We're Not Strangers Anymore

Chapter Twelve - The Boy In The Window

Nerves. Feelings of extreme anxiety rushed through the veins of Charlie Broomer as he approached the one place he'd been dreading a return to. Jamie Manley was nervous too, but this was almost nothing when compared to Charlie's feelings of sheer anxiety.
Finally, they were there. They had reached the last house on the corner of the street. The house stood as it had stood two nights ago; overpowering, crooked and tall.
'Well, this is it,' Jamie said. 'Here we are.'
Charlie agreed.
'Yep. Well, in you go.'
Jamie looked uncomfortable.
'Get home safely, won't you?'
'Always do,' Charlie said, desperately trying to sound confident. Impressing your friend was one thing, but having to put on a brave face outside of a creepy and potentially dangerous house was another.
'Right. Time to love you and leave ya. Laters.'
The door slammed shut and Charlie turned to walk away, but was stopped.
What has just stopped me? It's not even that windy, so I can't blame the gales..
And then it hit him.
That house. It's fucking pulling me in. It wants me to go and check it out. Something really isn't right here.
He began to move towards the house. It stood over him, staring him down and laughing at him as he shifted. Charlie fixated his gaze on the basement window; that same room that had given him the shivers only forty-eight hours previous.
He was there now, standing and facing the dirty glass.
Should I have a look in? No, don't be silly. Well, actually, morbid human curiosity an all that.
He pressed his face against the glass and wiped it with his sleeve. Everything had led up to this moment, and there was no messing it up at this late stage.
I need to see what's going on. He's my friend.
Charlie peered through the window and immediately regretted it; there was no simple explanation to justify what he could see in front of him. Looking in through the chipped glass window he saw a boy, no more than eleven years old. Through his colourless palms were four steel nails, two in each hand. The boy appeared to be crying as well as bleeding, but Charlie knew in his heart that they weren't positive tears, like the ones that he himself had cried at his Dad's funeral nearly a year ago. Instead, they were sad tears. To put it simply, they were the tears of a boy who had been stood there, attached to the stony wall by a handful of nails, silently weeping for hours. Charlie shuddered at this thought.
How long has he been there?
All of a sudden, the young boy began to tilt his head sideways, the way that a hungry wolf might, miming to Charlie two simple, yet gut-wrenching words: 'Help me.'
Charlie immediately jumped out of his skin, hitting the frail window upon noticing another two things - the first being that the boy, who was now sobbing some more, had what Jack Hodges had once described to him as a Chelsea smile (which he knew for certain meant two pins around the mouth area, one in each lip corner, with the end result being a fresh, bleeding smile). The second thing he noticed chilled him even more, right down to the core of his bones; the smiling little boy in the basement wasn't alone.