Retribution

(Any resemblance between characters in the story and living persons is entirely intentional. Some events in this story are based on real-life happenings).


Stevie trekked up the moonlit field to the house at the top of the hill. As usual, he was in a state of near-paralysing fright. The darkness, the possibility of being 'got' by some nocturnal creature or simply tripping in a rabbit hole made his blood run cold.

He tried to take his mind off his fears by re-living the evening's events. A meal out with his heart's desire and warm fumbles in the car on the way home made this living dread worthwhile. Especially, he thought, as the meal had not been paid for by himself. He smirked his sly little smirk and felt more pleased with himself than usual.

So it was that he was unprepared for the sight that awaited him as he exited the treacherous footpath and looked at the sleepy house in front of him. As usual, the house had an air of expectation. As if it simply ignored what was happening in or around it as it focused on whatever it was that it expected to happen.

This night though, something really was afoot. An ambulance was parked in the drive and Rob, one of Stevie's house mates, was sitting on a tree stump, head in hands. A body was being carefully placed in the back of the ambulance, face covered. Stevie noticed that there was no sign of Alianne, the third adult occupant of the house.

From an upstairs bedroom he could hear the whimpering and whining of Alianne's dog. Even Stevie, gormless as he was, couldn't fail to put two and two together.

He approached Rob for confirmation of his fears. 'We don't know what happened' said Rob. 'I just found her lying in the hall. She had a terrible expression on her face. As if she'd been scared to death'.

Stevie felt the wind being knocked out of his sails. If his latest paramour was his meal ticket, Alianne had been his free pass in life. He'd relied on her paying for everything as he pleaded poverty and offered her a fraction of what he owed every month for household bills. Far too tolerant and trusting, she had accepted whatever he said he could afford and hoped that he would pay off the shortfall in the months to come.

He scampered upstairs to ponder this turn of events. He knew that Rob wouldn't be a walk-over and fretted about what was to become of him. He had a sleepless night, turning these thoughts over in his head and listening to the dog who was now inconsolable. He heard Rob trying to get him settled, sniffling a bit himself.

Cowering in his bed, Stevie kept going over that phrase 'as if she'd been scared to death'. He well remembered Alianne talking about a presence in the house. He'd always scoffed at the idea when she tried to talk about it, trying to hide is own fears and not alert the 'presence' that he was on to it. Stevie was sure that the house listened too, and would tell the 'presence' anything he, she or it might have missed.

Under Stevie's bed were three coffee mugs, festering and mouldy. They had contained his bed-time drinks but he was always too afraid to take them downstairs in the dark back to the kitchen. As they got more and more mouldy he was afraid of Alianne or Rob seeing the state of them. And so they stayed under the bed, with creeping green mould that Stevie was sure was harbouring something that would crawl out and 'get him' one night. Slithering up the side of the cup and across the floor, making its way up the bed to his pillow. Mould monsters!

Stevie had agitated himself so much he needed to relieve himself. He couldn't bear to go downstairs to the bathroom. He trembled under the covers until the very last minute then dashed through the attic door, conveniently situated in his bedroom, and relieved himself in the eaves. He was sure no-one would notice. The place had already been graced with the pungent smell of rats and, at least this time, he hadn't 'been' in the water tank.

Only because he'd be home all day tomorrow and would likely to be the one using the water. On other nights, when he was sure he'd be out all the next day he'd found the water tank very useful.

As he crept back to bed he didn't notice the 'presence' in his room. In the corner a shadowy figure stood, lip curled in disgust, planning what to do with him.

* * *

Over the next few weeks the atmosphere in the house built up to intolerable proportions. Neither Stevie or Rob wanted to say out loud what both of them had been thinking: that the 'presence' responsible for jangling Alianne's nerves was somehow descending over them. Stevie felt a malevolence lurking just out of the corner of his eye whilst Rob had started to tune into something that Alianne used to mention. He'd started to feel the lure of death, the desire to die and spend eternity haunting the house, its the beautiful gardens and the surrounding countryside.

Rob mentioned his fears to a neighbour who knew the house well. 'Ah, yes' said the neighbour 'that'll be Angela. If you ever hear a footstep upstairs, that will be her. She's harmless, but she loved the place so much no-one was surprised that she wouldn't leave'.

Shortly after that particular conversation Stevie and Rob moved away from the big old house. Rob had wanted to cut loose from his house mate, deeming him a waste of space, but needed some help with the bills. Stevie wasn't too keen to share with Rob either, but needed someone to cook and clean up after him. If they wanted to continue living in the country they had to put up with each other. And so the arrangements were made.

On moving day, Rob felt the sense of regret coming from the house and felt himself being overwhelmed by the sense of wanting to die in it and stay there forever. Shuddering, he felt glad to be getting away.

He noticed the dog, looking at things that he, Rob, couldn't see. He watched the dog turn his nose up at Stevie's discarded breakfast which was so badly cooked that Stevie couldn't eat it. He'd put it out for the rats, hoping that they'd have it but the rats just weren't that hungry. It was left to the less fussy crows and magpies to polish it off. Rob idly wondered how they managed to fly off with their bellies full of something that ceased to resemble food as soon as Stevie put it in the cooking pot.

Rob sighed and got on with loading the van, a job that seemed to be exclusively his. Stevie had wandered off up the garden path claiming he'd seen weeds that needed clearing.

Ah well, if he was as useless at loading a van as he was at doing anything else, Rob wouldn't miss him.

Rob approached the van, straining under the weight of two heavy boxes and heard laughter coming from a black package at the back of it. He froze and listened as a voice said, quite clearly, 'They're all dead. They just don't know it yet'.

He looked around for someone to confirm what he'd heard, but there was no-one. What made it worse was that the black package was Alianne's. Something she hadn't unpacked when they'd moved into the house. Rob had kept most of her things, intending to sort them out for charity when he had got over her death. And now, something of hers was talking to him.

cont...

...cont

He wanted to take it out of the van and leave it in the house, but then he remembered Stevie and all the times he'd been taken advantage of by him. All the times that Alianne had been taken advantage of, too. Rob left the black package and started to think how best to use it to scare the proverbial out of Stevie. Rob smiled, he was still scared but beginning to see the uses he could put the haunted package to.

Finally, the van was loaded up and Rob, Stevie and the dog crammed into the cabin and set off to the new house and their new life together. Accompanied by maniacal laughter all the way.

Rob said nothing but gained some pleasure from seeing Stevie's fake nonchalance.

Unloading the van, Rob managed to get some help from Stevie who hadn't got a big garden to hide in any more. Sure enough, all through the unloading a voice could be heard 'They're all dead. They just don't know it yet'.

No-one said anything about it. Both of them carried on as if nothing was wrong. Although Rob noticed that Stevie wouldn't handle the black package or anything else of Alianne's.

Rob couldn't wait to get the package into the house and see what was inside. He dumped all Alianne's stuff into a spare room and casually asked Stevie if he was interested in going through it. He wasn't surprised to get a 'no' and, bracing himself for whatever was to come, settled himself down.

The package was quiet as he unwrapped it and Rob began to wish it wasn't so late in the day. He glanced out of the window at the twilight but couldn't tear himself away from the package to go and put the light on. As he peeled back the outer wrapper he found himself staring face to face with one of Alianne's action figures.

Still in its box, he found a very impressive eighteen inch figure of Eric Draven, The Crow. It laughed at him in the gathering darkness. Rob looked at a label on the box – 'motion activated sound' it said. But why, he wondered, had this thing never uttered a word before today?

He put it on the floor and walked past it a few times, expecting it to speak. It remained silent. Looking at the many boxes and cases belonging to Alianne, Rob decided he'd had enough for the day and left the room. He'd have some tea to cheer himself up and just hope that none of the contents of the other boxes decided to speak up for themselves. As he closed the door, an eerie voice said 'And I say I'm dead, and I move'.

Settling into the new, smaller, single storey house wasn't too difficult but Rob decided to let Stevie fend for himself. They now enjoyed a modern kitchen and it was time that Stevie learned to cook.

Night after night, Rob would hear screams coming from the kitchen as Stevie burnt himself putting out the fires he'd caused whilst making toast. Night after night Rob ignored them.

For Stevie, the new house was a worse nightmare than the old one. He was hungry due to his lack of culinary skills but, not only that, he was suspicious too. He'd never seen toast going up in flames in a toaster before. And yet it did.

Miserably he'd try to cook pasta instead but, somehow, the water would boil away all too quickly and he'd end up scraping hardened and unappetising pieces from the bottom of the saucepan.

Every night, he'd take his meal to his room, passing the spare room on the way. 'I guess it's not a good day to be a bad guy' – the voice would float out of the room. Every night, without fail.

Stevie knew that the doll could say other things but, always as he passed, that is what it would say.

He started to lose weight and became light-headed due to his lack of proper nutrition. He'd lost his beloved, who had woken up to the fact that Stevie had no intention of ever putting his hand in his pocket. So no more meals from that source.

Broken hearted and hungry Stevie moped about the house, but mostly locked himself in his room. He tried to listen to music and forget his misery but every time the music stopped he'd hear laughter coming from the spare room.

Still, at least now he knew what it was. It had taken him two weeks to ask Rob about it. Two weeks of pretending nothing was wrong. Two weeks during which Rob watched him furtively squirming, waiting to see when he'd finally break and ask about the source of the noise.

If Rob was honest, the doll bothered him a lot. He'd put it on a table in the spare room and would have forgotten it except for the fact that it would not shut up. The thing was supposed to be motion activated and no-one ever went into that room and yet, several times a day, it would start talking to itself.

Once he'd been chasing the dog along the hall. It was wet that day and they hadn't been out for their walk yet. The dog had persuaded Rob to throw a ball along the hall and was happily fetching it. Rob looked out of the window and noticed that now there was only a slight drizzle. Looking at the dog he'd asked 'Do you want to to go walkies now? We might be alright'. As the dog bounded off to find his lead a voice wafted out from the spare room 'It can't rain all the time'.

* * *

This new house didn't have the atmosphere that was so overwhelming in the old one. Bright and modern, it should have been an ideal antidote to the heaviness of the previous abode. Even so, there was that one little pocket of gloom and mystery that never failed to evoke memories of their previous life lived with Alianne and her introspective, strange little ways and fancies.

Rob spent more time in the spare room simply because he had started to miss her. He felt comforted to be around her things, most of which were peculiar and interesting. The doll still taunted him, laughing mostly, but sometimes in the evenings it would say, very deliberately 'And I say I'm dead and I move'.

It took Rob a little while to notice the time that it would speak. But, eventually, the penny dropped. He'd been sitting in the spare room, thinking of Alianne, when he glanced at his watch. His favourite TV programme was due to come on and he didn't want to miss it. As he stirred himself to leave the room the doll spoke 'And I say I'm dead and I move'. Rob felt the chill run up his spine as he realised that he'd found Alianne, lying dead, at exactly this time of day. By co-incidence he'd returned home from an evening in the village ,to watch the very programme that he was now on his way to enjoy, and discovered her.

He gawped at the doll. No. surely not..... He hurried away, only to nearly fall over the dog in the gloomy hallway. The dog looked at him with an entirely inscrutable look. Except that the dog wasn't looking exactly at him. Rob, in his haste, failed to notice that the dog was actually looking just over his shoulder.

Later that evening, as he headed for the bathroom, Rob passed Stevie in the hall and witnessed Stevie passing the spare room. Pressed up against the wall on the other side, trying to hurry past the door, but so scared that his feet would hardly move. And out of the room, clear as a bell 'I guess it's not a good day to be a bad guy'. And laughter, more laughter than either of them had ever heard emanating from the doll.

Rob was completely unnerved and completely glad that he wasn't Stevie. He let the dog sleep on his bed that night, he was sure that he'd feel a lot safer that way.

He hadn't bargained for the dog being such a fidgety, light sleeper. Countless times throughout the night he'd awaken to see the dog sitting up and staring across the room, once or twice even slightly wagging his tail.

A thought entered Rob's mind. It lurked a bit at first, just outside of his mind's eye, but slowly entwined itself amongst the dreams that had been forming in his half dozing consciousness. That doll was scaring Stevie half to death. Stevie, who had so misused Alianne and himself. Stevie who was now trying to help around the house, but did everything so badly that Rob was afraid to leave him by himself, for fear that he'd break something or actually succeed in burning the place down.

Mercenary little Stevie who had made Alianne's last few months on this Earth a nightmare of worry and frustration. Rob drifted further into sleep thinking of all the horrible little things that Stevie used to do to his friend to make her miserable.

When he woke up, late the next morning, he was still dwelling on all the injustices that Stevie had meted out, not just to Alianne, but to himself as well. He looked at the dog, who was now sleeping deeply, and wandered out into the hall. To be greeted with 'Victims, aren't we all?' coming from the spare room.

Rob hurtled into the room 'Alianne, if you're here just tell me' he half screamed. Silence. Not a peep, either out of the doll or the ether.

Rob slunk away, feeling rather foolish. And there in the hall stood the dog, tail wagging furiously. 'Hello, boy' said Rob and knelt to catch the dog as he hurtled towards him. But the dog ran straight past. By the time Rob had got up and looked round the dog was sniffing about forlornly, looking for all the world as if he had lost something precious.

Rob decided to play games with Stevie and mentioned that the dog was starting to see things. He was rewarded by one of those tight little squeaks that Stevie was wont to give when he was frightened but trying not to show it. He was disappointed, though, when Stevie recovered himself scoffed at the idea and flounced off to his room.

However, he peeped round the door as Stevie headed back to his room and noticed that he was moving with even more reluctance than usual. With great suddenness he heard rain pelting against the roof and at that very moment the voice floated out from the spare room 'It can't rain all the time'.

How funny it was to hear Stevie yelp and fly along the hall, slamming his room door tightly behind him as he made it to safety. The first time that the doll had ever said anything different to him had unmanned him thoroughly. Rob snickered and looked down the hall 'Nice one, Alianne' he whispered 'This will be easier than you could have thought. I'll soften him up some more for you'.

'I guess it's not a good day to be a bad guy' the words echoed up the hall. 'No' said Rob 'I guess it's not'.

Stevie sat in his room. He'd been scared in the old house, he'd thought there was 'something there' but somehow he could comfort himself with the thought that it might just have been his imagination, even if he didn't believe it was. He'd known that his mould monsters were just silly, even though he was frightened of them.

He'd always had that one per cent of 'safety' where all the terrors could have just been cooked up by himself. But now, in this house, he was sure that the monsters existed. That doll could no longer be brushed off as harmless, really. He'd used to pretend that he was just allowing himself to be scared of it but that, in reality, there was just a mechanical glitch. No more. Now it was real and, he was sure, it hated him. He was no longer slightly paranoid. It really was out to 'get' him.

The next few days were interesting for Rob who watched Stevie becoming an even paler shadow of himself, right before his eyes. He noticed that Stevie was sleeping in the living room in order to avoid the hallway and door to the spare room.

Rob 'cranked it up a bit' by pointing to the dog every time he was sitting quietly and asking Stevie if he'd noticed him staring at 'something' across the room. The living room, where Stevie had felt safe to sleep.

Stevie started to stay out at night, sleeping with anyone who'd take him in. Rob started to sleep easier because, without Stevie in the house, the doll was quiet. The dog would sleep deeply and quietly, just occasionally wagging his tail as if he was enjoying some loving attention.

Of course, with his limited charms, Stevie couldn't rely on a strange bed every night and one miserable evening he dragged himself home with heavy foot steps and an even heavier heart.

He opened the front door and looked around – all was quiet. He bolted into the living room and was greeted by the sight of Rob and the dog enjoying toast and tea, a film about to start on the TV. 'Hello, mate' said Rob 'this is a good film. It'll be on half the night, though'. Stevie slunk away. He was tired and didn't want to be up watching late night films. He couldn't sleep through it either. His room beckoned from the end of the hall.

He swallowed his pride and asked Rob if he'd very much mind escorting him to his room. Rob suppressed a chuckle and got up, giving the last of the toast to a very grateful dog, who, not wanting to miss anything, wolfed it down and followed the other two along the hall.

The hall light flickered and failed. But, during the flickering Rob and Stevie saw the dog bound joyfully up the hall. They passed the spare room and the laughter started. Stevie buckled in front of Rob and turned to flee back to the living room. “Boo' said Rob.

There in the dark, just as he fainted, Stevie could hear three separate entities laughing. The doll, Rob and one other. He tried to stay unconscious, but started to come to. He didn't want to. He knew Rob and the dog weren't there any more. They were back in the comfort of the living room, snuggled up watching the film no doubt.

So that just left Stevie himself, lying in the hall. Right outside of the dreaded spare room, the door to which was now slightly ajar. Stevie couldn't move. He screwed his eyes up tightly and put his arms over his head. There were no bed covers here to hide under. He tried not to notice the faint glow coming from the spare room. He knew, with absolute certainty that the doll would speak to him soon. He wondered miserably what it might say.

Eventually, it spoke 'Mother is the name for God on the lips and hearts of all children' it intoned. Stevie sat bolt upright. That didn't make any sense, none at all. A malicious little smirk covered his face. The bloody thing was just a doll after all, speaking gibberish. Boldly, he got up. The spell was broken for him. He headed towards his room and prepared for a good night's sleep.

He was lulled into such a false sense of security that he didn't notice the thing in the corner. The same thing that had lurked in the corner of his old room. The same thing that had targeted Alianne.

The same thing that had exploited Angela's desire to stay in the old house forever and been responsible for putting suicidal thoughts into her head.

The same thing who now found itself allied to Alianne, who knew now bounds in her hatred of Stevie and had enjoyed triggering her doll so that she'd had the satisfaction of tormenting him.

But it wasn't her fate to be earthbound forever. She'd had her time to wreak revenge on someone who had behaved disgracefully, not just towards her, but towards her best friend, Rob, too.

It was her energies which had sucked the thing out of the old house and given it the capacity to manifest here in the new one. She'd struck a deal that freed herself and Angela from its clutches.

Angela had found her heaven on earth marred by the presence of the thing and wanted to be freed. She'd done her best to infect Alianne and then Rob with yearnings to die in the house, hoping that the thing would accept their company and let her go. It wasn't her fault that the thing got impatient and scared Alianne to death before she could kill herself.

It wasn't her fault, either, that Alianne was a bolshie little sod who drove the thing to distraction. How it had regretted killing her and binding her, but still it needed company and had to make do with her since it needed time to 'recharge' after the exertions of offing its victims.

How intrigued it was when Alianne offered to help target Stevie as he was preparing to move away from the vicinity of the house, which the thing couldn't leave by itself. All she had needed was something to connect her to the new place and the new victim. And so the idea was born of using the doll. How well it had worked. How much fun she and the thing had had scaring Stevie.

But all good things must come to an end and Alianne had no hesitation about taking herself off to the other side. She would probably spend some extra time in purgatory for her little exploits, but she didn't mind. It would be worth it.

Sorry, I thought I'd need more space for my story but I overdid it a bit.

Bit of background information, as I have the room for it.

At the point in my story where I say there was a sudden downpour - well one happened as I was writing.

I was just wondering where to go with that part of the story and it just pelted down with rain, making a helluva racket, and giving me the idea at just the right time.

Very sorry, I didn't need quite so much space as I thought.

i'm tagging and bumping this for when i have time to read it with no interuptions..

AWESOME!

Thanks everyone.

I was a bit worried about this story being so long and going on, but I wanted to take my time and explore characterization and motivation a bit more. And I wanted to see if I could keep the atmosphere building up away from the original spooky house.

This is the second Hallowe'en story I've written featuring our old haunted house so I'll have to look elsewhere for my inspiration next time, I think

We're in a smaller, modern house now, but it's funny how these things carry over. I wrote a lot of this story in the early hours of the morning when I thought I'd be in a creepier frame of mind and was dog tired by the time I posted, which probably explains why I made such a pig's ear of it.

At just after 6am, when I was finally dropping off to sleep I really did hear 'something that went bump in the night'. It rained solidly throughout that day too, so I couldn't go out.

Later that morning I was in my bedroom with the door closed and found that the handle was stuck when I wanted to leave. I had to call my housemate to open it from the other side.

After that, my h/m (the one who can cook) set off the smoke alarm whilst cooking. I was in the bathroom at the time, door closed and using my electric toothbrush. I heard the shriek of the alarm and, not being able to identify the sound due to the conditions, thought it was my toothbrush malfunctioning and fully expected to be electrocuted

And that damn doll was driving me up the wall. This is true: I've had it for years and it's been quiet, even through three house moves. Then, a few months ago it started laughing and talking while it was in the back of a removal van, during our latest house move. It was in a black bag (and still in it's box, where it's remained) and at first I thought I was hearing something from someone's car radio.

It's been in a spare room laughing and talking to itself, just as I described in my story,even when we were nowhere near the room. There's no traffic to set it off and people rarely walk past the house.

One day I wandered in to get my boots, remarking that I'd probably need them because of the weather. 'It can't rain all the time' piped up the doll

Eventually, it must have worn out its batteries and it started to emit a high pitched whine, which I couldn't stop. I took it to my h/m, complaining bitterly about the bloody thing and was told, with great disdain, that it had an on and off switch at the back. Who knew??