The Grisly Game
Would it be tonight?
“There was only one rule: Don't open the door.”
I listened to Justin give the usual spiel for what felt like the four hundredth time this Halloween season, for the third year in a row to guests who had paid for the privilege of being lied .A. ll while I stood behind the bar preparing ‘eyeball martinis’ and tried not to roll my own eyes out of my skull. The pub wasn't even really haunted. I would have known.
Never mind the fact that the ghostly ghoul in question didn’t exist, it had always irritated me that he was fundamentally wrong about the rules. When dealing with the dementedly deceased, or demonically disastrous, there are four rules.
1. Never open the door
2. If you do, remember to turn on a light
3. 3 knocks mean danger
4. Never make bargains or deals
When the dead have been hunting you all your life, you learn the rules quickly. Though never quickly enough.
The tour ended. We locked up. I made the dark and depressing walk to the Traymore family home, arriving just before 3am as arranged. Lawrence my long suffering confidant was there already, preparing.
I ascended the stone steps to the front door and as I raised my hand to ring the bell, 3 loud knocks reverberated through the wood of the door
‘Don't open the...’ I cried out too late.
Mr Traymore swung the door open and I felt the pain rip through my body as the spirit of the demon pushed through me. I held back a scream and collapsed into the hallway as the heavy door slammed shut; pushed by hands only I could see.
The game had begun. Would this be the night my luck finally ran out? Would this be the night I died?
About the Creator
Clara Elizabeth Hamilton Orr Burns
"I was always an unusual girl
My mother told me that I had a chameleon soul
No moral compass pointing due north
No fixed personality...
...With a fire for every experience and an obsession for freedom"
-Lana Del Ray
Ride
Keep reading
More stories from Clara Elizabeth Hamilton Orr Burns and writers in Horror and other communities.
The Banshee of Ballymore
There is a rocking chair in a house in the seaside town of Ballymore. As the walls decay, the chair remains, vacant and yet moving. Sometimes just for a moment, a flash and then it is over, leaving anyone who saw it to wonder if it even happened at all. There are times, when the wind coming from the sea howls and seems to settle on that house and then perhaps, you might see her. The owner of the empty chair. She sits, in her white gown, rocking back and forth, combing long, thin and wet black hair with bony fingers and fixing dead eyes on a fireplace that no longer burns, moving the chair back and forth, back and forth with dirty feet. There are times, when the wind coming from the sea howls and then perhaps, you might hear her. As she rocks, as she combs, as the wind howls, she wails and the wails become the howling and the howling wind carries a name to the people of Ballymore and they know, that death is coming.
By Clara Elizabeth Hamilton Orr Burns5 years ago in Horror
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Comments (7)
Hmm
Lines : 3 loud knocks reverberated through the wood of the door ‘Don't open the...’ I cried out too late." Gave me absolute chills. Took me back to my childhood fears... Great stuff @Clara Elizabeth Hamilton Orr Burns
Thanks everyone. Just wanted to say I am aware there is a little mistake in the first paragraph, it wasn't there originally, I tried using quick edit to change a punctuation mark and it affected the text.
Great horror story. Congratulations, too, on the Top Story recognition.
well written
Nicely done. This was a creative take on the first line, and I love that it ended up not even being about the door that you started with. That ending makes me want more, honestly. Congrats on the top story!
The glib tone of the narrator at the start fooled me and then the ending just hit me. Eek!