The House Between Two Roads

Ever since I could remember I've had a deep interest in the paranormal, perhaps it came from childhood experiences or maybe something more. There is always something to be said about the things that are unexplainable, and there have been few things that are as unexplainable as the house between two roads. I was 14 years old when I had first noticed the place in my hometown. Nestled back in a thick strip of woods off of two largely traveled roads was an abandoned, partially burned down two-story home. The driveway, overtaken by weeds and trees, the shed completely empty and knocked almost completely down, and a generally strange feeling about the place. I never thought much of it after my first time seeing it, but I never did like going by it. It was only until a few months later that I brought it up to a group of friends and that is where the true horror of the place begins.

I learned the house belonged to a small lower class family, struggling to make ends meet and dealing with the demons of addiction. The father, a low-paid mechanic who was a drinker and was abusive to the rest of the family. The mother, much younger than the father, jobless and with low self-esteem tried everything she could to keep her husband happy and to keep up the illusion that her family was happy. Late one cold winter night, many years before I myself discovered the home, there was an electrical fire. Unfortunately, the family didn't have working smoke alarms, all four members of the family—including two small children, a boy and a girl—died that night in the house fire. I was raddled to the core hearing the tale of this home that gave me such an uneasy feeling, yet I still tried to play it cool; after all, what 14-year-old boy doesn't think they are indestructible. After the tale was done and I sat there smoking my cigarette, trying my hardest to look like some sort of bad ass, I made a decision that would ultimately change my life.

"We should go check this place out right now," I said. I was surprised when everyone I was with quickly agreed, and before I knew it we were walking down the road on warm summer evening.

When we arrived, it seemed the world around us was still. There weren't many cars on the road or other people around. We approached the home, and as we got closer, the feeling in the air got heavier. As we stood there, staring at this house, almost frozen by what could be on the other side, one of the people I was with spoke up: "Fuck this, I'm going in this place!" he said. We all looked at him with the face of you have to be insane to even think about stepping foot in that hell hole. After a minute of talking it over, we decided we would attempt to follow. As we opened what was left of the front door to this place, we took a long look at what we saw. Everything was badly burned and destroyed to the point that everything had almost a black coating over it. Looking back on it now, what we saw was just sad. Towards the left of the house was a staircase that led to the second floor of the home. Most of us were too afraid to attempt to make it to the second floor, not because of a paranormal fear, but because of general safety issues. Remember the kid who decided to go into the house first? Well, he also decided to go up to the second story of the house. The second floor of this home is where things began to take an even stranger turn. Spread out all across the floor of the second story were torn pages from a Bible. Everywhere you looked their were Bible pages scattered on the floor. To this day, I never did figure out why they were there, but the memory still haunts me. After exploring a bit more, the kid who decided to go upstairs almost fell through the floor. He took one wrong step and his foot sunk in. Remember, the house did burn down.

We all hurried out of there and rushed back to where we had originally came. We didn't talk much on the way back, with kind of an odd silence for friends who did nothing but talk. I was the first to notice something about me didn't feel right and the back of my neck felt as if it war burning. It started off as a small issue, but quickly grew more painful. When we arrived back to our friend's home, I asked them to examine the back of my neck. What they found was absolutely horrifying. Down the back of my neck towards my back were three long scratch marks that were lit up bright red. Everyone including myself was in complete shock. We quickly discovered I was not the only one who was marked. All of us had scratch marks on us, however, mine was the only one with the distinctive number of three scratches.

We went our separate ways after that day and went to our own homes. Later on that night, I was on the phone with two of my friends who were with me at the house. We were discussing what actually happened and where we really go from here. About an hour or so into the phone call, there was a lot of static that began to happen on the phone and a women came through in a very panicked, generally psychotic tone, "We need to change the world!" I hung up immediately and tried to call my friends back. We were all nearly brought to tears at this point because none of us could explain that. None of us could explain the entire day. After calming myself down and getting off the phone, I tried to fall asleep. Unfortunately, at that point is when the nightmares started to happen. For I would say roughly two weeks after visiting that home, I had the same nightmare a few times a week. I was asleep in my room and I was woken up by a banging at my door. Now I never opened the door, but I saw on the other side of the door was a large man, bottle of something in hand, banging and screaming at my door. I believe that the abusive, alcoholic father of that house attached himself to me that day. The three scratch marks down my back followed by the nightmares. I learned I wasn't the only one to have nightmares after that house. Another friend I was with did, but in her nightmares can you guess what haunted her? It was the wife of the abusive husband that was haunting me. I've since lost touch with those friends over the years, and rarely bring up my experiences at the house between two roads, but what I know is what we experienced that day is something none of us will ever forget.