An Inhuman Place

         I stood at the front door of the Harper House wondering how my friends had talked me into doing something so incredibly stupid. The large, rotting, decrepit blemish of a building towered over me, casting a long shadow that made me irrationally uncomfortable. Realistically, it was impossible for the rumors to be true, but stepping onto the property had brought an ominous feeling in the pit of my stomach.

         Every neighborhood has that one house which every kid on the street will tell you is either haunted or once belonged to a serial killer. I used to move around a lot when I was younger so I wasn't a stranger to that. In fact I had been dared to go inside these so called cursed places before and came out just fine. But there was something about this one that just made a shiver run down my spine, even in the ninety degree weather.

         The windows of the house were dusty, and boards covered all of them on the first story. The paint on the siding was peeling as well, creating an ugly, chaotic patchwork of green and faded gray. The dare had been to break into the place and steal something, which I had argued at first because realistically there would be nothing in the place. It had been almost twenty years since anyone had lived there, or at least that's what I had read online.

         I grasped the knob, lingering for a moment as I tried to get the courage to open up the door. Thoughts of it creaking open slowly, revealing a tall, ghastly looking butler materialized and I felt my pulse quicken slightly. Finally I twisted the doorknob. It was locked like it was supposed to be.

         I let a relieved sigh escape my chest. I walked back down the porch steps which creaked underneath my feet and began to walk around the side of the house. There was an intrusive feeling that I had dodged a bullet by the door being locked, but I knew rationally in my mind that there would be nothing in there but dust bunnies and a few colonies of insects. A part of me pleaded to turn back at that moment.

         The only problem with that was the thirty bucks I had riding on it. Looking at the house from across the street, it seemed like a cakewalk. I wasn't so sure it would be as I rounded the corner into the backyard, but I wasn't going to give up the thirty bucks without trying. If I could not find anything to bring back with me, I had to take a picture of myself in the attic, where a woman named Amanda had apparently poisoned three children before hanging herself. I wasn't going to leave until I produced the results I needed.

         There was an old tire swing rocking back and forth with the gentle breeze. Hedges that might have looked nice before becoming an overgrown mess lined the perimeter, and beyond them a tall rickety fence stood against all odds. As I stepped onto the back porch, I could hear children playing. Without looking back over my shoulder I assured myself that it was simply the neighbors, or someone walking by. I grasped the doorknob and somehow I knew in that moment that it would open for me.

         I twisted it slowly, and hesitated for a moment before pushing the door open. I was greeted by a long, gloomy hallway with nothing in it. Light came through the cracks in the windows illuminating some parts of the room, but it only served to darken the shadows that surrounded these minor havens. Against every instinct I stepped into the house, half expecting it to swallow me.

         Miraculously, or perhaps not so miraculously, nothing happened. I was simply in an empty house that the world seemed to have forgotten. To the left of me was the kitchen, so I decided to look around in there first. Though most of the shelves and drawers were empty, the appliances had remained. I allowed my eyes to drift over the ancient appliances which were connected by cobwebs similarly vacant to the house itself.

         I turned to walk out of the room, deciding there was nothing to be found. Suddenly, something caught my eye. There was a bright color juxtaposing the faded grays and browns of which followed decay. It was a bright red apron, I realized. Completely sure that it hadn't been there before, I gawked at it a second. It had to be a trick of the light. Objects can't just appear from nowhere.

         Then why are you so freaked out by it?

         My conscience was right about that much. I walked over to it slowly making calm, deliberate movements like one would if he were trying to outmaneuver a snake. It was as if I expected it to spring up and catch me like some sort of sentient bear trap. As I inched closer towards it I heard a ringing in my ear. As I reached out to pick it up something startled me.

         "This inhuman place makes human monsters," a voice whispered. I jerked my head around suddenly coming face to face with thin air. Those lines, I knew, were from a book I had read from cover to cover countless times.

         My eyes darted around the room at light-speed, trying to figure out where that whisper had come from but the room was vacant. I was literally the only person in the room, and had probably been one of the only souls to set foot in the house for years. I turned back to grab the apron but it was gone. It was time to go, I decided.

         I went to open the back door but found that it had locked behind me. I didn't remember doing it myself, but it didn't matter much. I clicked the lock open slowly, relieved to be free of the house. But I wasn't at all. The door was still locked even though I had theoretically unlocked it. I clicked it in the other direction again and twisted the doorknob hard. It didn't even budge a tenth of a millimeter.

         Then I heard the clinking of glasses in the living room. Every instinct I had told me to just break the door down and run. Thirty dollars wasn't worth dealing with whatever was going on in that infernal place. Yet even then, a part of me was morbidly curious. I could hear faint laughter and chatting like some sort of casual dinner party. Except no one just had a dinner party in an old decrepit house. Finally, my common sense managed to convince me to leave. I turned back to the door, and suddenly my jaw dropped.

         Where there had once been a door stood a solid wall. My brain twisted into a painful knot as I tried to contemplate how it was physically possible. Maybe it wasn't. Maybe somehow I was going insane. If that were the case I'd end up just like my older brother and father, locked up in a hospital somewhere, never to come home. The dinner party was still in full swing in the living room, and I knew that inevitably I'd have to walk right past it.

         I began walking down the hallway slowly. My pulse was slowly building as a fear arose with me. I was terrified of whatever waited for me in the living room, but I was more terrified at the idea that there wasn't anything there at all. Maybe the stress of moving from place to place so my mom could mooch off her newest boyfriends had finally caught up with me. It was a thought that often kept me up at night.

         I was just feet away from the living room then. My heart was kicking double bass pedals in my chest, and I felt beads of sweat forming on my face. I knew that I'd have to make a break for the door as soon as I turned the corner. I'd run past all of those people, or ghosts, or whatever the hell they were and run out the door. I took a moment to get my nerves about me, and then I turned the corner ready to sprint.

         This inhuman place makes human monsters.

         The living room was as empty as the rest of the house, but somehow, at the same time it wasn't. I could feel them, but I couldn't see them.

         They all seemed to turn and look at me then, or at least that's what I felt them doing. I could picture all of them with perfect clarity in my mind, creating a nauseating dissonance between what I could see and what I knew to exist. I hurried past them towards the front door, and as I clicked the lock into the open position they all started to laugh at me. It didn't take me long to figure out why. As I tried to open the door, I found that it wouldn't budge. As I struggled they seemed to laugh even harder.

         "Shut up!" I yelled. They stopped laughing then, and I began searching the room for something to break down the door with. There was nothing of course because the house was empty. The spirits were all that remained.

         An epiphany hit me after a long moment. The upstairs windows didn't have boards over them. It would suck trying to jump from that height but I didn't see much of a choice. My cell phone had broken a few days before and the replacement hadn't come in the mail yet. I could yell out the window but I doubted that anybody would hear me.

         I ran to the staircase, ignoring the low chatter of the otherworldly dinner party. I could feel myself unraveling slowly, and as I climbed each stair I saw visions of myself wrapped in a strait jacket or receiving electro-shock therapy. The few times that I had visited my brother and father at their respective hospitals had been hellish for me. I could barely recognize either of them after months and years of the various treatments they had been put through. They looked more like medicated zombies than healthy human beings.

         As I neared the top of the stairs I swore I could hear someone following me, yet I couldn't look over my shoulder. Deep in my gut I was certain that if I turned around and looked at the entity stalking me that I would be dead in an instant. The stairs seemed to go on endlessly and I could almost picture myself being chased around the famous Escher staircase perpetually, never reaching the top. Finally, panting and out of breath I reached the last step, and as I emerged onto the second floor I felt relief wash over me. It couldn't get me, I knew, though I'm not sure how or why.

         The hallway that extended before me was cloaked in black shadows. As I took a step forward I got the strange feeling that the darkness was beckoning to me. I reached for the light switch, flicked it on and immediately wished I hadn't.

         Her pale hands were dangling at her side carelessly and the dress she wore was nearly falling off. She looked angelic in a way, hovering a few feet off the ground, but this was only because of the noose wrapped around her neck. The other end of the roped was tied around the ceiling fan. The black and blue bruise around her neck contrasted the smile on what little of her face that I could see. The rest was covered a mask that wouldn't look out of place in a New Year's Eve ball.

         Though the rest of her was dead her eyes were still quite alive. They peered out at me through holes in the mask which vaguely resembled a cat. Her gaze was predatory in nature, begging for me to walk past so that she could reach out and strangle me the same way that the rope had strangled her. There were two doors I could go through before I'd have to brave a close encounter. The first one already hung ajar, exposing a filthy looking bathroom. The one after it was closed over.

         The bathroom didn't have a window big enough for me to fit through, so I walked cautiously to the other door. I pressed my ear against it expecting to hear something horrible on the other side, but ended up more apprehensive when it was silent. I opened it slowly.

         The room was completely empty except for a painting on the wall of a hotel situated in the mountains. There was something scribbled beneath it, but I didn't care to look. I wanted to get out of there as fast I possibly could. I hurried over to the window and began to yank on it as hard as I could. When it didn't budge an inch, I cursed loudly. Seeing no other choice, I made a tight fist and punched it as hard as I could. I felt a cut on my hand tear open as the glass shattered. Without stopping to look down at my hand I began tearing the broken glass away, wincing in pain as more cuts opened on my fingers and palms.

         I leaned out the window and looked down. The ground seemed pretty far and there was nothing to cushion my landing. To make matters that much worse it was impossible to shimmy around the sides to a better position. I knew that what came next would hurt even if I landed in the grass. Suddenly, I felt a hand on my shoulder and I thrashed against it, my head still leaning out. Then my body's natural balance began to shift and before I knew it I was toppling out the window, a sea of green quickly growing larger. I didn't even feel it as I hit the ground.

         Somewhere in the middle of my unconsciousness I began to dream. A familiar memory pushed its way to the surface and suddenly I was standing in the middle of the mental hospital. Where the hallways had always been abuzz with orderlies, nurses, and doctors before it was now empty and silent. By then I had memorized my father's room number, and as I walked slowly towards it I could feel that something terrible waited for me there. I screamed when I opened the door and saw what was on the other side. Instead of a man I had loved and trusted my entire life there was an imposter. He was wrapped in bandages from head to toe, his face completely covered except for his eyes which had a grim look to them. Sitting in his lap was a book. One that had belonged to my father. A signed copy of The Shining.

         I woke up in the living room of the Harper House. I was disoriented and bewildered, unsure of how I had ended up back there. But the house wasn't empty anymore at all, and the people that sat all around me were now visible. They all wore masks similar to the hanged woman on the second floor. As I sat up they all turned to look at me and I immediately scrambled backwards, nearly knocking over a shelf in the process.

         "Someone isn't much of a party person," someone muttered. I expected them to pounce on me and tear my soul out at any moment.

         Then someone walked down the stairs slowly, wearing a suit and tie, carrying the same book that I had seen the burnt man with. Where did he get it from? Had he stolen it from my house? That wasn't his property. In his other hand he carried a mallet. I vaguely remembered that it was used for a game called Roque, the ancestor of croquet. When he reached the bottom of the stairs everyone stood and clapped for him.

         "Everyone, the first stage is now complete. Melissa has done her part for us and gave her life to create a place we can exist in forever!" the masked man said. I knew the voice instantly. He hadn't stolen that book at all. The man in the suit was my father.

         This inhuman place makes human monsters. This inhuman place makes human monsters. This inhuman place makes human monsters.

         The words continued to play over and over in my brain. He beamed at me as he took the mallet and began to recite the very same statement aloud.

         "Brothers and sisters, today we will create a blight upon the Earth which has rejected us. We will live in this night forever! Tonight we stake claim over our domain for all of eternity," he continued.

         "It shall be done," the rest of the masked people replied. With a sudden, fluid movement my father smashed the person nearest to him in the face with the mallet, causing her to crumple to the ground. There was a second of complete and utter silence, before the masked people broke into a round of applause again.

         "What are you doing?!" I screamed in horror.

         "I'm doing what is necessary," he replied simply. He smashed the face of the next one in as he laughed hysterically. He too was still after that moment. This process continued for each guest until they all laid still, pools of blood slowly forming a lake between them. My father left the room then, and I was left alone. I tried my best to stand up, but the sheer terror of what I was experiencing kept me rooted in place.

         Why was he doing this? I wondered. But the answer was as plain as all of the references to the book he held is hand. The Roque mallet used to bludgeon them to death, the suicidal woman, and the painting of the hotel in the bedroom upstairs. He was trying to create something similar to what had occurred in that story.

         "Someday, someone will come along that we can feed on. Eventually we'll make our way back into this world as something much more than human," he said as he walked into the room. He now had a canister of gas which he began emptying onto the floor.

         "That was just a book," I pleaded with him, but he was humming to himself. I forced myself to my feet and reached for the mallet which he left sitting on the couch. Before my hand was even close I felt his fist collide with my face. I fell flat on my back and stared up at the ceiling, trying to steady my reeling mind. Then I felt liquid being poured all over me. More specifically gasoline. I watched as he poured it over himself before pulling out a lighter. I closed my mind and listened to the three clicks, and then the subsequent roar of flames.

         When I opened my eyes I stood out front of the house, except it wasn't the same. There was only the burned out husk of what must have at some time been a beautiful home. Watching from the window I saw the boy who was stuck there forever; the boy who had died in the fire so many years ago. He was my younger brother. I had tried to save him from the house and watched him burn to death. I had spent six years trying to come to terms with it. I turned and walked slowly back to my car.

         Though my father had survived the night and would rot for the rest of eternity in that hospital, he had succeeded in his psychotic vision of creating a never ending nightmare.