Author's Note

I know this seems like I'm just publishing and not finishing, but I'm burned out on trying to write war stuff. So I'm gonna try my hand at some horror and see how y'all like it.

Her New Home

November 3rd

"Here we are," her father called out as the van halted, Twilight looked out the window at the sight before her. It was a nice single-story ranch house, it had a strange purple exterior, covered in green moss, and it looked as if it had been abandoned for some time. The small porch was concrete, wettened by what she assumed was the previous day's rain, and running over to the single-car garage, surrounding the house was a thick wood line on the southern and eastern sides, a large overgrown field surrounded by barbwire on the west with a near ancient wooden barn at the far end.

Twilight slid the van's door open and placed her nearly brand new purple converse sneakers into a cold mud puddle. The violet-haired girl winced as the cold water met her feet, so far, she didn't like it here. It was very much different from her old place, a nice house in suburbia where what couple of friends she had could meet to hang out. Now, she had no friends and no way to easily get to them, she couldn't drive as she had yet to even pass her test, the accident she had last time really set her back.

And, she doubted anyone would wanna come this far out to hang out with a girl they barely knew. She stepped out of the puddle only to be splashed by the cold water when her dog spike hopped out.

"Dang it Spike!" she quietly said in her bookish voice, wiping the water off of her glasses with the dry part of her long sleeve shirt. The now damp green dog looked up at her with a playful yip, she smiled and picked up the small damp dog, hugging him tightly.

"Grab what ya can," said her dad, a thin bearded man who held two cardboard boxes in his hands.

"I already got my hands full," she responded, a gleaming smile on her face. He smiled and rolled his eyes before continuing up the porch steps, and into the now opened door. She followed suit, making her way inside, once inside she was blown away by the house's interior. It was nice, far nicer than the home's exterior would let on, its floors were a mix of shag carpeting and deep brown hardwood, looking freshly polished, and the walls were a simple wood paneling, harkening back to the seventies.

It was small with a couch against the front window and an empty bookshelf against the west wall and next to the narrow hallway, all lined with simple wood paneling. Ahead of them were two doorways, one to a small dining room and another to the larger kitchen. Her father sat his cargo on the shag floor.

"Why don't ya check out your room?" he said to Twilight. Twilight turned down a short hallway and into a room across from the small bathroom. It was small in size with a window on the northern wall above her futon. The room was already decorated with the stuff from her old house, her parents had taken the liberty of pre-decorating her room with her posters and other things, before her arrival.

Spike hopped out of her arms and ran up onto the futon and curled up atop the maroon blankets. Twilight let out a light chuckle and left him there so she could help her parents in unloading the last bit of luggage. Scooting past her mom in the doorway she stepped out onto the porch and was met with a rumble coming from down the road that drew ever closer. From around the curve where her house was nestled appeared a black ninety-something GMC step side on a short lift kit.

Behind it was a short bumper pull trailer hauling a red four-wheeler, the truck pulled just past their mailbox at the end of the driveway and pulled off of the road, shutting down. The door swung open with a creak and out stepped a tall bearded man smoking a cigarette, his eyes protected from the sun by a pair of aviator shades and the visor of a gray GMC ballcap. He dropped the half-smoked cigarette into the water-filled ditch and approached the house, splashing his dirty work boots in the hole.

"Afternoon," his voice was deep and slow with a thick southern accent. A tobacco-stained smile formed on his face.

"Good afternoon," said Twilight somewhat timidly, the man towered over her, even at a distance.

"Hello there!" called her father from behind her, startling Twilight, he approached the man smiling. Twilight's father Night Light was a very outgoing man, he had to be since he was a Social Studies teacher. The man stood at least half a foot over her father and had to be twice as wide too. He reached out his lanky hand to meet the man, the man gripped Night's with his meaty large hand, causing Night to wince in discomfort.

"Nice to meet ya," The man began "Ah'm Aaron, Aaron Thatcher, I live back down the road a ways in that house with the two chimneys," he seemed pretty excited to tell Night this

"That's nice," said Night with extreme discomfort as the large man continued to shake his hand. Aaron released Night and he continued "So what brings ya by here?"

"Well," he slowly began "Ah's goin' t' check on some duck blinds with my buddies. And ah just so happened to be passin' by, so I thought ah'd welcome y'all to the neighborhood," he looked around at the thick woods and empty pasture around the house. "Whatever neighborhood there is here," chuckled Aaron, he glanced back at the old barn, and then across the road at another pasture where an equally dilapidated barn stood. "So y'all bought the old Webster place?"

"Yes sir," Night responded proudly.

"Hmm, I remember ole John Webster Senior," Aaron said, putting hooking his thumbs in his belt.

"That's the fella we talked to isn't it?" Night asked his wife Twilight Velvet who had come outside too.

"We did talk to a Mister Webster," she said

"It wouldn't uh been him, it was probably John Junior or Clay y'all was talkin' to,"

"Well then, what happened to Mister Webster Senior?" asked Twilight from behind the group. Aaron looked past her parents, it was easy with his height.

"Well..." Aaron began with a smile "Folks don't really know, the cops couldn't even figure it out... They say one night, he just up and disappeared or was killed or somethin'," Aaron paused for dramatic effect. "All they ever did find was a trail of blood leadin' out the front door, a bunch of bloody prints inside the shower and tub full of bloody water,"

"You mean?"

"He died, was it murder? Who the heck knows, he coulda just slipped in the tub and bashed his head open, but that doesn't explain the blood on the floor or nothin'. Besides, the man was about eighty at the time, his youngest son's like sixty somethin'," He paused and looked at the distraught faces before him "That's nothin' to dwell over though, that was back around ninety-seven I wanna say... I will tell ya this though," he turned and pointed to the barn across the road "Stay away from that place, you can go into Webster's barn, last I heard it was just an old tractor or somethin' in there. But, that barn across the road is dangerous,"

"W-why?" Twilight was unnerved, even for a bookworm and huge fan of logic and reason, she was still somehow unnerved.

"Cause that's where the methheads like t' shoot up," He let out a loud hearty laugh that evolved into a heavy smoker's cough. "Aw hell! most o' that's just stories from around here, but for real though. Ole Webster did go missin' and his kids went crazy over it. As a matter o' fact, John Junior was shootin' at folks comin' on the property for years,"

"Well," Night began in a rather unnerved manner, "It's been nice meeting you,"

"It was a mighty fine pleasure meetin' you too Mister..."

"Night Light,"

"Gotcha," Aaron started off toward his truck and Twilight's family started back to the house "Wait a minute!" Everyone stopped and looked at Aaron as he turned around with a pack of Newport Reds and a silver Zippo lighter in his hand "Why don't y'all come by my house t'morrow evenin'? I just bagged some good rabbits and Celestia's been wantin' t' cook em up for a couple days now," He snapped his fingers as if an epiphany just hit "She's the principal at the high school, maybe she can get your daughter set up with a tour o' the place,"

"Well that sounds nice," said Twilight Velvet as she watched Aaron put a cigarette in his mouth "What time's good for you?" Aaron pulled the unlit cigarette from his mouth.

"I ain't got work t'morrow, but I'm probably gonna be helpin' my brother with his truck most o' the day... So six-thirty in the evenin' ought to be good,"

"Sounds great,"

"Good, I'll see ya then," Aaron waved and put the cigarette back in his mouth, sparking it up as he went back to his truck, slamming the door shut and turning it on with an eight-cylinder straight pipe rumble as he drove off away from their home. Both of Twilight's parents went back inside, leaving the young Twilight outside, looking at the barn across the road.

Even though what Mister Thatcher had been saying was told off as some sort of a joke, it stuck with Twilight. Twilight couldn't wrap her head around why it made her feel so unnerved. She turned to look at the house and a chill ran up her spine like she was looking at a ghost, something about this house had changed. In a mere moment, the quaint little home in the woods had turned to something else. Like a monster hiding under the bed ready to pounce, she shakily walked back inside.