Demons Inside the Walls

Faith stirred. She was slowly returning to consciousness and let out a slight groan as she opened her eyes. In a moment of confusion she thought she had gone blind. The darkness surrounding her was no different from the darkness beneath her eyelids.

She moved her arms and felt strong wooden walls surrounding her on each side and felt uncomfortable jabs from whatever she was lying on. She awoke in a black box scared, alone, and confused.

Slowly, the events of the past hour came back to her. The vision of its evil red eyes appeared in her mind. Faith began to cry. She tried with all her might to force the box’s lid off.

The evening had began as normal as every other evening she had since moving back into her old childhood home. She came back from work, changed into her pajamas and laid on the couch, ready to channel surf until bedtime.

Faith had moved back in shortly after her mother passed away. Her mother lived here alone for five years after her father died. Some said her
mental clarity became a low hanging cloud.

Sometimes Faith’s mother would call her in the middle of the night, completely out of breath and crying.

Faith?
Hello, mom is that you?
They’re watching me.
Mom? Are you okay? Hello?

The rest of the town thought Faith’s mother had gone crazy living in that large house all alone, so no one was surprised when they found her car at the bottom of the lake. Her body was never found, but they didn’t doubt she had finally lost her mind and drove herself to a watery grave. Faith, however, had other ideas.

She believed her mother. Her mother never lied to her and when she told her what she saw and heard, she said it with utmost seriousness. Faith knew her mother was telling the truth, the walls were alive and breathing. She was determined to prove it to everyone else.

The first nights in the house were hell. Every creak or groan the house made scared Faith terribly. She left lights on in every room and had to work up the nerve just to enter her bedroom every night.

A year had passed and Faith saw or heard nothing. No breathing, no strange feelings she was being watched, nothing except the old furnace clicking on and off. Faith had finally convinced herself that maybe her mother had gone crazy. Faith hated herself for it.

The glow from the television painted the walls with colors of late night talk shows, infomercials, and sitcom reruns. Faith flipped through them all quickly, watching for something to catch her attention.

Whether it was the drinks she had at dinner or the monotony of the channel surfing, Faith’s eyelids suddenly felt heavy. The remote fell from her hand onto the floor.

She heard a noise, faint at first, but completely distinguishable after a few seconds. Breathing. A long pained inhale followed by a loud exhale. Was this the noise her mother heard? Was she hearing her own breathing? Was she even awake?

Faith sat up quickly, wide awake, her brow rimmed with cold sweat. She scanned the room but saw nothing. On the TV, thin people were demonstrating the latest in home abdominal equipment.

“Hello?” she spoke into the cold air. Silence was the only reply. Maybe she inherited her mother’s condition because she swore she saw a flash before she woke up.

Faith shook the mood off and picked up the remote. She put her finger on the volume button but stopped. The noise again. The pained inhale came somewhere from behind. From her fathers study.
Faith didn’t hear the noise again, but that didn’t stop her heart from pounding. She wanted to grab her car keys and run away, never come back to the old house, but she owed it to her mother to investigate. Faith picked up the letter opener on the coffee table in front of the television and slowly walked toward the door.

She was never allowed inside the study when she was younger and she never went in there now because the room frightened her. Her father kept his collection of exotic animals there, ones he’d paid thousands to have killed and stuffed.

She put her hand on the small brass knob, turned it, and stuck her head in. The air was freezing, like someone had been harvesting ice.

First she saw the stuffed bear next to her father’s desk. It stood on its hind legs with its jaws wide open and claws spread. Rows of book shelves lining the walls had other animals upon them, each staring back at Faith. Birds of numerous variety, cats, dogs, a few giant rats, and her father’s most cherished position, a massive ape.

After circling the room and finding nothing, Faith stood before the ape. She remembered once staring into its gaze when she was younger. She was scared of it then because she didn’t know what it was. It looked human, but didn’t.

Faith reached up a hand to touch its leathery face, but before she could, the loud exhale came from directly behind her. She screamed and lost her balance, falling right into the ape. It crashed into a shelf, knocking stuffed doves to the floor.
She trembled and her eyes watered. Her heart was pounding worse than before. The noise sounded as though it was in the room, but all she saw was a large dresser with three Snowy owls staring at her. Her hand was bleeding from grasping the letter opener too hard.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” Faith said, looking toward the dark sky outside the window. “I should have never doubted you.”

Faith got to her feet and walked up to the dresser. She opened the cabinets and a few drawers. Nothing was inside except a few of her father’s jackets.
Nothing was out of the ordinary until she looked at the floor near the base of the dresser, where deep scratches on the floor as if someone had pushed the dresser left and right many times. She pushed against it with her shoulder, moving it slightly, and then pushed again, putting all her force into it. The dresser moved with a loud scratching noise.
A strong scent of old, musky air filled her nostrils. The dresser hid a large hole in the wall leading down to a corridor of stone steps. A million thoughts raced through Faith’s mind. Where could these steps lead?

She looked down and saw a light coming from another corridor at the bottom of the steps. Faith took a deep breath and descended.

With the stone walls as a guide down the stairs toward the light, Faith started her decent. She was scared, but something was drawing her to enter.
At the bottom of the stairs was another corridor; at the end was the light. She slowly walked toward it, still holding the letter opener. The walls were wet and the floor was dirty. This place was ancient.

At the end of the hall, she found herself in a large room. In the corner opposite the door was a light bulb hovering over an old wooden chair. In the middle of the room was a large black box about the size of a coffin, but her attention was drawn to the wall behind it.

There were pictures. Hundreds of old Polaroid pictures hung all over the wall. They were pictures of her, her mother, and father. Pictures of Faith as a young girl, ones of her parents before she was even born. There were pictures of them together and individually in every room of the house. Pictures of them eating dinner in the dining room and even using the bathroom. Whoever took these had documented her entire family’s history in the house.

On the far end of the wall, Faith saw a picture that made her drop the letter opener. There hung a picture of her sleeping on the couch not even fifteen minutes ago.

Faith backed into the black box. She wanted to run out of there, but again felt drawn to whatever was inside the box. Faith grabbed the edge and lifted the lid. Inside, her mother’s corpse stared up at her.

Faith screamed and let the lid fall. She backed into the wall and slid down to the floor. Her tears were flowing steadily now. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw something move. She looked and saw it sitting in the chair beneath the light.
The creature was a large human form, but with grey skin and no hair. One arm was shorter than the other and it held its face down. On top of its head, layers of skin were peeled off and its legs were covered with bloody sores. It didn’t move, but neither did Faith.

Suddenly, it made the noise she had heard many times that night. It exhaled and lifted its head. The right side of its face was sunken in, its upper lip completely ripped off. Large lumps on its head gave it an odd shape. Its red eyes shined brightly in the darkness. It looked human, but didn’t.
It stood, still breathing horrid breaths, and approached Faith who was now crumpled on the floor. “I’m sorry mommy,” she said as it reached its large hand toward her face. “I’m sorry.”



Faith stirred. She was slowly returning to consciousness and let out a slight groan as she opened her eyes. In a moment of confusion she thought she had gone blind. The darkness surrounding her was no different from the darkness beneath her eyelids.

She moved her arms and felt strong wooden walls surrounding her on each side and felt uncomfortable jabs from whatever she was lying on. She awoke in a black box scared, alone, and confused.