Suspense Short Story – Controlled Assessment
Photo credit: lynette from morguefile.com
I advanced mundanely toward the house; I was the coroner marching forth towards the dead building. A callous wind pinched my cheeks and shook wildly the no longer verdant trees, causing a vociferous rustling. The gust howled out in pain, like a lone grey wolf calling the pack. Rain battered down on my light, pin-stripe shirt and soaked through causing a chilling sensation, like when ethanol comes into contact with bare skin. The hairs on my arm prickled in a perpetual cycle.
The building itself stood firm and solid, however it told its age through the weather-licked stones, like an elderly ladies’ arm covered in ageing spots. The house blinked tears from its eyes as it infringed on the sky and her children. The petrol kissed skies blurred puffy clouds into a fictitious state, where usually billowing clouds were licked to form majestic peaks…there was nothing. All celestial stars had evaded the sky and instead the moon became its tenant; the pallid moon cast its luminous rays among the graveyard of now skeletal trees. The clutching skeletal hands clawed my minute shadow. I began to feel a familiar urgency…to run.
The saturated silence of the onyx night echoed around me everywhere, and brought the feeling of macabre to the estate grounds. The orchestra began and a sheer whistling of the wind could be heard amid the finest symphony of sonnets. An unexpected instrument chimed in as I found my feet attacking crisp lifeless leaves, they snaked in and out of the long matted grass. Shredding bones would have made a more subtle noise than I. The path stretched out in front of me; a charcoal shading from a Victorian sketch. As I cantered (uncannily like a lame mare!) I stumbled. The force of the unfortunate jerk meant a long strand of reckless hair darted from behind my ear; which I fixed in place again immediately, but found my hand would not leave the strand of hair alone and instead fingered it nervously.
My clumsy footing caused the upheaval of a section of the ground, and the scent of rotted vegetation like week old drooping cabbage insulted my nostrils. As the rain continued to deluge, I began to hasten the pace of my despondent trudge.
I now arrived at the great door which resembled a French pastry; the paint flaking abundantly. The grasp of cold metal under my palm and lack of light beaming through the slit at the bottom of the door, made me check the darkened windows. The silk mauve drapes frosted with shredded black lace hung crookedly in the sash windows.
“Something seems amiss, but what exactly?” I asked myself dubiously.
While entering the house was never usually just as daunting, the house had always a hostile, Gothic ambiance to it. I liked to view the residence holistically: its appearance was ghastly from outside- it displayed green lichen speckles, its mental state unfortunate and was socially inapt to communicate with distanced neighbours. I diagnosed the house with terminal depression and that someday the whole place would crumble the dwelling not beautiful enough to be saved by the privileged and wealthy folk of the town.
I trundled on in, unaware of the visitor at first.
The house was rather handsome on the inside, a butterfly in a cocoon if you will; the house displayed a number of notable features: a dimly lit chandelier hanging from the ceiling- its rainbow lit tears were unable to be seen due to the gathered dust, a poignant portrait of an Edwardian lady wearing a caramel silk dress enveloped by a shimmering shawl and finally decorative period moulds on the ceiling which had seen better days and now were almost unfathomable. I continued down the gloomy hall, where death danced in ominous shadows. I walked the chessboard chequered floor; the pawn in the unknown fate. A noise suddenly alerted me. Scraping. Chairs meeting politely for the first time with the ground, and then a hissing. Satanic demons hissing and screeching in the ebony night.
I fled, not knowing if I was escaping or running toward the noise, though either way I stopped in my tracks. My blood ran to my brain, vomit to my throat and shock to my heart. A befouled image stood blurred in the obscurity; a phantom diluted like an inky concentrate mixing with water. Very abruptly my night of long-drawn anxiety was ended very quickly.
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