Episode 10
713 Words
Into the Dark
The night was cold and hollow. The kind of night when even the crickets went silent, when the trees stood frozen as if they, too, were waiting for something to happen.
Andrew shouldn’t have been out at all. His father thought he was asleep, tucked safe in bed. But he had been lying awake, staring at the ceiling, hearing Danny’s scream over and over until he couldn’t stand it anymore.
The note weighed in his pocket like a curse. Mrs. Olivia’s voice echoed in his head: Some houses are dangerous because they keep secrets.
If she was right, then the abandoned house wasn’t done with him. And neither was he done with it.
He slipped out through his window, his flashlight clutched tight, his breath fogging in the cool night air. Each step toward the house made his heart pound harder.
The building loomed against the sky, crooked and broken, its windows hollow eyes staring back at him. The police tape fluttered in the breeze, pale yellow strips that might as well have been paper-thin warnings. Keep out.
Andrew ducked under.
The inside was worse at night. The air was damp, heavy with mildew and rot. His flashlight beam cut through the dark, revealing peeling wallpaper, broken furniture, and shadows that seemed too eager to follow him.
Every creak of the floorboards made his chest tighten. The silence pressed against his ears, thick and suffocating.
He stopped in the foyer, staring at the staircase where Danny had fallen. His light swept over the jagged edges of the broken steps, the splintered wood that gaped like a mouth. His throat closed. For a second, he could hear it all again—the laughter, the scream, the sickening thud.
He forced himself forward.
Something glittered near the base of the staircase. He crouched, brushing dirt and dust aside. It was a necklace. Gold, tarnished from the damp air, with a small heart-shaped pendant. Danny’s. He remembered it clearly—the one she wore every day.
His hand shook as he picked it up. Why hadn’t the police found it? Why was it left here, buried in dust? Unless… unless someone had dropped it later.
A floorboard groaned above him.
Andrew froze, his heart slamming against his ribs. He turned off the flashlight instantly, the dark swallowing him whole.
Another creak. This time, slower. Measured.
Someone was in the house.
He held his breath, pressing himself into the shadows near the staircase. His ears strained, every muscle taut.
The sound of footsteps moved across the upper floor. Heavy, deliberate. Whoever it was, they weren’t trying to hide.
The beam of another flashlight cut across the ceiling. Andrew’s stomach lurched.
He wasn’t the only one who had come looking for secrets.
Minutes stretched like hours. The footsteps paced slowly, then stopped. The other flashlight beam disappeared. Silence swallowed the house again.
Andrew’s lungs burned. He couldn’t stay hidden forever.
When the silence held long enough, he inched backward, careful not to make the boards creak. He kept one hand on the wall, the other clutching Danny’s necklace. His heart hammered so hard he thought it might give him away.
Then—a whisper.
Not words. Just the faintest sound, like breath against wood. Right above him.
Andrew bolted.
He didn’t care about noise anymore. His shoes pounded against the warped floorboards as he ran for the door, his flashlight snapping back on. The beam cut wild arcs across the hallway—walls, broken furniture, the jagged smile of the front doorway.
He burst into the night air, gulping cold breaths like a drowning man. Behind him, the house loomed silent. No footsteps followed. No flashlight appeared in the windows.
But he knew he hadn’t imagined it. Someone else had been there. Someone else had been looking.
Andrew looked down at the necklace in his hand, the pendant gleaming faintly under the moonlight.
Danny’s voice seemed to echo in his head, sharp and defiant: Don’t stop. Don’t let them win.
He shoved the necklace into his pocket and started running home.
He didn’t know who had been in the house.
But he knew now, without a doubt, that Danny’s death wasn’t an accident.
And he wasn’t the only one trying to keep that secret buried.
- Writer
