Silver Creek [Original, 1/1]
Title: Silver Creek
Fandom: Original
Characters: None (Second Person POV)
Rating: PG
Warnings: General creepiness. XD; It's a Halloween piece.
Summary: Shhh. Quiet.
Comments: So yeah, I wrote this for a contest on a pet site. *coughs* I know, I know. XD It's a 'spooky' piece, and I think I did all right? Still, I keep screwing around with style stuff. I also gave quotation marks to two people just because XD Somehow it worked out fine. 2000 words exactly. Also? This is totally in time for Halloween okay. :|!
Silence in the court, the monkey wants to talk.
There is no sound. There is no wail of wind at the shutters, no muffled footsteps on the floor, no whispers of soft breaths of air expelling into the cold. There is no quicksilver laughter or even a drum, a thump, a steady rhythm of a heartbeat. There is one law when you step into Silver Creek: Don't make a sound.
~
Silver Creek, the people laugh, a little too loud, a little too quick. That small house by the lake? Don't go there, they say, bright, false smiles slapped onto their faces. It's far out. There's no people there. Fishing? You wanna go fishing? The better spots are here and here and here. The view ain't prettier there than over here, and if you wanna look at the moon? There's this hill about three miles from here, curved around the opposite side of the lake from Silver Creek. There's nothing at Silver Creek that you want, they insist, so adamant that you take a step back. There's nothing there you want, they say again.
Nothing there! A little girl pipes up dutifully, if dully, as if saying so was so well trodden that it has lost all meaning. She gives you a gaped-tooth smile, mouth working around some bits of candy.
"The thing is," you say, "I have this invitation, see?" It's a pretty bit of a message, cursive print on paper vellum. From your aunt, your mom had said dismissively. Might as well go, she told you. I hear the view's nice over there. You need to take a vacation anyway, she had fussed. Though, you remember her saying as she paused and leaned against the sink, I thought your aunt lived further west. Guess she moved.
One man turns ashen. Another man turns red. A woman flutters around like a magpie, you see her out of the corner of your eye as she jerks to a stop at your words, then starts moving again, slower and unsure.
Can I go with h-- the little girl is cut off by her mother, who whispers loud in the sudden silence, no! No, no, no!
Maybe you got the address wrong, someone says.
Quiet, snaps someone else, expression set and cold. It's like the room has been freezing ever since you mentioned Silver Creek. Like the bones in your body are getting colder and heavier, and the people! The people aren't helping at all. They all fall silent again at those words, and you rub at your wrist, unease creeping up your spine.
"Well," you say, "I drove about thirteen hours to get here." You scratch the back of your head, put on the best rueful grin you can--it always gets you an answering smile. Never failed. "I can't just go back now." You get one weak smile, and a bright, beaming one from the little girl.
One of the people suddenly leaves. Another abruptly stands up and says something about going home to his wife. Yet another tips her hat and vanishes. They're all dropping like flies and you sit as still as stone as the rest of them slide their gazes sideways, drink a little faster, rattle off excuses and insincere smiles.
It's such a strange little town. Practically in the middle of nowhere and small enough that you can tell that everyone knows everyone else. The people edge away from you and suddenly you find yourself with a clear circle of space around you where once about five people stood. Strange, strange town. You hope that your aunt will shed some light though. All you can remember about her was that time you were five and you fell off your bike, and she was there with a comforting hand on your head as you cried into her stomach. Not the best of memories, but not the worst either.
"Don't make a sound," someone says to your right, and you blink as you turn to look at the man. Middle aged, wrinkles creasing his forehead, his hair is salt and pepper black.
"Pardon?" you ask.
"You shouldn't go, but you will."
You grin. Weren't words of prophecy supposed to come from little old women who crowd you and whisper things of portents and curses into your face? The man in front of you looks like any other guy on the street, maybe a bit more solemn, a little bit more sure of himself. What a town, you think. What a town.
"I need to visit my aunt," you say by way of explanation. "Can't leave without seeing her. My mom would kill me. No matter how old you are," you laugh a bit, not unaware of the quick looks that dart at you, "your mother can always make you feel like you're ten again."
The man doesn't even crack a grin. "Don't make any noise when you're there. Don't breath loudly. Take your shoes off. The floors won't creak, but the sound of your shoes on the floor will echo. Get in, get out. You'll find that your aunt isn't there."
"I spoke to my aunt on the phone just last week," you say dryly. "She's there."
The man shakes his head. "Get in, get out," he repeats, "And no noise. Be careful." Then he just nods his head and leaves.
~
You think it's superstition and nonsense. Every town has its haunted house, and Silver Creek is probably pegged as this one's. Your poor aunt, you think suddenly, and you hope that she isn't being shunned or anything stupid like that. She doesn't deserve that. You remember warm smiles and soft hands, a quietly strong face. She doesn't deserve that at all.
Night is rapidly approaching as you drive, faint pinpricks of light slowly unmasking themselves, the moon floating fat and heavy under them. You whistle tunelessly to yourself, carefully navigating the roads--they need to be repaved, large cracks and holes in the asphalt. You wince every time you drive over a particularly large pothole and hope your old rattler of a car won't lose anything it really needs.
It's a relief when Silver Creek appears, an old styled Victorian house two stories high. It looks to be in decent shape, you had been afraid that it was going to fall around your ears, or that your aunt would conscript you to pick up a hammer and some nails, or maybe some paint, and help spruce up the place a bit. Heck, that's what your uncle did the last time you hopped around for a visit.
You don't see her car when you pull up, but she told you over the phone that you can find the key under the doormat if she wasn't in. Though, you wonder, shouldn't you have run across her while you were in town? Probably just missed each other.
The air is crisp and you tug up your jacket collar a bit. Then you notice something else. You can't hear a thing. Not a single cricket chirping, not the sound of wind rustling through the brightly colored, autumn leaves (that look dull now, no help from the faded light), not even the lake lapping at the shore. There are no low bird songs warbling into the night, there's nothing. Silence.
The feeling is back, the tingling at your spine, a low ball of unease deep in the pit of your stomach. It's nothing, you tell yourself. You're imagining things, you say again. And that you're not even saying this out loud, you reason, is because only crazy people talk to themselves. You gulp soundlessly, fingers clenching tightly.
Don't make a sound.
You can hear the man's voice running through your head. You try to laugh at yourself, but there's nothing. You can't do it. Coward! You inwardly snarl, even as you take off your shoes and carefully leave them on the ground. You tell yourself that it's all in your head. You tell yourself that your aunt is going to laugh herself sick when she hears about this. You tell yourself that going back is not an option, not after you told everyone that you were going, come hell or high water.
You shouldn't go, but you will.
You walk to the door, carefully, slowly, like you are gliding over ice. Soundless.
Don't make any noise when you're there. Don't breath loudly. Take your shoes off. The floors won't creak, but the sound of your shoes on the floor will echo.
The stairs leading up to the door don't creak. They're sturdier than they look, you think, it's an old house, but it's in great condition. You realize you're taking shallow breaths, slow and steady and quiet. The key is peeking out at the edge of the mat, and you take a moment to shake your head over your aunt's shortsightedness. You had told her that leaving her key under the mat wasn't a safe place to put it. Even in the countryside, you said, you shouldn't make your key so easy to find. Her laughter still echoes in your ears.
The key slips in as smooth as silk, and there is no click of the lock as you turn the knob, no creaking of hinges as you open the door. Your breathing stops and your hand hangs there as you freeze.
Get in, get out. You'll find that your aunt isn't there.
But you know that already, you argue with the man in your head even as you stand petrified at the door looking into the house. Maybe you should wait for your aunt in your car, but she's expecting you to go in, to make yourself at home if she's not there. It's bad enough that you left your shoes by the car, that you left your car door open because you were afraid to break the silence.
Coward, you call yourself. You ignore the small part that whispers for you to run.
You take a breath. Then another. Then you walk in, stepping so carefully that the dust hardly swirls. Dust? Your aunt needs to do a bit more cleaning around her. There is a fine layer of dust over a table, covering the picture frames. You look in one and don't recognize the people, but maybe they're part of your aunt's family. She had been divorced once, you remember. Maybe the two children, each with bright cheeky grins, one clamping a hand over the other's mouth (not all of it though, the edge of a smile peeks out), maybe they were part of her husband's family. You vaguely recall that he had some kids before he married your aunt.
You look away and keep moving.
Get in, get out. And no noise.
You pass a mirror and flinch. You look so serious, so solem--something flutters in the corner of the mirror and you jerk back, nearly slam into another table. You become aware of the fact that you're still trying to control your breathing, that your yelp of surprise was viciously strangled before it could air itself. Shallow breaths. Slow. Steady.
It's nothing, you think to yourself. An overactive imagination. It's nothing, you keep repeating. Still, you turn around and start towards the door, steps even slower than before. Quiet.
Be careful.
You pass by the picture again, give it barely a glance, but... Suddenly you realize that it changed. The children are now holding each other's mouths, fingers digging into skin, and yet by the curve of their eyes it looks like they're still laughing. They're happy and their fingernails are drawing red lines in each other's skin. You spasm, launch yourself backwards, and slam into the wall. The sound shudders right down into the foundation of the house, and the walls seem to vibrate underneath you, resonating the sound of the moment of impact louder and louder, and louder.
You scream.
The door swings silently shut.
~
Silence in the court, the monkey broke the law.
Fandom: Original
Characters: None (Second Person POV)
Rating: PG
Warnings: General creepiness. XD; It's a Halloween piece.
Summary: Shhh. Quiet.
Comments: So yeah, I wrote this for a contest on a pet site. *coughs* I know, I know. XD It's a 'spooky' piece, and I think I did all right? Still, I keep screwing around with style stuff. I also gave quotation marks to two people just because XD Somehow it worked out fine. 2000 words exactly. Also? This is totally in time for Halloween okay. :|!
Silence in the court, the monkey wants to talk.
There is no sound. There is no wail of wind at the shutters, no muffled footsteps on the floor, no whispers of soft breaths of air expelling into the cold. There is no quicksilver laughter or even a drum, a thump, a steady rhythm of a heartbeat. There is one law when you step into Silver Creek: Don't make a sound.
~
Silver Creek, the people laugh, a little too loud, a little too quick. That small house by the lake? Don't go there, they say, bright, false smiles slapped onto their faces. It's far out. There's no people there. Fishing? You wanna go fishing? The better spots are here and here and here. The view ain't prettier there than over here, and if you wanna look at the moon? There's this hill about three miles from here, curved around the opposite side of the lake from Silver Creek. There's nothing at Silver Creek that you want, they insist, so adamant that you take a step back. There's nothing there you want, they say again.
Nothing there! A little girl pipes up dutifully, if dully, as if saying so was so well trodden that it has lost all meaning. She gives you a gaped-tooth smile, mouth working around some bits of candy.
"The thing is," you say, "I have this invitation, see?" It's a pretty bit of a message, cursive print on paper vellum. From your aunt, your mom had said dismissively. Might as well go, she told you. I hear the view's nice over there. You need to take a vacation anyway, she had fussed. Though, you remember her saying as she paused and leaned against the sink, I thought your aunt lived further west. Guess she moved.
One man turns ashen. Another man turns red. A woman flutters around like a magpie, you see her out of the corner of your eye as she jerks to a stop at your words, then starts moving again, slower and unsure.
Can I go with h-- the little girl is cut off by her mother, who whispers loud in the sudden silence, no! No, no, no!
Maybe you got the address wrong, someone says.
Quiet, snaps someone else, expression set and cold. It's like the room has been freezing ever since you mentioned Silver Creek. Like the bones in your body are getting colder and heavier, and the people! The people aren't helping at all. They all fall silent again at those words, and you rub at your wrist, unease creeping up your spine.
"Well," you say, "I drove about thirteen hours to get here." You scratch the back of your head, put on the best rueful grin you can--it always gets you an answering smile. Never failed. "I can't just go back now." You get one weak smile, and a bright, beaming one from the little girl.
One of the people suddenly leaves. Another abruptly stands up and says something about going home to his wife. Yet another tips her hat and vanishes. They're all dropping like flies and you sit as still as stone as the rest of them slide their gazes sideways, drink a little faster, rattle off excuses and insincere smiles.
It's such a strange little town. Practically in the middle of nowhere and small enough that you can tell that everyone knows everyone else. The people edge away from you and suddenly you find yourself with a clear circle of space around you where once about five people stood. Strange, strange town. You hope that your aunt will shed some light though. All you can remember about her was that time you were five and you fell off your bike, and she was there with a comforting hand on your head as you cried into her stomach. Not the best of memories, but not the worst either.
"Don't make a sound," someone says to your right, and you blink as you turn to look at the man. Middle aged, wrinkles creasing his forehead, his hair is salt and pepper black.
"Pardon?" you ask.
"You shouldn't go, but you will."
You grin. Weren't words of prophecy supposed to come from little old women who crowd you and whisper things of portents and curses into your face? The man in front of you looks like any other guy on the street, maybe a bit more solemn, a little bit more sure of himself. What a town, you think. What a town.
"I need to visit my aunt," you say by way of explanation. "Can't leave without seeing her. My mom would kill me. No matter how old you are," you laugh a bit, not unaware of the quick looks that dart at you, "your mother can always make you feel like you're ten again."
The man doesn't even crack a grin. "Don't make any noise when you're there. Don't breath loudly. Take your shoes off. The floors won't creak, but the sound of your shoes on the floor will echo. Get in, get out. You'll find that your aunt isn't there."
"I spoke to my aunt on the phone just last week," you say dryly. "She's there."
The man shakes his head. "Get in, get out," he repeats, "And no noise. Be careful." Then he just nods his head and leaves.
~
You think it's superstition and nonsense. Every town has its haunted house, and Silver Creek is probably pegged as this one's. Your poor aunt, you think suddenly, and you hope that she isn't being shunned or anything stupid like that. She doesn't deserve that. You remember warm smiles and soft hands, a quietly strong face. She doesn't deserve that at all.
Night is rapidly approaching as you drive, faint pinpricks of light slowly unmasking themselves, the moon floating fat and heavy under them. You whistle tunelessly to yourself, carefully navigating the roads--they need to be repaved, large cracks and holes in the asphalt. You wince every time you drive over a particularly large pothole and hope your old rattler of a car won't lose anything it really needs.
It's a relief when Silver Creek appears, an old styled Victorian house two stories high. It looks to be in decent shape, you had been afraid that it was going to fall around your ears, or that your aunt would conscript you to pick up a hammer and some nails, or maybe some paint, and help spruce up the place a bit. Heck, that's what your uncle did the last time you hopped around for a visit.
You don't see her car when you pull up, but she told you over the phone that you can find the key under the doormat if she wasn't in. Though, you wonder, shouldn't you have run across her while you were in town? Probably just missed each other.
The air is crisp and you tug up your jacket collar a bit. Then you notice something else. You can't hear a thing. Not a single cricket chirping, not the sound of wind rustling through the brightly colored, autumn leaves (that look dull now, no help from the faded light), not even the lake lapping at the shore. There are no low bird songs warbling into the night, there's nothing. Silence.
The feeling is back, the tingling at your spine, a low ball of unease deep in the pit of your stomach. It's nothing, you tell yourself. You're imagining things, you say again. And that you're not even saying this out loud, you reason, is because only crazy people talk to themselves. You gulp soundlessly, fingers clenching tightly.
Don't make a sound.
You can hear the man's voice running through your head. You try to laugh at yourself, but there's nothing. You can't do it. Coward! You inwardly snarl, even as you take off your shoes and carefully leave them on the ground. You tell yourself that it's all in your head. You tell yourself that your aunt is going to laugh herself sick when she hears about this. You tell yourself that going back is not an option, not after you told everyone that you were going, come hell or high water.
You shouldn't go, but you will.
You walk to the door, carefully, slowly, like you are gliding over ice. Soundless.
Don't make any noise when you're there. Don't breath loudly. Take your shoes off. The floors won't creak, but the sound of your shoes on the floor will echo.
The stairs leading up to the door don't creak. They're sturdier than they look, you think, it's an old house, but it's in great condition. You realize you're taking shallow breaths, slow and steady and quiet. The key is peeking out at the edge of the mat, and you take a moment to shake your head over your aunt's shortsightedness. You had told her that leaving her key under the mat wasn't a safe place to put it. Even in the countryside, you said, you shouldn't make your key so easy to find. Her laughter still echoes in your ears.
The key slips in as smooth as silk, and there is no click of the lock as you turn the knob, no creaking of hinges as you open the door. Your breathing stops and your hand hangs there as you freeze.
Get in, get out. You'll find that your aunt isn't there.
But you know that already, you argue with the man in your head even as you stand petrified at the door looking into the house. Maybe you should wait for your aunt in your car, but she's expecting you to go in, to make yourself at home if she's not there. It's bad enough that you left your shoes by the car, that you left your car door open because you were afraid to break the silence.
Coward, you call yourself. You ignore the small part that whispers for you to run.
You take a breath. Then another. Then you walk in, stepping so carefully that the dust hardly swirls. Dust? Your aunt needs to do a bit more cleaning around her. There is a fine layer of dust over a table, covering the picture frames. You look in one and don't recognize the people, but maybe they're part of your aunt's family. She had been divorced once, you remember. Maybe the two children, each with bright cheeky grins, one clamping a hand over the other's mouth (not all of it though, the edge of a smile peeks out), maybe they were part of her husband's family. You vaguely recall that he had some kids before he married your aunt.
You look away and keep moving.
Get in, get out. And no noise.
You pass a mirror and flinch. You look so serious, so solem--something flutters in the corner of the mirror and you jerk back, nearly slam into another table. You become aware of the fact that you're still trying to control your breathing, that your yelp of surprise was viciously strangled before it could air itself. Shallow breaths. Slow. Steady.
It's nothing, you think to yourself. An overactive imagination. It's nothing, you keep repeating. Still, you turn around and start towards the door, steps even slower than before. Quiet.
Be careful.
You pass by the picture again, give it barely a glance, but... Suddenly you realize that it changed. The children are now holding each other's mouths, fingers digging into skin, and yet by the curve of their eyes it looks like they're still laughing. They're happy and their fingernails are drawing red lines in each other's skin. You spasm, launch yourself backwards, and slam into the wall. The sound shudders right down into the foundation of the house, and the walls seem to vibrate underneath you, resonating the sound of the moment of impact louder and louder, and louder.
You scream.
The door swings silently shut.
~
Silence in the court, the monkey broke the law.