The Red Light

THE RED LIGHT

by

ROBERT KISKADEN

Copyright © 2012 by Robert Kiskaden

All rights reserved

Published by Robert Kiskaden at
Smashwords

Cover Illustration Copyright © 2012 by
Half Hill Books
Cover design by Robert D. Kiskaden, Robert C. Kiskaden, Paula
O’Cull-Kiskaden
Book design and production by Half Hill Books
Editing by Paula O’Cull-Kiskaden
Cover photograph by Robert C. Kiskaden

Chapter 1

Teddy lay there in bed staring at the
ceiling, there was a faint light coming in the window from the pole
light at the corner of the house, the covers were pulled up to his
nose. He heard a thump under his bed and then a sound like
something crawling on the floor and he lay there in fear with eyes
wide open looking around the room. Suddenly there was another thump
and a few seconds later he felt his mattress move beneath him like
a hand pushing under the bed and letting go making him bounce and
coming back to a silent stand still.

He held his breathe so he could hear
every little noise in the room. There was a low sound that started,
he couldn’t make it out at first, but it got louder and louder, it
was breathing, a raspy, rough breathing coming from under his bed.
Then with the breathing there came scratching noises from under the
bed, nails digging into the hard wood floor, and as quickly as it
started it suddenly stopped. Teddy was frozen with fear.

A bright red light shined beneath his
bed and lit up the room, the boy could see a shadow on the wall, it
was low on the wall down at the base board, and it looked like
someone was crawling from under his bed.

The boy heard a rough, shaky voice
saying, “I’ll be back boy and we can play, you like to play don’t
you?” Teddy lay silent and still too scared to move. “Aw, come on,
and talk to me, get to know me and we’ll have lots of fun, you’ll
see. Now, don’t go telling your mom and dad about me or… The unseen
figure paused and laughed loudly, so loud that it hurts the boys’
ears. “Or, I will kill them Ted. I will cut them open and eat them
alive,” the voice said and laughed uncontrollably.

The light suddenly went out and his
room was dark again, there were no sounds and it seemed like hours
passed before he was able to pull down the covers a little bit and
check to see if he was alone.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Teddy and his family had just moved
from Illinois to a rural town in Kentucky on the Ohio River. His
father, Mike Heathrow inherited the house from his Aunt Penny
Dreary that had recently passed away. It is on a large farm and
there isn’t a neighbor in sight, the closest one being over a mile
away. The rock and mortar house was quite intimidating it had been
built in the seventeen hundreds by Mike’s ancestors and made of the
stone from the ground it stands on. It has three stories of rooms
and an addition that was built on about twenty years ago. The house
has been through major events in history; former owners had slaves
and it has been said that many people had died on the property
during the revolutionary and civil wars.

Mike and Sarah have been married
eleven years, he is tall and thin with short brown hair and Sarah
is petite with long red hair. Teddy is nine and his younger sister
Mary is seven. Mike was a lawyer in Chicago, and when he inherited
the house in Kentucky he and Sarah decided that it was time to get
out of the city and get some peace and quiet for once in their
lives.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

The next morning Teddy woke to his
mother calling his name. “Teddy, wake up, it’s time to get ready
for school,” she said as she picked up his dirty clothes from the
day before.

“
Mom,” Teddy
said.

“
Yes dear,” she
answered.

“
I don’t like this house,
can’t we move somewhere else?”

“
No, we just spent our
first night here; you’re not scared are you?”

“
Well, maybe a
little.”

“
Give it a chance. It’s
just a new room, in a new place and in time you’ll love it here; I
know it,” she said while rubbing his hair away from his
forehead.

“
Yeah, I guess
so.”

The children sat at the table eating
cereal while their father got ready for work, he is opening an
office down town to practice law and has begun to do the paperwork
necessary for him to work in Kentucky. Their mother was getting the
school bags ready making sure they had everything they needed for
the day when they heard a thump sound coming from the basement door
in the hallway by the kitchen. Mary and Teddy looked at each other,
frightened but never said a word; they hurried to finish their
breakfast, got their school bags and waited by the front
door.

“
Well, you two are anxious
to get to your new schools, aren’t you?”

Teddy and Mary looked down the hallway
silently, and shook their heads yes to their mother.

“
Come on, I’ll walk with
you two down to the bus.”

The three of them walked down the
gravel road to where it met the pavement, Mike went by slowly
waving at them with a big smile on his face. It was fall in
Kentucky, which means at 7:00 AM it is cold, dark, and usually
foggy, they could hear the bus coming down the road long before
they could see it, it pulled up and the doors opened, the children
got on the bus and waved goodbye to their mother. As the bus pulled
away Teddy looked toward the house, in one of the upstairs windows
he thought he seen something, he looked closer and could see a
figure standing and waving out at the window, cold chills went down
his spine, he looked away quickly and stared down at his
feet.

Chapter 2

Sarah slowly walked back to the house
and looked around outside at the tall stone walls while admiring
the craftsmanship and the hard work that went in to building such a
house. Her eyes traveled to the third floor where she seen a small
window that looked to be covered on the inside to block out the
sun. She went in the house and up the stairs to try and locate the
room; she found a small door that looked as though it were made for
a child, she was impressed at how the door was hidden into the
wall, there was no handle, just a small crack with barely enough
room to get her fingers in to open it. The door popped open and she
had to duck down to get inside.

It was dark and musty smelling, she
found a light switch and flipped it on and the room lit up. There
were books everywhere, on shelve, in boxes, and a large pile on an
old wooden desk on the opposite side of the room in front of the
covered window. She walked over to examine the window to see if she
could remove what was blocking the sun and found that it was a
thick board that was nailed into the window frame.

Sarah spent a long time
going through the books, blowing the dust off of them and looking
for any titles she recognized. On the center of the desk she found
a journal and was excited to see that it was the diary of Mike’s
Aunt Penny. She continued looking around the desk; Sarah found
several other diaries that his aunt kept in this secret room; she
opened one that was dated just two months before she died, as she
began to read it the light bulb in the ceiling fixture exploded,
the loud pop frightened her and she let out a little squeal. Now
the only light in the room was what came in the small doorway from
the hall. Suddenly she felt like someone was watching her and
instantly there was a very cold breeze that blew throughout the
room; at that moment Sarah thought of every ghost story she ever
heard about how ghosts’ and cold breezes go together. She quickly
grabbed a couple of the books and left the room as Sarah got into
the hallway suddenly the small door slammed shut.
Oh my God, did something just close that
door?
she thought to herself as she
hurried downstairs not looking back.

She went back downstairs and laid the
books on the kitchen table, as she walked past the sink she slid
and caught herself on the counter, looking down she noticed a
coffee cup was broken on the floor and coffee was everywhere. Sarah
cleaned up the mess, still trying to figure out how it happened but
couldn't explain it away, and she wondered why no matter where she
went in the house she felt like she was being watched.

All afternoon she unpacked and
straightened things around the house. She had been putting off
taking the basket of dirty clothes to the basement for when the
washer and dryer get hooked up. Sarah had a fear of basements; ever
since she was a child she was to afraid to go down into them, but
she was older now and felt kind of silly to still be so scared.
When she opened the basement door the cold, stale air came up to
meet her. She stepped down slowly, looking side to side all the way
down, she made it to the washer and put the basket down on the
floor beside it in and stood there leaning against the machine
looking around at the basement.

It was huge and dark and cold, it was
a mess from the move, boxes were stacked everywhere and a lot of
clothes were hanging waiting to be moved to their proper rooms and
closets. In the back corner there was a little room that looked to
be sturdy and the door had a lock on it but she was too afraid to
go back and check it out so she stayed by the washer and dryer near
the steps. Sarah could hear a sound coming from the corner where
the little room was, she stood still frozen in fear, the sound was
like heavy breathing and she thought she seen something move that
looked like a shadow. The breathing got faster and faster and began
to sound like there were little growls mixed in, she ran to the
steps going up as fast as she could and right before she closed the
door she seen the light go out.

She got a cup of coffee and went
outside to sit on the deck. It was relaxing to look at the leaves
that are changing color and listening to the water flowing in the
nearby stream. Sarah began thinking about the events of the morning
and trying to reason out what happened. It was just her fears
getting the best of her, being in a new house and getting used to
the quiet surroundings are going to take some adjustment. She
wasn't a child and had to get past these irrational childish fears,
but some part of it had to have happened, it couldn't had all been
in her mind.

Chapter 3

Teddy was in his classroom, he wasn’t
making many new friends yet, except for Jeff one of the boys in his
homeroom. He asked to be excused and went to the restroom and sat
in a stall with the door closed and locked. Teddy could feel his
eyes getting heavy; he was so tired from barely sleeping the night
before and was still hoping it was all a bad dream. He started
dozing off when suddenly he heard a toilet lid fall down, slamming
loudly and making him jump.

He could hear a low and steady
breathing then it got rougher and louder, he looked at the floor
toward the next stall and seen a faint red light. He was trying to
control his breathing and stay calm but it wasn’t working, and he
had chills go down his spine when he heard a scratchy voice talk to
him.

“
What’s wrong Ted, you
don’t want to play here either? You just aren’t any fun at all!”
The voice said as he started laughing harder and louder, it hurt
Teddy’s ears and he had to hold his hands over them but the sound
was too loud. Teddy looked at the floor and there was blood running
under the other stall toward his feet, he closed his eyes and
started screaming still holding his ears with his hands.

The next thing he knew, he was being
shaken by a teacher who was trying to calm him down, he was still
holding his ears and kept his eyes closed.

“
Call his mother and I
will try to calm him down,” his teacher said to another lady that
came into the restroom after hearing the commotion through the wall
into the classroom next door. She helped Teddy up and took him to
see the school nurse. The nurse tried to offer him something to
drink but Teddy just sat in a chair staring at the wall, he
wouldn’t look at anyone.

“
We think he’s in shock,
Mrs. Heathrow,” the office secretary told her on the phone, “we
have no idea what has happened to him and we need you here
immediately.”

“
Yes, of course, I will be
right there,” she said while trying to find her keys.

On her way to the school she kept
thinking about the secret room and the books she had found, and how
scared she was in the basement, Sarah explained it away as just her
being afraid and she let her imagination get the best of her and
her fears, but it seemed so real.