The Evil Spirit in This House Wants Me to Kill | Part 2
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My hand hurt as I unclenched it and stepped back, the moment passing. After taking a deep breath, I stepped in front of the woman and grabbed my suitcase from her. "Where should I sleep?" I asked. She looked up at me. "I don't give a damn. Just not in here." "Fine," I said, stepping over to the bedside table to grab my phone. "Is there another bedroom up here?" "Across the hall," she said. I could see her clearer now.

Moist, dark gray hair hung down past her shoulders. Papery, translucent skin revealed webs of blue-green veins in her wrinkled face, and her pale blue eyes were slightly askew. "There's no bed in that room," I said. "What about the other bedroom?" "There's a cot in the basement," she said, hustling me out of the room and then locking the door with an ancient-looking key. She shuffled down the hall and disappeared around the corner.

A moment later, I heard the stairs creaking as she went down. I opened the door to the bedroom-turned-storage room and stepped inside. I hit the light switch, but no light came on. Tossing my laptop bag and suitcase down, I turned and punched a box stacked to about chest height. My fist dented the cardboard, sinking into something that felt like bedding on the inside.

I ripped the box down and found a comforter inside, which I pulled out before throwing the empty box into the corner of the room amid all the other boxes. Grabbing the lamp from the hallway wasn't hard, but I had to move a bunch of boxes in the bedroom before I found a plug I could use. Bone tired and pissed off, I thought about just dropping to the floor and sleeping there, but I knew it would kill my back. I wasn't a young man anymore. I couldn't sleep on the floor and be fine the next day.

So I'd have to go to the goddamn basement and find whatever cot that old hag was talking about. Taking my phone, I stomped downstairs, not caring if I pissed Greta off some more or woke my dad up. I couldn't understand why I was the butt of everyone's joke, the guy everyone dumped on. The house felt stifling. It was the same feeling I got upon walking in here. Or maybe it was me.

Maybe I brought the feeling with me, adding my own frustration and hate to a house inhabited by two bitter old hags. One thing was for sure, up until I found out about Libby's indiscretion, life was pretty good. It wasn't great by any means, but it wasn't terrible. Since then, it was like everyone I met couldn't wait to spit in my face. I had to assume that I had some part in that. Maybe it was my demeanor.

Maybe I'd treated other people like shit without even realizing it, inviting their ire. Or maybe it was something that people could sense, a hateful aura that I carried around, infecting others and prompting them to give me what I thought I deserved: disgust and disrespect. Certainly the late hour and my exhaustion didn't help. I would have to sleep and then get up early to call my boss and tell him about my laptop. Then I would have to go out and buy a new computer,

Thankfully, I no longer had rent to pay. Unless Greta expected me to pay her rent. If that was the case, maybe I would have to beat her to death. As I passed the closed door to her room, that thought made me smile. I recalled just how badly I wanted to punch her after she'd broken my computer. Like something had come over me. It was a miracle I hadn't done it. Grinning, I made my way through the dining room and into the kitchen.

I was pretty sure I'd seen the door to the basement in the corner of the kitchen, just beyond the bathroom. Sure enough, I opened the door to reveal a steep wooden staircase that led down into an unfinished basement. Working my way down beyond the light from my phone, I began to shiver. I was still only wearing my boxers. I gazed around. An ancient washer and dryer stood just ahead against the wall.

To my left, the bulk of the basement was stacked with boxes. A bare lightbulb hung nearby, a string dangling from it. I pulled the string and the lightbulb came on briefly, flashing and then popping, and everything went dark. I clenched my teeth and felt that twitch in my stomach again. I tried to calm down before I went berserk and smashed all the boxes around me.

But as I moved my phone in an angry gesture, the light danced across a box with my father's handwriting on it. "Mementos!" it said in black permanent marker. With curiosity overwhelming my petty anger, I stepped over and grabbed the box from the stack, putting it on the floor. One of the first things I saw when I opened it up was a framed family picture, one I hadn't seen in years. I stood with the picture, shining the light at it.

The three of us stared happily from behind the dusty glass. My mother and father shared a love seat in some house I didn't recognize. Sitting in the middle, half in my mother's lap and half in my father's, was me as a toddler. The decorations in the background and the clothes we wore spoke of Christmas time. The picture had been hanging up in the hallway of my childhood home, but it had disappeared after my mother died. I remembered coming home from school and noticing that it was gone.

But I didn't dare ask my father about it, knowing that he would explode in a fit of rage, as was normal for him in those days. I always assumed he'd thrown it away, but here it was. After all these years, he'd kept it. The anger that had been swimming through my veins seemed to drain out. My muscles started to relax as I studied the picture. Dutting footsteps from above scared me so bad I dropped the picture. The glass shattered as it hit the ground.

That anger flowed back in, tensing my muscles, making me want to destroy something, anything. I looked up at the ceiling. The footsteps were loud, running back and forth above. I pictured Greta running around up there, and I knew she was doing it to piss me off. There was no logic in this thought, nothing but pure animal instinct. But that wasn't exactly right. Animals aren't capable of hate, but humans are.

As I turned to run upstairs, I stepped on a sliver of glass, cursing as it sank deep into my foot. But I didn't stop running. I wanted to catch Greta in the act, and this time, I wouldn't hesitate to hit her.

I took the stairs two at a time and burst into the kitchen, peering around, chest heaving. I grabbed a small, oatmeal-caked pot from next to the sink and rushed through the dining room, coming to Greta's closed door. The same gleeful voice I'd heard when I was about to punch Greta in the back of the head surfaced, whispering in my ear. It wasn't my voice, but it didn't matter. I was too blinded by rage to give it any thought. "'Knock,' the voice said. "'Don't bang. Knock.'

She won't answer if you bang on the door. Knock politely. That'll do it." Nodding with a grin on my face, I stuffed my phone in my pocket and then knocked gently on the door. I could barely keep still. I was so excited to bash the woman's face in, but she didn't answer. Raising my fist to bang on the door, the voice stopped me again. "No! Knock. Just knock and call out to her." So I knocked again. "Gretta," I said, "I'm sorry about earlier.

Would you open the door so I can apologize? Go away, she said. I'm trying to sleep. I just heard you running around out here, I said, venom seeping into my voice. What? You're crazy. Just go away. Preston, what the hell are you doing? I turned away from the door to see my father in the doorway to the dining room.

He didn't have his walker with him, instead using the door jamb to prop him up. "What did I tell you, dipshit? I said don't wake her up! The hell is wrong with you?" My nostrils flared and my eyes narrowed to slits. I gripped the pod of the handle, knuckles creaking as I stared at my father. "I have the power," I thought. "I don't have to sit and take this. I can change my life. I can be strong. I can stop getting stepped on.

But this time, it wasn't just my own inner voice. That other one, faintly foreign, said the words with me. I straightened my spine and pulled my shoulders back. "I have the power!" Still grinning, I stalked toward my father, my stomach buzzing with a dozen writhing centipedes, rage propelling me toward the man who'd made so much of my life a living hell. That voice inside egged me on.

My father's eyes went wide as I approached. He raised his hands, trying to back away. The pot made a dull metallic thunk as it connected with his skull. He collapsed like a plastic Halloween skeleton. I stepped over him and hit him again, caving his skull in. He twitched, his eyes rolling up into his skull. Then I hit him a third time, and he went still.

"Now, Grego!" that voice screamed inside my head, seeming to come from deep in the pit of my roiling stomach. "Break her door down! Pulse her head open! Snap her neck! Now! Now! Now!" I almost did it. I almost turned around and did it. But my father's pathetic body stopped me. I thought of that family picture that he kept all these years, and the reality of what I'd done came washing over me like a freezing rogue wave in an otherwise calm ocean.

I dropped the pot to the floor and stepped away, limbs shaking. "Dad?" I said, looking down at him. "Dad?" But he was dead. His head was deformed. I had killed him. I thought about calling the police for about a second before I dismissed the idea. I wasn't going to prison for killing my father. If there was any real justice in the world, he would have died instead of my mother all those years ago. That's not to say I didn't feel some semblance of regret for what I'd done.

but that regret wasn't nearly enough to make me feel like I deserved a prison sentence. Not even close. Thinking that Greta might come out of her room at any second, I grabbed my father and dragged him down to the basement by his arms. When we reached the bottom of the stairs, I pulled out my phone and pointed it around, looking for the best place to hide him while I figured out what to do next. A gasp sounded from above, pulling my attention away from the basement and up the stairs.

Greta stood there, staring down at my father's body. Her eyes jumped to my face, and we stared at each other for a long moment. Her face no longer held the thinly veiled malice from earlier. It was the face of a sad, scared old woman. A series of images flashed through my mind. Images that seemed as if they were from another life. I couldn't make sense of them, but I knew that Greta was in them, and that she had done something to me. They were there and then gone.

leaving some small part of me confused. The rest of me was buzzing with dark anticipation. A grin, splitting my face like a blow from a hatchet. A twisted glee spread out from my roiling belly as she turned to hurry away. I launched myself up the stairs, taking them three at a time. I slammed the door, slowing my progress briefly. When I burst into the kitchen, she was in the dining room, moving as fast as her arthritic joints could take her.

She was going to her room for her phone to call 911. I couldn't let her get there. I had left the small pot on the floor in the dining room. It had worked well enough the first time, so I figured to use it again. But then Greta surprised me. Perhaps knowing she wouldn't get to the room in time, she bent over and picked the pot up, then turned to face me. Stopping in the dining room, just out of arm's reach, I faced off against the old woman, faintly aware that my cheeks hurt from grinning.

I reached down to the cluttered table and grabbed an orange pill bottle, barely aware that I was doing it. As I advanced toward her, she swung the pot at my head. I hit her arm mid-swing, knocking the pot from her hand. She cried out and tried to run, but I shut her down. She fell onto her back, mouth open in fearful surprise. As I dropped my knees on either side of her hips, I jammed the pill bottle into her mouth. The voice that escaped my body didn't sound at all like my own.

It sounded like an old man's voice. "Take your pills, grunna!" I punched the pill bottle, slamming it down her throat. The fact that she didn't have her dentures in only made it easier and kept my knuckles from scraping on her teeth. Eyes bulging, she reached toward her mouth with both hands. I batted them away, then held them to the floor. My face inches from hers, watching as she changed colors. Her frail body squirmed underneath me as I reveled in her torment.

Then she stopped squirming, and her eyes lost focus. Still, I held her down, feeling the tension go out of her. It was 3 o'clock in the morning, and I had a plan. First, I had to clean my wound. I was tracking blood all around the house from my foot. I didn't think it would be possible to get rid of all my DNA. So the next best thing was burning the place to the ground. If I was lucky, neither my father nor Greta had told anyone about my arrival.

Either way, I knew my life couldn't go on like normal. I had to get out of the country, but I needed money to do that. So after I cleaned my wound and got dressed, I started scouring for valuables or hidden cash, starting in the basement. I went through boxes, looking for anything I could sell to make a quick buck. Most of the stuff in the boxes belonged to my father, who was broke and had no valuable possessions that I could recall. I saw no more family pictures either.

just the ones still on the floor amid the broken glass. Done with the basement and not a dollar richer for my effort, I moved upstairs, stepping over Greta's body as I made my way through the dining room. When I reached the upstairs bedroom, I started going through all the boxes there. I found a coin collection that was probably worth something. I also found a man's wedding ring in a small jewelry case. In the same box, I found a picture of a younger Greta standing with a man about her same age.

They were dressed fancy, and they stood below a banner that said "Happy 50th Anniversary." Both of them were smiling. The man was bald on top, with a horseshoe of silver hair around his skull. His thick square glasses distorted his eyes. There was something familiar about him. On a whim, I went back downstairs and found a piece of mail on the dining room table. It was addressed to Greta Hess.

I pulled my phone out and did a search, entering the name of the town, plus Hess and death. I found the website of a local newspaper, which featured a small story about the death of one Ulrich Hess. Six months ago, Ulrich Hess killed himself in his study by a self-inflicted gunshot wound. According to the story, his wife, Greta Hess, heard the shot while she was downstairs making dinner.

When she came upstairs, she found her husband of nearly 60 years dead. There was a bit about Ulrich's professional life and an endearing quote from Greta herself. The last paragraph included details about the funeral service. My stomach twisted as a series of flickering images played in my mind, like a malfunctioning projector. With dawning understanding, I realized they were the same images that had played through my mind just before killing Greta.

Only this time, they played slower, allowing me to make sense of them. The first series was of Ulrich falling asleep in his chair in his study. The second was of Greta sneaking inside the room with a gun in her hand. Then of Greta aiming the gun at his temple. Then one of her pulling him forward by the collar of his shirt, waking him up just as she pulled the trigger. Take your pills, Greta! That foreign voice that came out of my mouth earlier was Ulrich's. He was still with me.

Although his power had faded now that we had done what he wanted, I could still feel him in my stomach, writhing around faintly. His power there but dulled. He had been waiting, trapped in the house for six months, just waiting for someone like me to come along. Someone with a burning coal of potent rage he could use, and I didn't really want him to leave. The additional power he gave me was seductive. Maybe that was why I didn't feel bad about killing two people. Maybe it was because he was still with me.

At least, that's what I told myself. I tried to ignore the fact that, for the first time in my life, I felt like I had some sort of power. Like I wasn't just a pushover, a weakling. It didn't matter. What was done was done. And I still had the rest of the house to check before I set the place on fire and got the hell out of Dodge. But now that the ordeal was over, I felt the full extent of my exhaustion. I decided I would sleep for an hour before I left.

If I got out before 7 in the morning, I was confident I would get away clean. And I needed sleep. I needed it badly. So I checked Greta's room, finding some jewelry I could sell, before I found the key and got back into the master bedroom. I set my alarm to wake me in an hour. Fully clothed, I sprawled out on the bed and shut my eyes. Sleep came quickly. Knocking woke me up. My mind was foggy with confusion. Bright sunlight streamed through the bedroom windows.

As the fog thinned and the edges of my memories became clear, panic gripped my heart. I checked my phone, seeing that it was just before 8 in the morning. I'd slept through my alarm. Greta's body was still in the dining room. I hadn't moved it. A child's voice came from outside, near the front door. "Grammy, open up! Stop banging!" A woman's voice called from out in the driveway.

I rushed out of the bedroom and into the front upstairs room. Ulrich's study, which I had unlocked last night. I stood next to the window and peered out, seeing a 30-something couple next to a Lexus sedan, which was parked right behind my car. They were both sharply dressed in dark business casual attire. "I wonder whose car this is," the woman said, pausing to look through the windows. "Maybe someone here to see Forrest," the man said as he came around from the driver's side.

"Grammie!" The child called from the porch, resuming the banging. "Do you have the key?" the woman asked. "Yeah," the man said, walking toward the porch, digging into a pocket. I thought about running and going out the back door and circling around to my car, but they had blocked me in. I wouldn't be able to get out. I had no choice. I had to stop them from coming inside.

My legs were heavy with dread as I bolted down the stairs, unlocking and opening the front door just as the man was about to slide the key into the lock. The sight of me caused the man to take a step back, pulling a son, a kid of six or seven, back with him. I blocked the door with my body, only keeping it open about six inches. "Who are you?" the kid asked before I could get a word out. I tried to smile, but it came out as more of a grimace.

"I'm Forrest's son, Preston," I said. "Who are you?" "I'm Trevor," the kid said proudly. "Hey, Preston," the man said. "I'm Greta's son, Marion." His wife was at the bottom of the porch steps, looking up at me with distrust. "What happened to your face?" Trevor asked. I gulped. Trying and failing to come up with a lie, Marion saved me by saying, "That's not polite, Trevor. We're not here to ask Preston 20 questions. We're here to see Grammy."

"Yeah, about that," I said. "I'm afraid she's not here." "Really? What happened?" his wife said, coming to the stairs. "She, uh, went to the hospital last night. Nothing serious, apparently. Just some chest pains. The doctor said everything's fine, but they kept her overnight for observation." "Really?" Arian said. "She didn't call me." "Yeah, I think she left her phone here," I said.

Marion looked at me with clear distrust. "She would have had the hospital call me." I shrugged. "I don't know. Sorry, but if you head over there, you can see her." Marion looked over his shoulder, sharing a look with his wife. Judging by his wife's face, it was a look I didn't like. "What hospital?" Marion asked, turning back to me. "Uh, I'm not sure. I'm not from around here. Whichever one is nearest, I guess." Marion nodded. He wasn't buying any of this.

"Mind if we come in and talk about this?" "I was instructed to not let anyone in," I said. "Instructed by who?" "My father." "And where is he? Did he go to the hospital too?" "That's right," I said. "He went with your mom." "But you stayed here." "That's right." "And my mom told you to not let anyone in?" I smiled. "You know what? I'm sure it's fine. I mean, you're family, right? Just give me one second to tidy up the mess from breakfast and I'll show you in."

I shut the door without waiting for an answer and then rushed to Greta's body, grabbing her under the arms to drag her to the basement. Then I saw all the bloody marks all over the floor from my foot wound. It was a lost cause. There was no way I could convince them nothing had happened. Then I heard a car door slam from outside. I dropped Greta's body and ran into her room, peering out the window to see that Trevor and his mother were back in the car.

Marion stood at the bottom of the porch steps, talking furtively on the phone. "I have the power," I thought. "I don't have to sit and take this. I can change my life. I can be strong. I can stop getting stepped on." The words didn't have the same power behind them as before, and the voice was all mine this time. My stomach roiled again, feeling like centipede legs were in there, scraping against the lining of my stomach.

It wasn't the same as before. There was no sense of power coming from my gut, no sense of rage. And I realized why. Because Ulrich didn't want me to do what I was about to do. I had served his purpose, avenging his murder by killing his wife. But he didn't want his son and daughter-in-law and his grandson to suffer the same fate. Too bad he wasn't in control. I was. He'd never been in control, not really. He was only a hitchhiker, using my hate as a way to influence me.

I ran to the kitchen and grabbed a large knife from the clutter of dirty dishes around the sink. My hands shook, but that was the extent of Ulrich's influence. Bracing back to the front door, there was no longer a question about what I had to do. I yanked the door open and rushed out, leaping down the porch steps as Marion's eyes widened. "He's got a knife!" Marion cried into his phone and he turned to run. He was too late. I could hear his wife scream from the car as the blade sunk into Marion's back.

Despite the stab wound, he kept running. I leaped onto his back and reached around to plunge the blade into his chest, then rode him to the ground. I was vaguely aware of the Lexus' engine revving as the woman backed down the driveway. Only when I was sure Marion was dead did I get to my feet and race to my car. But I'd left my keys inside the house. By the time I got back out and reversed out of the driveway, the Lexus was no longer in sight. I looked both ways down the road, having no idea which way they'd gone.

Dread settled on me like a colony of angry wasps. The jig was up. I wouldn't be getting away with it. They would find me eventually, no matter where I ran. I squeezed the steering wheel until my hands hurt. My mind reeled. There was nothing I could do about it now. But that wasn't exactly true, I realized with joy. There was no way out of this situation. That much was clear. That didn't mean I couldn't take advantage of it. It was freeing in a way.

There was no longer anything holding me back. So with a smile on my face, I turned left, heading back the way I'd come less than 12 hours earlier. "I have the power," I thought. "I don't have to sit and take this. I can change my life. I can be strong. I can stop getting stepped on." I heard the key slide into the front door lock as I sat in the dark living room. I had parked my car down the street so it wouldn't be seen.

In my hand, I held a heavy glass award Libby had received from her boss for Employee of the Year in 2022. It was fitting, given how she was now sleeping with her boss. I heard her open and then close the front door. The entry light came on, then it was partially obscured by her silhouette as she stepped into the living room.

I stood from the chair, hefting the award in my hand. The movement started Libby before she reached the light switch. She jerked and then looked through the gloom. Oh, Jesus! You're back? I was hoping I would never see you again. I stepped closer, and her eyes darted down to the award. What are you doing with that? she asked, tone dripping with derision. I'll show you, I said, raising it.

I could still see the doubt in her eyes, right up until the moment I slammed the award into her head.