Nightcrawler Tales: Open House (3 page)

  
Downstairs, Andrew hung his head.

  
He'd been right. They were perfect.

  
The house had them.

  
4. Sunday, 7:24 pm

It wasn't the phone call Andrew expected.

  
"Just wanted to see how the open house went," his neighbor said.

  
"Not bad," Andrew sighed. Two hours in the Taylor house had drained him both physically and emotionally. He wasn't in a talkative mood. Besides, it wasn't like Steve from next door was a long, lost friend
–
he just liked to act that way.

  
"That's good news, buddy. I wasn't around that first hour so I didn't get to see what kinda turn-out you had. Any interest?"

  
"Maybe," Andrew said. "You never really know until the phone rings."

  
"Did anyone... anyone ask..."

  
Andrew closed his eyes and shook his head.

  
Please don't go there, Steve.

  
"Hey! You see what happened to your tree?"

  
Andrew rubbed his eyes. "What about it?"

  
"It was the darnedest thing. Not a cloud in the sky, then
–
BAM!
–
a bolt of lightening hits that tree o' yours and sends a limb fallin' into the street."

  
Andrew perked up a bit. "Really?"

  
"It was crazy strange," Steve continued. "I was gonna get it for you, but there was some young guy out there before I even had the chance. He looked at your house, I think. Him and his pregnant wife?"

  
"They did," Andrew answered. "I've got to let you go, alright?"

  
"Sure! I'll talk to you later, buddy. And remember? Me and Helen are praying
–
"

  
Andrew hung up before Steve had a chance to say goodbye.

  
It didn't surprise him to hear about the limb and how it had fallen. It had all seemed a little too perfect at the time. In fact, if Mike and Danielle had told him about the fawn, that wouldn't have surprised him either. After all, he'd walked through the house as a buyer once. The house had a way of reeling you in if it wanted to.

  
Andrew got up from the bed and began to pace back-and-forth across the seedy motel room that had served as his home for the last several months. It was a mess. There were books stacked in a misshapen pile on his nightstand: large volumes that detailed the history of his small town. Papers were scattered across a table near the window: genealogy records about the people who'd built the Taylor house and their dark past. And, of course, somewhere in the disorder, there was a tattered diary, all that was left of that family now, every horrendous detail documented by a helpless little girl.

  
Are you really going to do this to them, Andy?

  
He took a framed picture from his nightstand: he and his wife in the park with their daughter. The picture had become something of an addiction since losing them. Holding it was a compulsion that left him depressed, not only because he'd lost his family, but because looking at it always made him feel a bit further from the life he once enjoyed. The picture was only a few months old, but that day in the park seemed like a lifetime ago. He studied the photo. His appearance had changed drastically in the time since it was taken. His face was thinner now, his hair gray around the temples. Dark bags were a permanent fixture beneath his eyes. He'd aged a great deal since that outing, but his wife and daughter looked exactly as he remembered them. Well, as he
wanted
to remember them.

  
He set the picture aside, worrying a time would come when he'd look at it and wonder if he'd ever been a part of that family at all.

  
The call he was expecting came shortly after the first.

  
Mike and Danielle hadn't had any trouble finding a realtor. The woman on the phone explained that she would be submitting an offer for the full asking price first thing in the morning. Andrew explained the house was for-sale-by-owner, and the realtor asked a few questions about that before saying goodbye.

  
Andrew set his phone on the bed.

  
My god
, he thought.
It's over.
It's finally over.

  
But it wasn't. Something wasn
'
t right. The weight he'd been carrying for months hadn't lifted from his shoulders as he thought it would.

  
His thoughts turned to Scott and Linda, the first couple to visit the house. He'd known right away they wouldn't be a good fit. Sometimes he felt guilty about his useless talent, judging people the way he did, and yet, he'd only been wrong that once. He saw the couple and immediately spotted a man who was likely to drink himself into a stupor and a woman whose eyes were likely to wander to other men when he did.

  
The house kicked Scott and Linda out in a matter of minutes.

  
Isaiah had been much harder to read, but when he started talking about his son, hinting at a bitter break-up, Andrew knew the house wouldn't want anything to do with him either. He'd lost a lot already. There wasn't much for the house to do there but pick the bones.

  
But then there'd been Mike and Danielle.

  
First loves share a giddy optimism that seems naive to those who have forgotten how great it can be. Unscarred, it's only in that first relationship that we give our hearts away completely. Love is rarely as all consuming as it is the first time around. And for a couple to find true love their first time out? That's special.

  
Mike and Danielle were special. Andrew knew it. So did the house. It wanted them. Theirs was a world worth wrecking.

  
They don't deserve this, Andy.

  
He crawled into bed, ashamed. Was he just as bad as the monsters waiting inside the house at 51 South Taylor? Was he worse for doing the home's bidding?

  
He tried to convince himself it was out of his hands but knew that was a lie.

  
You have to tell them
, he thought.
You can't let them buy that house.

  
He sat in silence.

  
And what would you say, genius? The house is haunted? They'd laugh you out of the room.

  
He took the picture in hand once more, hoping the family he lost would inspire him to save another.

  
You
could tell them what happened...

  
Andrew studied his wife a long moment then shot a quick glance at his daughter in the new sled they'd taken to the park that day. He loved her so much, but her smile was starting to look more and more like the empty grin she'd worn in the house on the night everything ended. He found she was getting harder to look at despite his compulsion to sleep with the picture in bed beside him. Had the house clawed its way inside of her that soon? He looked away, convinced a day would come when her eyes would be black as they'd been on that final night in the Taylor house. Her eyes had looked so strange. Some might have compared them to black glass, others to the color of midnight. But Andrew knew the truth. It was a color he knew all too well.

  
It was the color of blood in moonlight.

  
He held the picture to his chest as a child might a stuffed bear or fuzzy blanket. He lay down and pulled both knees into his chest. This was how he fell asleep these days: every light on, like a toddler afraid of the dark.

  
Tell them what happened...

  
Mike and Danielle hadn't found their dream home.

  
Their dream home was a nightmare.

  
And it had found them.

  
THE END

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Now it's your turn!

  
I looooove a good haunted house story! When they're good, they keep you up at night. But when they're great, they can make you ask questions about your own home: Why does the floor creak? What's that stain on the basement floor? Why won't that tree in the yard bloom like the rest? Why can't I sleep? It's three o'clock in the morning, dang it! There's a story in all those questions, and I'm hoping you can come up with a few questions of your own.

  
Write a story of 500-2000 words about the night you first came to realize your house was haunted...

  
Start in your bedroom. You're up past midnight. Everyone's gone to bed, but you can't sleep because the house is filled with the smell of chocolaty goodness. Your mom made cupcakes, and while she promised you one tomorrow, you just can't wait. You have to have one. Now!

  
You climb out of bed, slowly tiptoeing into the kitchen. You sneak one of the treats, and its just as good as you expected. When finished, you wipe the icing from your face with the sleeve of your pajamas and start down the hall once more. But you don't make it far. You stop dead in your tracks when you hear a strange scratching sound in the hall bathroom. You inch toward the door, sure that all you've heard is a tree branch scraping the window. But as soon as you're in the doorway, the toilet seat pops open, then falls back into place, letting you know that those scraping sounds have come from something hiding inside.

  
You take it from there. But remember, subtle is good. Like Open House, this is just a snapshot of a much larger story. It doesn't have to end in a blood bath. Maybe you get in trouble for the cupcake before working up the courage to open the toilet. Maybe you run away and are so scared you refuse to use your bathroom the next morning. Or maybe you get a glimpse at the evil waiting inside your toilet and realize you have to get your family out of the house before something terrible happens. Only you can figure it out... but you've got to start writing.

  
Take your time and be sure to proofread your work when finished. Remember, the best stories will be published to the Nightcrawler website this spring. I usually go through five or six drafts before uploading a book to Kindle. Once you're sure its your best work, send it to me at 
[email protected]
 
along with your name and age. I'll give it a read and let you know what I think. Until then--

  
Happy Writing,

  
Eric Hobbs