The Haunting (Or: Ghost Is Literally A Ghost)

Night One

You let your suitcases drop to the shabby looking wooden floor in the hallway, taking in the sight in front of you.

Uninviting. Dusty. Cold.

A shiver ran down your spine as you stepped into the living room, confirming your suspicion.

"What a fucking dump", you whispered, your voice reaching no one but the huge spider hanging from the ceiling, your breath visible in the cold air.

There was nothing you could do. After the break up with your boyfriend, you were left with nothing but your job – which was at least something – although you didn't exactly get paid enough to afford your own apartment.

Your books just didn't sell that well.

He had kicked you out of the shared space, leaving you with no opportunity but to finally dare to face the massive task of fixing up your great aunt's old house after you had inherited it ten years ago.

Whatever a fifteen-year old girl wanted with a house in the middle of nowhere... But you still accepted, and you had to admit that it did come in handy now. It was just a little special, just needed some extra care, and a ton of work.

"Tomorrow I'll start", you said to the spider, and probably a dozen other crawling roommates, and with that you grabbed your things and went upstairs to where you vaguely remembered the bedroom to be.

Unsurprisingly, the bedroom looked just like the rest of the house. The amount of dust was almost concerning, and you wasted no time to shake as much out of bedding before placing a sleeping bag on top, just to be sure.

First Night

While you initially just felt disgusted by the nearly rotting inside of the house, now that you were finally laying in bed, the cold air and darkness engulfing you, you were downright terrified.

The wind rustled outside, shaking the old shutters hanging from their hinges. Tree branches brushing past the window looked way too much like bony hands with pale, slender fingers, and the floorboards downstairs creaked as if someone was walking on them.

Although spiders had six more legs than the average person, it surely wasn't them causing the creaking. The noise that was possibly footsteps sounded human. Heavy, an evenly pattern.

You held your breath and pulled the hem of the sleeping bag up to your nose. Not a single inch of your body dared to move, a shudder slightly shaking the mattress when a cold gust of air brushed past the small piece of exposed skin on your face.

You couldn't tell if the goosebumps came from freezing or if you were simply scared, your eyes fixated on the ceiling.

When the creaking downstairs stopped, you felt a sense of relief, taking a deep breath.

"Oh god, my imagination is running wild", you whispered to yourself, shaking your head at the fact that you actually believed this to be more than just an old house.

Old houses can be cold and loud, it's normal.

You forced yourself to close your eyes. Wind was normal this time of year, and so were the almost naked branches of the birches outside, and the floorboards creaking was normal too.

Repeating these words in your head like a mantra did wonders to your brain, it was like counting sheep but a bit scarier, and soon you fell asleep, your subconscious granting you a dream about this house in its better days.

Just as the bedroom door slowly opened, a creak cutting through the silence, misty breath came from your nostrils and hovered above your face. You shivered in your sleep, unaware of the heavy footsteps approaching your bed.

In your dream, your great aunt prepared you a cup of tea in the kitchen, her back turned towards you. The warm autumn sun shone through the windows, illuminating little specks of dust that hovered in the air.

Suddenly, a thick rain cloud pushed itself in front of the sun, quickly darkening the room and tinting the surfaces grey.

"It's autumn after all", she said, stirring milk into the tea, "the weather can change any minute."

You wanted to answer her, but for some reason your body wouldn't listen. A strange, queasy feeling spread in your abdomen, your stomach churning and telling you to run, except that you couldn't run, and you didn't even know why your body was so persistent.

"You really should be more careful, dear", she now said, but her voice sounded unfamiliar. Strained, raspy, many octaves too deep.

Confused, your eyes flickered to the cup of tea on the counter, the milk flowing over the edges, just that the white liquid suddenly turned thick and deep red, spilling onto the surface and running down the drawers, collecting into a growing puddle on the cream coloured kitchen tiles.

"Aunty", you croaked out, but you regretted it immediately. She turned around, a sick and twisted smile pulling her lips apart.

No, the flesh where her lips would normally be. They were gone, ripped to shreds loosely hanging down her face, just like the rest of it, exposing the dull white bone that was her skull.

One of her eyes bored into you, the other seeped out of its socket as a thick, tough mass of liquid, mixing with the blood oozing from her torn flesh.

Your brain begged for you to run, but the message didn't seem to reach your legs. The sight was horrifying, but you were unable to pull your eyes away.

"More careful", she bellowed loudly, before charging at you with her shaking, skinny hands, aiming for your neck.

You startled awake, a sharp squeal ripping through the nightly silence of the bedroom. One of your hands shot up to squeeze your shirt, ragged breaths heaving your chest, eyes wide awake in terror.

It took you a second to realise where you were and that this had just been a dream, a nightmare to be precise, and a bloody realistic one at that.

You exhaled roughly, a noise resembling a whimper falling from your lips, your hand still clutching your shirt. It was clammy and cold, sticking to your body like a second layer of skin.

"Fuck", you groaned, your head now falling back into the pillow.

Without moving your head, you reached for your phone on the nightstand, the bright display illuminating the space around you just enough to prevent you from falling into some kind of shock.

3:33 am

The sun wouldn't be up for another four hours at least, but under no circumstance you would go back to sleep. Instead, you spent almost two hours mindlessly scrolling through social media, effectively switching off your brain to calm down.

Works like a charm.

Half five seemed like a reasonable time to be up, and before you even left the sleeping bag, you had already switched on both bedside table lamps. The few birds chirping outside put you at ease, and you managed to leave the bed.

A shudder racked your body as soon as the air hit your clammy shirt, and you made a mental note to check out the heating as soon as possible.

"Like fucking Antarctica in here", you mumbled, wrapping your arms around yourself before you fished a fluffy jumper from your suitcase.

You turned every light switch you found on your way downstairs, even in the rooms you weren't in. Screw the electrical bill, as long as the house was illuminated enough for you to see into every corner.

When you entered the kitchen to make yourself a cup of coffee, for some reason you were really not fancying tea, your eyes merely missed one of the living room lights flickering in the corner by seconds before it went out entirely, taken over by the tall, shadowy figure standing there, arms hanging down its sides.