Path Into Madness: Path Into Madness, #1

THE HOUSE OF SOULS

Part One:

The Mystery

The house stood tall .  It was a huge mansion with a hundred rooms or so.   No one knew how long it had been in its present location, but some say as long as time itself.   That’s hard to believe, considering what it’s made of.....and what is that?   Souls, of course, this is what I think and that’s the only reasonable explanation.

I remember about a year ago, I was driving past this mansion, and I thought back to when I was a kid, and it looked like a normal size house.  Then in my train of thought, I couldn’t ever remember seeing anyone building on it.  The front of the house still looks the same.  Really, I mean, as if it were untouched.  Not dirty or rotted.  I found that to be rather peculiar and told myself, this has to be some sort of mystery.  I live in this little quiet town where not much happens crimewise, but we do have a lot of missing persons reported.  

At first it didn’t dawn on me to connect the missing people to this house, but it took me the past year of watching to realize something that no one in this town has a clue about.   Somehow, this house is growing, and it must be eating people.

It sounds crazy, but I’ve been watching this evil structure grow without any construction workers building upon it.  I had to make sure that the mansion was growing, so about six months ago, I moved to where I could keep a better watch on it.  That wasn’t an easy task because the house is almost secluded, but I was able to move a trailer on Baeliston Road, where I have the perfect view of the backside of that soul-sucking edifice.

The reason no one else in this small town noticed that the mansion is growing is because it grows in the back.  The front has never changed as long as I can remember, but the back has.  There aren't any homes behind it, but a field that leads to the woods.  Of course, the worst forest to ever set foot in, it’s ancient and evil; hell, it might have given birth to that house in front of it.

In the beginning, I didn’t give it much thought, but I remember getting cold chills anytime I went by that house.  Now, those cold chills seem to come in a constant stream.   I’ve embraced it as the sixth sense.  Most people call the sixth sense being able to see ghosts and have a feeling for things that go bump in the night, so I’m not seeing ghosts, but the goosebumps, and my hair standing up on my arms, the tingle I feel on the back of my neck, and a few more signs...I know my body is in tune with this evil house.  

I’ve learned to use this feeling to my advantage.  There was an old man that used to live in that haunting abode, and every time I would pass him in town, I would get those feelings around him.  His name was, and I say was because he passed away a few months ago, was Don MeSul.  His passing is kinda weird, but I’ll get into that in a bit.

2

The past few months have been really interesting for me since Mr. MeSul died.   A for sale sign went up even before he was buried.   I thought about buying the house.   I mean, what better way to learn what’s going on, than being on the inside.   This was a thrilling and frightening idea for me.   I decided not to even attempt to buy it because I felt I wasn't prepared to find out what is lurking in that house.   Hell, since I moved here six months ago, I’ve noticed a great deal and I’m still not sure what is really happening.

I’ve been hard at work trying to gather all or any information I can on the house, but the people around here don’t seem eager to talk.  Even my parents blow me off saying, It’s just a house, Wesley.  What does it really matter?  I told them about what I feel when I’m around it, but again it brings condescending remarks like, Are you 12? Or.  You’ll find a bigger mystery at the local five’n’dime.  

I didn’t think I was gonna run into so many dead ends, but then again, a lot of people go through life with blinders on.  I’m not gonna be blind to this house that grows out of thin air.

Part Two:

The Plans

Ihad a great night of brainstorming, but I felt many of the ideas I had would take too long or it would be a lot easier if I had a friend to help me.   Some of my ideas were something out of a cartoon or movie.   I thought about making a hole in my living room and digging a tunnel towards the house, but all I could think of was that it would take too much time and if the ground caved-in around me, there would be no one to look for me.   I think I played too much Dig Dug as a kid.

If I only had a friend, maybe I could get more clues, but my last friend parted with me a year or so ago.  Vic moved away and said, I hope you solve your mysteries.  I thought he meant well, but that nice farewell changed its tune a couple of months ago.

I had set myself up real good in my new place and all eyes on that unholy house.  I called Vic up to let him know where I had moved and that creepy ass house we knew as kids now looks more like a mansion from my standpoint.  He stopped me before I could ask him to come help me.  He told me that I needed help or I should move as far as I possibly could away from that town.  He continued to say that it was great to hear from me and that I was still alive, but this would be the last time he wanted to talk to me.  That I was his final tie he needed to cut from this town.  He advised me to do the same.

I’m not going to lie, my heart broke that day, and his words were hard to swallow.  Vic had always been a great friend, but we were two different people.  I always thought that the mysteries of this town needed to be solved.  Vic thought it was all stupid and annoying.  He thought most of the stuff was made-up just to make the town seem cool, but he knew I dug it and I guess, he just humored me.  Friendships can’t last forever.  Vic is moving on and I can’t blame him, but as for me I CAN’T!!!

When I moved into the trailer, I knew I needed to plan things.  It wasn’t just figuring out the history of the house, but getting inside.  That is where the real mystery is.  I needed to work on what I like to call my ‘Rogue-Thievery' skills.  Not that I was planning on stealing anything, but I needed to be like a ninja.  Stealthy.  In and Out.  Never seen.  Never caught.  Pick locks with my eyes closed.  I mean, I would practice for hours on different types of locks completely blindfolded.

I even thought the house might be like an escape room, so I went to the major city and competed in their escape rooms until I could do it in less than 30 minutes.  A couple times I wasn’t allowed in a certain room unless I had one more person, so I went down to the local gaming hall and got me an extra person.  I needed to see why it was essential to have another person.  It was a matter of holding two objects at opposing ends of the room.  It was a challenge, but not one I couldn’t overcome.

I was able to get ahold of the original blueprints of the house in 1896.  It was a one floor house, not much bigger than four rooms.  I almost didn’t think it was the right blueprints, but the location fits.  The only way to be sure is to go inside.

My main plan became one of surveillance.  Scope out the place.  Figure out when the best time to break in would be.  Are there any hidden entrances?  Did the old man ever leave the house?  Does anyone ever visit the old man?  I was wondering if the old man was still alive and if my ‘Rogue-Thievery’ skills would be good enough for him to not notice me.  I knew I wasn’t going to rush things, but timing is everything.

I was thinking, if I were a millionaire, I would get down to this mystery with no problem.  I did a little daydreaming of maybe just going in there and demolishing the whole thing and seeing if the damn house just rebuilds itself right before my eyes.  That’s a great idea, but I really wanted to see what was going on inside.

Maybe the house is being built from the inside, and pushed outward somehow?  But, still, there never is any building materials going into the house.  Hey, what if they have some underground tunnels to bring all the stuff to be built?

Of course, I had to follow the idea of underground tunnels, and I went to city hall to look up the layout of the town.  Going through all the years, just searching for sewage drains or any kind of tunnels.

I did find one that was big enough for a semi to drive through underneath the street right dab in front of that house.  The crazy part about this is it’s only that large in front of the house.  The tunnel there seems to be the size of a grand auditorium with about a dozen smaller tunnels running off of it.  When I asked about this, I was told, Maybe there were plans for a factory of some sort to be placed there and then it didn’t happen.  More B.S. lines of someone that has no answers.

This seemed like another mystery of the town that called to me to venture in.  I had to go down there.  I didn’t know what I was looking for.  I just wanted to see if those blueprints were right.  That was one of the good points for me moving where I did, being 100 feet from one of the runoff tunnel exits.

2

Of course , the manhole cover says ‘danger’ and ‘authorized personnel only’, but who is working at one in the morning?

So, I prepared myself to journey down a dark hole in the middle of the night.  I decked myself out in black with knee and elbow pads; matted gloves; crowbar; three different sized flashlights; a couple of badass knives; some rope; and a fully charged cell phone.  I needed to take pictures and it could be a fourth light.  The manhole led to a hole about 30 feet down and then to a tunnel just big enough for me to crawl through.

Before I started my crawl into the blackness of hell, I held my big light in my left hand and the crowbar in my right.  I can tell you now that my heart was racing.  I’ve seen my fair share of horror movies and everything was telling me this was a bad idea, but if I can’t shuffle through a drainage pipe with a few rats...then I don’t have enough balls to investigate a house I feel has supernatural powers.

There was some sludge.  Maybe some cockroaches.  A couple of rats and they just scurried off.  Not really that frightening.  I did have to go through a few cobwebs.  That makes me freak out more because those sticky webs cling to you and it always feels like something is crawling on you.  Plus, I worry about what type of spider could have spun the web.  I don’t need a black widow biting me.  The thought of the spider bite made me crawl faster.

After about ten minutes of squeezing through the pipe, I made it to the underground chamber.  I walked to the center of the room and pulled out my lantern with a daylight setting that’s supposed to light up a room pretty damn good and turned it on.  It was glorious and eerie at the same time.  The lantern lit the room fantastically, but there was this foggy mist hovering all around and causing a haze over all the trailing off tunnels making them look like evil portals into darkness.

I took out my map to check all the tunnels.  Before I came down, I had counted 14 outlets from this room, but upon actually being inside....there were only 13.  Where there should have been two pipes about a foot wide and three feet from each other, there was one huge tunnel big enough for me to walk through.  It led straight to the house.

I stood there conflicted.  Excited at the thought that this could be a way in.  Horrified that this could be a way to an unspeakable evil and my death.  A calm and relief that my persistence was maybe paying off.  Of course, I was still frozen in place, not sure if I should venture further.  I wasn’t sure if I was even prepared to see if the tunnel did in fact lead to the house or just another manhole in a yard.  It was funny.  I slapped myself in the face and said, Let’s go, you pussy.  Oohh.

So, yeah, I left the floor lantern in the center of the room, just to be some sort of homing beacon,