A Story: The House of Sherry Thompson

Many years ago, the old house was abandoned by it's owners for strange occurences. But few really know what really happened. I do, and I'll gladly relay it to you in good time...now, where to begin.

She was my friend. Her name was Sherry Thompson, she and I were both cheerleaders on the same squad. I wasn't a looker myself, but Sherry. She had long red hair that flowed down her shoulders like a waterfall, a pale, almost china face unmarred by freckles or sunspots, and bright hazel eyes that flickered between blue and brown with her moods. She was perfect.

One day, I was driving to her house to pick her up for school, her parents had bought her a car months before, but for some reason, this day, it didn't seem to want to start. I pulled up in the rough gravel driveway in my car, getting out to knock on the door. Her mother answered.

"Why, good morning Abby!" She greeted, her smile reminiscent of the young daughter upstairs.

"Good morning Mrs. Thompson, Is Sherry up yet?" I replied.

"I'm not sure, let me go upstairs and see, please come in."

I stepped into the entry, shutting the door behind me. The house seemed cold, quiet. I was a little unnerved.

I walked a little further into the house, the chill air becoming suddenly overbearing. I could feel both severe cold and pure heat hitting me in several places. It was still a little disheartening. The chill was broken by Sherry's mother running down the stairs.

"What's wrong, Mrs. Thompson?" I asked, seeing the horror in her eyes.

"She's gone, I can't find her anywhere, gone!"

Mrs. Thompson ran out of the house, hysterical. Her husband had already left the house for work. Sherry's father.

I gulped and walked upstairs. It was here that the chills I was feeling earlier increased, becoming almost too much to bear. I came into Sherry's room.

The room was misty, the walls seemed transparent, and I could see Sherry looking at me through the wall above her bed, reaching out for someone, me I suppose, but I wasn't sure whether she could see me.

"Sherry!" I cried, running to the wall to try to grab her. I collided with the wall, which was strangely, still solid. But I could still see through it like a two-way mirror.

"Abby! I don't know where I am! I feel like I'm still in the house, I just don't know where!" She cried, tears running down her face.

I walked out of her room reluctantly and began to look into the many rooms in her house. All but one room seemed undisturbed. The master bedroom, still unfinished, seemed, warm. As though great energy were flowing through it. I was shocked, so shocked that I tripped, falling over the threshold back out into the hall. The door slammed shut, almost hitting my foot. I got up, ran back downstairs, and out the front door, trying to find Mrs. Thompson.

We meandered back to the house together, I trying to comfort Mrs. Thompson as I told her about her daughter.

When we entered her room, it was normal. It seemed undisturbed.

"Sherry?" Mrs. Thompson asked the wall I had described earlier.

Nothing.

Mrs. Thompson reeled.

"How dare you make me believe that my daughter is still here! She's gone, leave, you liar! You are not welcome here anymore!" She yelled.

I turned to leave.

"Mother, I'm here, don't make Abby leave!" Sherry said. Her visage had reappeared in the wall.

"Sherry!" Mrs. Thompson yelled, her hysteria melting as she turned toward the wall.

"Mother, for some reason, I feel strong when Abby is here. Strong enough to show myself. I'm not sure whether I'm alive or dead, but I know I can draw off the strength of my friend."

I stayed, for two weeks actually. Always coming first thing in the morning, and not leaving till late evening. I explained my absence in school that I was with Sherry, who was very ill, because her parents were on vacation abroad and were unable to receive information in time. We always sat in her room, just talking, to her, how she felt, what she wanted, and hopefully, could put together enough clues to find out where she was.

We did know that she was in a hellish version of her room, when her room was dark here, she could see clearly where she was. The walls were cracked. The bed she was on was moldy and worn, and when she explored the house, found it was much the same, but one room, her parents room. It was unfinished in the house we were in, but on her side, it was garish, beautiful, well furnished. She told us it seemed to fit in well with her parents' decorating scheme.

On the beginning of the third week, she came to the wall thin, emaciated, her eyes were hollowed and the whites were a sickly yellow.

"Abby..." her voice was weak.

"What is it, Sherry?" I asked. We knew she had been starving, and she had told us that as she was wasting away, the beautiful room she had described earlier had begun to fade, becoming more and more like the rest of the house she was in. On our side, we had been unable to enter that room since the door had slammed shut in my face on the first day.

"Abby...I'm dying...I won't make it through the day, please stay with me."

I climbed on the bed and sat with her. my hands plastered to the wall, hoping against hope, that she'd return to us, that this was just some strange nightmare that was about to end, that I'd wake up in my bed and come to get her in the morning for school. But it wasn't to be so. As Sherry's breathing became more ragged, more final seeming, the invisible barrier gave, and Sherry fell into my lap. I gazed down into those once beautiful, now hollow eyes of hers, and I told her.

"Go in peace, my friend."

She took one last, raspy, struggling breath, and then died in my arms.

Mr. and Mrs. Thompson buried her in the backyard. Laying a stone to mark her passage there. And all seemed well. Until the master bedroom opened.

It was no longer unfinished, in fact, it was exactly how Sherry described it. Beautiful, rich, lavish. And it definitely did fit the scheme of the house.

Her parents moved down the hall.

The next day, I went to the local library and did some research on the grounds the house was on. Apparently it had a dark history. A man named Raphael De Mortier, a poor frenchman, used to do some evil things there. He was a beggar who liked to lure young girls to him, and then sacrifice them to some evil god he worshiped. The grounds he spilled their blood on were also his dying ground. When he was lynched by an angry mob many years after.

The house itself was built by a plantation owner many years later. During his lifetime, many of his young female slaves disappeared in strange accidents. But he was slightly insane, so he took credit for what the demon spirit of Raphael was doing. The house took on a life of it's own, until it was the mansion it is today.

I am now in possession of the house. Sherry's parents left me the house in their will when they passed in the 70's. I am now an old woman, but I can still remember what happened those many years ago when I was 16, can still remember Sherry's face as it was both before and after, and I can remember how I felt the day we buried her. Sherry Thompson was my best friend, and I still feel her presence this day, walking the corridors of the house she once lived in.

I'm having the house torn down first thing in the morning. Hopefully it will be a blow to the demon possessing the land, and salvation to the many young women who have died at its hands.