halloween special

Heute als kleines Special gibt es die Kurzgeschichte, die ich für English Literatur schreiben musste. Thema war 18./19. Jahrhundert, Gotik und etwas Übernatürliches/Gruseliges. Also perfekt für Halloween! So richtig zufrieden bin ich noch nicht, aber trotzdem viel Spaß beim Lesen! (Wörter-Übersetzer: www.dict.cc)

The Haleberger House 

“No, don't do it,” the haggard old woman screamed terrified. The fear reflected in her watery grey eyes and she clapped her dirty, wrinkly hand over her face. A deep, long scar reached from her left eye to her mouth. “Don't go to the Haleberger house!” 

I was on my way home from an emergency patient and the dusk would come soon. I didn't have a safe shelter to sleep, because the inn where I wanted to stay was booked out. But they told me about a vacant house 3 miles away as a last solution. There wasn't another option.
After some time of hurried riding I knew that I should be already there, so I approached a humpbacked beldam at the side of the way.
However, I didn't expect an answer like this. 

“Excuse me?”
“Didn't you hear about all the stories? Of him? Tomte Haleberger?” She looked at me with wide open eyes.
I shook my head blankly.

“Listen to me and stay away from this cursed house.” And she gathered her rags and hobbled in the opposite direction. I wasn't sure if she had a destination or if she just wanted to get away from me.
Confused, but sceptical I wanted to continue my ride to the house, when she rose her voice again:

“Do you think that I wouldn't prefer living in a house? But I chose the street and not this house of dread.” And she vanished.
What a queer figure. I was a well-travelled man and believed in my principles and my qualified ideology – there was no space left for anything odd or supernatural. 

Dreary and grey sat the old house in the dawning glade, the erstwhile life was hard to guess. The wood of the walls rotten and miscoloured, with windows like hungry caves. It seemed repellent but I didn't turn away. I had nothing to fear.
The whispering of the wind played around the shack and let the wooden boards rattle.
The door creaked and the plank growled when I entered. I put down my bag and looked around. The last sparse light, that struggled through the dirty windows, illuminated the wooden old furnishings, left of life, absent under a thick layer of dust.
When it got darker and darker, I lit up my church candle. A flicker went through the room and somewhere was a rustling noise. I prepared a basic bed as I got tired. After some rolling from one side to the other I fell into a deep sleep. 

“Don't touch me!”
I started awake and got up. What was that?
It got colder, the wind howling and shaking the shack. The darkness outside seemed to absorb anything living. I rose and glanced around. The last sparks of the candle threw ghostly shadows.
Something lghtly stroked my back. I scared and turned around. But there was nothing.
Just the wind. My hackles rose and I looked to the window. It was wide opened.
But there was something else. The voices. More like a whisper. I harkened. It was hard to understand, but the air breathed words.
“What did I do? Why me?”
“You know why. You felt it, too. It's time. The world is a place full of failure, sadness and violence, that’s something you should be knowing. You are a devil’s child, destroying everything you touch.”
“Tomte! No! That’s not you! Stop!” 

I shivered. I’m only surmising. It's only delusions. The wind outside had let me think the most lunatic things. But I wanted to find the source for these sounds, I wanted to stop them. Drowsy, I got up. I lit up my candle and walked to the opened window, that was letting the voracious darkness inside. Chilly, I tried to close them.

There she was! The woman with the scar. Her grey eyes staring from the reflection in the window's glass. Terrified I looked behind me, expecting her standing there. But nothing. Absolutely nothing. Only the gaping obscurity.
“Calm down, everything is fine!”

“I warned you.”
Again! These words. I really needed sleep. Hallucinating was one of the signs of sleep shortage. I wrapped up in my blanket, searching for sleep. 

“No, don’t do it! Please!”
A screaming, a howling.
“You don't deserve a place on this earth. Your face doesn't deserve a place on this earth. From your noisy, piercing eyes to your twaddling mouth. I don't want to see it anymore. That's something I don't deserve.”
The cry was terrifying.
The next morning I got up, the light glared through the window. Everything seemed peaceful, nothing was scary. But the window was opened again.

I bundled my things, saddled my horse and left. On my ride home I didn’t spend a thought about that last night. I discounted what happened that last night. Bad dreams are the books of the poor. 

The following night I woke up, sweating and heavy breathing. She was there again. I glanced around. There was nothing. Again. As soon as I closed my eyes, she was there. Again. I saw her.
But it was only a dream.