Haunted house E-Book

Elias J. Connor

• Herausgeber: FINN Books Edition FireFly
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

An autumn night in a southern English province: while fleeing from his dreary life, 18-year-old Jaden discovers a small, apparently uninhabited house in a piece of forest. There he meets Leila, who is the same age, an opaque young woman whom he gets to know and love. Together they decide to stay here in this deserted place for a while. They have no idea how dangerous that is - because the mysterious incidents and occurrences are increasing day by day. The strange house seems to develop a somber life of its own in a creepy way, and soon the lives of Jaden and Leila are in great danger ... Dark fantasy with horror elements from the pen of Elias J. Connor and his girlfriend Sweetie Willow.

Leseprobe

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Dedication

Chapter 1 - THE CLOUDS ON THE HORIZON

Chapter 2 - MYSTERIOUS LEILA

Chapter 3 - THE STRANGERS IN THE FOG FOREST

Chapter 4 - UNDERWOOD

Chapter 5 - LEILA AND HER BROTHER

Chapter 6 - WHO'S THERE?

Chapter 7 - ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE DOOR

Chapter 8 - THE OLD MAN

Chapter 9 - THE ESCAPE

Chapter 10 - THE SCREAM OF THE WOLVES

Chapter 11 - WHO IS LAURA?

Chapter 12 - KATIE

Chapter 13 - THE GHOST CHILDREN

Chapter 14 - CAUGHT ON THE TREE

Chapter 15 - RANDY'S DEATH

Chapter 16 - REST IN PEACE

Chapter 17 - EDEN

Impressum

Dedication

For Jana.

Idea generator, muse, my friend.

Thank you for letting your imagination reach me.

Chapter 1 - THE CLOUDS ON THE HORIZON

 The highway is pretty empty.

 He's been driving through the night for hours. Only the light from the headlights of his Alpha Romeo is reflected on the wet road. Every now and then he sees another car passing by in the opposite lane. But he seems to be driving through the night all by himself.

 It is autumn. Exactly the dreary weather that you would expect from it. A thick blanket of cloud hangs over the area, and the drizzle keeps falling on the windshield.

 The young man who drives the car is maybe just 18 years old. He looks very nervous. His left foot is constantly tapping the floor of the vehicle, and it also seems like he doesn't really have a target.

 Maybe he's on the run. Maybe he's robbed a bank and is now looking for a place to hide.

 When he sees a headlight behind him, he quickly drives into the right lane. There he slows down and lets the other car go by, trembling.

 A little later the man drives out at the next exit.

 The rural area is very hilly. Not really mountainous yet, but you can see that it must be a low mountain range.

 Above a small village, which the young man drives through within 2 minutes, is a forest. The man sets course for it and after a while parks the car in a small parking lot.

 He is breathing heavily as he gets out.

 For a while he sits down on a tree trunk that lies across the ground. He seems to be thinking. His breathing slows down over time and he seems to calm down.

 The young man looks around. He makes sure no one is around. Then he gets up and walks slowly into the forest.

 Even when it's dark, he doesn't seem to be afraid anymore. And whatever he fled from, he now feels safe.

 Step by step the man runs deeper and deeper into the forest.

 It's dark and twilight here. The clouds and fog barely let the light of the moon through. The man looks down at himself. Mud covers his pants. His hair is disheveled and his face is covered in mud as well. The quagmire feels warm. 

 He takes off his shoes. They were also covered in mud. After shaking them out, he puts the shoes back on.

 The ground beneath his feet is soft. He has to be very careful not to sink into this strange boggy soil. Carefully he works his way to a stone that peeks out of the mud and seems reasonably safe to him. Then he sits down on it.

 The man looks next to him. There is a pond, a small lake. It's not very big. And it has black, dirty water with small, strange bubbles bubbling out of it. It smells strange here - kind of unpleasant and musty.

 He rummages in the pockets of his jacket. He's obviously looking for something - but maybe he doesn't know exactly what he's looking for himself. Finally he stops rummaging around and looks around without a word.

 Something, some feeling tells him it would be better now to look for solid ground under his feet. It is as if something suddenly pulls him away from where he is.

 He gets up slowly. He balances arduously on the stone on which he stands. He discovers a few more stones in the mud. And not far from him he can finally make out something like a solid path that winds along a row of black trees. The man wonders what to do. Then he hops over one stone after the other until he finally reaches the path.

 Here he can stand well. The ground here is now firm enough to walk on without being afraid of being swallowed by the mud. He slowly puts one foot in front of the other.

 Strange rustling noises come to his ear. He cannot classify them. But he also has no ambitions to follow the noises. Laborious and exhausted, he trudges on along the narrow path.

 After about ten minutes the path leads the young man out of the wooded area with black trees. It's still very foggy and he almost doesn't recognize the hand in front of his eyes. But then he discovers that he has probably arrived at a large square, a clearing. Then he takes a closer look and suddenly he discovers a house.

 The man takes a closer look at the house. Who should live here, he thinks to himself. Surely nobody lives in this God-forsaken area. It must be an abandoned house.

 It is not that big. A small wooden house, one-story and rotten. But the young man doesn't care.

 When he has made sure that nobody seems to be in the house, he slowly walks to the front door.

 It's strangely quiet here. Except for the strange noise, the man cannot hear any noises.

"Hello?" He dares to call out. No Answer.

"Is anyone here?" He tries again. Again he receives no answer.

 There is not a single soul here. It is absolutely deserted. Only the wind and that strange rustling that has been with him the whole time can be heard. Otherwise it is dead quiet here.

"Where am I here?" He asks himself quietly. "What am I doing here?"

 He turns around once on the spot.

 Suddenly he hears a noise. A call. Immediately he stops - silence again.

 The man turns in all directions, but there is nothing. Apparently he just imagined the call. He's just about to go on when there's another scream. Now he is sure that he didn’t imagine that. He feels himself on his chest. His heart is beating wildly and he doesn't know whether to be afraid or to be happy that someone is obviously here after all. Finally he decides to investigate.

 The scream is suddenly followed by a laugh. It sounds like several people laughing. The man listens more closely to determine where these voices are coming from - then it was quiet again. But less than two minutes later he clearly perceives a laugh again - and without a doubt, they are children's voices. Apparently several children playing very close by. The young man slowly follows the voices as he pensively runs his hand through his dark hair. The voices come from the strange house, the man is sure of that.

 He stops at the door of the house. The voices have gotten louder and they are there continuously now. He hears shouts, then more laughter, finally a crying now and then, then shouts and laughter again. The man does not dare to go into the house. He stays quiet in front of the door and listens to the voices.

"My goodness, they're only children," he says to himself. "What are they supposed to wear to me?"

 The man tries to understand what the voices are saying. It's very strange - they talk, but he doesn't understand a word. Yet it is not a foreign language in which the voices speak to one another.

 Suddenly he can understand a sentence - "Come in!"

 Very tentatively he opens the large wooden door of the house and finally enters it.

 The man finds a very large room - it's strange, actually he imagined the room to be much smaller because the house really doesn't look that big from the outside. But now he is suddenly in a room that is almost as big as a whole ballroom. The walls of the room are made entirely of stone, and many candlesticks are attached to them. The candles are all on, from which the man concludes that someone really has to live here.

 He carefully trudges into the center of the room.

“Is there someone there?” He asks. He hears a laugh flitting past him, which makes him turn around with a jerk. Then the laughter is gone again.

“Are you playing a prank on me?” The young man finally asks.

 Suddenly another laugh. He looks around, but he doesn't see anyone.

“Are you hiding?” He asks. "Should I look for you?"

 He looks around the room. There is a large desk against the wall with a candlestick and a barrel of ink on it. There are a few pages of paper next to the inkwell. In front of the desk is a wooden, much too large chair with a high back. On the wall he can see a large, oval mirror with several withered plants next to it. There is a brown wooden sofa on the other wall, and on the third wall he discovers an old piano.

 The man walks slowly to the piano. It is brown and has obviously already been eaten by woodworms because it has several small holes. The man opens the piano key. The keys are still complete. He finally taps some of the very high keys a few times. A diffuse melody emerges. The man then sits down on the stool in front of the piano. Then it starts playing again - but strangely enough, it now comes out with a beautiful melody. He keeps playing. He likes the melody. And beyond playing the piano, he didn't even notice that the voices stopped shouting and laughing - it's almost as if they were listening to him, spellbound.

 Suddenly he winces. There is a crash at the desk. The man turns around and looks at the same time - but there is no one there. Strange - he could have sworn someone was messing around there right now. The man gets up slowly and carefully walks over to the desk.

“Hello?” He asks quietly. "Show yourselves."

 He looks at the desk. And only now does he notice that the table is full of cobwebs. The inkwell is rimmed with cobwebs. And the candlestick also has some cobwebs around it. In fact - there are cobwebs everywhere in the large room - cobwebs snake on the piano, on the ceiling, on each of the candlesticks on the walls, under the sofa and also around the large mirror.

 But something is different than here at this desk. The man takes a closer look - the pile of papers. He flew down. The young man finds it on the floor and picks it up. The papers are beige and look old. He looks through the pile - completely blank paper. Old, blank paper. And suddenly the man is no longer so sure whether someone actually lives here. And if so, why doesn't it show up?

 The man puts the pile back on the desk. Suddenly he sees it:

"Hello, you." Is written on the top sheet of paper. He looks at the note with his mouth wide open. He takes the paper in his hand and reads it again and again: "Hello, you."

 The man thinks about it. No, actually he doesn't think about it, he is amazed. Somehow it's even stranger - as if by magic, he sits down at the desk. As if by magic, he takes an empty sheet of paper from the stack, and as if by magic he takes the quill out of the inkwell and writes: "Hello, you."

 Then he waits to see what would happen.

 Suddenly the pen floats out of his hand. It flies around in the middle of the room without anyone touching it. She then flies to the sheet of paper. And magically, as if controlled by an invisible hand, the pen writes: "Nice that you are here, Jaden."

 Jaden stares at the paper. How is it possible that the pen writes by itself? And how does it come that whoever is here and did that knows his name?

 The pen then lies down next to the stack of paper. Jaden thinks about it. Something brought him here, he knows that. He's not sure yet, but the important thing is that he has to find those who live in this house.

“Where are you?” He asks. No Answer.

 In any case, it doesn't work that way. Jaden is on the verge of believing in hallucinations again, but there is still the paper with the words Jaden wrote and the words the pen wrote. Suddenly this strange feeling comes up again in Jaden. Jaden understands and writes: "Are you invisible?"

 The feather then floats out of Jaden's hand again after he lets go of it. Then she floats to the sheet of paper and answers in writing: “We are not invisible. You just can't see us at the moment. "

 Jaden isn't entirely clear what that means, but he's determined to find out. He takes the pen and writes: "Who are you?"

 The ghostly pen writes and replies, “We are seven children in this house. We live here. We can't say who we are, but we're very happy here. "

"Why can't you say it?" Asks Jaden in writing.

 And the pen replies: "We don't know."

“And what are you doing here all day? What kind of house is this here? ”Asks Jaden in writing.

“We don't know either,” the quill replies in writing. “We only live here. And we play here. We like to play hide and seek. You too?"

 Jaden can't help but grin. There are some invisible children there and they like to play hide and seek.

"You wrote earlier that you are not invisible, only I could not see you at the moment," Jaden writes on the sheet of paper. "How can I get to see you too?"

“Find us!” Replies the pen in writing.

 Suddenly this child's laughter can be heard again, which Jaden noticed here earlier. And he clearly feels a small breeze on his face. Jaden then gets up. He tries to follow the voice. He was now quite sure that someone lived here, several people, and they are all invisible. And Jaden should look for her now, then he would be able to see her.

 Suddenly - and it is almost so imperceptible that Jaden hardly noticed it - something like a shadow flits past the mirror.

"Go away," he suddenly hears the voice of a young woman calling out.

 Suddenly he feels that something is gripping his shoulder. The pen and the paper then flies to the ground and remains there.

 Jaden turns and looks into the eyes of a young, maybe 18-year-old woman with dark, shoulder-length hair. She looks at him seriously.

“What are you doing here?” The woman asks nervously. "Have you seen her? I've told them a couple of times to stop bugging me. Did they annoy you too? "

 Jaden is almost frightened.

“You are a real person,” he states to the young woman.

“Did you expect something else?” She asks him back.

 Amazed, Jaden follows the woman onto the sofa, where they sit down.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to be rude," says the woman, less upset. “My name is Leila. I didn't expect anyone to come by here. "

"Do you live here alone?" Jaden wants to be sure.

“Yes,” answers Leila. “More or less, as you noticed. Do you have a name?"

“Jaden,” Jaden introduces himself.

"Good," said Leila. "Now that we've gotten to know each other, I'll make a nice hot coffee first, what do you think?"

 Jaden nods.

 Leila goes into the kitchen corner and prepares a fresh coffee. Then she comes back on the sofa with two cups and places them on the table in front of the sofa. Jaden sips his coffee, Leila drinks hers almost empty in one gulp.

“What kind of strange house is that?” Jaden then wants to know.

“An abandoned house,” says Leila. “I've lived here for a long time and no one has ever come over. You are really absolutely safe here. "

"Are you on the run from something or someone?" Jaden now asks more closely.

 Leila nods. "But I don't want to talk about it."

“Okay,” says Jaden. “Then we two have something in common. Do you mind if I stay here for a few days? "

 The young woman has to laugh.

"Well, if you can keep your fingers to yourself and make no move to seduce me secretly or something like that, then you can stay."

 Jaden nods to the woman.

 He has a lot of questions, yes. But Jaden knows that now is probably not the time for answers. First of all, he's happy that he's safe here. Nothing can happen to him here, whatever he must have fled from.

Chapter 2 - MYSTERIOUS LEILA

 He slowly opens his eyes. A light flashes across his face. Apparently day has come.

 Jaden looks out the window while he's still on the sofa, wrapped in a soft blanket that someone must have given him last night.

 As he realizes, the shade of the trees that encircle the small house barely lets the sunlight through. It also seems foggy. Real autumnal weather.

 Jaden gets up slowly.

 He's thinking. Where is he here? How did he get here?

 He remembers meeting someone last night. But right now he doesn't know exactly who.

 He is looking around.

 The room is not very big. Strange - yesterday he remembered him much bigger. Now it's just a room with wood paneling, a few pictures on the wall, and a table and chairs in the corner. He just doesn't see any more.

 He discovers a fresh cup of coffee on a dresser, apparently still warm. Regardless of whether someone has drunk from it before, or to whom this cup belongs - Jaden takes the cup and drinks from it.

 How good that is, a fresh coffee in the morning. Jaden takes a deep breath.

 Suddenly he hears strange noises. First there is a rumble that apparently comes from outside, and then he hears a shout that he cannot classify.

 Jaden discovers the small door that has to lead outside.

---ENDE DER LESEPROBE---