Disclaimer: I had one of those wood mazes with the little ball you had to roll around once.
Chapter 1: Ensnared
"Sorry, but that's wrong. You owe me-"
Sarah's mind stuttered to a halt as she met the barista's raptorial gaze. His answering grin to her undivided attention sent a chill up her spine.
"Ah. So I do. Apologies."
Electricity prickled across her skin where his hand brushed her own in offering the remaining change.
That can't be normal.
She shrugged off the sensation in favor of speculating on the mystery man.
Tom surely would have mentioned yesterday that he had found help. Well, unless he had hired the man after her morning coffee run, which was entirely possible. The little 'help wanted' sign had been collecting dust and cobwebs in the window for ages. The small coffee shop was gaining traction, especially since it was situated close to campus and catered to the caffeinated university youth. For her part, Sarah was happy to patronize her local business owners, especially when they made coffee as wonderful as Tom did.
In a little hole in the wall place like Java Dream, it was not exactly unusual for the sole proprietor to run a one-man show during the off hours. But with the cafe's expanding popularity, even Tom needed a break here and again.
Sarah resisted asking after the shop owner; it was clearly the new guy's first day, and she didn't want to throw him off his game.
Well, that and the man simultaneously intrigued and terrified her. This response was instinctual and visceral, completely irrational maybe, but Sarah had always fancied herself an excellent judge of character. Her gut told her to be wary, despite the guy's outwardly obvious charms.
Realizing that she had been staring at the man with ruffled bond hair and uneven, intense blue eyes for far longer than could reasonably be deemed as appropriate, Sarah blushed and managed to get out a strangled, 'no problem,' in belated reference to his apology.
She immediately decided to forget the last two embarrassing minutes of her life. The young woman scurried out of the cafe, coffee in hand.
A test sip later, Sarah found the temperature was perfect, but her mouth twisted at the unexpected sweetness.
I didn't order a mocha.
Sure, it had been what she wanted, but it was not what she had ordered, having decided to forego the extra sugar this morning.
Sarah turned back to the cafe only to find the man from moments before gone. Tom was back to running the counter as always. That was strange enough to merit investigation.
The bell tinkled as the young woman stepped back inside.
"Hey, Sarah! The usual?"
"Thanks, Tom, but I already got it from the new barista."
"Sorry, who?"
Sarah looked around. The man from before was nowhere in sight.
"The new guy. He was just here a minute ago. Did he step out?"
The shop owner's brow furrowed. "I'm not sure what you're talking about Sarah. Brenda called in sick, and I've been the only one manning the cafe since five."
"Oh, um, right. Sorry, too much caffeine, not enough sleep. Right. I'll, um… tomorrow," she tittered nervously, quickly making her way back out again before more awkward questions could arise.
It wouldn't do to be late on top of the strange morning she was already having. Punctuality had been drilled into her by a well meaning, albeit overbearing, stepmother. Though, Sarah supposed, she had really been having a strange week. Month, even.
Though she had no idea what just happened, the coffee was real enough and the container was identical to any Tom would have provided. Sarah sipped at the beverage dubiously. That probably wasn't the brightest idea, since it could be poisoned or something equally horrible. If she actually had time, she would not have risked it. And had she been a bit more concerned with her own safety, she would have just tossed the drink and forgone her morning coffee altogether. But that first taste was so perfect, and the second was no less beguiling. Sarah gave into temptation, and polished it off long before she made it to her bus stop.
Potential drugging or imminent death aside, Sarah had to admit that it was the best coffee she'd ever tasted in her life.
She found the glass bauble rolling around her bag when she opened it to seek out her wayward bus pass. The sphere was about the size of a baseball, but that was not the most interesting part. The orb glowed with a soft incandescence that invited touch. Before Sarah could think better of it, mesmerized by the swirling light, she did just that. Her only thought was how startlingly warm the surface was before it shattered in her grasp, altering the course of her destiny forever.
Sarah woke up. Or, rather, she became aware. She did not remember going to sleep, nor was she lying down. She simply Was when a moment ago, as far as she could tell, she Had Not Been.
The last thing she remembered was getting coffee- and that handsome, strange man that had pulled a disappearing act.
By her estimation it was...
It's night. Late at night.
"What? Where-"
Sarah paused in voicing her groggy thoughts in favor of actually taking in her surroundings. She was standing in the middle of a familiar park.
"No. This isn't possible."
The woman rubbed at her eyes. Even if she had taken an immediate flight that she couldn't remember, this park was over a thousand miles away. She had not been there since before she graduated high school. And her park didn't have a creepy old house at the crest of the property.
She was prevented from further contemplation by a bone-chilling scream. A bird flew down low, pulling up just in time to prevent itself from crashing into her.
And then, she swore it winked at her as it flew off into the night, disappearing into the inky blackness faster than should have been possible for such a light colored creature.
"Miss Williams?"
Sarah snapped back to awareness, finding herself in the office of a cantankerous older gentleman graced with a bulbous nose and a perpetually grumpy brow. She had no idea how she made it to this meeting on time and had absolutely no memory the journey at all- nothing but a gaping blank spot where the bus ride should be. It was as if she magically went from that already fading dream to here.
"Sorry," she mumbled.
The lawyer simply nodded and repeated the pertinent information about the house she was inheriting.
She tried to be more attentive this time. He already thought she was enough of a flake.
"As I was saying, Miss Williams, the house has been left in your care. You know this, of course, but I've retrieved the remaining items from your aunt's safety deposit box. She left the contents to you."
The man placed a shoebox and several sets of keys and papers on the desk in front of her.
In truth her great aunt Agnes' passing had not been a surprise. The woman's particular brand of cancer had a low survival rate, and it had not exactly been caught early. The true surprise came with the reading of the old woman's will: unbeknownst to the rest of the family, the woman had owned a house and some property despite spending her later years in an apartment downtown. The second surprise had been that the property and all its contents were bequeathed to one Sarah Williams.
It had been weeks since the funeral, and Sarah grieved for the woman that she had grown much closer to since moving here to work on her master's coursework. But her aunt had lived a full life and did not suffer long at the end. Sarah fought back the self-recriminations that she could have spent more time with Agnes before her rapid deterioration.
That's the problem. There's just never enough time. And this house is sure to take up even more, the brunette mused as her brief meeting with the lawyer drew to a close.
Sarah gathered the box, keys, and paperwork from the desk, squashing the feeling that a new, heavy burden had just been laid upon her shoulders.
She had thought to sell the house at first, site unseen. According to her papers, the property most certainly came with more land than she could ever possibly care for. Besides, she had an apartment in the city, close to school, and Sarah had absolutely zero plans on permanently settling down here, of all places. The city was great with regard to her post-graduate program, but it lacked a fundamental, unidentifiable quality Sarah was looking for in a place to call home.
Naturally, just when the young woman thought she had made up her mind to sell the place, her curiosity went and got the best of her. The house might have some of Agnes' keepsakes, and Sarah could not stand the thought of forever wondering if she had let some old family mementos get thrown by the wayside.
It really only made sense to at least look at the place. This way, she would not be contacting a real estate agent in a blind panic to get the property off her hands.
Her plans on selling crumbled to dust the moment she caught sight of the house from the back seat of the hired cab. The place was a tad gothic, with its brooding color, ornate upper balcony, and gabled roof. The place even had funny little gargoyles standing watch along the dormers for cripes sake. The only thing that detracted and set the house firmly in the present was the newish car parked under the wooden carport, an obvious later addition to the much older home.
Sarah was instantly charmed.
Even so, a niggling thought in the back of her mind had the woman convinced that she had seen the house before, though she could not immediately place its seeming familiarity.
Maybe Agnes showed me a picture or something.
Her conveyance stopped short of the enclosing wrought iron fence, and Sarah dismissed the driver without second thought.
Once she got the tricky gate open, with a real skeleton key no less, Sarah took her time in admiring the place from outside.
The car was a welcome, but not wholly unexpected discovery; she had found a set of car keys while sorting through and figuring out possible uses for the the other keys in her charge. The vehicle would probably need serviced before she could actually use it, but she had decided beforehand on keeping the car regardless of her ultimate assessment of the property.
No more ridiculously long bus commutes for this girl.
The interior of the house was as opulent as the exterior, and someone had even paid the power and phone bills.
It was probably Mr. Hogg.
The lawyer had taken a proactive interest in helping her figure out everything that went along with her inheritance. She really should thank him again. Now, she did not have to worry about iffy cell reception when she called the taxi service later.
The place seemed lived in, though the encroaching dust suggested that it had been some months since it had truly been inhabited. Sarah felt a pang in her chest as she realized that this was where her aunt disappeared to for half of every week, right up until the end when she was no longer able to walk.
Snapping herself out of the depressing train of thought, the young woman continued her perusal. It would probably take her months to catalog the furniture and decide what to keep. As she made her way through the old-fashioned entertaining room, replete with a harpsichord probably worth a small fortune, Sarah heard the cringe-inducing pitter-patter of scurrying footsteps on the second floor.
Great, I'll have to get an exterminator before anything else.
She finished with her tour of the ground floor and was faced with the choice of going up or going down. Wanting to put off the inevitable discovery of what promised to be a thriving rodent colony by the sound of it, Sarah found herself at the top of a staircase that led down into the dark unknown.
She blanched, reminded of every B-rated horror film she had ever made fun of, in which the ditzy heroine goes to investigate somewhere dark and scary even though it rails against all common sense.
And now, somehow, Sarah had turned into the ditzy heroine.
Isn't that just an awesome slice of karma? No more making fun of stupid horror flicks, after this.
Exploring abandoned houses alone ranked right up there with the ever popular, 'let's split up, gang!' These were things one just did not do if they wanted to remain A. alive and, or B. sane.
She wasn't even being melodramatic. Halfway down, Sarah felt a prickling of awareness at her nape.
There was no way anyone else could possibly be in the house with her, but the feeling of being observed grew with every tension-filled step of her descent.
The basement was creepy even after she flicked on the lights. Thankfully, the paranoid feeling of being watched abated with the man-made brightness, and Sarah felt a bit silly.
She was an adult and did not need anyone to hold her hand for something as simple as a quick run through of the house. Maybe she would convince Dad to come down for a visit soon to help her out and eliminate some of the creep factor, but surely, Sarah could manage a cursory inspection without freaking out.
"Unfinished" seemed to be a generous term with respect to what obviously served as the laundry room cum storage area of the house. The concrete floor ended about fifteen feet from the bottom of the stairs, and beyond that was hard-packed earth. Past the washer and dryer, furniture, shelves, and strategically placed walls created a veritable maze that encompassed the entirety of the rest of the basement.
Forget weeks, it will take me months to sort through all the junk down here!
Most disturbing, however, was that Sarah could not discern the far walls, even though naked light bulbs sizzled brightly at regular intervals.
It was likely a trick of the construction, as the haphazardly placed walls were meant to support key areas of the above structure and separate what would have been a cavernous space into discrete sections. But the basement seemed to stretch beyond what should have marked the foundation of the house.
On a stack of books several paces past the end of the concrete, something red caught her eye. If this portion of the underground space had not been so well lit, Sarah never would have considered venturing farther.
She lingered on the edge for a moment, clinging to the absurd notion that as long as she remained on the poured flooring, she was safe. Pushing the inane thought aside, Sarah pressed forward, determined to inspect the potential treasure trove. Two steps later, she began to hear the same skittering she had heard upstairs.
The place is totally infested. It will probably have to be fumigated.
A high-pitched giggle tittered close by on her left, and the young woman froze, a beat away from running for her life.
The crash of falling books and furniture accompanied the second giggle.
Not a rat. Sooo not a rat.
She turned, finding herself face to face with an unkempt, hideously wide-eyed creature, bearing a smile she was sure to remember in her fondest nightmares.
The Thing giggled one final time.
Sarah screamed.
A/N: I know that I shouldn't be starting anything new with both of my other major WIPs that I should be working on, but to be fair, this isn't really new-new, and my writing muse made me do it.
Edit: Just to allay some fears, no, it does not end here, yes, there is more on the way. My draft grew a bit longer than I initially anticipated, and there was simply no way that I could adequately revise the entirety of the rough draft before the challenge deadline. So, I decided to break the story up into shorter, more manageable-for-editing chunks rather than posting it as a long one-shot. This way, you might actually get some suspense out of it, too. Thanks, for reading!