Red Inside the Walls

Mara had not meant to stay the night.

When she first entered the old house, it was supposed to be just another renovation job. She was used to them by now. Rotting wallpaper, sagging floors, the smell of mildew clinging to the air. None of it bothered her. She worked alone, moving from one house to the next, patching holes, scraping paint, sanding floors. It was quiet work, the kind that let her forget everything for a while.

But this house felt different the moment she stepped in.

There was something thick in the air. Not just dust or decay but a strange heaviness that settled on her tongue, metallic and bitter. She thought it might be mold at first, but the longer she breathed it in, the more she recognized it. It smelled like blood.

The house had belonged to a man who disappeared months ago. The neighbors said he was an artist who used to paint portraits in oils and animal blood. They said the police never found a body, only dark stains on the walls that refused to come clean.

Mara told herself that stories like that always grew legs. People loved to turn tragedy into folklore. Still, she worked quickly that first day, scraping paint off the parlor walls until her hands ached.

At dusk, a storm rolled in. The rain came hard and fast, slamming against the roof. The wind howled through the chimney like someone crying out in pain. By the time she realized she had left her truck keys inside the shed out back, the rain was a curtain of black water.

She decided to wait it out.

There was a sleeping bag in her kit. She laid it on the parlor floor beside the wall she had been working on. The plaster there was flaking away to reveal deep reddish streaks beneath, veins of something dark that pulsed faintly when the lightning flashed.

She tried to tell herself it was rust.

She slept badly.

In her dreams, she heard something scratching behind the walls. Soft at first, then faster, more desperate. A whisper followed the sound. It was not words, not really, more like the rhythm of breathing right beside her ear.

When she woke, her hands were sticky.

She sat up in the dim gray light of dawn and saw her palms smeared with something dark. It was thick and clotted between her fingers. Blood. The walls were wet, dripping slow red trails down the plaster.

Her breath came sharp and quick. She stumbled to the bathroom, turned on the tap, and tried to scrub her hands clean. The water ran pink, then red, then darker. No matter how much she washed, the smell clung to her.

That was when she noticed the sink.

The drain was clogged with hair. Long, black strands twisted around something pale. She pulled, gagging, as a lump of flesh the size of a fist slid free and thudded into the basin. It looked like part of a face.

Mara stumbled back, hitting the wall. Her heart was pounding so hard she could hear it echo in her head.

She ran to the front door, but it would not open. The knob turned, but the door would not move. She hit it with her shoulder again and again until splinters cracked off the frame. It was like the house was breathing, the walls swelling in and out as if alive.

A voice whispered from behind her.

“Mara.”

She froze. The voice was soft and wet, a sound that seemed to slide through her skin rather than her ears.

“Mara, help me.”

She turned slowly toward the parlor. The red stains on the wall were moving. They were forming shapes, outlines of faces pressing from beneath the plaster. Mouths opened and closed. Eyes bulged from the surface, blood seeping from their sockets.

Mara’s knees gave out. She crawled backward until her hand touched something cold. A knife. One of her tools. She grabbed it, holding it close to her chest.

The faces whispered again, dozens of voices now, whispering her name, begging her to come closer. She wanted to scream but her throat locked tight.

Then one of the mouths began to open wider. The plaster cracked around it, spilling dust and blood. From inside the hole, something pushed out. It looked like a hand, only the fingers were too long, bending backward at the joints. It groped blindly through the air, reaching for her.

Mara slashed at it. The blade cut deep, and the wall screamed. Not the house, not her imagination. The wall itself screamed, a sound that ripped through the room and filled her with raw terror.

Blood poured out of the gash she had made, flooding across the floor. The faces began to melt, their skin sloughing off into red puddles that crept toward her. The air was thick with the stench of iron and rot.

“Mara,” the voice whispered again, right behind her ear.

She turned and saw herself.

Or something that looked like her. Skin too tight. Eyes black and glossy. The reflection smiled, blood dribbling down its chin.

“You’re part of the house now,” it said softly. “He needed someone new.”

The thing lunged.

Later that week, when the storm had passed, a real estate agent came to check on the property. He found the front door unlocked, the floor sticky with something dark that looked almost like paint. The walls were covered in new plaster, smooth and wet to the touch.

He noticed a faint imprint beneath one of them. A hand, small and delicate, pressed outward as if frozen mid-reach.

When he turned away, the hand moved.

And the wall whispered his name.