Raise the Darkness and Weep - 1. Chapter 1

Staring up at the house, Michael tilted his head. “I’m not sure what to think about this,” he drawled. He tucked his hands into his pockets. Leon rested his chin on his friend’s shoulder and hummed.

“It’s big. I didn’t know your family had money,” he said. Michael shrugged as he hefted the bag up further on his shoulders, tilting his head back some more.

“I kind of forgot that we do. It’s mostly in trust,” he admitted. “I get an allowance and once I get through college, or find a career that makes me happy, it’ll go up. It pays its own taxes and shit. I don’t really think about it,” he said.

Leon hummed, Maria bouncing up to stand and look up at the house with an amazed face on her look. “Wow,” she breathed, Barbra walking up to stand next to her.

“Damn. Is it even safe?” Barbra asked Michael, getting a nod. “Alright then. Shall we go in?” she asked.

Michael chuckled and pulled out his set of keys and wiggled them, the group of four walking up the stairs. Bending over, he pushed the key into the lock, turning it with a click.

Panting and running down the hallway towards the hidden door that Michael had shown to them, Maria slid around the corner. She slammed into the wall shoulder first, fingers fumbling for the switch. Finding it, she shoved at it, pushing her entire weight behind her to get the rusted latch open. Watching the door pop open, she yanked it open enough to slide in and pulled the door closed behind her.

Groaning, she rubbed at her bruised shoulder, caught her breath, and started to run once more, heading down the servant’s hallway. She knew where they had all agreed to meet each other should they get separated but was worried that she would not make it. The thumping footsteps and the scent of fire was still heavy in her ears and nose even as they started to fade behind her.

Maria stumbled at the near roar of anger that echoed through the house, feeling that she had escaped the creature that had been hunting her by a hairs breath. She stopped for a minute, pressing a hand against the wall as her breath came out in shuddering gasps. Calming herself down, she continued down the hall, turning left at the branching, knowing that the right hallway would continue down to the kitchens.

She wanted to get to the back stairs.

Finding the doorway that lead up the backstairs, she pushed it open and gazed out into the dark. Finding nothing but blackness, she stepped out, pulling her penlight that Leon had insisted they all carry just in case, she flashed it around. She stepped further into the stairs and closed the door partly behind her.

She walked up the stairs, being careful of where she was walking when a hand reached out between the stairs and grabbed at her ankle. Her scream echoed through the soundproofed hallway as she caught sight of the manic grin on a decaying face.

“Tell us about the house, Michael. You never really talk about it, but I hear that there’s stories surrounding this place,” Maria said as she carefully checked the chimney in the master bedroom. They had all decided, after looking around, that the master bedroom would be best to sleep in while the living room would be a good place for the rest of their day.

Michael hummed as he and Barbra laid out their sleeping pads and bags. “There’s really not a whole lot to tell. Just a lot of rumors and shit because they didn’t like my family. Rich baron family from the South coming out this way after the Civil War? One that stayed on the North’s side while feeding the South a bunch of bullshit?” he asked. He shrugged as he sat back on his heels. “Really not a lot to tell.”

Barbra snorted. “Your family helped a few battles be won by supplying the Northern troops food and medical supplies. Not to mention help funnel information back and forth as it was needed,” she said, shaking her head at her boyfriend. “I’ve done some research into his family. The stories mostly come from the South. His ancestor of the time came up from a very poor family. Taught himself to read with the help of his bosses. Learned how to read the invoices as he proved himself a hard worker. Got a job as a runner at first, then later helped to work the processing of cotton and wool. The man’s boss actually took him under his wing when he was sixteen because he didn’t have an heir to give his business to.”

“The guy didn’t like his son-in-law. Called the guy a lay-about who only married his daughter for possible money when he kicked the bucket. The guys wife refused to lay with him for more than one child,” Michael said, rolling his eyes. “Guy changed his will so that his daughter only got a small amount of money from his estate as long as she was with the guy, any kids that came from that marriage would have jobs when they grew old enough to start working, and the husband got nothing. My ancestor worked hard to make sure that the business would continue to go well.”

The year before the old guy dies, his daughter divorces her husband via death, takes the kid and marries Michael’s ancestor. They have three more kids, move out of the South after the Civil War, then the rumors that they made deals with the devil start to come around,” Barbra said, shaking her head.

“Not the devil. A demonic being of some unknown name. My family had to have a bunch of land consecrated by an official priest from the Catholic church so that they could be buried in blessed land because of those rumors. That land still gets blessed every three years for three days on the third day of the third month. The local parish still doesn’t like us,” he told them.

“A demonic being? Really?” Leon snorted, shaking his head as he put the basket of wood that he had gathered from outside down. “I got wood for the living room to. We wanna cook lunch before exploring?” he asked, holding up four flashlights and matching penlights. The two women cheered as their boyfriends shared amused looks.

Whimpering, Barbra curled herself up tighter in the little cupboard that she had found, listening to the creature thump past her. Through the slates of the door, she saw that the hooved feet left behind burnt-in marks on the wooden floor. Clamping her hand over her mouth and trying to keep her breathing even, she waited as the creature walked down another hallway, wondering just how big the house truly was.

Michael had told them that the house was huge, a stately manor at one time, but a few of the wings had been closed off to be rebuilt when he had been a kid. After his parents had died, they had been finished off but kept closed off since there really hadn’t been any reason to open them.

When she was sure that the creature had left the wing that she had hidden in, she pushed the door open and slipped past, closing it behind her. She could still remember the warning that Leon had read in the book. It had been about closing any door that you had opened behind you otherwise the creatures that were called could hunt you down if you were marked as prey.

She already hated that they were running and had been running for most of the night already. Carefully stepping over the creaky boards that she had remembered from their tour, Barbra headed for the front of the house, trying to remember if there were other stairs beyond the ones upfront.

“No, he said most of the stairways had also been shut down because of dry rot,” she breathed to herself. She carefully slipped through a door, closing the door behind her, waiting to hear the snick before she lifted her hand up.

Turning around, she frowned at the fact that she was in an office, one that looked as if it had been closed off for a lot longer than just a couple of decades. “Where am I?” she wondered, stepping carefully around the furniture. Pulling out her penlight, she shined it around, finding that most of the furniture were covered in dustcovers, protecting them from the dust and time.

Lifting one corner, a carefully sculpted brow rose at finding an antique piece in near mint condition. Dropping the cloth, she walked over to the desk and found that there was a diary in pretty good condition sitting in the middle of the desk. Carefully flipping it open using a long nail, she started to read the words before her, remembering the handwriting of Michael’s ancestor who had moved his family to the land they had built on.

She sat down as she continued to read, finding herself sucked into the story that the man was weaving about how he had gone from rags to riches. It had been a part of the history that hadn’t been told to anyone, having met his mentor and future father-in-law, and learning all he could. Including all about the contract that the men of their family held with the demonic entity.

As long as they kept their side of the bargain and brought him into their world when humanities faith was weakening, it would help them.

Closing the journal, she stood up and shuddered. “Oh gods, what is going on?” she breathed, moving to walk away from the desk. A hand with bones for fingers that were barely hanging on by the rotting flesh came out from the darkness under the desk, a leering grin making her scream.

“Ya should always make sure that it’s all truly closed,” the creature breathed, an odd echo to the voice as it yanked her down, ignoring her scream as it pulled her into the shadows.

“Wow, this place is freaky,” Maria said, wrinkling her nose. Leon nodded next to her.

“Yeah. How many wings are closed off? And how closed off are they?” Leon asked, looking at Michael with a curious look.

The other man hummed and rocked on his feet. “I have the keys actually. I turned seventeen and my guardians gave them to me so that I can do what I need to do with the house. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it. I’m hoping that I can figure that out,” he said. He shrugged. “I remember most of how the house is laid out but I also have like the basic blueprints of the house printed out so that I can use it like a map since there were like three wings that I couldn’t get into as a kid.”

Leon looked over and watched as Michael took out several folded sheets of paper from his pants pocket. He looked at them with his friend, figuring out where they were. “Okay, here’s the living room. It looks like they closed up the servants wing, the family personal wing, and the guest personal wing,” he mused.

“What do you mean by a personal wing?” Barbra asked, looking around Michael, eyebrows raised.

“They’re not where they slept. It’s where they could just hang out without worrying about someone bothering them unless they were a servant. Only family were ever allowed in those wings,” Leon explained. “They held small reading spaces, personal studies and libraries. The more ‘public’ areas of the houses held formal living rooms, classrooms for the children, places to entertain. It kept the two parts of their lives separate.”

“Where do we want to explore first? I’m kind of wanting to check out the guest wing at the least,” Barbra said, smirking at her friends. Maria rolled her eyes and pointed to the wing. “I’m kind of wanting to explore this place here,” she explained, pointing to a study off of the main area.

“That’s the servant’s quarters. The offices,” Michael said, reading the small print on the paper.

Michael looked over the pages. “It looks like the servant’s quarters are connected to the rest of the house by hidden hallways and stairs. I know most of them in truth and I can get us around there,” he said, smiling at his friends, leading the way towards the servant’s main entry way. The other three followed after them, Leon bringing out his three-in-one flashlight and using the lantern option to light their way.

“Fuck,” Leon groaned, slamming the door behind him and sliding down to the floor, head thumping against the wood. “Why did you drag us here?” he hissed, staring at his friend. “Michael…”

“I don’t know.” Michael sat back onto his heels from his position on knees and hands, staring at him with dark eyes. His eyebrows had furrowed together, and his lips were tugged down into a frown. “I have no idea. It was just a thought of heading out to the family house and thought you guys would be interested in coming around with me.” He moved so that he could rest back against the wall near his friend. “Leon, do you think...that the old story of my family being cursed is real?” he asked, rubbing a hand through black hair.

Leon sighed, slumping as he listened for the thudding footsteps of the creature that had chased them from the basement into the bedroom. Hearing nothing, he shrugged. “I have no idea,” he groaned. He slumped and looked around, seeing the bags that they had dropped off in the master bedroom along with their camping supplies still there. “I suppose...that we should go out and see where the girls are.”

“I am not leaving this fucking room,” Michael hissed, eyes wild. “Did you see that fucker? Like a movie devil made from nightmares,” he continued, shuddering. “I say we stay here and wait for the sun to rise.”

“You heard the same screams that I did. I think that was Barbara,” Leon said. He pushed himself up and checked his battery levels, the light on his lantern flickering. Muttering, he got into his pack and pulled out fresh batteries, sliding in fresh ones. “I can’t leave them out there. I think I saw Maria running for the servant’s wing while Barbara was running for the personal wing.” He looked at Michael, the other man holding out the papers.

“I’m still going to sit here. Maria brought that funky as fuck book copy back with her. Maybe it has some information as to what it is,” he said, nodding to the book sitting on one of the beds that they had set up.

Leon nodded. “Stay safe and keep your phone close,” he said, wiggling his own phone. It wasn’t their normal phones: rather they were the two-in-one phones that were connected walkie-talkies and phones. The girls had their own but hadn’t answered when they had tried to call them.

“Yeah, I will. You remember the back passages?” Michael asked, shakily standing to grab one of the bigger lanterns, turning it onto a good brightness.

“Yep. Stay safe,” Leon said. He pressed his ear to the door, and not hearing anything, pulling it carefully open, looking out into the hall before slipping out. Michael picked up the book and smiled at it as he listened to Leon close the door behind him and disappear down the hallway.

“I will,” he hummed, tucking the book away.

“Damn,” Leon breathed, staring at the large library that had been their last stop. “Your family really owns all of these books?” he asked, looking at the climate- controlled bookcases.

“Yeah. My great-grandma was a historian and put the first cases in. They used to use things like salt packs to keep moisture out and the windows were a brown color that you could read through. These had just been put in like a week before my parents died and the books put in. I think they still use things like salt packs to help with excess moisture, but part of my estate pays for the electricity they use and the caretaker that comes from the museum.” He tucked his hands into his pockets and rocked on his feet. “Guy knows his shit. Works with books mostly but also scrolls, parchment, old papers. Whatever needs to be carefully preserved. He’s only in his forties. And in return for taking care of the books, he can sit in here and carefully go over some of the older things.”

“What is he doing with them?” Maria asked, looking at the man.

“Scanning them into a computer program for the use of the museum and his thesis work on a few things,” Michael admitted. He nodded to a computer that was against the wall. “On the other side of that wall sits the room with all of the servers that run the bookcases. And the tower of the computer to,” he said. “It’s kind of cool. Some of these books have been appraised as worth thousands if not millions of dollars. The insurance won’t die until I’m in my grave and my great-grandkids are all grown up to.”

“Your family were really smart about this, weren’t they?” Leon asked, shaking his head. “Hey, looks like he left out a book,” he said, pointing to a book made of leather.

“The fuck?” Barbra breathed, frowning as she walked over to it. She rubbed a finger against her jeans, rubbing off the oils before gently stroking over it. “It’s made of a skin of some kind. Not cow. Cow is different in texture,” she said. She saw the specialized packaged gloves, grabbing a fresh set and opening them, pulling them out. She slid them on before very carefully opening the book. “The Deals of a Family,” she read.

“That’s the book that was said to hold the deals that my family made with the demonic creature,” Michael said, frowning. “What’s it doing out from its case?” he asked, looking over to the unlocked case that looked to hold just the one book on display. “It shouldn’t have been removed at all.”

“Think I can read it?” Barbara asked, smirking at him. Michael waved a hand and she flipped to the first chapter. “How to summon the beast. Call forth its name and bind it to you with blood. Eww.”

“It wasn’t a nice book,” Michael said, shivering as the air started to go cold around, pulling his sweater up to around his nose. “It’s starting to get late. I think we should replace the book,” he said.

Barbra pouted but did place the book into the case before making a surprised sound at finding another copy, this time bound in cow skin. “Can I take the copy?” she asked, holding it up with a smirk.

“Never seen that one so sure,” Michael said, the group of four heading out to the living room where a warm fire and hot coffee waited for them. Michael looked around the library once more before closing the door on the soft growling laughter that echoed.

Leon stepped out of the hallway and walked to where he could see a door standing open. “This wasn’t unlocked before. Didn’t Michael say that this was his father’s study?” he asked himself. He carefully pushed the door open further, stepping into the room and running the lantern portion of his flashlight around the room.

Walking over to the desk, he found nothing there but some old papers that looked to be correspondence from various investments and friends. Stepping forward, he paused when his foot kicked a pen light. Bending down to pick it up, he noticed that the twist knob was the brilliant pink that he had painted for Barbara’s, feeling a shiver run down his spine.

“Fuck,” he breathed, looking around for any sight of his friend in the room. Finding nothing, he left, heading for the next set of servant’s hallways and stairs, turning to walk up them. He knew that Maria most likely would have headed for them and the relative safety of the master bedroom where she could have lit it up with the lanterns. He was halfway up the stairs when his foot once more kicked a penlight, knocking it down to behind the stairs.

Cursing softly under his breath, he walked back down the stairs and worked his way back behind the stairs, finding the pen light. It had a bright yellow painted on the turn top of the flashlight, telling him it was Maria’s. “Where did they go?” he asked. He shined his light around the crawlspace and paused at the disturbed dirt that sat before a part of the wall. “The fuck?”

Carefully walking over to it, he pushed on the wall, feeling it give under his hands.

“Huh.” Using his flashlight to light the way, he pushed the door open a bit more before stepping into the room, closing it behind him. He looked at the way the door worked. It looked as if the only way to open it from the other side was to push and release to get the catch loose enough to open. From there it would once more lock and the catch itself could be opened from the inside.

Shaking his head and making a note of how it worked, he left the door and headed down the hallway, trying to remember if he had seen it on the blueprints. He stopped and stared at the marking on the wall and tapped it.

“Right. The backway of taking out the deceased in the family. They would die and to stop those in the main parts of the house, they would use three specific servant hallways to move them to the right rooms for the wake and then the funeral,” he told himself.

He continued to walk down the hallway, peeking into a few of the side hallways. Looking down, Leon frowned and bent down, shining the light along the floor with a groan.

“Dragged through the hallway, huh?” Leon said, standing up again and following the drag marks. He came to a final door. It was large and decorated with roots that had things intermingled with various faces. Swallowing, he reached out to push the door open, never seeing the bat heading for his head.

Walking out of the bedroom once he was sure that Leon was heading for downstairs, Michael hummed softly. He went over what had been going on for the last several hours.

He had brought his friends, lying to them about never being there in many years. He had been there, having to sign off on some upkeep on the house. Otherwise there would have been roof damage after some of the bigger storms that hit the area. And that would have ended up destroying the interior of the house, which would have meant more work. Luckily for him, his guardians had explained when he had turned sixteen just how they had invested his estate money. Small investments in major companies when they came up for sale. Investing in a couple of major chains.

He lived off part of the interest, the rest going to the upkeep of the house.

It had been on his seventeenth when he had started to explore the house in earnest and found the book that the museum worker had created. He had created four of them, bound in various types of skin to figure out what it was. One had been made from sheep, one from deer and one from, surprisingly, squirrel. How he had done that, he couldn’t figure out.

The last one had been specially treated to keep supple with some information that he had ‘found’ in the journals that his family had left. He had learned other things.

Like they had indeed made a deal with a demonic being, a devil of a sorts, to gain power. The story that most knew was correct for the most part, but some details had been changed.

When the old man had been getting on in years with just a son, he had been looking for a proper son-in-law for his daughter to give him a proper heir to his fortune and estate. Then his ancestor had walked into the factory as a child, learning how to read by doing the invoices and working hard.

His ancestor had impressed him and continued to impress him up until the moment that he had married the man’s daughter and she had become pregnant with a boy. Then he had been taken in under the wing of the man and given the secrets to his family power. His ancestor had taken to it like a duck to water and signed the same contract.

From there, the two families had become one and grown from there until he had been born and something had whispered to him late at night. He hadn’t known what it was, hadn’t really cared because it felt right, and he had listened to it.

That night he had killed his parents, found the first of many special journals from his ancestors, and spoke to the creature. Of course, he hadn’t known what it was until he had returned at age sixteen, seeing it’s true form made of shadows, souls and molten gems. He had agreed that it was more than time to fulfill the family promise and worked towards that for the last two years.

It was time for that last step.

Three people who considered him friend, and in the case of Barbara, his lover. Three people who would feel the betrayal when he cut out the proper parts that he would feed to the creature in it’s chosen form for the night.

The creature chuckled as he licked his paws, having chosen to take over a feral cat, fattening it up and getting it’s body used to a lot of good food. Michael smiled and put the book down next to the original book before picking up the bat and going to hunt down Leon.

The other two were knocked out already and ready to be woken up. He walked out of the room and headed for where he knew Leon was, smirking as he snuck up behind him, lifting his bat.

Watching the four of them wake up, Leon gagging because of the concussion that he most likely had, Michael rested against the table as he carefully cleaned a knife. “Michael?” Barbara slurred, getting a smirk from him.

“Welcome back, Barbara,” he cooed, coming to kneel before her as he stared at the way her eyes widened, staring behind him. He chuckled as she stared at the devil behind him. He had known from the moment that he had meet her that she could see things that others couldn’t. He could see the form of the devil behind him.

And it looked as if she could to.

“Did you know…that there was truth in the stories of my ancestors making a deal with a devil?” he asked, smiling at his friends. He stood and walked over to the table again. “At least before that one ancestor who married into the family who did. He made his own deal to continue their line nice and strong, and when a proper boy was born, they would fulfil their side of the deal. I just happen to be that boy,” he said.

“Deal?” Maria asked, Leon shaking his head, trying to get his head to clear.

“A deal. To have power, monetary and familial. To keep the bloodline strong. Back from the Dark Ages,” Michael replied. “We used to be cursed, in a way. Poor and with children dying left, right, and center. No money. A bad habit of marrying the wrong people who turned out to be abusive, cold as a fish, and other shit like that,” he said, crossing his legs as he stared at them. “My ancestor, a woman hoping to marry a Lord’s heir, found a way to contact the devil that you see here and made a promise that her family would bring him to this world in his own form.”

The creature chuckled, mouth sitting open as it spoke. “It has been many decades since I have made that deal. I had to wait until a proper son was born. There were daughters who would have been good, but the woman was smart and specified. She was my greatest deal, and I was willing to wait until the proper child was born.” The smirk was obvious. “When Michael was born, I knew that he was the perfect child to do what needed to do.”

“So one night, he came to me and told me just how to kill my parents. A bit of sedative lacing the coffee grounds in the coffee pot. A very carefully sharpened knife in the perfect spot to hit an artery without much issue. They died without waking up once and I ‘woke up’ a couple of hours later when my nanny arrived and found my parents,” he drawled, smirking. “Not a single person suspected me, found any kind of evidence since the knife had been carefully washed and put away, and I was just a kid. What kid could kill their own parents?”

“Never mind that there’s dozens of cases about killer kids,” Leon slurred, his head flopping back as he glared at the man. “You a sociopath.”

“Indeed he is. The perfect child for what I need to happen,” the devil chuckled. “And it all started with the hunt.”

Michael smiled, a sweet smile as he picked up the knife that he had been cleaning earlier and walked towards them with a chuckle.

The next morning, he carefully washed off in the river that ran along the far back of the property, cleaned up the plastic that he had used to keep their blood off the floor and gathered their things. Placing it all into Leon’s car, wearing protective gear to stop from leaving evidence behind, and glad that they had decided to go in two cars, he drove the vehicle to another house that was nearly ten miles away driving the winding roads.

He knew who used to own it before he had gone insane and killed his own family, and the house was considered haunted by many. He knew that it was just an empty place with ghosts of the past haunting it. Leaving the packs just inside the house with keys in one pack, he carefully left their lights in one of the rooms and left.

He noticed that someone had been in the house recently and swept things up as he left, shrugging. The police would most likely find out who had been cleaning up the house when they found the car, so he wasn’t too worried.

Walking back home, using the backtrails that he remembered well, it took him just under twenty minutes to get back and start to call their phone numbers as the sun started to rise. He finally called his guardian and asked her if his friends had arrived at her house since it looked like they had left him for whatever reason.

Laying that groundwork, he called the police, told them where he was and said it looked as if they had packed up and left without him. He chuckled with the devil when they promised to be there as fast as they could to find his friends. “Ah, but they won’t be finding them,” he hummed, checking his nails as he walked down to the hidden room with the now very full cat. “Will you be fine for a few weeks?” he asked.

“I will have much to eat for the next few weeks. Do try to find me a healthier animal, preferably larger to, when you next come,” the devil hissed. Michael promised as such and left the basement once he had put everything that could be bad for him in the room.

Such fun was soon to be had.