October Darlings

by Wendolyn Baird

  My boots slam against the pavement and slide across gravel from the curb as I throw every ounce of my energy into reaching my camera before it’s too late. Oh well for avoiding the graveyard, there’s no way around it now.

  The yapping dogs have retreated up onto their owner’s porch and some very old looking blankets, and the guy who was watering is about to have puddles on his lawn. Every step pulling me closer to Nix House is charged with energy I’ve done my best to ignore, but now it exists with a taste of curiosity sparking through me.

  It may be ancient, unpredictable, and at times terrifying, but there’s no denying that the bones of the house hold power. It’s written in the eaves of the glittering roof, the flat shine of the windows, and even in the plants that draw around it, fragrant and possessive. The heavy air carries those scents to me as I draw near, filling my lungs with intoxicating promises I can’t decipher.

  As I run down the side of the house, the snapping of twigs crack like kindling in the shadows behind me. Just like before, I can feel someone staring at me, enraptured in my every move, but no matter how many glances I steal, nobody’s there.

  Biting my lip, I spur on, my heart rattling in place. Tremors course through my limbs as my feet jolt against the sloping ground, and my eyes are caught between searching recklessly for my unseen follower, and telltale movement of snakes in the grass.

  Even in the open stretch leading out to the graveyard, the footsteps continue, picking up as my pace increases.

  Running faster now, I gasp against my constricting throat and nearly fall over as I twist to look over my shoulder. The tall grass should be stationary in the still air. But somehow, some way, a trail of grass is being brushed through, stomped down, and trampled as something invisible races my way.

  My mind feels like it's been filled with bouncy balls and shaken up a few times, leaving me with nothing but instinct to go on. Each pulse of my heart beats out a single direction. I need to get inside the fence.

  Terror bears down on me as an overwhelming certainty of danger comes from my pursuer. Whatever oddities or fears my cemetery holds, they are absolutely nothing compared to the force behind me.

  It’s only a few feet away. Close enough to hear the brushing of what should be footsteps in the grass. Close enough to hear the ragged breathing that couldn’t possibly exist. Close enough to feel the frigid cold numbing my fingers as whatever darkness it is moves in on me.

  The iron gate is just ahead of me, closed tight against the packed earth beneath it. Each curved tombstone leans toward me, beckoning me to their ranks.

  A chill drops down my spine as my palms slam against the metal, this time desperately pulling at the rails for a way in, rather than out. The harsh sound of stomping moves in on my stationary stance, inching closer to me with every second that passes.

  My palms burn as I yank at the unyielding iron bars, wishing I could wake up because this can’t be real, it can’t be happening. There’s no way!

  “Damnit, Delia! Where are you?” I curse out loud, moving to the side of the gate as I consider climbing the fence for the second time today. Not that it worked out the first time.

  My lungs are like blocks of ice, and my legs are so covered in goosebumps, it’s a wonder they’re not frozen through to the bone.

  A guttural, rasping, rattle breaks past the ringing in my ears, and I hold my breath. Every muscle in my body freezes, my heart skips, sending a hollow feeling through my chest, and my hair flies in front of my face as the force of an unnatural gale whooshes past me.

  This is it, I’m dead. That’s the end of me!

  Except a familiar creaking tears through it all, pushing the horrible feeling of death and doom away from my body just an inch. Allowing me just enough room to fall forward onto a bed of mint.

  Maybe I should be used to doors opening and closing on their own, but lying on my stomach with my face inches away from a marble slab, I’m still surprised when the gate shudders closed behind me.

  I tuck my chin down to my collarbone, sheltering my head with what thin protection my arms can afford, and huddle between grave markers.

  In the plush tangle of green, I defrost quickly, regaining the warmth I should have on any regular summer day. But the exposed parts of my skin, from hands to the curve of my back are stinging from a wind so cold, it feels like knives tearing across my flesh.

  I can’t hear the thunder above the rush of my blood through my temples, and if there’s anything to see, I don’t open my eyes to find out.

  Ripped fragments of leaves cling to my lips as I sob against the earth, begging silently for this nightmare to end.

  The sharp taste of mint, pure and fresh against my tongue contrasts with the taste of blood pooling at the front of my teeth. The inside of my mouth is raw from my nervous chewing, and crying as I am, saliva and blood both fall into the ground beneath me, mingling in the dirt no matter how much I struggle to stop.

  The stinging lifts, inch by inch, until the gusts of frost recede into a howling gale coursing over the top of the fence as though the sides of the cemetery were closed by solid walls and a roof to hold out the storm.

  Raising my eyes, just enough to get my bearings, the mint brushes against my cheeks, obscuring my vision. Dark clouds hang overhead, heavy and bursting with rain to come. The air is thick with static, and as I sit up, the hair on the back of my arms pricks up.

  Swallowing is difficult, and I wipe my chin with a shaking hand. I shouldn’t be out here, nightmare or no nightmare.

  Bright flashes of lightning crackles through the backdrop of grey, illuminating the sky briefly. Above me, a film filters the sky in a hazy view of distorted colors. Browns and greens meld together in a fog of dirt and torn grass, swirling in the draft that splits the air in two. From down below, the space between the tombstones is still, but watching the gusts howl onward, that stillness should be impossible.

  Gasping, I crawl backwards until I’m pressed against the nearest headstone. The sturdy stone jars against my skull with a painful thump, but between my panic and the throbbing at my lips, I don’t care.

  How is this happening?

  Staring at the shaking gate, I blink several times to focus on the landscape on the other side. The trees near the house are as motionless as the mint around me. It’s as though this personal tornado only exists in the space just outside the gate.

  Before me, the haze stems from a spot where the grass lies flat. As my eyes refocus, the unsteady shape of a figure comes into view. Tall and towering, with hands too long and sinister to be human, the entity reaches towards the metal bars, grasping towards me.

  Above the pounding in my ears and the howl of the wind, a sharp, hissing winds through the air. The figure is without true form, nothing but a dark space drawing in all the colors and light from the area around it. A living shadow.

  My fingers dig into dirt, wrenching bits of mint from its roots and desperately anchoring myself to my spot. The smell of metal, scorching rosemary, and bitter earth blow into my face, signaling the figure’s anger at not being able to reach me. Why can’t it reach me?

  The deeper I push my hands into the soil, the safer I feel. A clatter to my right draws my attention as my camera, caught on the rosemary, is being pushed through the bars of the fence. The gale that moves it trickles to an end just beyond the metal, leaving the device skimming the ground listlessly.

  Another flash of lightning cracks across the sky, and I can feel the rumble of thunder moving through my chest. The same kinetic energy I’d felt coursing through me when I ran towards Nix House is jumbling through my veins, erratic and fiery, like the sparks off midnight fireworks.

  The shadow figure hisses louder, its energy flickering as the rain draws nearer. An old folk saying slips into my head as I watch. Evil can’t pass through running water. Maybe it can’t withstand a rainstorm either.

  “Addie?” From the side of the house, Sabrina, and Nick struggle through the sage, both calling my name as they inexplic
ably trespass onto the property.

  If my heart wasn’t pounding hard enough already, it speeds up twofold, as the figure turns in their direction and my innate sense of right and wrong sends screeching alarms through me. They shouldn’t be here. They can’t be here! It isn’t safe.

  “No!” I scream as the shadow steps towards them, wrenching the turbulent air with it as a swirling funnel of hazy debris and an insatiable aura of maliciousness.

  Pulling myself free from the soil there’s more than just mint clinging to my fingers, leaving me shocked as several bobby pins fall from the dirt in my hands.

  Nick runs headlong in my direction, completely oblivious of the destructive entity moving his way. The terrible onslaught of rage and wind cuts through the rain, but somehow, I think I’m the only one who sees it. Sabrina, running closely behind Nick, doesn’t even glance up as she navigates the yard, shielding her glasses from as much of the downpour as she can.

  I stagger to my feet, making my way to the gate, knowing as heavy as the dread that settles in my gut that this is no dream. This terror is real.

  My fingers curl around the railing, but before I can push the gate open, something cold curves around my knuckles, holding my hands in place. The whooshing in my ears intensifies as I watch, horror struck as the tiny, carved scorpions scamper over the iron. Their sleek, metal bodies move impossibly from their positions to keep me from leaving the graveyard, and their opaque eyes reflect a fire I swear I’ve seen before.

  “Watch out!” I try to yell to Nick and Sabrina, but just like before in the hallway, my voice is muted, deadened. “Help,” I whimper.

  Tears stream down my face as the futility of the situation and my understanding of sanity and reality are warped and turned upside down.

  Just as my vision clouds with panic and my legs tremble, threatening to collapse beneath me, another cacophonous sound of thunder rolls across the sky.

  Hot splatters of rain unleash from above, thick, and bountiful, and for the small fragment of time, I mistake it for blood pouring down my face.

  The moving gale falters, fading into fringes of broken colors in the shape of a sinister creature. It moves like a man, but too deadly, too unseen. As the downpour continues, the terrifying silhouette dissipates into a rush of steam just as Nick intersects with the place it last stood.

  They rush forward, brought on by who knows what kind of intuition, and as the pair stumbles down the slope of the lawn, my hands are freed.

  The glinting, black scorpions scatter back into place, bonding instantly to iron, and petrifying as if they’d never moved to begin with. Only the gleam of their opal eyes betray their undeniable consciousness as they inspect my panic.

  I’m caught in the desire to hold my gaze on the creatures indefinitely, and the shock of surviving the last few minutes.

  “Addie! You okay?” Nick is calling to me, his shirt and basketball shorts darkening as the rain drenches him to the core.

  Sabrina runs with her glasses clutched in one hand, and blinking at them both, it’s hard to see past the rain falling into my own eyes.

  I push at the gate, carefully letting myself out of the cemetery. My hair flattens to my scalp, and it isn’t until I’m a couple of steps into the yard that I remember my camera, still lying near the rosemary. Turning back for it, I shove it under my shirt and hunch over, blocking as much of the water from it as I can.

  Nick catches me by my arm as I struggle uphill, slipping on the slick grass. “We need to get inside!” He yells over the rain.

  I can only nod at him, my voice still lost to the swirling storm of emotions washing through me.

  Sabrina shields her face with one hand, trembling as the rain comes down harder, rivulets of water streaming down the trampled earth towards the graves.

  The back porch stands proudly above a garden of aloe and lemongrass, the dark amber windchimes swaying on their chains below the eaves. Orange eyes watch our progress from below the deck, and the wiry bodies of feral cats slink nearer the stairs as we approach. One by one their eyes blink and vanish into the dark, until there’s nothing left of their presence but a discarded food bowl tucked under a chair.

  Although the figure and its violent aura have vanished, dread weighs me down with each step closer to the house. Sabrina and Nick have no business in Nix House, not after whatever that was in the yard. I shudder as I climb the stairs, wishing there was some way to send them back to Sabrina’s.

  “What are y’all doing here?” I sputter as soon as we reach the shelter of the porch. The windchimes clatter against each other in frenzied motion, but my friends’ faces remain oblivious as they clamber across the rain-soaked wood.

  “You just ran off without saying goodbye, I was hoping we could hang out some more. When you didn’t answer the front door, I figured you’d still be in the backyard. What happened to your mouth?”

  “Nothing.” I start to brush off Sabrina’s question but her concerned stare is harder to ignore. “I bit my lip when I slipped in a puddle. It’s fine.”

  Huddled in my wet clothes, panic is pulsating with every throb of my heart, and I wish I could snap at them to send them away. Anything to keep them from going inside.

  Another prickle at the base of my skull tells me we’re being watched, but by who or what, I can’t say. Before anyone can respond, the click of the doorknob makes me flinch, my shoulders shooting towards my ears.

  The door to the mud room creaks open on its own accord, and Nix House beckons us in.

  Chapter Five

  “DELIA?” I ASK HOPEFULLY. No luck. As soon as Sabrina enters last, the doors bangs shut behind her.

  “The hell was that?” Nick demands. Sabrina latches onto his arm, and they both stare at me for answers.

  “I, I...” I shake my head, unable to go on. Setting my camera onto the shelf above the washing machine with shaking hands, I feel the blood leave my face, and my feet go numb. “Nothing.” I lie. My voice cracks and I’m trembling as much as they are, making it impossible to feign nonchalance convincingly.

  They don’t believe me, of course, but where else are they going to go? Out into the storm?

  “So, uhm, this is my house. At least we can dry off and wait out the rain, right? Shouldn’t take too long.”

  Sabrina gawks at me with widened eyes through her still wet glasses. It looks as though she tried to dry them on her shirt, but all she’s accomplished to do is smear the rain across the lenses. Her fingers press so tightly into Nick’s arm, he’s wincing. So much for supposedly stomping through graveyards.

  The comforting scent of detergent and clean linens permeate the room as I pull towels down from a cabinet, but the solace fades as soon as an extra item falls down with them. A single bobby pin, just like the ones I’d shaken from my hands in the graveyard bounces off my chest and lands at my feet.

  Barely breathing as I squat down, I pick it up, my heart still pounding thunderously through my chest. It’s got to be a coincidence... right? My grandmother’s been dead for years, but that doesn’t mean Delia’s managed to clear out all of her old stuff. Honestly, I doubt she’d even tried.

  Handing out the towels, I lead the way into the kitchen, stretching my neck out as I peer around for Delia. Whatever was outside, stayed outside, which is good. Now we just have to deal with the inside of the house.

  “Should we go to your room, or what?” She’s finally let go of Nick’s arm and is trying to squeeze the water out of her thick braids, but there’s an edge of anxiety behind her question.

  “No! No.”

  My room means passing down the hallway. Even if I can manage to walk down there, they can’t. If ghosts are real, then maybe the ones inside will leave me alone. Except, if that were the case, I shouldn’t feel so threatened just walking to my room...

  “No.” I clear my throat. “You should call your mom, let her know that you’re okay.” A fact I don’t actually believe, but they don’t need to know that. Panic won’t help anyone; it’s not
helping me any. “You can hang out in the den, and I’ll go find my aunt.”

  Sabrina chatters nervously the whole way across the house, and Nick doesn’t speak at all, but his frown grows deeper. If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear he’s just as unnerved by the portraits on the walls and the gentle creak of the floorboards as I am.

  “Hey, Aunt Del? You home?” I raise my voice a fraction and glance back at the pair behind me. Haunted house or not, I should at least let her know we have company. “I made some friends and they got caught in the rain. We’re just going to hang out for a while, okay? Aunt Delia?”

  WANDERING THROUGH THE empty rooms on my own sends tremors of doubt through my veins, and I have to arch my back to avoid the sensation of someone standing behind me. The sound of the TV in the den where I’d left the others is out of place among the normally silent rooms. No footsteps pace the upper level of the house, and there’s no way she’s napping, it just goes against her nature. So, where is she?

  Reaching the front of the house, I glance out the front windows to check the driveway, and Delia’s car is still staunchly blocking off the garage. The road is quickly flooding, and wrapped in my towel I’m so cold my fingers are turning blue. She’s home, just not answering.

  Stumped, I go in search for at least the thermostat, and hope the others have found the spare blankets hanging off the couch. If they’re as cold as I am, we’ll all end up with hypothermia. I really ought to change, and grab Sabrina something to throw over her tank top.

  Heading over to the hallway, I can’t help but slow down, and my limbs convulse with shivers far stronger than just chills. It’s the worst part of the house, second only to whatever was chasing me outside. The shadowy outline blazes the backsides of my eyelids every time I blink, and I know in my heart, that thing was not a relative. Maybe the people who died in the house do stay here, but if that spirit was meant to be around, the cemetery wouldn’t have kept it out.