The Haunting

The First Night

I woke up lying on my bed. It was night out, and the moon shone softly through my window, illuminating the space around me. The muffled sound of crickets chirping and the cry of a single night owl echoed through the walls hauntingly. I stood and stretched, letting out a sigh as my back popped with a satisfying crack. A quiet groan came from the connecting bedroom, cutting through the near silence. I slowly tiptoed towards the door towards the sound.

"Hey Armen, are you awake in there?" I called softly, opening the creaky old door and peeking inside. "I thought I heard you in here."

My friend opened one eye, glancing around in confusion before his sleep-clouded pupil focused on me and glared. Apparently he hadn't been awake after all. He sighed and slowly sat up in his bed.

"What do you want?" he complained.

"Um...." I wasn't really sure what I wanted; I'd mostly just been checking in on him. "Midnight snack again? I'm kinda hungry."

Armen got up and groaned again. "We did this yesterday, man!"

I hung back as he trudged towards the door, rubbing the sleep out of his soft, blue eyes. "I know," I said, "it's just...it's so much more tasty at night!"

He ignored the comment and stumbled through my room, his head hanging with the clinging exhaustion. I felt bad about bothering him so late at night, but I really was a little hungry, and the old house that we lived in creeped me out, especially at night; the jagged edges of the shattered glass window above the front door always reminded me of a giant mouth, ready to come down and devour me. Not to mention the feeling of constantly being watched.

We hadn't lived in that house long, and neither of us were really used to it, yet; though Armen seemed to be settling in faster than I was. We'd really only been there long enough to be handed the keys and unpack the few boxes of stuff that we owned. Not that we really needed anything; the previous owner had left a lot of stuff behind when they moved out, and it really only needed to be fixed up.

For a split second, I wondered how long it had actually been since we moved in. It didn't feel like very long, but I wasn't entirely sure. Before I could ask Armen about it, though, he turned towards me, squinting through the dark.

"Close the door."

His voice surprised me, dragging me out of my thoughts. "What?" I asked.

"Close the door," Armen repeated. "Please."

"Oh," I replied, feeling a bit dumb for not having caught that. "Okay." I turned and closed the door behind me. I tried to pick back up on my train of thought, but it seemed to have slipped away. I decided that it must not have been very important if I didn't remember.

Armen opened the door leading to the main room. It creaked, just like all the other doors in the old house. He glanced over his shoulder at me. "Close that one, too." I spun and closed the door behind me, feeling as if whatever it was that I'd forgotten was actually at least somewhat important.

A chill ran up my spine as we passed the basement door. It always seemed to set my nerves off; there was just something about the basement that I didn't like. I did my best to shake off the sensation, and walked over to the window next to where Armen was digging around in the fridge.

The kitchen sat in the corner of the house opposite the basement door, which was, itself, set into the stairs that led to the second floor. The only bathroom was up there...and the master bedroom, which was covered in dark, rusty stains. We were almost certain someone had been murdered in there, which really didn't help with the creep factor of the house. Needless to say, we only went up there when we had to.