slightly, so it was getting lighter until slided to the right almost automatically.
It was a secret passage leading to a dark staircase.
David and the lost girl knew that there was nothing good down there, but they had to go down, otherwise they would never end David's nightmares, and he could feel it.
Slowly, they went down the stairs, lighting up the steps with the lantern, to step into a dark and very cold room.
The girl asked David to extend his right hand to touch a switch, which still worked, even with the main energy off inside the house.
The man followed the guidance and his right hand found a button at the bottom of the stairs, but when he lit the lamp, wished he had never done so.
Now he understood what it was that different smell in the air, the cold air that room and the horrors he saw in his dreams.
Across the hall there were hooks holding rows of hanging silhouettes, like meat in a butcher shop, with many red smudges on the floor, walls and ceiling, but most disturbing was not the scenario, but what was hanging in those hooks.
Hanging like meat, there were people of all types and ages, without any sign of life.
Cold, gray, motionless.
David threw himself backward, landing on the staircase, ready to escape.
The lost girl, however, held the his hand with the force of a dog's bite, preventing him from escaping.
She did not want evil, just wanted him to see a small body in the first row.
David did not want, didn't understand, struggled to, finally, look at where the little one pointed.
There, among many bodies, there was a small one with long hair.
He stood up, trembling with horror, then walked over there still holding the hand of the little girl.
Finally he saw that, that little body before him was the body of the kid holding his hand.
In fact, he walked throughout the house next to a ghost, but she did not want to scare him, just call for help.
There, in front of the body, the girl said she could not rest as "the serpent continued devouring innocent people."
David did not understand, but listened intently, until she asked if he, in short, could put an end to the serpent.
David, still not understanding, but wanting to help, said yes, then the girl pointed to the opposite side of the room, where the wall was completely stained with blood.
They went there, going through many rows of dead bodies until stopped, positioned on a scratched spot on the floor.
"The coulpe come down here and stop on this very place to feed the snake ...
If you stand still at this point, you will soon find out who torments us ... ".
David, by a mixture of curiosity and commitment, was standing there in the ground with a pale expression.
The girl beside him slowly faded as something moved beyond the stained wall.
Soon a passage opened, but what came out there was more absurd than anything ever seen.
A hideous creature, with his chest and arms adorned by strong muscles, head like a leech and, instead of legs, a long serpent body.
That thing surrounded David immediately, talking with his gigantic mouth:
"I waited for the couple who serves me ... Who are you?".
David, without lying, with head lowered, said his name and how he ended there.
"The couple that lives here gives me the missing people in this city, for me to swallow and fill myself, and, with my art, I make the buthcer shop's meat the best in the world!
I can do good for you, but if you decide to stop my food, I will be forced to hang you in one of those hooks ... " said the snake, without revealing his name or origin.
Now David had the option to join the creature and help in their macabre plan or throw away his job and risk his life trying to prevent the creature from doing this kind of horror.
Aware that would have no way to defend against the beast that had surrounded him with huge body, the young man placed the lantern on the floor that was already off, then declared that, even though all those circumstances, all the fear, the pain, he couldn't help the beast.
Faced with the decision of the young man, the creature grabbed his shoulder and neck, nailing his countless teeth and sucking blood.
David felt the whole body weaken, shudder, like a rat in the mouth of a snake.
Again the beast asked if he wanted to join him.
David continued to refuse.
The creature wrapped the body in David and began to force the bones until the snaps began to be heard.
While the boy screamed, the creature asked again if he did not change his mind.
David continued to refuse.
Finally, the snake sank the leech's mouth around the boy's head, sucking the life that flowed by the neck and face.
From inside the beast came the last question, asking if David would still not join his plan.
The boy, the last time, refused to join the beast with a firm "No".
Once the word sounded, David felt his body hit the ground, but the enjuries were gone. No pain, only the impact against the ground, which was not severe.
Puzzled, he looked up and saw only the creature's silhouette fading into the air.
Beside him, the little girl reappeared and said while smiling:
"Of all the people who could come down this house of horror, you were one that, even with so much pain, has not changed your position before the snake attacks ...
Thank you for letting us rest in peace. "
So, besides the girl, dozens of others appeared, thanking David and leaving as light, disappearing into the air.
The young man had won, he just had to tell authorities about what was actually inside the house.
In the end he made an anonymous call that led their bosses, owners of the house, straight to jail for the rest of their lives.
Even without a job, David had saved much of what he earned that time working, then his life would take a new direction, even if he could never forget what happened that day.
Nightmares with the mansion on fire ended definitely.
The House of the Hooks Page 2