A Really Scary Horror Book

She backed away.

The door had no peephole. No window. Only a narrow strip of darkness beneath it, where the porch light should have spilled through.

A knuckle touched the wood.

Mara clapped both hands over her mouth.

The touch lingered, then slid downward, as if someone were feeling for the handle from the other side.

The knob began to turn.

She stumbled backward and collided with the wall. The family photograph swung on its nail. The father’s face blurred as the frame moved, but Mara saw the mother clearly. Her mouth was open.

Not smiling.

Screaming.

The knob stopped.

For several seconds, the only sound was rain.

Then the handle snapped violently downward.

Mara ran.

She sprinted toward the staircase, shoes skidding on the polished floor. The hall had changed again. The parlor opening was gone, replaced by a stretch of wallpaper patterned with black vines. The staircase stood farther away, its first step tucked beneath a low arch that had not been there before.

“Mara.”

The voice came from behind the walls.

She stopped so abruptly her heel struck the floorboard.

It sounded like her sister.

“Mara, don’t run.”

Her sister had been dead for nine years.

Mara faced the wallpaper. The black vines trembled, though there was no breeze. One leaf bent outward, making the shape of a hand beneath the paper.

“Who are you?” Mara asked.

The wall gave a soft creak.

“Open the door.”

The voice was almost right. It had Lena’s low, patient tone, but the pauses were wrong. Lena had always rushed through fear. This voice savored it.

Something struck the front door again.

Mara flinched and ran for the stairs.

The arch narrowed as she approached. She ducked beneath it, scraping her shoulder against rough plaster, and reached the staircase. The steps rose into darkness. At the top, a landing waited beneath a single yellow bulb.

She looked back.

The front hallway was empty.

The door stood closed. The knob hung still.

Mara climbed.

Each step groaned under her weight. At the landing, she found three doors. She remembered only two from the way in. The nearest was painted blue, its brass latch shining. The middle door had no handle. The third was narrow and covered in peeling white paint.

She tried the blue door first.

It opened onto the front hallway.

Mara stared at the door across from her, the same dead flower fixture hanging above it. The front door waited at the far end. The family photograph tilted on the wall.

She slammed the blue door shut.

“No. No, that’s not possible.”

She opened it again.

The hallway remained.

But now something wet marked the floorboards.

A footprint.

Then another.

They began at the front door and continued toward her.

Mara backed away from the threshold. The prints were narrow, bare, and dark with water. The newest one appeared while she watched, a glistening heel pressing into the wood as though an invisible foot had just lifted away.

She shut the door.

The voice spoke from inside the wall beside her.

“You shouldn’t have come in.”

Mara spun around. “I didn’t.”

A faint scratching moved through the plaster, traveling from the ceiling down to the floor.

“You knocked.”

“I heard someone else knock.”

“You opened.”

The narrow white door creaked behind her.

Mara turned.

It had been closed before. Now it stood open by an inch, revealing darkness and a thin line of cold air. The air touched her face. It carried the smell of wet earth and something metallic.

She reached for the latch, then stopped.

From below came a sound like a pipe groaning.

The house shifted.

The floor rolled beneath her feet. The landing tilted toward the open door, and Mara grabbed the banister. Somewhere deep inside the walls, bolts shot home one after another.

Click.

Click.

Click.

The blue door locked.

The middle door locked.

The front door below locked with a heavy, final clunk.

Mara stared at the narrow opening.

“What do you want?” she said.

The voice answered from the stairwell this time, close enough that its breath seemed to touch the back of her neck.

“Down.”

She whirled.

Nothing stood behind her.

At the foot of the stairs, the front door had begun to tremble. The knob turned in short, eager jerks. Outside, something scraped its fingernails across the wood.

Mara looked at the open white door.

Then at the stairs.

She had one chance to find another exit before whatever waited outside realized the front door would not open.

She stepped through.

The room beyond was not a room. It was a narrow passage packed with shelves, pipes, and hanging coats. Their sleeves brushed her arms as she squeezed between them. Dust coated her tongue. Somewhere above, water ticked steadily into a metal basin.

The passage ended at a blank wall.

Mara swore and turned back.

The white door had vanished.

In its place stood a mirror.

Her reflection stared at her from the dark glass. Her hair was damp from the rain. A red scrape crossed her shoulder. Behind her reflection, the passage continued much farther than the real one.

A row of footprints led away into the mirror.

Mara raised her hand.

Her reflection did not.

It pressed one finger to its lips.

Then it pointed down.

A sound came from beneath the floorboards.

Three knocks.

Mara crouched and ran her fingers over the wood. One plank felt loose. She wedged her car key beneath its edge and pried. The board lifted with a wet sucking sound.

Underneath lay a shallow cavity filled with dust, dead insects, and a tarnished iron key.

The key was warm.

Mara nearly dropped it.

A strip of black thread hung from its bow, tied into a crooked loop. When she lifted it, the thread stretched toward the far wall.

The wall had changed.

A narrow door now stood where the shelves had been. It was made of unfinished wood and had no visible hinges. A keyhole waited at chest height.

Behind Mara, the mirror began to tap.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

She pushed the key into the lock.

The voice in the walls rose sharply. “Stop.”

Mara held still.

The voice changed. It was no longer Lena’s. It was deeper, layered with other voices speaking at once.

“Stop, Mara.”

The mirror cracked from top to bottom.

Mara turned the key.

The hidden door opened inward.

Beyond it, a staircase descended into blackness.

A gust rose from below, cold and damp, carrying the stink of mud. The footprints continued down the first three steps, fresh enough that water gleamed along their edges.

Mara took out her phone and switched on the flashlight.

The beam reached the bottom.

A wall blocked the stairwell.

Not a door. Not rubble. A smooth wall of gray concrete, newly poured and still shining in places. Someone had sealed the stairwell from below.

On the concrete, at eye level, four words had been written in a dripping black substance.

MARA, GO BACK NOW.

She stared at the message.

The house groaned around her. Above, the hidden door began to swing shut.

Mara caught it with her shoulder.

For one breath, she considered climbing back to the hall, finding a window, breaking through the glass, anything but descending toward the sealed basement.

Then another footprint appeared on the stairs below her.

A bare heel pressed into the dust.

The toe followed.

No body stood there.

Mara tightened her grip on the warm iron key.

The footprint angled toward the concrete wall, as though whoever made it had walked straight into the seal.

She raised the flashlight.

At the bottom, beneath the warning, something moved behind the concrete.

Not a crack.

Not a shadow.

A hand pressed outward, five fingers spreading beneath the unfinished surface.

The voice in the walls whispered from behind Mara’s ear.

“Now it knows you’re here.”

The hidden door slammed shut.

End of chapter one. 4 more chapters in the full book.