House of Myth - a Fan Story

Based on "The House of Myth", a song by the band Creature Feature.
(Direct quotes from the song were used – if you've heard the song, you'll know which ones. I also paraphrased on the quotes so that they wouldn't sound awkward, because… well, it'd be real odd for the characters to rhyme in real life speech. Hehe.)
(Also, please read the artist's comments! )

      Dirty roads stretched around me beneath the gray clouds, and small winds lifted the dust and filth from the ground. As the debris swirled around me, I pulled my coat a little closer around my shoulders, trying to ward off the incessant chilliness of my quiet town. I wasn't entirely sure where I was going; just for a walk, I suppose, wandering about the neighborhood. All seemed pleasant enough, despite the undesirable weather.
      I could sense the rain's impending arrival. There was no sun in the sky, just one illuminated blanket of gray, entirely lining the sky with dim shades. It was at this time that the neighborhood began to empty itself of houses, and empty woods and streets filled the land ahead of me. Normally I would turn and go back here, for there was nothing else to be seen.
      But something stopped me. Something caught my eye, something I hadn't seen before. Keep in mind that I had been down this road many, many times (as I took walks every time my father had drunk one too many drinks—far too frequently). My heart began to thump as I stared into the woods, and my eyes traveled a pathway that seemed to have been nonexistent before.
      Of course, I had heard many rumors. Just last month the neighborhood children were running about, chasing their little ball up and down the street, and as I went on my walk they began to taunt me with stories of haunted houses and murderers—however, it was clear that there was no need to worry. They were just children, trying to toy with me. I had bigger issues to tackle, and imaginary haunted houses were of no importance to me.
      But now, as I stared into this newfound pathway, I began to question my previous judgment. I was overcome entirely by my awful sense of curiosity. And even still, investigating this path was one more reason to keep myself from going home (always a perk!). The trees were entirely bare here, waving their gnarled limbs back and forth in the breeze. Their branches seemed to scrape against the flattened gray sky, tearing a hole in the fog before it closed up again.
      As the dead leaves crunched beneath my boots, and crows cawed in the distance, I was oddly relaxed, overwhelmed with a sense of certainty, and filled with a terrible case of "everything-is-okay" syndrome. The pathway through the woods began as narrow, but gradually widened as I walked along it—and then ended entirely into a poorly paved street. The pavement was almost a pale shade of gray, filled with cracks and overgrown with weeds.  I stepped over the layers of grasses and tried to maintain balance.
      "There's a place up here," began the voice of a man from behind me.
      I nearly screamed as I leapt a full foot into the air, clutching my chest in desperate panic. When I whirled around to see the owner of this voice, my anxiety reduced greatly. It was just a regular fellow, a scruffy groundskeeper with a mysterious gaze in his eye. Sideburns stretched down his face, and some sort of tangled mop of hair was atop his head. Along his sides, his two arms dangled almost lifelessly, although one of them clung to a pair of hedge clippers. His back was almost perfectly straight, but his head was a bit hunched down as he stared at me lopsidedly.
      "You scared me!" I cried, breaking into a smile.
      The groundskeeper seemed unfazed by my idiotic grinning. "Where do you think you're going?"
      "Oh, um, I dunno," I shrugged, trying to seem perky. It wasn't working for me, but hey, first impressions matter, right?
      "Up there"—the groundskeeper pointed down the overgrown roadway—"is a—a dark monument. Born of terrible happenings! It's a—a sort of… House of Myth."
      "All right," I squeaked. This guy sounds just as nuts as the neighborhood kids. "Thanks for worrying about me, sir, but I'll be fine."
      I continued to walk, pulling my thin coat around me again. The breeze was stronger now, sending my shirt billowing against my trembling skin.
      "I tried to warn you—I swear I did!" the groundskeeper called out.
      I thought that would be the final word, and I would hear no more from him. But as I walked closer, the groundskeeper's agitation rose, and he shifted in position a few times before stumbling after me.
      "You won't find anything inside—only—only darkness, and fear!"
      "Cool," I muttered, giving him the cold shoulder.
      "It's crumbling apart—you don't want to go there. Screams echo in every room, I suggest you turn back."
      "What would you know?"
      Rather than answer my question, he groundskeeper called out once more: "I tried to warn you—I swear, I did!"
      "I know," I responded slowly and quietly, deciding that all this talk of haunted homes was just the unintelligible babble of a madman.
      At long last, I approached a tall iron gate. The rusty black prongs were crawling with twisted ivy and crooked to a dangerous extent. A wooden sign stood beside the gate, leaning off to one side and nearly illegible. The red paint on it read: "Abandon Hope All Who Enter Here"
      "It's true!" the groundskeeper exclaimed, reaching out and dropping his hedge clippers in the process. "Those who ignore the warnings are never seen again!"
      Rolling my eyes, I allowed my shoulders to relax. Something about the air in this place calmed me, reassuring me that there was no fear necessary. However, it was at this point where the groundskeeper resorted to threats.
      "They're going to have to gather your remnants off of the walls—and that's even if they find you at all! I promise you—all that you'll find is hell!"
      I hesitated here, my intentions suddenly deterred by his distressing calls.
      "Will you stop bothering me?" I responded firmly, looking over my shoulder at him as I dropped any semblance of liveliness.
      Once more, the groundskeeper did not turn away. "You must believe me," he spoke determinedly.  "Something dark lives within here—an evil of sorts that you'll learn to cope with. It calms you down, lures you in, and then devours you alive."
      Ignoring him, I felt myself being pulled through the gate. Upon looking up I saw a tall gray house. The black shingles were all out of place, seeming ruffled on the rooftop. The gray paint was chipping, leaving white lines and cracks in the walls. One wall was entirely gray bricks, filled with crevasses that tangled and reached for the roof. And oddly enough, I felt a firm desire to reach out and feel it, just for the sake of knowing what it felt like.
      I felt myself being propelled toward the house by a sort of imaginary wind. My foot seemed to lift off the ground in a magnetic repulsion effect, and I began to walk closer. The front door was surrounded by a grayish brown porch that creaked beneath its support pillars. It was almost surreal, the way I felt compelled to enter the house.
      At this moment, the cloudy boundary finally broke with a flash of lightning and the long rumble of thunder. Rain tumbled down, cascading over the shingles of the house. Droplets clung to my forehead and eyelashes as I pulled up my hood absentmindedly, still staring at the house.
      I heard a deep and sinister voice echoing around me, threatening me with smiling words. "Inside this place, death will not come quickly!" It continued on with threats, and still I began to ascend the porch steps. "It won't leave a trace, death will not come quickly!" Another step I took, breathing steadily as I kept my eyes forward. "It is far too late, death will not come quickly!" Several voices merged together now, swarming in my ears. "You have sealed your fate, death will not come quickly!"
      My hands gripped the doorknob. Icy within my fingers, it turned creakily, and the door swung open into pitch blackness. I squinted, trying to see more.
      The groundskeeper seemed unaffected. He only called back one more time, "All that you'll find is hell inside!"
      It was only after the door closed behind me that I began to panic.