House

[Satanta]

We were in the house-the three of us. Myself and the teenage boy and the old woman. Her husband had been there-was there but where?

We had to find him before it was too late. The urgency was pressing like an intangible wall.

The boy and I hurried the old woman outside to shelter in my motorhome. I'd given her the keys and she fumbled with them, dropping them into the darkness at our feet. She reached down and felt for them- "Here they are!" She exclaimed but I knew at once they weren't they were part of the house-part of the web it spun into our minds and if she used them we were trapped. I knocked the keys away and pulled out my spare. It was real.

The boy and I went back into the house. It was a large, two-story place with gabled roofs and slate shingles but inside it was oppressive and close-dank and yellow lit like a crowded apartment in the ghetto during the Summer. Things were close as if the guts were half the size of the exterior. There were clothes everywhere-in closets and rooms-hanging from the walls. IN the walls...and that was the part that made me 'Get It'. The clothes,,,everywhere the clothes. All colors and sizes...makes and models...kangaroos and cars on the pockets...sleeved and sleeveless dresses...pink, blue, orange-rainbows of denim and silk and polyester. Clothes. From the victims.

The house ate them. Not chewing them up and swallowing them and shitting them out at some later point-ate them but [absorbed...took their essence...stole their soul-ate them. The house was alive. That's why we needed to find the old man.

We wemt im and started searching...searching and looking. Opening doors and cabinets, cupboards and pantries-looking and trying to stay in sught of each other. The house only got you when you were alone. You didn't want to be alone.

Time...too much time. We searched calling the old man's name and yelling at the house to give him up. Then a decision was made between us and out came my Zippo.

I wrapped a shirt aeound a broom and lit it and gave it to the boy and started my own torch-we'd burn it out.

We began lighting the clothing and watched as the wallpaper and curtains caught fire. Greedy flames licking at the antique furniture.

I began hearing a wailing in my mind-the house! The house!

"Look what you'ce done to him! Look what you've done!"

Then I awoke.

[timbo]

Good job Sat. Short stories like this are hard for me to write.

I have to EXPLAIN everything.

Tim

[Satanta]

Spelchekerz Anoneemus!