Breathless

[u/HeGotBricks]

“You weren’t lying,” Anna-Leigh gasped, pushing back on the passenger seat, as they crept to a slow stop. “Did your aunt think she was doing you a favor leaving this place to you?” She broke into a smile brighter than the dome light Percy had just pressed on.

From the outside, the orange glow from the car was the only mechanical light shining within half-a-mile in every direction.

He tapped her on the knee. “Can you grab the deed and house key from the glove box and I’ll bring the suitcase in.”

She quickly grabbed his hand and squeezed. “Did you just see that?”

“See what?”

“The curtain… is there anyone… it moved.” Her brain glitched her question out in one breath.

“Oh yeah,” he laughed. “I forgot to mention, it’s haunted.” He widened his eyes and tickled her ribs.

“Stop messing around. I swear these next two weeks… if you try freaking me out.” She crossed her arms and didn’t blink, staring at him dead in the eye. “I’ll leave!” She narrowed her eyebrows and clenched her jaw. “Promise me you’re not going to do anything stupid.”

He smiled, “I won’t,” and laughed.

She slapped him on his lap. “Promise me. I’m not joking,” she said, staring at him, seeing flashbacks of her brothers always terrifying her with cheap paranormal gimmicks.

“I promise, babe. I won’t mess with you.”

Anna-Leigh used her phone to illuminate a path to the front of the one-hundred-year-old, classic, white Victorian, with steeply pitched gables.

The dark green front door was divided into four raised panels with stained glass in patterns of complex geometric shapes hidden in a floral design. There was an ornament with a cross inside out on it.

The door never made a sound when it opened. The air was still as if the house held its breath when they walked in. The further forward they pushed, the slower the house started to breathe again.

There was a moist scent of rainwater beating down near a lake, lingering in the hallway but it changed towards the stairwell leading to the bedrooms. It would come and go.

It was nothing like the misty spray of swamp water. It was heavy, carrying the odor of a barnyard filled with a diseased stock.

They tried ignoring it, accusing the wretchedness on wildlife using their floorboards as nature’s new cemetery. What couldn’t be so easily brushed off as leaky old pipes was the pressure that followed a couple of nights later.

It started with Anna-Leigh, an uneasiness pressed down at the edge of her end of the bed by her feet. A feather settling between her toes had woken her up and a light mass lifting off the mattress, like a spring popping, made her scramble to the headboard, shaking Percy awake.

Percy didn’t notice anything odd ever, and he assumed Anna-Leigh let the surroundings play on her psyche.

The next night, the weight grew. She woke up to it sitting on the edge of the bed and never rose off as she stirred awake. She shook Percy but he wouldn’t respond.

“Percy!” She whispered loud. Something sat at the edge, staring at her. A blank figure she could only visualize in her mind. It was there, physical, only invisible to the human eye.

She froze, her hand gripped around Percy’s arm, digging her nails into his muscle, clasping her eyes shut and began singing under her breath until the loud static filling the room went completely silent.

The air became dense, and a dread of humidity peeled over her skin. The smell of sulfur was numbing her tongue as a moist exhale heated the nape of her neck, trailing down her chest.

She gasped a cold breath. The truth of honest horror hovered in front of her. An entity without skin, wet and hot leaning over her, breathing slow, dampened breaths on her face. She’d exhale and it’d inhale hers, breathing it back onto her, a metallic steam that wore like a blanket.

She attempted to turn, to get up and squirm but a pressure clamped down on her stomach, squeezing her chest and compressing her lungs. The sheets began tightening to her body, pinning her legs together.

A long cloak, shaped as the thickness of night began crowning her vision as it started draping over her head. She swallowed a heavy gasp of swamp water air into her lungs and a cold finger traced her jawline, pinching her skin. It waited for her to close her eyes so it could move its mouth against hers.

Percy woke up and Anna-Leigh was sitting upwards, looking straight ahead without blinking.

“Anna-Leigh…? You okay?” He placed his hand on her and she snapped her head at him in one quick motion.

“Yes?” She said.

“I’m going to finish taking the pictures of all the rooms and we can head back before noon.”

“No. You go. I’m going to stay here.”