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Point of no return. No. Yes. Go. Go back! No. Couldn't say no to a challenge. So yes. Yes to the challenged and beyond the point. Beyond the door. The 14-year-old stuck her dainty nose into the house. It was pleasing. This would be a night to remember.
Corrine carefully touched her gelled hair before closing the door behind her. The door looked heavier than it felt. It was made of a very dark wood. Almost black. Maybe it was just dirty. Nobody had lived here for ages. She closed the door carefully. The dark color contrasted wildly with her pale fingers. The heavy brass knob slid from her hand, letting the door close with a loud finality. Corrine's dark blue eyes widened. Pleasantly startled, she smiled.
It was nearly dark outside. The wind was picking up and the girl heard thunder. Corrine began her exploration of the house. The last light of the day visibly seeped out of the house. There was more furniture than she expected. The dining room seemed to be in regular use. There was a heavy dinner table and cupboards. There were clean dishes in the kitchen. Further investigation revealed a lucky break: there was a bed. Nice and clean and big. Fresh linen, as if especially made for her. Corrine experimentally sat on the bed. It had a good, springy feel to it.
What a story for her childish friends! At first she had dismissed the idea. Why would she want to spend a night in a spooky old house? It was silly.
"But that's exactly the sort of thing that you like!"
It was the truth. Corrine liked spookiness of all kinds. She also liked black cats and dark poetry.
"You have to do it!" Tammy added.
In the end she had agreed. There was no choice. Corrine had her image as the school goth to uphold.
So here she was, in the world's most lushly furnished, cleanest spooky house. People had died here, she tried thinking to scare herself. Across from the bed there was a large mirror. Corrine surveyed her image critically. Her dyed black hair was gelled tightly against her head. Her dark eyes were lined with make-up even darker than her hair. Her purple lipstick made a tasteful cavity of her mouth in the semi-darkness.
What was that? Corrine frowned at her image. The image frowned back. A shadow? Behind her image the bedroom door was reflected. There did seem to be a shadow. Goosebumps made their unwelcome presence felt all over the girl's skin. Beyond the window thunderclouds thickened. There was an occasional bolt of lightning. She unwillingly remembered every ghost story she had ever heard. As if it would help, she also remembered the stories about the house. Perhaps the shadow belonged to the little boy who vanished. Or the woman who took care of him. Maybe it was the girl who was burned. Or the man who burned her. Nobody wanted to buy the house after the woman and the boy had vanished. But Corrine had always wished with the desperation of a 14-year-old to live here. .
Her parents had bought yet another boring house. Ordinary. White walls and clean carpets and ordinary rooms, only one of which she would be allowed to transform in her own image. Mirrors and candles and black lace constituted her idea of an own image. Corrine was delighted to find out about the house across the street. A beautiful, spooky thing. And there were stories.
And now she was in danger of becoming yet another story. Corrine jumped from the bed and bolted for the light switch. Why had she thought there would be electricity here? Her only hope was the possibility of candles. She ran down the dark corridor.
Whispers and giggles followed her. The tiles of the kitchen clacked not quite in sync with her footsteps. Was someone following? Drawers. It was hard to see. A bolt of lightning helped. The cupboards looked the same as the front door. Heavy and dark. She searched frantically through drawers and behind doors. Nothing. Something soft touched her ankle. Corrine screamed. A small, black shape blended with the darkness and was unrecognizable.
"Meww," said the shape with a sweet and tiny voice.
Corrine froze. Her incredulity was instantly fatal to her fear. A dream invaded her nightmare. And the dream had come true. She reached down. Her frantic search for light was forgotten in the light of her joy. The only thing on her mind now was the answer to her needs. Her fingers touched fur. Corrine smiled into the darkness as she stooped to pick up the soft body. A black cat.
She had pleaded ever since she could speak.
"Mommy, Daddy. Cat. Please."
And always the same response.
"We can't have a cat, Dear. Cats aren't loyal. Cats are evil. And besides, we have Flicker and Squint."
Flicker and Squint, two labradors, never failed to greet her with enthusiasm as she got home from school. Corrine could not figure out why. Didn't dogs realize that some people hated them? She was sure cats would know. In fact the cats she had met at her friends' houses knew that she was crazy about them. She had wished for a cat of her own all her life. A nice, beautiful big black cat. She never doubted her parents' love. But they never understood about the cat. And here was a cat. The cat of her dreams.
"Thank you, House," she said softly. The cat gave the girl's chin a lick with her rough tongue, fusing the bond between them.
"Yes," said Corrine.
After stroking and hugging the cat as if she would never get the chance again, Corrine made a calmer search for candles. Soon she found some, complete with matches. The blackest, shiniest cat Corrine had ever seen was revealed in the light. She picked up the animal again and kissed her behind the right ear.
"Beautiful. Beautiful, beautiful thing. What shall we call you?"
"Meww."
Corrine laughed.
"Of course. Meww."
The name was like a protective talisman. She was safe. As Corrine snuggled her pale nose into the dark fur, a loud thunderclap made her jump slightly. She hugged the cat closer. She could feel an electrical charge in the air. Stroking the cat delivered small clicks of static on her fur. She purred heavily in Corrine's arms.
"Hey," she told the feline fearfully. Maybe we should get some sleep, right?"
The cat purred more loudly. She could not wait to tell her friends. She carefully took the candle, let Meww out of her arms and followed her to the bedroom. She would not think of her friends again for a long, long time.
Corrine had serious trouble with sleep. After she had read her copies of the gloomy Sylvia Plath and Tanith Lee for about an hour, the darkness in the doorway began to creep her out a little. So much death in the world, she thought. How was it possible to live? She stroked Meww, who appeared to have no trouble at all with sleep. She purred contentedly in a black, curled up bundle. Corrine smiled. The purr relaxed her slightly. She looked towards the door.
"Was that another shadow?" she wondered aloud.
Meww lifted her head.
"Meww?"
"Shall we go see?"
Corrine swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Her bare feet touched the lush, clean carpet. The candle was nearly burned down, so she lighted another of the spares that she had brought from the kitchen. Meww plopped down from the bed. The girl never thought that any sound made by an animal could be so pleasing, and she smiled at her own happily beating heart. Did she even have the right to such joy? She'd have to try and convince her parents that Meww would be an excellent addition to the family. The thought made her frown, so she refocussed her attention on the dark doorway.
A closed door beckoned. She had not investigated this room. The mysteriously closed door seemed to hide more secrets than she could handle. The concealed room was close to the master bedroom. It seemed to loom over the rest of the house. What the hell, thought Corrine, as she slowly turned the knob. It made an eerie, skreeching sound. Meww mewed. Corrine, having a reputation to protect, went in.
Meww stroked Corrine's ankles with her body.
"I've been waiting for you," said a voice from the darkness.
A man's voice. It was pleasing - soft as Meww's fur. The sound of it hypnotized her from the darkness. Corrine was intrigued as she felt her fear fall away for the second time during the night.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"People call me Prince," said the cultivated voice from the unexplored room. The candle revealed nothing. The voice reminded Corrine of Hannibal Lecter from
Silence of the Lambs. Completely gentle. Completely civilized eater of men - and women. And girls, she supposed. She was still unable to be afraid.
"Would you like to see something?" asked Prince.
Corrine's curiosity was only fourteen years old.
"Yes," she said. The cat followed.
Prince's face was young, but lined. He was very white. His long, snowy hair and beard nearly glowed in the candle light when she was close enough to see. She could only see his head until further candle light showed that he was wearing a very dark suit. He lay on a large double bed. There was a stain next to him. Coffee, maybe. Or ... Corrine could not let herself think too far.
Prince lightly got up from the bed. With apparent ease he moved the bed to the wall. Something smelled strange. Again Corrine thought it was coffee. But there was a decayed feel to the odor. Prince touched something on the floor. A trap door.
"Do you want to see?" Prince enticed again. Knowingly. How could she not want to see?
Meww ran to the man's side as if she trusted him. Corrine followed.
It was dark and damp. It somehow managed to be dusty as well. Prince was leading Corrine and her cat into a vast cavern underneath the house. Or at least she thought it was vast. The candle revealed nothing, but her sensations sent messages of interminable space on all sides. The weird smell from the room became stronger as they progressed, and the air was increasingly stuffy. Corrine thought she heard a child laugh. For the first time tinglings of fear began to make themselves known along her spinal cord. But there was no turning back. Point of no return.
Prince turned around. But he was no longer Prince. He was a she. Beautiful. She looked very much like Corrine with short, black hair, although her hair was somewhat dishevelled. Her face seemed to have black patches on it. Her long dress was a flowing white, making her look like a ghost.
"Who are you?" Corrine repeated the question she had asked Prince.
Meww mewed at the newcomer. The strange woman picked her up.
"Hi Cat," she said in a voice that sounded like sandpaper.
"Meww."
"I call her Meww," offered Corrine.
The apparition appeared to ignore her. Instead the woman glanced furtively around her.
"Where am I?" she asked in her strange voice.
"We're underneath a house," said Corrine, to be ignored again.
A voice echoed from the darkness. The woman dropped the cat.
Somebody called.
"Maxi!"
It was a loud, booming call.
Maxi looked directly at Corrine for the first time.
"Help me," she said, before bursting into an agony of heatless, lightless flames. The cavern was filled with Maxi's screams and the smell of burning flesh. Corrine covered her ears and her eyes until the screaming stopped. Without daring to look at the horror, she collapsed into a foetal ball. She did not emerge until something touched her and she screamed. She was sure it would be Maxi's burnt flesh. It was not.
"It's me. I'm sorry for vanishing like that."
Gentle and civilized devourer of human flesh.
Corrine slowly uncurled herself. Her candle had fallen and extinguished itself, but the white haired man was offering her another. Meww appeared from behind Prince and stroked herself against Corrine. The girl drew away from the cat. Her parents would be delighted; she was cured from wanting a cat.
"Take me out of here. I want to go home."
And to the birds with her gothic reputation.
"In a while, little girl. First, so many wonders to see! You might even choose to stay."
Corrine felt something wet on her cheek. She heard a faint, wailing sound. It took a while of following Prince ever deeper into the eerie cellar before the girl realized that the sounds emerged from her own throat. The wetness were tears. She had begun to sob. There was no choice. If she tried to turn back, she would be lost. And she dared not get lost. Not here.
When Prince vanished a second time, Corrine waited quietly while Meww moved slickly around and between her feet. She shivered a little in her short, black dress that she had not bothered to change for getting into bed.
From the darkness came a woman and a boy. The woman was the same age as the unfortunate Maxi, but blonde. The boy was five, maybe six years old. Meww greeted them with the same affection as she did Maxi.
"Hex!" said the girl. How nice to see you. She looked at Corrine.
"Ah, you brought another visitor. How lovely. What is your name, Dear?"
The woman moved closer to Corrine. The girl took a step backwards, away from what she was sure was another ghost.
"Please," pleaded Corrine. "Please, please, please."
"Oh," said the woman. "Maxi scared you. Don't worry, dear. She's just a little confused. But she's harmless. I am Stella. And over there is Michael. We are so glad you came."
Michael joined Stella and each took one of Corrine's hands in both of theirs.
"We are glad you came," echoed the boy.
Their hands were very cold and Corrine shivered at their touch. They would not let go.
"I want to go home," wailed Corrine. "Please. My Mom and Dad will be worried."
But they wouldn't be. They knew about her night at the house. They would not worry until the next morning. And morning did not seem to exist in this place. And even then. Even if she did not go home in the morning, they would probably think that she was at a friend's house. Mom and Dad were cool about everything that Corrine did. The only thing was the cat. And she had changed her mind about that.
How she wished for her dear, wonderful parents. You only appreciated something when it was no longer there. And the dogs! As Corrine stood with her hands imprisoned in the icy hands of the ghosts, she vowed to be a better daughter. If she ever got out of here.
Stella and Michael were suddenly gone. The pungent smell that she had become used to by now suddenly intensified to unbearable proportions. The cat hissed from somewhere in the darkness and something wailed. At first Corrine thought that they were her own wails again.
They were not. Another thing revealed itself on a sofa, some feet away from where Stella and Michael appeared. The thing was a pinkish and scabby mass of flesh, topped by the most beautifully styled blonde hair that Corrine had ever seen. The thing shone with an inner phosphorescence. This was the source of the wails. The flesh was swollen beyond all human proportion. The eyes were completely obscured from view in the masses of swollen face flesh. The hands were puffy balls adorned with exquisitely painted nails. The places on the flesh that were not covered with scabs and rashes were bleeding as if scratched. The nails tried to reach everywhere at once and scratched the parts it could find, causing more bleeding.
Corrine bent over and threw up on the cavern floor, adding her own special flavor to the already rotten smell emitted by the apparition. The girl collapsed into her own vomit and retreated into a world of her own making. Not safe, but at least it was of her own making. She would stay there just for a while. Just to take a bit of a breather. Meww licked at her hair and started to lap at the vomit. She purred. Corrine was oblivious.
In the darkness something hurt. And something smelled. Her cheek was against something cold and wet. She opened her eyes reluctantly. The teenager knew that what she would see was going to be bad. And it was. Her own puke had caked in her hair and on her skin. Her new black skirt was ruined from the damp dirt around her. Her hair was a mass of gel and sweat and dirt. A candle stood in a holder close to Corrine's dishevelled head. She took it and tried to shed some light onto her surroundings.
The putrid, bleeding human mass was still on its sofa, scratching and moaning. Meww mewed from next to the figure, as if telling Corrine to come and look.
"I want to go home," said the girl softly. Meww take me home. Please."
Meww's eyes flashed as if lighting had struck somewhere behind them. Corrine heard distant thunder. The world belonging to thunder and rain seemed miles away. Lightyears. Meww had started walking. She turned around to see if the girl was following. Corrine picked up the candle. She had no choice.
She nearly laughed with relief. Maybe the cat deserved a home with her after all. A ladder. A trapdoor. It would lead her into the room, which would lead into the house and the house would let her back into the world. It reminded her of the song about the mouse in the house in the street. She laughed and stopped. Her laughter sounded too much like the wails of the swollen human thing. With happy energy she started climbing the ladder. She made plans. The world was all new. She would wash the dye out of her hair. She would buy nice, colorful clothes - the kind Mom liked. She would ...she would love Flicker and Squint. She would love her parents and show it. A million more frantic promises carried her to the top. She opened the door.
Thick darkness seemed to pour in from above. It was damp - a thousand times worse than underneath. Corrine climbed up and found the scratching being with the good hair and nails on her sofa. Close to the sofa Corrine's vomit lay drying in a greenish glow. She screamed.
"No-one can hear you," said the gentle voice of reason. Understander of the mind. Eater of the flesh.
"Please," Corrine hated sounding so desperate. It obviously only added to the man's pleasure. "Please let me go home."
"Oh Corrine," said Prince. "This is home now. You have many friends. And you'll make many more. It would be easier for you if you simply chose to stay."
"Mommy!"
"She cannot hear you."
Corrine heard something.
There were faint voices. Wild hope attached itself to the sound. Corrine's parents were looking for her. Did they after all worry about her? Before Prince or the cat could move, Corrine was running with her candle. There had to be a way out. Her parents were calling her name. They sounded desperate and unhappy. Their love would show her the way. She would be the best daughter they could dream of having. She would reward them for finding her.
Eight trap doors and eight ladders later brought Corrine back to the side of Prince and the Scratcher and the cat.
"Your Mommy is gone, my Dear. You have chosen to be here. You have chosen to follow me."
Corrine sat down.
"I didn't know," she whispered.
It made no difference.
"Mommy, I didn't know." Corrine dragged filthy fingers through her sweaty hair. "Mommy, Mommy, Mommy."
She still heard them calling. She wasn't so sure that the voices were real anymore. Good, that meant she was going crazy. Corrine didn't move, because moving reminded her that she was alive. She wished she had been a better daughter. She wanted very badly to scream. She wanted to go home. She wished she had never come here. None of that mattered now.
Sitting down, Corrine began to rock slowly. Back and forth, back and forth. The action brought some peace. She felt herself beginning to moan in sync with the flesh mass. She was dimly aware of Stella, Michael and the burning Maxi, whose husband was forever calling her. Perhaps he was trying to tell her he was sorry. It was Corrine's last coherent thought. Her moans joined her companions' in a weirdly beautiful chorus.
Corrine smiled. Perhaps she could choose to be here. Yes.
©2002 StoriesByEmail.com
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