450 Cold Springs Rd, Oregonia, OH 45054. This was it. The rusty bridge across the Little Miami River clanked as Derrick's wife Emma drove over it and up the dirt road to their new home. Jenny and Corey in the back were looking out in the woods for animals. Sunbeams hit Emma's face and made her look even more beautiful than she was already. The windows were rolled down and the crisp spring breeze could be felt.
They pulled up to the residence. A massive, tall mansion that they found for surprisingly-cheap on Craigslist. In a time where most houses even a fraction of this size cost millions, they were able to buy this one for just a mere hundred thousand dollars. Apparently its been repeatedly abandoned, so Derrick had one of his cousin's closest friends Murray who was a home inspector check the place over. Derrick knew his cousin would never steer him wrong. Murray checked the place over and assured that it was safe.
And to be blunt, looking at the house now, those concerns felt silly. The residence was surprisingly well kept for an abandoned mansion. The grass was cut. The windows were intact. The paint wasn't chipping. Everything about the house was perfect. There was even a little path to the river for swimming and even skinny dipping if the desire arose. As Derrick flipped the lights on, everything worked. The chandelier was beautiful.
The sky was red from the coming of dusk. No time to swim or enjoy much. Emma prepared a celebratory dinner as the kids watched some shows on the TV in the living room. Derrick went outside and lit a cigar and watched the sunset as he heard the kids giggle and smelled the chicken whenever he lowered his cigar to his side. Life was good.
Derrick stepped inside and called for the kids. "Jenny, Corey, its time to eat!"
The kids shut off the TV and ran screeching and giggling to the dining room table as Emma brought the chicken and sides out.
"Can I have the leg?" Corey asked as he sipped some grape juice.
"Take it easy, Corey. We have to pray first", Emma reminded.
Jenny, irritated, piped up. "Why do we have to say that silly thing?"
"Jenny!", Emma scolded.
Derrick placed his hand calmly on Emma's shoulder and turned to Jenny to calmly explain. "Because if we don't say our prayers, the Lord won't protect us, Jenny. And the demons of the Devil may come at us in the night!" Jenny's face turned white and she quickly joined a similarly-worried Corey in putting her elbows up on the table, clutching her hands up, and kneeling her forehead into them. Derrick smiled and winked at Emma who looked back at him with a smile and a half-eyeroll and they did likewise.
"Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory, forever and ever. Amen."
"Dibs on both legs," Jenny exclaimed.
"Hey," Corey reached over and snatched the second before Jenny could grab it as Jenny blushed.
After the four were done watching TV after dinner, it was time to give the kids a bath.
The only problem was the mansion was so massive that nobody really knew where the bath was.
Derrick decided to make it into an adventure. "Okay kids, its time to go on a safari! We're going to go upstairs and try to find out where we're bathing and sleeping tonight!"
The kids giggled and followed Derrick and Emma upstairs. As they walked upstairs, they heard thunder outside, and rain hitting the windows downstairs. All of the rooms ahead of them seemed alike. An impossible labyrinth laid before them.
Opening each door revealed a guest room, an entertainment room...but no bedroom and no bathroom.
As they went up another flight of stairs, with a bang of thunder, the power went out. The kids screamed and started crying. "Its okay it was only thunder. We're almost there, just a few more steps," Emma reminded them.
"I wanna go back downstairs!", Corey exclaimed.
"Well if we do that then we'll have to go to the creek to bathe. Together, outside, in the middle of the rain." Corey scrunched his face up in disgust at Derrick's suggestion.
"Buck up, Corey!" Jenny said. "There should be some candles in the bedroom we can use to see?"
"That makes sense - this place is old. It should have candles." Emma replied.
The four continued upstairs. Door to door, and no guestroom or entertainment room had any candles. Thankfully their eyes had grown adjusted to the dark, so they weren't blind as bats.
After searching each room, they decided to go up the next flight of stairs.
Next floor, same deal.
Next floor, same deal.
After thoroughly searching the next floor, Corey exclaimed, "I'm scared! I'm going back downstairs to sleep on the couch!" and ran back downstairs.
"Corey!" Emma shrieked. "We have to stick together!"
"Let him go. Its safe. We're at home, for crying out loud." Derrick replied.
"Scaredy cat!" Jenny screamed down the stairs at Corey.
After searching the floor they were on, they went to go upstairs, but Emma was sweating and glancing downstairs, so Derrick said, "Okay, go check up on Corey. I'll search the rest of the house with Jenny here." Emma nodded, and rushed down the stairs as Jenny skipped upstairs and Derrick followed.
Jenny bopped each door open as she ran down the hall and Derrick rolled his eyes and went in each one, checking for at least a candle. Nothing
Next room, nothing. This was becoming frustrating.
Derrick went down the hall. Jenny must've run up the next flight of stairs. Silly girl. Derrick followed.
Upstairs, he found more of the same. But at the end was a doorway, not another stairwell.
Looking around for Jenny, he figured she had turned this "safari" into a game of hide and seek. He swore he heard giggling on his way up.
Ignoring Jenny, he went over to the master bedroom door and pushed it open.
Such a luxurious bedroom. A chandelier hung from the ceiling. And over the bed was a painting. A picture of Abraham about to sacrifice his son to God. And under the painting was the prize - one candle sitting in a candle holder, with a matchbook next to it.
The lights came back on.
The picture changed. Abraham, looking up with tears as the flames engulfed his son and God sent rays of the sun down upon his face in approval, seeming almost to lick his tears from Abraham's face. "GLORY BE TO GOD" was written all over the walls in red letters, and in other languages, including ones he didn't recognize. Derrick's heart was racing. Suddenly he heard the sounds of slurping and drooling and farting behind him and he pissed his pants, soiled himself, and turned around. Before him was a man with no face - in its place was a giant mouth surrounded by tendrils that looked like earthworms writhing about what looked like an anus that was sucking him inward. Derrick was paralyzed with fear and couldn't scream. He shrank in his fear and suddenly the "face" towered over him and began to pull him in.
With the touch of each earthworm he could feel his mind being flayed by pure pain. Each time his life flashed before his eyes. So much pain. So much darkness, and yet so much light. His entire body, mind, and soul being molested and penetrated. Derrick screamed but there was no sound. He could feel all he was - his body, his memories, and his very soul, being stripped away bit by bit. But there was a light at the end of the tunnel. God did not forget him in this hour. He reached out to God. Save me, God. Save me in my darkest hour, Derrick cried. What was God, though. What was my name? The capacity to remember had left him. The capacity to even form words. To think.
Wha..wh...
The baby cried as the doctor pulled him out.
"What shall we call him?" Thomas asked his wife, Sally.
"Derrick." Sally replied.
Smoke on the horizon and the sound of gunshots. This mansion was remote, Johnson thought to himself. It would have to suit his family for the night. Slowly they left the SUV and moved up the stairs as little Lacy pointed her AR-15 into the woods as her dad trained her, ever-vigilant for looters and enforcers.
Such a pristine mansion surely had to be already occupied. Lacy heard a rumor that a family bought the place and disappeared without a trace with their SUV found abandoned in the drive way and maggots crawling over eaten chicken bones in the trash outside, but that had to be just an urban legend. Thankfully that fear might keep the very-real monsters away. Lacy and her dad thus agreed this was the perfect place to hunker down.
They came in, opened up their rations at the dining room table, Jenny shedding a tear for her mother, Johnson's wife, Laura, who was killed on her way here, and solemnly prayed.
"Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done..."
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from Short Stories
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