the grounds of the house, the radiating sense of pure evil was hard to ignore.
“Here, this was the room. She began her chanting, swinging that glittery white rock and saying words in a language I didn’t recognise. She told me no matter what, I had to keep my arms circled around her. She said that if Seb hadn’t... well, that it would be a lot stronger, having two of us to circle her and keep her protected. But they began getting... angry. Roaring and screaming and trying to rush forwards to us. The further in the chant she got, the closer they managed to surge forwards. There were hundreds of them. I stared one of them in the eyes, her mouth just stretched so wide open that I could see her black tongue and dark yellow teeth. I could smell her hot, rancid breath. Then another one of them came closer and grabbed me. It was the same one from your dream, the tattooed man.”
She began sobbing quietly as she talked but I couldn’t see her face as I concentrated on keeping my gaze on a cracked vase next to the door. I could tell they were listening. “When it touched my arm, it sizzled and I could smell my own flesh burning. I could tell Esther was almost done with her chant but I couldn’t hold on any longer. I screamed and clenched my eyes shut and suddenly they were all grabbing me, pulling out hair and scratching my body. I ran, and l-I left her. I didn’t know what to do! I thought I was going to die!” Her sobs echoed around us, fuelling their excitement.
“It’s not your fault. Anyone would have done the same. I’ll protect you now, Gwen.” I said reassuringly, trying to keep her calm. “I’ll never let you be alone.” I knew if I had been in the same place, with a practical stranger with wicked beings trying to take me with them, I would consider it too. Gwen was gaining nothing from being here, apart from a normal boyfriend at the end of it. She had already done so much by even coming here, I couldn’t be angry. I didn’t really know Esther either, only that she had promised she could help and had been through something similar to me, and if I managed to do nothing but trust her, we would all come out of this alive.
House of Lies
When the four of us had sat outside the house, each with dread in our stomachs, Esther had turned to look me in the eye and said, “Under no circumstances do you enter the house. We are going in, doing the ritual, and leaving. The ritual will lock the demons in that damned house, and then we shall burn that house to the ground so they can’t affect anyone ever again. For reasons you can’t comprehend, you mustn’t go inside. If any of us die, it wouldn’t be a tragedy. If you die tonight, the world will suffer.” I had nodded, knowing her words were overly dramatic to try and convince me not to come. If I’d had my way I would have been part of the ritual too, to help, but we had come to a compromise I could wait outside in the car. After twenty minutes, I had heard Gwen’s screams of absolute terror and without even thinking I’d rushed inside and got us both trapped. At first we had tried smashing windows with chairs and lamps, then the front door. But everything was solid, unbreakable. We knew we had to do something, and that was when we instinctively knew to watch where we looked and, from Gwen’s experience upstairs, not to shut our eyes.
I’d lived my entire life seeing dark, shadowy people pass by the outer edges of my sight and not really paid much attention, deciding everyone must see like I do. Until one day after my parents died and I was in that lonely hotel room and I tried to stare at one, hoping it would take me. He had stopped walking. I kept focusing on him. I saw his shadowy profile change and turn until I knew he was facing me. I willed him forward so I could see who he was. Closer and closer he had come. Then when he was just an arm’s reach away, I could see his grey skin covered with deep red scars When I went to stare him in the eyes, I gasped. The bare eye sockets had purple veins bulging and pulsing like worms, the inner flesh looked moist and bloody. I reached into my pocket for the Xenith pendulum I knew would be there. It smirked, and started pacing backwards, face always pointing to me so I could see its disfigured form until it reached the fuzzy outer limits of my sight.
With less anxiety than before I opened the door that I expected to lead us to Esther, and stepped inside with Gwen. The room we were in was dark but it also felt like it was in black and white, like a vintage film. I didn’t want to rub my eyes in case that gave them enough time to catch me, but like in the other room I felt protected. Gwen squeezed my hand, more for her benefit to make sure I was still there than to comfort me. A young girl wearing a frilly pink dress and ornate hair band skipped to us. To the side of the room I noticed a small dinosaur and a vicious looking dog. Even the sight of my childhood friends made me feel braver, and I swallowed hard to get away the sour taste of fear.
“Gwen! Rick! Essa happy to see you both!” Sang the innocent little voice, beaming up at us with her two front teeth missing.
“Esther?” Gwen sounded shocked. After seeing Seb, I wasn’t as surprised about anything. “Esther, we need your help. How can we help you escape?”
“Escape? Why would Essa want to go? I’m awake, and I don’t feel tired! When Essa feels tired, they come closer. When Essa falls asleep, they come for her. Essa draws pictures of them, and they come real. They scare Essa but they leave her alone when she draws ‘cause it helps them live with her. But Essa doesn’t want them to live with her. Essa get scared when she get tired unless she has pretty necklace.” Esther waved her hand to show the Xenite pendulum that she had tied around her wrist.
“Esther, hunny, Rick and I need your help.” Gwen knelt down to Esther’s level and smiled maternally. “You need to tell us how to get rid of the nasty people, so they can’t bother anyone ever again. Then you can go to sleep and they won’t scare you anymore.”
“Pretty necklace, they don’t like. But, we need to say funny chant. Rick knows it.”
“I don’t know any other language than English, I have no idea what she’s talking about. I don’t know you, and I don’t know what’s going on but I want it over with! I want Seb back!” I shook my head. I certainly didn’t know any ritual chants.
“Essa confused, Rick. I know you. Rick, Rick, Rick. Sebastian, too. Seb! Sebastian. Yes, Richard and Sebastian and Sally and Lawrence.” Her voice sounded as if it was maturing very quickly as she listed our names, and my parent’s. “Sally, she was my daughter. Lawrence, my son-in-law. You were oldest. Seb adored you, you always looked after him like your own precious child. Sally gave birth and forbade me from visiting, in case the demons were contagious, she didn’t want her pure, untainted babies to be cursed like her mother. But it wasn’t me or the house that was haunted, it was my subconscious. It wasn’t catching, you were safe.” She sniffed back tears and pouted childishly.
“You visited once to my house, when you were three and he was one. But you fell, and hit your head on a rock by the pond in my garden you used to love watching the fish in. While you were unconscious, I sensed a change, and they found you. But blood is thicker than water. Blood is thickest.” She untied the Xenite from her wrist, and threw it in our direction, smiling with large, happy eyes as she did so. Immediately they came, sweeping slowly from the shadows.
“You need to chant, and sacrifice the touched with glittering Xenite stick. The chant will flow with the blood, you need blood. Blood ties keep you together, they rip you apart. COME FOR ME NOW, BEASTS!” She began laughing hysterically and then I saw them. They floated forwards towards the little girl, and Gwen began to cry. We backed out the door as they grabbed her, a limb each. Esther smiled serenely, and said, “I’m so proud, my grandson. Get Seb, Richard, because you two must leave.” They began pulling her, fighting over which part of her they wanted most. I could see her face twisted with agony already as she was beyond saving now.
We’d left it too long and she was too connected to them. We turned to run out the room that was thickening with the stench of death. I heard a tearing noise and glanced back to see Esther in pieces. They looked almost gleeful with what they had achieved. My throat gagged at the sight of so much blood and pointless torture. We gratefully ended up back into the corridor. They hadn’t
followed us. Gwen was breathing heavily, so I silently began stroking her hair.
“Gwen, come on. We’re getting out of this alive, I just know it. Esth- my grandmother said we will.”
“No. You heard what she said, you and Seb are getting out of this alive. You two she said. I know what we have to do, and why she brought me here.” Her eyes were filled with tears but I could see she was resolute in whatever it was she’d decided. I knew I wasn’t going to like it. “We haven’t got a lot of time before they’re done with her and they come back for us. Blood ties keep you together, that’s what she said. You and Seb are family but that’s not enough. Your parents died and he would be dead right now if it weren’t for your blood inside of him. When was that?”
“Before I asked you to marry me, he said it would bring me luck. We did it for old time’s sake, like when we were little kids.” I shook my head, not understanding. Gwen seemed the picture of calm, ready to die.
She replied with the business-like voice she used at work, “That’s fine then because your blood will still be in each other. That’s what’s tying him to this life. Without that, I think his soul would be gone forever. Blood ties keep you together when they rip you apart and take you with them. I think, and this is just a guess, that your grandmother’s curse of being a kind of portal for these things has been passed down to the first male born in the family after her; you.”
“I don’t care about all of this, I just want us to get out of here alive!” I cried, getting hysterical now.
“You will, but the doors can only open once a sacrifice has been made, with a glittering Xenite stick. When Seb was trying to contact us earlier, he wasn’t asking us a question. He was telling us what to do, candlestick. The candlestick we were staring at earlier was so clean and untouched by the house because it has Xenite stones in it. It’s all making sense now. You told me that was what we should focus on to keep them away, and I noticed it has the same white stones as your pendulum. The sacrifice needs to be made with that.”
I stared at her disbelievingly. “You want me to sacrifice you, by killing you with some “magical” candlestick?” I couldn’t believe it had come to this. Incredulous, I said stubbornly, “No. Absolutely ridiculous, I’ll be the sacrifice, you can get Seb and that’s that. No compromise.”
“You can’t do that. You haven’t been touched by one of them, you’re still pure. A sacrifice of a pure human wouldn’t work, it has to be me. I’m tainted, I was spat on and touched by them and it needs to be me. You’d go straight up to Heaven, no use to anyone.” She smiled weakly up at me, starting to become the vulnerable and emotional Gwen I knew.
“Where will you go then? What are you trying to say?” My chest heaved with my heavy breathing.
“I have to be the one to do it, Rick.” She stroked my hand.
“NO! Gwen, I can’t lose you! I can’t live if you aren’t beside me, I just can’t! I can’t sacrifice you just to save myself, it’s not fair and I would never do that! I love you, Gwen. I love you so much, and I want us to have a future together, marriage, kids... I’m not losing that just so I don’t see some stupid shadows, there’s no one like you in the entire world.” I broke down, tears streaming down my face. Too much had happened for me to take in, now it was Gwen’s turn to comfort me.
“Please, Rick, don’t! You’ll attract them back to us, we need to act quickly. I’ll get the candlestick, you wait here.” I
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