The house stood amongst the trees like an open sore, a condemned heap of lumber and tattered shingles that was dwarfed by the forest surrounding it. The structure begged to be demolished, and the wildlife looked ready to reclaim it at a moment's notice. The longer I looked at it, the more I wondered if I was at the wrong address.
My watch beeped and I lowered the binoculars, feeling the chilly air nip at the back of my neck. It had just turned ten o’clock, but lying in the weeds it felt like three in the morning. The moon couldn’t seem to get a word in through the clouds, and the house itself seemed to radiate its own perpetual darkness. Even from across the street, the house felt wrong.
I got off my stomach and crouched in the grass, chewing my lip. My gut urged me to go home, and I thought of my car, parked on the agricultural road about a hundred yards away. I could just leave and forget about this place, forget it even existed. Just the thought of leaving made me feel guilty, and I couldn’t help but dig my phone out of my pocket. I thought of Teddy, and I started to sweat.
I read the text again, for the thousandth time.
-Heading there now, sure you haven’t changed your mind?-
Teddy was my younger brother. We didn’t have the best childhood growing up— between our father being in and out of prison and our mother working double shifts, we were left to our own devices the majority of the time. It was something that made us stray from the path of normal blue-collar children. With my mother struggling to make ends meet and the continuous lack of money, it was easy to pick us out from the other kids at school, something that would eventually get us into constant trouble in years of bullying and being outcasts. Despite the hardship, Teddy and I found ways to ease our path through a life where money had the final say.
We started taking it, whenever we could.
It started small, and innocently if I might add. A couple bucks here and there from other students, enough to afford things we didn’t have, like laundry soap or deodorant. With enough practice, we learned to lift wallets and purses with ease. We preyed on other students at our high school for whatever cash their parents sent them with, be it book rental fees or lunch money.
It wasn’t personal, it was just there. And the worst part of it all, the money came easy.
We always distanced ourselves from the owners of the money we took, and we only attempted if we were sure we could get it without there being an altercation. We didn’t want to be anywhere near them when they realized it was gone, either. In the end I think it helped with our guilt. For all we knew, they assumed they lost it.
When we got older and out of school, we started casing places together. Planning. Trying to be better. Pickpocketing on the street was tough, and the pay didn’t justify the risk. We hit our first house before we were twenty, spent weeks making sure they wouldn’t be home. At first the few hundred bucks in cash didn’t seem worth it, but the yield from pawning trinkets ended up being the real prize. Engagement rings, heirloom watches, coin collections. The investment of scoping houses and scouring them would triple, sometimes quadruple a day of pulling wallets. Each score would provide enough to catch everything up and buy necessities, even allow a few weeks of downtime.
As the years passed we honed our craft, planning each job patiently, methodically. Countless hours practicing lockpicking on dummy locks and researching home surveillance. Memorizing mail routes, garbage pickup.
The best houses to hit were those who went out on the town for the night. Whether it be a club, or a casino.
We were pretty damn good at it, too. Enough to make a living off of it, easily. We would spend two weeks planning, and hit the house on the weekend. Everything seemed to be going well, almost foolproof, until the last house we hit together. Teddy was getting impatient. Cocky. Swore only one week of planning would be enough, that we were taking too much time. I reluctantly agreed, my gut feeling pushed away by the thought of the extra money.
We cased a place outside of town, and waited for a Friday night. Watching from the field across the street, we observed as a couple left and locked the door behind them, all dressed up for a night out. They got in the only car in the driveway and drove away, the house barely lit with some of the kitchen lights on. Nobody else looked to be inside. The coast looked clear.
Teddy stood watch while I picked the lock, and when we got in we went straight to the bedroom. We tossed the drawers and moved on to the closet like we usually did, but something wasn’t right. The lights started to come on in the house, followed by the scuffs of little feet on the carpet.
Standing in the doorway was a preteen girl, and three little kids, each had to be under ten years old. Turns out the babysitter and the couple's children had been hanging out in the basement, watching movies. Together we all froze, the children terrified and crying as they looked at the two scary men in ski-masks, their eyes falling to the crowbars in our hands. Teddy was the first to move, raising his crowbar in an attempt to scare them off. The kids started to scream and I told Teddy to back off, deciding it was best to just call it a bust and walk away.
We had to jump through the window and make a run for it, and we got away clean, but there was something about that night that put me off the whole thing. The look in their eyes when they caught us, and the uncertainty I felt when Teddy walked toward them.
I didn’t want to do it anymore. Despite Teddy’s frustration I went clean, got a job stocking goods at a local store, earning an actual check while I sat on my nest egg. Teddy tried to do the same, but proved unable to adjust to a normal life where money had to be earned instead of taken. I tried to get him on the right track, and he tried to fight me every step of the way. In the end we parted ways, and he went back to casing places alone while I spent my nights stocking shelves and trying to blend in as a normal person.
As the months passed, I started to enjoy my new attempt at life. I even met a girl at the store I was working at and we started seeing each other. We didn’t have a lot of money, and I was slowly bleeding my nest egg going on dates and buying things for my apartment. The urge to do another job would return, but each time I would think of the look of terror on the faces of those kids and it would melt away.
Even last week, when I got a text from Teddy. Another attempt to get me back in, something he would do every couple weeks, despite our falling out. He had been doing jobs on his own for a while now, focusing on houses out in the country. Said he had found one almost completely surrounded by trees, one that nearly looked abandoned. There were rumors a hoarder had lived there. He talked a good game and even sent me the address. I knew he wanted me back because we worked better as a team. The thought was tantalizing, imagining finding a nice necklace or earrings, something I couldn’t afford with my wage job. Aside from the money, I missed the bond we shared when we worked together. I missed him. The act of no longer doing the jobs and trying to be clean cut felt like I was missing a limb. Despite the lure to join him, I refused. I couldn’t get the image of the children from the last job out of my head.
Three days ago, he sent me another text.
-Heading there now, sure you haven’t changed your mind?-
I refused again and wished him well, and as he went off to make more than three of my checks put together, I went on a date instead.
When I got back home, I texted him to see how it went, and he didn’t respond. He didn't answer my calls, either. Even though we weren't working together any more, he still always answered his phone. The next day, I went to his apartment, and found he wasn't home. His car wasn't there, either.
I checked public records to see if he had gotten arrested. When that turned nothing up, I started to worry. I looked up the address, and placed an anonymous phone call through wifi-calling at the local library. They performed a wellness check, and said “not only was there no one there, it looked like the place was going to cave in at any second.” They assumed I had given them the wrong address.
Another day passed. Another day of calling, stopping by his apartment, checking everywhere he would’ve normally been. It was like he had just vanished out of thin air. The only lead I had was the house.
This house.
I looked at the text for a little bit longer, before tucking my phone away. I climbed onto my knees and looked through the binoculars again, panning them over the porch, the windows, the driveway. It really did look like it was going to collapse at any second.
I checked both sides of the street, and saw the same abyssal darkness for as far as I could see. There wasn’t a car coming for miles in either direction. I walked quickly up the driveway, my backpack feeling oddly comforting on my shoulders. I had brought everything I would need to get into the house; my worn set of lockpicks, a flashlight, and my crowbar. I had dressed dark and in layers to fight against the chill, but my blood was running hot at the thought that something had happened to Teddy.
I walked quickly, repeatedly scanning between the door and the windows and making sure there wasn’t any movement. The house already looked like it would be painless to get into. No CCTV, no automatic porchlight, no key code lock, no barking dog. This would’ve been easy money, if the place didn’t look like it had been abandoned for twenty years.
The porch steps creaked under my feet as I climbed them, preemptively readying my picks by the time I hit the door. I worked quickly, inserting the tensioner and jimmying the pick until the plug turned. I glanced behind me to make sure nobody was there, and turned the knob. The knob turned freely but the door didn’t budge. Not like it was being held by a deadbolt, like it wasn’t moving at all. Midway through the door was a mail slot, and I lifted the cover to peek in.
There was nothing but a dusty gloom. No lighting, whatsoever.
I pocketed the picks and pulled the little crowbar from my bag, wedging the tip in between the door and the frame around it. The wood splintered but the door remained solidly in place— I would be here all day and all I would get was a mess.
Crowbar in hand, I left the porch and circled around the house, looking through the windows as I worked my way to the back. The windows were covered in a film of dust and dirt, and I could barely see inside. I decided I would find a way in through the back, away from the view of the road.
The lawn was erratically overgrown, tufts of weeds protruding up to waist height that nearly made me trip every other step. The dark outside seemed to suffocate, and between the lack of visibility and the rugged terrain I started to feel out of my depth. Part of me wished I was still back at the store stocking shelves, but the thought of Teddy pushed me forward. Maybe he had gotten in and the floor had collapsed, or maybe he had knocked his head or something. These reaching thoughts felt silly, but they kept me from thinking of something worse.
Around the right corner, I hugged the wall until I reached the backyard. The place hadn’t seen a mower in years; new saplings and bushes had sprouted amongst the fray of tall grass. Old wooden benches had wasted away, and a frayed rope dangled from a tree from the overbearing weight of a tire swing. I looked away from the forgotten yard and focused on the house, stopping in my tracks immediately.
One of the windows had been shattered.
Something I would expect Teddy to do, if he couldn’t find another option. There wasn’t much glass on the ground outside, whoever busted it was trying to get in. I looked over the window sill, my eyes moving from the jagged glass, to the nails buried into the wood, on the inside sill. There were dozens, each beaten and bent crudely in a hurry. Whoever had put these in, they wanted to keep people out.
I knocked a few pointed shards with my crowbar before climbing in. My gloves were thick and made for such a thing, but I wanted to make sure I didn’t get any unnecessary cuts. Last thing I needed was bleeding out on the way back to the car.
My boots met the tiled floor in a crunch of glass. I was in a little bathroom; a small toilet next to a tiny sink, and a glass shower stall tucked next to a water softener. What drew my attention however, was the immediate tangle in the floor past the glass. It was nearly impossible to tell what it was exactly, but the sight made my heart race. After long seconds of trying to make sense of it, I relented and dug my flashlight out of my pack. The press of the flashlight’s button was loud, and the illumination was reeling after being in the dark for so long. Even as I identified the strange mess, I couldn’t help but feel confused.
It was a sprawl of extension cords, horribly knotted and strewn everywhere. A multicolored collection of yellow and orange, like someone had made a complete mess of it and dumped it off in the bathroom. Except the pile didn’t stop. It continued into the hall behind it, like tentacles feeling out the space. I stood there for a while, the flashlight trailing the lead to try and find the reasoning behind it, but it led out of the room.
For the moment, I tried to ignore it.
Find Teddy. That’s why we’re here, that’s all that matters.
A brief scan of the bathroom told me there was nothing of interest, extension cords aside. The toilet hadn’t been cleaned in ages, a black calcified buildup lining the bowl. The water softener was old but wasn’t idling, the only thing I could hear was the sounds of my own breathing, and the glass grating beneath my feet. There didn’t seem to be any power running in the house.
With the flashlight pointing ahead and the crowbar hefted in my other hand, I moved on from the bathroom, taking a slow step over the ridiculous knot of cords. When I took my first step into the hall, I planted my foot in the only bare spot on the floor that wasn’t covered. As I took another step, I nearly tripped. The extension cords were everywhere, a neverending weave that trailed the entire length of the hall, and the sitting room beyond it. Not just a few spools connected together— but hundreds, all twisted and looped in a continuous spread that covered the floor as far as I could see.
Three-pronged cords plugged into two. The ones that weren’t braided tight to make sure they wouldn’t come loose were spliced together and mummified with electrical tape. The more I followed the trail to try and make sense of it the worse it looked. It had to be miles worth of cord.
I took my time navigating the littered floor, stepping slowly as I took in the house around me. The wallpaper was peeling from the walls, and the portraits that hadn’t been knocked off the walls had shattered frames, the pictures beneath scratched out angrily. I looked within the sprawl on the floor for clues, any sign that Teddy had been through here. The house was very old, but the mesh of cords kept me from seeing any sign of footprints. The rubber coating squeezed and twisted as I worked my way through what I learned to be the ground floor of a bilevel house, that contained nothing but dust covered laundry units on one side, and mold-ridden couches on the other. The stairwell door leading to the upper level was hanging open, held in place by the cords clutter. There was a door next to it, with a bare space in the floor that would accommodate it opening. My first guess would be a basement, or a storm shelter.
I decided to clear the upstairs first.
Taking the stairs was a feat in itself. The continuing tangle of cords proceeded both up and down the steps, and I had to ascend sideways to keep from falling. They draped over the steps like a head of hair, dirty strands weaving through each other in the maddening mess. I placed each step delicately, in fear of falling and getting caught in it.
The upper level was split into three different portions; a living room with a fireplace on the side, a dining room with a long table and chairs, and a kitchen. In the middle of it all was the front door, and when I shined the light upon it, I felt my blood run cold. The front door was barred in place, several planks lined across it, each secured with nails driven both into the door itself and the frame around it. The nails were bent and rusted, several of them broken off on their way in. At the foot of the door was a pile of mail; damp and moldy envelopes strewn across the floor of cords.
Different gauges and lengths, all wired into the same maddening mass.
The living room was bare aside from a smoking table, and the ashtray was filled to the brim with cigarette butts. The dining room table was littered with the remnants of picked apart meals, plates and trays splattered with long-dried food that looked like it had been played with. The kitchen was littered with dirty pots and pans, and the dishes that hadn’t made it to the fly-buzzing sink were shattered against the counter tops. Even in the rattiest of houses, I had never seen such filth.
I looked around the mass of cords for signs of Teddy, for his flashlight, his gloves, anything— and found nothing but dirt and grime.
The stairs I ascended wound around to the top level; a balconied hallway to a few rooms at each end of the exposed hall. The flashlight served as my eyes as I trailed the corridor from the living room, stopping halfway at the ceiling in the center of the hall, and the dark crevice lurking above.
The attic stairs were pulled down, revealing an open hole in its place. I kept the light on it, feeling a chill that was spreading throughout the room. The cords trailed up there as well, a single braid that looked like it had been drug up it. Transfixed on the attic entrance, my fingers tightened against the crowbar, my breath a cloud of fog. There was something about the attic entrance, something that unsettled me more than the house as a whole. I stared at the attic in the eerie silence, feeling the sweat chill on the back of my neck.
Through the silence, I could hear something; a faint echo that stood my nerves on end. A scream, muffled and far away.
Below me.
I thought of the basement door on the level below. I looked away from the attic and headed back downstairs, traversing the tangle as I went. The scream rang again, and I quickened my pace, nearly sliding down the steps to the landing next to the basement door. The doorknob was cold to the touch. When I opened it, I was hit with the stagnant aroma of decay, a sickening smell that washed into the room.
The basement was dark, a single staircase of planks leading down to bare concrete. I descended, each step creaked under my weight like it was ready to give out at any second. The cords were starting to thin, a cluster of single trails that led into the wall of the basement, into what looked like a hole in the wall. The cinder blocks had been broken apart, leading to another dark expanse.
I heard the scream again, a little louder. It was coming from the hole.
I wanted nothing more than to turn and leave, to climb back out through the bathroom and run to my car. Instead, I climbed in.
The air was thick and musty, the damp smell of dirt and clay clogging my nostrils. There was a tunnel carved out behind the hole, a crude passage that slowly descended into the earth. I followed the trails of cords at my feet, the sweat on my forehead chilling as I worked my way forward.
Through the wicked tunnel I could see a faint glow ahead, like a flickering candle in the dark.
There was a distant humming, a slow drone that echoed down the man-made tunnel. The crowbar shook in my hand, and the flashlight beam jittered ahead of me. Fighting every urge to run, my feet reluctantly marched forward, each step bringing me closer to the glimmer underground. The passage was narrow, and I felt the walls close in around me. The extension cords continued to trail ahead at my feet, worn threads leading me deeper into the tunnels.
I came to a fork in the passage; one lit path down the center, and two branching off on either side into total darkness. I shined the light down each, mentally weighing the options as the humming droned in the distance. Down the left, I jumped at the sight of rats scurrying away. The right was littered with tiny masses of fur, bigger rodents that looked like they had died painfully, the walls coated in dark, dry splatters. Something had torn them to pieces.
As I looked down the lit passage, I heard the scream again, a weak cry of desperation.
Teddy.
I darted down the center passage, keeping my head low to keep from banging it on the crags above. There was a sickening smell in the air, a toxic smell, like car exhaust. The light continued to spill until I could see clearly without the flashlight, the crowbar held close as the passage started to open up around me. I could see something ahead— a set of steel doors illuminated by a flickering light above, next to an old generator that was chugging away. The generator shook with every chug, the belt looking like it would fly off the pulley at any second.
Chained to the generator, was Teddy.
Shackles bound his wrists and several rusted chains fastened him to the generator, forcing him to lie awkwardly in place. He squinted as I approached, cowering away as I stepped into the light. His face was heavily bruised, and he had several strange gashes on his body, like someone was trying to carve him alive.
He lit up when he saw me, his eyes a mixture of dread and disbelief. He looked happy to see me, but worried.
He could barely speak, each word came out as an incoherent drool. I got my picks and focused on the shackles, popping the primitive locks with ease one after another. By the time we got the chains free, he was able to form a sentence.
“Did she see you?”
I looked into his eyes, and his usual carefree demeanor was reduced to a look of pure terror. He looked lost. Broken.
“Who?”
Behind us, a mechanical scream echoed in the tunnel. Teddy started to hyperventilate, and I helped him to his feet. His legs shook as he stood, but I ushered him away from the generator, handing him the flashlight so he could navigate while I helped him walk. Together we went back into the darkness, the mechanical scream getting louder as we returned to the fork in the road. It was a quick, dry cackle that sounded like jagged nails on a chalkboard.
The sound was coming from the left tunnel, and in the darkness, I could see a shifting silhouette through a flurry of sparks, moving towards us in quick, twitching motions. The sight of it— whatever it was, made Teddy shake.
“We have to move, now!” I urged Teddy, shoving him along.
We made our way back down the tunnel, the scream haunting us every step of the way. There was another cry along with it, a high-pitched howl that bellowed after us as we bounded towards the hole in the wall. I helped Teddy through, and he wheezed as he struggled to vault the broken blocks. By the time I ducked through, I could see the features of the shape that was chasing us.
Wild, thin hair. Sunken, beady eyes. A nightgown barely hanging off wiry limbs. The shriek of the weapon in her hands.
Teddy limped up the stairs, and tripped on the extension cords. The flashlight clattered away, its beam making a kaleidoscope through the dozens of layers of cord. Stumbling myself, I helped him up and guided him into the little bathroom, towards the window we had gotten in from. His limbs struggled to obey, and I had to give him a boost to make it up and out.
As Teddy landed awkwardly on the grass outside, I heard the dual screams racing up behind me. I turned just in time to see the shape flying towards me, the mechanical cry vibrating the air as she brought her weapon down. I raised the crowbar defensively and a flurry of sparks splashed through the dingy bathroom.
Through the glow of sparks I saw an old woman, her face decrepit and rotting beneath tight skin. Clutched in her veiny hands was an electric meat carver, a thin cord trailing behind the bottom, directly spliced into another thick cord. She was strong despite her size, and the dated carver sparked off the crowbar, nearly sawing into my chest, a sick burning smell emanating from the carver’s motor.
Teddy climbed to his feet, and reached a hand through the window. I looked into the eyes of the hag and pushed her as hard as I could, sending her into the shower stall in a crash of broken glass. She thrashed wildly through the debris, climbing to her feet through the wreckage, her eyes already back on me.
I looked at the tangle at my feet, and tossed the crowbar to Teddy. I knelt down and grabbed an armful of the cords, and just as the hag rushed me again, I threw them at her. She swung again as the cords constricted, the mess of rubber and tape and copper enveloping her like a cluster of serpents. I dove out the window to the sound of sizzles and pops, and as Teddy helped me to my feet, it was joined by the sound of electrocution.
The bathroom became a haze of black smoke, and we watched as the hag seized against her now volatile restraints. As she fell to the floor, her gown caught fire, and the last thing I could see was the simultaneous ignition of melting electrical tape.
Teddy and I fled the house, working our way through the uneven yard as quickly as we could. He rambled apologies about what he had gotten us into, but I ignored him and focused on the road ahead, as well as the house behind us. Even after we were down the driveway, I expected the hag to catch up, screaming while wielding that meat carver. But each time I looked back, there was nothing but the swaying trees that surrounded the house. Trees that looked eager to consume.
By the time we made it back to the agricultural road, we could smell the smoke. The horrid melting smell of an electrical fire and rotting wood wafted through the trees. By the time I helped Teddy into the passenger seat, I could see the glow in the distance.
I started the car and pulled away, the tires spitting gravel as we got the hell out of there.
Heading toward the nearest hospital, we drove through the smoke wafting over the road, our eyes drifting toward the glow within the trees.
The Extension Cord House was lit up like a burning star, a roaring blaze of green and blue hues that reached spitefully towards the sky.
Leaving the madness behind, I glanced in the rearview mirror, and felt my stomach twist up. In the dancing shadows of the fire, I swore I could see something shambling out of the driveway, a thin figure with a burning trail behind them, like a leash.
***
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