The Old MacBriar House - 1. Chapter 1

Jake met up with the Boswell brothers, Kevin and Thomas, at the old MacBriar house. The house had been deserted for nearly twenty years, but the three of them had turned it into a kind of secret clubhouse when Jake and Kevin were ten. They would have done it when they were younger, but it took them until the age of ten to get over the ridiculous idea that the place was haunted; yeah, kids are dumb like that.

They figured that if they hadn’t been caught in there in nearly three years of using the place, then they were likely never going to be caught; which invited a lot of planning for the future. They had originally used the clubhouse as just somewhere to hang out and hide from the local bullies; then, as time passed, they started storing cans of coke, bags of crisps and comic books there, and eventually began turning it into a kind of home away from home.

When they turned thirteen earlier this year (well, when Kevin and Jake turned thirteen, as Thomas is still only twelve and doesn’t turn thirteen until after Christmas), the boys entered that special teenage phase we all know and remember with great affection. They started using the clubhouse as somewhere they could go to drink a couple of bottles of beer, have a smoke, look at some smutty magazines and generally have fun without getting in trouble with their parents; activities which made the younger boy uncomfortable.

They had never told anyone about their place; it’s not as if one day they had sat down and decided that they would keep it a secret from the world, that’s just the way it happened. If they hadn’t been quite so secretive about the whole thing, perhaps if they had invited more of their friends join them there, then this evening could very likely have turned out quite differently.

Over the past three years they had scavenged a few bed sheets, curtains, and stuff from the local dump, which they had used to cover the windows to prevent anyone from being able to see into the house, and for anyone outside from seeing any lights or activities going on inside. They’d also managed to procure tables, chairs, a sofa or two, and a couple of bookracks; they had even brought a couple of sleeping bags and an icebox or two down to the clubhouse for the occasional overnighter.

Hallowe’en had fallen on a Saturday this year, so the boys had gotten to spend the whole day in their clubhouse, and although they felt that they were now getting a little old for the whole trick or treat thing, they had still decorated their clubhouse in the spirit of the season.

There were plastic skeletons, fake cobwebs, rubber spiders, posters of Dracula and Frankenstein, and various luminescent bugs and creatures scattered all around the clubhouse; and then as the sun set, the boys lit the jack o’lanterns they had carved earlier in the day. The spooky faces played on the walls of the darkened house, and the boys sat down and began telling ghost stories, each one more scary than the last. Around ten o’clock, just as Kevin was finishing a story about a haunted castle in the Scottish Highlands, they had had enough of scaring each other with stories, and so the boys went to bed.

Thomas heard Jake and Kevin starting their nightly activities. He closed his eyes, curled up round himself, and tried to tune out the growing panting from the bed next to his. It took him nearly twenty minutes to fall asleep, during which time he heard more than any twelve year old boy ever should.

He slipped into a pleasant dream where Julie Summerskill was doing things to him he knew that neither she, nor indeed any good girl, would ever do to him or anyone. As the clock turned to midnight, his dream started shifting from his childlike understanding of the erotic, to the beginnings of what promised to be a terrifying nightmare. Just as his child’s mind was getting ready for the onslaught of a slasher fest, there was a muffled cry from the bed next to his which permeated his dream state and thankfully, for Thomas, woke him up.

Thomas opened his eyes, but didn’t turn around. He’d heard that muffled cry on more than one occasion over the past year or so; he just wondered whether it was his brother, Kevin, or their friend, Jake, who was on top.

He had absolutely no interest in watching or hearing round two, but now that he was awake, he found that he really needed to urinate. Without bothering with switching on his torch, he padded barefoot quietly across the room and opened the door, which creaked audibly. He heard more muffled panting come from where Kevin and Jake were; evidently, neither of them caring if he heard or saw what they were doing.

The quiet hallway was dark and Thomas could just about see where he was going. He went down the stairs, gasping as he saw a couple of the fake spiders dancing on their strings; an eerie effect caused by a gust of wind blowing through cracks in the house.

He walked through the kitchen, pausing to look in a mirror. He remembered the Bloody Mary mythology, and thought that perhaps this would be the year. He looked deep into the mirror and took a deep breath.

“Bloody Mary,” he whispered, his breath turning to mist in the cold kitchen.

“Bloody Mary.” His heart started pounding, and he tasted copper as his adrenaline started flowing. He knew this would be the year; he would finally do it.

He took a few breaths to calm himself down; each breath creating more fog during the witching hour. He opened his mouth, but he never quite found the balls to say the third and final “Bloody Mary”.

”Another year of chickening out. Why do I do it to myself?”

He shook off his self-chastisement at not having the courage to raise Bloody Mary, and walked into the back garden.

He peed and then shook himself off, and then slowly went back to the bedroom, taking as much time as he could; hoping that Kevin and Jake would have finished what they were doing and had gone back to sleep; he even stopped to look in the kitchen mirror, somehow expecting Bloody Mary to appear without being summoned.

He went back into the bedroom and heard more muffled noises. ‘Dear God, those two are going to wear their dicks out before they can even cum,” Thomas thought to himself; unconsciously shaking his head.

He got back into his bed, curled up again and unconsciously tuning out the noises his brother was making, he fell asleep. He slept the dreamless sleep of the untroubled, and awoke when the alarm on his mobile phone went off. The sun was now shining through a small gap in the curtains, and Thomas stretched as he slowly allowed himself to wake up.

He turned around to wake up Jake and Kevin and he let out a bloodcurdling scream that echoed and reverberated through the deserted house.

Both boys had quite literally been torn limb from limb, and they were lying in a puddle of their own blood. There was a message scrawled on the wall in three foot high letters which looked as though they had been written in one, or more likely, both boys’ blood.

I will not stand for this kind of depravity in my house.

Thomas, you are lucky you are still pure.

Tobias MacBriar