Part I - Part II

Whitewall House looked different this afternoon. Twelve hours had passed, and yet the property appeared ruinous — worse than two months prior when we first pulled onto the driveway.

My knees knocked together as I inched through the open front door. Silence greeted me, but that wasn’t a comfort. I thought of May’s comment when we’d first arrived. It’s too still.

“May?” I called.

I crept up the creaking stairs, grateful for the sunlight that poured through the windows, though the house still terrified me. I finally saw what my wife and children had seen for weeks. The true malice hidden in those walls.

And then I heard crying from the room at the end of the upstairs landing — our bedroom. I sprinted towards it, pushing the door open to find a sight that stilled my shaking body.

“May…” I whispered.

She was sitting on the edge of our bed, face drenched in tears, and she looked up at me.

“You came back,” She said, sniffling.

My weary wife rushed to her feet, and we embraced for a little while, bawling into each other’s shoulders. I felt a deep, unyielding guilt. I could’ve believe I’d left her there all night.

“I’m sorry,” I sobbed. “It tricked me. I thought it…”

“- Where are our children?” May anxiously interjected.

“They’re with Rachel. They’re safe. Come on, let’s get out of here,” I said, wrapping my arm around her.

My wife gently squeezed my hand and shook her head, looking up at me. She beamed, but it was a sad smile. Her sorrow filled me with a dreadful emptiness.

“I can’t,” May replied.

And before I could reply, the door to the guest room at the far end of the landing — the one which had revealed the long-necked lady the night before — swung open of its own accord. My wife stood still. She was shivering at the very sight of the guest room.

I sensed that she wanted me to go alone, so I motioned for her to stay in our bedroom as I walked across the landing. I trembled, fearing the thing with the slender, curved neck and lopsided head. I braced for whatever fate the entity would deal.

I didn’t find the sickly, shadowy demon in the guest room. I found something far more horrifying.

“I’m sorry,” May cried, standing behind me.

But she wasn’t standing behind me. She was lying on the carpet of the guest room, snapped into a twisted shape with a petrified look on her lifeless face. By the looks of it, she died hours before I arrived there. Alone.

“No…” I croaked, falling to my knees in tears.

“I… I didn’t know whether you’d believe me,” She sobbed. “Carl, I need you to-”

“- Did it happen whilst I was helping the children downstairs? I… I saw it in the doorway,” I murmured.

The spectral form of my wife placed her hands on my shoulders, consoling me as I mourned her. There’s something indescribably terrifying about having a conversation with someone whose corpse is lying before you.

“Carl,” May said softly. “I need you to listen to me. We have to protect our family. Where is the Lady?”

“At the hotel,” I replied. “But the kids are safe. They’re miles away.”

“She’s not at the hotel,” May whimpered.

“What?” I asked.

“She’s not at the hotel,” May repeated. “That thing could only leave this place by latching onto someone.”

“You,” I said.

May shook her head tearily. “No, sweetheart. You. Where you go, it goes.”

There was the sudden sound of a door slamming, and the light outside the windows dimmed — as if a cloud were hanging heavily over our house.

“She’s here,” May whispered, gripping my arm. “She took my necklace. The one you gave me. That’s how she assumed my form. You need to take it back so you can trap her here.”

A moan sounded from the lobby.

May gripped me tightly. “I can’t stay. She’s shutting me out.”

I turned to face my wife, but her spectral form had vanished. I was kneeling on the floor beside her cold, decaying corpse in the near-lightless Whitewall House. I rose to my feet and listened to the steps ascending the staircase.

Then I saw the thing that was pretending to be my wife.

It smiled at me and hissed. “What have you found, sweetheart?”

The necklace, sporting a pair of initials — M and C — swung tantalisingly on May’s soft skin. I had to remind myself that it wasn’t her. It was a trick — a demon’s deceit. And I also knew that it wouldn’t take long for the Lady, as May called her, to infer my intentions.

I lunged towards the abomination and grasped the necklace in my hand, curling my fingers around it. The smile on the Lady’s face faded, and she slowly shook her head at me.

“I wouldn’t do that,” She hissed.

But the thing didn’t raise a hand. It didn’t try to stop me. I wrenched the necklace from the frightful thing, and then I shoved it out of the way, rushing down the stairs to the lobby.

The front door slammed shut, enclosing me in the darkened space, and I spun around to find that my wife’s doppelgänger was gone. I was looking at the scarcely-visible form of the Lady. Long-necked, corpse-like, and inhuman. Its lopsided head bounced against its shoulder, and I shrieked.

I stared at the reaper’s unholy face as its janky body clomped downstairs. It reached the bottom of the stairs, and I pressed my back against the front door, fumbling with the lock that wouldn’t budge.

“Run!” A voice screamed.

May.

Her ghostly hand rose from the floorboards, clutching the Lady’s slender ankle and rooting it to the ground. The demon screeched, swiping a hand towards me as I slithered into the lounge. It continued to moan and shriek, realising I was about to slip away, as I picked up a dining chair and hurled it at the living room window.

The glass pane shattered, and I hauled my body through the window frame, landing on the driveway. I didn’t look back. I hopped into my car and drove away from Whitewall House for the last time.

X