The House on Barnes Avenue

 Sir I know it sounds crazy but I swear it’s the truth. I guess it all started when my girlfriend and I found that house. What, her name? Valerie, Valerie Hudson. My name? James Mason. Well, like I was saying. Our car had thrown a rod right outside of there. It was freezing and wet outside so we tried to find a way inside. Yeah, I know that’s illegal, I’m not an idiot. But you’ve seen the outside of that place, right? The place looked like it had been deserted for decades.

 I tried the door and it was unlocked. The inside looked nothing like the outside. The inside was almost pristine in its upkeep. The only dirt being that which had tracked in on our shoes. The house seemed to beckon us onward. As if it wasn’t satisfied unless we attempted to explore. Valerie tried to make me stop, but I wouldn’t. I wish I had but I didn’t. I just took her by the hand and pulled her along with me. The halls seemed to go on forever. Along the walls were numerous photographs. But the faces were too distorted to make out any features. Some were scratched as if they had been disfigured by dull talons. The others simply blurred. Like it was taken with an old camera, with a subject that wouldn’t sit still.

 At the end of the hallway, there was a small office. There were bookcases lining all the walls, save for one small spot where a writing desk lived. Sitting upon the desk was a typewriter made from what appeared to be iron and brass. Beside the typewriter was a copper ashtray adorned with tentacles and an ornate skull. Resting inside the ashtray was a lit cigarette. I felt Valerie’s hand leave my own, but I pressed forward. I picked up the cigarette to examine it, an old Lucky Strike  logo was printed on the side. I stared at it for a few moments trying to see the cigarette burn up, but it never did. What? I guess I just didn’t think about it, I thought she let go to look around. When I checked my watch to see how much time had passed, I noticed the hands had stopped completely. My phone had shut itself off completely, nothing happened when I tried to restart it.

 I tried calling out to Valerie, but she didn’t respond. I started back through the hallway and went through the first door I came across. It opened into a large room, seemingly too large to fit within the house. Wall to wall the room was covered with sketches of horrific creatures. The word Cthulhi was written on the wall in several places. I picked up one of the sketches to examine it. It was a large page, maybe two feet in length along both sides. The subject of the sketch was a large humanoid figure. The exact scale was impossible to determine, but there appeared to be an image of a man for scale. The creature was slightly taller than the man in the drawing and was covered with a mass of tentacles. Small wings protruded from its back, they didn’t look big enough to achieve flight though. I ventured further into the massive room, passing even more illustrations of the monster. Posted by a door at the end of the room was yet another drawing. This one a more detailed image of the creature’s face. The head of the monster resembled an entire octopus, only with more than double the tentacles.

 On the other side of the door was a very short hallway leading to a staircase. There were scratches and claw marks along the walls. The banister along the stairs was broken and splintered. A single light flickered at the top of the stairs. Each step I took up the stairs let out a loud creak. I could hear low screams further into the house. They almost could have come from a gorilla, but they still sounded off. At the top of the stairs, I was greeted by the remains of a doorway. The door itself had been ripped from its hinges and was shattered into pieces and strewn about the hallway. A massive shadow passed over the destroyed paintings on the wall. There were very few paintings intact enough to make out the subject matter. I looked closely at the nearest painting. It showed a reptilian monstrosity. The creature looked different from the illustrations I saw earlier, but I knew it had to be the same thing. This one had sharp claws and a massive wingspan, it towered over the people in the foreground. It had webbing between its claws and multiple sets of eyes. Multiple horns protruded from the beast’s head and arms, tentacles emerged from its face and body. The human figures in front of it seemed to be offering it cattle and other large animals. Affixed to the frame of the painting was a small plaque that read only Cthulhi .

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;"> A loud screech broke me out of my trance. I bolted down the hallway trying to find the source. The door at the end of the hall was locked. I was about to turn around and try to find another way through, but I heard Valerie screaming on the other side of the door. I bashed against the door with my shoulder, but it wouldn’t budge. There was a heavy gargoyle statue near the door, I was just able to heave it up to use as a battering ram. The door burst open with a thundering crash. The flickering lights from the hallway behind me were the only illumination in this room. I fumbled around in my pocket trying to find my lighter. I took a few steps into the room, the flickering of the light slowly fading away. I sparked the lighter a few times without luck. After a few more tries I finally had light. The small flame cast a faint flickering against the wall, there was furniture strewn about the place. A large broken mirror leaned against the wall, when I got closer I saw the frame was decorated with tentacles and skulls much like the ashtray in the office.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;"> I was starting to get lost in my broken reflection within the mirror until a dark blur filled the shadows behind me. I heard that shriek again, snapping me back towards my goal. I slowly but surely made my way through the room. The flicker of the lighter didn’t give me much to work with. Stepping over broken chairs and tables I finally found the exit. This door was half broken and hanging from its hinges. A faint shuffling could be heard beyond the threshold into the next room. I slowly made my way through the door, trying to follow the sounds. I figured that it would eventually lead me to Valerie. The next room was a twisted mess. There was furniture that seemed to be nailed to the ceiling, and some sort of liquid dripping from the walls. I crept closer and closer until I was mere inches away from the substance. I ran my fingers through it and found it had a very wet, gooey texture. The color had a blueish-purple hue, and the ooze was warm to the touch.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;"> There was another crash, followed by a loud growl. I kept inching my way through the room, it seemed to go on forever. After what seemed to be an eternity of walking I came to a point where the room began to expand. Shortly after I came face to face with a massive wall. The wall was far too big to fit within the house. The wall was painted with a massive mural that stretched across its entirety.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;"> It was a portrait of a man, maybe in his late forties. He had a long face, made even longer by the sheer scale of the mural. He was thin like he hadn’t eaten a proper meal in months. Sickly almost. His eyes were shrouded in shadows. Near his temples were claws, they were held in a way that seemed to suggest they were controlling the man. I stepped closer. Just when I was about to touch the mural the whole thing shifted. The creature who the claws belonged to was now peeking behind the man. Its gaze slowly beginning to meet mine. It tried to get closer to me. A massive claw groped towards me, causing me to trip over a broken chair as I backed away from it. I don’t know if the crash from my fall startled it or what, but the monstrosity ran away. I don’t know how but it ran away from the painting. I scrambled up and tried to chase it. I don’t know what possessed me to do this, it was like I had no real choice in the matter. But when I reached the wall I just slammed into it. It was solid, no way for anything natural to get through.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;"> I finally decided to run my hand along the wall, trying to find an opening. I finally managed to find a door that had been covered with wallpaper. I elected to try to kick this door open. Several tries later I found the sweet spot and the door flung open. This room was more of a tunnel than anything else. Brick walls and a moist floor. Like an old sewer. I could hear a sound similar to breaking bones and tearing flesh. It was enough to make me sick. The sickening symphony was followed by a scream, Valerie's scream. I ran as fast as I could through the tunnel. I had to help her. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do anything to help her.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;"> When I finally turned the corner, there was Valerie. Just standing there. She stood there for a moment, just staring at the wall. I kicked a rock on my way over to her and her head snapped towards mine. For a very short moment, her face seemed off. Almost as if it was devoid of any form of consciousness. Her face snapped into its normal shape. She didn’t even ask me where I had been. She just stared. She didn’t even seem to react when I recounted what I had run into. She stared blankly into my psyche. Her eyes tore through my brain, madness flooding into my head. She took my hand and pulled me further into the tunnel.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;"> I kept trying to get her to speak but she just wouldn’t. She just kept staring ahead of us and pulling me. She seemed to know where she was taking us so I didn’t think much of it. After an endless series of twists and turns, we made it back into the house. I almost let her lead me right back out the door. The screaming stopped me though. It was Valerie, it had to be, I didn’t know how but I knew it was her.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;"> I sprinted back into the room with the typewriter and that’s where I found her. She was lying on the floor in a puddle of her own blood. Her breaths were shallow and sounded painful. Her eyes met with mine and she managed to utter two words behind a painful breath. “Get Out.”

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;"> And that’s when I remembered the other Valerie. The moment I turned to look at her, her eyes went dark. The room was filled with the sounds of cracking bone and tearing flesh, as the beast from the mural ripped itself out of her body. Its mass filled the room while it locked eyes with me.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;"> Our standoff ended when the beast lunged at me. I was able to duck past it and get closer to the door. I could hear Valerie scream again but I didn’t dare to look back. I did what she told me and ran out the front door.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;"> When I got outside, it’s like nothing had happened at all. I looked at the clock on my phone and it showed no time had passed at all. Against my better judgment, I tried to get back in but the door was locked. I managed to break the lock, but the house was empty. It didn’t even look the same, it was a run-down, rotted out mess. And there was certainly no sign of Valerie or the creature.

<p dir="ltr" style="line-height:1.38;margin-top:0pt;margin-bottom:0pt;"><span style="font-size:12pt;font-family:'Times New Roman';color:#000000;background-color:transparent;font-weight:400;font-style:normal;font-variant:normal;text-decoration:none;vertical-align:baseline;white-space:pre;white-space:pre-wrap;"> Please, officer, you can’t let anyone go back in there. You can’t let anyone inside the house on Barnes Avenue.