The Gray's House by Matt Thomas

It’s pitch black, nothing can be seen around you. You reach out to find the wall and stumble your hands over to the switch on the light. You panic for a few seconds unable to find it, worried about what you may find. There are strange grinding noises coming from in front of you. Part of you does not want to find out what they are, you want to turn back and run away, but there that small part of you that is stronger, its fighting back, it’s inquisitive and curious to see what is in this house.

The creaking of the floor boards underfoot make your hear race, it fills you with terror and excitement in the same beat. You give up on finding the light switch and carefully step forward, not wanting to make much noise. You almost seem to tip toe forward.

Each time you take a step dust particles fly around, they tickle your nose and your eyes, making you feel dizzy. The small of damp contrasts to that of the dust being kicked up, it confuses your senses and makes you feel light headed, but you still continue forward.

Suddenly you remember you brought a flash light, you feel slightly embarrassed in yourself for not thinking to use it earlier to find the switch. You sigh and pull at the string round your wrist so the torch levels upward toward your hand. You grab it and turn it on, the bulb flickers and produces a thin beam of light, and it isn’t as strong as you first anticipated when choosing it.

You turn round, trying to look back at the wall you once was stumbling over, you see if there’s any sort of switch, there is nothing but torn dark wallpaper and cobwebs. You shiver and look down at your hands; they are coated in the thick webbed substance. You fiercely wipe your hands on your clothes felling a sickness in your stomach as you think of the eight legged creatures which created these webs, as you do so you let the torch drop; it catches itself with the string round your wrist, but hits you in your side winding you slightly.

You curse yourself for this action, grab at the torch again and continue to follow the direction of the wall round. ‘This place has to have a light somewhere’, you tell yourself. As you follow the wall round you start to notice dirt and grime on the wallpaper, the colour is dark, tricky to place through the lack of light your mind starts running with possibilities and it excites you a little. ‘Maybe the rumours about this house were true’ you start to recall the rumours you heard whilst still following the wall round with your poor shaft of light.

The stains start to get bigger and more defined, they worry you, you suddenly want to leave scared of finding worse, but you can’t leave yet, you haven’t found anything and if you left you knew you would forfeit the dare and therefor loose.

You started to curse Peter under your breath for making you enter this house ‘I dare you to stay in the Gray’s House’ you hear his high pitched voice and chuckle in your head and snarl, thinking of a way to get him back next time.

You suddenly notice something on the wall that stops your thoughts in their tracks. There on the wall in front of your poor shaft of light lays a set of markings, they almost look like lettering. You step up closer to get a better look.

The colour of the stained markings becomes more noticeable and darker, it’s a brownish reddened colour, and you still can’t see what the markings are so you take a few more steps forward. Then it hits you, you can see what it says and you wish you had never seen it.

On the wall scribed in this red substance were two warning words. The words ‘GET OUT’ scrolled down the wall. You get scared you panic, thinking that you had over stayed your welcome.

Suddenly the darkness is swarmed by a bright light, your eyes shocked into temporary blindness, you don’t want to open your eyelids to see who, or what just switched on the lights, and yet for some strange reason you are compelled to. You open your eyes and suddenly realise what the markings are made with.

The dark blooded hand prints trickling down the wall brought fear filled tears to your eyes, your heart sunk in your chest, you panic and turn to head for the door. You see that stood at the door was a tall shadowed figure with piercing pale eyes. Fear builds up inside you as the figure is suddenly standing in front of you, still covered in shadows, a few large noticeable scars and those wild piercing eyes. The shadow grabes you by the throat, you struggle and tears escape your eyes, wishing you had stayed at home.

The figure throws you against the wall, you hit it with force. As you hit the wall a shooting pain spirals down your side. His voice then booms across the room towards you, it makes you freeze on the spot and fills your throat with panic and fear.

‘Welcome to my house’ he cackles. ‘We are going to have so much fun.’