Chapter 012: The Journal Of Harold Morrow

***

CAMCORDER VIDEO FOOTAGE 004

5:12 AM, MAY 28TH, 1987

EMMY

In here! Hurry!

She hurriedly gestures to a room—a room with a door she had just opened.

Ben and Quinn run to it, as behind them the shrieking and howling grows louder and they rush inside the room. Emmy stumbles further inside while Ben and Quinn hurriedly slam the door closed—and just in time as it bangs, loudly and violently. But it remains closed.

BEN

Well, at least they can't go through doors.

QUINN

Yeah, that's one plus.

They chuckle, the humour unexpected given the situation and the terrors of the night, the grief and death, but perhaps some sense of humour must be found no matter how unexpected or horrifying.

The pair lean against the door, catching their breath as the camcorder Ben hasn't somehow dropped catches their faces, their movements, flashlights lighting up the floor in pale circles—they also haven't dropped them either. Emmy is nowhere in sight.

BEN

At least we have a moment to breathe.

QUINN

Right. That's a good thi—

EMMY

Uh, guys? Get over here.

Quinn and Ben exchange a look before they turn to face Emmy, as the camcorder reveals the room—a large bed with moth-eaten drapes and tables on either side of it, a curtained window with wooden boards, a chest of drawers and a vanity with a tarnished mirror, a large wardrobe, and Emmy standing in the middle, holding an open leather journal. Her flashlight shines on the pages and lights up her face that has gone pallid.

EMMY

This is Harold Morrow's journal. And listen to this.

That has Quinn and Ben move to Emmy's side as the Scooby Gang groups together, all three flashlights shining on the journal as the camcorder shows the loopy, half-faded writing on the yellowed pages as Emmy reads it out.

EMMY

"I thought this place was perfect for my family—it was a big house, with a nice backyard and nicer rooms, in a good street in a good town. Like a dream come to life. But I was soon proven horrifically wrong, as my dream turned into a waking nightmare."

Emmy, Quinn and Ben give each other an uneasy look before Emmy continues reading.

EMMY

"Strange things have begun to happen, things I can't explain, and noises I keep hearing. David says he can hear the noises too, but my boy's always been sensitive, hearing things that no one else has. And yet... it doesn't feel like that. Because I can feel something... something that is watching us. Waiting—for what? I don't know. So I set to find that out, only to find nothing in the library. I turned to my house and found a room—a room that is too horrifying to describe into words, and so filled with such evil I cannot bear to record it in here. But it is in this room I found my answers—and what I learned was just as horrifying, perhaps even more so."

The three teens eye each other uneasily, knowing what room Harold Morrow is talking about, as Emmy flips the page and reads the words on it.

EMMY

"I discovered that our home was built on something terrible—a portal to hell, that allows it and its nearest surroundings to slip into that hellish world and unleash demons and ghosts into our house, eager to kill, and that it was once the site of a cult before they were destroyed forty years ago, that which I found in the library after I made this discovery, this room and the book I've learned this terrible knowledge the only surviving remnant. And I learned this portal opens every twenty years, and the demon... it seeks to kill, yes, but it desires freedom by possessing a human, before the portal closes at either sunrise or with four deaths. I was horrified and realised the day it opens is arriving, and tried to change my fate—I burned that evil book, I tried to scrape away the demonic circle and writing but with no luck, and I tried to warn my family, to get us out of here—especially little David, who the demon wants more than anyone, who I fear it may possess when it is unleashed. But no matter how hard I try to warn them, I'm unable to—something is keeping me from warning them, from taking them out and burning that hellish house to the ground. I fear it is the demon, slowly possessing me, controlling me. I have noticed my shadow's longer, more monstrous, and my eyes are turning black like its eyes—the signs of possession, the only helpful thing in that evil book. And I am beginning to fear if I am indeed possessed, it will make me do terrible things. If I do, if I hurt my family, I'm so—" And it stops right there.

QUINN

Holy shit. Harold Morrow wasn't insane. He really was possessed.

BEN

So this house was built on a portal to hell? Yeah, great location for a family home.

QUINN

I don't really think "family" was the idea at the time. A demonic cult... well, that explains that creepy room. And I thought all that Satanic cult bullshit was just terror media bullshit.

BEN

Think this is more advanced than what the news says, Quinn.

Quinn nods, conceding to the point, as Emmy furrows her brows, deep in thought.

EMMY

Every twenty years... guys, the Morrow murders happened in 1947, right?

QUINN AND BEN

Yeah.

EMMY

And the 1967 ones... they happened twenty years after. Guys, it's 1987.

Quinn and Ben's eyes grow wide with horror and realisation of the date—and how long it has been since the last time people were in Morrow House.

QUINN AND BEN

Shit.

Emmy sets down the journal, her brow still furrowed, as she keeps talking.

EMMY

And this journal says the portal closes with either sunrise or four deaths. Harold had three kids plus his wife—he survived after the demon made him kill his family at sunrise. And those girls, there were four of them. And—

BEN

And there were four of us. Including Sasha.

Horrified realisation dawns on them, that if it isn't sunrise soon, then the only way the portal closes and everything returns to normal... is if the three of them die as well and close it with their deaths.

EMMY

Ben, what time does the camcorder say?

Ben checks the camcorder's time.

BEN

5:35 AM.

EMMY

We need to get out. Now.

***

Dun dun DUN!!

Yes, some major things were revealed—Harold was possessed and the house is built on a portal to hell that opens every twenty years! And the girls in 1967 were murdered because it was twenty years after 1947, and it happens again in 1987 two decades later!! And unless our trio can escape at sunrise, then the only way the portal closes is if they all die!

... God, I have been waiting AGES to reveal that!!

But yeah, it's now a final effort to escape! Can they, though? And will they make it out unscathed? >:)

Please read, comment and vote!

GhostWriterGirl out!