I met Naomi shortly after I turned 18 on our college campus. It was the first day of classes, and I was lost. I was supposed to be going to G105, but when I walked through the front doors, the only rooms I could find started with 201. I must have walked the corridor five times, trying to figure out a way downstairs.
“Where the heck is this place,” I muttered to myself, glancing through the windowpane of the door leading to the back stairwell and emergency exit. From my angle, it looked like the stairs leading up to the second floor, and the exit doors were all to be found in that small entryway.
“Excuse me, but are you looking for the ground floor? I had a class there earlier, and I’m headed that way. I could show you how to get downstairs.” A voice interrupted my grumblings.
“Uhhh, yeah, sure, that would be great, I guess…:” I replied. Before me stood a young woman, approximately my age, about 5 ft tall, with light brown hair and a contagious smile. Compared to my 5’9’’ self, she seemed minuscule, but at the same time, I got the impression that messing with her would end up with the opposer on the ground.
“I’m Naomi,” She said while gesturing for me to follow her.”Naomi Johnson. I’m studying to be a teacher. How about you?”
“I’m Liz,” I replied. “I’m studying to be a teacher too. Small world, I guess. Are you going to Dr. Terry’s class? “
“Yeah, are we going to the same place? It’ll be nice to know someone already.” She laughed lightly and led me to a stairwell tucked behind the emergency entrance. “Guess that makes us best friends.”
Little did she know, she had predicted that absolutely correctly. While neither of us actually became teachers, both changing majors and going into different studies our sophomore year, we were inseparable from day 1. Now in our 30’s, that still hasn’t changed. We lived only an hour apart, and while we had separate lives, we always had time for each other.
That’s why I was excited when I found out that my grandparents had recently bought the house next to theirs. I had heard rumors since I was a kid that that house was haunted, and I knew Naomi would want to go exploring there. See, Naomi had always loved spooky things. Growing up watching Halloween, The Exorcist, and Romaro flicks would do that to a person, I guess. So when I suggested checking out the creepy house next to my grandparent’s, Naomi was immediately on board.
Unsurprisingly, finding a good time for the two of us to actually get together was easier said than done. It would be months before Naomi and I were actually able to get away for a weekend. I was really tempted to go see the house while waiting. In fact, by the week before Naomi was due to visit, I felt like the house was calling to me. I dreamt about it at night and daydreamed about exploring it during the day. I didn’t really understand why I was so pulled to this house. I had been in it once or twice as a kid when my grandparent’s old neighbor still lived there. I remember Doris as a nice older lady with white hair, big glasses, a friendly dog named Fred, and more cats running around outside than anyone should have. She used to go for walks with us sometimes and would tell us about when she used to work as a nurse at the local state hospital. It wasn’t until I was much older that I realized ‘state hospital” was just a nice way of saying a psychiatric institution. Once I learned that, it made a lot more sense why she would talk about locking the doors at night, hearing wailing, and lots of nonsense talk from patients.
She had even told me in passing that sometimes the patients would give her gifts, usually just junk, sometimes handmade crafts, or even some baubles and jewelry. Doris said she wouldn’t ever keep anything of true value, which would be unethical, but she had kept a few trinkets from patients she felt drawn to. I guess in that profession, you do what you have to do to keep going and to keep the peace.
Finally, the time came. Naomi got to my house on Friday night. We stayed up late drinking wine and watching ghost movies but eventually decided we should talk about the plans for the next day before getting some sleep. Naomi had heard all the stories I knew about Doris and her house and was excited to finally get to see it in person. Funny enough, it turns out Naomi had been having dreams about the house. We compared dreams, and it turns out they were weirdly similar. We’d both seen flashes of the home, even the inside, which Naomi had only ever heard me describe, red eyes, and a beautiful necklace draped over a vanity, then over a woman’s body. “We’ve obviously been watching the same movies,” I chuckled. We eventually went to bed, exhausted, but were up at first light to get ready for the visit.
In the morning, we quickly got around before hopping into Naomi’s car. We figured it was in poor form to go visit a haunted house on an empty stomach, so we stopped for waffles first. During breakfast, Naomi confided in me that she had the dream again. This time the necklace was even clearer. It was a locket, she confirmed, and she knew in the dream there was something really important inside. In her dream, it was draped over a scroll, just sitting in Doris’s wardrobe.
“I’m really curious about it now,” she stated while fiddling with her own long pendant around her neck, “I wonder if I’ll find it at the house.”
“Weird,” I told her, “I didn’t dream at all last night. Guess you better be on the lookout for a necklace!” I wouldn’t have even suggested we go to the house if I had realized how wrong I was. I would have found something else, anywhere else, for us to be that day. But, only hindsight is 20/20. We finished our breakfasts and were on our way to Doris’s. It only took about half an hour to get to the house, and by the time we got there, we were both bouncing with excitement.
Parking and jumping out of the car, we quickly stopped at my grandparents to grab the keys, and then we were off, crossing the yard between Doris’ house and my grandparents and unlocking the back door. The door opened into a laundry room, which led to the kitchen and dining area. The first thing we saw was a large freezer unit, but we tactically agreed to leave that alone. Nothing good ever comes out of one of those things, and I wasn’t positive the electric was still working anyway. Walking into the kitchen, we spied a closed door.
“Let’s go upstairs,” Naomi blurted out right away. “Nah,” I replied, “she’s got tons of stuff sitting around in her living room. I want to check it out.”
“Suit yourself,” she shrugged and headed for the stairs.
I stayed on the ground floor, exploring the dining room and living room before returning to the kitchen, and eventually found that the door I spied earlier led to the basement. I flipped the light switch over the stairs, and to my great surprise, a single bulb flickered meager light onto the stairs, barely illuminating a dozen rickety wooden steps and not much more.
“ Dude,” I shouted while circling back to the living to call up the stairs where Naomi had disappeared, “You should come back down here, I found the basement, and it looks super creepy. It’s just a dirt floor. I bet there are bodies buried down there. Also, watch your step when you come back down,” I shouted louder as I walked back towards the basement door, “these floorboards feel pretty flimsy.”
No sooner had I gotten the words out when suddenly the tile in the kitchen fell out from under me, and I was in a pile in the basement. Clutching my sore wrist and swearing under my breath, I picked myself up and assessed other injuries. My head didn’t feel so great, but there was no blood. I’m still not sure how I managed that. I shuddered when I looked at the filth in the basement, imagining the tetanus shots I would need. But, man, it was dark down there. While I consider myself a pretty brave person, I was pretty sure beady red eyes were staring at me from wayyyy too high. Without any lights except the dim bulb on the stairs, I wasn’t about to try and figure out what exactly those eyes were.
I quickly climbed the stairs to get back to the main floor, but the door I had opened only moments before, when I had peered down the first time, refused to budge. Getting slightly concerned, I threw my shoulder into it, which only served to jar my already injured arm but did absolutely nothing to the door. Suddenly, a blast of cold hit me, and I was shoved back down the stairs. If I didn’t know any better, I would have thought ghostly hands were pushing against my shoulders. Before I could even scream, the lights flickered out with a pop.
That’s it. I decided immediately, still in a heap at the base of the stairs. I’m outta here. I was officially freaked out and in some serious pain. I needed to find Naomi and get out. What if the upstairs was rotting too? I didn’t want Naomi to fall.
Remembering my cell phone, I pulled it out to try and call her, only to realize it had smashed in my pocket when I fell. Whether the fall from the kitchen did it or the tumble down the steps was anyone’s guess.
I reached the top of the steps again, and still, the door wouldn’t budge. By now, the pain in my wrist was nothing compared to the hot terror burning in the back of my throat. I didn’t know exactly what was happening, I just knew I needed to get Naomi, and I needed to get out. Now.
The house was starting to shake, and I could hear the supports groaning and cracking. The house wasn’t stable, and I was pretty sure it was going to come down.
“NAOMI” I shouted as loud as I could and battered my hands against the door. As I type this, I can still see the splinters and scrapes. The cold breeze was biting the back of my neck, and I swore I heard laughter. “Naomi!!”
Then, blinding light, and I fell into the kitchen. Naomi had opened the door.
“What the hell happened to you, dude?” She asked me. But something about her voice was off. Distant, almost. The words were here, but the inflection wasn’t. Naomi was a lot of things, but if she had heard me screaming like I knew I had been, she wouldn’t be staring at me like I was boring her. She may have loved scary things, but she was also the first person to tell the final girl of a bad situation to GTFO.
“Naomi, we have to get out of here NOW! Something really weird is going on, and I don’t like the way the kitchen collapsed. I think the house is gonna go.
“No, this is where I’m supposed to be. You go.”
“Dude, I’m not leaving you here. What’s going on with you? Come on!”
As I tried to pull Naomi from the house, her eyes changed. No longer shuddered, she seemed like her old self for a split second, then suddenly lurched forward.
“Go, forget about me. You gotta get out of here.” Caught off balance by the sudden change, I stumbled out of the doorway and onto the lawn. Then the house shuddered, and the roof caved in.
“NO!” Scrambling back to what had been the doorway, I shouted, “Naomi, can you hear me? Where are you?!?” I’ve never been so terrified. Frantically, I rooted through the wreckage, searching the area where I last saw her. After all, she couldn’t have gotten too far before the roof collapsed. I was going to find my best friend. She couldn’t have just disappeared.
“Why would she do that?” I asked myself. “We both could have gotten out.” Finally, after what seemed like an hour of searching, though in reality was only seconds, I saw her, half-hidden under part of the roof. Miraculously (or maybe not?), the large section of the roof actually seemed to have saved Naomi from the rest of the debris.
While she appeared unconscious, she didn’t have any apparent injuries, apart from some cuts and bruises. I knew it was risky to move her, not knowing her condition, but the rumbling of the house decided for her. I couldn’t risk Naomi and the house collapsing into the foundation, so I was getting her out of there now! Sliding Naomi out from the wreckage proved tricky, but I finally got her onto the lawn. Thankfully, by that point, my grandparents had heard the commotion and called for help. An ambulance and the fire department were on the scene a few minutes later, and thankfully, Naomi seemed to be coming around.
The paramedics asked me all kinds of questions about where she was when the roof collapsed, how I found her in the wreckage, and all the usual questions, I guess. They finally let me talk to her before they finished loading her into the ambulance.
“What happened?” Naomi asked me groggily. Her eyes were still closed, and her voice was faint. “You scared the crap out of me. That’s what happened.” I snapped. “What were you thinking???” She blearily opened her eyes, and for a moment, my best friend was back. She looked confused.
“I don’t remember,” she said. “The last thing I remember was looking through Doris’s bedroom. She had so many beautiful things. Her silver comb. She still had flowers on her bureau. And her jewelry box. So many beautiful things.” She lifted a hand. I thought she was going to reach for me, but her hand rose to her throat, where a small locket rested.
My heart stopped. That wasn’t the necklace she had been wearing when we left that morning. In fact, if I didn’t know any better, I would have said that was the necklace I saw in my dreams. The dreams of this house. I grabbed her hand away and held it, all the while staring at the locket. My brain was working overtime, but still, I didn’t have all the pieces, and the paramedics were headed back our way. I was running out of time, and that feeling of dread was back.
“Where did you get that necklace?” I asked her frantically. As if mentioning it reminded Naomi she was still wearing the locket, Naomi reached up to touch the locket still nestled against her throat. “It’s mine. You can’t have it.” Suddenly, Naomi’s bright eyes were once again blood red.
The EMT spoke up, “She’s got to go to the hospital and get checked out. You can meet us there. The police will want your statement too, and you should get that arm checked out.” My gut was still screaming something wasn’t right
“Just wait a sec…” Before I could finish my statement, Naomi reached up, grabbed the EMT, and brought his head down over her knee. The EMT crumpled, and Naomi leaped off the stretcher and crouched by the door of the ruined house. “NO’’ She shouted, “You can’t make me go with you. I have to go. I have important things to do and people to visit. They’ll pay for what they did.”
“Naomi, I don’t understand what you’re saying.” I desperately tried to reason with her. “Okay, I think you have a concussion. You’re not acting right. Let me help you. We can go together, okay?”
“No, go away. I can do this myself.” Before I could reach her, Naomi had sprinted to her car, locking the doors and turning the engine over before I could process what had happened. Naomi peeled out of the drive with the squealing of tires and the kick of gravel. Where she was going was anyone’s guess, but I have a sinking suspicion that it wasn’t anywhere good. As I turned away from Naomi’s fleeing vehicle, I noticed a small parchment bound up like a scroll. I stuck it in my pocket before anyone else noticed.
And that is where I’m at now. I’ve looked over the scroll, and I’m at a loss. I know this must explain what happened to Naomi. I know there’s more to this story, and I won’t rest until I’ve figured it out. The only problem is, I can’t read it. And trust me, I can read a lot of languages. It’s kinda my thing. But, I won’t stop until I get my best friend back. She would do the same for me.
I need a little time for my wrist to heal and track down some people better suited to scroll reading. I’m supposed to be resting, but I can’t, not knowing Naomi, or at least Naomi’s body, is out there somewhere, and she needs help. I don’t know exactly what happened while I was trapped in the basement, but I will figure it out, and I will get her back. I’ve got a plan.