to the wall. “It's old, dried up blood.”
    “This must have been the twin's room, cool,” Joel said. “Well, at least we don't have to worry about putting fake blood in here.”
    “Let's just finish getting this place ready,” Bridget said.
    “Good idea, it's almost midnight,” Joel said.
    Aaron told them, “I'm beginning to have second thoughts about this; I have a bad feeling.”
    “Ha, I knew you were nervous; listen man, kids have been coming here for five years now and nothing has happened, no one has been hurt.”
    “It's never been, IN FIVE YEARS, either,” Rosa said.
    Ignoring Rosa, Joel said, “let's go downstairs and work down there, we don't have much time.”
    Everyone went downstairs and continued with their work.
    “I'm going to the bathroom,” Rosa said. “I'll be right back.”
    “Just hurry up,” Aaron told her. “We are almost ready here.”
    “Like I am going to go off exploring all by myself in this creepy house,” she said and walked out of the living room.
    “Do you think one of us should go with her?” Bridget asked.
    “No, she will be ok,” Aaron told her.
    Joel laughed and said, “besides, we would be able to hear her scream if something happened.”
    They continued to work on horrifying the house and forgot all about Rosa.
    A loud bang echoed throughout the house. The three friends jumped and screamed as one, “Rosa!”
    “Oh, shit! I forgot all about her,” Aaron said.
    “We have to look for her,” Bridget said.
    Joel said to her, “she didn't scream, she screams at everything.”
    Aaron and Bridget looked at Joel; Aaron said, “that is why we have to look for her, Rosa would have screamed after hearing that damn noise.”
    “Good point,” Joel said and followed Aaron and Bridget out of the room.
    “We will start with the downstairs bathroom,” Aaron said.
    The bathroom downstairs was empty, so they walked up the steps to the second floor. When the three of them walked up to the door, Aaron knocked. There was no answer. He slowly opened up the door wide and Bridgett screamed. The bathroom was covered in blood, fresh blood.
    “Where is Rosa?” Bridget asked almost hysterical.
    Joel was pale, his eyes never left the gore before him as he said, “no one is in there.”
    “She must have got hurt and came out of the bathroom to find us,” Aaron said.
    Bridget looked up and down the hallway and said, “Aaron, if that was what happened then where is the blood in the hallway?”
    “Huh, what do you mean?” Aaron asked.
    Bridget pointed in the bathroom and said, “if she bled that much, and walked out into the hallway to get us, don't you think that blood would be in the hallway too.”
    Aaron looked at the rug in the hallway; there was not even one drop of blood on the floor.
    “I don't like this,” Aaron said.
    Joel said to him, “she didn't just disappear into thin air.”
    “Let's check out the bathroom, shall we,” Aaron said.
    “I'm not going in there,” Bridget said.
    Joel told him, “me neither, it's your girlfriend.”
    Aaron walked into the bathroom, while Joel and Bridget waited in the hallway. Blood was splattered everywhere; Aaron began to worry about the condition Rosa would be in if they found her. It did not look good with all the blood that had spilled. “There sure is a lot of blood in here.” He walked toward the small window over the toilet, careful not to slip on the red liquid. Aaron opened the window and looked out. “I can't see down there, it's too dark.”
    “Aaron the window was shut,” Bridget said.
    “Yeah genius, we are on the second floor, how did she shut it again from down on the ground,” Joel said to him.
    Aaron turned to look at them and said, “it didn't hurt to look and besides where else could Rosa be if she didn't go out the door?”
    Bridget took over the situation again. “Let's split up and look for her, I'll look downstairs; Aaron, you check the rooms up here and Joel, look outside.”
    “Yes, mam,” Joel said and went downstairs.
    Aaron stepped off the toilet and said, “I don't like this.”
    “Maybe this is a sick joke that Rosa pulled on us, to scare us,” Bridget said.
    “Yeah right, you know Rosa as well as I do; she isn't capable of coming up with something this elaborate. Shit, she is scared of fake blood.”
    “That is true, I'm going downstairs.” Bridget walked away.
    Aaron stepped out of the bathroom, out into the hall and began searching the rooms.
    As Aaron began to open the door to the room with dried blood, a scream sounded from downstairs. He ran down the hall and the steps three at a time. Bridget still screamed as Aaron ran into the kitchen. He stopped dead in his tracks and stared. Blood was splattered all over the kitchen. The back door was now red, instead of white.
    “I'm getting the hell out of here!” Bridget screamed and ran for the door. She slipped in the blood and fell to the floor.
    Aaron went to help her, but she pushed him away and stood up on her own. Bridget reached the door and turned the knob, but the door would not open. She pulled and pulled on it, but it would not open.
    Aaron walked to the door and tried turning the knob and pulling, but nothing happened. He and Bridget looked at each other, than they both ran to the front door. Aaron reached it first. It would not open; both doors were shut tight. They were trapped.
    “Now what are we going to do?” Bridget asked. “Rosa and Joel are dead and we are next.”   
    “They are just missing,” Aaron yelled at her.
    “Yeah, their dead bodies are missing,” she shouted back.
    Aaron was not paying attention to Bridget; something over her shoulder had caught his eye.
    “What's wrong? What are you looking at?” Bridget said and turned to see what Aaron stared at, she saw it too. “A hidden door in the wall?”
    “Hidden doors! That is how Rosa and Joel disappeared,” Aaron said.
    “That also means, we are not alone.” Bridget turned toward Aaron and said to him, “we are trapped with a killer.”
    “Happy Halloween.” Aaron did not smile.
    The grandfather clock nearby began to chime.
    BONG, BONG, BONG, BONG!
    “That clock was not working before,” Bridget said.
    BONG, BONG, BONG, BONG!
    Aaron said to her, “it does now.”
    BONG, BONG, BONG, BONG!
    The old house fell silent; it was midnight.
    “Whose idea was it to scare the kids tonight?” Bridget asked.
    “It was Joel's idea.”
    “You think,” Bridget began, “that we were the kids he had in mind?”
    Aaron looked at her for a moment and said loudly to the room, “All right Joel, you got us; come on out.”
    “Joke's over Joel,” Bridget hollered. “Rosa, you can come out now.”
    There was only silence.
    “Come on,” Aaron said. “I guess the joke isn't over yet.”
    “What else could he do to us?”
    Aaron took her hand and said, “with Joel, anything is possible.”
    They walked silently to the open door in the wall. Aaron and Bridget walked inside; it was a hallway, lit up with candles. The two of them walked toward a door at the end of the hallway. Aaron opened the door, the room was empty except for all the candles and chalked out in the middle of the floor was a large pentagram.
    “Oh, my God!” Bridget said.
    Aaron looked about the room again, there was another door. He walked toward it, as Bridget stared at the pentagram on the floor.
    “Joel has one hell of an imagination,” Bridget said.
    Aaron reached the door and turned the knob, the door opened and he looked inside. “Oh, shit!”
    Bridget moved toward Aaron. “What did Joel do now?” She looked inside and screamed.
    “I don't think Joel did anything,” Aaron said as he pushed her from the doorway. He walked inside and heard Bridget crying outside the door. Aaron looked at his best friend and girlfriend; their bodies were cut up badly. They were hanging from their ankles. Blood still dripped from their lifeless bodies. Aaron could not hold it in any longer and threw up. When he finished and cleaned his face, Aaron asked Bridget, “you ok? They are dead but it's going to be all right; we will get out of here. Bridget?”
    She did not answer him.
    Aaron ran out the door, she was gone. “Bridget, where are you?” He walked out of the secret room, down the hallway and back into the living room. The whole time he called for Bridget, only silence returned his call. “Oh shit, not Bridget too.”
    He wandered the downstairs looking for Bridget. He heard a noise from upstairs, over his head in the room with dried blood. Aaron ran up the stairs two at a time, reached the door and flung it open; the room was empty. He walked into the room and saw the bookcase slightly pulled forward. It was another secret passage.
    Aaron walked in; candles lit the way down some stairs. The steps ended in a room, the same room as his butchered friends. “At least I don't see Bridget in here.” He quickly walked toward the other door.
    He went into the room with the pentagram; lit candles now sat on the floor. He heard a noise across from him, in the shadows. As his eyes adjusted to dimness from the candle light, Aaron saw a tall figure. “Who the hell are you?” He shouted. “Where is my friend?”
    The figure moved closer into the candle light.
    Aaron saw Bridget; one strong arm around her waist and the other holding a butcher knife to her throat. “Let her go,” he screamed.
    The figure laughed and said, “You all are brave coming here, especially tonight; even after my warning, it's been five years.”
    “That's only a legend.”
    The figure stepped out of the shadows and his face was lit up by the candles. “Is it?” He asked.
    Aaron was repulsed by the man before him, he was burned and flakes of charred skin hung off his face.
    “In five years, I was told to come back and finish my work,” the man said.
    “You’re the doctor.”
    “At your service.” The doctor bowed, stood back up and said, “I'm trying to please my father, so I can live forever. This is my last sacrifice, the thirteenth and you can witness the greatest power of all.”
    Aaron glanced at Bridget and asked, “father, what father?”
    “Satan, my boy, Satan,” the doctor said and walked to the center of the pentagram. “Care to join me and live forever?”
    “No, thank-you, I'll pass this time,” Aaron said as he looked at Bridget again.
    The doctor looked shocked and he asked Aaron, “don't you want to live forever?”
    “No, I don't,” Aaron said. “Are you alive or dead?”
    “I am alive, my master kept me alive for five years so I could come back and finish my thirteenth sacrifice. All these years, I hid out here just waiting for tonight. Waiting is real hard when all those kids kept coming here every year. Anyone could have been the one, but my father wanted me to wait five years and now is the time.”
    While the doctor talked, Aaron pulled out his pocketknife and opened it. It was worth a shot, the doctor was still alive; what other choice did he have. He suddenly had a thought, what if he did not die? Aaron would have saved Bridget, but what about the kids that would surely come tonight. Aaron asked the doctor, “what would happen if you do not get your thirteenth sacrifice tonight?”   
    The doctor looked at Aaron, smiled and said, “that won't happen; you can't stop me. So there is no point in even trying.”
    Disgusted by the doctor's lopsided smile, Aaron said, “no, that is true, I can't do anything to stop you. I'm just curious, hell you are a legend and I want to know everything. Since you’re not going to kill me, I can let your legend live on forever.”
    The doctor smiled again and said, “if I don't get my thirteenth sacrifice, which I will, my father would be very angry with me. He will cast me into hell where I will burn for eternity.”
    “So you wouldn't get another chance,” Aaron said.
    “No, I wouldn't, this is my only chance at everlasting life.”
    “Good, glad to hear it.” Aaron threw the knife, praying it would hit its target. It was a dead on throw.
    The butcher knife fell to the floor and so did the doctor.
    Bridget turned, looked at the man and said, “good throw, your grandfather taught you well.”
    Aaron walked to the doctor and looked down on him. The knife struck him right between the eyes, piercing the brain. As they watched, his body caught on fire. The flames continued until the body was nothing but ashes, then the fire died out. “Have fun burning in hell for eternity,” Aaron said. “Let's get the hell out of here.” He reached down and grabbed his knife; then took Bridget's hand.
    They walked out of the secret room and into the living room. As the two walked toward the front door, it opened. Aaron and Bridget looked at each other and said at once, “it opened!”
    A group of young teenagers walked in.   
    Bridget and Aaron walked by them and out the door. He stopped, turned toward the group of kids and said, “you kids have a good time.” Aaron turned and followed Bridget down the steps. Just as they were getting into the car, Aaron and Bridget heard a scream from inside the house. Aaron smiled at Bridget and said, “Happy Halloween!”