The Haunted House (pt. 8)

I feel at this point that I owe the reader, if not an apology, at least an explanation.  Obviously, as I am relating this tale from the present and of the past I am already aware of how it all ends, but in the process of telling the story I find it necessary to use a certain approach in an attempt to portray my own mental state in the moment and hope that it does not come across as some gimmickry for the sake of mere titillation. As with the previous chapter my intent was to put the reader in my place as the events unfolded to better explain where the following moments then took me.

I am a idiotic fool.  Of course the image before me was as the picture had seemed, for it was my own reflection in the full-length mirror on the further wall of the bathroom.  It was not too long after my terror when this dawned upon me, the paroxysm died into nothing, and the self-ridicule began.  At that point I simply made my way to the toilet and sat down on the closed lid to stew a bit upon the reality of the situation.

Though I had covered the entirety of the house I was still uneasy with fully accepting that I was indeed alone there.  I sat for a long while waiting for any audible clue that I was wrong but it never came.  I made one last check of the interior, this time including under beds and every hidden corner while also verifying that all windows and doors were secured and locked.  Once this was done I turned on many lights and sat in the corner of the living room with my back to two walls still holding the knife at the ready.

I knew that I was a long way from sleep that night and sat and waited for whatever was to occur to do so.  I had seen the light from outside, I had seen evidence of the same inside, but there was never a hint of where it came from once I started looking.  Something had happened here, something now without any logical explanation. Perhaps it would happen again.  Perhaps if I turned the lights off it would come back.

But I could not bring myself to do so.