Tales To Make You Jump In The Dark

The night was silent and the ceiling danced with shadows from the moonlight bouncing off of the trees. Andy tossed and turned, moving left to right, having one arm above his head to both of them crossed over his chest and yet he still couldn't sleep. It was the insomnia, but mostly it was because this fucking house creeped him out. The shadows that were floating across the ceiling were making his eyes hurt and as he closed his baby blues, Andy finally felt like maybe a sense of peace and calm would over take him. It had been a pretty fun first night in the house-they had all eaten themselves into near comas after CC's dinner and then Jake got the brilliant idea to build a fire. Out came the acoustic guitar and after that they all began to jam.

Andy loved it when he and the guys jammed like that-a lot of their second record had been written like that and he could feel that this fourth one would be the same way. But for now he needed to sleep and Andy smiled slightly as he felt his legs twitch. That was always a sign that he was falling asleep and Andy actually was looking forward to catching some shut eye. He was always so worried about things that it caused him to have major insomnia and he was lucky if he slept at all. Maybe this fresh air was doing him some good? Slowly Andy began to fall asleep, but then his leg jerked forward and he felt his head leave his soft pillow and bounce against the mattress.

Whoa-that was weird.

Andy paid it no mind-he had probably started dreaming of falling and he jerked himself awake out of fear. Again he started to fall asleep, his head resting on the pillow lightly until suddenly he was being jerked once again. This time he found himself halfway off of the bed and as Andy sat up and looked around in the darkness, he felt like his heart was in his throat. The room was empty, but there were shadows in every corner and Andy just ran a hand through his growing black hair and gulped. He didn't feel like he was alone right now-in fact he had the distinct feeling of being watched. Slowly he pulled the quilt up and over his legs once again and Andy addressed the empty room, feeling like a fool.


"Whoever's in here with me knock it the fuck off...I need to sleep." He growled and there was a faint giggling off to his left. Andy snapped his head in that direction and he felt himself shiver.
He was being watched, but by what?

"I'm not joking around. Whoever or whatever you are...just leave me alone." He said, his voice not as strong and this time there was no reply.


Andy sighed as he laid back down, hesitantly shutting his eyes as he turned to lay on his right side and finally drifted off to sleep. It would be a fitful night of tossing and turning, but nothing and no one bothered the singer...yet.



The morning came and Andy was up right behind Jinxx, who was always the first one up. The two of them were currently sitting at the kitchen table, Jinxx sipping his coffee and Andy was digging through his phone. He was trying to find anything to explain what happened to him last night-anything so that he had proof for the guys so that they wouldn't laugh at him again. That's all they had done last night after he told them about the cat and the rocker-laughed and called him a sissy. Andy looked up and noticed that Jinxx was looking down at his coffee, which was sitting on the table between them. Andy felt his heart stop as he noticed something-the spoon that Jinxx had used to stir in his sugar was slowly moving around the lip of the cup.


"A-are you seeing this?" Andy asked and Jinxx said nothing and only nodded, his blue eyes as wide as Andy's.


Jinxx had picked this house for a few reasons-it was out of the way, it was cheap and it was listed on a few sites as possibly haunted. Jinxx was and always had been fascinated by all things paranormal and he often liked to venture to local haunted buildings when they were in new towns. He never actually thought this place would turn out to be haunted-he just figured it was something the people renting it had put out there to attract a certain type of person. Well, it worked. The two of them just sat there silently, watching the spoon spin around the cup until finally it jerked to a stop and they both just sat there.


"Morning!" CC called out to them and Andy nearly jumped out of his skin as he felt someone clap him on the shoulder. A quick look told him it was in fact CC and now the drummer was getting himself a bowl of cereal and joining them at the table.

"Uh-hey man. How'd you sleep last night?" Andy asked as CC took a seat and shoved a spoonful of cereal in to his mouth.

"Fine until Jake started pounding on his walls. Kept me up almost the entire night..." CC gripped and Andy only smirked but then he stopped. He hadn't heard anything and his room was right across from Jake's.

"What was I doing last night?" Someone asked and Andy turned to see that Jake and Ash were both up and walking in to the kitchen.

"I have no idea but it kept me up most of the night..." CC said and Andy noticed that Ashley was strangely silent as he poured himself a cup of coffee and joined he, Jinxx and CC at the table.

"I don't know what you're talking about man..." Jake replied with a hint of irritation in his voice but the matter was dropped.


The guys all ate their breakfast or drank their coffee in near silence and Andy could feel the tension in the room. It was time to get to work though and so any annoyance from the night before was dropped as the guys all got up from the table and moved towards the dining room. Andy noticed as soon as he entered the room that things had been moved around. The guitars were out of place and CC's drum cymbals were missing all together. He scratched the back of his head and noticed that all of the other guys were kind of doing the same thing. What was going on right now? Instead of bringing up his ghost theory again, Andy just moved forward and began to click things to life.

There was a bit of feedback from the speakers and Andy smiled-he loved that sound. The guys all got into place and CC just looked around, nodding as he noticed that his cymbals were over in the corner-he must've forgotten to unpack them. They probably wouldn't get a lot of work done-today was just conceptual and seeing where everyone was with how they thought the record should go. Coming off of their last record and the hype that it had caused, Andy wasn't sure if they were going to be able to pull off another concept record and to be honest he really didn't want to do another one. It was fun, but more stressful because a lot more went in to it, like a story line that had to play out through each song. No, this record would take them back to their roots-it would take them back to that heavy guitar laden record they liked having before.


"So where should we start?" Andy asked as he pulled over a dining room chair and moved it so that he was sitting in it backwards but still facing the guys. Jake had his acoustic guitar in his hands, Ashley was fussing with his bass and CC was lightly tapping his bass drum.

"What were we thinking for this record? Another concept?" Jinxx asked as he entered the room, bottles of water in his hands and Andy smirked. Jinxx was like the mom of the group and their earlier encounter had obviously brought out the motherly instinct in the guitarist.

"I dunno- I kinda want to get back to our roots. What do you think Ash?" Andy asked as he looked over towards the bassist and noticed that Ashley was looking up at the ceiling over his head and his face was completely devoid of color.

"Ash?" Jake said as he elbowed the bassist and they all watched as Ashley jumped and then cleared his throat. There was a moment of silence in the room where no one was moving or making any noise and Andy thought he could hear the sound of someone walking around above his head.

"I-uh-yeah...roots." Ashley said as he looked at Andy and then adverted his eyes down to his boots. There was something going on with Ashley and Andy knew they wouldn't be able to get to work until Ashley fessed up.

"Okay man-what's going on?" Andy asked and he could instantly see Ashley tense up. Obviously the bassist was hiding something and they needed to get him to spill before they wasted anymore time.

"Yeah dude-you've been acting jumpy all morning." CC said as he chugged his water and Andy noticed that there was a soft creaking echoing through the near empty room.

"I have not. I just didn't sleep well okay...that's it." The bassist snarled and Andy only sighed. They weren't going to get much done today-he could feel it.

"Alright. So how many songs were we thinking?" Jake asked, changing the subject to get the attention off of Ashley and back on to the topic of the record.


The guys all began to talk about the things that needed to be talked about in regards to a record-how many songs, the layout, who would produce, the time frame for recording and just anything that came to mind that needed to be brought up. They laughed, joked and overall felt closer towards the middle of the day and the best thing was that nothing weird seemed to be happening. It was like the house could sense that they needed to get work done and so they were being left alone to do it. They broke for lunch and as Andy ate his ham sandwich and watched CC stuff Doritos in his mouth, he felt a calm wash over him. It was okay, this would all be okay.

Maybe he was just freaking himself out-maybe they were all just taking the atmosphere of the house and allowing it to affect them. The guys all seemed to be having a good time, laughing and joking until there was a very loud bang coming from in the dining room. Andy was the first one up and walking towards the room they had spent all morning in. As he stopped in the doorway and looked in, Andy could tell that the guys were all standing right behind him and they probably all had the same look on their faces that was on his. Disbelief, anger, confusion and fear-that's what was going through his heart right now as Andy peered in to the room before him.

Guitars were thrown all around the room, one of them had a broken neck and Ash's bass was hanging by it's strings from the chandelier. CC's drums had been tipped over and sitting in the middle of the chaos was Andy's green notebook, open to a middle page that had been blank. Taking a quick look at it, Andy could see that there was something written on the pages. He walked forward slowly and Andy took in a deep breath as he looked down and noticed that the writing on the page didn't belong to any of them and Andy felt like he couldn't breathe.

Get out or ELSE!


"An-Andy...what does it say?" CC asked from behind him and at first Andy didn't reply. He slowly bent down and as he picked up his notebook, he noticed that the metal rings on the binding were ice cold.

"Get out...or else." Jinxx read from over his shoulder and Andy turned just in time to see the front door swing open and Ashley, Jake and CC run out through it. He walked behind Jinxx, the notebook still in his hands but for some reason Andy felt a calm wash over him.

"Come on Biersack-get in the car!" Ashley shouted at him from over his shoulder as Andy watched the four guys get into the car and Jake revved the engine. They couldn't leave-he couldn't explain it but deep down Andy knew they couldn't leave this house.

"No-no I think we should stay." He said as he crossed his arms over his chest and Ashley scoffed. The kid had lost his marbles-he had been the one spitting out the ghost theory from the minute they walked in the door.

"You're fucking crazy!" CC called out to him from a back seat and Andy only smirked as he looked at them and then looked over his shoulder. After everything that had happened to him in this house he should want to leave, but Andy could feel that there was a presence there, begging him to stay.

"Maybe, but where are we going to go? Come on guys...where's your sense of adventure?!" Andy laughed manically as he turned on his heel and ran straight back through the front door. They were shouting at him, but Andy felt possessed as he entered through the front door and looked around.


The dining room had been put to rights-all of their equipment was just as it had been before they had stopped for lunch and Andy felt calm standing in the middle of the front hallway. Soon enough his four bandmates were coming up the porch steps and Andy only smirked as he turned to face them. He really wasn't sure what was going on or why he had such a change of heart, but Andy really felt like he was meant to be here-like something needed him here. Every bone in his body was telling him to run screaming from the building, but as the guys surrounded him and tried to push him out, Andy fought back.


"Come on Biersack-I'm not staying in this fucking house any longer..." Ashley growled as he reach for the collar of Andy's shirt and tugged.

"Yeah man...this place is fucking haunted." CC agreed as the drummer too moved to get Andy out the door.

"Yeah...yeah it is, but I don't think what's here wants to hurt us..." Andy said and then stopped as he caught site of something out of the corner of his eye. A girl, standing in the hallway between them and the kitchen and she was smiling softly at him. Andy smiled back, but then felt himself being dragged to the door.


They were able, with the four of them, to get him right to the threshold of the front door, but just before getting out the door, a huge gust of wind blew them all inside and the door slammed shut in their faces.

Somehow they all knew-there was no way they were leaving until the house was ready for them to leave.

Notes

Scared yet? Are you laying in bed as you read this and suddenly notice a soft creaking noise? Is your house haunted? You never know...