Unclean by JesseSprague
Rust flaked off the fence onto Alice's palm and stuck to the sweat. She wiped it along her jeans leaving russet marks. She entered the yard only a few moments after Nick and Hashim.
"You guys are really going in there?" Sarah asked.
Alice didn't look but she could picture her friend, blond braids and low cut nurse costume, revealing little wisps of red lace from her bra. Sarah wasn't a curvy girl, not like Alice, but she projected a bad-girl vibe boys loved.
Boys like Nick. No. No point in thoughts like that. She'd given up any shot at love weeks ago when she first decided to bring her friends here. There was no going back.
Nick and Hashim turned, their gazes going right past Alice. She pursed her lips.
"You scared?" Hashim said.
"It's just a house." Alice shoved through the boys and stalked toward the house. Once in the house's shadow, each step was like pushing through thousands of years' worth of cobwebs. Much like a fly caught in a spider's web, it was too late to turn back. The web had her.
She could still save the others if she just spoke up. But her lips didn't part; they pressed together in a grimace of determination.
The house itself was a two story building, its porch half sunken into the ground. This house was no different from any other abandoned building to the naked eye, broken windows that stared like jagged grins, door once boarded shut but someone had pried the board loose.
"Alice, stop!" Sarah called. "Nick, bring her back. That place isn't safe...it's..."
Alice turned, hands motioning to the plot of land next door, which really had more to do with Sarah's complaint than the house. "The graveyard is over there, Sarah."
"The land is on the same deed." Sarah twiddled with the silver cross that hung between the lace edges of her bra. She dressed dirty, but as Alice had known for the past three years of watching boys chase Sarah, her friend was anything but bad.
"You got some place else to go?" Nick asked.
He knew she didn't. Alice had been talking them into this for the past twenty minutes, both the boys laden with backpacks weighed with booze.
"I'm not going home," Alice said. Her eyes flicked skyward, the moon stared down at her with the stars mostly hidden by clouds. She held her jacket together over her costume—some rayon version of a pirate.
Sarah huffed and stormed through the gate. Alice smiled.
The graveyard disappointed her eyes as she scanned it. Where had proper gravestones gone? Everything was flat now, making it look more like a field than a graveyard. Only in the back where the old plots were, sweeping out behind the house, had tall stones.
She couldn't even tell where her mom's grave was. Lost somewhere in the sea of identical stones.
The house tugged at her, and Alice turned back. Nick's footsteps, or maybe Hashim's, approached, and she hurried off. She had to reach the house first.
Her foot hit the broken wood of the porch, and she sprang up and the spongy wood sank under her foot like wet moss.
***
Nick gripped the shoulders of his backpack to lessen the weight. The girls' should have carried some of the party supplies. Especially Sarah...Everyone knew Alice was off. Ever since her mom died. But that didn't mean she couldn't carry a bottle.
He'd have red marks from where the straps rubbed him.
Alice was worth it. Even if she hadn't offered to help. He probably wouldn't have let her anyhow.
He hopped up the steps as her black curls disappeared into the dark house. He ducked under the broken board partially covering the doorway and stepped to the left to avoid a hole in the floor. He didn't know how Alice missed it with the lights off.
"Alice?"
The moonlight through the windows showed her kneeling facing the far wall.Her slumped form didn't move except for jerky movements of her arms.
Then lights flared on, not one but many candles lit, making Alice's curls dance with the light. She stood, holding a candelabra high. Yellow flickered, licking at her skin, until it looked like the flame caressed her.
"Alice?" He glanced behind him. Where were the others?
Nick heard a shout. Hashim? Was he hurt? The door was shut. Nick was certain he hadn't shut it himself.
"Let's go upstairs," Alice said. Her profile glowed as she turned to the carpeted half of the room toward the stairwell.
Nick paused, torn between his friends who should have entered already and the pretty girl. Getting her alone had been the goal for the night, but none of his imagined scenarios looked like this.
"Shouldn't we wait for the others?" Nick asked.
Alice shrugged. "You can."
Why had they thought it smart to come here? Where Alice's mother's murderer was rumored to have stayed? Nick said, "There's no proof he squatted here."
"It drove him crazy, the voices from the graveyard." Alice stood at the foot of the stairs and looked back at him, between the mass of eyeliner and mascara and the natural dark color of her eyes they might have been black pits. But her lips were redand drawn slightly upward.
If he kissed her, would she let him? Would those cherry lips part. Her eyes dared him.
"I'll meet you upstairs." Alice took the first squeaky step and flung one more comment over her shoulder. "I'm not scared to go alone."
The light retreated, threatening to leave him in the dark.
He followed her and the light. The musty stink of the house grew the closer he got, and he held a hand over his nose. This wasn't just must and mildew...something was rotting up there.
Alice continued to climb.Her oversized cloak rubbed against skinny jeans, only the edge of a bright red skirt peeking out.
***
Sarah bumped into the gate, knocking it shut behind her. Hashim had reached the porch.
She crossed herself.They said that eight people had been murdered here. But it had never been proved that even one of the victims of Simon Douglas had actually been in this house. Still the very fact that Alice wanted to come here made Sarah's skin crawl.
"I can't leave her alone. Ever since her mom died, she's been a wreck but the past month...Something's wrong." Sarah took a few steps closer to the house. "You go in first? Okay? I know it's stupid, but I'm a bit scared."
Hashim shrugged and turned back to the boarded door. Two strides forward and he was nearly at the door."It's just a—" Crack!
The board under his foot split, sending up a shower of most covered splinters and plunging his leg into the dark crevasse. Sarah froze, and the door behind Hashim slammed shut, locking them both outside.
"Fuck!" Hashim yelled. He struggled to pull his leg up but the wood refused to let go.
Sarah ran up to him, the feeling of something being wrong grew the closer to the house she got. She grabbed hold of Hashim's arm and looked into his wide brown eyes. "Hold still."
Sarah knelt beside the porch. Had Nick shut the door? He clearly had a thing for Alice. But why shut them out?
"Okay, pull your leg up now." Sarah latched her hands under his arm and helped pull him up, back onto solid ground. "You all right?"
"I'm fine," Hashim said and then looked down at his leg. The pants were ripped and scratches covered his leg. "We should go in."
A red hand print, right next to where his leg had been moment before caught Sarah's attention. Not the way real hand prints happened, but clear as if someone had purposefully made it. She knew how hard that was after trying to do presents for her parents from her younger siblings...any movement and the print just smeared. Sarah shook, like a child who'd just left a pool after hours of swimming, only it wasn't a cold night.
"Look at it. Look." Sarah pointed.
The gate behind them creaked, pushed in a nonexistent wind.
"Blood," Sarah said, backing toward the exit. "They don't want us here."
"They?" Hashim asked
She glared refusing to say. He knew. She scrunched her eyes closed. "I have no idea why Alice wanted to come here. It isn't right!"
"You don't belong here." Came a whisper.
"None of us do, Hashim."
"What? None of us do what? We need to find our friends," Hashim said his voice distant. By the door. He couldn't have been the whisperer.
The gate resisted her as she tugged, rust crumbling off under her fingers. Sarah gave up and reached into her purse, pulling out her cell phone.
"Come on, Sarah. I don't want to go in alone."
"I'm going to call Alice's dad...or the cops. This isn't right, and going in there isn't going to help a thing."
"Fine." Hashim twisted the doorknob, and to her surprise it opened, revealing the dim flickering light of candles.
Sarah let her phone lower. If she called Alice's dad and this wasn't an emergency, Alice would never forgive her. And what would she even tell the police? A door had shut?
Hashim stepped through the doorway, and Sarah bolted up the broken path, not wanting to be alone, or to leave him alone. As her foot touched the first porch step, a shadow crossed between her and Hashim. Human sized, but not human.
"When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man," Sarah whispered."He walketh through dry places, seeking rest and finding none."
"They enter and dwell there," a voice replied.
Sarah spun, but only the empty graveyard and the overgrown lawn were there.
And by the fence, standing on the old graves with the tall headstones that Alice so admired, were five shadows.
Sarah stepped back a battle raging inside her. Five out here. How many inside? They said this house had driven a homeless man crazy, whispering to him, coaxing him. But houses didn't do that. The devil did. And the only thing that scared the devil was God.
Her friends were in there.
Sarah strode into the candlelit room.
***
Alice stood at the top of the steps and watched as Nick leaned out the window in the far room. She slunk away from him.
"It's you," the whispers came. "You led them here.You'll kill them."
"No."
Alice glanced behind her into the second bedroom. The floorboards were broken leaving a deep gash revealing what had once been the kitchen. In the corner was a cot and on it a slumped body, flies buzzing around, maggots falling from the eyes.
"Don't be angry, Daddy. I know you didn't want me bringing people here." Alice crossed the creaking floor. "I need someone to know."
Voices laughed.
A scream, deep and masculine ripped her stupor.
Nick. No. This wasn't right. She only wanted it to end, for them to be quiet. She held her head, too fuzzy to make sense of anything, and ran toward the scream.
The second bedroom slanted forward, so the window at the far end of the room gave a view of only the graveyard, never sky. But this time, Nick's body blocked most of the view. His upper half hung out of the house, glass embedded in his torso.
He wasn't screaming.Did I push him? Did they? Is there a difference?
A shadow twirled in the corner, and with one long willowy arm, it set down a candelabra with eight candles. Red wax dripped down to the floor. Alice approached and stared into the shadow. It wore her face.
In its black eyes, she saw her father again, jabbering in the corner. She'd found him after living alonein their house for two months, but nothing she said made any dent in his ramblings. He'd come after her and that was the first time the voices whispered to her.
Their bargain had made sense then, until her father's blood coated her hands.
The shadow laughed.
Alice grabbed Nick's pack and pulled out a heavy bottle of whiskey. She unscrewed the lid and spun, letting the amber liquid make a graceful arc in the air as it splashed out over the room. She grabbed on more bottle before she lifted the candelabra. Tears flooded her eyes, but she didn't let them fall. She touched the flame to the crumpled wallpaper.
***
Movement flickered in a partial pane of glass off to Hashim's right, and thinking it was Sarah's reflection, Hashim looked. A free peek at cleavage was always nice, and he didn't want Sarah to catch him staring.
But when he turned the room was empty except for the dark corners that seethed like living beings. He could see how someone could imagine this place was haunted.
A scream echoed from above his head. He backed up into the room. The old kitchen stood directly behind him and a horrible smell wafted out.
"Hashim!" Sarah's voice.
He couldn't see her.
"Hashim, I'm over here, come, please," Sarah's voice again.
He followed it, hand groping along the wall. And then he saw Sarah, her hand had wrapped around her cross and blood dripped from the bottom.
A second scream.
"Shit." Hashim started toward the stairs, but Sarah grabbed him and linked her free hand in his.
He climbed ahead of her, and at the top of the stairs, he saw Alice. Was that blood on her jeans? And what was that smell? He managed a few more steps before the stench stopped him. Bile rose in the back of his throat, stinging his eyes and nasal passages.
Alice is completely insane.
Sarah stood behind him, her face red with tears and drips trickled down her face.
He finished climbing the stairs and saw them, Nick and Alice. What had she done? What was she doing?
***
Liquid arced out, splashing toward Sarah and Hashim.
The flame touched the wall and Sarah understood. The house. Without the house they had no home. Opening her mouth let in the odor of the house which clogged her throat. Forcing words past the lump felt like ripping clumps of hair from her head.
"Run!" Sarah shouted as the first flicker of flame burst up.
Hashim turned back to her.
"I'll stop it!" Alice howled. The bottle poured out onto the boards.
Sarah ran. A voice inside her screamed for her to stop, to go back. But images of blackened skin, red flesh peering from beneath hounded her to. The flame never touched her, but she heard the beep of a heart monitor. Imagined what it would be to not even be able to beg for death, her mouth so destroyed words wouldn't come.
Sarah fled out onto the lawn she stared back up, coughing as black smoke billowed out. Heat seared her face but she turned it to the door. No flame there, not yet. Come on. The black doorway taunted her.
I left them.
Come on.
The black in the doorway moved. Was that a figure? Hashim?
Then she saw the yellow eyes, and the door slammed shut.