The Occult

Carina looked up from the curb at the house that stood in front of her. A large and eery three-story, the creaky looking house was in dire need of a pressure wash. The walls were covered in dirt and crawling vines, the windows either caked in soot or concealed by a heavy drape of vines - long cracks ran up the house walls, exposing its beautiful chestnut wood that looked like it hadn’t seen the outside world in years. The wood showed how much the house had changed, adapted to its ugly and terrible environment, and became ugly itself. The sun was gone, making the house unlit and nebulous, looking like something you would find in a forsaken and uninhabited town. Carina couldn’t help but shudder, feeling as if her blood had turned to ice.

Her mother - a woman with a love for restoring decrepit, abandoned houses - would normally have an ancient, rustic looking house completely remodeled into an eye-pleasing home in a matter of months. But this house was different. For starters, it was bigger and had more coats of grime simply on its front door than any of the houses they had redone. And it made her feel uneasy, just looking at it made her skin crawl. It looked as if it had been sitting empty for ages, Carina imagined its interior filled with rotting floorboards, mold covered walls, broken ceilings and gaping holes in its roof, shattered glass strewn throughout, and the smell of what she could only describe as must. All older houses smelled of that, she had discovered, a smell of almost ancient dust particles combined with the foulness of sour milk with a touch of a lingering death. It was an unpleasant smell, to say the least, but even from this curb - which was almost a kilometer away from the house itself - Carina could make out the slightest whiff of it. She couldn’t bear to imagine how strong it would smell inside of the house itself, her nose curled with just the thought of it. She was beginning to like this house less and less.

Carina walked back over to her car that she had driven from her old town to this one. She had managed to fit the entire continents of their kitchen and almost all of her items in the trunk of her Volkswagen, but now, as she stood in front of her tightly packed trunk that appeared difficult to open, she wondered how bright that decision had been. She closed her eyes and rested her head on the car for a moment, feeling her energy gone from the nine-hour drive and the shock that came with the new house. She hated the house, she realized suddenly, and she had since she had first spotted it, when her breath had caught as she laid eyes on the hideous beast of a house in front of her. She always disliked the houses at first because of their ugly and small outer appearances, with what looked like half a century worth of dirt encrusted on the outside walls. And although she had oftentimes felt disgusted by the house's poor conditions, she had never felt physically bothered or unsettled by a house. This house felt different, and it made her feel the sort of uneasy she felt when walking down a dark alley at nighttime. Her stomach dropped at the thought of going in there by herself, which was exactly what she had to do.

She was so scared that she began to feel sick.

She opened her eyes, her forehead still resting on the trunk of her car, the cold metal seeping into her skin. It felt refreshing with the hot summer sun beating down on her, making her skin feel close to going up in flames. She heard a pair of wheels rolling on pavement, growing louder and louder until they came to a stop seemingly next to her. Although she was tired and scared, Carina stood up and looked over at the two Hispanic boys standing near her. They looked similar enough to be brothers, both with dark hair slightly curling around the ends, skin so tan they looked like they’d been kissed by the summer’s sun, and both on skateboards. One of them was slightly taller than the other, with hazel eyes as opposed to the shorter one who appeared to have different colored eyes. One of his eyes was blue, the other hazel like the taller boy's, Carina noticed with curiosity.

“You moving here, bella dama?” The shorter one asked, pointing up to the house. Carina turned around to look at the house once again and shuddered. The huge, looming trees surrounding the sidewalk up to the house seemed even taller than they had a mere minute ago, the walkway even more cracked and grimy. The house looked worn down, dirty, and eery. She didn’t like this house at all.

“I’m afraid so,” Carina said with a sigh, and turned around to the boys again. The taller one was staring at the house, his jaw set into a grimace, and the shorter one was looking at her with an odd expression on his face. She wondered what their problems were. “Well,” she said, clearing her throat to break the silence, “do you two live around here?”

The shorter one shook his head hard. “No way, chica. That house is cursed. No one with any brains would live close to here, definitely not us.”

“Cursed?”

"Si. No one’s lived there since the last owner, and that was thirty years ago. She died in that house, rumors say she was murdered or even worse. That house is cursed, haunted, and much much more.” He stepped off of his skateboard and picked it up, holding it under his arm and staring at the house. His brother did the same, only folding his arms after he set his skateboard on the ground. “That señora was crazy, my mother believes she worshipped the devil, and I’m almost convinced myself.”

Although her heart was racing with fear, Carina shook her head in denial and rolled her eyes. She needed to keep her head and be rational about this, there was no reason for her to let the towns old ghost stories spook her. “That’s nonsense. Old houses always get bad reputations or rumors, especially,” Carina took a glance at the house behind her and shrugged, “when they look like this.”

The boy pursed his lips at her. “Suit yourself, cosa bonita. Just remember what I’ve told you when something goes wrong. That house is cursed, and soon, you will be too.”

“What do you mean, ‘when something goes wrong?’” Carine questioned, confusion plain on her face.

He put the skateboard down and hopped back onto it, shaking his head vehemently. “Nada, nothing, look, we really need to get home. My name is Raphel, I'm sure I'll see you around. Goodbye, bella dama.”

The taller one turned, throwing down his board in front of him, got on, and began coasting down the street. The boy that stood in front of her, Raphel, began to do the same as he turned away from her. Once he was about halfway down the street, she yelled out her name to him.

“What?” He yelled back.

“Carina! My name is Carina! You didn’t ask!”

She saw his chest move, softly shaking with quiet laughter. Raphel cupped his hands to his mouth to yell back to her. ”Bueno, Carina! Adiós!"

Carina watched their figures retreat, rolling down an open road long since deserted, noticing that there was not a house in sight. He hadn’t been lying to her, people really didn’t live around the house. As her eyes flicked back over to where their silhouettes once were, she saw nothing, they had gone too far to see, and she was suddenly acutely aware of how alone she was.

“Alone”, she repeated to herself. Then, recalling what Raphel had said about the house, about it’s supposed hauntings and curse, she turned around to look at the house once more.

“I’m alone,” she said again, trying to convince herself. She couldn’t help it, a shiver of fear ripped through her body as she thought a single, haunting thought that terrified her down to her very core.

Am I really?