A Jar of Darkness

 

            Josh stood in the dead of night, the horribly overgrown hedges pressed into his back and the light from the streetlamp barely touched his toes. He had snuck out of his second story bedroom window with the plan to meet his friend, Alex and their girlfriends at the abandoned Horowitz house. Being true to form, he was ten minutes early and the chill of a midnight in December was digging into him.

              The sudden appearance of headlights less than a block away motivated him to press his back into the hedges. His black jeans, black hoodie, and black tennis shoes caused him to disappear. "Phew, not a cop," he breathed. Easing out of the hedge as the taillights disappeared around the next block, he still avoided the streetlamp.

              A high pitched girlish "Boo" erupted immediately to his left and he did all he could to not react.

              "Dude, we've been watching you for like five minutes," Alex said. "This is our only chance to look inside before they tear this place down." Josh leaned down with his hands on his knees and tried to retain his composure.

              The four teenagers struggled through the hedge and cautiously ascended the oversize porch to try the front door. Alex squeezed the latch only to find it locked. "Who locks a condemned house?" he said. "Let's look for a window. There must be something accessible."

              On the third try, a side window leading into the kitchen slid open. "Awesome," he said. With a little jump, he leaned his upper body into the narrow space. The other three watched his lower body disappear into the blackened void. They returned to the porch to find the front door slightly open. A volley of sneezes erupted from Sarah as they encountered more dust than they thought possible. The relatching of the lock followed like a gunshot as Alex shut the door. "We need to stick together," he said. "Who knows what's in this place or if it's dangerous to walk around."

              Alex led the group, a short string of four teenagers holding hands with the girls in the middle, from room to room. Joshu looked behind him as they stopped and marveled at the clearly visible footprints on the dusty floor. "This is the living room, I guess," Alex said. "It's so weird how the house is completely furnished, books on the shelves, look, there's even a glass of water on that little table. I wonder what happened here?"

              "We all know the story, Alex," Sarah said. "The guy was ridiculously wealthy and just snapped one day. Everyone claims that he strangled his entire family and then drank poison. I guess money doesn't make it all better."

              Josh slowly arced flashlight around the room. He stopped upon a painting of an older man and woman that hung over the fireplace. "I would assume that's them?" he asked. "If I had to make a judgment, I'd say that they don't look like very happy people. Let's keep moving."

              "Hold on a minute," Josh said, pointing his own flashlight at the painting. "Look at the fingers on his left hand. That doesn't look normal or healthy. They look like lobster claws. That is disgusting."

              Sarah pushed open an intricately carved pocket door to expose a massive library and a foul, musty smell. "Nope, I'm not going in there. That is horrible." All four of them stepped back, holding their shirts over their noses to block the stench. Josh stepped forward, shining his flashlight into the room.

              "Hey, wait a minute," he said. "I thought this family was Jewish, but that's a pentagram painted on the floor. Something doesn't seem right. I'm going in. This is too weird."

              The other three followed him, their shirts still partially blocking the smell. "Guys, I don't know for sure, but I don't think this is paint. This looks like blood. When blood dries, it cracks and discolors different than any paint. This is so strange and look at all the bones on that shelf. For being a library, where are there so few books? The shelves are all empty, except that one way up at the top. That doesn't make any sense."

              Alex rolled the shelf ladder to the shelf that Josh had identified. He climbed to the top and loaded as many books into his arms as he could carry. "It looks like I can carry all six of them." After he descended the ladder, he spread the books out on the nearest table. "Is this Latin or something else?"

              "That's not Latin," Sarah said. "I learned a little bit of Latin at Catholic school a few years back. This is something else. And this artwork is really evil looking. You know, they are Jewish. I think this is Hebrew."

              "Hey guys, look at this," Josh said from across the room. "We thought those six books were the only things in here. Except for this jar I just found, well, and the pentagram. Bring your flashlights over. Something really weird is inside of it." The four teenagers stood in a semi-circle, enlightening the jar and its mysterious black contents. "I've tipped it and shook it a bit, but whatever is inside, it's black and it's not moving, so it's definitely not liquid."

              "You should take the lid off," Kelly said. "We came here to explore, and we cannot leave emptyhanded. This will be a story that we tell our children."

              "Here, hold my light, while I screw the top off," Josh said. Holding the jar chose to his chest, the veins in his neck protruded as he put all of his strength into his effort to open it. "Man, that is tight," he said. He dropped to his knees and placed the jar between them on the floor. "Errrr... ah, there it goes."

              He stood up and returned the jar to the shelf in front of them, at chest height. "Alright, here we go." As he twisted the lid, an extremely high-pitched screeching sound exploded into the room and all four of them tried to back up, only to see the light from their flashlights get swallowed by inky blackness from the jar.

              "Alex, I can't move and it's hard to breathe," Sarah said. "What's going on?" The four of them struggled to do anything. "I can't blink, I can't swallow, someone do something."

              "I can't move either," he said. The sound of dead weight sounded on the floor next to them. "Damn guys, that was Kelly," he said. "She just fell over. I wish I could see what's going on." A second thud immediately followed and a third. The high-pitched screech sounded again, and Alex's sole flashlight shone once again.

              "Freeze, don't move," a powerful male voice shouted from behind a bright flashlight. "What're you doing here kid?" he asked.

              "I'm just here with my friends, we wanted to explore before the house was torn down," he answered.

              "Your three friends?" he said. "You mean the three that are lying on the floor? Put your hands on your head and step out of this room."

              "This is Officer Blanchard," he said into his radio. "Yeah, I'm at the Horowitz house. The lights that the neighbor saw is just some kids looking around. Get an ambulance over here quick. I think he killed his friends."

              Alex walked off the porch in handcuffs, denying everything that was being said about him. "I didn't do it," he said. "There was something in that jar. We opened it and all three of them just fell down. I didn't do anything." The rear door of the police car slammed before he could finish his sentence.