The Hills on Which We Die

The clack of Arabella’s shoes reverberated through the house as she ran, tears streaking down her face as she glanced behind herself. She didn’t see anything, but she could certainly feel it. She held her deep mauve skirts aloft in her delicate fingers, but with her attention faced behind her, she didn’t notice they’d slipped, and she tripped. She caught herself, pain lancing through her wrists, up to her elbows. She heard quick footsteps behind her and scrambled to try and rise. It was too late. A shadow loomed over her, stretched drastically by the window behind it.

Arabella could hear its shallow breathing, wet and raspy. Tears started anew as she began crawling toward the staircase, only feet in front of her. She would throw herself down the stairs before she let the monster at her back be her demise. She felt five boney fingers wrap themselves around her ankle, and she gave a cry of anguish. Kicking and scratching against her attacker she was able to touch the top step, gripping the lip of the stair. A dark laugh filled the space between her and the shadow, and she was pulled backward, toward where it waited. Her fingers were torn bloody, her long fingernails ripped halfway off.

She gave another cry, turning to look at her attacker. The hallway he’d brought her to was dark, and she could make out only his emaciated frame drawing her ever-closer.

“Please,” she whispered, voice raw and ragged, “let me go and I-I’ll give you whatever you want. Money, m-my my house, e-everything. Please just let me go,” her face was an absolute mess of tears, saliva, and mucus pooling down on her chin. Sobs wracked her body, and rather than answer the figure only pulled her forward, eliciting another, “PLEASE” and more tears. Fingernails were digging into her ankle, little dribbles of blood streaming down and staining her dress. Much like its laughter, the voice that spilled from its lips was dark and rasping.

“My house,” it growled and Arabella’s eyes grew wide. A scream pierced the morning.

~100 years later~

The house sitting high upon its perch was simply stunning. Though it was cloudy and dank, the watery light accentuated the dark feel of the house. It towered above the landscape, dark spires reaching for the sun to feel a speck of brightness. Certainly, it didn’t belong in this time period, but Tess was very glad it was there. The solitude offered by the forest around her was a blessing, and the darkness of the house was exactly what she needed to rejuvenate.

Not worrying about what little she had to unpack, she made her way into the house, admiring the black staircase which led up to enormous double doors. The knockers which rested upon the shining ebony doors were gaunt men, sneers on their faces, and the rings stabbed through their necks.

Morbid, she thought, nice. She pushed the doors inward, and they groaned at her intrusion. No one had entered for 100 years, at least she’d been told. Supposedly there had been a gruesome murder, and not a single person had been willing to enter since. Because of this, Tess had gotten one hell of a deal on it.

The interior was just as breathtaking as the exterior. Deep greens and blacks decorated each crevice of the house, speckles of brightness coming through from the high windows changing the shades to grassy greens and greys. Tess stood admiring the furniture, which was tall and dark, just like everything else in her new home.

She’d never felt happier.

As she was walking up the stairs, fingers delicately brushing the metal railings, her phone rang. She groaned, already knowing who was on the other end.

“What do you want, Tanner?” she asked, storming up the steps.

“Is that any way to talk to your boyfriend?” he was obviously buzzed, voice slurred and sleazy.

“Ex-boyfriend. You and I are over,” she sat, huffing and rubbing her face with her free hand. They’d been fighting about whether they were broken up for a week straight, and so she’d left altogether.

As Tess listened to Tanner’s desultory explanation, she zoned out, blocking out his words. She swore she could hear slow footsteps coming from upstairs, but knew nobody was there.

“And I really just think you should *hic* come home!” he finished, belching once his sentence was done. Refusing to dignify his idiocy with a response, Tess hung up and went to investigate the now-creaking sound coming from higher up in the house. However, when she shoved her phone into her pocket, the noises stopped altogether.

She continued upstairs, brushing the interaction from her mind, and opening a door. A gorgeous canopy bed sat in the corner of the absolutely massive room. Tess walked over to the bed, moving the sheer black curtains and lying down in the center. For the gloomy feeling the house provided, the beds were certainly exquisite. She sank down, wrapped in ecstasy and soft blankets.

She could certainly get used to this.

Hours passed, and she had finally explored every corner of her new home. The creaking and occasional footsteps hadn’t stopped, but there was nothing she could find that was making the strange sounds. As she laid in her bed of wonders, she began scrolling through Facebook, stalking Tanner’s account to make certain he wasn’t posting about her again.

As she scrolled, scoffing and rolling her eyes, a ping sounded from her phone.

cant you stop being so stuck up? your so incunsidarate! i want you to come home.

Tess put her head in her hands, tossing her phone to the side and groaning at his absolute lack of intelligence.

“Why?” she yelled, “Why of all the people in the world does he choose to harass me?! I never did anything to deserve this!” There was a thumping above her, interrupting her pity party. Tess was tired of this, and quite honestly she was freaked out. She decided to investigate.

“Alright, who’s there? This is my escape from people, you back off!” she walked up the stairs, fueled by her agitation and a fluttering in her chest. She didn’t exactly have a means of defense, but she was determined to get rid of this minor annoyance.

As she reached the top step and rounded the corner, she saw a shadow peering from one of the many doorways, stretched tall by the dying light streaming through the bedroom window.

“Hey! I see you!” but the shadow disappeared as she stormed forward, and a crash resounded from downstairs. Tess nearly jumped out of her skin, but her voice was loud and strong as she said, “Hey now! Would you get out? This is my house!”

The house grew still. Until that is, a pounding began down on the bottom floor, and angry yelling could be heard all the way to the top. Tess slid down on the wall, groaning loudly. Just my luck, she thought.

She stormed down the steps, swinging the door open to reveal… nobody. The pounding hadn’t stopped, still booming through the house. Tess’ breath was coming in short bursts, fear creeping up on her. A chill swept through the room, wrapping its deadly fingers around Tess’ neck, tangling in her hair in a way that a chill just couldn’t… Tess whipped around, realizing it wasn’t cold that had her in its grip. Hot sticky breath hit her neck, and a growl came from behind her.

“Alright, Tess, nothing is behind you, this is just a manifestation of all your anxieties-” she was whipped downward, and a squeal ripped from her throat as she faced dingy teeth and saliva. Her nose was assaulted by a putrid odor, and wetness dripped down her chin, making her gag.

“My house,” a voice like rocks rubbing together snaked from the creature’s mouth, and Tess desperately tried to pull away from it. Without thinking she threw her full weight downward, throwing whatever it was off guard and it dropped her.

“Ha! I think not!” she scrambled away from the creature, pulling herself to her feet and storming up the stairs. An antique vase worth more than Tess’ old home sat at the top of the steps, and she threw it, watching as it hurdled toward the shadow. It moved with speed and precision, dodging to the side and letting the vase smash to pieces on the steps. “Oh no,” Tess raced up the next flight of stairs, but a cold pain shot up her arm and when she looked down she saw a hand around her wrist.

“Who are you?!” she cried, and instead of answering, the thing pulled her arm, and a scream pierced the night.

~3 days later~

Police sirens screamed, cutting through the chill morning. A man and a woman stood outside the house at the top of the hill, writing down what they’d found within the home.

“What happened?” a man, supposedly the dead woman’s boyfriend, asked, staring at the knockers.

“This house feels… wrong,” one of them answered, turning to look through one of the windows, “there was another murder here about 100 years ago, and she died the same way Tess did, and a few years before that it’s been said there was a dispute about who the house belonged to. The reports said the father of the woman who was murdered was the number one suspect because she’d taken the house for herself. He got jealous… and you know how those stories go. But he died around the same time and now we can’t tell which death came first” she shrugged, looking away from the window with a shudder.

When Tanner looked, he saw a shadow crossing it, but when he shook his head in disbelief it was gone. He swore he saw it though, and he also swore he could hear a voice on the wind, growling out, “My house.”