It’s Not Even Midnight
There are places we speak of in hushed tones. These places we rarely go, and when we do, we hold our breath and whistle in the dark. These are the reasons for phrases like ‘where angels fear to tread.’ For they do.
There are dark places in the world, places we go only in our nightmares, and when we wake, we do so screaming. These places are the centre of all things slimy, creepy and scaly. All things that slither through our minds and leave slick trails have originated in these shadowy corners. The scritching under our cribs, the eyes in the back of the closet, the uneasy feeling as we pad down dark hallways… They come from certain places.
This is one of those places.
From the dusty, sunlit road you stand on, it appears to be nothing more than an architectural mistake, a folly of some wealthy farmer from centuries ago. It’s over six stories tall, and so massive it’s almost a joke. Towers, spikes, railings and cupbolas all adorn the roof, shingled with some black wood. The clapboard walls are stained grey, as if the house had sat on the coast for a hundred years, sucking in salt spray and moist air. The porch looks as though it is growing across the yellow, dying yard. Broken eaves dangle like fangs, and the door, half-off of its’ hinges, gapes with a leering grin.
It doesn’t look like the pit of Hell should. There are no screams, only the wind blowing across the dry Nebraska soil. The leaves of dead corn rustles as the hot breeze scampers amongst the stalks, but nothing hideous leaps out. Nothing obscene is written in blood-red paint on the splintering walls. Even the shadows the house lies down are hot, not bone-chilling or cold. There is nothing, save its’ eccentricity, that visually warns you of what lies within.
Only the feel.
When you set foot on the yellowing grass and hear it crackle underfoot, it sounds like brittle bone, snapped by large teeth. The smell of the dead plants, the dusty house, the dry air is nauseating, and if you stand there long enough, your nose will bleed. Blood is always shed here, soaked up so quickly that there’s no mark of it in an hour. Spit dries up instantly, whenever someone turns their head and tries to clear the taste from their sandpapery mouth. Tears? Tears are not shed here, not outside on the thirsty ground. Tears are for inside the house, for the house itself. Perhaps that’s the worst of it: the sensation, the knowledge that a thousand weeping eyes have looked uselessly out of the windows. That a hundred thousand screams are just sitting inside the walls, lurking beneath peeling wallpaper, waiting for an incautious hand to draw a door open. Waiting for the time to unleash the hellish cacophany. (sp?) You look at the house, but nothing about it seems to scream ‘menace!’ The *air* feels useless, as if you’re not breathing oxygen, but something less useful. Gasping only serves to draw in the scratching, sharp dust, and even leaning down, letting your body catch up with itself does nothing. You can’t breathe the atmosphere of seething, waiting evil without feeling sick to your stomach.
There is a sense, in this place, of patience. A terrible, eternal patience that has no reason to wish for you to hurry. Everything comes to it in time, and with the knowledge of immortality comes the patience to wait. It has waited for years upon years. Aeons before this structure stood, this *place* waited. Nebraska hardly seems like the area something of utmost cruelty, of untapped viciousness to centre itself, but then again, who is to say where evil might wait? It may not be a hub of activity, but there is enough evil in the world, enough unrest, upset and misery for this grease-slicked pit to wait. It does. It has. And look…you’ve come.
When you finally urge yourself forward, taking shaky, hesitant steps on knees that feel rubbery and unreal, you feel a sense of relief. There is something oddly right about this, something strangely welcoming in walking to the house. The air lifts a bit, and you breathe more easily. Perhaps the sensations you felt were a myth? An idea? Just an illusion brought on by sun exposure? No. It is a trap, an illusion which is evident the moment your foot touches the step of the swollen porch. The weight of the house’s hatred swamps you like a water-logged blanket. Your shoulders sag with the heaviness of bearing another’s loathing, and your stomach churns in your body. It seems impossible that you won’t vomit, tasting the slick malevolence roiling over your tongue. Clutching the railing which wobbles dangerously under your hand, and while your gut spasms, you find you can’t release anything of yourself. Even that which rejects the hostility of the building is you, and in this place, you need all of you that there is.
Despite all of this, despite your instincts that scream to flee, to run, to make tracks and show this damnable building your heels, you ascend the stairs. Did you know your willpower was so strong? Is it your willpower? This house, this very place makes you question yourself: every thought, every decision, every breath seems not quite of your own will. You touch the door and recoil, rubbing your hand against your leg in disgust. The knob was pliant, warm as living flesh, and seemed to curl against your touch. What sort of place is this? So very calm-looking, so odd and yet so benign, yet it fairly breathes malignancy. You didn’t think it would be this way when you walked through the dead corn, when you crossed the rutted road far behind you. Do you have everything with you? Do you have enough defense against this aura of decay, this sensation of ever-living despair? A Swiss pocket knife, a small Maglite and your cell phone are only things. Objects imbued with the belief we put in them that they can be useful in situations we encounter daily.
This is not something you encounter daily.
Oh, we all run into evil now and then. It’s part of humanity, and we carry it with us. Not, perhaps, Original Sin, but a sense of the tainted, the ill that comes with the dark thoughts we have. You are prepared for normal situations, normal evil: a mugging, a thief in the night, someone with vicious, lustful intent. They are all fractions of what you feel when the door slides open, when you tug at the repulsively squishy doorknob and release a gust of virulent air. You can’t see beyond, into the corpse of the house, but you know that you must go in. It’s no longer a question of your free will, your desire to see ‘what lies beyond.’ It is the house leading you in, taking your cringing hand and walking you along a path that some people never see, others see once in their lives, and certain people trod all too often.
Some places we were never meant to be.