Tandem of Terror (33 page)

I continued to the house and discovered dark
woods looming behind it. I didn't like the look of them. They were
harsh and uninviting. Somehow I knew I had to avoid them. Instead,
I focused on the house as I stepped from the field and into a
barren yard.

A yard of dirt lay beneath my feet, no grass
or trees. It was as if nothing dared to grow in the presence of the
house. I turned my gaze back to it and studied it. Its white paint
cracked, dirt and mold crusted some of its walls. Windows were
broken, screen doors dangled on hinges and shutters buckled in the
wind with echoing clatter.

One of the curtains wriggled suddenly as a
shadow whisked by the window. Movement...there was movement in the
house. I thought it was unoccupied, long abandoned because of some
mysterious tragedy. It had fallen into near ruin, but there had
been movement. Something was inside the house.

For a moment I stood frozen, rooted to the
spot. I squinted to get a better look through the windows but could
make out nothing more. I still too far away. I needed to get closer
but inside me screamed at me to go no further. Despite the cries
deep inside me I knew I had to, I really had no choice.

Finally I walked up to the house and touched
one of its walls. It felt old and brittle ready to crumble at my
touch. I scaled to the front where a dilapidated porch, supported
by ragged beams, awaited. It was stripped to the bone, ravaged by
termites and other vermin. The scent of rot crossed my
nostrils.

I stepped onto the porch stairs, they whined
from my weight. Puffs of dirt and dust clouded into the air. I
glanced through the holes in the roof of the porch and spotted the
black birds again. They continued circling in eerie silence.

Giggling resounded inside the house.

I stopped at the screen door, the mesh screen
hanging from its seams. The storm door behind it was wide open, a
doorway like an ominous mouth that longed to swallow me, taste my
flesh and savor my soul.

I took hold of the screen door, pulled it
open with little effort. It was unlocked. Somehow I knew it would
be. I thought a low growl rose as the door opened but I wasn't
quite sure, it was fleeting, in the background of my awareness and
I brushed it aside as the door yawned with a deafening creak. I
cleared its wake and stepped into the shadows.

Shafts of sunlight streamed through broken
windows but did nothing to cleanse the chaos that awaited me. It
was the kitchen of the house and I witnessed the aftermath of what
looked like a terrible disaster.

Shattered dishes littered the floor and the
counters. The cherry wood kitchen table was slopped with rotting
food while flies buzzed joyously about it. Cabinet doors hung open,
the faucet dripped steadily into a rusted sink. Wallpaper, adorned
with fruit baskets, peeled off the walls in ribbons

A stench so putrid swept through the room and
burned my nostrils. The linoleum floor was faded and muddied with
hints of red on it. I realized then that there were a lot more red
stains throughout the room than I first noticed. Scarlet splashes
fanned across the walls, the counters and the dormant appliances.
It was as if a psychotic painter took his brush and ran amok,
spreading paint at will.

Giggling caught my attention again and I
turned to look at the door that harbored the cellar stairs. I
watched as the door silently opened and behind it stood a little
girl.

She was small and fragile looking, innocence
glowed in her gray eyes. Her dark hair was in a bob and made her
look that much more angelic, a cherub at first glance. I noticed
she was pale, too pale for such a lively looking girl. Her skin was
like powder as if it could blow away like dust in the wind.

She wore a little white dress with pink laces
and ribbons and black Maryjane shoes that gleamed in the sunlight.
Her face lit up with a precious smile, sending shivers through me.
She glanced down the cellar stairs then back at me. I knew she
wanted me to follow her down into the cellar, into the
darkness.

A damp musty smell filled my nostrils as I
descended, I could feel mold on the stair rails as I approached the
earthen chamber. The little girl swept slowly down them not a sound
emanating from her, not a creak, not a peep. She radiated with a
soft glow. It was the only thing that kept me from losing her, from
getting swallowed by the thick, invasive and merciless gloom.

When I reached the bottom of the stairs a
light popped on. The little girl stood directly under it, the cone
of light christening her. She looked me dead in the eyes. A chill
went through me, icy fingers tracing my veins, probing through my
body, moving through my soul.

Her hand lifted and she pointed a finger to
the floor, I looked down and within the sphere of amber light I saw
a scattering of white feathers, there must have been dozens of
them. They were bright white, almost phosphorescent and as I got a
better look at them I noticed speckles of red spotting them...more
blood I surmised.

The little girl's face was expressionless,
but I couldn't help but be saddened by the scene around me, the
gathering of feathers. Their beauty and purity tainted.

I approached the feathers, bent and took them
up. They were soft, and the most delicate things I had ever
touched. Their euphoric scent filled my senses, I longed to be in
another world just then.

Suddenly the little girl spoke. "A rage of
angels," she said grimly.

I looked up at her and my eyes filled with
tears. I let the feathers fall from my fingers, and they sailed on
a mysterious wind blowing through the subterranean passage, rolling
and spinning about the room.

Many of them settled under the windows in the
back of the cellar, boards were nailed onto the windows to keep out
the sun and whatever prying eyes sought to discover its secrets.
What prying eyes? The house stood alone, a lonely sentinel, a
monument to solitude. The feathers seemed almost drawn there.

"
The dark runs deep in this
place," the girl said and pointed at the windows. "They come once
more..."

Like the feathers, I was drawn to the
windows. I walked slowly to them and reached for the boards that
covered the one closest to me. Their wood was weathered and
brittle. The boards must have been as old as the house, perhaps
they were part of it, somewhere deep inside it, old wounds
protected. I had a feeling this house hid many wounds.

With ease I pulled the boards free and peered
out the window. The sun was dying in the distance, setting the sky
aflame with dusty orange and salmon hues. It was near dusk and I
was staring at the back of the house with the dark woods. Now I saw
figures standing in the woods. Shadowy, tall, watching me,
staring...

How many were there? For some reason I
couldn't count. It was as if my brain forgot how to do it. I knew
there was a multitude but it was unclear what the number was. They
just stood and stared. It was the most uncomfortable feeling in the
world and I couldn't run. Where could I run? Nowhere.

I blinked and they moved, although I didn't
see actual physical movement they were closer now. Some might have
had wings, shadowy wings of little substance, an illusive feature
made up of shades and sunsets. One or two ascended into the air and
left the fearsome woods and I was reminded of the circling black
birds above the house or were they birds at all?

They moved no further and I began to notice
that they gestured to me, beckoned me as if to join them. I would
never join them...those woods were something more terrible than this
house. I refused to go but it did not deter them. They gathered
together and called me.

Another soft growl caught my attention, like
the one I heard earlier, it wafted with the wind outside. It seemed
to spook the figures within the woods as they shuffled about and
took flight, spreading their wings they soared out of view.

I turned back to the little girl and saw
tears rolling gently down her pale cheeks. A chill swept through
the cellar and I shivered, pushing myself away from the window and
back to the center of the room

"
I'm sorry," she said. I
didn't understand and I tried to ask her why but my voice could not
be found, as if I had forgotten how to speak. I held out my hand
again and she shook her head.

She made her way past me and headed back up
the stairs. I followed her but still had no idea what she wanted or
why I was here. None of this was making any sense.

We made our way from the kitchen to the
living room where another strange spectacle awaited. The room was
filled with tree branches and brush. There was some sort of pattern
to it all but couldn't understand it. These piles of tree limbs and
twigs and bark stacked into piles formed a shape that I should have
recognized but didn't.

The walls shook suddenly and I nearly
tumbled. An earthquake? Fear crawled through me and I felt the
house moving, shifting, what in God's name? I took hold of the tree
branches for support and their sticky sap coated me. The smell of
evergreen pine filled the room. Something rolled from beneath this
gathering of branches, this invasion of nature, this foundation of
wood like an addition to the walls, the room... the entire house.

The house stopped shaking and I saw the
object, it was fragile and pale, like the flesh of the girl who
still stood in the room with me. I bent to pick it up and it was an
eggshell. How could it be? There couldn't be eggs of this size in
existence. The shell crumbled in my grip and fell to the floor like
confetti, catching stray beams of dying sunlight and cascading to
the floor like glitter.

Again I tried to call out, but the girl cut
me off---

"
They are no longer yours,"
she said. "None of them are." She pointed at the eggs and then to
the piles of branches. "These rooms, those walls, the floors are
not yours either. This world. It is no longer yours."

Damn her, why didn't she just come out and
say it? I wanted to know why I was here and... why she was showing me
these things? I just wanted her to leave me alone!

Both fear and anger fueled me as I ran back
into the kitchen. I slammed against the door to the outside but it
wouldn't open. That noise came again, the growl, right outside the
door now. Somehow I knew it was after me...hungered for me...unending
hunger, insatiable, searching, waiting...hunting.

I backed away from the door and ran from the
kitchen. I found myself in the longest hallway I had ever known.
The hanging light above me swinging back and forth, made me feel
dizzy. Shadows danced on the walls, I swear some of them had wings,
something was familiar about them, their shapes and sizes.

A room glowed at the end of the hall, its
light warm and inviting, but I was afraid. I heard singing...sweet
singing, but I refused to go. I couldn't go...it might mean my death.
That's what she wanted!

The little girl was trying to get me to go to
the end of the hall, into the light where death waited. I wouldn't
be so easily deceived!

"
You must go..." the little
girl begged.

No! Never! I would not march blindly to my
death. She couldn't make me go. She couldn't. I returned to the
kitchen in a storm, frantic, heading towards the cellar stairs.

"
This is no longer your
place," she whispered after me, a bit clearer in her statement but
still no less a riddle to me. I have never lived here. This wasn't
my house. So, why did I insist on coming here...over and over agai--
-

The house shifted again and I fell down the
cellar stairs, rolling over every cold step, my surroundings
spinning madly. I hit the bottom hard and looked up. She was
standing at the top of the stairs, that infernal girl, shooing me
with her hands, still crying.

A pile of pure white feathers surrounded me
only they were no longer so pure. Blood stained them and I noticed
with such horror and repulsion that I was lying in a pool of it,
deep crimson, the smell of death in the room, claw marks in the
blood, on the walls, all over the room. Claw marks?

Pulling myself up, I studied the cellar once
more now and noticed the strands of hair matted in the blood. Who's
hair was it? What kind of hair...it couldn't have been mine... I didn't
have hair.

Movement at the cellar windows caught my
attention and I was drawn to them again. The trees were not the
same. They were massive and towering. Had they grown to gargantuan
proportions? Was that the shaking of the house? The figures
appeared in the woods again and squatted on tree limbs. They
beckoned me still.

"
They are yours."

Her voice came from behind me. She was in the
cellar again. "You belong with them. Go to them."

I cannot go to them. What in blazes was she
talking about? Why won't she leave me alone? Why does she force me
to see these strange things... from the moment I flew in here...I
mean...what? No...since the moment I walked in here...walked...yes...

She was confusing me. Trying to trick me. I
felt rage build inside me. I turned to face her, this revenant,
this specter that refused to let me be and finally, finding my
voice, screamed at her with all of my strength except only a chirp
came out.

I screamed again and still more chirping.
No...it couldn't be...

"
Fly away," she said to me.
"It is time for you to go to them. Join your kind. This life here
is ended fly to your new one."

Fly? Tears filled my eyes. But I can't fly? I
looked down at my hands but they were not hands at all.

"
Stop coming back to this
place to relive the nightmare. It's no longer your home. Fly to
your new one."

I had wings. I looked down at them and then
at my body. It was covered in white feathers. Some of the feathers
fell from my body, speckled with blood and to the bottom of my
feet. But they were not feet... they were talons. I looked up at the
little girl and understood. It was time for me to go.