Lucas

Beams of sunlight pierced the dirt-streaked windows, illuminating dust motes that floated lazily in the stale cigarette-scented air. The faded blue thread-bare carpet kicked up more particles with each step. Somewhere from further in the house, a clock ticked away, sounding loud in the stillness.

Lucas knew this place. He spent much of his childhood here.

His grandmother’s old house.

It looked the same as he remembered as a kid, right down to the nicotine-stained red scrollwork wallpaper on a (once) white background. On impulse, he looked around for the bobtailed black cat his grandmother cherished like one of her own children but saw nothing.

‘Of course not, idiot,’ he chided himself.

His grandmother passed away over a decade ago, and the cat even longer.

How did he get here?

The last he remembered, he was breaking into the abandoned and, many said, haunted Hoffman house on a dare from his buddies. Lucas did not believe in ghosts, but he had to admit the Hoffman house was creepy.

Old man Hoffman, also long dead, having been executed by the state of New York for his crimes involving the kidnapping and torture of dozens of “patients,” was believed to haunt his expansive Victorian home in spirit form.

According to the old newspaper articles, Dr. Hoffman was an early pioneer of hypnotic therapy. He conducted experiments to find out how long his subjects could withstand pain and suffering, pushing them to their limits until they begged for an end he would not give them. The one escaped victim, who ultimately led to Hoffman’s apprehension, claimed that the doctor got into the heads of his victims. He claimed that he even had nightmares about him long after Hoffman’s death.

Lucas shuddered at the thought as he further investigated the decrepit Victorian home.

Ancient floorboards creaked and groaned beneath his feet. Pictures of Hoffman, in his round-lensed glasses and finely tailored suit, still adorned the mantle above the river stone fireplaces. The picture seemed to peer down on him menacingly.

The rest of the house was ransacked and torn apart by the police and FBI in their search for bodies and parts. Furniture lay haphazardly in the same position it was tossed all those many years ago. He skirted around gaping holes in the hardwood floors where police pried them up in their gristly search.

Lucas carefully made his way into the dining room. Broken glass and porcelain crunched beneath his feet. A once sturdy oak table, large enough to seat a dozen or more, now rested in two pieces in the center of the room. The air, stale and dry, smelled faintly of rot and decay. A clock ticked away somewhere inside the house. The sharp crack of wood overhead was his only warning before the heavy bronze chandelier came crashing down.

‘That’s it,’ he thought, ' must have taken a knock on the head and fallen unconscious. This is only a dream.’

A vivid dream at that. He once again took in the sight of his grandmother’s house. It was smaller than he remembered. Time has a way of warping one’s perspective, and it had been fifteen years since he last stepped foot in this place. It felt amazingly real. Lucid dreaming, he had heard it called. The air felt cool but not uncomfortable. The smells of an uncleaned litter box blended with the odor of dust, cigarette smoke, and unwashed old woman...just as he remembered it.

It overwhelmed him with a sense of nostalgia so strongly that it made his head swim. He staggered a couple of steps before catching himself.

“Have a seat, dear, before you fall on your face,” came a woman's voice.

Lucas saw his grandmother sitting in her favorite chair, sewing the hem on a pair of pants.

“Thanks, Grams,” said Lucas, going to the threadbare sofa.

Pictures of his dad, aunts, and uncles adorned the wall above it. There was even a small one of him as a toddler mixed in amongst Polaroid portraits of his cousins. He slumped onto the worn cushion, kicking up new dust that quickly spread out to mingle with its kin.

“You don't look well. I’ll get you some water,” Grams said, setting her sewing aside and rising from her chair.

A sense of unease tugged at Lucas, but he shook the feeling off.

“How’s your father doing?” she called from the kitchen, her voice muffled against the sound of the running faucet.

“He’s okay,” Lucas said. He died a few years ago of heart failure, the same as you.

The thought drifted in his head but didn’t make sense. He just saw his father a few minutes ago when he gave him money to run to the corner store for a pack of smokes. Raliegh Filters was his old man’s brand, and he smoked nearly two packs of them a day.

Lucas shook his head in confusion. His father was dead, wasn’t he? Or was that later when that happened?

Later?

The ticking of the clock echoed in his head. Unsure of how much time had passed, he wondered what was taking her so long. She should have been back with the water by now.

“Grams,” he called out but received no reply.

He looked down at his legs, which dangled inches off the floor. He stood and then walked across the floor toward the open archway leading into the dining room and the small galley kitchen connected to it.

His corduroys made a zwoot zwoot noise with each step, which sounded loud in the otherwise silent house.

His grandmother’s sewing machine rested atop the dining table as it always had. Next to it, a cigarette streamed a bluish-gray ribbon of smoke into the air. He surveyed about, but there was no sign of her. He peered into the kitchen but only saw his reflection in the glass panel of the oven—a reflection that revealed a boy of about eight or nine years of age.

‘But I’m a grown man.’

That sense of wrongness began to swell, this time it resisted his attempt to dismiss it.

Something wasn’t right. This wasn’t right!

He needed to get away from…what?

He didn’t know. He only knew he had to get out of this house.

Lucas hurried back to the living room and started for the front door when he heard heavy footfalls crossing the floor above him from the direction of his grandmother’s bedroom. His outstretched hand hovered over the doorknob. He wondered how she had gotten up there without being seen. Turning from the door, he began to climb the stairs.

“Don’t go up there!” his grandmother called out again from the living room.

Suddenly, the daylight vanished, replaced by an oppressive darkness. Then, dim light from the streetlights cast eerie shadows on the living room wall. His grandmother sat on her chair. Her arms and legs ended in short nubs. Her eyes gleamed like dull silver coins, reflecting the scant light.

“He’s coming for me, Lucas,” she whispered, her voice filled with despair. “He won’t let me die. I just want to die. Please, help me die!”

He stared at her, stunned, not knowing how to help her or if he even could.

The stairs creaked as someone began to descend from them.

“He’s coming. He’s coming! HE’S COMING!” The last was a frenzied scream! Her silvery eyes widened with terror.

Panic took hold of Lucas.

He murmured with little conviction that this was only a dream, but he could not fight the urge to flee from whatever was coming down the stairs.

He started once more for the front door, but a thing of darkness and shadow blocked the way.

“Help me, Lucas!” his grandmother wailed.

Frantically, he looked around, and his eyes fell upon the back door.

“Don’t leave me,” his grandmother begged.

He glanced again at her mutated limbs; she died a long time ago, and tears blurred his vision—tears of fear, sadness, and hopelessness.

The dim light faded to inky blackness as the shadowy form entered the room.

Feeling ashamed, Lucas bolted for the back door.

“Lucas!!!!’

Her terror-filled shriek seemed almost a solid thing, pushing him as he ran through the dining room toward the back door.
He turned one last time to see the last flicker of light reflect off two perfectly round lenses. It was now hunched over his grandmother. She screamed again, this time in agony.
Lucas ripped the door open and stepped through…

…He lay on the floor and remembered where he was.

The abandoned Hoffman house.

A clock ticked away the silence.

Yet, something wasn’t right. The floor wasn’t as hard as he expected. It felt soft and cushioned.

He opened his eyes, blurry from sleep, and saw the ending credits scrolling up the screen of the old console television his father cherished more than life itself—a horror movie he fell asleep to while watching, though he couldn’t recall which one.

He loved horror movies despite his young age. His father didn’t seem to care that he watched them. In fact, his father didn’t seem to care about much of anything since mom died, except getting drunk.

Lucas looked at his father’s recliner and found it empty.

Budweiser cans littered the small side table and floor. A large purple ashtray his mother made in ceramics class a couple of years ago overflowed with butts. Some scattered across the side table like tiny sailors who abandoned their giant, purple ship. An empty, crumpled pack of Raliegh Filters balanced precariously on the edge. A lamp also sat on it, radiating a soft glow from the 40-watt bulb.

Lucas stifled a yawn and rubbed at bleary eyes with his tiny boy's hands. It was late and his father must already be asleep.

A sense of dread washed over him.

With his father already in bed, he would have to face the gauntlet alone.

The gauntlet of darkness is what he had come to call it. A long, unlit hallway lay between him and his bedroom at the back of the house. It was unlit because father refused to leave any lights on at night. The few times Lucas had done so, he was met with harsh words and harsher hands, and then his old man removed them all. With a sigh, Lucas resigned himself not to being a candy ass, like his father insisted he was in situations like these, and clicked off the television. He crossed the room over to the lamp. His little hand (little?) hesitated at the pull string. He stood like that for a couple of minutes, trying to work up the courage to do what he needed to. Steeling his nerve, he grasped the chain and gave it a yank.

Darkness blanketed the house.

By memory alone, he crept across the dirt-stained carpet to where it ended at the hallway's entryway, then hesitated. He suddenly remembered a scene from the film. In this scene, a storm knocked out the house's power, and a woman armed with only a flashlight went to find the fuse box, only to be snatched up by the shadowy creature lurking in the darkness.

He wished he had a flashlight.

Instead, he had only the mental layout of the house to go by.

He peered down the unlit hallway, straining his eyes in a futile effort to detect anything that may be hidden within. He listened keenly and heard only his father’s distant snoring. With a probing step, he felt the carpet give way to the cold, hardwood floor of the hallway. He took another and then another, letting his hand slide along the rough, cool surface of the wall.

Letting his ears and hands guide the way, he continued down the hallway, counting the steps as he went, knowing every inch of the corridor from hundreds of earlier blind journeys.

Two more steps brought him to his mother’s sewing room. It marked the halfway point.

He was only six when she died, but now, just three years later, he found it difficult to recall her face. There were no pictures of her, not even in the family album, which he had not seen since. Kind blue eyes and reddish-gold hair were all he could recall of her. That, and that she loved to do crafts, especially sewing.

He remembered that she spent most of her time in this room.

The course wall gave way to a wood-cased framed doorway that opened into the sewing room. He let his hand follow the familiar bumpy contours of the molding across the smooth, wooden surface of the door.

Only, there was no door, only empty space.

It was open.

It was never open.

“Dad,” he whispered doubtfully into the room, recalling the snores that escaped from his father’s room.
A slight breeze from within the room carried a moldy, putrid scent.

With a shaky hand, he reached into the room, searching desperately for the knob, while he tugged his shirt up to cover his nose from the stench with the other. He grasped it. It felt cold in his grip. He began to close it but stopped when he heard something shuffling, like a foot dragging across the floor.

“Hello?” he asked, his voice quivering.

Silence, except for the sound of his heart trying to beat its way out from his chest.

He pulled the door, and then he heard it again.

A few seconds, then again.

This time, the sound of footsteps was undeniable.

They thudded on the floor in rapid succession, plodding their way toward the door.

Toward him!

The odor of strong and acrid decay filled his nostrils, even through the fabric of his shirt. He pulled the door, but something stopped it before he could close it. Not waiting to see what held it open, he tore down the hallway, bouncing off the walls, no longer feeling his way through the dark.

The sound of something like a train whistle filled his ears. It took him a second to realize it was his screams filling the silent void of the house.

In the distance, he heard his father’s muffled yell, but he ignored it.

The footsteps were closing in.

Lucas shot out of the hallway and into the dining room like a bullet.

His bedroom was on the opposite wall. He needed to get to his room and get under the covers. Every kid knows that blankets protect them from monsters.

He dashed through the dining room and careened off the table, rattling dirty dishes left over from supper.

The footsteps behind him were louder. Closer.

He stumbled into a chair that wasn’t pushed in and stubbed his pinky toe. Pain stabbed across his foot, but he pushed it away in his panic to escape the thing that chased after him. He scrambled the last few steps, nearing the entryway.

A hand brushed against his back.

With a final yelp, Lucas zipped across the threshold and into his room.

On reflex, his hand swiped at the light switch as he ran by. It bathed his bedroom in a golden glow.
He leaped into his bed and yanked the blanket up over his head. He lay there, breathing heavily, his eyes squeezed shut, blood pounded in his ears.

The footsteps stopped.

His racing heart and ragged breaths provided the only source of sound now, except for a clock that ticked away in the distance.

The footsteps did not return, and he slowly regained his composure.

I imagined the entire thing.

The abandoned house, his grandmother, and his flight down the hallway.

Abandoned house?

‘No more horror movies for me,’ he told himself, then shivered at the thought of the trouble he was going to be in tomorrow morning. He surely woke his father with his screaming and trampling through the hallway. With a sigh, he pulled the blankets down and climbed out of bed to turn the light off.

And then he saw her.

A woman stood at the doorway. Tears streamed down her dirt-encrusted face. She gazed upon him with brilliant blue eyes. Mud streaked her white funeral gown and clumped in her red-gold hair.

“Mom?” His voice shook, filled with disbelief.

She smiled warmly.

“Is it really you?”

“Yes, my love. I’ve missed you so much, my precious baby boy.”

Her honey-tinged voice was just as he remembered it.

Sniffles turned into convulsive sobs. Despite the stench, the dirt and mud, and his mind telling him this was all wrong, he ran to her and clutched her in his arms. He clung to her slender body, taking her in an embrace he never intended to let go. He missed her so much.

She stroked his hair with a delicate hand and shushed away his tears.

Their embrace seemed to go on forever. He cried until his eyes could produce no more tears and then held onto her for a little while longer before pulling away enough to see her face.

“H-how are you h-here? You died. You’re dead.”

She pushed him away suddenly, her smile replaced by terror.

“You need to go, son,” she said, her voice trembling, “I’m not dead, Lucas. He won’t let me die.”

The lights suddenly flickered, then blinked out. His mother vanished.

His glow-in-the-dark nightlight radiated weak, greenish-blue light, revealing a shape on his bed.

His mother.

How did she get there?

Thick rope, worn and frayed in places, restrained her wrists and ankles. Dark liquid spread from the spot where knife handles protruded from her arms, thighs, and chest.

A gurgled, liquid scream tore from her lungs.

“Go!” she yelled, spewing a thick, sticky liquid spray that clung to his face. It tasted faintly of copper.

She thrashed in desperation at her bonds.

A dark figure appeared on the opposite side of the bed. Two perfectly round lenses gathered the wan light.

Lucas stood helplessly, wanting desperately to save his mother.

“Run,” she screamed as the thing on the other side of the bed crept toward Lucas.

He did not want to leave her.

"Run!" she cried, desperation thick in her voice.

He turned and bolted through the doorway leading into the dining room. His mother’s anguished screams trailed off with each step.

In three quick strides, he…

…his head hurt. He groaned. Back, stiff from lying on a hard floor for who knows how long, Lucas opened his eyes. He peered around at the run-down Victorian. He pulled his hand from his aching head and saw it was covered in blood. With an effort, he got to his feet.

Looking around the darkening room (how long had he been out?), he saw the remains of the chandelier on the floor next to where he was lying.

Faint sounds drifted to his ears—voices from outside. Red and blue lights danced across the walls of the room.

A neighbor must have been alerted to the noise, Lucas figured, rubbing his aching head. With slow, deliberate steps, he made his way to the front door.

Reaching for the handle, he heard voices behind him.

Two EMTs, (Lucas would have sworn were not there a minute ago), were covering up the body. It's head crushed so badly that it was impossible to make out facial features. The body’s clothing was an exact replica of his current sweatshirt and blue jeans. With a sudden realization, Lucas fell to his knees, stunned.

“Is that me?” Lucas stammered. His head spinning in shock and disbelief.

“Yes,” said a voice from behind him.

“Then, that means…I’m dead?”

“No,” the man said, “I will never let you die.”

Lucas jerked in alarm and looked up at the voice. Red and blue lights reflected off two perfectly round lenses.