Bulbs - Phill Vidler (GOTHIC HORROR)

Hey guys! I'm Phill, and I'm 18 from England :) This was my first piece of short literature, and I find the Gothic horror setting to be comfortable, so I hope you enjoy it. I'm also currently working on one twice this size under the working title of "A Minute To Midnight", also a Gothic story, so I'll post that when it's finished :D but for now, Bulbs :)



BULBS
by Phill Vidler


Of all the clichés Evan had encountered, this house had to get first prize. The dark, archaic exterior with barred windows; the chimney silhouetted in the moonlight; and the distant rumble of thunder from the approaching storm were more than enough to make him roll his eyes. He re-checked the address, found no typo, and, sighing, got out of his car. I’m an investigative journalist; not a child. I’m too old for bumps in the night, he thought, striding up the pathway to the twisted knot of a doorknocker.

Knock, knock. No answer. Knock, knock, knock. The same reply.

“There must be no one in,” he muttered to himself, reaching for the doorknob tentatively. Creeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaak.

Clichés: Three-thousand, four-hundred and ninety-eight. Realism: Nil.

The door trudged on its hinges, and unveiled the dusty room beyond. He tested the light switch, but noticed the bulb was missing. Setting his bag down, he slid his slim torch from his jacket pocket, flicking it into the air and catching it right-way-up in a fashion practised since he was a teen.

The lost man, reported missing by his daughter, had either just moved in or was in the process of leaving, because the cardboard boxes in the hallway hosted an array of family photos and relics, giving Evan a good idea of the missing man. He was in his mid-forties; Caucasian with black hair; two daughters with families of their own; no recent photos of a wife, so most likely deceased. That would explain no one answering the door, then.

As the rain intensified outside, Evan explored the ground floor, turning on lights where they worked, and searching in every room for a clue as to why the man had vanished. He was greeted by silence and dust. He ventured upstairs, lighting bulbs as he went, to find two empty echoes of bedrooms, untouched; the bathroom with an empty bath and mildew caking the windows and tiles; and in the last room only an unmade bed, ripped wallpaper, and a shattered bulb. The shards on the floor were tinged with the smudge of dried blood, as though somebody had smashed it with their fist.

Lightning flashed outside, followed quickly by thunder. Storm’s getting close.

He threw off the covers of the bed, uncovering a folded piece of paper under the pillow, with similar stains to the glass. He unwrapped the note with the same care and attention as a hungry hunter tracks his meal. Evan began to read it, but as luck would have it, his torch batteries ran out. His spares were in his bag downstairs.

“Damn,” he grumbled, taking the letter into the hall where the bulb was still working.

“DON’T USE THE BULBS.
It wakes them up.
And whatever you do, don’t turn them off again.
That’s how they get out.
Don’t make my mistakes.
John.”

What’s that supposed to mean? He must have been insane. He looked at the glass on the floor in the bedroom, and his eyes darted to the shining bulb above him. Uneasy, he quickly made his way downstairs. As he approached the front door, he was distracted by the sudden flash of lightning outside the barred window. He glanced out to see the damage done. Just as his eyes reached the generator outside, a second fork plunged straight into it. Shocked, he recoiled from the window in time to notice the lights in the house being quenched at once.

That’s how they get out.

Before he could leave, he heard a slam behind him. He rushed to his bag, retrieving the new batteries and shoving them into his torch. The living room door, which had been open, was now handle-less and shut. He heard a clanking, and turned to see the door handle falling down the stairs at a snail’s pace, like a child playing with a slinky.

As usual, curiosity got the better of him, and gritting his teeth, he tiptoed through the downstairs rooms, finding nothing but what he had left behind. Did someone spike my tea at work?

Another lightning strike, still as close as before. He almost ran to the front door, but found it locked. His bag, which had been resting on the door-jamb, was gone.

“Who’s there?!” he shouted into the dark. He was answered with only the wind outside.

He once again searched upstairs, this time with quickened breath and a nervous tremor in his hand. The bedrooms were still untouched, apart from the man’s, which was just as disrupted as before. However, as Evan stepped into the bathroom, he heard water. He turned his torch to the bath. Instead of the empty tub he had left behind, the taps were now flowing with red translucency. The bath was already full, and was billowing over the edge onto the tiles. He turned off the taps, and shined the torch into the bath.

Lightning flashed.

The light drifted through the murky and bloody water, revealing the rotting corpse of the missing man, with his chest ripped open and forced into an inexplicably contorted position by the narrowness of the bath. Evan’s hand shot to his mouth, and ran downstairs. As he rushed through the corridor, the other doors of the bedrooms flew open around him with terrifying force. Banging on the front door, for any way to escape this horrifying shell of a house, he started to scream out for help. No one heard; no one was there. But five minutes ago, no one was in the house either. This can’t be happening.

As he realised the futility of his struggles, he sank to the floor. He heard a faint scratching coming from the darkness, as if on wood. One last lightning strike showed a door, for a split second, that Evan had not noticed before. He crawled over to it. It can’t get much worse than this.

His hand wavered at the handle, but once again, curiosity was his flaw. He quickly opened the door, shining the torch into the darkness that reached down into a cellar. The torch illuminated the stairs, which he carefully walked down, eyes set on the darkness. The stone cellar floor came into view, and each step towards it caused his heart to beat faster and faster. When he reached the cold core of the house, he shone the torch around the walls, seeing nothing but bricks and the occasional cobweb. He stepped forward, and stopped suddenly when he crushed glass beneath his sole. He turned the torch to the ground, showing dozens of smashed bulbs, of all different shapes and sizes. He ran back to the stairs, dashing up them like a madman.

The door slammed shut in front of him.

If someone had by chance been listening outside, all they would have heard is a faint scream, and then a sudden stop.

DON’T USE THE BULBS.