by John Grey
On a dare,
we spend a night in the old house,
the decrepit mansion that attracts storms
like bulbs do moths.
We’re barely inside the place
when lightning cracks to life
the stained-glass figures,
thunder rumbles the foundations,
uproots spiders and cockroaches
bats that pound wings against the attic door,
and rain that bullies the rooftop.
We’ve been told the house is haunted
but it doesn’t even need ghosts.
The weather is haunting enough.
Twenty miles away, the town is calm,
as sleepy as its inhabitations.
High in the mountains,
wilderness settles down
slows its tireless heart just enough.
But a black cloud presses down on us,
squeezes the ease from flesh and bones,
clenches veins and arteries
so blood can barely budge,
prods those parts of the brain
that are capable of the most harm,
unleashes the fury outside,
the horror from within.
Turns out, folks were right.
Stepping across this threshold
was like taking a knife
and stabbing it through my heart.
And there’s madness aplenty.
Like how the roiling of dust-filled air
forced my hands to act,
grasp the nearest throat.
A murder-suicide they called it.
True enough but in the wrong order.
John Grey is a writer.
