Chapter 1 – Chap 1

Recently I’ve been tasked with a particularly daunting task. From the title of this post, I’m pretty sure you can guess what it is and my profession. Usually, I’d get stuck trying to do my best to pass off the lower-end properties. The upper agents at my office tour houses in higher-end neighborhoods. Meanwhile, I get stuck with small apartments or trailers that used to be meth labs or the scenes of domestic abuse.

Knowing this, it came as a shock when my boss approached me with my current job. It was to help rent out a house. I was stunned. I’ve been working for this branch for over two years now. Although I was glad to be selected for the job I was curious as to why exactly I was selected.

“I’ll do my best to get some tenants for the property but if you don’t mind me asking why did you choose me for it?”

“What do you mean, Barett? I can’t think of anybody who is more suited to work with this house than you are.”

“Oh, uh, thanks. I’ve never toured a house, though. I may need help.”

“Don’t worry. The place you’ll be looking at is pretty big so I’m having Connor go with you. Good luck.”

Connor also works with lower-end homes. He tends to work in downtown neglected areas. He told me one story where he got mugged by a homeless guy when he exited a complex. Just an aside but I was chased away from one trailer by a squatter high on meth.

Talking, well venting really about these experiences is what helped us become friends to the point we even hang out after work sometimes. My boss told me that Connor was waiting for me outside. I went out to meet him. I found him sitting on the hood of his car, smoking a cigarette. He took out of his mouth when he saw me.

“Barett, can you believe it?” He asked. “After all this time we finally get something decent to work with.”

“I don’t want to sound like a downer but I have a feeling there’s a specific reason we were picked to tour it.”

“Try to be more optimistic. Even if the place we’re looking at is a fixer-upper it’s still way better than what we usually attempt to pass off.”

“I can’t argue with you there. I was told you have the address to the place we’re looking at right?”

“Yeah, I got it right here.”

Connor held up a piece of paper containing the address. He handed it to me. Then took one last drag of his cigarette before putting it out and throwing it away. We got in his car and he started driving us to our destination. Google maps said it would take about 40 minutes to arrive there. I decided to look up information about it on the way there.

“This place is kind of old,” I said.

“When was it built?”

“Says here it was built in 1940. No pictures of it, though. Hopefully, it isn’t too run down.”

“I’m sure they’ve done some renovations on it. Find anything else noteworthy?”

“Huh, odd. It says here it’s had, five different owners.”

“So? It’s an old house.”

“Yeah but the dates in which the house changes owners are all twenty years apart.”

“Really? That is weird. Is there any information on any of the previous owners?”

“Not that I can find. Maybe we’ll learn something when we get there.”

“Wait, there is something I was told before we left.”

“What was it?”

“Apparently the house we are going to has an unusual quality to it.”

“I wonder what that means?”

“Who knows? Maybe the place has rats or something.”

“Oh good, I was wanting a new pet.”

“Heh, same. How long does it say we have until we get there, Barrett?”

“10 minutes.”

We ended up driving through a long stretch of road that went deep into a forest.

“This place must be pretty isolated,” I observed, looking out the window.

“A little peace and quiet are desirable you know. Which way?”

“Up this hell. I think it’s the driveway.”

Driving up it took us to the property. It was still bright out during our arrival.

“This place is huge,” Connor said

In front of us was a large two-story house. From the outside, we could see four windows that had cracks running through them. Two were on the bottom floor and the others were on the top one. Two large and dark trees were on both sides of the house, casting shadows over it. Their branches stretched but stopped short of touching the house almost like they were afraid to.

We could also see the house’s shutters looked worn down. Some had fallen off and were resting on the roof. In addition to that its white coating had peeled in several places. The driveway had many cracks running through it. The final thing we observed was what used to be a tire swing had become detached from the right tree’s branch and was lying on at its base.

“If the outside is any indicator fixer-upper is a major understatement,” I said.

“At least it’s better than the places we usually tour. Come on, the key should be under the mat.”

After taking pictures of the outside, we entered it to find that the inside was…surprisingly nice looking actually. What immediately struck us was the fact this home already had furniture in it. Not only that, the floors and walls looked as if they had been freshly installed. A decorative chandelier was hanging in the dining room. Not to mention that musty kind of smell you get with really old places was completely absent.

It was such a stark contrast from the outside that it took me a moment to process what I was seeing. It felt like we had stepped into an entirely different house from the one we saw outside. It had a chair, couch, table, and TV in the living room. We could even see the dining room already had a table and chairs in it. We were confused, to say the least.

“Did…we come to the wrong address?” I asked.

“No, this is the place. Aiden was the one who wrote the address down for me.”

“Then how do you explain all this?” I gestured towards the furniture. “Do you think he made a mistake?”

“It’s possible. I’ll text him just to be sure.”

Aiden is usually busy with clients and he doesn’t like to be called when conducting himself. While waiting for him to reply we looked further around the living room. I noticed something odd and got Connor’s attention for it.

“Hey, he got back to me. Said yes he is sure and not to bother about it again,” he informed me.

“Did you tell him about all the stuff already here?”

“I was going to but he said he was in a meeting and I didn’t want to piss him off. Anyway, you said you found something?”

“Yeah, see?”

I pointed to the window.

“What am I supposed to be looking for?” Realization came over Connor’s face right after he said that. “Wait, didn’t this window have a crack in it?”

“Yeah, I thought it did too yet it looks fine right now.”

We decided to view the window from the outside again. This confirmed to us that indeed had a crack in it. Connor went back in to look at the window while I stayed outside. He told me that the window looked perfect from where he was. I told him it still looked damaged from where I was standing.

“Maybe it’s some kind of optical illusion?” Connor suggested after I had stepped back inside.

“It could be. How do we explain all this other stuff then? We’re standing in a house which is supposed to be for rent that looks tattered from the outside yet the inside looks as if someone just moved in here.”

“They could’ve done some repairs here.”

“Then how come there wasn’t any done to the outside?”

“I don’t know, Barett. What I do know is that we aren’t getting paid to worry about the anomalies that occur in whatever property we happen to be in. Therefore, I say we finish searching this place so we can get back to the office. Besides, we can ask the current owner about it.”

Despite our intentions to ignore the house’s strangeness, we kept finding weird things. For example, going into the kitchen we heard the fridge running. A house that is supposed to be vacant shouldn’t have power. Upon realizing it did, we checked the lights. We didn’t need to since the light outside was already illuminating everything but we wanted to see if they worked.

“What’s with this place?” I wondered and heard the fridge open.

Connor was looking inside of it.

“The hell? There’s food in here.”

“What?”

I checked the fridge to see that it was fully stocked with food. It all looked like it had been freshly made.

“Okay, I know we agreed to ignore the weird stuff we’ve been seeing. I can’t. Something is off here,” I said. “The hell are you doing?”

Connor had gotten a Hi C out of the fridge.

“What? I’m thirsty.”

“You can’t take food from someone else’s house.”

“This food isn’t supposed to be here.. Really I’m doing them a favor if you think about it.”

“What flavor is it anyway?”

He showed me the label to reveal that it was Ecto Cooler flavored.

“Huh, I’ve never had that kind before.”

Connor grabbed another Hi C and offered it to me.

“Well, I guess nobody will notice if only a couple are gone,”

I accepted it from him. We then checked the rest of the first floor. The house didn’t have a garage due to how old it was but we did find some other interesting things. Old books, a clock, stuff like that. Despite the lack of a garage this house did appear to have a basement. We figured it had been put in later.

“So do you want to check here or the upstairs first?” I asked as we peered down the basement stairs.

“It probably won’t take long to check. I’ll meet you upstairs in a few minutes.”

Now at this point, you are more than likely scolding us for breaking the cliche horror rule of never splitting up. In our defense, we had no idea going in of what dangers were inside that house. Therefore, we didn’t feel the need to stick together since we didn’t think we were in danger at that moment. Anyway, Connor went down into the basement as I went upstairs. There I saw seven doors. Three were three on each side of the hallway. I took a sip of my Ecto cooler, admiring its unique flavor for a moment before proceeding to check the rooms upstairs.

There were four bedrooms and two baths. All of which seemed as if they were still being used. I only glanced at each one. From what I saw the rooms looked fine aside from the fact stuff was still in them. I checked the last door.

It was located at the end of the hall and opened to another flight of stairs which I guessed led to the attic. Given what we had seen thus far in the house, I expected to find something interesting. While I can say that I did, it was not something I ever wish to see again. What I noticed first were the many boxes stacked against the wall. The second things were some pictures and paintings resting against them, facing the other way.

I didn’t want to mess around too much so I just glanced at some of the paintings and pictures. They were mostly paintings of flowers, fruit, things like that. One in particular stood out to me. It was a picture resting face down on a box. I lifted it to find that it was a photo of a girl.

She looked fifteen, sixteen at the most but she looked a little thin. Her face looked kind of sunken in and she wore a smile that seemed forced. She stood in a long dark red dress with her hands over her laps. Her thumbs were posed in a way that almost looked as if she had been twiddling them. At the time I thought it was because she was nervous about getting her picture taken.

Now I’m thinking it was for a more sinister reason. I looked around for a bit longer and started to leave the attic. That was when I heard the door close. I was startled. I wasn’t freaked out, though.

I figured this was because of a draft. I tried opening the door to find that it was stuck. I cursed under my breath and was going to pull my phone out to call Connor for help. That is when I became aware of another noise. It was low at first.

It sounded like wind chimes. Then steadily grew louder. Soon they went from sounding like chimes to sounding like chains. At that point, a sense of dread was starting to come over me. The reason being I hadn’t seen anything that a draft could have affected to result in that noise.

I soon found out its source. At the end of the attic, some of the boxes began shaking. Two of them were pushed apart to reveal what looked to be two glowing yellow orbs. It took me a moment to realize I was seeing a pair of eyes. A pair of sickly grey hands with abnormally long nails reached outward and grasped the bottom-most box.

“So lonely… Finally, another.”

From out of the shadows came the face of a girl. It took me a moment to realize that she was the same girl I had just seen in the picture. This was mainly due to the fear that was clouding my mind. However, it wasn’t fear of what I now consider to be paranormal. I thought some sicko had kept this girl up here and she needed help.

Seeing the rest of her quickly dashed this theory. I thought she seemed thin in her picture looking at her was like watching a mummified corpse. She had chains on her ankles and wrists. Her hair appeared straw-like and scraped against the floor. She began crawling towards me. That was when I knew I needed to get the fuck out of there.

My first idea was to kick the door open. This proved ineffective as it was made of thick wood. If that wasn’t bad enough the girl had already managed to close the distance between us in only a matter of seconds. I tried leaping back to avoid her but her hand shot out and grabbed my ankle. She yanked, causing me to lose my balance and fall to the floor, and drop my Ecto Cooler.

She was a lot stronger than her physique led me to believe. Her grip was like that of a vice and caused me excruciating pain. Try as I might to yank myself free I was unable to. She kept chanting over and over about how she needed me to stay with her as I tried kicking at her with my other foot. She reached for me with her other hand.

From how it was posed I knew her intent was. She raised it, getting ready to strike at me. I had to think fast. With my free leg, I kicked the bottom box of the nearest stack. It collapsed onto the girl, forcing her to release me.

In addition to that, it caused a domino effect which resulted in the other stacks of boxes falling as well. This revealed a window that sunlight poured through. I scrambled to my feet and I dashed over to it, taking care to avoid tripping. Along the way, I grabbed a brass lamp that had fallen out of a box. I could hear the sound of boxes thudding as the girl pushed them off her and they hit the floor.

I could hear the sound of her joints popping as she began scuttling towards me. I wasted no time in chucking the lamp I held at the window. It shattered on impact, allowing me to jump through. I fell through several branches and landed on the ground below. I found myself back in front of Connor’s car.

This confused me due to the fact I had been looking down at the backyard when I jumped out. I didn’t have time to dwell on this since Connor was still inside. The door was closed which I don’t remember us doing. I tried opening it only to find it was locked. Not seeing another option I stepped back and got ready to ram the door open.

Before I could it was opened by Connor. I barely had enough time to stop myself from running into him. I saw that he appeared to be out of breath. Also, there were marks on his face and neck. He looked me up and down before speaking.

“You too?”

“Yeah, what did you see?”

“We’ll talk more during the drive back. For now, let’s get the hell away from here.”

On the way back I asked him if he needed a doctor. He told me that he was fine. Then I explained to him what I had seen.

“Holy shit, that sounds fucked up,” Connor said.

“I don’t know if she was a ghost or something else. What did you see by the way?”

“I checked the basement. Didn’t really find anything noteworthy at first aside from a dryer and washer. Plus some old board games I didn’t recognize.”

“Okay. What did you see, though?”

“I’m getting there, patience. As I was saying nothing really stood out to me. I was going to leave until I picked up on the sound of what I thought was a leaking pipe. I did find it odd that I was only noticing it at that moment but I figured I should look for its source.”

“What did it turn out to be?”

“I couldn’t figure that out at first. Eventually, I decided to quit and head back upstairs. It was at that moment something else caught my eye. Some antlers seemed to be sticking out from the more shadowy part of the basement. I thought it was a hunting trophy, like a deer or something.”

“From your tone of voice, I’m guessing it wasn’t that?”

“You got that right. I went over to it since it was the only area of the basement I hadn’t checked. I grabbed a flashlight off a shelf and shone it on what I thought was a deer head. Instead what I saw looked to be some kind of reptile.”

“That’s pretty far off from a deer.”

“I know that. Although it was shaped like one it looked as if someone had stretched a snake’s head over a buck’s. I thought what I was looking at was some kind of sick taxidermy. I was going to leave it alone when I noticed something. It was the source of the leaking.”

“Please tell me you tried slowly backing away when you saw this.”.

“Well…I kind of thought a pipe had burst and was behind it so I sort of attempted to yank the head down.”

“And how did that work out for you?”

“Not well, I can tell you that. When I tugged on its antlers its eyelids opened. It was at that moment I realized I made a mistake.”

“No shit.”

“Shut up.”

“Sorry.”

“As I was saying, its eyes opened and it was not happy I had woken up. Its hands were freaking huge and it was able to hold my face and neck with just one as indicated by the marks you can see on my face. Have you ever heard of the Wendigo?”

“That Native American monster? I’ve seen pictures of it here and there, why do you ask?”

“This thing had an eerie similarity to it, only it was more on the reptilian side. It had the same sunken ribs a wendigo would have only scales were covering its body as opposed to fur.”

“Jesus and I thought that girl I ran into was scary.”

“Yeah, I was fine not only lacking the knowledge that Wendigos are real but that they also come in different varieties apparently.”

“How exactly did you escape from it?”

“Well…I had to make a sacrifice. There I was at that moment with that monstrosity with its hand wrapped around me. I barely had time to process the fact it was standing in front of me let alone think of a way to escape its grasp. I got so lucky, though. “

“What happened?”

“It was the Ecto Cooler. It saved my life.”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah, so there I was with my head feeling like it was going to be crushed. This thing opened up its huge fucking mouth like it was getting ready to bite me in half. Out of reflex, I threw my can of Ecto cooler. It got stuck on its antlers and leaked into its eyes. As it turns out whatever that thing was, didn’t turn out to be a fan of it. Maybe it was the citrus. I don’t know. What I do know is that it caused it to release me. After which I was able to make my way back upstairs and to you.”

“I wonder how they ended up there? I’m having trouble coming to terms with the experience I had, not to mention the one you did.”

“Who the hell knows how or even why they are there. I say we tell Aiden the house is a bust and put this whole fucked up experience behind us.”

“Agreed.”

I wish I could say that was the end of the matter. Aiden had other ideas. We presented him with the pictures of the outside we had taken. We thought this would result in him dismissing the house. This did not turn out to be the case.

He asked how the inside was and we couldn’t exactly lie about it so he told us he would talk with the owner about repairs, much to our dismay. Although we didn’t show it. All this happened a month ago. In that time the outside of the house was repaired and some potential tenants were found to occupy it. You’ll never guess who Aiden wants to show them around.

Aiden and I have wanted the opportunity to tour a house ever since we started working at our branch. We just didn’t want to potentially get murdered while doing it. Welp, tomorrow we are going to show a couple around. Since learning that we are going to be in charge of touring them, we have been looking for ways to rid the house of its problems. I hope for the sake of our lives and potentially promotions things go well.