Locked out

In the comedy styling of Edgar Allen Poe

(Or why too much Edgar Allen Poe, Tim Burton and too little sleep make Alex go crazy.)

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In the Mooreland's of York, way out in an area where no one could be bothered to check if there were any building that should have been placed on a map, sat an old house on a hill that resembled and smelt like an old compost heap. The hill was less a hill but an oversized molehill where only dead bracken and blackened naked trees seemed to stand. No animals, except rats and owls dared to approached the old mansion on the rotting hill because animals, like humans, know when a place is dangerous.

The house itself was mainly brown, but the brown was made up of various blue, purples, blacks, greys and even yellows of age and damp, not to mention the mold that was consuming the house alive. It looked like a discarded cardboard box that had been lumped on top of a compost heap, left to rot down and be used again.

But if anyone ever entered the house, even thought all common sense tells us that it's dangerous, you would see the old furniture, covered in dirty ripped dustsheets lying on the ground as if something had ripped them apart. It seems of dry rot and wet dust, a sort of acrid smell that gets into your lungs and makes you cough until you can smell the blood in your spit and the scratchy rawness in your throat. If you look up you will notice an absence of life. No rats or spiders live here, not even the cockroaches that live off the rubbish of the world, for even animals know that you should not go near a place live this, even if it was the last place on earth. Animals know better that to go near what is truly evil.

The stairs are rickety and dangerous, the wood thin and splintered. There is an old carpet on the stairs, the colour indistinguishable by dust and age. Parts of it have been rotted away, eaten away by moths before even they left. It had once been polished and well kept, but had fallen into disrepair; part of the banister looked like it had been kicked in.

If you follow the trail of the decomposing carpet to the top of the house, you should find a long corridor; reminisce of one of an insane asylum. The difference is the decadence of the place, and how brown and dirty it looks, rather than the sterile white of a hospital. You could say that this house looks like the insides of an insane person's mind, the number of rooms and corridors in such a small house is beyond believe, almost as if weren't real, but broke reality into small pieces.

Down the corridor at the very top of the house is a man, slumped against the wall, laughing. That is the only sound in the house. There is no creaking of wall, no wind, nothing, nothing but the laughter of this one man. It isn't a joyous laugh, but a sound somewhere between a scream and a cackle of horrid insanity. His face is hollow and sickly looking; his eyes are pale and lifeless. He is too weak to get up, but he continued to laugh, occasionally breaking out into screams and scratches at one of the doors in the corridor, shouting, ' let me back in! LET ME IN!'

The door is thick and sturdy and looked as if it could keep out an army, or keep it in. Made of oak, unkempt but as strong as the day it was made, it is now covered in desperate scratches and old, congealed blood.

His fingers have been worn down to bloody stumps, his hands constantly covered with his own blood and cracked from years of ill treatment. Covered in splinters he continued to claw at the door like a dog whimpering for food outside someone's back door. Sometimes he bangs his head on the door, causing it to open up an old, festering wound on his head. In this house the only thing that can grow is pestilence and madness.

Tears in his eyes the man screams and curses the door, raving like he had lost the power of human speech long ago, the very sight of the man makes your heartache and your body recoil. A man in such a bestial state is to both be pitied and feared. His clothes are dirty and ripped, his hair long and unwashed and his face full of animal like desire, no humanity is left in him.

So it would be a surprise to hear that this man, this piteous man who wines at the door like a kicked dog and laughs like a raven how is feeding off fresh human carrion was once a well-respected man, who, in his whole life had never had an inhuman thought or an overwhelming clamorous desire as he does now, laughing and crying as he tries to get through the door.

One upon a time this man had been an accountant, a boring man most people would have agreed. He wasn't exciting or interesting and had very few qualities that would distinguish him from the crowd. But every year he spent his holiday doing what some people would consider the most boring, anally retentive and generally most dreary thing you can do. He went rambling around the Yorkshire moors.

But for this dreary, dull man as soon as he stepped on the moors that day, it would be the last time he saw the sun. It started out as a typical day wandering the moors, wet and cold, but the man had enjoyed it for he didn't know anything better. He had walked all day until he reached the house. When he first saw it he thought it was just a trick of the mind, but as he got closer he realised it was real.

Although a dull and dreary man, instead of walking on, which would have saved his life and his sanity, he looked it up on the map. Surely a building like this would have been on the map! But as hard as he looked he couldn't find it. This house wasn't on the map; no matter how hard he looked there wasn't a single building, any old ruin, no nothing. It was just an old house, which, according to the map, should exist. The man, thinking the manufactures had made a mistake took out a pencil from his top pocket and quickly drew on a small circle, labelling it 'house'.

He put his map back and looked up at the sky. He remembered that it had, seemingly only a few minutes ago, been a pail blue blemished with the occasional vapour trail of an aeroplane, but like time had jumped ahead here, the sky was a sulphur yellow punctuated with candy pink clouds and dark purple swirls. But the more he looked at the sky, the faster it seemed to turn into a muddy blue, like the sky had been kicked and turned into a nasty bruise. The longer he stared, his eyes transfixed at the swirling, changing sky, the darker it went, swirling like dirty water down a drain. Then, like time had no meaning, he realised that he must have been standing there for three hours, and the light was gone from the sky, except for the pale light of the moon that hung like an iridescent light bulb in the sky.

The man shivered as night crept over him, chilling him down to his bones. A gently wind tussled his hair, and the man realised that the only way to survive the night would be to go inside the house. Why he thought this, I shall never work out, maybe it was the workings of a mind that had never fully realised evil, maybe it was the house calling him, like a light attracts moths, but the man made his way to the house.

Climbing the hill his nose was filled with the stench of rotting carrion and decaying life, which made him feel nauseated. His foot slipped a couple of times, covering himself with the smell that filled his lungs, making him choke. If the man had walked on for about half a mile, he would have found a village to stay at, but for the first time he heard the sound, the sound like a sirens call. He heard the laugh of a young woman.

His foot slipping again, his face going straight into a pile of rotting poison ivy, he dragged himself up, and listened again. There was silence, except for the whistling of the wind as it gently rustled the dead branches and leaves on the trees and bushes. Getting himself a foothold on the soft, boggy ground, he stood up and listened again. Like a cold kiss he heard it again. The small titter of a young woman, as if she were truly happy. The man, his heart leaping, ran up the hill, stumbling and faltering all the way. He ran as fast as he could, the gluey peat sticking to his feet, trying to slow him down, but he couldn't slow down. He ran as fast as he could, and reaching the door lent on the handle as he pushed it open.

But the very moment he touched the handle he heard a bone-curdling shriek. The man fell to the ground, both in shock and horror. The scream seemed to go on forever, making his eardrums feel as if they were about to burst and his heart stop. It sounded liker a young woman being killed, hurt, and torn in pain. Before the man could even think he jumped up and bashed down the door, each time he hit the door the screams got louder and more agonised, the very sound making the mans muscles weaken and his heart sink.

The door fell to the ground as he fell in, his body tired and heavy as lead. The screaming stopped suddenly. Fearing the worst, the man leapt up, and ran towards the stairs. All he could hear in his ears was the ringing from the screams and a strange sound, like someone laughing again. Holding onto the banister he listened to the laughter. It seemed to be that of the young woman in the house. He peered half sighted up the stairs and swore he could see a flicker of light. He trudged up the steps, his feet made of air as he gravitated towards the light. He heard a giggle and a rustle of cotton. He looked around quickly, and saw a shadow just diapering out of sight. The moment he reached the top of the stairs (the walked seemed longer than the one up the hill that looked considerably bigger) he looked for the light. It had gone, but dark hallways beckoned to his senses. He heard the laugh again, a kindly laugh as if mocking him slightly, and then, like a pail candle flickering in the wind he saw a light at the end off a hallway. Cautiously, his steps slow and careful, he crept towards the light like a lamb to the slaughter. At the end of the corridor he saw a single Candle flickering in the dish. The man saw it stood under a window, bathed in a pale blue light, but it flickered anyway. The man picked up the candle, burning with a dull orange light, and looked around, holding it out like a torch.

He heard a whisper. He spun around on his heals, the small flame nearly blowing out. He saw a flash of grimy bronze in the pail light. He blinked and brought the candle to the place where he had seen the metal. It looked like a doorknob. The man sighed, but heard the laugh again. He stopped dead and looked up the door. It was dirty and half rotten, like everything else in this house, but he hadn't noticed it before now. He swore he could hear faint laughter on the other side of the door, muffled and far away. The man looked up the door and saw that it had a little window in it, but the window was painted back so you couldn't see through it. The man tried the door handle and miraculously it opened.

No one's quiet sure what he saw, or what went through his mind as the old door swung casually open, but what we know was that he saw a bright white light, like the sun shinning through him. At first he thought he was being burned to death, but he stumbled forward, a mocking laugh in his ears. As he walked forward he cooled down, he felt practically comfortable. Still blind in the bright light, he felt himself float up, as if he were resting in water. Half terrified, half euphoric, the man let his body be lifted up, the bright light keeping him blind. He gasped out, the very sensation of being lifted and cooled down making his very body tingle. The man had never felt this sensation before. As the shock wore off, all he could feel was unbridled pleasure, as if his whole body had dedicated itself to this feeling of gratification. He didn't know if he was breathing any more, so much was the feeling of pure joy that ran through his body.

The man felt tepid water on his face, as if he had only noticed the warm liquid running through his whole body. He opened his eyes, and saw the beautiful blue light all around him, the water all around him. He panicked for a second, but as he saw the bubbled coming out of his mouth he realised that he could breath underwater, while the very fluid made him feel pure pleasure without any pain at all. Every second he spent under the cool blue light, the less he felt like moving.

Then, like an angel he saw a woman swimming towards him from the top of the depths in which he was floating towards. He saw her, and his heart almost stopped.

She was beautiful.

She wasn't just beautiful, like most people are, but she shone like a star on a black night, her bright long hair changing colour every few seconds in the blue light that surrounded both of them. Her face was fair, like a faerie's, her eyes like flowers, her enchanting eyes framed with long, dark lashes. She wore a long billowing lily- white dress. Her deathly blue lips parted in a smile as she giggled the captivating laugh that had brought him so far. He felt himself breath in the liquid all around him as he stared up into her face. She swam down to him, her body nearly on top of his. He looked into her eyes, getting lost in the cloudy blue eyes. She smiled again, and her thin hand held his face as her lips parted again to kiss his.

The kiss was like nothing before. It was sweet and sour, light but heavy, his heart floating and sinking at the same time. He never wanted it to stop, but the more he kissed her, the more he felt the sensation of his lungs being crushed, the very oxygen being sucked out of them. He held onto her, the gratifying pain seemed so much more that life. Then she thrust her tongue in his mouth, biting his tongue and drinking the blood in his mouth. Even then, even when he knew she was biting him, did he draw away from her. He fumbled for her face, like it were of no consequence, and tried to get her to loosen. But the more he tried, the harder she gripped onto him, the once pleasurable experience becoming more terrifying by the second.

It came to the point when he thought it would never end when the woman let go. She floated up a little, the man beholding her with pure fright. The woman herself laughed again, and then, smiling brightly, alluringly, she closed her eyes. The man looked up, floating, but still unaware of what she was doing. She blew him a kiss, her blues lips smiling gently. Then she burst into flame.

The man screamed. As the woman burned she cried out a little in pain, but she laughed and shrieked with joy, the flames licking up and down her body, the blaze seemed to cause her no pain, but pleasure. The man tried to swim to her, but his limbs felt as heavy as lead and as he watched he felt the blue light suddenly turn darker as she screamed with delight. Then, with one last lash of flame the woman, engulfed in the fire, disappeared. He floated in limbo for a few seconds more until, like a stone he sank, the bright light returning, the sound of her laughter ringing in his ears.

He didn't know what happened exactly after that. There was the white light again, and the feeling of falling through water, but it couldn't have been less that three days later when he found himself outside the room again, asleep. When he first awoke, his first through was the door! The man, his whole body feeling worn out, clutched at the door handle desperately, fighting like a mad thing with the door handle. But it didn't even move.

He has been there, even since that day wailing and crying to return to the room, cursing the woman who led him there. He had tasted perfection, and had lost it as quickly. He is a wild thing now, his family have presumed him dead, the police didn't even see the house, didn't check inside, although they did think they heard a voice of crying on the wind.

Here is the man who saw heaven. Locked out.