Chapter 14 #2
It’s crazy how beautiful any place can be, no matter its history.
I’d never know that so many people died here if I hadn’t heard the stories so many times before.
The silence is a little eerie, the only sounds coming from a few brave birds that haven’t quite made it to bed yet, and the first sounds of crickets in the autumn night.
Thankfully, the mosquitoes have retired for the year, so I don’t hear their persistent buzzing in my ears or feel the sometimes-imagined tickle of them on my skin.
With my phone, I find as many ways to take pictures of the outside of the property as I can before the sun sets any further. While I want part of this to be creepy, sure, I also want it to be hauntingly pretty, to show my followers that there’s something more here than death.
Nature has taken back the house itself, with ivy winding up the columns and reaching toward the second-floor windows. The glass is long gone, as is the front door, but somehow the porch is mostly in one piece and the columns are unbroken.
The barn is a different story, unfortunately.
Having been made of wood, the age-greyed boards are broken in spots, the walls are sagging in on themselves and the roof is half-collapsed.
The owner of the property assured me that it’s actually sturdier than it looks, though she’d also sent over a waiver for me to sign so I can’t sue her just in case something collapses on me.
Not that I would.
My bad decisions and questionable life choices are my responsibility and mine alone.
I stand between the house and the barn for a few moments, trying to decide where I want to go first. While Mill House is famous for having the creepy murder basement where there’s supposedly a secret room full of demons, that’s been photographed to hell and, in my opinion, the mystery and allure of it is all gone.
But I’ve barely seen any pictures of the barn before.
Fuck it.
It’s not like I’m trying to write something to be used as an analysis of what happened.
This is just about documenting what I find interesting here, and the atmosphere.
For good measure, though, I jog up the porch steps and carefully walk inside the house, taking a few minutes to take some quick photos of the inside, including the stairs down to the basement with the worn handrail and shattered light fixture.
By the time I’m back outside, there’s only a touch of light still illuminating the property from the sun between the oak trees.
I have to squint to see anything, and before I’ve taken two steps off the porch, I decide it’s time for at least one flashlight.
While I brought two for dual wielding action, I would like to keep one hand free to fend off ghosts or take pictures with my phone.
With the bright white LED light flooding the ground in front of me, it’s easy to make my way across the yard. It really is a pretty property, especially now that the crickets are in full song and there’s nothing else to draw focus. No hum of electricity, no yelling. No cars in the distance, or—
Rustling in the trees makes me stop, and I whirl around with my flashlight pointed toward the woods like a laser beam. My heart skips a beat in my chest while I survey the trees, even though I already know I’m just being jumpy over nothing.
There’s no one else here except me. There’s no one in the woods, in the house, or in the barn.
I’m alone with the ghosts of years past, and whatever blood still stains this place, seeped between the cracks so deep no one will ever see it.
“You’re fine, Persy,” I breathe, my hand tightening on the light.
Still, I allow myself to do one more sweep along the woods, finding nothing just like I expect.
“Houses make noises. Woods make noises.” I hate having to pep talk myself, and I hate how my stalker existing in other parts of my life is making me so on edge here.
Slowly, I turn back to the barn, shining my flashlight over the outside.
The loft doors are gone, probably rotted in the piles of debris littering the property.
And the main doors, which were probably built by hand and with such care over a hundred years ago, are still just barely hanging onto their hinges.
For a moment, I imagine the barn for what it once was.
That this place was beautiful instead of creepy.
Mill House didn’t choose to be the site of so many murders, after all.
And in another universe, it could have been something much different from what it is.
But I don’t have time to feel bad for abandoned houses and the ghosts that may or may not still haunt them when I have my own problems. Murmuring a soft apology to the universe, I step inside, and my feet sink slightly into the dirt floor within.
The barn creaks as if it’s either welcoming or warning me, though I can’t tell which.
Biting my lip, I shine my light around, using it to take a few pictures with questionable illumination that end up looking more abstract than not.
I can see the loft up above, though it’s mostly a collection of cracked planks with holes in between that certainly doesn’t look very steady.
Stalls line one side of the barn, making me wonder what kind of animals the original family once kept here. Any fences that may have been outside are long gone, but that’s not saying much, since the earth is good at reclaiming anything left to rot for this long.
I’m so enthralled with the barn, at first, the crunching outside barely registers in my brain as something to notice. I mentally write it off as just a natural sound until the steps get close enough that it occurs to me they are not.
Instinctively, I glance at the permanently open barn doors, flicking off my flashlight and phone as my stomach does a little flip.
My ribs seem to tighten around my lungs as I fade back into the shadows of the building, trying not to get too close to the walls that might have rusted nails sticking out of them, ready to give me tetanus.
Belatedly, I realize there’s no real way to pretend I’m not here.
With my car outside, it’s pretty obvious there’s someone inside.
At first, I consider that it could be the property owner.
There’s nothing wrong with her wanting to come out and check on me, to make sure I’m not doing something weird at the house famous for the murders committed inside.
I’d come check on me as well, to be honest. But then I remember that she told me she was going to be gone for a week. Something about a vacation in Spain to see her grandkids for the first time.
But if it’s not her, then I have no idea who it could be. Why would anyone…?
The shadow in the doorway hesitates, standing still with only the sound of breathing to disrupt the silence around us.
My fingers tighten on the flashlight, and I briefly wonder if I could use it as a weapon if I have to.
It’s certainly heavier than my phone, and longer, but I’d really rather not have to try to wield it against anyone if I don’t have to.
The person takes a step, and the second that they enter the barn, I see the distinctive wolf-skull mask backlit by the last quickly disappearing rays of sunlight. While I can’t see any detail, I see the shape enough to be sure, and my breath catches in my chest.
I’m both relieved and terrified.
How did he find me?
What does he want?
What does he plan on doing with no one around?
I didn’t come here to be afraid. Not exactly. And I can’t figure out how in the world he knew that I was here, when I hadn’t posted anything about it online. Maybe he really is stalking me, and not just in the sort of cute, sort of charming, online way.
I’m huddled close enough to the wall that the shadows obscure my shape, and I can see him tilt his head from one side to the other.
“I know you’re in here, little Scaredy Cat,” he purrs, his voice traveling in the near-complete silence of the dark barn.
“Why don’t you come out and play with me, hmm?
Surely you know that you can’t hide from me. I always find you, babe.”
My teeth grit in both irritation and something like adrenaline-fueled anticipation. I don’t move, knowing that any twitch at all could alert him to my presence.
But I don’t know what to do. My only option is to get back to my car, though currently, he’s too close for me to sneak out without him noticing.
Waiting feels dangerous. He could turn at any moment and notice the too-big bundle of shadows by the door.
But I don’t have any other choice, and hope rises in my throat when he takes another step into the barn, widening the distance between us.
If he can just walk in a little further, I’ll feel better about making a break for it.
Don’t fuck this up, I lecture myself mentally. Don’t trip, or drop your keys, or run like the first victim in a slasher movie.
Thirty feet max, I wager, lies between me and my car door. The only problem is that my keys are in my backpack, which is sitting outside of the barn, leaning up against the rickety, sagging wall.
Fuck.
Okay, well, my car isn’t locked. So if I grab my backpack as I run, I could at least get into the driver’s seat, slam the lock button, and then dig for my keys while sitting in relative safety. It’s better than nothing, I suppose, and—
He takes another step away from me.
Then, miraculously, he takes one more.
I don’t let myself stop and talk myself out of it like I know I could.
Shoving off the wall, I make a break for the doors, my footsteps quick and light in the dirt that turns to grass once I’m outside.
I hear his loud, overjoyed bark of laughter, and then footsteps sound behind me, running just as fast as I am, if not faster.
“Please, please, please,” I hiss under my breath, gripping the strap of my backpack in one hand and the flashlight in the other.
Desperately, I turn just enough to chuck the light at him, and I’m rewarded with his surprised yelp and the sight of him raising his hands to shield his masked face.
But he barely falters. I hit the hood of my car with my hands, my feet sliding on the slick grass under me, but just as I turn to lunge for the door, he’s behind me.
His hands slam down on either side of me on the hood, caging me in against the still-warm metal. He’s laughing in my ear, and barely panting, but when I turn and swing my backpack at the taller man, he has to back up just a little, giving me enough room to turn so I’m facing him.
“Leave me alone!” I snarl, my heart pounding in my chest.
“Not on your life,” he growls in reply, moving back toward me.
Without even thinking about it, my hand comes up, frustration hot and sour in my throat.
I don’t even consider the ramifications of what I’m doing, or the stupidity of it, as I make a grab for the skeletal, canine mask that covers him from the nose up, leaving his mouth bare for me to see his twisted, crooked smirk.
Quick as a snake, my stalker catches my wrist, shoving me back against the car again with a laugh. “Oh, I don’t think so,” he sneers, and grabs my other wrist before I can try again. “No, you don’t get to see my face. Not after you threw a flashlight at me, pretty thing.”
“Let go of me!” I snap, writhing in his too-strong grip. “What do you want?! This isn’t a haunted house, this isn’t—I’m not—”
“I want to play,” he interrupts smoothly, his grin widening into something dangerous.
“And yeah, you’re right. This isn’t a haunt full of people that might do something stupid like help you.
” Smoothly he grabs both of my wrists in one hand, pinning them behind me before he grabs my hair, yanking my head back to look up at his mask.
“You’re all alone with me, Persephone Gallows. There’s no one here to help you, or to hear you scream. You’re all mine.”
“No—” My words are cut off by my gasp as he suddenly pulls me forward by my hair, his grip not quite tight enough to hurt, but firm enough to sting.
“No!” But he doesn’t listen, or care. My stalker walks, dragging me toward the barn and the darkness that looks like a mouth just waiting to swallow me up, to devour me, to make me into someone who disappeared here, never to be seen again.