It was a house that most didn’t see, but Tim did.
He was on his way home one day, just like any other, and saw the house at the end of the cul-de-sac. It stood tired and overgrown, in stark relief to the other houses on the pristine suburban street. Stucco shell copy and pastes that were only indistinguishable by the three different color schemes homeowners were allowed to choose.
Such freedoms for such premiums, but the return on investment was killer.
When he noticed it, he asked a neighbor about it. The woman shrugged as if to say, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” without moving her lips. This puzzled Tim, who grew more curious about the house. All signs pointed to it being vacant, but if it was, it should be for sale or rent, and yet no sign stood in the yard.
Too many puzzle pieces without a fit to solve made the 12-year-old boy decide they had to know more.
Informing his Mom he was sleeping over at a friend’s house, he rode to the house at the end of the block, armed with his camera. He knew a good story was waiting for him inside the house, and he wouldn’t miss posting it to his channel. Going through the side fence, into the backyard, he leaned his BMX against the side of the home. Having it standing would ensure a quick getaway if needed.
In the overgrown yard, Tim had the privacy he needed to slide one of the windows open and enter the house. Climbing down the counter, he turned on the camera’s light and began recording. The darkness of the room grew as the beam of his light revealed the surfaces of the kitchen.
They held nothing of note but told a story that was interrupted.
On the table sat a cup of coffee that was half-empty and a slice of toast that had grown mold over it. Those objects were something to see, but what drew Tim’s attention to the table was the object sitting in the middle of it. A lone Chia Pet with dirt on it but no plants. It was in the shape of a rabbit and held a lot of dust on its surface.
He panned his camera around the kitchen and didn’t see much else. The thought of opening the fridge filled him with mild dread, but it was then that the sounds of the house became more apparent, and it wasn’t silence that caught him off-guard, but the sound of talking.
His sneakers froze on the spot.
The kitchen, with the dust and the mold. The outside of the house, that looked haggard and overgrown. Everything said this house was vacant. His first instinct was the leave because this was now very illegal compared to 30 seconds ago when it was only a little bit illegal. He ignored that instinct and spoke, “Hello?”
No response, only the continued conversation at half mumble from further in the house.
As he walked into the main entry area, stacks and stacks of boxes greeted him. All of them were for the same product: A rabbit-shaped Chia Pet. They filled the living room and spilled into the entryway. Tim adjusted his focus as he processed what he was seeing. He reached up and grabbed a box, and the weight of it said that it was still full.
He set the box back in the stack and continued to move toward the sounds coming from upstairs. Climbing the stairs, he could hear the weight of his steps against the new lament flooring and tried to move without making a lot of noise. He had plenty of practice on these floors at his house, and it was then he noticed the house looked newish. Which meant, again, the exterior of the home wasn’t matching what the inside was telling the world.
For a moment, he thought about doing the practical thing and leaving, but he wanted to know who would order so many Chia Pets.
Rounding the corner, the room at the end of the hall glowed with a soft light. The conversation he’d been following this entire time started to sound like something he’d heard before: An infomercial. Keeping his camera at the ready, he walked down the hallway and entered the room.
Blue light bathed the room from the tv, making Tim and his camera lens squint as their iris’ adjusted. Between the battle of darkness and light sat a woman on a couch. Surrounding her were stacks and stacks of boxes of Chia Pets. So numerous were the boxes that they seemed to make a downtown skyline at dusk with the Chia Pet commercial blaring on the screen. The chant ‘Ch-ch-ch-ch-Chia!’ sang from the screen as the woman’s head pivoted toward her guest.
Her eyes brought with them the blue glow from the screen as she whispered, “Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-Chia.”
His legs shoved off before his brain could tell them to as he slung the camera and shut the light off. His speed brought him to the stairs so fast that he slid and fell. His ankle shot pain up his leg as he bolted up to stare at the door at the end of the hallway. Seeing a figure break the blue light leaking out of it, he scrambled toward one of the two doors leading to side rooms, only to find inside, stacked from floor-to-ceiling, were bicycles of different makes and sizes.
“Oh shit.” He looked back at the door and saw the woman’s silhouette against the light as the two blue holes in her skull stared down the hall. “Oh shit!”
He shoved off the doorframe, lunging for the stairs, only to be caught by the foot. Tim screamed as the blue static eyes illuminated the rotting teeth of the woman as she chanted, “Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch…” He kicked her with his free foot, and as he fell down the stairs, the thing screamed.
Lights rotated and flashed as the police cars arrived. Tim sat on the curb with a blanket wrapped around him. The woman was wheeled out of the house, a sheet covered her, and as she was rolled into the back of the medical examiner’s van, the boy whispered, “Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch…”
The house was put back on the market the next day and closed in two weeks.
Previous chapter: The Phone
Next chapter: The Camera
I don’t know about ya’ll, but that was a spoopy story! Please share this story, and if you haven’t yet hit the subscribe button, please do! I am looking forward to writing more entries in the Spoopy House series for the month of October. They’ve been fun to write and I hope entertaining to read. If you’ve dug these stories, please do let me know in the comments.
Thank you for your time and I’ll see you all in the next entry.