Swept Under the Rug

I trudge through the forest, struggling to walk on the uphill terrain. It’s cool with the night air and not a flicker of light illuminates my path.

You’d think the ground, being soft with pine needles, would be easy to walk on, but between the cold and the uphill battle I keep slipping. I’ve walked for so long by now, that my thighs are burning and my feet ache with each step.

Sadly, these aren’t the biggest of my worries.

I keep hearing some sort of animal following me, clearly quite quick and agile, because they are keeping up to my pace with ease. Yet they are very quiet. So quiet that the only time I can hear them is when I stop to take a break, which is what I’m doing now. I stand still, listening to the soft panting somewhere in the darkness not far off. The very thought of what it might be chills me to the very bone, especially because it hasn’t tried to attack me. Well yet I suppose. I stand there a long time before I pick up the courage to keep moving, trying to just get out of the area, away from… whatever that is.

I can feel my nose running and I have to wipe it off onto my sleeve, glancing backwards as I do. I don’t see anything behind me, so that has to be a good sign. I turn my head back forward and find myself running right into a large wall.

Cursing as I rub my nose I look up to what I just ran into. At closer inspection it doesn’t look just like a wall, but a whole damn house. I can’t help my utter shock and astonishment to find such a thing on my land.

I guess I should explain to you how exactly all this happened. Apparently my grandfather owned a great bit of land that he hadn’t told any of the family about and when he died recently all of the land went to me. I, of course, was super excited to find this out and instantly drove out here to see it. Well turns out it’s pretty much just a forest. So being the stupid man I am, I thought I’d camp out here for a night, you know, just for fun. Well I got lost, (shocker) and somehow I’ve found a house here.

As I walk around the house to the entrance I can tell it’s definitely lived in, not because it’s worn out, but because it’s extremely well kept, the grass isn’t overgrown here, but very evenly cut.

As I walk inside I get the nagging feeling that I should take off my shoes. I feel as if I’m intruding onto somebody’s property uninvited and leaving a mess at the same time. So you might think it weird when I tell you I took my shoes off soon after and left them at the door.

I walk around the house, to be completely honest I’m amazed. This place is stunning. Not a very big house, but it looks fancy. I’m talking marble counters with gold lining. Yah, that nice.

For a long time I just walk around, staring at everything in absolute awe.

It makes no sense. Like I said before, my grandfather owned this property, but he hadn’t told anyone that he owned it. Meaning there’s no way someone could have lived here. So how then, does this house look so pristine and new? Like it was cleaned but an hour ago?

Though, I see nobody in the house, and I check every room. Every. Single. One. This house must have been built illegally, my grandfather would have hated someone living here. But it amazes me that all of this could have been built without legal documents, it’s definitely lavish-looking and expensive.

As I walk into the bathroom upstairs for the second time I notice something, the only dirty item in the house. A rug. Well I actually can’t tell if it’s super dirty, but I can tell that it’s not super clean either.

For now I put this off and walk back downstairs, finding there is in fact no basement, it’s only the two floors I’ve already explored.

I open the fridge in the kitchen, finding it almost completely empty except for a safe. Weird.

I sigh, completely annoyed. Though luckily there is running water, which I’m completely shocked by, but also very glad. Who would have thought there would be working pipes to this building?

After I have my fair share of water glasses to quench my thirst, I walk back up the stairs, throwing off my dirty shirt and pants into the bathtub and filling it with water. I scrub the fabric clean drowsily before I slump over to the bedroom upstairs and lay down. It’s nice and warm under the covers and I fall asleep quite quickly. Clearly my body wants to get away from this hell just as much as my mind does.

My dreams are filled with the smell of something metallic, it feels like when I had braces and I was eating something with a fork. It’s the weirdest thing ever. The dream has no visuals, no colors, no lights. Just that odd taste.

***

I wake up in the early hours of the day, right as the sunlight glares upon my eyelids. It makes me shut my eyes at the moment they open and groan, quickly covering my face with my arm to block the light. I lay there a couple more minutes before getting up and draining the bath water and hanging my clothes to dry. I walk back to the bathtub, cleaning out the light ring of gunk my clothes left when I glance back to the rug, thinking a moment before I fill the bath with water again. I throw the rug into the water and reach out to clean it before my stomach growls loudly. I sigh and my eyes narrow at the rug, I’ll clean it later.

Now I leave the room and head back downstairs, I put my shoes back on and head out the door quickly. I stumble through the thick bush and brier. It’s the morning and the sun is up, but the trees are so thick it only lets in a little bit of light. Majestic really.

I stand in surprise a moment, looking at the green tinted light streaming through the trees and the occasional yellow ray of light highlighting a small patch of grass.

I stand completely frozen in awe. It’s absolutely gorgeous. Living out here would be heaven for me. Though, food would be a problem.

I’m not going to lie to you. I watched this for an embarrassing amount of time before I saw something red shimmering in one of the light rays and walked over. I quickly noticed it as a cherry bush! Finally some food! I crouch down, examining it for a little while before I come to the conclusion that I’m really too hungry to think, so I pick a handful and eat them quickly, then I pick a lot more, turning my shirt into a make-shift basket to carry them in.

After hours of picking and searching the bushes for enough berries to bring back, I start my journey back to the house. When I get there it’s very much mid-day, hot as the sun beams down upon me.

My head throbs and my feet sting. I walk inside and take off my shoes just like before, happy that I got back inside without running into that wild animal from last night.

I sit down at the table and for the next couple hours I put good cherries into a bowl and put their stems and bad cherries into another.

It’s a very tedious and monotonous task, but I really have nothing else to do, so it’s nice. After a while I get bored of it and stand up, walking into the living room to see one of those really old record players. Like those vintage ones. Yah I saw it yesterday, but I hadn’t really paid attention to it.

I notice the records under it and decide to play one.

Before I touch it I obviously clean my red fingers from my berry sorting. Then I pull out a cool sounding record and place it gently onto the player. As I push the tonearm over the record I hear the music begin to play.

It’s definitely old. Very old. If you’ve ever heard one of those unsettling old aesthetic songs, this is it, but I’m sure this one isn’t meant to be like that, it just is.

I sigh and walk back to the kitchen, listening to the eery music as I continue the jaded action of sorting cherries. I kind of like the creepy music. I mean I always liked horror movies and a bit of adrenaline is what I like, so I just roll with it as I sort.

Finally I finish the task and grab the bad cherry bowl, carrying it outside with me. I leave my shoes off to feel the soft dirt on my feet while I empty the bowl. I sit there a long while, watching the blue sky turn to pink before I decide that’s enough. I walk back inside and brush my dirty feet off at the door.

Next I clean off my hands, stained pink now from the cherries, as well as cleaning out the bowl. I leave the bowl of fresh cherries on the table and grab a handful to snack on at the couch.

I restart the song and listen to it as I eat. The cherries have really small pits, but I spit them out anyway into the bowl I just cleaned out. I guess I should have left it dirty, but there’s really no harm in a little cleanliness.

After I finish my snack, I leave the bowl of cherry pits on the table and switch out the record. This one is creepy… more creepy than the first, and so are the lyrics.

I hold my breath to listen, the crackly tune from bad quality, from old quality, ringing in my ears like a paper violin. I have to look behind me to make sure there is nobody stalking where my eyes don’t reach, my heart pounding. It gives me an odd sense of dread. I quickly leave the room, heading upstairs, always checking behind me as I ascend the dark staircase.

I can still hear the music playing, but as soon as I walk into the room on the left I completely forget about it. There is a huge window in this room and it looks directly onto the setting sun. Gorgeous, really. It’s beautiful and I find myself staring before I suddenly remember the rug that I had left in the bath. I quickly left, wanting to see how much dirt was really in this house. As if I wanted to find some sort of mistake, or blemish of some kind. But as I walk in I see the bathtub, my mouth drops open and my blood runs cold, the chilling music adding to my horror as I see the once clear water, now a dank crimson.