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Rotted Stairs

Summary:

Leaving Merrick's far behind they find an abandoned old house for the night.

Notes:

Written for @spook_me 2022 - Demon, and also meets @trope_bingo R19: haunted house

Work Text:

Inspired by this image:

Spook Me 2022 - Demon 01.jpg

Their very existence was proof of the supernatural and yet, in hundreds of years, he had never seen anything to support the existence of other supernatural creatures. No ghost sightings, or vampires or ghouls hunting on the battlefields, preying on the dead or dying. Only the occasional shiver as if something unnatural had passed too close, usually during the twilight moment between life and death, death and rebirth.

It was an old house left to ruin. The perfect place for them to hide, leaving the mess of London and Merrick far behind them; leaving Booker on the shingled shore of the Thames to begin his exile of one hundred years. The house stood alone well back from the road, half-concealed behind the overgrown shrubs and tall grass of an unkempt garden. Someone had stripped the house of furnishings but left the debris of hard living behind. Squatters most likely, or drug addicts looking for a safe place to ride out a high, and yet the air inside the house was heavy, as if no one had crossed its threshold in many years.

While Andy and Nile checked the outside and downstairs, he and Joe climbed the half-rotted stairs, separating to check each of the upstairs rooms. His flashlight illuminated the debris of paper and old rags in the narrow hallway, catching on a damp and mildewed cloth doll that must have once belonged to a child. He could hear movement downstairs, already differentiating Nile's footsteps from Andromache's.

A scratching sound near the top of the stairs, just out of sight, had him freezing, the fine hairs rising at the nape of his neck even though he knew it was likely only a rat. He saw the sweep of Joe's flashlight as Joe stepped out of the room at the other end of the hallway, saw the beam freeze in place, angled towards the stairs. Joe's face was hidden in shadows but Nicky could tell by the tension in his silhouette that he could see something unnatural.

Movement caught Nicky's eye and he aimed his flashlight slightly higher, catching the sight of long, skeletal fingers wrapping around the frame of the opening to the stairs beyond. It climbed the remaining stairs, the creaking of rotted wood beneath the scratching of old bones. Its body stepped out into the hallway, illuminated between the two flashlights with burning coals for eyes, sharp teeth, and fingernails like talons.

Nicky heard Nile's footsteps on the stairs below, and fear for her snapped him out of his frozen state.

"Nile!" he yelled, echoed by a shout from Joe, but instead of running away she raced up the stairs, straight into the light cast out by their flashlights. Her own light passed across their faces, letting Nicky see Joe's ashen face for a moment, and for Joe to see his. It was gone but his spine still prickled, the hairs were still raised at his nape.

"What the hell?" She swiped cobwebs from her face.

"Let's get out of here," Joe ordered, grabbing Nicky by the arm even as he nudged Nile towards the stairs.

He allowed none of them to stop moving until they were all out of the house, standing in the unkempt garden with a still ashen Nicky making the sign of the cross, and a confused Nile and Andy.

"We're not staying here," Joe insisted, bringing up his necklace and kissing it even as he held on tight to Nicky.

Andy looked like she was about to argue but she must have seen something in their posture and expressions. She clenched her jaw and nodded, and they all clambered back into the car, Joe at the wheel, and drove on until the house was left far behind.

Later, as they settled into a cheap motel room on the edge of Dartmoor, Nicky could sense Andy appraising both him and Joe.

"You looked like you had seen a ghost."

"Or a demon," Nicky murmured, looking to Joe.

"Are ghosts and demons real?" Nile asked.

Their very existence was proof of the supernatural and in all these years, Nicky had never seen anything to support the existence of other supernatural creatures.

Until now.

END