Horror House Presents

Broadwick House

Suddenly, almost out of nowhere an old house comes into view, much bigger than either of the couple expected. The house is two stories tall, made out of blocks of local limestone, the yellow colour almost perfectly preserved from the effects of pollution and acid rain. The windows are all perfect and in place, none of the old panes are broken, but the wooden frames they hang in are slowly rotten away.

The whole property is broken off by the typical stone walls which litter the countryside. From their[tbj1] point on the slope of the hill, Jo and Leon can make out that was once the yard is overgrown with grass at least three feet high. The old coach driveway is long overgrown, running down to an old farm track almost a quarter of a mile from the house.

"Is that the house?" Jo asks, pointing towards the house before doubling over out of breath, forced to take a drink from her water bottle.

Leon pauses, dropping his bag on the slope and pulls out the map that Dean provided them with. In a typical ordinance survey map of the area, the house is circled in black ink. with the map, Dean also gave them a photo of the house, which to Leon's relief matches the house in front of him. What annoys him though is that he spots the road off in the distance, and he has been walking with Jo for almost an hour when he could have driven up to the house.

"That bastard made us walk for miles and there's a damn road right there, can you believe that?" Leon complains.

"Yeah I spotted it a bit ago, the guy is an asshole, I don't know why you hang around with him."

Leon sighs and folds the map up and pushes it back in his pocket, knowing he will need it to find his car again when they leave.

"I don't, he's a friend of a friend. I don't know how that guy has friends, but he's a bit of a dick."

"Ha just a little, the guy is the biggest asshole I have ever met. Needs his ass-kicking."

"Don't tempt me, come on we don't have much time, we need to get in the house."

Picking his bag up Leon throws it over his shoulder and grabs Jo's hand and leads the way to break in the wall where he guesses a gate once stood so the owners could access their land next to the house. Out of the corner of his eye, something catches his attention, one of the spirits has seen him and knew he was coming. Leon though doesn't catch it quick enough and fails to catch a good look at it, but he will soon.

Walking into the yard Leon pauses and stares at the grass, something is off, and he can't place his hand on it. Then it hits him the grass, the grass is flat like someone has walked through there, and not that long ago.

"what is it?" Jo asks, her eyes darting in the low light to catch what her boyfriend is staring at.

"look there." Leon says, pointing to the flattened grass before he continues. "the grass is flattened, and there like someone has walked through her in the past few days. And if you look over there you can see that a car has recently driven up to here."

Jo studies the grass and can't deny that Leon is right. There is a clear path from an area which looks like a car was parked recently, leading right up to the front door. Damn it, Dean, what have you got waiting for us? Leon thinks to himself, not wanting to worry Jo, not if he doesn't have to.

Leading the way Leon follows the path through the long grass, forced to walk slower as the wet grass squashes under his feet. Now closer to the house he can see that the stone walls look dirty and the windows are covered in years of dirt, built up so much that they are tinted black. He thought he would be able to spot they were dirty from a distance, but he didn't. A closer look at the window frames and he can see that they are rotten almost fully away from the stones. The wood is almost completely stripped of the paint, which he guesses was once white. There are chunks of wood which have splinted off, and the one closest to him on the right has lost almost all the wood from the bottom. Leon is surprised that the glass is still held in place, but he makes the quick assumption because the other three sides are still relatively whole.