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Original Fiction: Tales of Glenford Falls - I Dare You

. I wouldn't even have believed anyone lived there had it not been for the light emanating from a downstairs window.

"Jenkins is in there." Daryl pointed to the lit window.

"Well," I said. "Aren't you going?"

Daryl turned to me. "Are you kidding? I'm not going up there."

"Why did you want to come here then?"

"I came here for you to go up there," he said.

I turned to the dark house. My courage from earlier was waning. "Me?"

"Yeah. You were the one asking about local legends and you didn't believe us about Jenkins. If you don't believe in it you should have no problem going up there."

He had a point there. The guys were just trying to scare me after all. Without a word to them I turned and walked up the dark walkway leading to the front door.

I know it sounds strange, but I could swear the temperature in the air dropped almost ten degrees as so as I passed the threshold onto Jasper Jenkins' property. Still, I pressed on; my footfalls issuing a hollow echo as I marched to the door. The boards under my feet creaked dangerously as I stepped up the porch. I stood before the doorbell and drew a deep breath, released it, and pressed the button. Inde the house an uncharacteristically merry chime ding-donged throughout the rooms.

Seconds that felt like hours passed before the doorknob slowly turned. I wanted to turn and run, but I stood my ground. The door swung open and an old, withered man stood before me. His body was thin and frail, his back hunched, his fingers twig thin and fragile, the few hairs on his liverspotted head were shock-white. I was washed over with pity more than fear.

"Trick-or-treat," I said, holding out my Wal-Mart bag for candy.

His already wrinkled brow wrinkled even more as he looked from me to the bag in my hands then back to me. "Trick-or-treat?" His voice was like grinding gravel. After a moment's hetation the old man's eyes lit up knowingly. "Trick-or-treat," he said again. "Of course, of course." He took a step back and held the door open with his right hand while waving me in with his left. "Come in, come in. I'll find a treat for you."

I glanced over my shoulder back at the guys. The ridiculous look of fear at this decrepit old man is what pushed me to step into the house. That should finally show them I hadn't fallen for the trick.

"I am not used to vitors," Jasper said. "Especially on Halloween."

"Yeah?" I said mply. The inde of the house wasn't any better than the outde. Through the door I'd stepped into the living room which was furnished with only a tatter rug, a broken armchair, and a stained couch that had to have dated back to the twenties. My nuses were instantly attacked by the decades of dust and mold floating in the air. How could anyone live like this? "Please," he indicated the chair, "t."

I sat.

The old man chuckled. "Like I said, I'm not much used to vitors. I'm afraid I don't have any candy ready. But you just t tight. I'll try to rummage up something from the kitchen."

I couldn't tell if the creaking sound was from the floor or the old man's joints as he shuffled through the kitchen door. I sat in lence, gazing about the house. The more I sat the more I saw that it could really be a nice place. It would just need a lot of work. That's when something caught my eye; something out of place. The crumbling fireplace mantel was lined with pictures. While that may not sound weird, it was weird that there was not a speck of dust on the frames.

I stood up and walked over to look at them, picking them up and leaning them toward the failing light from the lamp. The pictures were old and I could tell them man in them was a younger veron of Jasper Jenkins along with what I took to be a wife and kids. I wondered to myself what had become of them.

A tumbling/bumping noise from the kitchen drew my attention to the door behind me. "Mr. Jenkins?" I called out; afraid the old man had had a heart attack or something. When there was no answer I put the picture back on the mantel and approached the kitchen door. "Mr. Jenkins?" I call again. Still no answer.

I pushed the door open. It swung inward to the kitchen and caught something on the floor that scraped around the hardwood. I looked down and froze. The object was a butcher knife caked in a reddish-black liquid. I bent and picked it up to examine it more closely. As much as I tried to tell myself otherwise it sure looked like blood.

Mr. Jenkins wasn't in the small kitchen. I walked to the door along the wall to the right, butcher knife in hand for protection. With a shaky hand I pressed the door open.

My stomach threatened to explode as my knees turned to jelly. Never in my worst nightmares had I seen anything remotely close to the horror before me now. I would have welcomed the comforting darkness of unconsciousness or even the blissful ignorance of insanity, but I would have none of it.

The door opened to a small pantry lined with cans and jars of food. Jasper Jenkins was laying on the floor in a pool of blood. His chest had been torn open, most likely by the very knife I now held in my hands. His eyes and mouth were frozen open in a moment of shock and fear.

As bad as the ght of Jasper's body was, that wasn't what threatened to drive me over the brink of sanity. Daryl, Mike, and Larry peered up at me when I opened the door; their mouths smeared with blood and entrails. In their hands were pieces of the old man's flesh that had been ripped from his body.

"Hey, Danny." Daryl looked at me and smiled. There was skin and bits of hair stuck between his teeth. "Boo!" Maniacal laughter burst from the guys' bloody mouths.

"Wha-wha-" I could only stammer. I couldn't comprehend what was going on in front of me.

"Lighten up, Danny," Mike said.

"Yeah." Larry bit off a piece of the flesh he held. "We're just having a snack."

I backed away on numb legs.

Daryl stood up and started to approach me. "We have to thank you, Danny. Thank you for taking the wrap for this."

"What?"

"Your fingerprints are all over the place now. The pictures, the murder weapon," he pointed at the knife, "and there's even of bit of your shirt on the window we broke to get in here." He pulled a wad of cloth from inde his letterman's jacket that I recognized as a shirt of mine.

I stared at him dumbfounded.

"Sorry, man, but we couldn't risk being found out. We got close last year with Randy, but we used this guy as our cover." He looked back at Jasper's corpse. "Hey! Save me some."

"Sorry," Mike and Larry said in unison.

Daryl turned back to me. "Now then," he said. "I know you're probably thinking of running off and turning us in, but I would have to advise against that.

"We're good at what we do, Danny. The police would find absolutely nothing tying us to this so it's pointless even to try. We don't leave fingerprints and we know how to wash the evidence off of us."

"You should feel lucky actually," Larry looked at me. "If we hadn't liked you so much this would be you."

Feeling was starting to come back to my body. I had to get out of here. I had to get to the police. I couldn't let these guys get away with this. I turned and ran.

"Forget it Danny!" I heard behind me as I dashed from the house. "We tried to tell you Glenford Falls had its monsters."

The words echoed in my head as my feet pounded on the pavement. Even as I ran to the police I knew in my heart that what Daryl had said was true. They wouldn't be caught. I would be blamed.

My calm world had dissolved into a nightmare.

Kudos! Thought it was a decent read, reminded me of the "Scary Stories" series I read as a kid, with a bit more viscera/gore. Keep it up!