The Red Light (8 page)

He knew something was wrong and just
figured he must be dreaming he closed his eyes and moved closer to
her ready to kiss her lips when he heard a laugh, that loud raspy
laugh. Suddenly it was Uncle Silas sitting on the side of his bed
face to face with him laughing loudly.

“
So Mikey, I hear you
don’t wanna bring me some new blood like your aunt always did for
me.”

“
I… I,” Mike
stuttered.

“
Shut up,” Silas screamed
and the light came on and glowed bright and red. “The deal is, you
bring me something to kill and I don’t kill your kids, that Mary is
a sweet little thing, her blood would be so good, so
sweet.”

“
You bastard! You stay
away from her,” Mike said sternly.

“
Oh, I am a bastard Mike
there’s no doubt, but I will not stay away from her, I’ll keep her
here with me forever if I want, you need to understand who is in
charge here.”

“
You’re sick,” Mike said
moving away from him.

“
You have no idea how
sick. Do you, Mikey?” Silas stood up and pulled out a knife and
began stabbing into the air and swinging the knife violently like
he was slicing someone open. “I love to kill children Mikey, their
screams are like music to my ears and their innocent blood is so
yummy I need it. Now stop being a whiney little girl and get me
some blood.”

Chapter 13

Mike took a shower and got dressed;
all he could think of was Teddy and Mary. He couldn’t let this
twisted ghost take them from him; he was having regrets now for
even taking this house from his aunt. When she died the lawyer that
handled the estate gave him a sealed letter from her explaining
that whoever lives in the house, from time to time has to bring a
ghost named Uncle Silas someone to murder. He was powerful and had
an appetite for killing that didn’t stop after his
death.

Mike didn’t take it very serious and
assumed that he wouldn’t have to deal with anything like this; he
never believed in ghosts and found it laughable that she would even
leave such a letter as this. He got into his vehicle and went to
town, he looked at one of the papers in his briefcase and seen that
one little girl had lunch on the back steps at the school parking
lot. Mike pulled up and she was there, sitting on the steps alone.
The girl had short blonde hair and was wearing a skirt and a thin
jacket.

“
Hi, can you tell me how
to get to the bridge that crosses the river from here?” He said
while holding a map and talking to her out of the passenger
window.

“
Yes, you go out of here
and make a right, then stay straight and you can’t miss it,” the
girl said with a smile.

“
Can you please show me on
the map?”

“
Sure,” she said leaning
into the window looking at his map trying to find where they were
on it.

Mike grabbed her by the back of her
hair and her jacket and pulled her inside and rolled up the window
while speeding off. The girl was screaming for help, but Mike still
had a grip on her and slammed her face into the dash knocking her
out. He couldn’t believe that he was doing this again, this was
someone’s little girl, but at least it wasn’t his little girl and
he had to protect his kids. This is how it had to be. His mind
raced, what if he had been seen taking her, what if the police were
on their way right now. He couldn’t go to jail. He couldn’t take
that. All these things and more raced through his mind as he drove
home.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Sarah was at the food bank and it was
a slow day, Stephanie came down and told her that she didn’t have
to stay all day today. That was okay with her since she had some
writing that she wanted to get finished. She left and stopped at a
grocery store to pick up some soda and bread, the whole way home
she thought about how much she missed Chicago. She missed her
friends and having most everything within walking distance, all of
this open farmland was alien to her still and she just couldn’t get
used to it no matter how hard she tried.

When she pulled up to the house she
seen Mike’s vehicle around back, and it was parked at the basement
door. She got out and walked slowly around the back of the house
and looked inside the window of the car and noticed blood on the
dashboard. Everything froze and went silent, it was like the whole
world stopped and she was dreaming, but she wasn’t dreaming and
that was real blood in his car.

She went into the basement not making
a sound, she heard something in the back corner at the little room,
it was Mike unlocking the door and then he picked up something ,
slinging it over his shoulder, she looked closer and seen that it
was a young girl. Her knees got weak as she watched the man she
loves carrying a little girl over his shoulder. A little girl who’s
face is covered in blood and running down his back. Sarah inched
closer to see what he was doing inside the room, and then she heard
him talking.

“
Here you sick bastard.
This is what you wanted isn’t it?” Mike asked sounding out of
breath and coughing.

“
Yes! This is exactly what
I want. Good job Mikey, I can’t wait to tear into her,” Silas said
laughing and pulling out a huge knife. Mike left the room and went
upstairs and closed the door; she thought she could hear Mike
laughing upstairs. Silas was stabbing the girl, cutting every inch
of her as the blood sprayed over the walls of the little room, he
would stop to lick the blade and start stabbing her again as the
light in the room turned bright red.

Sarah tried to hold in her tears but
couldn’t, this poor innocent girl that her husband had kidnapped
was dead, and in such a terrible way. She didn’t dare move, afraid
that he would hear her and do the same to her. Silas finally calmed
down and stood over the girl’s body, and then the girl started to
sink into the dirt floor of the basement, until she was
gone.

Sarah turned away fast
hitting one of the boxes that was hiding her and knocking it over.
She looked and didn’t see Silas in the room anymore,
good maybe he’s gone and I can get out of
here
she thought to herself. She turned
toward the door and there he was, standing right beside her, she
screamed and fell back on the ground and sat there in
fear.

“
Did you come to play,
Sarah?” Silas said smiling.

“
Stay away from me you
sick pervert, you killed that little girl,” Sarah
screamed.

“
That isn’t the first
little girl that I killed, and it will not be the last,” he
laughed.

The light in the basement shined
bright red and out of every shadow of the room dark figures walked
out into the red light, there were so many of them standing there
staring at her.

“
See, Sarah, there are so
many more than you know, and they want you to join them,” Silas
started laughing so loudly that it hurt her ears.

Sarah looked down at her hands and
feet and seen them starting to sink into the basement floor and she
screamed, “No!” while pulling as hard as she could to get them out
of the ground. She crawled toward the steps fighting against
sinking into the cold earth; Silas was coming at her with the knife
as she screamed uncontrollably climbing the stairs.

Sarah made it to the basement door and
got it open, she pulled herself into the hallway and slammed the
door shut and leaned against the wall breathing heavily. She looked
down at her leg and seen it was cut wide open and pouring blood out
all over the floor.

“
I love your blood,
Sarah,” Silas said through the door. She could see his tongue
sliding under the door and licking up her blood.

She screamed and got up limping to the
kitchen; she got a towel and wrapped it around the cut on her leg
tying it tightly. Sarah turned to go toward the front door to leave
and there was Mike, standing in front of her and his face was
painted like Uncle Silas’s, blue nose and red eyes and mouth and a
white face.

“
Where are you going
Sarah?” Mike said with a crazy look on his face.

“
Mike, what’s happened to
you? You’re a good man you’re better than this.”

“
It’s what I had to do
Sarah, it’s gotta be this way,” he said.

“
No, it doesn’t, please
come back to me, let’s get out of this place and go back home,
please Mike,” Sarah pleaded.

“
I’m sorry, Sarah,” Mike
said then lunged at her knocking her to the floor; he was on top of
her and put his hands on her throat choking her. He had a crazy
look in his eyes that she had never seen before, then it hit her,
she was going to die here on the floor and her kids will come home
and he will kill them too. With a burst of desperation she threw
him back and he hit his head against the table, she got up and
grabbed a knife and held it up so he could see it. He came at her
again and she buried the knife in the side of his chest and he fell
back squirming.

“
Oh my God, oh my God,”
she cried. Sarah made her way to her car as Mike came into the
front doorway standing there with the knife still in
him.

“
Sarah, please, come
back,” he pleaded.

She sped out of the driveway and down
the road, she called the school on her cell phone and told them not
to send Mary and Teddy home on the bus, that she would pick them
up, then she called the police and told them that her husband
killed a girl and tried to kill her and she was cut
open.

The police picked up Teddy and Mary at
school and brought them to the hospital where Sarah was getting her
leg stitched, they both ran to her and were worried if she was
going to die or not, she smiled and said, “Everything is going to
be alright, we are going to go back home and stay with grandma for
a while, daddy is sick and needs help.”

The police arrived at the house and
seen the front door open, inside there was a trail of blood through
the house, they also found the vehicle out back with the girls
blood on the dash and the bloody room in the basement just as Sarah
had described. They took blood samples from the walls of the little
room and found there were three blood types. One was Missy, the
first girl that was missing, the second was the blonde girl that
was kidnapped from school that day, and the third matched Mike. No
bodies were found even after digging up a lot of the basement floor
and checking the land around the house.

Sarah and her children went back to
Chicago and never returned to the old rock house. No one ever heard
from Mike again but Sarah knows that he and Uncle Silas are still
in that house; trapped there like the rest of the ghosts that walk
the hallways.

Epilogue

There was an investigation concerning
what happened to the two kidnapped girls and Mike. Sarah was tried
for the murders but the juries could not convict her because all
the evidence was circumstantial and it was proven that the days the
children were kidnapped Sarah was working at the food bank, so she
had solid alibis.

Sarah now lives in Illinois with her
two children Teddy and Mary. Mary sometimes misses the little boy
who would come into her room at night. Unfortunately for Teddy,
Uncle Silas is still a part of his life; since moving back to
Chicago he has been plagued with night terrors and other sleeping
disorders and is now regularly seeing a child
psychologist.