THEHOUSE.TXT - Violent Death - May 21, 1999 A study in Horror - by Jack (cl) 1993 Gay Furry Association Based on a dream that woke me up. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= New England, 1957 - A grassy knoll in the middle of nowhere. A hobo sleeps fitfully in the grass, awaiting the rise of the moon so he can shuffle on out and catch the next Freight headed south. The air is still except for the crickets chirping and ball-lightning that sometimes comes in such areas. He noticed that it seemed to be getting worse... Suddenly uneasy, he jumps up, looking around. "OUCH!" He jerks his hand up, looking at the blood dripping on the ground. "What the..." Something glints at him from the dirt.. A shard of glass. "Damn.. Must been a house here at one time." Suddenly, a ball of energy coalesces around him and he wraps his arms around his head, sure he is going to die.... To awaken in the basement of a house. "What the Hell?" He fingers his back pocket, determined Never to drink that cheap stuff again.. "Must be a dream..." He wanders around, bumping into things and cutting himself all over... "Ouch! Damn Sunofa.. Ouch!" He makes it up the stairs and into a Deserted kitchen. Dust is everywhere, and the faucet is red with rust. Bleeding from a dozen or so shallow cuts he makes his way into the Living room. At one time it must have been beautiful. Now dust and cobwebs adorn everything. His skin crawls as he looks up to see a Huge chandelier. The iron monster still has candles in it and he grins to himself. But he can feel Something is watching him. Something without eyes... A noise makes him look up again. The candelabra is swaying, the spikes on the bottom moving before his eyes. "What the.." He can SEE the screws moving. One hits him on the head... "No - This isn't happening.." Another hit his shoulder gently and the thing sways, making a groaning, almost Hungry sound... He barely had time to scream before the final screws pop free and Iron spikes crush him to the oaken floor. His last sight is the boards moving, almost lapping at the trickle of crimson that runs across them. There is a flash of light as a storm unleashes it's fury on a dark house that has suddenly appeared out nothingness. * * * New England, 2004 - St. Sennid's Hospital. "He's awake again.. Screaming about The House." Dr. Resi walked as fast as her legs would carry her up to the room. Standing behind a one-way mirror, she watched a man writhe and sweat, showing all the signs of terror. "This time it was the Youngest.." She grimaced, taking the chart. "Alright, Shut him down.." The man stopped writhing and lay, panting. "I.. I have to get back." Dr. Resi flipped the Master. "No Mark. You wouldn't survive another run." She nods to her assistant. Technicians appear, to remove the straps and help calm the man down. "So Close! I Was So Close.." The helmet that was encased his head was opened and removed. "Just a few more minutes.. Please... Unnh." One of his furry arms is held while a sedative is injected. "Sorry." Dr. Resi's voice came from the control booth. "It's alright.. We understand." The man put his long fingered hand to his short-snouted face and blinked his way too big eyes. Took a cup of broth, and drank it. The doctor shook her head, looking at the lemur. A beep got her attention. "Got a referent. Time minus 42 years.. And the picture's fuzzy, but even so - It Ain't pretty." She nodded. "None of them are.." 1962.. She shook herself. That damned Dennis House again. They had brought Mark in just a few months ago. He was part of a work crew, going over a patch of land outside of town. And somehow, he had slipped past the usual tests for 'Sight'. 'Latent Perhaps,' She thought, walking down to the processing lab, and re-scanned his chart. * * * New England, 1960 - County Johnsbrook Survey Office. "What do you mean.. Look - Houses don't just appear.. It was most likely abandoned some time back and nobody bothered to tell anyone. Just give me the location and I will do up the paperwork so it can be re-sold." The officer sipped his coffee, growling about Old Family Homes that have been on the back- lot and just forgotten about until someone dies. He checks his maps and starts the proceedings to clear the name and title. A few days later he gets a letter stating the land was under foreclosure, and the only mention was of a house that had burned down some years back. "Burned down... More like they couldn't pay their taxes. Well, it's ours now." He stamps the paper and tells his brother-in-law there is a new place to sell. There was a note about a house about the same place where a family had disappeared - But families disappeared all the time from around here. Hard times back in those days... * * * New England, 2004 - St. Sennid's Hospital. "What is it..." The man looked harried as if he had bad news but didn't want to say anything. "Mark is dead." Dr. Resi looks up from her papers and scowls. "How - " she shuts up as the man's eyes get haunted. "Back at Site 7. We found him - Or what was left. He was.. Clutching a Doll." She held her head in her hands and sighed heavily. "What kind.." The lemur shakily hands her a photoplate. The picture staring back at her is all too familiar - A broken furry hand holds a child's toy.. A museum piece, that hasn't even been manufactured in over 20 years. On the Apron is embroidered "Lisa". Lisa Dennis, the one Mark had been trying so desperately to rescue. The Youngest daughter of John Dennis. * * * New England, 1962 - The House of John Dennis. A man stumbles down the grassy knoll, sobbing. "You Bastard!" He screams, almost falling, forcing himself onward. Behind him a pair of wires stretch. He walks a bit further to where a box sits beside a rusted pump. He stands by a switchbox, making his broken fingers bend the wire, place them on the terminals, twist the nuts tight. Lifting the blade-switch he laughs. "Die! Die you bastard!" And shoves it down.. Nothing happens. Dumfounded, he stares at the house. "No." Stands, and looks.. "No. No.. No! Noooooo..." Shrieking like a demented being he runs back to the structure, pounding at it, kicking it, slamming his body against it... Above him a clapboard rips loose, but not cleanly. As he continues to pound, the other side also comes loose and it falls.. To impale him on it's jagged edge. He jerks, slams his hand one last time into the side of the house, then slumps, pumping blood all over the wood, Willing the explosives to go off. But they do not and the House 'Smiles' as it claims it's latest victim. * * * New England - 1961 John, Jodi, Terri and Lisa Dennis stood looking at their New House. "It needs work, and a Woman's touch, but the price is good." Jodi Hugged her Husband. "It will do fine.." The weeks that followed were uneventful - except for the unusually large amount of cuts on the family. "Goes with remodeling I suspect." Father would say and get the iodine and bandaids.. But Lisa knew better. She could hear the house groan with hunger each time it got a taste of blood. See the boards moving at night, like fingers wanting to grip them. She held her doll and watched, and listened.. Sometimes she saw other things.. People who didn't look like people - They were not scary.. The House was scary. They were friendly. And one... She could see him. So sad, So tired.. He was the anchor when her sister died. Terri was going down in the cellar to get something - Nobody could remember afterwards what.. Lisa asking her not to, and she smiled, saying; "I will be back in a minute, Squirt." Standing at the landing she flipped the switch a couple of times.. "Bulb must be out.." Then stepped out. Lisa saw the door swing across and slam shut Hard. Lisa heard the shreak of her sister as she was shoved down the stairs, heard the bones cracking with each jarring hit on the old but strong stairs. Heard her laying weak, but still alive at the bottom. She picked up Betsy and walked into the kitchen because she didn't want her doll to hear her older sister's last painful gasps, laying like a broken sack of sticks on the cellar floor. When John and Jodi got back from town a few hours later, they couldn't find Terri. When they asked Lisa, she said 'The House Ate Her.' And pointed at the cellar door. John tried the switch and went down to replace the bulb. When he came back up, he was ashen-faced and wouldn't let his wife look. When he got himself together, John took some burlap sacks and went back down for a while.. They buried her in a simple ceremony on the land, With a wooden cross for a grave marker. When his wife asked, John simply replied she had fallen badly Jodi should remember their daughter as she lived.. Things went back to as 'normal' as possible, but Lisa knew the House wouldn't stay full. Terri was big, but the House was Bigger.. A few weeks later John heard a scream and ran up from the shed where he was working - In time to see his wife come out their bedroom window, the glass cutting her to shreds. She fell on the overhang, and slowly rolled down to fall on the ground, lifeless, leaving a long, bloody trail on the wood. Her husband fell too.. Down on his knees, looking at what once was a beautiful breathing woman he loved more than anything.. He couldn't cry. The tears wouldn't come. A hand patted his shoulder. "The house got Mommy too.." Everything was silent for a time, the only noise being the creaking of the boards.. The boards Joni had bled on. John grabbed his daughter and ran over to the car, starting it up and tearing out of the yard.. That House was Evil. It had taken His Wife. It had taken His Oldest.. It would Not have Lisa! The next house over belonged to a nice couple, Marrl Helped with stumps and rocks and just neighborly things, Louise doted on both girls, her own children gone off to the city. Now he drove in as if hell itself was on his trail. Marrl came down.. and had Lisa Thrust into his arms. "John.. What?" All he got was a haunted, over-the-edge look. "If anything happens to me, You will take care of my Daughter." There are times to question, and times not to.. The old man simply nodded and watched a friend and neighbor get back in the car and drive back out.. "Honey, Who Was.. Lisa?" The little girl was put down and nodded. "Mommy's Dead. The House got her. May I go to the bathroom, Please?" The man dropped her on the porch and nodded, watching her go inside. "John came flying in and shoved her in my arms - Said if anything happened to him..." They both looked at each other then Louise went in the house. "Lisa.. Would you like a sandwich? Lisa?" The only sound was the wind coming through the back door. "Oh My Lord.. Marrl!" * * * Lisa didn't like disobeying her father but Betsy was still in the House.. It was the only thing she had left of her family. Running across the field, up the hill, she stopped and looked at where her sister lay. "I will come back and put flowers on you every chance I get." Then she quietly made her way in and up the stairs to her bedroom.. It wasn't until the door slammed she knew she would not leave alive. Combing her dolls hair she waited.. Then something happened - A circle appeared in the air. At the same time she saw the glass in her window moving.. The House was angry. Through the magical circle came a hand.. An inhuman hand. She watched the pane shuddering and tossed her doll to it. "Run..." she whispered before the window exploded, cutting into her frail body. It may get her, but Betsy was safe... * * * Dennis had never believed. It was too fantastic! But then his Daughters - His wife. "Daddy!" he jerked his head up to stare in disbelief at his Youngest. "Lisa!" It couldn't be her. She was safe.. She was in the hands of others.. She turned to one side for a moment.. then screamed as the glass shattered in the big window - knives that ripped through her and onward.. to stab another. But the man saw none of this.. "No. NO... NOOOOOO!" He almost ran back.. Almost tried to rip it apart with his bare hands. Then a grim look fixed itself over his face. A mask with twin coals of raw hatred burning in it. He went to the shed where the dynamite was stored for stumps too big to be pulled out, and grabbed a handful. Woodenly he set them beside the House, fuses pushed in place, wires twisted together. It was old and corroded in spots but he didn't care. When the man had ringed the house, he returned to the shed and grabbed anything that would burn, placing it in a small wheelbarrow. Dennis could not find an axe, or pick or even a handle to smash the windows with so he wrapped his hand in a rag and proceeded to shatter the wooden frames, heedless of the damage he was doing to himself. He poured whichever jug or can or jar of liquid was closest to him on the sill, tossing it inside the open frame.. Halfway through he had to change hands as he had broken the fingers on one. But that was only a few moments work.. Then back to it, a rictus of a grin as he poured the last on the steps and laughed.. "Now it's Your turn! Now you die!!" He shoved the wheelbarrow to one side and grabbing the leads, staggered out and down a knoll to where a rusting pump and a battery lay. He was going to fix that pump so Mary could have a garden. Now... * * * Marrl walks with the determination of a man possessed.. Mr. Dennis was not the kind of man to kill his wife. Or his daughters.. But just in case he carried his hunting rifle. As he rounded the hill, a smell came to him - Every flammable liquid he could remember was in that smell, but over even That powerful stench was the smell of Death. Walking slowly up he came upon a sight that would haunt him the rest of his days - John, on his back, impaled on a piece of wood. His wife not that far away, glass laying around her from the broken window. But what made him drop his gun and weep was Lisa. She looked like she was asleep, her white dress now crimson, laying against the cross-like frame of her bedroom window. "Daddy?" It was Impossible! She couldn't be... "Had to get Betsy.." Came down on the wind, followed by a ragged cough. Trembling, he picked his rifle up, and aiming carefully, put a bullet through the sweet, innocent face, Making sure she would suffer no more. With a slow, steady gait, the old man returned to the Pump. In a month or so He and John were going to finish the project.. Closing the switch would have brought water up to the house, down to the garden. Now... Marrl undid the connections, and scraped them to make good contact. Then put the copper wire in place tightening the screws firmly. One last look at the House and he Shoved the big switch down... There is the acrid smell of ozone.. Then an explosion rips the still curtain from the evening, as the house is engulfed in flames. It screams, boards snapping, glass popping.. Marrl stands, watching until every last bit of it has been consumed, then turns.. The explosion had ripped away the grave marker - Terri Dennis was now just a grassy hump on the landscape. Then he makes his way back to his house. To his loving wife.. To a sheriff who heard the explosion, and wants to know what happened. * * * New England, 2004 - Construction Site 7. "What Happened?" The foreman shook his head. "We don't know.. We were time- probing when Mark jumps over, shoves his arm in There - " A bloody patch of earth - "And suddenly he is full of ancient glass, holding the Doll." Dr. Resi shakes her head and continues discussing the damnded place. In the background a generator hums to red-line, it's governor breaking. It arc's, sending a surge through the system which in turn closes relays, putting the increased output through the twin poles that generate the time-field, causing it to expand and cover the entire site.. "What the - No! She's going to blow.." The foreman barely has time to scream before the field buckles and Everything caught between the poles is ripped to shreds in seconds.. For a fraction of a second, the House stands again, 'grinning' maliciously.. A time-storm ripples, and everything is gone. * * * New England, 1957 - A grassy knoll in the middle of nowhere. A hobo sleeps fitfully in the grass, awaiting the rise of the moon so he can shuffle on out and catch the next Freight headed south. The air is still except for the crickets chirping and ball-lightning that sometimes comes in such areas. He noticed that it seemed to be getting worse... Suddenly uneasy, he jumps up, looking around. "OUCH!" He jerks his hand up, looking at the blood dripping on the ground. "What the..." Something glints at him from the dirt.. A shard of glass. "Damn.. Must been a house here at one time." The End?