Chapter 1

A little insight into the past.

The floorboards groan and creak with every step I take. This old house makes my stomach coil with fear, but it’s safer than outside. The interior of every room is covered in dust and cobwebs, which makes my stomach feel worse. Spiders-- very creepy. The color of the walls isn’t visible due to the dust, but I imagine that the walls were once a beautiful deep red contrasting soft white carpets. I pass what must have been a couch. Only one half remains, the stuffing spilling out onto the floor. On the wall behind the couch remains is a large painting with a dusty gold frame. The subject of the painting is unrecognizable due to all the dust, but you can still tell that it had once been a grand portrait.

The house is always cold, even when it’s a hundred and one degrees outside. I have a theory about why it’s always cold in here, but I can’t ever voice my theory. I can’t offend the house’s only friendly residents. The house is extremely old and doesn’t have any electricity. No running water, no lights, nothing. Once every now and then, I gather the courage to run outside to the creek in the woods near the house. I clean up as quickly as possible, then I run back to the safety of the house. I had a flashlight once, but those batteries died a long time ago. It doesn’t matter to me anymore, I have the layout of the house basically memorized. For example, even though it’s darker than a yawning grave in this hallway, I know there is a rickety old table with only three legs to my left. To my right is an extremely scary painting of a clown, which I really don’t like to think about.

I reach the end of the hall and turn the corner. A dim streak of light from the grimy kitchen window makes this area a depressed grey, instead of a soul-crushing black like the majority of the house. The stairs are right in front of me now. I start to breathe again. I’m halfway to the safe room. I put my weight on the first step and it creaks loud enough to wake the dead, and it probably did. My heart pounds against my ribs and my body starts to tremble. I don’t dare move. I strain to hear any noise. The house is eerily quiet, only my breathing and the pounding of my heart break through the curtain of silence.

A loud crash comes from the hallway with the clown painting. The three-legged table clearly met an undesirable end. Time to run. Definitely run. I fly up the rest of the stairs and turn into the left hallway. Out of the corner of my eye I see a black figure moving toward the stairs. I sprint down the hall and fling open the last door. I slide into the room and slam the door forcefully behind me. Dropping to the floor after I hear the lock click, I curl onto my side and try and stop the trembling of my body. A small streak of sunlight struggles in through the window across the room from me, lighting the room enough to see what was inside of it.

“What happened?” a small, innocent voice asks from the bed. I look up and see a young girl with long black hair that acts like a curtain for her face. She squeezes a teddy bear she holds tightly in her arms in front of her.

“I forgot to skip that first step and woke the Old Man, again,” I sit up and smile at the child, trying to calm my still pounding heart.

“You should put a sign there to remind you,” the little girl tries to push the hair away from her face and comes to sit by me.

“You’re right, like always,” I lay my arm across the girl’s shoulders and pull her closer to my side. She holds her teddy close and closes her eyes. We listen to loud growls and grumbles in the hallway, and the possible end of more furniture, but it’s hard to hear much through the thick, cherry wood door. The girl smoothes out the faded yellow dress she always wears and tries to push her soft black hair away from her face again. Her name is Rosie, and she thinks she’s about six years old. She’s dead.

I’ve asked her how she died, but she can’t remember. The only thing I’ve gathered is that it has something to do with blood, which most deaths do, so it’s not a lot to go on. She has nightmares about it. I was surprised the first night she had a nightmare and came to me for comfort because I didn’t know that the dead slept.

The creatures we refer to as the “dead” are not the “dead” you think about. The bodies you bury six feet under in the fancy boxes? Those are corpses, not the dead. The dead are the things that walk the earth and can’t be killed because they are already, well, dead. The dead are supposed to stay with their corpses, but the humans had to go and screw everything up..

The humans got scared of the witches, thinking that the witches would overpower the them and try to rule the world. Freakishly paranoid, the humans killed the witches before they could “destroy the human race and rule the world”. The few witches that survived were seriously pissed off. Witches usually work alone, but after this they were angry enough to join together and curse the whole of humanity so that they would never find rest or peace. As a result, the dead refuse to stay underground.

The humans freaked out even more after the witches cursed them. Every supernatural being was now an enemy to them. They gathered every being (living or dead, human or not) and forced them to take the Commonality Test. It wasn’t a normal school test where you write down your answers, it was the kind of test where they shoved everyone into the same room and threw different things that would entice only certain kinds of creatures. Blood bags for vampires, meat for werewolves, stuff like that. At first nobody took the bait, but eventually a scarce few succeumbed to hunger and grabbed for the food. They were immediately taken from the testing room. None of them ever returned.

A few of the more violent and hungry supernaturals tried to attack a few of the humans who were being tested with us. The supervisors of the test thought this would be a brilliant idea to see who was, and who wasn’t, human. There was no more bait.

Their plan eventually worked. All the usual grumblings had stopped, everything had gone silent. Nobody moved, acting as though movement would cause a tiny apocalypse. Surprisingly, it did cause a mini-apocalypse. Someone in the room sneezed and then suddenly the air was filled with growls, snarls, and screams. I was definitely hungry too, I might’ve even gone for the raw meat at this point, but I didn’t attack anyone else because I was human. At least, I thought I was. For some reason, I wasn’t attacked that day. Everyone seemed to move around me, never toward me. The outside humans figured that was that meant I was one of “them”.  After what seemed like hours, but was probably only a few seconds, soldiers came running in and tranquilized everyone.

I woke up in a bed, thinking that it had all been only a bad dream, until I realized that I wasn’t in my bed. The realization that it was all real hit me like a drunk taco truck. I jolted up inside the foreign bed and a sharp pain shot up my arm, I recalled falling on it after getting tranquilized.  Everything around me was a shade between white and black, and it smelled like a hospital: very clean and sterilized. A tray with a muffin and apple juice slid under the door, just after I had woken up. I didn’t know how long I had been out cold, but I did know that I was hungry. I jumped on the muffin and ate it within a few seconds before drinking the apple juice. No food for weeks and this is all I get? Oh well, it had quieted the hungry stomach monster a bit.

The room I was in was plain. Dreadfully plain. The bed, a small sink and toilet, and the door were all various, boring shades of grey. I was disappointed when I noticed that there were no windows. I sat on the bed and spent what seemed like hours wondering what I was doing here, why I hadn’t been attacked when everyone flipped s**t, where my family was, and if they were okay. We had been split up when we were forced to take the Commonality Test. My wondering had been rudely interrupted when the door swung open, revealing the hall. I cautiously approached the door and stuck my head out into the hall. I looked to the right and left. It was empty, not a soul to be seen. This is just a stupid dream. Doors don’t open by themselves and why was my door the only one that had opened?

The whole ordeal had frankly fried my nerves, and I was more jumpy than I had ever been before. I truly thought that staying inside my painfully boring room was a better idea than venturing into the unknown beyond. Despite this reasonable inner voice, I ventured straight into the hall.

The hallway didn’t seem that long when I had first stepped from my room, but once I started walking it seemed to stretch into an endless white trap. I never bothered turning back to find the door I had left. I had heard it close behind me. All the doors looked the same and there was no way I would have been able to find my room again.

I walked and walked down that boring hallway. The white of the walls and the grey doors began to blur together. I had that tingly feeling in the back of my neck, making me feel as though someone was watching me. I had a sneaking suspicion that this endless hall was another sort of test. I stopped and grabbed the doorknob of the door nearest my right. If this was a test, I was going to pass and I wasn’t going to wander the hall mindlessly. I turned the knob, actually surprised that it wasn’t locked. I pushed at the door, but it wouldn’t open. I threw my shoulder against it, but only ended up with a sore shoulder. Not cool, I thought as I rubbed my shoulder.

I tried every door I could, and all of them refused to open even though they weren’t locked. I was starting to get really frustrated. I screamed and threw a punch at the door in front of me. The door swung willingly open. My hand dropped to my side and I stared at the door, dumbfounded.

There was absolutely nothing inside of the room. Bare white walls, and nothing else. I spun and stepped across the hall and slammed my palms against the next door. It opened and the same thing was revealed. The white and grey swirled around me and a black hue grew at the edges of my vision. The Commonality Test was better than this. I was starved, sure, but at least I wasn’t alone.

I didn’t know what they wanted me to do. I didn’t know what they could possibly learn from this. The black faded from my vision and I curled into a ball in the middle of the floor. I decided that I wasn’t going to do anything, and then they wouldn’t be able to learn anything and this mild form of torture would be over.

I was right, in a way. I don’t remember falling asleep on the floor, but I woke up at some point. I woke up in the same disastrously boring room. I suppose I don’t know if it was the exact same room, but it looked the same. A muffin and apple juice slid under the door.

This routine repeated over and over again. I tried to stay in the room a few times, but eventually I would fall asleep. I stayed awake once, and no apple juice or muffin came, so I figured it was better to sleep then to starve. The fact that someone was moving my sleeping body and sending the food made me almost mad trying to understand why. Clearly there were people somewhere, but how did they disappear so fast and why were all the other rooms empty?

I never did get to figure it out. I jolted up from sleep and the room around me was dark. I had never noticed lights before, but they were apparently off now. I assumed it was night. Groggily, I tried to look into the darkness to find out why I had woken up. The scent of smoke wafted up my nose. Then I realized that there was a little bit of light, out in the hallway.

Awake now,  I leapt from the covers and ran to the door. It was locked. Panic welled inside and I shoved my palms against the door, but it didn’t even shake. I stepped back and kicked at it over and over again. The smell of the smoke filled my lungs and forced the panic in my heart to rise more. I was trapped, and nobody was going to help me.

I curled up on the floor and tried to go to sleep. Maybe this was another test and it would end if I gave up. It occurred to me that I was a well-trained dog now, and I didn’t even know who had trained me. Anger flushed over the panic and black shadows flooded into my vision. I launched myself at the door. I heard a loud snapping noise and I was on the floor, the door under me. The wall was left with a large hole where the door had once been.

I didn’t have time to wonder how the hell I had done that. Just as I had realized what had happened, I noticed that I wasn’t the only one in the hallway. Flames licked at corners of the doors and walls. Figures danced about down both ways. I heard screaming and high-pitched animal yelps. I saw wolves, various cats, even bears with singed fur, running panicked in bursts down the hallway. I heard pounding and shrieks for help from behind different closed doors.

The last thing I remember is trying to stand up from the door I had knocked down. I didn’t get to stand up. A heavy form fell on top of me. I must have hit my head on the door because I only remember black after that. I woke up outside. I had been laying on the soft sand of a lake. Getting up to run, I looked back only once. The building behind me had once been grey, just like the rest of it, but it was now engulfed in red and orange. Black smoke snaked into the sky above and I could still hear the screams.

At the time I didn’t think to wonder how I had gotten out, but looking back now it bothers me a lot. Did someone drag me out of there? What knocked me out? I sometimes worry that I’m still being tested and that somehow this is all a hallucination. Then I think about what I have faced already, and there is no way that the humans could have come up with this.  

The room I stay in at the house used to be a fabulous guest suite, or so Rosie tells me. There’s a bed with moth eaten covers and a dusty dresser. It’s not the Ritz, but I’m not going to complain. I stand from the floor and start my usual routine. I have been doing this routine for two months now. I move toward the dresser, that doesn’t seem old at all compared to the rest of the room. It stands out in the room, its soft brown wood contrasting greatly with the dusty maroon of the walls. I open the first drawer and check the canned food supply. I sigh and slide the drawer shut slowly. I’m down to one can. I had two yesterday, but one was opened by the rats and eaten already. The realization that I’m going to have to leave the house once I run out of food is worse than a slap in the face. This is the only shelter I’ve known for a little more than two months. Rosie is the only friend I’ve known, and I’m going to have to leave her.

I had chanced upon this house, and I am very glad that I did. After I supposedly escaped from the mysterious grey building, I traveled through miles of trees and valleys. I clearly remember the day I found it. I had seen nothing but trees for days. I was so shocked when the green and brown suddenly ended that I fell on my a*s.

Somehow, I had stumbled upon a town. Complete with shops, townhomes, apartments, and fancy mansions. I walked at the edge of the town, trying to stay out of sight. All of the homes seemed occupied, and there was no way that I could squat in an apartment, what with the routine government checks. The buildings grew farther and farther apart as I got closer to the edge of the town. I noticed one house that stood far away from any other building. It had shattered and boarded up windows, a lawn that obviously hadn’t been cut in years, and a rusty iron fence with a gate that creaked lopsidedly, hanging onto the fence by one common link. Yes, it was the perfect horror movie house.

I don’t know what possessed me to enter this house, but it quickly became my safe haven. I went in through the back because the front door was locked. By instincts, intuition, or something, I knew that I had to be quiet. I snuck around the first floor, and found nothing of interest. I decided to explore what was up the stairs. I didn’t get very far. That first step shrieked like a banshee and I nearly had a heart attack from the scare it gave me. I quickly found out that I was not the house’s only visitor.

The Master, or Old Man, was the first one I saw. He is terrifyingly disgusting. He looks like one of those movie-zombies, but worse. He’s like a walking corpse. Rotting flesh, wounds filled with writhing white maggots, and blank dead white eyes. He wears what must have been a nice black suit and tie, but now it’s ripped, ratty, and od. His skin is green and peach mixed together. It’s disturbing and gross.

I had no idea what to do when I first saw him. He lurched at me and grabbed my arm. I was just opening my mouth to scream when a small pale image flashed past me and the pressure on my arm was suddenly gone. I scrambled up the stairs and ran to the last room in the left hallway.

Rosie found me cowering in that bedroom. She ran to me and hugged me, I was surprised, but grateful. That was how I met her. After we exchanged the obvious casualties (“Hey, what’s your name? Thanks for saving me from the undead zombie guy!”) she explained everything she knew about the house and the Master.

The house was built ages ago by a family of witches. Yes, witches. Which brings me to my theory of why Rosie can’t leave the house. The witches cursed the house after the massacre and so now any dead that reside here are cursed to forever remain in that house. Of course, that’s only a theory. I don’t know how the whole dead thing works out.

The house has three floors. The first floor where the Master likes to stay, the second floor where the bedroom is, and the third floor. Rosie told me to never go up there, and I haven’t. Third floor is forbidden and I am completely okay with that.

Way back, when the house was first built, it was the grandest house around. The family had been extremely rich and had owned most of the land around the house, where the town is now. I think that the house had once been beautiful, and I’m sure that under all the dust and cobwebs, it still is.

The Master is hard to explain. As I said before, he is like a zombie, but not. He looks like your average, disgusting zombie but he doesn’t eat brains. I don’t think he eats anything. The only bad thing about him is that he has a habit of ripping off people’s flesh and trying to use it to cover his own rotting flesh. Rosie is safe from him because she is dead, and therefore doesn’t have any usable skin, but I have to obviously  avoid him. He sleeps most of the time and gets very angry if woken up. I tend to do that too often. We call him the “Master” because he was the first creature in the house. Rosie told me that he used to be the caretaker of the house, I don’t know how she knows that, but she does. So, he’s the “Master”.

I’m going to have to leave Rosie soon. I’ll make that can last as long as possible, but it will run out in about three days. Unless the rats get to it, then it will be gone by the morning. I can’t leave her alone. She is old in age, but she is still young to me. She has been dead for a really long time, but she is still six at heart. Maybe if I was noble and brave, I would starve to death and stay with her. But I’m not brave, never have been.
I look behind me to where Rosie stands. She followed me to the dresser to check my food supply with me like she does everyday. I watch as the realization of what I’m going to do grows in her eyes. She runs out of the room holding her teddy close, I start after her but stop when I reach the door. It will be easier for her when I leave if I don’t go after her. I straighten the moth eaten blanket that covers the stained mattress. I’ll leave tomorrow.