The Hooded Figure

Suspense Stories | Aug 10, 2013 | 4 min read
12 Votes, average: 4 out of 5
Suspense Stories

The Hooded Figure

I'd never forget that night. The night everything was lost, and nothing ever to return.
I still had nightmares, vivid, and so real they woke me, in the middle of the night, screaming and shaking. Even at my most busy, the images were always in the back of my mind.
I was arriving home from work, and did not notice anything unusual. My wife had made dinner, and our daughter sat, waiting patiently on the porch for me. When I was safely from the car, she ran up to me, smiling.
"Daddy! Welcome home!" She said to me. I remember her dimpled smile, and how curly her strawberry blonde hair had been that afternoon.
We continued into the house, chatting away. I kissed my wife on the cheek, and we all got ready to sit together for dinner.
The rest of that last night, passed by quietly, normally you could say. I didn't notice anything was amiss, until much, much later.
Somewhere around midnight, my wife woke up suddenly with a start. She smiled down at me, guilty for waking me, then took the short walk to the bathroom across the hallway. I lie awake, waiting for her return.
When I noticed over two hours had passed, I began to feel something was wrong, terribly wrong.I pulled the covers from myself, and slipped through the cracked doorway. The smell hit me strongly before I knew what it was.
I followed it's stench to the kitchen, and found the refrigerator door wide open. I was going to shut it, if for not the way it looked.
Dirty, unclean, and mostly, the rotting, decaying food on every shelf. I stepped back in surprise.
Ignoring the disgusting smell, I shut the door, and went to find my wife.
I went back up to the bathroom, and paused outside the door. The light was on, so I knocked.
No answer.
From my daughter's room, about ten feet from the bathroom, I heard a soft groan. I knocked once more on the bathroom door, and noticed how my heart was beating quickly. I felt nervous, and my heart was frantic, afraid something was terribly wrong.
When no answer came to the door, I ignored the light, and walked to my daughter's room. No light was shining from the room, so I didn't pause to gently push it open, as I often did when she was much much younger.
Shock coursed through my body, at what I was seeing.
The pretty soft pink walls were smeered with dark, smudges. The window was shattered, and a breeze went lightly through. I didn't stop myself, I turned quickly, and ran back to the bathroom. I started frantically knocking at the door, and no one answered. I decided to open the door, but stopped.
The light had been on before I went to my daughters room, and was now off. Everything in the house was dark, and quiet. I no longer heard any groaning. The only sound I know I heard, was how fast my heart was beating. How I could hear every thump in my ear drums, and sweat beaded on the back of my neck.
I put my hand on the door handle, and turned.
The bathroom was spotless, if you didn't count my wife's hanging body in the tub.
I resisted the urge to throw up everything in my stomach. I turned from the room, and went back to my daughter's room, to face what was there.
I pushed the door open, closed my eyed, and clicked the light on. Slowly, I opened my eyes.
My daughter's walls were covered in dried, red, smears of what was blood.
She was hanging, from her ceiling fan.
I felt my heart beat slow down, and a feeling swelled inside of me.
I felt smug, and I felt confident. A slow, sneer of a smile, spread across my lips, as I left the room, and left the house.

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