Why did I have to come here? Why couldn’t I have just left it well alone? Oh, right. Curiosity. My damned curiosity. Everyone’s always said that curiosity killed the cat. I just hope that that remains a saying.
“You’ve heard the story, right?” John had said to me earlier that morning. “About that old Norton house?”
I’d raised an eyebrow, ignoring how my heart had seemed to quicken. That old house has so many ghost stories attached to it that it’s ridiculous, and while I’m not exactly the biggest fan of ghosts, I also have the common sense to not buy into the scores of ghost stories surrounding the Norton house – or even the entire concept of ghosts, really.
Afraid of something that doesn’t even exist. Hilarious, right?
“Which one? There’s a new one every week.”
John had looked around furtively before leaning in and lowering his voice.
“This one actually sounds legit. I heard it from Carol, who heard it from Reggie, who was actually there. He said he was walking past and heard a scream. Like, from a little kid. He went to take a look but…no one. The place was deserted.”
“Sounds like he was on the happy juice. You know he’s attached to his drink.”
“I know! But he swears he heard the scream! And…you’ve read the paper, right? Of course you have. You know about Maisie Walker. How she went missing two days ago and nobody’s seen her around?”
The look I’d given John had been rather sceptical.
“So, what? You think someone offed Maisie in the house and now she’s haunting the place?”
“I dunno. Just telling you what I heard.”
I’d smiled and thanked John for his information. Any ordinary person would just brush off a story like that and continue on with their day. But not me. I had to know more; to see if a dead body was really there.
Just call it journalist inquisitiveness. And that leads to why I’m here now.
As I approach the house, I muse about the reasoning behind somebody choosing to commit a murder in a run-down old dump like this. Sure, it’s got the secluded factor down pat, but it’s one of the first places you’d think to look if you heard about somebody going missing. Or maybe the ghost stories work in its favour. Maybe there are so many stories around the place that everybody simply dismisses it as another spooky tale. It might explain why the police haven’t investigated here yet in their search for Maisie.
Or perhaps the killer was desperate and wasn’t thinking straight. Contrary to what people seem to see on TV, not all murderers are scheming, plotting psychos.
“Hello?” I call as I push the door open, despite cringing so hard on the inside that I’m surprised my body doesn’t shrivel up. Anyone who’s anyone knows that the first rule of horror is to never give away your position – which includes calling out into a ‘haunted house’ – but I’ve never been one for thinking ahead anyway. Mum always called me a doer; ironic, considering that my job consists of a lot of thinking.
I grimace when I close the front door behind me. The entryway and living room are dark, illuminated only by the moonlight peering through the cracked walls and broken windows, and there’s so much dust everywhere that I could probably bounce right back up if I happened to fall over. There’s a set of footprints leading away from the door – clearly visible, even in the dim light, because they’re the only things in the damn place that are only covered in a faint sheen of dust – and so I follow them, slowly treading away from the entrance. My senses are heightened, taking in every little detail in every direction – from the cloth-covered couch and dusty table, to the creaking floorboards under my feet, to the way the pale light flickers between panelling and windows and even to the thick taste of decay in the air. I wonder how long this place has been dead for.
The place is so silent that when a door slams somewhere nearby, I nearly jump out of my skin. Goosebumps erupt all over me when the terrifying sound of a little child laughing wafts out of a room; the room that the footsteps are leading to. Despite being scared out of my senses, I follow the footsteps as if by muscle memory, pushing the door open as carefully and quietly as I can. There’s no dust on the handle, so someone’s already been here before me…and gone into this very room.
‘If John’s pranking me, I swear to God I’ll slit his throat and dump his body here,’ I think in furious fear. My heart’s pounding so fast that I’m surprised it hasn’t beat out of my chest yet like in some weird Looney Tunes cartoon and it’s impossible to keep my hands steady as I wipe them on my shirt to dry them of sweat.
This room must have been a bedroom when the house was occupied, judging by the massive queen bed over by the window. There’s a chest of drawers up against the opposite wall, so covered in dust that I can’t quite tell its original colour, and what I guess to be a writing desk and chair near the bed, both covered by a tarpaulin. The room’s pretty bare by bedroom standards.
As though in a trance, I ghost over to the bed and stare down at the faded red fabric. The dust is scattered in a way that suggests that the duvet has been recently moved and so, my heart beating so fast that I’m starting to get chest pains, I kneel down and lift the duvet with nearly uncontrollable hands so that I can look under the bed.
There’s something there. It does look like a body, carelessly stuffed under the bed as though the killer had been in a rush, and when I reach out and touch the object, I recoil when my fingers meet cold, dead flesh. My hand is sticky with blood when I yank it back out and tug the duvet back down to cover the underneath of the bed, and that’s when I hear the child’s laughter again – though this time, it sounds like it’s right in my ear.
“H-Hello?” I stammer hoarsely, my head whipping around to try and find where the sound’s coming from. I wouldn’t put it past John to have come and set up a recording somewhere to terrify the heck out of me…especially considering the alternative.
‘There’ no such thing as ghosts,’ I tell myself firmly. ‘No such thing as ghosts.’
I wipe the blood off my hand on my shirt jerkily, making a mental reminder to burn the shirt later or at least dispose of it where nobody will find it and implicate me in this mess. For now, I know I have to get out of here. I’m almost at the door to the room when something flickers into existence in front of me. A strangled, choking sound escapes my throat.
“No…”
In front of me is a child. Maisie Walker, to be exact, and it’s not just from the newspaper article that I recognise her from. She’s staring up at me with cold, dead blue eyes, her blonde hair framing her deathly pale face, and she’s wearing a pink shirt and blue jeans, both covered in blood from the many, many wounds littering her body. Her throat looks like it’s been ripped open by a serrated knife and allowed to spill blood all over her chest.
“Oh my God,” I whisper. Maisie flickers for a moment, then solidifies with the creepiest smile I’ve ever seen. A smile like that should never be seen on a kid’s face, even if they’re possessed – or dead.
“Welcome ba-ack,” she sings, her voice darkly joyful. “Do you want to play with me now?”
She laughs – the same laugh I’d heard earlier – and holds up the object in her hand. It’s a knife. A serrated knife that I know for a fact was the one to cause all those lacerations all over her body.
Just like the one I’d grabbed out of my kitchen the other night.
‘Ruby Kisses’
Jessica Wren