Into the Darkness

Into the Darkness



         As I looked up at the house, I realized for the first time how big it actually was. As I stared longer, I concluded it wasn’t a house at all, it was a mansion. Its two front doors were painted blood red, and the towers which held the roof up were probably twenty feet high. I slammed my car door shut and started on my way to the front porch. Halfway there, Mr. Lamm came limping out the front doors and waved towards me. I smiled and waved back, even though the idea of being here to exercise a house full of “demons” was the biggest load of crap I had ever heard. Two days ago, Mr. Lamm called me practically sobbing, asking me to come to his house and get rid of the demons which have been disturbing his wife and him for weeks. Apparently, Mr. Lamm thinks his house is being haunted by many demons, who he thinks are out to kill him. I had stifled a laugh as I told him I would be there as soon as possible.

         For the last twenty years I have been a pastor at the local church in the town I grew up in; for the past ten, I haven’t believed in God. As I grew up and recognized how disgusting and cruel the world actually was, I knew deep down, if there was a God, there was no way he would let this go on any longer. Even though I had lost all my faith, I knew I couldn’t let my congregation down, so I continued to preach and share the word of God to those who needed it. When Mr. Lamm called me, I instantly knew what I was getting myself into. I have been known to practice exorcisms when people beg me to come; when I perform the exorcism I make it seem as real as possible, hoping to drive the thought of being possessed out of the victim’s mind.

         Now that I was here though, I can understand why Mr. Lamm thinks the house is possessed. It looks as if it comes straight out of Edgar Allen Poe’s mind. I reached the porch and shook Lamm’s hand; he welcomed me, and turned around as he walked back into the house. I followed him in and walked into the biggest front room I have ever seen in my forty-four years of life. Four couches flanked the left wall, while a large book shelf sat to the left of the front doors. A brick fireplace stood at the north wall, flames flicking high up, embers crackling as they floated up into the mysterious chimney. I followed him even deeper as we left the front room and entered the kitchen, where I could hear his wife, Mel, making supper. “Mel, sweetheart, Mr. Branch is here, he -” but before Lamm could finish there was an earsplitting bang from the kitchen and then a cry. He darted into the kitchen and I hurried behind him as he shoved the door open. As I entered behind him I could already tell his wife wasn’t in the room. We both entered the room is pure silence. The pots hanging from the ceiling over the island in the middle were still rocking back and forth from some unknown confrontation. I stepped over to the oven and stood over the steaming pot of noodles. The heat rose up quickly, burning my face. I turned back to ask Mr. Lamm what was going on, and that was when we heard the second scream come from upstairs.

         Mr. Lamm turned to rush away, but I grabbed his shoulder and told him to stay, I would take care of this. I moved quickly from the kitchen into the front room, and then up the stairs as I took two steps at a time. I leaped to the second floor and was taking my first steps to the right when I saw the first splatter of blood. It was smeared across the left wall in patches, almost like hand prints. I dragged my finger across to feel how wet, and fresh it was. I took a few more steps and heard Mel scream bloody murder once more. I sprinted ahead and took hold of the second door to the right. I twisted the door handle one way, then the other, and found it was locked. I pounded on the door and yelled to Mel, which to I got no answer. I stepped back and prepared myself for what I was about to do. I was forty years old and here I was trying to save someone’s life. I stepped forward and drove my right foot into the middle of the door. It didn’t budge. I pounded on the door one more time, slammed into it with my shoulder, all with no prevail. As I was beginning to kick the door one more time, I heard Mr. Lamm yell from downstairs. I ran over to the railing and leaned over, he must still be in the kitchen because he was no where in sight in the front room. I turned to go back to help Mel, but the door which I had been fighting to open, was now sitting ajar, and Mel was standing silently in the middle of the hallway. “Mel? Just be calm, everything is going be alright,” I said peacefully. I took a step towards her and she twitched. I stopped dead. She leaned her head to the left, almost as dog does when it is confused. I put my hands up in the universal sign of peace and took another step, “Listen, I’m not here to hurt you, just come back downstairs with me,” I said as I reached out for her. She watched my hand carefully as I got closer and closer. I grabbed her shoulder and started to pull her towards me. I just started to get a good grip on her arm when she used smashed her right fist into my nose, and then slammed me into the wall. I crashed into it and collapsed to the ground. She sprinted away and ran downstairs. I slowly got up and limped down the stairs slowly after her. I ran as fast as I could into the kitchen and kicked the door open. I stepped into the kitchen, and instantly slipped on the wet floor and crashed to the ground. I started pushing myself up and that was when I realized what made me slip.

         I looked down at the tile floor to see that it was completely covered in blood. I stood up and steadied myself with the counter top. Almost the entire kitchen floor was covered in blood, as well the walls. “Mr. Lamm, Where are you!?” I yelled as loud as I could. The house answered me with eerie silence. I took another step forward and that was when I found Mel. She was lying on the other side of the island, her throat slit. I stumbled back in horror, covering my mouth, trying not to vomit. I turned back and ran out of the kitchen into the front room. I dashed to the two front doors and took hold of the door handles. Before I even tugged back I knew they wouldn’t open. I slammed on the door with my fists in anger and fear. I kicked and punched it, doing anything I could to force the doors open. I leaned by back against the door, shoving off and running upstairs, hoping I could get in a room and climb down the side of the house. But to my dismay, every single door was stuck shut. I stepped back over to the steps and looked downstairs, what was going on? I was taking my first step down when something shoved me from behind. I fell into the railing which snapped under my weight and I fell the full ten feet to the wooden floor. I must have blacked out because when I opened my eyes I was lying on my back, staring up, my arm twisted under me. I attempted to roll over, and realized quickly there was no way I was getting up by myself. My left arm was still functional so I used it to try and push myself off my right arm, which was terribly snapped in multiple places. The sound of someone walking towards me made me immediately lay still. The creaking foot steps took its time walking towards me and stopped when they stood right next to my head. Although I could see no feet beside me, I certainly felt some sort of presence. I tried moving my head to see who it was, but my back was in so much pain I didn’t want to think about moving. Whoever it was next to me stood there for a second longer, then moved away, going somewhere behind me.

         As I lay there, it started to dawn on me that I was in some serious trouble here. I couldn’t move, and I had told no one I was coming. That was when I saw the first hint of a fire. Smoke came seeping out past my head from the kitchen doorway. I craned my neck as far as possible and could see the kitchen door on fire. It was moving at an alarming rate and the walls of the front room were beginning to catch ablaze. I yelled for someone to help, I screamed fire, but I knew deep down no one could hear me. As the fire crept closer, I knew I was in for it, every one of my sins were now being paid for with my death. Just as I started to feel the first pulses of the fire against my neck, something amazing happened: The two huge front doors burst open and the flames exploded out. Standing in the doorway were two firemen. One was tall and lanky, his uniform hanging off his arms and legs. The man standing next to him was tall but thick, almost to the point of being fat, but I wasn’t arguing they had made it here just in time. They rushed over to me, saw my broke arm, and the skinny man rushed back outside to grab a stretcher. The big man leaned down and yelled to me that everything was going to be A-okay; they were going to get me out of here in no time. Almost a second later the skinny man came running back in with a stretcher. They slowly scooped me up, placed me on the stretcher, strapped me in, and rolled me out.

         As they pushed the stretcher out of the foyer of the doorway, I felt an immense pressure released off me. Almost as if someone had been watching me the entire time I was inside the house. As we rolled into the chilly fall weather, I realized for the first time that it was dark outside. A fire engine sat idling in the long gravel driveway ten feet away, next to that six other men in fire protective suits stood ambling around, waiting for the order to rush in the house to put the blaze out. We reached the ambulance where two paramedics hurriedly picked me up and placed me inside the back of the van. One of them ran around and started the engine as a second, much younger man, who introduced himself as Mike, stayed behind with me and hooked me up to oxygen. As the ambulance started on its way to the hospital and the oxygen started to work its magic, Mike firmly grabbed my shoulder and told me, “Everything’s going to be alright, man. We’ll take good care of ya.” I looked up at him as he smiled down at me, the oxygen really started to kick in, and as I attempted to tell him thank you, everything fell into a deep dark sleep.

  

         The door to my room thumped shut and my eyes exploded open. The first thing I noticed about the hospital room was how bright it was. Blinding was an understatement. I sat up too fast and my vision was blurred for a second, when it refocused I saw out my window to the left how dark it was outside. I threw the blankets off me, kicked my feet off the bed, and just started to get off the mattress when I remembered my left arm. A tough cast embalmed my arm from my elbow to my fingers. I moved it around, and realized how much it didn’t hurt anymore. I stepped over to the window and parted the blinds. The moon sat high in the sky, casting its glow all over the city of Chicago. I backed up, grabbed the TV remote and pressed the POWER button. When it first didn’t flip on, I pressed it again, then again, and when it didn’t come on the fourth time I calmly set the remote down. If it wouldn’t work for me, I will just get a nurse to come do it for me. That’s what they are there for right? I limped over to the door, pulled it open, and stepped into the hallway. What I was welcomed to was more disturbing then the house I just stayed in. The halls were completely deserted. Papers lay discarded on the ground, stretchers sat alone, the impression of people still in the mattress. I walked down and looked into other rooms, they were empty. I shuffled down the hall, looking anywhere and everywhere for somebody, anybody. But no one was here. Just as I was rounding the corner was when I heard the scream. I twisted around quickly to see someone stepping around the corner at the end of the hall. I ran as fast as I could with my injured back until I came to the end of the hall, when I came around I ran straight into a wall of elevators. I approached one of them, looked up and down the passage once more, and then pressed the down button. The second I let my finger off, the elevator dinged and the doors opened. I stepped in, was about to press the lobby button, and froze. The only button on the wall was a down arrow. I hesitated for a moment, was about to step out, then pressed it quickly. The doors leisurely closed shut and the elevator lurched as it started its decent down. I leaned against the back wall, and felt my stomach go into my throat. The next second the bell dinged, and the doors gradually parted. I pushed myself off the wall and watched as the doors opened to my new destination.

         Before the doors were even all the way open, I felt the heat come pulsing through the small crack. My broken arm suddenly seemed heavier and I couldn’t stand up. I fell against the back wall and stared out of the elevator. Instead of opening to another hospital hallway, I was standing in the foyer of the front living room of Mr. Lamm’s house. The walls, the ceiling, and even the floor, were all ablaze. The fire was mammoth, how the house wasn’t collapsing under the heat, I don’t know. I looked on in complete fear and amazement. I stepped forward and felt the immense heat slap me in the face. As I crossed from the elevator into the front room of the house, I felt that pressure come slamming into me once again. I stepped into the flames and felt them surround my shoes and feet, but they didn’t burn me. I walked deeper into the house and came to the stairs case and looked up. Mrs. Lamm stood at the second floor, blooding oozing from her throat, grinning. I looked towards the kitchen and knew deep down that if I went in there, I would find Mr. Lamm and he wouldn’t be too happy to see me. I looked back and saw the elevator doors closing ever so slowly, even if I tried to go back inside, somehow I knew I wouldn’t be able to. Something would stop me. I looked forward again and Mrs. Lamm was now walking down the stairs towards me, blooding pouring from her mouth. The flames licked up my pants and even though it wasn’t burning me I felt the pain of the heat. My left arm’s cast began slowly to melt off, and as I collapsed to my knees, I felt the fire lap against my face.

          As the flames completely consumed me, I begged for God’s forgiveness, begged him to please save me from this madness, but when I felt Mrs. Lamm grab my shoulder and help me up, I knew I was far too late. She took hold of my hand, kissed my cheek, and led me into the darkness.