Out of the Darkness

9

We went from room to room, talking about what had happened to me, and the things that we found in the rooms. We came across an old bookshelf against he wall in what I guessed was the den or something. Did they even have dens a long time ago? Whatever. There were random books from different time periods sitting on the shelves. One was handwritten, with some symbol that I didn't recognize on the front of its leather bound cover. The ink inside was a rust brown, reminding me of dried blood. I tried to read the words aloud, but they were in a different language. Latin maybe? Corey snatched the book out of my hands and threw it back onto the bookshelf. "What the fuck is wrong with you?! You can't just read something aloud, if you don't know what you're saying! Jesus Christ, you guys are going to get us really killed one day." I didn't even laugh or argue with him, because he was probably right. That was a stupid move on my part. "Should we still try to do the Ouija board?" Sam asked, sitting on the edge of the musty couch that was in the center of the room. "NO," Corey yelled. It seemed like his loud voice reverberated along the walls of the room, going deeper and darker, as the echo continued. "See," he said, pointing his finger up and around, indicating the walls of the house. "Normal houses do NOT do that. Normal houses do not put someone in some kind of alternate reality where they can't hear people calling for them. Now you want to fuck with a Ouija board. No. I'm not doing it." "I'm down," Jake replied. Sam looked at me expectantly. As much as I wanted to say no, that I didn't even want to spend the night here anymore, I couldn't. I knew that Sam wanted to do it, and that it would be good for the channel. I thought about the things that had happened, and convinced myself that I was overreacting. When I didn't hear them calling for me, it was because I was so caught up in the history of that room. The dolls...well, dolls were just creepy, in general. "Yeah, okay," I replied. "I'm in." "Colby!" Corey yelled at me, and shook his head in astonishment. "Y'all are stupid. Whatever, but I'm not doing it." "You don't have too," Sam replied, standing up. "I left it in the car though so anyone want to come with me to get it?" He laughed nervously and I knew in that moment that he wasn't so sure about this place either. "Let's all go. We don't want to get separated again," I said. "We should probably set up the tent now anyway." "Good idea," Sam said, looking grateful. We made our way back outside, going through the current room, into another, then down the long hallway. "This house doesn't look this big from the outside," Jake mused, running his finger along the wood of the hallway. "It's weird." "Everything about this place is weird," I added quietly, glancing at the pictures on the walls. We crawled back through the window, and walked to the car, not speaking. I popped the trunk and Sam pulled the Ouija board out. "You sure this is a good idea?" I asked quietly, standing next to him aiming the camera light and filming for him. He turned to meet my gaze. "No. Not at all." "As long as we're on the same page, I guess," I muttered, and pulled the tent out of the trunk before slamming it. The wind picked up on an otherwise still night, as we started trying to set the tent up. "This is really hard to do without light," Corey said, trying to fit the structure pole into one side. I slid the other one through, then went to help him, as Jake held the flashlight for us. Sam was trying to start a fire but wasn't having much luck from the sounds of his cursing. "Bro, just wait on that. We won't be able to keep it lit while we're inside anyway," I yelled, my voice seeming much louder than I thought it was. "This place is so....eery," Jake replied, looking towards the woods that were to the side of the house. "Someone could be watching us right now and we wouldn't even know it." "Shut the fuck up Jake!" Corey hissed, his eyes darting all around. "We're fine," I said, my voice firm. "There's no one watching us Corey. If there are ghosts in this house, they can't hurt us. We're fine." He shook his head at me. "Not true. Spirits can hurt us. Demons can hurt us." I didn't say anything, instead went back to finishing up the tent. The other guys were basically useless in helping with it anyway. Sam walked back over to us, and used his light to check the tent to make sure that it was secured well enough. "Looks good," he replied. I scoffed. "Yeah, thanks for the help," I replied. "Any time," he answered, grinning at me. I rolled my eyes and smiled. "Okay, I guess we're ready to do this," he said, as we all faced the house again. It looked ominous and gave me a foreboding sense of doom. I really hated this place. Sam started walking towards the place and we followed suit. Once all of us were back inside, we went to the room with the dolls. "This is as a good a place as any, I guess," Sam said, sitting cross legged on the floor with the board in front of him. "Hey, look what I found," Jake exclaimed. I looked over to find him carrying two fat black candles. "Oh my God," Corey said, shaking his head with his eyes wide. "Y'all want to die. That's gotta be what this is. You just want to see how far you can push this before something serious happens." "Nothing bad is going to happen Corey. We'll be fine. We've done this plenty of times," Sam replied, lighting the candles and placing them on either side of the board.