Bonus Story

 Once upon a time there was a house. It stretched to the sky it seemed. It had ramparts and overhangs. The front faced a large expanse of grass, overgrown now. An iron fence surrounded It on all sides, spikes on the top. A gate was set in it, only opened for delivery people to drop their parcels off.

When those delivery people came they left quickly. Nobody stayed near the house for long. Even on the sunniest days it felt overcast. It felt cold. Like a storm was coming, like clouds were hunting you and if you just looked over your shoulder it would pounce, forcing you to the ground and unable to move, where you'd feel yourself wetted and drenched with rain and sleet and cold.

In this house lived a man and his wife. They lived there all their days. They were well respected in the town around the house - they had money and they bought their respect with miserly disbursements of money. People stayed away.

Neighbors might hear a noise from tie to time. It came from inside the house but also inside their heads. It was a black, dark, soft murmuring sound. It would force them to do anything - work, play, pray - to drive it out of their ears and their heads. It was a bad sound part moaning and part mourning. 

People tried to ignore it. 

One day the wife was seen in town. She walked with a waddling gate. She was obviously very pregnant. 

She was 90 if she was a day. People looked at her, wondered how she could be pregnant. But they kept their mouths shut.

One night, a month later, neighbors heard what sounded like screams coming from inside the house. They ran to their windows and to the iron fence with the spikes and the gate that was closed. They stood there and heard the screams. They dared not enter. 

The screams ended after awhile, like they do. There was never a light that could be seen.

Years passed. The man and woman were never seen in town. They never left their home. But people saw them. In the windows. At night in the light of a flickering candle. They were seen holding something the seemed to wriggle in their arms. Like a baby.

Or a maggot the size of a baby. Neighbors would shake their heads at that thought. Like a baby is what they settled on by force of will.

After awhile, years, the man and woman were not seen anymore in the windows. 

And more years went by. The house decayed. The grass grew. And the house became a place where young children dared each other to enter. Dared each other to see the inside of. 

And when the children that went in the door were inside they'd walk to the kitchen. A dark kitchen. They'd bring a dead animal with them, if they were so inclined. And they'd put the animal on the floor. They'd step back and wait.

A scratching inside the walls would be heard. It would get closer, maybe heard as a set of claws scratching a wall.

If the children heard that then they could say, "offering made for a story."

And sometimes, sometimes only, those of them that had brought a special present would hear a hissing, slithering sound only vaguely resembling a voice start to tell them a story. And they'd sit there, on the floor, and listen. And they'd never forget it.

None ever said what story they heard. None could ever say. None ever spoke again. The most they could ever say was strange mutterings about loneliness, hunger and squirming masses.