The House on Mystic Street

It was one of those days when everything went wrong. I had been splashed by a car while walking to school so I was soaked. I was only walking because I had missed the bus. I missed the bus because I had slept in late all because my dad had taken my alarm clock for some unknown reason. So in the end I was soaking wet, late for school and o, my essay I had spent hours on for class was gone. I sat at my desk while my teacher gave me a lecture in front of everyone; how embarrassing, right? After his lecture he continued class like his face hadn’t been beat red and his neck bulging in veins just a few moments before.
When his class finally finished, I bolted for the door but it didn’t matter because he stopped me, “Alexander Mason, what excuse do you have up your sleeve for this missed assignment?” he asked, he didn’t even bother to look up at me.
“No excuse Mr. Connor, I swear, I did it. I just misplaced it, I guess” I replied wanting so desperately to hide.
A smirk appeared on his face and he chuckled, “bring it in tomorrow, I’m dropping a letter for it being late. no arguments.”
End of discussion, I was losing a letter grade for a paper I had actually worked my butt off for. I went to my locker and threw in my books, I slammed the door to see my girlfriend, Jessica, standing right behind it, she had a sad look on her face which told me one thing:Break up. Which is exactly what she did, she added some fake tears, told me it wasn’t working and how she was oh, so sorry. I didn’t even get a word in because once I opened my mouth she ran away and I was left to hit my head off my locker for a short moment until my friend Violet came by and stopped me.
As we walked to class she tried to comfort me; in her own way, “She is a s--- anyways, Alex, you can do so much better.”
I walked down the hall with my hands in my pockets, trying not tell Violet that after every girl I dated broke up with me, she used that same line. The thing was every time it made me smile and feel somewhat better. Violet was one of those weird people who you couldn’t help but to tell everything to, she’d listen and even try and give herself advice. Even though she would never try and give herself advice. Violet could take care of herself though, she had been in a way since her mother died when we were eight. You have to be wondering what she looks like, right? Well, I’ll tell you; Violet has bluish green eyes and bright blonde hair that has a single violet strip in the front. Her lip is pierced on the left side and skinny jeans and plaid skirts make up her wardrobe. She sounds beautiful, right? Well, she is; I’ve known her since I was one, our parents were good friends and guess what? She has always been beautiful. You think I sound all gooey now, huh? Don’t blame me, really, she is right behind me and watching me as I tell this story. But I am able to stop now.
I hadn’t realized that Violet had been talking to me, so when I looked at her with a dumbfounded look plastered on my face she knew I hadn’t heard a word. “I was saying, you should come with me tonight and explore; I’m going to that house up on Mystic Street” she said, looking straight ahead as if she hadn’t just given me a death sentence.
“The abandoned house on Mystic that absolutely nobody is supposed to go into? The last person who went in there Violet, died” I said, knowing I was only giving her more temptation about it.
She made one of those ‘psh’ sounds at me and replied with “ That guy died because he fell through the floorboards which is his fault for running in the old house in the first place.”
I rolled my eyes, “Don’t you ever wonder why he was running in the first place?” I asked, still hoping she would put some thought into it.
All she did was shrug her shoulders and say “drugs?”
I rubbed the bridge of my nose and told her “I’m not going to that house.” She held a smirk on her face that told me I was wrong.
“Yes, you are” she said rocking on her heels.
“And why is that?” I pondered out loud, really wondering what reason she would give me.
She got on her tip toes with a hand on my shoulder and whispered in my ear, “because you wont let me go alone.”
I let out a sigh, she was completely right. “Can’t we just go get pizza or ice cream like normal people?” I groaned in defeat.
She smiled at me and laughed; she knew she had won. I would be going to that house on Mystic Street with her whether I wanted to or not. We got to class and the whole time she shot me little smirks. At one point she started throwing her fists in the air and bobbing her head back and forth to an imaginary rhythm. Everybody started to laugh under their breaths and you’d think once the teacher turned around she’d stop, right? Wrong, when the teacher saw her she jumped up and circled Mrs. Dell; as she jumped and hit the air.
Finally she stopped, she slid on her knees, fists still in the air, she said “Thank you,Mrs. Dell’s math class!”
She sprung back up and took her seat. Mrs. Dell turned around and went back to her board after she laughed under her breath. Violet, could not get in trouble; it just wasn’t in her nature.
                                  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The school day was over and I was headed to Violet’s car; which wasn’t hard to find. Unless you think it’s difficult to find a purple bug. I used the spare key she gave me and sat in the driver seat, waiting. I was waiting for awhile since she had an art club meeting. At one point I fell asleep and she woke up by banging on the windows. She threw her stuff in the back seat and slid into the passenger seat. I know you must be wondering, ‘it’s her car, why isn’t she driving?’, well, Violet, would rather have others drive her car than actually drive it herself. She drives it when she’s alone and has to though.
As I drove she propped her feet up onto the dashboard and turned on the radio but kept it at a volume low enough we could talk.
“Head to the store, we need batteries” she directed.
“What do we need batteries for?” I asked hoping it wouldn’t be for her little adventure.
But it was, “Flashlights are dead, we need them for tonight, duh” she answered tapping away at her knees.
I took her to the store where she bought junk food, energy drinks and batteries. “We must fuel up” she said in a little monster voice.
She threw the flashlights old batteries in her backseat and put the ones in while I texted my mom that I was going to be with Violet that night. It was about 4:30 when Violet told me to go to the park because it was still too early to go to the house. I listened, of course, we arrived to our friends, RJ and Ruby, who yes, were twins. They went with Violet to a few of her ‘adventures’ and when they found out that I was going with her to Mystic Street they had to tag along.
“Hey man, heard about you and Jessica. That sucks” RJ said after giving me a high five.
“Yea, well no surprise; she had been getting around lately behind your back” Ruby added giving me a hug.
There had been rumors going around that Jessica had been cheating but I had tried to have some faith in her. Turns out I should have had more faith in the rumors themselves. i pushed the thought out of my head and tried to concentrate more on having a decent time with my friends. Which we did; we decided to act like kids and swing on swings, play on the jungle gym and pile onto the see-saw like a bunch of idiots.i hoped our good night at the park would be a good enough adventure but once again I was so wrong.
“To the bug!” Violet yelled as she ran to her car.
She got in the passenger seat as I took the drivers seat and RJ and Ruby jumped in the back. The drive was short, Mystic Street and the house was not hard to find. Everybody knew where the house was. How else would people be able to ignore it and hide, if they didn’t know where it was? Ruby seemed to hold her breath as we passed the house to park a few houses down. She so did not want to be there, especially when we saw through the window that there was a candle lite. Just like the rest of us though, she climbed up the stairs to the porch. The only people who seemed thrilled about going into the house was Violet and RJ; they could barely hold their excitement. Or maybe they just had to pee, I wasn't sure. I looked at the porch because it was better than looking in front of me; I noticed that the porch wrapped around the house, Violet already seemed to know about it.
She took herself and her flashlight to the left side of the house because their wasn’t that much light on that side of the house. We followed as she stopped and tried to shimmy a far back window open. As I watched her trying to open the window with her flashlight in her mouth, I hoped it wouldn’t open.
“Boo-ya” she whispered as she slid the window open.
I held the window open while Violet and RJ climbed through so it wouldn’t hit them. Before Ruby climbed in, she looked at me for a moment and she looked terrified but after a few seconds she climbed right in after RJ. As soon as I was in the house the window creaked s it fell halfway down. The house was almost pitch black, the only things I could see were three rays of light from my friends flashlights. I walked over to Ruby who was standing in front of a bookshelf full of picture frames and photo albums. She looked at each picture for a moment but she didn’t dare touch a photo album. Violet on the other hand walked over, grabbed a random one and flopped down on a dusty, old chair. She made the dust fly up and circle around her like it was pixie dust or glitter. She flipped through it like it was one out of hundreds of the teen magazines in her room.
“These are all posed. No real emotion anywhere” Violet said as she slid the album back onto the shelf.
“Maybe they were emotionless robots” RJ said bending his arms and letting one fall like a screw was loose. In his head maybe there was.
“Not everything has to involve robots” Ruby said backing away from the shelf and moving her flashlight around the room.
“It’d be cool if everything did include robots, right, Alex?” RJ asked blinding me with his flashlight.
“Robots could take over the world and kill us all” I answered, trying to shield my eyes.
“If we’re done talking about robots can we go to the best room in the house?” Violet asked in the doorway; she didn’t wait for anyone to answer, she just turned around and disappeared into the dark hallway.
“What’s the best room in the house?” I asked, truly hoping wherever it was there would be a fast way out.
“The kitchen?” RJ answered, hoping for food.
“That’s disgusting, any food in this house would be like 100 years old, if you ate it you’d probably die” Ruby replied to RJ with a quick shiver and a gag at the thought of her brother eating 100 year old food.
“Basement” Violet finally answered when she stopped in a doorway.
“Repeat that? It almost sounded like you said basement” I said knowing I heard her right but praying that I hadn’t.
“Oh, come on, let’s go” Violet directed as she opened the doors to a staircase.
“Have you ever seen a horror movie? We will die if we go down there” Ruby pleaded, hoping we’d turn around.
“Oh, come on, Ruby, be fun” RJ said as he nudged her forward.
Ruby lost her footing and went forward. All you could hear was a quick scream and a bunch of thumps. Violet said her names a few times and we all shown our flashlights down the stairs but the light didn’t reach the bottom. RJ was the first to run down the stairs, then Violet, followed by me. I know, I’m such a wuss. We found Ruby at the bottom of the stairs, her head was bleeding a little, her ankle seemed sprained by the fact she couldn’t put much weight on it but she was conscious.
“Can we go now?” Ruby moaned as she held onto RJ.
“We’re down here, we might as well look around real quick” Violet said walking away from the stairs.
I didn’t want to move, the basement smelled like death and I didn’t feel like becoming part of the smell. RJ walked, as Ruby hopped to follow Violet. I went up to Ruby and helped her follow them. There wasn’t much in the basement but a few really old bikes, some boxes and shelves with fruit preserves which RJ tried to open with no success. Violet kept moving though not stopping until she saw something interesting. The basement felt like an icebox and as we walked I began to see my breath. Ruby and I stopped for a moment to look at a very old plate hanging on the wall; it had a red hand print in the middle that turned brown with age. The paint looked as if it ran down; the more I stared at it the more I didn’t think that it was paint on the plate. I could tell that Ruby thought the same thing because she was trying to get me to move away from the plate with her. I did, we caught up with RJ and Violet who were trying to get a door open.
“Hey Alex, can you give us a hand?” Violet asked sounding out of breath.
I didn’t move though, right below the door the floor was stained red. RJ stopped pushing and kicked the door knob about twice and it flew open. There was a sudden blast of freezing cold air. Slowly we all walked in, we all realized that the room we were in had literally been turned into a giant freezer. There was dry blood all over the floor and some but nowhere near half of what was on the floor was on the walls. Violet was already on the other side of the room where there was a few piles of blankets and clothes. At least thats what I thought it was. Violet pulled away a blanket and all you saw was someones back and the back of their head. It was a blonde haired person but their hair had once been soaked with blood and you could just barely tell that they were wearing white.
“Alex, come here” Violet choked out.
I was only a few steps away. Those last few steps seemed the most difficult I had ever made in my life. Did I really want to see the body of a person who had to have been murdered 100 years ago? I was standing next to Violet when she carefully turned the body over. I wanted to be sick, I was looking a girl who was about my age. She was covered in blood; Violet finally pulled the rest of the blankets off. I’m not sure what I saw first; it was either the large knife in her hand or the fact her throat was slit. Violet began to rip of all the other blankets and there we saw four more bodies. There were two adults; a woman and a man, they were probably the mother and father. The other two was a young girl who was maybe 12 and a little boy maybe 5 or 6; everyone else but the girl about my age had been stabbed.
I was getting a sickening feeling that the girl in white wasn’t an innocent victim. I looked over at Ruby and she was shaking uncontrollably, she looked like she was going to throw up. I began to walk towards her when something caught my eye behind her.
Behind her on the wall the plate was shaking on the wall, shaking faster and faster, “Ruby, get down!? I barely yelled.
She ducked as the plate smashed against the wall behind her. It smashed on the wall right next to the door frame. I helped Ruby up and took out the shattered pieces of glass out of her hair.
“We need to leave, Violet” I said, it was more directing but she didn’t take it that way.
RJ was already at the door; she was the only one we were waiting for.
She stood in the corner, wide eyed and white as a ghost, “We can’t leave them here” she whimpered.
“Look, Violet, I love you, I’m not leaving you here! Let’s go!” I yelled storming towards her when she started crying.
I didn’t process the fact I told Violet I loved her, there wasn’t much time to but I was somewhat grateful of the dark because I could feel my face get warm and I knew it was red. I shown my flashlight on her again, she was shaking like Ruby had been.
“RJ, take Ruby upstairs as fast as you can. You’ll have to carry her; I’ll be up there in a second” I directed not looking at them.
They didn’t argue, he picked her up and stormed off to the stairs. I thought they would put up at least a small argument with me but nope, not one word. I grabbed Violet over my shoulder; she didn’t fight me at all. Feeling wise all I noticed was how cold she was and how bad she was shaking.
She kept whispering in my ear, “ We can’t leave them here.”
She didn’t push for a response. I finally found the stairs and raced up them as fast as I could; the door was beginning to shut but it never got the chance. I used my foot as a door stop which made my foot feel like it was breaking. It was like someone was pushing the door shut. I pushed back and when I got the door open I ran down the hall and back into the living room. I saw RJ and Ruby waiting outside the window, as I went towards them everything started falling; the shelves, the tables and the cabinets, everything just fell over. Violet started pushing on me once I got her out of the basement but I hadn’t taken full notice until that moment.
“Alex, put me down and let’s go!” she whispered in my ear with a hiss in her voice.
She was back and I was ecstatic; I put her down and quickly grabbed her face and kissed her. She was surprised but she didn’t fight it. Subtract the Hell raising in the living room, the dead bodies in the basement and the throbbing my foot it was a good moment until a flying plate met with my head. I screamed and felt warmth run down the side of my face.
I heard a muffled voice say “Oh, my god, are you okay?” turned out it was Violet, no surprise there.
“No but lets get out here” I may have said a little too loud.
She raced to the window as I limped my way; the window was stuck half way and I had to squeeze my way through it. Once we were all out we ran, well, almost all of us; Ruby piggy backed her way. As soon as we got in the car with RJ in the drivers seat he started up the bug. He pressed on the gas as we passed two houses. He slammed forward as the brakes screeched and the car turned off. We were right in front of the house but that’s not what we stared at. We stared at the girl who was about eight feet from the front of the car. She had blonde-blood stained hair and was wearing a white blood stained dress with no shoes on. She was the girl from the basement.
“Help me” she said in a broken voice, “Why won’t you help me? Why did you leave me?” she added and repeated over and over like a broken record.
She started crying and then quickly stopped. She stared at us with a furious look all over her face. RJ kept twisting the key but the car did nothing, then the girl disappeared. RJ tried opening the door so he could hurry and check the battery but it was locked. All of our doors were locked and we couldn’t unlock them. I had to call my mom or the police, somebody, it didn’t matter. My hand trembled as I punched the number into the phone. I jumped and dropped my phone as something slammed onto the car. It was her, she had her hands on the windshield and she was staring at us.
She began laughing and saying, “Come out and play” over and over.
Ruby began crying, RJ just kept trying the key as he stared ahead, Violet mumbled ‘sorry’ over and over and me, well, I sat there in defeat.
“Unlock my door and lets play” I responded as my heart pounded in my chest.
“No one is leaving this car!” RJ ordered as she still tried the key.
“If I go out maybe she’ll let you guys go” I replied, trying to hold back the fear in my voice and my tears.
The girl stopped laughing but she still stared like a maniac on bath salts. My door unlocked and I stepped out as Violet started crying. As soon as I was on the other side of the car, it started up; I told RJ to go, he squeezed the wheel and his knuckles turned white, he was biting his tongue but didn’t protest, he knew there would be no use. He drove off and left me with the girl who stared at me like my soul was dinner. She ran her bloody fingers over my cheek that already had blood on it from when the plate introduced itself to my skull.
I swallowed nothing and asked her without looking in her eyes, “What's your name? If you don’t mind me asking.”
She looked at me as the anger left her face as she thought about it I was wondering if after 100 years if she even remembered her name.
“Susie, why do you care to know?” she replied, c***ing her head and running a finger over my lips.
“Even though you’re long gone doesn’t mean you or your name have to be forgotten” I answered, I was surprised at how sincere I sounded to her.
She smiled sincerely for a moment, then as if she remembered a heinous act she turned cold and lead me to the front window of the house. As we stood on the porch she told me to look in the window, “What I did will never be forgotten once it is known, even if I am. I was a problem to my parents, a burden and I was a bad influence on my younger siblings; I was not wanted but that’s okay because I never wanted them either. Now, watch how that night unfolded” she said moving my head towards the window with two fingers on my cheek.
I watched a young girl whose name was Lacie practice her writing as her father read a book, his wife knitted and the young boy named Jonathan sat on the floor and colored with a pencil. Susie walked in the front door and immediately was told she was to wash the dishes and was later to go to bed with no dinner because she was late coming home and wasn't supposed to be out alone anyway. Susie, as she held her tongue, did what she was told. Lacie went upstairs to get ready for bed as Jonathan had fallen asleep on the floor. Even though we didn’t move, she allowed me to see her in the kitchen, she broke a window and screamed for her father as she pretended that someone was breaking in.
Her father ran in as she hid a knife in the ribbon on her dress, her father searched out the window but saw nothing as he turned she took the knife to his chest and cried “Daddy, no!” by the time he was on the ground her mother ran in and screamed.
Susie told a wild story about a crazed man running through the house, she told her mother to take her father into the basement as she got Lacie and Jonathan; her mother listened to her orders. She raced upstairs and got Lacie, telling her to run into the basement with their parents. As she was about to pick up Jonathan she paused, she pushed his hair out of his face and for a moment she looked as if she may change her mind about being the decider of their fates but then the flame came back into her eyes. She picked him up and went downstairs; still Susie allowed me to see everything; her family calmly watched her lock the door as her father choked out a murmur of a warning to them to stay away but it was all too late. Hell was risen and blood shed by the broken remains of Susie; in the end she looked around and finally stopped at Jonathan. She held him and began crying; the reality of what she had done hit her and she couldn’t take it.
I couldn’t watch her end her life, I clenched my eyes shut until I knew nothing more would be shown to me. When I opened my eyes, I realized I was running and that Susie stood far behind me, waving goodbye. She was never going to keep me there, she just wanted somebody to know what she had done, even if it tainted her name. Two roads up I saw the bug parked on the side of the road; I slowed down and walked up the side as slowly as I could. Inside I saw Violet and Rudy crying and RJ had his head down on the steering wheel. I knocked on RJ’s window and asked him to unlock the doors; he stared at me with disbelief, he jumped out and grabbed me in a hug, it was nice for a moment not to have any weight on my foot. After the greeting was over, RJ finally took Ruby and I to the hospital, which is where I lay as I write this; I figured if Susie told me her story, she wouldn’t want it to be forgotten and so I decided to write it down for her with a few added details from the life of the guy she scared the crap out of. But hey, I got a happy ending after arriving at the hospital; Violet told me she loved me too. I don’t know where it is going to lead, I’ll find out tomorrow and that is a day I cannot wait to wake up to.