The Shadow

I knew I shouldn’t have come in here.

I knew it. I knew it. I knew it.

Am I seeing things?

Is this really happening?

I need to leave. I have to go.

How do I get out of here?

I should have trusted my gut, not followed my heart.

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

We were wondering through an abandoned farm house. It had been empty for as long as I could remember, no one seemed interested in living there, not even the land owners. I had always found it funny that the house wasn’t torn down, and fresh new home built in its wake. Everything was dimly lit by the moon, it was vastly darker in this house then it was outside. It was almost as if it wasn’t the true darkness of the night, but something more.

"Did you just fucking see that?" He whispered, not looking at me, but in the direction of whatever it was that we had just witnessed.

"Unfortunately," I glanced over at Finn, then back to the dark open doorway where we just saw... something. His dark brown eyes were still wide with shock, but he had an excited, almost mischievous grin.

"Unfortunately? Don’t tell me my favorite adventure buddy's scared of a little ghost?" Finn turned to look at me as he spoke, expressing disappointment with a tiny pout.

My heart was still racing from our paranormal encounter. I was getting too overwhelmed, I needed to leave. Something about this old farm house didn’t feel right, never had. There were stories shared by neighborhood kids about why the home was left to rot, but I hadn't really paid attention to all that talk. That’s all I thought it was, talk. Apparently, I was wrong.

"Finn," I could feel the tension in my chest building, "I'd really like to leave, please."

He pulled me into him, a friendly reassuring squeeze, "you want to go after we've finally found something worth staying and investigating? Come on, Murph! Where's your sense of adventure?"

"Not here."

"Oh, you ol' kill joy," he chuckled, and started towards the open doorway, "you can leave now if you want, wait for me outside in the car."

I thought about it for a moment as he exited the bedroom into the second-floors hallway. It dawned on me that I would be alone if I didn’t make a decision fast. Before my brain had a moment to fully process everything happening, my feet were swiftly carrying me out the door behind him. There was no way I wanted to be on my own in here.

The darkness in this house felt all consuming, like if you were left in it for too long you might disappear. I hadn't felt like we were alone since we entered the building. This house had secrets, that was for sure.

The home itself must have been beautiful in its day. I couldn’t imagine how a place like this could be left to end up in this state. Everything was musty and damp, the furniture left was scattered in this room and that. The gyprock on the walls was exposed in some places, crumbling and mouldy. Some other teens had obviously been in here at some point, there was some graffiti on the walls, and a few beer bottles were scattered about. I had heard some couples would come in here to hook up. I couldn’t imagine wanting to come in here to do anything, let alone that.

Finn started heading down the stairs to the main floor, "there's not much up here... I was hoping for a bit more excitement then possibly seeing 'eyes'. I mean, the noises we've been hearing are probably the house itself, ya know? They talk about it in those ghost hunting shows, or whatever."

I was hardly paying attention to him at this point; which was unusual for me I suppose. Finn was my best friend, we did almost everything together. If you saw one of us you'd know the other wasn’t too far away. We had met in the second grade, I had started at a new elementary school that year. I've always been more of an introvert and a little anxious, making it hard to make friends. I was there about a week before Finn realized I was the quietest person in the class, and he could tell me all of his stories and I wouldn’t interrupt him. It was nice to listen to him ramble, it meant I didn’t have to speak, he even had interesting facts sometimes.

Finn was a lot of the things I wished I was, or could be. He had a quick wit and a take-no-shit attitude. His endless sense of adventure tended to get us into sticky situations, but his desire to try new things never wavered. That was most likely how we ended up in this situation, his new-found interest in ghost hunting, and my inability to say, 'no'.

"You listenin', Murph?" He looked over his shoulder at me as we reached the bottom of the stairs.

I shook my head, "no... sorry."

He chuckled to himself, me getting lost in my own world wasn’t anything new to him, "I think we should check out the basement."

There it was again, but what 'it' was I couldn’t tell you. It was a feeling, a very strong gut feeling. My chest grew tight, we weren't alone in this house. The presence didn’t feel as close to us physically as it did when we first arrived, it felt like I could have reached out and touched it then. Everything felt different, it felt wrong. It was like something was calling me to the basement, like it wanted us there, and I didn’t like it.

"Hey," Finn stopped and placed his hands on my shoulders, he looked me in the eyes, "are you ok, Clara? You're more of a space cadet today than usual."

I looked down at our feet and mumbled, "I don’t know... I don’t feel good about being in here. Something feels wrong."

"You can bow out at any time, Murph. I won't make fun of you... too much," he was smiling at his own joke when I looked up at him.

We weren't alone in that moment. There was movement in a doorway to our right, I was pretty sure it was the entrance to the dining room. It looked like it may have been moving from the floor to the ceiling, but I only noticed it when it was about Finns shoulder height. It was the same thing we had seen before, it had to be. Pale yellow lights like eyes were peering around the door frame slowing moving up, as if to stay hidden. It felt threatening, like an animal defending its territory. Something about it felt conflicting, I was being beckoned towards it, but it wanted me afraid.

The event was quick, as fast as it had appeared it was gone again. It wanted me to see it, it wanted me scared. It felt like I was seeing it; but not through vision alone. All I had physically seen were its eyes, but it felt like it was showing me much more. It seemed to have a humanoid head shape, but no real face. I couldn’t figure out what was happening.

"I don’t think it's human," I whispered.

Finn turned to where I was looking, but our new friend was already scurrying away to a new spot somewhere out of sight.

"What?" He chuckled and turned back to me, "fuck off, Murph. You're trying to freak me out so I'll leave with you. Well-"

"Finn!" I cut him off, Finn looked totally shocked. Interrupting him wasn’t something that ever happened, not in our ten years of friendship, "shut up, please."

He stayed silent, possibly because he could tell I was being serious, probably because he was shocked that I had told him to shut up. I wasn’t really sure what my plan was, but at least I could think now without his excited chatter.

The main entrance to the home was before us, but we would have to walk past the living room and the dining room. I didn’t feel the presence around us anymore, it made me almost like it more when 'it' was close, at least I knew where it was. How could I fight something that was both bigger than me and invisible unless it desired to be seen?

I took a step towards Finn, he pulled me close to him as we both looked around us. He looked determined, I could only imagine how terrified I looked at the moment. My pulse was defining in my ears, the silence in the house was overwhelming.

There was a thud on the ceiling above us, like something had be dropped on the floor. Seconds after the first thud came more thuds, this time sounding like swift steps, growing louder and faster with every step.

My chest was so tight with fear, it was hard to breathe, my heart was beating a mile a minute. Tears began to well up in my eyes, and I started to tremble.

No! Not now, come on Clara! Get your fucking shit together!

I wish I was normal. I would give anything for this to stop.

I need to leave, I need to leave, I need to leave.

It's coming for us.

I have to go!

I couldn’t take it another moment. I grabbed Finns hand and started sprinting for the door, I was lucky I was wearing sensible shoes for once and not flats. It was as if the door couldn’t have been any further away from us, but we were outside beside the car looking back to the house in under a minute.

"Did you hear that?" Finn was still staring back at the open front door, "I mean, you must have. Are you ok? How's your breathing, are you having a panic attack? Should I stop?"

I was starting to have a panic attack, yes. I was taking deep breaths inhaling through my nose, and exhaling out of my mouth. If I was lucky this would be as far as it got, I needed to keep my cool. It didn’t feel like we were out of the water quite yet.

As if on que a thick darkness started to form in the doorway. It may have been the middle of the night, but the moon had been bright enough for us to make our way through the house. It was a bright clear night, and moments ago I could see clearly through the doorway into the house.

This was a different kind of darkness, it felt wrong, unnatural. Those faint yellow eyes where there again for a moment, then the door slammed shut with such force I thought the glass in the window might shatter.