6.

There they stand. Two men unrelated but brought together by circumstance. One man stands, still locked in a strait jacket with his head slightly tilted while a grin graces his face as if it all fun and games but fun and games it isn't, and he knows it. The other man is the owner of a black 1958 Chevrolet Impala who had just so happened to find himself on a mission to find the man he now stands next too. The place where they happen to be standing is on front of a rather large and old Victorian house that they both at this point know all about a little too well.

For one of the two it may have been chance that first brought him here and for the other, well he has been resisting the unnatural urge to return here since they day he last vacated the premises. The urge to enter for both men is overwhelming despite knowing what it is that waits inside.

'You know she is going to kill us both, right?'

'It is you that she wants, and I am not the one wearing a strait jacket.'

'Do you think that makes you immune? Do you think she will not torture you and tear you apart?'

'Well maybe we should both head on in and find out?'

'After you, my friend.'

'... I am not your friend though I am happy to lead the way.'

Of course, as only it can be, darkness has arrived prior to the moment Dean and his companion find themselves back outside that dilapidated porthole for hell. Just how it is that they both came to find themselves exactly where it is they are, is a little bit of a mystery. One minute Dean is making his way across a street far from whence he came, over towards a man wearing a strait jacket, the same man who just so happens to have appeared to Dean in visions, and just like that they are about to head into that house where SHE still waits as if something magical brought them here in an instant.

An instant is not in actuality what it was for when a street was crossed, daylight was strong and far from end. Now at the house however, it is darkened with nightfall as if the house itself isn't dark enough prior to light being taken away. She, as it is and always will be, does work best in darkness.

The rusted metal gates at the bottom of the garden still hang off their hinges and the left side still squeaks ominously as it rocks slightly with the evening breeze which is once again quickening. The un-kept garden still grows over and around furniture and other unwanted items which had just been left out in the open. The gathering moss and the spreading weeds almost completely cover the uneven garden path, a path which bends and extends from the gate right up to the front of the house.

Dean does lead the way past the gates and his companion follows, not that he needs to follow though perhaps that need in some form or another does exist. This companion fellow knows only too well what it is that this house holds and as to what is in store for him but maybe in some way or another, he is ready for it and in some way maybe he even wants it. Fear of death, if it exists, is of course trumped by the compulsion she places upon all men who come close.

Moving up the garden path watching where he steps, Dean tries to avoid stepping on the moss and weeds as much as he can. He reaches the door and is slightly bewildered to find that it is not open like it was before. The door appears to be firmly closed shut. In a way he expected it to be invitingly open.

Dean places his left hand on the center of the door right at eye level and he presses slightly. It doesn't move. The door doesn't open. Instead, a thick red liquid begins to ooze out of the door beginning right at the top. Fairly quickly the whole door oozes this liquid. It moves around and onto Dean's hand. It is clear to see that this liquid is blood. Dean takes a couple of steps backward while almost examining his left hand. His companion moves forward, the door opens and inside he goes. Before he can follow, the door closes leaving Dean locked out on the outside.

Usually, she takes life one at a time, in the here and now she has her main target ... still ... it is most unusual for any man to be refused entry.

The house has what it wants, she has what she wants. Not for the first time, the screams and roars of agony from within the house can directly be heard from the outside and there is nothing Dean can do about it. How often in the past these kinds of sounds didn't seem real, they had seemed nightmare-ish.

As it is, it would seem that Dean has made good on his delivery despite not having wanted such, though he never really had a choice, had he?

The minutes pass and seem like hours. Dean remains helpless on the outside of that house though not for long. As it came to be that he found himself back at the house, he would be returned in an instant to where Gwen last had seen him. Not knowing what to do or where to go, she had remained by that black '58 Chevrolet Impala. She sees him and quickly makes her way over to him and they embrace briefly.

Time has oddly lapsed in a way it shouldn't and in this moment, it is as it is ... late evening. When daylight returns Dean and Gwen make their way back to that old Victorian house.

There may be daylight now though it does seem as if a veil of darkness has been lifted from that house. It no longer seems quite as dark a building or area it has been for the past ten months. Medical and other services had already arrived at the building. Something has been lifted; temporarily at least so human remains and the likes can be removed from inside, some remains severely decayed and others in pieces.

Fear is halfway bypassed so that emergency services can enter the house to remove many remains from it. Gwen has the daunting task of identifying her husband's remains through markings on his torso as his face shoe how he has met an unfortunate demise.

Once the evening time sky returns there will be no more services of any kind and no kind of investigation returning to that house for a new kind of darkness has set in and has claimed the place as its own. A window of time for emergency services to work has most certainly passed. An unspoken fear has returned.

Over time, Dean and Gwen have kept in touch. Gwen now aids Dean with his acquired garages where old and classic cars are restored. Together they have also made it their business to keep intruders or new arrivals of any kind from making their way to or into that lone and dark Victorian house.

On one dark night in particular a crow perches itself on the right side of the rusted metal gates as the left side rocks ominously in the quickening nighttime breeze. A priest looks on as a dark, dull, and large semi-trailer truck drives right up to the building briefly illuminating that house on the end of the street before moving on and to the left.

For there ... inside he stands on the staircase, there inside he walks the halls and there inside he moves from room to room. His footsteps echo, his dark fringe almost reaches his eyes. He stands, still locked in a strait jacket with his head slightly tilted while a grin graces his face. She moves up and alongside him having dragged an old long handled sledgehammer along the wooden floor. The light of a near full moon shines in through the cracks in the boarded-up windows.

In death they are united ... in darkness an evil takes hold and continues ...

If you were ever to come across such a place like this old dark and abandoned Victorian building on land that is just as dark no matter the time of day ..., would you be able to resist the urge to go inside? Would you be compelled to investigate what it is that resides inside? Would you be able to leave with your life intact? ...

THE END

(OR IS IT?)