Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-28428152-20181017225809

So I just typed up a rough draft to a story I wrote in 2016, I believe, with some minor adjustments. Ran it through Grammarly, but didn't manually proofread, since I'm gonna rewrite it anyways, so not looking for grammar or punctuation fixes. Though, if any of you catch mistakes with the Spanish or Romanian in here, please let me know, as I'm not fluent in either. Fair warning, this story was a bit experimental on my part, using a frame story, as well as writing from a perspective completely not my own (female and hispanic).

The Library of Jack Pitch

When most people think of ghost stories from Tennessee, they think of the Bell Witch or haunted Civil War battlefields. However, almost nobody knows about one, Jack Pitch. Besides myself, I think there may actually only be a couple of people who know of it.

I moved to Tennessee from Mexico when I was seven and stayed there until I left for college at the University of Alabama. I lived on the outskirts of a growing town known as Maysburg, though the where exactly the following events unfolded I shall leave for interpretation, as I don’t wish to be responsible for the death of some thrill seeker trying to get an adrenaline kick, as I had myself done.

It was during my eighth-grade year, in the fall of 2013, and my brother and I were at our friend Ronnie’s house for his fourteenth birthday. His house was surrounded by woods, and we were camped out in his backyard. Like I said, he lived in a rural area of Maysburg, so it almost felt like real camping. There were only four of us there, us being Ronnie McGregor, my brother Fernando Hernandez, our friend Phillip White, and myself, Catalina. We weren’t a large group of friends, but we were close.

It was late, at least midnight, and we were all sitting around the campfire telling ghost stories. It had been a while, and we had exhausted ourselves of many a tale of spectral Confederates and gruesome murders in the locale, with the addition of tales of the Chupacabra and La Llorona from Fernando and I. Not wanting to end the fright, we were all racking our brains to either remember some other story or to create one of our own. It was then that Phillip remembered a story his grandfather used to tell him when he was younger.

“It was around the Civil War,” Phillip began, “and there was this man, I think his name was Jack Pitch, and this guy was a rich plantation owner. All the townsfolk liked him well enough. He always went to church on Sundays and he always donated to the church and schoolhouse generously and was just a generally nice guy. At least, that’s what they thought.

“He wasn’t one of the biggest plantation owners around, but he had a pretty sizeable chunk of land, and a good many slave, too. And even though everyone thought he was a gentleman, he was really a twisted-ass fuck.”

I snickered a little and shot Fernando an amused glance.

“You see, even though he put on airs of being a good Christian man, he secretly hated all that was Godly. His real love was for the Devil, but he kept it pretty secret. Every full moon he would sacrifice one of his farm animals, but he kept the secret well hidden. He didn’t have any living family, and he kept it from his slaves, too. Every now and then, one of them would stumble across the secret room he had in the cellar, but he would chain them up and use them as a sacrifice instead of an animal the during the next ritual.

“Well, eventually the war came on, and as time went by, he grew nervous about the Yankees—that’s what grandad always called them-- so he had a smaller house built in the middle of the woods in case General Sherman—”

“Who’s that?” I asked, not yet entirely familiar with the Civil War.

“He was a general in the Union that burned down a bunch of farms,” Phillip explained.

“Oh, okay. Please continue.”

“Anyways,” Phillip said, “he was worried General Sherman might come and burn his land, so he had the house built. Well, eventually, the Yankees did come down near his plantation, and he knew that they’d take his land and free his slaves. Well, he had a brand-new house to go to, but he had no way to bring all his slaves with him.

“And he hated his slaves more than he hated anything, even God and Jesus. And there was only one thing he hated more than a slave: a free slave. So not being able to bear the thought of having all his slaves set free, he locked them all up in their quarters and lit them all on fire. Not a single one of them lived.

“Jack Pitch then went on and moved into the house in the woods. It was a fairly big house, though not as big as his plantation home. Except for his library. Because there was nothing Jack Pitch was more proud of than his collection of books. But as long as he had somewhere to stay, he was content. So, he settled down and made himself comfortable while he waited for the war to pass. About a year went by when one night, Jack heard a knock on the door. Still paranoid about the Union, he grabbed his old pistol and snuck up to the door. He peeked out the window, expecting to see a band of soldiers, but he only saw a lone figure. He opened up the door and found an old black woman carrying a carpet bag.

“’What do you want, old hag?’ Jack asked the woman.

“Oh, please, mister, can’t you let a poor old woman in from the rain?’ she said. Jack didn’t remember there being any rain, but when he looked past the porch, he indeed saw that it was raining, even though he was certain it had not been raining just moments before. He thought hard for a moment.

“’Can you cook?’ he asked the woman.

“She said, ‘Oh, I can cook you a fine stew, mister.’

“Jack thought for a moment longer. He didn’t want to be caught with a runaway slave, but if she was free, then he wouldn’t be able to live with himself letting her walk free.

“’Can you clean, too?’ he asked.

“’I can make your face shine in the mud,’ she said.

“’Then I’ll let you stay,’ Jack told her, ‘and I’ll even let you sleep in the guest room instead of the cellar. But for every day that you want to stay, I want you to cook and clean for twice that long. So, if you want to just stay the night, I want two days of work. If you want to stay for two nights, I want four days, and so on.

“The old woman thanked him for his hospitality and told him that she’d cook and clean twice as long as she wanted to stay, just like Jack had said. Though, she wasn’t feeling too well, and she told him she’d have to stay a few nights, which was fine by Jack.

“’But,’ she told him, ‘if you’ve got a catch, then I’ve got one of my own. I’ll scrub your floors and cook your stews for twice my stay, but whatever you do, don’t go peekin’ in my bag.’

“Jack could have cared less about her dirty old carpet bag and told her that he’d stay out of it. And having come to an agreement, that night Jack Pitch was given the finest stew he had ever had.

“But when she was coming back to take his dishes, he asked her, ‘Was you ever a slave, woman?’

“’Oh, I reckon I used to be, Mr. Pitch,’ she said. ‘But my master set me free, in a way.’

“Jack scowled and went up to his room, furious that there was a free black woman in his very house. Because like I said, the only thing he hated more than a slave was a free slave. And he was already cooking up a few plans to either make her his slave or sacrifice her if that didn’t work. By the morning, he’d forgotten all about her dirty old carpet bag.

“And she cooked, and she cleaned, finally beginning to recover from her illness after four nights. But she was still willing to do his work for another four days, just like they’d agreed. But Jack Pitch was bidding his time, knowing that the full moon was coming soon. And when it finally did, he snatched her up and brought her to a secret room in the library and sacrificed her to the Devil. It wasn’t until afterwards that he remembered that old carpet bag of hers, and how she’d told him not to open it. So, with her blood still on his hands, he went up to her room and opened it up. And do you wanna know what he found?”

“What?” I whispered. We were all listening intently.

“He found burned pieces of bone and a list of all the slaves he had burned. And he noticed that he saw her name on the list, right at the very bottom. But he couldn’t believe it. She must have had the same name as one of his slaves, surely. He told himself that she must have known some of his slaves somehow and was bidding her own time, waiting for the right moment to have vengeance. But he at least figured he could use the bones for his rituals, but when he went back to the secret room, he saw that the old woman’s body was gone.

“Scared to hell, Jack threw down the bag and hurried out into the library, but when he tried to open the door, he found that it was locked from the outside.”

“No!” I gasped.

“Shut up, Cat!” Ronnie hissed.

“Anyways,” Phillip continued after I shot Ronnie a dirty look, “Jack started to freak out, because he knew he hadn’t locked the door, so he tried to squeeze himself between the bookshelves, trying to hide from whatever had locked the door, though he was too scared to hide in the hidden ritual chamber.

“And as he was hiding, he could hear a long, slow knock… knock… knock coming from the door. Jack didn’t make a peep.

“’Jack,’ he heard the old woman croak from the other side, ‘can’t you let a poor old woman in from the rain?’

“And just like that, all the lights blew out with a cold wind, even though Jack knew the windows had been shut. And he couldn’t see a thing.

“’What do you want, old woman?’ Jack cried.

“There was a long, cold silence before the old woman said, ‘The dead want rest, Mr. Jack Pitch.’

“It was then that Jack could hear the shuffling of hundreds of feet and groaning voices from all over the house, slowly making their way to the library. And though Jack never saw a thing, the last thing he felt was cold, dead hands grabbing at his throat. And then Jack Pitch was no more. And they say that his house still stands, crumbling, deep in these very woods. And they say that if you find that old house, on a full moon you can hear moans coming from inside the walls, and if you go inside, they’ll take you too, thinking that you’re old Jack Pitch.”

We all took a moment to let the story sink in.

“Damn,” Fernando muttered.

“Was better than my story about the haunted trailer,” Ronnie praised.

“Grandpa said that his cousin Doug claims he saw the place,” Phillip added after a moment, staring into the fire. “But Doug says he never went inside.”

“So, this place is real?” Ronnie asked.

“Well,” Phillip shrugged, “my grandpa says it is, but I don’t buy it. I just think it’s an old story he made up.”

“But his cousin saw it?”

Phillip waved his hand dismissively. “That’s just what my grandpa says. I’ve never heard Doug mention it myself.

“Well, it’s not like it’s your grandpa’s uncle’s nurse’s nephew’s best friend’s transvestite sister or something,” I argued. “I mean, you know Doug yourself. You could actually ask him about it.”

“Yeah, but Doug’s a drunkard, anyways, so even if he says he’s seen it, I doubt he’d be telling the truth.”

“But what if he did find it?” Ronnie asked. Phillip leaned back and squinted his eyes.

“What are you trying to get at here?”

“Well… what if….”

“What if we could find it, too?” I finished. Ronnie and Phillip looked at me, though Fernando was holding his gaze into the campfire.

“I’m telling you, there’s no way it exists.”

“Then what’s the harm in looking?” Ronnie asked.

“It’d be a big waste of time.”

I scoffed. “Yeah? And what’ve you got better to do? All you do is sit around playing Call of Duty.”

Phillip frowned and rolled his eyes.

I ignored him and turned my head to Fernando. “You’ve been awfully quiet.”

“Fernando’s always quiet,” Ronnie interjected.

“What do you think about all this?” I asked.

Fernando shrugged his shoulders, not taking his eyes off the embers.

“Worth a shot, I guess. If we find it, then it’d be really cool. If not, then hey, at least we did something exciting for once.”

Ronnie sniffed and mumbled, “Camping out is exciting,” in a slightly hurt tone.

“That’s three against one, Phillip,” I declared. “We’re gonna go find this place!”

“Cat,” he said with a sigh, “we don’t even know where this place is supposed to be. These woods are big. We’d just be bumbling around like a bunch of idiots.”

“Couldn’t you ask Doug?”

“I mean, I could. He’s supposed to be coming down this weekend. But he probably doesn’t know, either. If he even found it in the first place.”

Ronnie leaned forward and whispered, “Hey, you know what’d be really cool?”

“What?” I asked.

“What if we found it, and went inside on a full moon?”

Phillips hesitated.

“I dunno. What if—”

“It was true?” I interjected.

“No!” he countered defensively. “I was just going to say, what if there was an animal inside or something? Or what if we got hurt? That building would be pretty unsafe after sitting there for about a hundred and fifty years.”

“Pendejo,” I mumbled.

“What?” Phillip asked.

“She called you a shithead,” Fernando chuckled lightly. “Thought you’d have picked it up by now, she says it enough. Pendejo.”

“Hey! I’m not being a shithead!” Phillip cried, his cheeks red.

“Pendejo.”

“Cat, shut the fuck up!”

“Pendejo,” Ronnie smirked, joining in.

“I am not—”

“Me cago en tu puta madre.”

“Damn, Cat!” Fernando exclaimed.

“What? What’d she say?”

“I’m not telling you, bastardo.”

“Okay, I heard ‘bastard’ in there.”

“Because you’re a big ol’ bastard, Phillip,” Ronnie taunted.

“Why’re you going along with it?” Phillip cried. “You don’t even know Spanish!”

“Yeah, but it’s funny as fuck seeing you get upset.”

“Well, if you’re gonna insult me, then do it in English so I can understand it!”

“Pendejo,” Fernando said.

“Fine. Fine, I’ll ask Doug about the stupid house, and we can all go for a big ol’ romp through the woods. Sound like fun?”

“Yeah, it does actually,” Ronnie answered.

“About time, fucker,” I said.

Phillip scowled and angrily roasted a hot dog.

*   *     *     *   *

“Goddammit, Phillip, quit stopping in front of me!”

“Sorry, Ronnie. I’m just a little nervous.”

“About what, a haunted leaf?”

“Shut up, Cat.”

It was dusk, and we had been wandering around in the woods all afternoon. Phillip had held to his word and asked his cousin Doug about Jack Pitch’s house, who did in fact claim to have seen it and gave Phillip a few landmarks to use as reference, namely an old pond that he used to fish in. After Phillip told us this information, we then waited until the next full moon, and told our parents that we were at each other’s houses, since they likely wouldn’t approve of the excursion. However, after finding the algae-ridden fishing hole, we had become hopelessly lost. That is, until Fernando, who was the farthest ahead, stopped in his tracks.

“What is it?” I called, pulling my coat around me against the cold autumn air.

He motioned forward excitedly, his face lit by the light of Phillip’s phone, putting a finger to his lips.

“What is it?” hissed when I came up next to him.

“Look!”

My eyes followed to where his finger pointed, and though it was hard to see in the quickly-failing light, there appeared to be something very large in the distance.

“What’s up?” Ronnie whispered a moment later after he’d caught up with us.

“Look at where Fernando is pointing,” I told him.

“You think that could be it?” he asked after a few seconds spent squinting into the darkness.

“Could be,” Fernando muttered.

“Come on,” I said, “let’s go before Phillip chickens out.”

“Shut up.”

It was a monstrous two-story house, dilapidated in every way capable of rendering the house more terrifying. The eerie glow of our lights bringing the ruins into bright contrast against the black shadows, the roving shadows seeming to scuttle out of sight. The columns that supported the uneven awning above the entrance had long lost their former glory, and looked like great teeth waiting to crush us the moment we stepped too close, the front porch looking like a great snarling maw. The walls groaned gloomily, and the wind whistled through the broken windows. A few trees had even fallen through the roof, taking out entire swaths of architecture.

“This is fucking awesome!” I breathed.

“Pretty creepy, yeah,” Fernando concurred.

Davis moaned and said, “Look, I don’t think that place is safe to go into.”

“Would you quit being a little bitch for once?” I snapped. He averted my gaze awkwardly.

“Zorra,” I grumbled.

“What?”

“Just ignore her, Phillip,” Fernando sighed, shooting me a disapproving look.

“Well,” Ronnie said, “We’re not gonna just walk away something this cool!”

“Well—”

“Jesus fucking Christ dude, grow some balls!” Ronnie snapped.

Phillip shut his mouth and began to march inside, the thud of his shoes on the ancient wood loud and hollow.

The inside looked no better than the outside. In fact, I would say that it was incredibly more horrible, and thus incredibly more appealing to my thirteen-year old brain. The front hallway seemed as big as a cathedral, but as sinister as a cathedral is holy. The floor was littered with debris from the crumbling walls. Glinting in the light of our phones were glittering shards of glass, too, waiting for us to slip and fall face-first into them. And in front of the collapsed staircase was a broken chandelier that had taken some of the roof with it, the full orange moon shining from above.

The air reeked of mildew, too, and puddles of dirty water sat in the dark corner, rotting animal droppings soaking the water in.

“Why the hell is everything wet?” Ronnie wondered, his voice slightly muffled from the jacket pulled over his nose. “It hasn’t rained for like a week.”

“Can’t evaporate, I guess,” Fernando shrugged.

“But the whole roof’s caved in,” I pointed out, aiming my phone at the ceiling.

“I imagined it being a lot smaller,” Phillip said softly. I nodded in agreement.

“So, which way are we gonna go?” Ronnie asked after a moment.

“Dunno,” I said.

There were four doors, two of which led from either side of the hall. There was a landing on the far hall, reached by the collapsed staircase, with a large door facing us. Under the landing, level with us, was the fourth door.

“Well, we can’t go upstairs,” Ronnie said. I imagined myself falling through the rotten boards and grimaced.

“Well, I always imagined it being on the left side of the house,” Fernando said, “so I guess it wouldn’t hurt to start there.”

“Fine by me,” I replied.

We passed through two more rooms, each more dreadful than the last, until we finally came upon the library.

“This one’s locked,” Phillips announced, tugging on the large ornate door. He seemed to have suddenly become braver after the exchange outside.

“Fuck that,” I said, “this place is a hundred and fifty years old.”

“And your point is…?”

I shoved my phone into my pocket and charged full-tilt at the door, thrusting out my right shoulder at the last second, smashing through the door and slamming into the floor.

“Shit, Cat,” Ronnie chuckled, reaching out a hand to help me up, “think you want in bad enough?”

“Nah, would’ve been easier to use Phillip as a battering ram instead of myself.”

They both chuckled at that image.

“Hey guys,” Fernando said, “I think this is it.”

We all turned around to look, and it indeed was a library. It was an enormous room, possibly even bigger than the entrance hall, though about as tall. On the left and right walls were tall, slender windows scaled nearly the whole way up to the vaulted ceiling, with ragged curtains floating softly in the breeze, like wraiths.

“Holy fuck….”

“Come on,” Fernando whispered with excitement in his voice, “let’s check it out.”

Ronnie held up his hand. “Wait! What if… what if we found the secret room?”

“Yeah, that’d be fucking awesome!” I exclaimed.

“But how would we be able to find it?” Phillip asked. “I mean, this place is a frickin’ labyrinth, and the door would be hidden.”

“Oh, quit bein’ a butt and have some fun,” I huffed.

“Well,” Fernando said, “it would probably be along a wall, and I imagine it’ll be a fake bookshelf. Probably along the back wall, where there aren’t any windows.”

“But how will we open it?”

“I dunno. Start pulling books off the shelf, I guess,” Fernando shrugged.

“What, like in Scooby-Doo?”

“Why not?”

Phillip huffed and grumbled under his breath.

“Should we stick together, or go in groups?” Ronnie asked me a moment later while we were steadily making our way through an aisle of dusty books.

“Uh, I’d say stick together, just in case somebody gets hurt. Like Phillip said, this place is pretty unsafe.”

“Starting to rain,” Phillip observed a few minutes later. I looked over to the windows and saw flashes of droplets in the moonlight. But then something struck me as odd.

“There’s no holes,” I muttered to myself.

“What?” Phillip asked.

“No holes,” I said louder, pointing upwards. “There’s no holes in the roof.”

“So?” Phillip asked as the rain began to pour in through the shattered windows.

“Don’t you think it’s a little weird,” I yelled, trying to be heard over a clap of thunder, “that just about every square inch of ceiling is either caved in or starting to collapse, but the ceiling in the library is perfectly fine?”

I could tell that Phillip was a bit uneasy. Behind me I could hear Ronnie wondering where the sudden storm had come from. Phillip opened his mouth as if to say something, but right then Fernando called from a few aisles down.

“Hey guys! Come here, I think I found something!”

“What is it?” Ronnie asked after we found Fernando.

“Got a book that’s stuck,” he said. He tugged on an upright book that indeed didn’t seem to want to move. “See?”

“Think this could be it?” I asked.

“Could be,” he sighed. He gave me a sideways glance. “Why don’t you try it, Cat? You’re the strongest.”

“But Cat’s a girl!” Phillip huffed. “Let me at it, I’m stron—”

I grabbed him by the head and pinned him to the ground, holding him in place with my knee.

“Oh, yeah, such a big strong man,” I joked, getting off of him.

“How tall are you again?” Phillip asked as he brushed the dust from his jacket.

“Five foot one,” I grunted, trying to pry the book loose. “How tall are you?”

“Five seven.”

“Yeah. So shut up.”

I tugged on it harder, feeling something pulling at the book. Eventually, the was a sharp crack! and the bookshelf turned out slightly, though the book came off as well, a broken lever still attached to the shelf.

“Oh shit, I think you’ve got it!” Ronnie cried.

“Yeah, let’s open it,” Fernando said, Phillip saying nothing as we all grabbed the shelf and forcing it outwards, the wood scraping against the floor. We were all impatient to see the inside of it, and the further the bookshelf came open, the harder we pulled, until at last, we were staring at what appeared to be a false panel in the wall with a piece of rope nailed where a doorknob should be.

“You wanna do the honors?” I said to Phillip, pointing at the piece of rope.

“Y-you sure?”

“Yeah, go ahead. You were the one who told us about this place.”

“Um…. Alright.” He tentatively grabbed the rope and tugged it outwards a few times, the panel not budging an inch.

“Try pulling it to the side,” Ronnie suggested.

Phillip pulled it to the side, and the panel indeed began to screech and scrape its way into the wall, opening up a doorway of complete blackness, a stench of rot stabbing our noses, making our stomachs turn.

“Oh my God!” Fernando cried. “What the fuck is that smell?”

“I don’t wanna know,” I coughed, turning my head away, trying to keep down the vomit.

“Jesus H. Christ,” Ronnie gagged. “It smells like a fucking dumpster was lit on fire, put out with dog shit, and then left to rot in the sun. Fucking Jesus!”

“Well, I’m not shining my flashlight in there,” I said.

“I’m not either,” Fernando agreed.

“Fuck if I am. Phillip?”

“Shit, I dunno….”

“Come on, dude. You already opened it. Because we’re not gonna do it.”

I glanced at Phillip, my eyes watering. He seemed hesitant, but I could tell that he didn’t want to turn back now.

“Alright,” he said, Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, followed by a series of hacking coughs.

“You gonna do it, man?” Fernando asked.

“Yup. I’m gonna do it. Let’s see what this nasty motherfucker left in here.”

We all braced ourselves, our hearts racing in morbid anticipation of what we might find.

“Oh my God!”

“What? What is it?” I asked, trying to look past Phillip.

Fernando turned his head to look inside as well, and quickly turned back away, dry heaving.

“What? What is it?”

“Here, come look at this shit!”

I stumbled my way over, my shirt still clamped tightly around my nostrils, though the closer I got the more useless the shirt became. And then I saw it.

The small chamber floor was covered in a rotting pile of flesh ankle-deep, with a small path going from the doorway to a table at the far end, where yellow broken bones lie on top of it. Next to the table was some kind of medieval torture device, caked in blood, and on the left wall was a shelf full of more rot, and on the right wall was a basin full of a pungent, lumpy red substance. And above the basin, hand-written in blood—which covered every surface of the room—was “Mâncător de Sânge”.

“How the fuck is that meat still there?” Ronnie demanded. It’s been a hundred and fifty years. How the fuck is it still there?”

“What’s in the fucking sink?” Phillip asked. “Is that blood? Is that rotting blood?”

I couldn’t take it anymore. I turned around and raced over by Fernando, expelling hot vomit from my stomach and onto the floor.

“Hey guys…?” Ronnie said. “Hey guys?”

“C-can’t… talk….” I croaked hoarsely between spews.

“I found the bag.”

“What?” Fernando cried, still dry heaving himself.

“I found the carpet bag.”

Fernando and I stared at each other, the truth beginning to settle in.

“We need to get out of here,” he said. “We need to get the hell out no—”

Fernando was interrupted by a long, hollow booming from the library door.

Nobody moved. Nobody breathed. We simply stood in putrid silence as the booming continued. It was as though a basilisk had slithered in without our notice and had petrified us all at once.

“I thought you broke the door down?” Ronnie croaked to me. It was then that I noticed the wind had stopped, leaving us in silence save for the soft patter of rain.

Then the most blood-curdling, hair-raising voice spoke from the other room. It seemed distant, yet at the same time omniscient… viciously infuriated yet in the midst of soul-crushing lament.

“Jack, can’t you let a poor old woman in from the rain?”

The room became darker, and I looked over to see that Ronnie’s phone had died, the light from his phone going out. I noticed that all of us had our phone lights on, but then Fernando’s went out, followed by Phillip’s, and then mine, the ghostly negative images of their faces burned into my eyes in the near-abject darkness, the moonlight only giving enough light to make out vague silhouettes after a moment.

“Shit, shit, shit shit shit shit shit,” Ronnie mumbled frantically from the doorway to the hidden room. I could hear him desperately trying to turn his phone back on, but to no avail.

“Guys,” he whispered, “my fucking phone won’t turn on.”

“We know, Ro—”

“''It won’t turn on! It won’t turn on! It won’t turn on!”''

“Ronnie—”

“Just turn the fuck on!” he shrieked, his voice piercing the air like a sword.

“Would you shut the fuck up?” we hissed desperately. “We know!”

It was then that I felt icy shards of glass run through my veins in a sudden, stabbing cold, as though the clammy claws of death itself were slashing their way through my body, digging into my brain and making it numb with a poison fog. In that moment, I felt as Roderick Usher must have felt when he first perceived the dead Lady Madeline had freed herself from her tomb to seize him, her brother. For all around us was the sound of shuffling wooden feet scraping against the floorboards, moans of the damned steadily grinding their way towards us.

“''Padre nuestro, que estás en el cielo. Santificado sea tu nombre''.”

“Cat, shut up!” Fernando hissed.

“''Venga tu reino. Hágase tu voluntad en la tierra como en el cielo''.”

“''Catalina! Shut the fuck up!''”

But I paid no heed and only whispered to myself faster, the prayer being the only comfort I could bring myself.

“''Danos hoy nuestro pan de cada día. Perdona nuestras ofensas, como también''—"

“Oh, sweet Jesus,” Ronnie whimpered. “Oh, Jesus fucking Christ.”

“Something’s next to me!” Phillip whimpered hoarsely. “Fuck, something’s next to me!”

Right then, I heard a low, guttural hacking noise coming from Davis’ direction, and before I could register what was happening, I was slammed into by a large mass. Above me I could see the dark silhouette of a person’s head, hot rancid breath mere inches from my face, but before the phantom could do anything, Fernando kicked it off of me.

“Quick, climb the bookshelves!” he shouted as he helped me up.

Phillip was the first to reach the top of the nearest shelf and reached down to help me up. But as I was clambering up the shelves, I felt a set of sharp fangs dig into my right calf and pull, but Phillip held on and I managed to rip my leg free and climb up top. I felt blood trickling down my shin and leaning down I could feel large holes in my flesh, though I couldn’t feel the pain.

“What the fuck just bit me?” I asked.

“Bit you?” Phillip asked, his eyes wide and face pale. I nodded my head.

“Well, I guess he didn’t only sacrifice people, did he?” he whispered.

“Cat! CAT!”

I whipped around violently in the direction of Fernando’s voice, tottering dangerously, and found him struggling wildly to climb the shelves.

“Cat, they’ve got me!” he screamed. “''They’ve fucking got me! Ayúdame! Ayúdame, por favor!'' They’re pulling me down!”

I kneeled down on the wobbling bookcase and took hold of one hand while Phillip took hold of the other. We tried to pull him up, but my right leg gave out in a painful explosion underneath me. I nearly fell forward off the bookcase, but Phillip grabbed me and pulled me back. But in that moment, he’d let go of Fernando’s other hand and I saw my brother being pulled down into the darkness, his screams piercing the air as I heard the sound of snapping bones and tearing flesh.

“No!” I screamed, reaching down as though I could still grab his hand.

“Cat,” Phillip said in my ear, pulling my arm back, “Cat, come on, we’ve gotta go.”

“No! I’m not going to just leave him!” I cried.

“Cat, we can’t help him. We’ve gotta get the hell out of here.”

I pushed him away and thrust my hand back down, screaming when I felt matted hair brush against it.

“Fernando’s gone, Cat. He’s dead.”

“He’s not dead, you fucker!” I would’ve flung myself down at that point, had Phillip not grabbed me and held me still.

“Ronnie, can I get some help here?” he grunted as he struggled to keep me from throwing myself into those hordes of death. “Ronnie?”

His body went rigid, and so did mine, my mind being snapped back to my senses.

“Ronnie? Ronnie?” he cried.

“No,” I whimpered, eyes wide with horror.

“''Ronnie! Answer me!''” he screamed, letting me go and going to the end of the bookcase.

“''Christ, where the fuck are you? RONNIE?''”

He stared wildly into the shifting darkness on his hands and knees, searching for any signs of our friend. Suddenly, my head was yanked sideways towards the floor by my hair. I let out a shriek and wrenched my head free, a large chunk of hair missing from my scalp.

“Phillip, they’re climbing the shelves!”

“Oh, god,” he said. “Come on, we’ve gotta get the fuck out of here.”

He stood up and starting to hurry down the bookcase towards the closest one. I tried to follow suit, but my leg couldn’t take the weight, the muscle torn.

“Phillip!” I choked, blinding pain shooting up from my calf. “Can’t—leg!”

He turned towards me and looked around nervously.

“Fuck. Here, grab my shoulder.”

I did as he said, and with my arms around his neck and my leg scrambling uselessly behind me, we made our way over onto the next shelf without falling, and somehow made it across the room this way, despite the aged and fragile wood and dark shadows trying to bring us down and tear us apart. Finally, we were just a few feet away from the door, which despite having been broken down by myself just prior, was standing as it had when we’d arrived. We leapt down and raced to it, the mass of ghosts not far behind us.

“Shit, it’s locked,” he said, twisting the doorknob in vain.

“Break it,” I gasped from my position against the wall.

“What?”

“Break the door down.”

He thrust himself against the door, but nothing happened. He flung at it again, but only succeeded in in hurting his shoulder.

“Get—a running start.”

“B-but—” he stammered, glancing over his shoulder at the shuffling behind us.

“Or you can let us fucking die,” I snapped. He gave a little whimper and backed up. I saw him elbow something behind him, and then he bolted straight into the door, crashing through it. He immediately picked himself up and grabbed my arm, pulling me towards him.

We managed to make it out of that wretched hellhole, despite those tortured souls seeking revenge against their murderer. Oddly enough, once we made it outside, they stopped following us, though we could still hear the moans of men and howls of animals. Through the night and for most of the next day we travelled through those woods, hampered severely by my leg, not knowing where we were going. Nor did we care, as long as it was away from that hellish house.

Eventually, that next afternoon, we came across a group of police, who had been sent after us, our parents having realized that we’d lied about where we were. We tried to tell them what happened, but they didn’t believe us, and figured that we’d taken drugs, and that Ronnie and Fernando must still be in the woods. Phillip even tried to lead them back to the house, but they couldn’t find it. They never did find their bodies.

I’d also developed a nasty infection in my leg, but they managed to heal up the wounds after we were sent to the emergency room. And even though we came through negative on all the drug tests they gave us, Fernando and Ronnie’s deaths were written off as missing, and no further efforts were made to find them.

Over the next several years, I developed an intense case of Nyctophobia, seeing those shuffling figures anytime I’m in darkness or even close my eyes. And I still have nightmares about that night five years ago. For years, I avoided any kind of clinical help, though after several flashbacks and trips to the E.R., I don’t have any other choice. My therapist says that I have PTSD, which I always thought was for soldiers, but I guess not. It was under her suggestion that I write this. She said that if I can write it in as much detail as possible, that it’ll help my mind process the events, and move past it.

But despite this, I’m still determined to succeed, earning my degree in journalism at the University of Alabama. Phillip, on the other hand, didn’t handle things so well. Even before we went into my house, he spent most of his time playing video games, but after that, that was all he could do. He ended up failing our eight-grade year, and I didn’t see him again until my sophomore year of high school, soon after which he and his family moved to Winston, Pennsylvania. That was the last I ever saw of him.

I wish you well, Phillip. I wish you well. 