The House in the Shadow of the Hill

Frank Dearbourne and his family are gone.

It makes me sad to think about them now, but I feel I should try and write down what I know. I keep thinking maybe I could have done more to save them, but sometimes things are just too strong for man to fight.
I liked Frank, he was a down-to-Earth no nonsense type of guy. He was straightforward and hard working, and also a bit stubborn. He didn't waste time on silliness or superstition, to him they amounted to about the same thing. Unfortunately, in the end, I believe it was this fact that lead to what happened.
Frank moved into Dunwich from Hartford about 6 years ago. He and Marsha had gotten married a year before and had decided they wanted to get out of the city. How they picked Dunwich I'll never know, but they rented a house from old Beatrice Stewart. It was a small place on Main St., just big enough for 2, and was right next door to me.
Frank worked in insurance for some big company. He was well respected because unlike a lot of people in that industry he was honest. He got called in if a big client had a problem and they needed someone who would get the job done quick and right without a lot of hassle. From what I could tell he made pretty decent money. He had a company car and would sometimes have to go away for up to a week at a time. But that was rare, mostly he did a lot of his job over the computer.
Marsha had a part time job over at the laundromat. She was a quiet little thing, barely said boo to anyone. Very pale, with long blonde hair and big brown doe eyes. She was always very pleasant, but in all the years I knew the Dearbornes I can't ever really recall having a long conversation with her. She wasn't a head turner by any means, more the homely type to be honest. I always thought it odd since Frank was a handsome man, never could figure out how they got together, but beauty they say is in the eye of the beholder, and who am I to argue.
I got to know Frank pretty good over the years, us being neighbors and all. We'd get together on game nights and cheer the Pat's on with a couple of beers. He helped me fix my back porch after that weird storm in Sept. '01. We both helped out looking for Jim Ambrose's kid when he went missing in Dec. '02, and I thank God it wasn't us that found him. Poor Jim is still up in that nuthouse after seeing the condition of his boy.
It seemed like such a happy thing when Marsha became pregnant 2 years ago. Then Frank decided that the house wasn't big enough and it was time to build one for his family. Even that wouldn't have been bad, until he announced that he wanted to build their new dream house at the base of Sentinel Hill.
Well that was a shock. Didn't even know he had ever been near the Hill, people these parts keep away from it if they can.
See Sentinel Hill isn't a good place. Bad stuff has happened up there, and sometimes if something is horrible enough it can leave a mark that never truly leaves. There's legends about that old hill. About witchcraft and murder and sacrifices to other gods. Back in the 20's or so some collage professors from up at Miskatonic did something up there that made my Granpapy shudder when he'd look at that hill. Said something's weren't meat to exist. Once told me something that had no right to live might have no way to die. Wasn't quite sure what that meant, but it stuck with me because of how scared he was when he said it.
In the 50's 2 hitchhikers went up there. Said they wanted to look for old buildings and stuff. They arrested the one fella for what happened, but he swore it wasn't him that did that to his friend. Damn near out of his mind though, so they didn't pay him much mind. From what my Pop said they could hear the screams all the way in town that night. Hard to imagine how you'd get a human body to twist like that my Pop would say. First time he told me that story I had nightmares for a week.
I do remember Father O'Halloran. Old kind of preacher, all fire and brimstone. Very popular when I was young. I do recall that he had strong words about the hill, and about the old Whatley mansion near it. It had been abandoned all my life, run down and falling apart. Well, the priest would say it should be burned to the ground, and that's when people would get quiet at church. Guess fire and brimstone's best if it's far away from you. I remember Pops telling the priest that some things should be just left to be forgotten, but O'Halloran wouldn't hear of it. He snapped in the end, maybe just too much religious fervor, as my Aunt called it. They found him up at the mansion going on about old gods and those that worship them, stark naked and covered in blood. He ended up at the same nuthouse they'd send Jim to years later. I heard where he killed himself and another inmate a few years after.
Come to think of it, it was at the base of the Hill that they found Jim's kid. Never thought about that before. Maybe if I had brought that up to Frank....
But no, once Frank had made his mind up I reckon nothing was going to stop him. Like I said, he was stubborn. He had to hire folks from outside the region to do the work, nobody around here would go near the place. It upset Frank something fierce, the way all the locals kept trying to talk him out of it. He told me I was the only one who didn't seem scared of the place, but that wasn't true. I was scared, less of the place and more about what might happen to Frank and his family. I just knew better than the rest that there was no talking Frank out of something once he'd made up his mind.
They had problems right for the start-up. Some of the machines they brought in wouldn't work right near the Hill. In town they'd be fine, but once at the site they just wouldn't go. Then while putting in the foundation one of the workers freaked out and left on the spot, said something about a face in the dirt looking at him. Then there was the case of the missing supplies, but Frank figured it was just town folk who were trying to hold things up that done that.
Little by little work got done despite the setbacks. It was a nice little place, a light tan color two-story with a 2 car garage and pool at the side.
Well due to the problems, Marsha had the baby before the place was ready. It was a beautiful little boy, they named him Michael after the angel. He had his mothers big brown eyes, but the rest was all Frank. 5lbs 2oz at birth. I gotta admit for a while after the birth I really believed things might just work out after all, it's kind of hard to be superstitious in the face of a family that looked so perfect. Frank was just in heaven with little Mike.
Then about 2 months after Mike was born the house was complete. Frank and I went up there to look at it once it was done. It was then, standing in the driveway looking up at the house with Sentinel Hill looming behind it that I first got an idea that bad times were coming. There was something about the hill that gave you the impression it was a giant predator just waiting to pounce on it's unsuspecting prey. The shadows it cast didn't look right to me, almost as if it was casting much more darkness than it should. I'm still not sure if Frank noticed the way the place seemed to get on you. It was like a heavy weight on your mind. You found yourself constantly looking over your shoulder because it felt like you were being watched.
So I invited Frank over afterwards for a beer and we sat down to have a little talk. Yeah, I knew it would do no good. I'd known Frank too long to think he'd pay attention to what I had to say, but I liked him too much not to try. If for no other reason than for the family. Or maybe it was just for my own conscience.
I told him what I knew, and the things I'd heard over the years. I told him about the deaths and missing people. I talk to him calmly and reasonably and in the end it didn't do a lick of good. He thanked me for me concern and invited me out for a housewarming party. Now that I look back maybe should have tried harder. So many of the rumors and stories seem so vague and foolish if you try telling them in daylight with Brady doing a screen pass on the TV and a can of Bud in your right hand.
So they moved in. The house party was a lot of fun, with only one disconcerting thing happening. At around 11 I felt the old weight in the bladder so I went to christen the bathroom. I was just washing up when something out the window caught my eye, almost like the darkness moved. The bathroom window looked out the back of the house, and in the light you'd see how the hill seemed to just rise straight up just a bit behind the house. I could make out a bit of the dark out here that seemed much darker still. I first thought it was some kind of animal, just a coon or a late squirrel chasing a nut in the night. But the more I looked the more my mind started to think that there was a larger shape in the dark, or maybe a larger shape MADE by the dark. It felt like something that was big and hungry and very old. Then someone turned on the back light, I guess Frank was showing someone the pool, and the shadow was gone and I went and wrote it off as one too many of Anheuser-Busch's party drinks.
I saw Frank 3 days later at the grocery store. He was pale and cranky. We only talked for a few moments, he was heading back with stuff for dinner and didn't want to eat too late. He said things were fine. When I asked about his haggard appearance he said something about not being used to sleeping in the house yet, the quiet and the openness was taking a bit to get used to and so they weren't sleeping too well. Add in that he thought little Mike might be colicky, apparently the kid screamed almost no stop when awake, and it was just life as usual for a new father. It was as he was walking away with his bags of stuff that he mentioned the dreams. I didn't catch it all, hard to hear a mumbling man when his back is turned and he's walking away, but he said something about the damn dreams ain't helping things neither. Wish I asked him more about the dreams.
So I went to visit that Sunday. Kind of hoped that maybe we'd watch the game and have a few beers like old times, but a family man's got too much responsibility to be able to take out time for stuff like that I guess. Oh we talked and ate, but most of it was around the screaming of little Mike. Marsha looked positively worn. Like she'd aged years in the past week. I asked Frank if she'd taken Mike to see the town doc, old Bill Ashcroft. He said she had but that for some reason Michael was fine during the trip. The Doc said he saw no signs of colicky, Mike was as healthy as a kid could be from a medical standpoint. Yet Frank said the moment they got home he started with the wailing again. Part of me wondered about that, but talk turned to how he was having problems with their computer connection and how work was and somehow all the warnings in my mind kind of got washed away. I left early, just so much of a crying kid a non-parent can take. But I was troubled.
Frank called me later that week. He seemed nervous and asked if I could swing by. I said as how I was free and would come by, and ghe asked if I could swing by the store and pick up some wasp spay on my way. So I went, with the quick side trip, and when I got there I was taken aback by the look of my friend. His eyes had dark rings about them and he looked somehow much thinner than he had just a few days before at dinner. I also noticed an occasional twitch at his cheek. He told me to follow him and walked off to the side of the house, over by one of the twisted trees that you seem to find near the base of Sentinel Hill for some reason. We were told as kids it was because of the acid content of the soil that gets picked up by the rainwater and makes the trees look like that. Myself, well I ain't never been too sure about that. Those trees always looked to me like they were in pain and wanted to run away.
But anyways, Frank and I spent the afternoon taking out a huge wasp nest that seemed to be inside the whole old tree. Between the spray and some backwoods application of fire we cleared the thing out. Afterwards we sat by the pool, which looked like it needed to be cleaned pretty bad. I couldn't figure how the thing looked so nasty after such a short time, but I didn't mention it.
Looking back, I didn't mention a lot of things that I could have, maybe even should have.
Frank said Marsha and Mike were lying down inside. I asked how things were and for the first time since I'd first met him Frank didn't answer fine. He said things seemed to be going pretty bad in fact. Marsha seemed sick, talked about hearing things at night, seeing things move in the dark. He said that just last night she woke screaming and ran to Mike's room and snatched him up, crying that he was in danger. Well that got Mike screaming, which is why the siesta today. Afterwards she couldn't remember what had scared her so. So I asked him how he was himself. Frank looked over at me and for a minute I thought the man was gonna cry. But he gave himself a shake and told me that he was just tired and worn out. He passed it off as the whole new father thing, but somewhere inside I felt that he was lying.
Then he said that he wanted to show me something, the reason in fact why he invited me up today instead of just getting the wasp spray himself. We walked over to the ide of the Hill at the back of his house. I could see that someone had been digging into the hillside. The dirt was cleared away to show what looked like a huge rock. Frank picked up a shovel nearby, and telling me to listen carefully, he banged the rock with the shovel.I heard it right way, that rock sounded like it was barely covering a hollow. Like maybe there was an open space on the other side. A big one from the sound of the echoes. I jumped a bit at that. The idea of a cave or something inside Sentinel Hill scared me pretty bad I must admit. The idea of what might be buried in there. I looked at Frank and he was smiling. He asked if I'd heard it, and I said yes I reckoned I did. He said he wanted to break it open, to see how big the space behind must be. I told him I wasn't sure that was such a good idea. That sometimes buried things need to stay buried. Of course he laugh at that, said as how it wasn't nothing buried, just some little cave formed by water erosion. I knew a normal argument wouldn't work, so instead I went with the idea against him that digging it out might affect the erosion of the Hill, maybe cause a dirt slide that could hurt the house or pool. Well that at least got him to stop and think. He said as how he hadn't thought of that.
I asked what got him started digging in the first place, and he said that some nights he could hear what he assumed was the dripping of water from inside it. But when he said that I again got the feeling that the man was lying, but this time I think it was as much to himself as it was to me.
I got him to admit to having someone who knew more about the way the land worked out here to take a look before he dug anymore, just in case it brought the whole hill down on him and the family. I'd hoped that maybe I could get him to stop, maybe fill it all in what he'd already done, if I could get someone else to talk to him about how dangerous it could be. I guess part of me forgot about how stubborn Frank could be. How fatally stubborn.
The scream came the next afternoon. Everyone in town could hear them, just a strange case of how echoes can carry in a wooded area people later said. Myself, I think they were just that damn loud, just like what had happened to them hitchhikers. No one wanted to go see, but I had to try. For the sake of my friend. So I got Constable Watkins to go with me and we flew up there. Of course that was 'cause I drove, Watkins kept telling me to slow down. I don't think it was because of the dangers of driving fast, I think he just didn't want to arrive too quick.
By the time we got there the screams had stopped. The front door was open wide, and we could both see the blood on the doorhandle. We went in slow, him with his gun out me with a old shotgun that I'd brought with me. There was more blood inside, but not a ton of it. Things were knocked around, like a struggle had occurred. From the look of it someone had been forcibly dragged out the back of the house. We searched the house quick, but there were no signs of anyone. Worst part was seeing the window in Mike's room, it had been pulled right out as if something outside had just grabbed it and yanked damn hard.
With no sign of anyone in the house we went out back.
The digging was there, and I could see right away that Frank had broken through that rock. He'd made quite a decent sized hole in it's middle, about the size of a good watermelon I figured. The sides of the rock were covered with blood. The ground around looked like something heavy had been dragged towards the hole, maybe more than one thing. I wasn't sure how strong something must be to fit a full grown human into that hole. Just the thought made me want to run away.
I shouldn't have looked in. Not sure why I did, must have been a bit out of my head by then. Watkins wouldn't go near it, just said we'd have to fill it in and not talk about it. But I had to go look. I shouldn't have looked in.
We sealed the hole. Watkins reported them missing. Just missing. I've read the report and there's no mention of a hole or blood or nothing else.
The house is still out there, sitting at the base of that cursed hill. There have been one or two outsiders who have looked into buying it, but the locals have done a good job of talking them out of it. Best to let it sit. Sit and rot like the old Whatley place has. I've thought about sneaking up there one night and setting it on fire, just to get rid of it. But that would mean being there in the dark and that's just something I won't do.

It was dark and deep when I looked into that hole. Like looking into a dark tunnel, where you can't see far but you can feel far, if you know what I mean. Somehow I could tell it went way back. For just a moment, maybe the light was just right, I could swear that way back in there I could see the tiniest bit of movement, like something lifted out of the dirt and mud and was waving at me from far off, maybe waving to ask me to come and visit.
On some nights I can still see it in my dreams. Some nights I feel almost like something is tugging at me, wanting to have a beer and watch a game.
Wanting me to stay for a while.