Chapter Seven.

After a nice and pleasant dinner, Hailey and Jake Headed upstairs. The house seemed empty now, and gave the impression that it had a lot more room than usual, of course most of the furniture was no longer there due to the move but it felt weird staying in an empty house.

After Washing the dishes Diane went to her room and grabbed her laptop from her side table and got into bed. She was still concerned about what had happened the night before and decided to take a look at the security footage to get a better understanding of what was going on.

“Well let’s see what we have here”.

She opened the footage and clicked on the fast-forward button, even though it was speeding through the footage it actually dawned on her that the house is usually quiet, there was little to no movement throughout the day and she realised how much she actually missed having her husband around the house. She sat there in wonder as to where she went wrong, questioning if she was not the perfect wife to him or not the perfect mother to Jake. Tears that were building up in her eyes ran down her cheek and dropped onto her hand. The tear drop brought her back to reality and she whipped them off her cheek gently.

“You don’t need him anyways”. She said to herself.

The video had reached the part where Jake had gotten up and left for bed that night. She quickly tapped the spacebar to stop the video and clicked on the touchpad to play it again at its normal speed. As soon as it had gotten to the point where she had passed out, the video went fuzzy for several seconds, almost as if the camera had some kind of technical glitch. She sped up the tape again until the image was clear again. She clicked play but realised that at this point she had already been tucked in and the television was switched off.

“Wait wh – what?”

Diane was muddled, she tried to rewind the recording to see if the video would reveal who tucked her in, but it went blank once again. She sat there wondering what happened to the cameras at that particular moment. The video continued playing and it went fuzzy for a second. Suddenly, Diane remembered the window that she had found open that very morning. She took a look in the video, but it was closed. She sped the recoding up a bit and suddenly there it was, the window was open but by what though. She zoomed in and noticed a black shadow standing in the corner of the room, she leaned in to try get a better look and it was indeed a shadow. A human figure stood there in the corner of the room, watching her sleep. She zoomed in even closer and suddenly, she froze.

“Hailey?” she said to herself as she squinted at the image Infront of her.

“Mom! You have to see this!” Jake barged in her room.

“Ah, Oh my word Jake you gave me such a scare.” Diane jumped and quickly shut her laptop before Jake sat beside her. “please learn how to knock and not just barge in like that, geez.”

(10 Minutes Earlier.)

“So, what did you get up to today?” Hailey asked as she sat on jakes bed.

“Well, we went to the house to drop off some more stuff. Funny enough Mr Crawford came by to say hi.”

“That’s not funny Jake, that’s a bit creepy” Hailey said as she slipped into one of Jakes Hoodies. “I mean, shouldn’t he have moved out of that house by now after what happened to his neighbours”.

“That’s exactly what I told my mom, but she said I should stop being mean, anyways, he seems a bit creepy. Something about him just isn’t right”.

“Let me guess, your mom didn’t listen to that either?” Hailey asked, with a tone of irony in her voice.

“Of course, she was too busy burying her face in the pie that he brought along with him. But that is beside the point. Remember all the blood that was on the floor? As I was cleaning it up, I noticed another blood trail that went upstairs.”

“But we didn’t go upstairs, we were in the kitchen.” Hailey responded as she sat on Jakes bed.

“Exactly my point, so who’s blood led up the staircase? and when I got to the top it suddenly disappeared, like the trail just seemed to stop”.

“So, you’re telling me that the trail of blood led to nowhere?” Hailey responded with a blank look on her face.

“Yes, mom said you must’ve gone upstairs or something because who else’s blood would it be. So, I ignored it and cleaned it up, until I heard something while I was in the garden. I went to have a look and it sounded like it came from that girls house.”

“You mean Amelia’s House? Jake, that house hasn’t been touched for 10 years, it's technically falling apart. I’m sure something like a racoon was in the house and it knocked something over.”

“Yeah, maybe I don’t know. I took a video to try get a closer look, but I didn’t see anything.”

Jake pulled out his phone and played the video just before he handed it over to Hailey. He then went to his closet to grab the rest of his clothes and stuffed them in his bag.

“See there’s nothing at all, I guess I must’ve been spooked or someth –”

“Jake” Hailey said with a shaky voice as she interrupted Jake from finishing his sentence. “I think you might want to come see this.”

Hailey rewound the video and turned the phone towards Jake. He got closer to try get a better look, but he couldn’t see anything that was out of the ordinary. in fact he just saw the house through the thick bushes and that was pretty much it.

“Hailey, there’s nothing there.”

“Jake, I know I’m not going crazy. Look at the window upstairs and look closely.” She said as she held her index finger on the rewind button for about three seconds before letting the video play again.

Jake got even closer and stared at the window, squinting ever so slightly, and trying not to blink in distress that he might miss what Hailey was trying to point out in the video. There it was, Jake could not believe his eyes, He grabbed the phone out of Hailey’s hand and paused the video. He starred at it with utter shock, thunderstruck, he did not even say a single word. He knew Hailey has had a rough couple of days but what he saw just proved to him she was not going crazy.

“Jake?” Hailey said as she got off the bed and stood beside him, placing her hand on his shoulder ever so gently.

“I have to show this too my mom.” He rushed out his room and paced down the passage before barging into his mother room.

(Present.)

“Ah, oh my word Jake you gave me such a scare.” Diane jumped and quickly shut her laptop before Jake sat beside her. “please learn how to knock and not just barge in like that, geez.”

“Mom just look at this okay” He sat beside her and held his phone in her face before pressing play.

“What am I looking at Jake? There’s nothing th –”

“Just look into the window of the house okay.” He interrupted as he pointed towards the window upstairs on the left corner of the house.

And there it was, two human like shadows standing at the window just as Hailey had described them a few days ago. Dressed in white gowns filthy with blood. Just standing there staring directly towards where Jake was standing earlier on that day.

Diane froze just as Jake did earlier. She took a big gulp and grasped the phone ever so slowly. She could not believe what she was looking at, but a huge part her did not want to believe it. How couldn’t she though, after seeing the cctv footage she was looking at before Jake barged in her room.

“Jake, I also have something to show you” Diane opened her laptop and showed Jake the video. “I don’t know what happened to the camera but at some points it just seemed to have some kind of technical problem, she said as the video went fuzzy.

“Yeah, I see that. Something seems to be disturbing the frequency.” Jake said to his mother.

“See what I was talking about this morning.” Diane said to as she pointed to herself in the laptop who now suddenly has a blanket over her, and the television is switched off. “You told me you didn’t come downstairs to give me a blanket or switch off the television, and I for sure didn’t get off that couch until I actually went to bed Jake, so who did?”

Jake tried so hard to make sense of what he had just seen but he couldn’t. Diane sped up the video and paused it to show Jake the shadow that was standing in the corner of the room.

“Jake, Is that not Hailey?” She said to him.

“Mom, come on now that’s creepy and why would Hailey even do that, you can’t even see that persons face it looks like a complete shadow, I mean –”

Jake froze for a moment and looked at the screen once more.

“Uh mom, that shadow just moved.” Jake said as he pointed to the other corner of the room.

“Of course, it did, It’s a video sweety.” She responded as she looked at Jake.

“Mom, the video is paused.” Jake gulped. The two got even closer to the screen to look at the shadow. They stared at it, waiting to see if it’ll move. It was almost like a game of hunting, where they had to wait and try catch their prey off guard but suddenly the Screen went blank. The two slightly jumped back as they got a bit of scare.

“whew, okay I think that’s enough scary stories for the night.” Diane said as she tried to laugh the fear out her.

But just before Jake got up, he picked up his phone and realised that was also turned off. Jake tried to switch it on, but it would not switch on at all. Diane tried to switch on her laptop but that would not switch on either. Until both of them switched on simultaneously, but the screen was pure white and flickering. Suddenly what seemed to be blood on the inside of their screens appeared, oozing down ever so slowly and unexpectedly a voice came from both Jakes Phone and Diane’s laptop. Deep, Dark and Satanic, the type to make your skin crawl and the hair on the back of your neck stand tall.

“Your souls are empty and weak, your faith is broken, and my children feed on you. For they are rulers of the dark and call upon creatures which possess no names, creatures that fear no mortal and have no God. For man has grown weak, your kingdom has crumpled, the blood of your children sinks into the very ground that I was once entombed under. Your kind has called upon me, yet you fear my very existence, fear sinks into you hearts. He neglected me, but the very same beings who he wishes to protect have awoken me. Join me, for she has returned to her rightful place once more and the blood of the innocent shall be spilt under clear skies with a full moon for her kingdom to rule this long forgotten and forsaken land. Join me, for death is upon you. DEATH IS UPON YOU, SHE HAS RETURNED!”