Syeribus Creatures of the Night Free sample 1-7

by L. M. Boelz

  Chapter 5: The Red-Headed Boy

  Hearing the news about a new family moving into the abandoned house, a few houses up from his, had Peter's curiosity piqued.

  “I will have to go look for myself. I cannot believe anyone would move into this old broken down place,” Peter said aloud, as he started up the driveway.

  Brushing his thick red hair out of his eyes, Peter walked up to the front door, which was open. A little too quietly at first, he knocked on the doorframe. Peter knocked again, a little harder this time. With no response to his second attempt, Peter stretched his neck as far as he could, to look inside. I think it will be okay to look in, as long as I keep my feet outside the house, he reasoned to himself, as he listened for any sounds. Still not hearing a reply, Peter tiptoed inside.

  “Well, the front door is wide open, and if they did not want company they surely would shut and locked the door,” Peter said under his breath. “Hello, hello? Is there anyone in here?” Peter’s voice echoed through the mostly empty house.

  Hearing what seemed to be someone calling out hello, Carol’s mother came out of the bathroom that she had been cleaning, to see if it was her imagination.

  With her mother headed for the living room, Carol decided to follow her.

  Carol and her mother stood looking at the red-headed boy who was now in the middle of the room.

  “I knocked, and when no one answered, I thought it would be okay to come on in and see if someone was here, since the front door was wide open,” Peter said uneasily.

  “Don’t worry; it’s perfectly alright,” Carol’s mother replied, still smiling. “I’m Sarah Darnell. You can call me Mrs. D.”

  Holding out his hand, he introduced himself to them as Peter Connor. “I live six houses up on the same side of the street. My house is the blue one with the white trim.” He then offered to help, if they needed it.

  Before Carol could say ‘No,’ her mother had already thanked him, while smiling over at her daughter.

  Carol could hear her mother now, ‘Oh look, a new friend already.’

  Carol still had a bunch of trash to clear out of her bedroom, and she turned to leave, without a saying a word. Her mother had already returned to the bathroom to finish prepping the walls for plaster and paint.

  Peter was left standing alone in the living room. After a slight hesitation, he decided to follow Carol into the back of the house. Peter waited just outside the bedroom doorway for Carol to notice that he had followed her to her room.

  Picking up a bucket and cloth, Carol walked over to the large window in her room. By turning her back to him, she could look like she was completely uninterested in him being there, and at the same time, she could watch him in the reflection of the window. Moreover, Carol wanted to be able to see outside and keep an eye on things out there, in case any more ‘new friends’ decided to show up. It was a triple win for her.

  Carol was not sure if he could see her looking back at him. She was both surprised and annoyed that her silent treatment had not detoured this boy in the least. She continued to watch him, as he stepped into the room, grabbed a large bag, and started to pick up some of the trash lying around on the floor.

  “You know, no one has lived here for a very long time,” Peter began, as he continued to gather up the junk that was everywhere. It was so thick in places that she could not even see the floor.

  Carol’s curiosity was starting to get the better of her. She really did want to know what type of people could live like this and why they left the house the way they did.

  Unfazed by Carol’s continued silence, Peter carried on, “No one knows where they went. The whole family just up and left in the middle of the night, without saying a word to anyone. The neighbors on both sides said that they could hear Steve’s mom and dad screaming and that it sounded like they were throwing things. Then, there was just silence. The next day, some of us came over here to see if everything was okay or not, and to check on Steve. We figured that they must have had a big fight with the way that the house looked.”

  Carol turned and glared at him. So, I’m supposed to know who that is?

  “He was the boy who lived here with his parents, before you and your mom moved in,” Peter explained. “We assumed that they all must have left during the night. When we came over the next day, we looked everywhere in the house and the surrounding neighborhood, but we couldn’t find any sign of anyone. We thought it was strange that they hadn’t mentioned that they were going to move or anything. They left most all of their things behind, except for a few clothes. We could not believe the mess in here when we came in to have a look around. There were holes knocked in all the walls and even the beds were turned upside down! It was a big mess with everything torn out of the cabinets and closets.”

  Peter paused only long enough to take a dramatic breath and to see if Carol was still pretending not to listen.

  “Even the back of the couch had been ripped open. I had never seen someone have a fight as bad as the one they must have had. They were such a nice family too. Steve’s mom did not work, and you could always count on her to have fresh baked cookies on Saturday afternoon. Steve’s dad traveled a lot. He owned the antique shop downtown and would go to faraway places and bring back exotic treasures that he had found.”

  “Oh look!” Peter said, holding up a large piece of wood that looked like it had been torn off the side of a packing crate. “This is from the last trip he had gone on.” Peter leaned the board against the wall near the door and went back to work, while he continued to talk. “Steve’s dad had gone to England on a ship, to pick up some antiques, which had been left to him by some old man that he had once met a long time ago.”

  Try as she might, Carol could not stop her curiosity from getting the best of her. Carol finally decided to turn around to take a look at the board that he had just leaned against her wall.

  Carol gasped under her breath as the bottle and cloth that she was holding in her hand, fell unnoticed to the floor. She stood there, wide-eyed, holding her other hand over her mouth. The printing that she read on the board echoed through her mind. It was the Pasqual, the same ship that she had arrived on. It looked like someone had ripped a chunk out of the lower left-hand corner of the piece of wood.

  Carol was sure that the color had drained from her face, as a queer sense of falling washed over her. Regaining her composure, she wheeled back around, quickly picked up the cloth, and went back to what she was doing.

  Peter continued to carry on, not missing a beat, but Carol somehow knew he was beginning to suspect that he had caught her attention after all.

  Almost finished picking up most of the trash on the floor, it was time to take on the daunting task of clearing the spider webs that seemed to be everywhere.

  “I don’t think I have ever seen so many in a house before.” Peter considered, for a moment, “Where do you suppose all the spiders are? I see plenty of webs but no spiders.”

  The same question, along with about a hundred others, crisscrossed through Carol’s thoughts. She could not imagine anyone fighting the way that Peter had described. She had read about fight scenes, like the one he described, in adventure books, but had never really seen or heard of one in real-life.

  Even though she had already decided not to like this red-headed boy, he was starting to grow on her.

  Peter stopped what he was doing, to look into one of the holes in the wall. Seeing this, Carol stopped to watch him for a moment. Returning to work was becoming increasingly difficult.

  “Wow! Do you hear that?” Peter asked, pressing his ear against the wall. “I think I can hear scratching sounds coming from inside the walls.”

  No longer able to act disinterested, Carol, at long last, gave in. “I have heard some sounds before, too, coming from inside the holes in the living room and in the bathroom,” Carol responded.

  “So you do talk,” Peter chided at her.

  He then returned his attention to listening to the noises he could
hear, just below the hole. He tried hard not to start laughing at her, while Carol stood frowning back at him.

  “Look at this!” he almost shouted, as he pulled a tuft of grey and white hair from just inside the hole.

  Carol chimed in, as she walked over to kneel down next to him, “It’s just hair from that old cat that Mom threw out of the house earlier.”

  Standing up and examining the tuft of hair together, they found it felt coarser than what you might expect to find on a cat.

  Peter remarked, as he held the hair in his hand, “I thought cat’s usually had really soft fur.”

  Hearing another sound coming from inside the wall, Peter dropped the hair, and returned his attention to trying to look down into the hole.

  “I wish we could see if it was that cat I had seen earlier. Maybe it’s just some mice,” Carol offered, while leaning over closer to peer into the hole as well.

  Drawing in closer to the opening in the wall, they found their senses assaulted with a sour, pungent odor, causing them both to pull back.

  Carol was surprised that without hesitation, Peter then began to weave the most wonderful story of monsters and trolls that could be living in the walls, instead of rodents, as they had first guessed. Carol was sure that this was an attempt to frighten her, being a girl and all.

  To Peter’s amazement, instead of being scared, Carol joined in, weaving an equally terrible tale of dread and terror. Squealing with delight, Carol and Peter continued telling stories throughout the rest of the day, in an attempt to try and scare one another.

  Carol was excited to find someone that liked to weave stories like she did. Not only that, but he was pretty good at it too!

  A couple of days later, Peter had just left to go home, when Carol heard her mother laughing at something in the kitchen.

  “What’s so funny in here?” Carol asked, as she rounded the corner of the hallway into the kitchen.

  “Well, I was just thinking that it’s pretty amusing that you two have become such good friends. When he first came over here, you had wanted me to send him away,” she chuckled.

  Carol grimaced at her and turned to return to her room. Mom was right, and there would be no living with her now.

  Looking at her room, Carol could not help feeling a sense of satisfaction. It had only taken a week for her and Peter to clean up her room and patch all the holes. The rest of the house was coming along nicely as well. The kitchen and bathroom had been finished, and the owners of the house had even called an exterminator to check the house and lay traps.

  “You know, I might as well get started painting in here,” Carol stated aloud.

  It did not take long to get all the edges and the first coat done. Afterwards, Carol stood back to admire her work.

  An hour later, Carol returned to the room. “I think the paint is dry enough to go ahead and put on the second coat,” Carol declared to herself, as she reached over to run her finger several times across the wall.

  Ready to start, Carol leaned over to dip the roller in the paint. This brought the area where the largest hole had been, right into her line of sight. Stopping to set the roller down, Carol felt the area around where the opening had been patched. There seemed to be a crack, leading to a small hole, in the center of the patch.

  Reaching up and touching it, Carol thought she could feel vibrations coming from behind the wall. Carol’s imagination wasted no time in conjuring up reasons for this.

  Placing both hands on the wall above the opening, Carol leaned in, in order to listen a little closer. The thought that something might still be in there had her full attention.

  Carol watched as more of the plaster fell away when she ran her fingers over it a second time. Wincing with pain, Carol quickly withdrew her finger and brought it up to see if she had been bitten. Carol watched, as a small drop of blood appeared on the tip of her finger. That was all it took…

  “Mom, Mom!” Carol yelled, as she ran straight into her in the hallway. “Something bit me! Something bit me!”

  Thrusting her finger up into her mother’s face, Carol stood stamping her feet, while showing her mother her wound.

  “It’s just a small prick. Are you sure something bit you?”

  “Yes!” Carol wailed. “I’ll show you. It’s that thing hiding in the walls!” While continuing to be dramatic, Carol held up her finger again and repeated, “It bit me!”

  Following her mother back into her room, Carol frantically ran over and pointed at the hole in the wall.

  “Look, there in the hole, Mom!” Carol almost shrieked. “There’s something in there, Mom. It bit me! It bit me!”

  “Calm down, you’re okay,” she softly reassured Carol, while looking at the hole in the wall. “What happened here? How did you do that?” Her tone was stern, while looking at the opening, which was now the size of a coffee cup.

  “I didn’t do that, Mom. Whatever is in there did it, honest!” Carol continued to plead for her mother to believe her.

  Carol’s mother, assuming Carol was lying to cover up the fact she had made a hole in the wall, was trying not to get angry with her daughter. However before she could say anything, the sound of more plaster falling to the floor caught their attention. Seeing this, Carol watched her mother pick up one of the sticks that they had brought home for stirring the paint and carefully tap on the wall near the hole. This was followed by hissing and crackling noises coming from somewhere inside the wall.

  Suddenly, Carol found herself grabbed by the hand and yanked out of the room, as her mother muttered under her breath and slammed the door behind them. Carol could always tell when her mother was really mad, and she was glad that this time it was not because of anything she had done.

  With her mother continuing to hold onto her hand, Carol listened as she yelled at the exterminator on the phone. He had just come by a few days before and Carol’s mother was livid that there was already a problem.

  “You said the rodent problem was taken care of, and there wasn’t anything else in the house.”

  Carol watched, as her mother continued to fume, waiting for the man to answer.

  “Alright, see that you do! Goodbye!”

  After hanging up, Carol was half-lead and half-dragged to the bathroom. She knew what was coming next, and she was not going willingly. It was all Carol could do to keep her eyes from popping right out of her head, when her mother poured iodine over her finger. Finally managing to pull her hand free, Carol stood trying not to scream while blowing on her finger.

  Carol had not even noticed that her mother had left the room until she returned with a small bag of clothes and her purse. Grabbing a hold of Carol by the hand again, they were out of the house and in the car before Carol could ask where they were going.

  “We are going to stay at the motel at the edge of town, while that man checks the house better. I told him I didn’t care that today was Saturday, and he had better make sure this time!”

  With an apologetic look and a pat on her daughter’s leg, she added, “Just think of this as a grand adventure. You will have all kinds of new things to weave tales about now.”

  With the pain from the puncture and iodine subsiding, Carol decided that her mother was right. Not wanting to waste any time, Carol began to weave an adventure, about her ordeal, in her mind.

  “How long are we staying here, Mom?” Carol asked, as they entered the motel room.

  “Just for tonight, dear. He promised to take care of it today.”

  It was right before bedtime when the exterminator called.

  Hanging up the phone, Carol listened with great interest to the report as her mother relayed it back to her. “Okay, he said that he found a family of opossums living under the house and it looked like they had just moved in, and they were setting up a nest. He did not think that they were there the first time that he checked the house. He even fixed the hole in the wall at no charge. He said that he likes to have happy customers.”

  Carol suspected that her mot
her was giving her so many details in hopes that she would not be afraid to stay in her room alone at night.

  “I’ll be fine, Mom,” Carol reassured her, while trying to look brave, even though inside, she was still very much afraid.

  The next day, after arriving back home, Carol hopped out of the car as soon as it was in park, and was off like a shot, headed straight for Peter’s house.

  Carol’s mother knew that her daughter had been up half the night, creating tales and adventures to share with Peter, as soon as they arrived home.

  Peter anxiously waited for Carol to catch her breath after arriving at his house, as she was unable to talk at first. He was sure, from her expression, that whatever she had to say would be good.

  “Come on, out with it,” he begged, while jumping around. Peter was hardly able to wait to find out what had happened, and why they were not at home the previous night.

  Normally, running to Peter’s house would not have winded Carol so much, but with the combination of excitement and staying up most of the night, Carol was quite worn out. Not able to stand it another minute, Peter grabbed a hold of both of her arms and shook her like a rag doll.

  “Okay, okay,” Carol conceded.

  Letting out a long breath, Carol straightened back up and quickly relayed the events of the night before to Peter. After finishing the story of what had happened, Carol found that her mother was right; they both became very excited about the kinds of tales that they would be able to weave from this.

  Suddenly, Carol got the idea to tell Peter the story, or warning, that she had heard around the campfire.

  Afterwards, Peter added, “After they pull someone under the bed, they eat them alive or make them zombie slaves!”