Tense Excitement

• Megan Cowley, Grade 10
• Short Story
• 2017

Tense with excitement, the two young men stood by the door. It was cold and wet that night. Insects hummed in the woods around them, otherwise it was very quiet. They could not hear anyone coming to answer their knock and it had been a fair time of waiting. Regularly either of them wouldn’t have stayed so long, however both had heard the underlying emergency in their summonings.
Something was afoot.

“Give it another go,” the shorter said eagerly. Soon followed the hollow thud of knuckles on wood. The sound hung dead in the air for too long, and then at blissful last the door came undone.

“Patrick, are you ill?” The larger visitor was shocked. He had never seen his cousin look so ghastly. Patrick shook his head sharply. “Come in.” The house was not much warmer than outside. “Follow me, quickly now.”

Neither visitor had seen their friend for months. His sunken cheeks and pallid skin came at a vast departure from his last appearance. He looked cold.

“Patty, what’s wrong?”

“With haste.”

The visitors exchanged mutual looks of trepidation. Their excitement had vanished. Nothing about the house was as they remembered, dust had found a place on every surface and furniture was missing or overturned. It was completely quiet. There was a smell of dirt and mould, along with something neither had scented prior that stung the nose and set them on edge. Patrick was the most unsettling piece of all. Every movement he made was slow and calculated; he slunk about as though he expected something to jump at him ‘round every corner. He lead them to the kitchens in the depths of the house without a word, halting at the door.

“Patrick,” his cousin said slowly; “Where has everyone gone to?”

“Father fired the staff, Mother is out.”

“Where is your Father then?”

Patrick pushed open the kitchen door, and there was a terrible sloshing sound as what would turn out to be blood was disturbed in the action. “I wouldn’t have called but I had no choice. We need to work quickly.”