Jess and Ashley huddled behind Tyler, trying to see over his shoulder to find out who was inside. But they couldn't see anyone.
They walked inside cautiously and glanced around the room. It seemed to be a guest bedroom with an old, messy bed sitting in the corner and a broken nightstand next to it. Old paintings hung on the wall next to strips of torn wallpaper, and a long crack ran along the ceiling. They looked at each inch of the room, seeing a dresser, a closet, a window, the bed, and some other small furnishings, but nobody was here.
"What the?" Jess said.
"It was definitely coming from this room!" Ashley said. She was scared, and her own voice started to shake. "I don't like this!"
"What made that noise?" Jess asked. She suddenly felt that cold chill return to her, and her teeth chattered. Ashley felt it now too, causing her to shiver. Tyler felt the fear creep into himself, but he tried his hardest to keep it at bay.
The room was dead silent, and whatever had been moving around in here appeared to be gone... or waiting.
"Do you think what everyone says about this house is true?" Ashley asked nervously.
Jess looked at the door they had come in, and suddenly it seemed a million miles away, like it would snap shut if they tried to run for it. Her heart hammered in her chest.
"Do you think this place is... haunted?"
"No," Tyler said, "it's not hau—"
A footstep suddenly pressed on the floorboards right behind them.
Jess shrieked and the three of them spun around to face the person who had been lurking in the room.
But the only thing that was there was the open window.
It swung open with the breeze and its rusted hinges creaked loudly. The wind pushed it back and it roughly slapped against the frame of the house, creating a loud tapping sound.
It took a moment for the three of them to comprehend that the noises they'd heard were only the window flapping open and shut in the breeze, but when they did, they all settled down considerably. Jess walked to the window and grabbed it, wrenching it closed into its uneven frame so the wind couldn't open it again. Then she stepped away from it and the house fell silent.
They all breathed a sigh of relief.
"See," Tyler said, "the house isn't haunted. It was just a window."
Ashley nodded, but she was still a little shaken from the scare. They all were, and Tyler was quick to usher them out of the room and continue their tour of the house to mask how rattled he'd been.
They continued along the hallway on the second floor, taking the time to look in each room. They traveled to the very end and saw that the hall made another ninety-degree turn and connected back with the other end of it, forming a long rectangle on the second floor. They entered the door in the corner and found the master bedroom. It was easily bigger than all the other bedrooms they'd found so far, and there was a huge four-poster bed sitting against the far wall. All the furniture and decor was just as elegant and yet run down as the rest of the house, but it still conveyed the overwhelming presence that the house carried from when it was built and populated many decades ago.
"This would be a great place to sleep tonight," Jess said.
"I'm not sleeping on that dusty bed," Ashley warned. "It's probably full of bedbugs or something."
"No, of course not," Jess replied. "We'll bring our sleeping bags up here. There's plenty of room on the floor." She looked down at the large throw rug that covered most of the room and realized that it would be more than enough space—and well-cushioned—for the three of them, plus enough room for her to lay down Buddy's blankets so that he could sleep with them once they could coax him into the house.
But Jess was already feeling a lot better; she had been extremely apprehensive of coming here, and then entering the house herself, but now that she saw it was truly just an old, empty building, she felt much more at peace with her fears (though they were still a long way from fading entirely). And now that she felt better about the whole situation, she was confident that she could convince Buddy to calm down and join them inside.
"Let's keep exploring the last little bit up here, then we'll check the rest of the rooms downstairs," Tyler said. The two girls agreed and they walked out of the bedroom and went back into the hallway.
At the other end of the hall, they could see a bathroom with a large tub with clawed feet. It had a certain sense of regality to it, and Jess figured that this was probably the part of the house where the old owners spent most of their time.
They passed a spiraling staircase in the middle of the hallway that wound its way down to the first floor, and they continued on, seeing more guestrooms and smaller bathrooms along the way.
Tyler shoved open another door and found a linen closet, then he moved on to the next one near the bathroom. He tried to push it open, but the door didn't budge. He jiggled the handle and put some weight into it, but it was no use.
"It's probably locked from the inside," Jess said.
"Nonsense," Tyler replied, throwing his shoulder into the door.
"Seriously Tyler, you're going to hurt yourself," she said.
But knowing that his pride was on the line, Tyler refused to back down now; he was going to give it everything he had. He took a few steps back and made what was close to a running leap at the door, as he sprang against it and drove his shoulder into it as hard as he could.
The door flew open with a loud grinding of wood and slammed into the wall inside the room. Tyler stumbled and struggled to regain his footing as Jess and Ashley peered inside curiously.
As Tyler rubbed his shoulder, the three of them found themselves in an entirely empty square room with a wide set of windows covering the back wall. There was a closet on the other side of the room next to the door they just came in, and without any furnishings at all, it would have been an entirely nondescript and forgettable room, but when they looked down and saw what was on the floor, their mouths fell open.
A large white circle was drawn on the scuffed hardwood in the middle of the room in what appeared to be chalk. Surrounding it was a ring of dusty and half-melted candles. And in the very center, some dark splotches stained the floor.
"Is that..." Jess said, seeing the splotches.
"It's probably just red wax or something," Ashley offered, trying to assuage her nervousness. But she couldn't assuage her own.
Jess looked from the windows down to the strange circle in awe. Immediately, she felt the house's cold and imposing nature again as a very cold chill ran up her spine.
Moving In
Tyler knelt down and inspected the splotches on the floor. "This definitely isn't wax," he said. "It's blood. But it's old, though. Just like the stuff in the kitchen." He ran his fingers along the darkened grain of the hardwood.
"Don't touch it!" Ashley cried, and Jess felt squeamish as she watched him.
But the blood had soaked into the wood for so long that it had become a part of it, and it was obviously the result of something that happened a very long time ago. Tyler was just trying to figure out when.
"This must've been a satanic ritual or something," he said.
"It's a circle, not a pentagram," Jess reminded him. "I don't know what this was, but I think it was something else."
"I guess," Tyler replied. He stood up and walked over to the windows spanning the far wall. He pressed his forehead to the glass so he could see down below to the ground, then he scanned the landscape in general, but he couldn't come to a decision on why this room in particular had been chosen for such a strange occult practice.
Jess walked to the windows and looked, too. All she saw were the woods behind the house, and the trees were close enough together and so full of the lush greenery of summer that she wouldn't be able to see anything interesting even if it were out there.
"Do you think this was your uncle?" Tyler asked her.
"I don't know," Jess said.
"Either that or the original owners," Ashley said.
"What did the p
olice say when they found your uncle?" Tyler asked. "Did they mention this room?"
Jess shook her head. "The police report was pretty sparse, and anything my parents knew, they tried to keep away from me. But I don't think they knew much, anyway. The police just said that they found some markings of his blood in the house, and what they found of him out in the woods, but they said they didn't find any evidence of anyone else being here."
"Do you think someone else was in the house with your uncle?" he asked.
"Tyler, don't be so insensitive!" Ashley scolded him. "Jess, we don't have to keep talking about this. Let's just check out the other rooms in the house."
Jess had to admit that all of this conversation—and standing in this strange room—was making her a little uncomfortable, so she appreciated her friend sticking up for her, but she knew she couldn't run away from it anymore. "It's fine, Ashley. We'll get going in a sec."
Jess inspected the chalky circle on the ground, running her finger along it and rubbing the white dust between her thumb and forefinger. She leveled a keen eye on the candles, and they looked like they were covered in a thick layer of dust. But she didn't know if the dust had been from twelve years ago or eighty.
Ashley urged her again that they should go, and Jess agreed this time. The three of them went back into the second floor hallway and continued around the circuit until they returned to the top of the stairs in the foyer. They had checked all the rooms on the second floor, but they were all empty, like the rest of the rooms they'd seen so far.
They went downstairs and finished checking out the remainder of the house, marveling at some of the impressive and large rooms on the ground floor. The ballroom was probably in the worst shape of any room in the entire house. It was full of garbage and debris, with water damage and spongy floorboards rounding it out, but even here there was no denying the former greatness of this house. Jess found it to be such a shame that a place as nice as this had gone to pot in such tragic manner.
As they finished up their inspection, they found a small library, an office, a large pantry off the kitchen, another bathroom, and a few other small and unnoteworthy rooms. At the end of it all, the three of them took a breath, satisfied that the house was empty. They were the only ones there, and unless they heard an engine and the churning of gravel climbing up the driveway, it would stay that way for the rest of the night.
They went back into the kitchen and inspected the macabre portrait with the knives stabbed into it that they had found.
"So do you really think this was from the Dovers?" Jess asked.
"It has to be," Tyler confirmed. "Like Ashley said, they had two daughters and one son. Plus the blood is really old, and the guy did kind of go crazy and kill his whole family, didn't he? It seems like exactly the kind of thing that a nutbag would do."
Ashley let out the breath that she was holding in. "I really hope you're right, but I guess whatever happened here was a long time ago." She turned to Jess. "So how are you feeling? Are you still okay to stay here tonight?"
Jess looked at her, and after a moment to consider, she said "Yeah, I think so. But I don't want to split up, especially when the night comes. The house is so big that I think it would be best if we all stuck together throughout the night."
Tyler nodded. "That'll be no problem. We can find a place to hang out... maybe the living room or the dining room... and then when we go to sleep, we can all go up in the master bedroom upstairs."
"Okay," Jess said. "Well, why don't we start bringing stuff in, then?"
The other two nodded and they went outside to the truck. The sun still blazed on in the early evening, and while the other two started taking backpacks and boxes out of the back of Tyler's truck and bringing them into the house, Jess went over to check on Buddy.
She crouched down and patted his back. "How are you doing, boy? I hope we weren't gone for too long." She stroked his shining fur and kissed him on the nose.
Buddy gave a friendly bark and licked her cheek, then he looked up at her and happily panted. But when she untied his leash and tried to lead him toward the front door, he dug his heels into the gravel again and growled.
"What's wrong, Buddy?" Jess looked over her shoulder at Tyler and Ashley by the truck, then she leaned in toward her dog and whispered, "Is something wrong with the house?"
Buddy wouldn't look at her, but instead just stared at the front door and continued that low, guttural growl. Jess had been okay in the presence of her friends as they explored the house and found it to be empty, but just like her dog, she couldn't shake the feeling that there was something else going on with the house. There was some intangible thing to Bloodmoon House that she had never experienced with any other building before. It was too nebulous to put her finger on, but it was something distinctly negative, like a depressing feeling or that of plain dread.
"Okay, boy, it's okay," she said to him, trying to calm him down. She pulled Buddy's leash and tried to lead him away from the house, and after some initial resistance, he followed her back to the water main at the side of the house and she tied him back up.
Tyler passed by and Jess got his attention.
"He still doesn't want to come in the house," she said. "I don't like this."
Tyler pulled out his cell phone and checked the time. "We weren't in the house for very long," he said. "We haven't given him very much time to calm down and get accustomed to the place. Give him a little bit more time, then I'm sure he'll come in."
"But I don't like him sitting out here by himself," she said.
"We'll come out periodically and check on him. Don't worry Jess, we'll take care of him. And like I said, if he refuses to come in the house, he can stay in the truck tonight."
Jess thought about this. She wondered if she was overreacting, and she figured that Tyler was probably right. They had everything accounted for, and a good plan of action to see all of them through the night. She was still reserving the right to take off if something went wrong, but she didn't feel like there was anything strange enough to play that card.
"All right," she said, "but if he stays in the truck tonight, so do I."
Tyler agreed.
She went to the truck and pulled out some dog food and water, and brought them over to Buddy with his doggy bowls. She topped him up and he happily ate and drank, then lay down on the gravel in the shade that the side of the house provided and stared off at the woods in the distance.
For some reason, he didn't seem to like the inside of the house, but the grounds around the house seemed okay to him, at least so far. Jess sighed, gave him another pat on his head, then she helped Ashley and Tyler bring the rest of their supplies inside.
They loaded the boxes up in the foyer, but before they started taking anything out, Ashley insisted that they clean at least the living room and some of the dining room chairs. Tyler laughed at her and hurled a throw pillow at her from the sofa in the living room, which struck her outstretched arms that she'd raised in defense and caused a burst of dust to explode in her face. She cursed him while she coughed and sneezed. Jess just rolled her eyes and told Tyler to knock it off. And as soon as he heard scorn from her, he immediately settled down, apologizing and trying to play it off.
Jess found an old broom in a closet and the three of them cleaned up the living room, sweeping up the junk and the dead bugs into a corner. Ashley watched more than anything, trying not to get too dirty, and Tyler happily beat the furniture to get all the dust out. They cleaned up a little in the dining room too, and also in the kitchen—trying to ignore the disturbing image painted on the wall—just in case they wanted more room to lay out some food or supplies.
Tyler lugged the sleeping bags up to the master bedroom as well as the space heater he'd bought on the way. He decided to fiddle with it later and came downstairs to the girls who were milling about between the foyer and the living room.
Jess was standing in the middle of the house's entrance and stared at the bloody handprint smeared on
the wall coming down the stairs. "Do you think there was someone else here that night?" she asked suddenly.
Tyler paused halfway down the stairs, then he looked at the smear. "I don't know, Jess. It does seem a little strange that your uncle would do that to himself. I don't know how anyone could do... well, that to themselves."
"If there was someone else here," Jess continued, "do you think they're going to come back tonight?"
Tyler swallowed, feeling the weight of the gun hanging on his shoulder. "Let's not think about that, okay?"
"I just mean... either someone else had to be here that night, or there was something unnatural in this house."
"Like what?"
"I found a box of some of my uncle's things after my parents packed up his house, and it's pretty clear that he was into the occult. I found something talking about this house, and I don't know what he was trying to say, but he mentioned that he wanted to communicate with something. To summon something, maybe."
"Jess, come on, there's no such thing as ghosts," Tyler said, trying to reassure her.
A stiff breeze swept by outside the house, pushing up against the windows and causing the old house to groan.
Tyler looked around, feeling a little uncomfortable at the odd timing, and Jess began to feel like Buddy—uncomfortable at some intangible presence hanging in the air.
"I'm not so sure," she said.
Card Trick
Jess leaned on the arm of the sofa in the living room and hiked her feet up. Ashley sat next to her and Tyler stretched out on the armchair.
"This is a lot more boring than I thought it would be," Ashley complained.
Tyler laughed. "What were you expecting?"
"I don't know," she said. "But it's just, like, an empty house."
"No kidding!" Tyler replied.
"Oh, shut up, you!" she said, and now she tossed one of the throw pillows at Tyler.
"Joke's on you, I already dusted it!" he said gleefully as he threw it back.
The Haunting of Bloodmoon House Page 8