The House
Alpbach (Austria) - there’s an ice cold chill inside the somewhat isolated house in the village near Brixlegg. A ghostly old female figure floats around in the hall of the upper floor. Pale white face, black eyes, blueish skin, her body is covert solely by long black hair. Although her feet never touch the floor, the coldness she carries makes every board of the wooden floor creak as she slowly passes by. In the bathroom an old man slams the door shut and screams: “Leave me alone!” as she rushes towards him. He barricades himself by placing both hands on the door until it gets so cold that his hands almost fall off. He desperately looks into the mirror and can’t even see straight through his tears that won’t stop flowing.
The doorknob starts to shake violently. The man whispers continuously, while fanatically slicing a razor blade through both wrists: “No more. I’m not a part of this. God, help me.”
About fifteen minutes later the cold breeze that hunted the house for days disappears, as the man collapses, and his soul leaves his lifeless body in a pool of blood. Its blank stare betrays a big, long and inevitable fall into eternal darkness. There’s a path of teardrops that leads from the bathroom to the kitchen table downstairs. On the floor next to the table lies a diary, torn up by the reader in sheer anger. Its pages drowned in his tears.
A Fresh Start
Harold fell asleep on the train. He slowly opens his eyes when a voice, through the train’s speaker, penetrates unknown words in an unknown language into his ears. He sits up straight and wipes the condensation off the window with the sleeve of his black leather coat. He sees the Alps looming through the haze, as the train enters the valley where the idyllic market town Brixlegg lies. The legion of trees that climb the mountains are a tenth of a matchstick in distance and it reminds Harold of moss on a tree stump—what a sight for sore eyes. Less than a week ago he was sleeping at a Shelter for the homeless.
The best view he experienced there was the door to the bathroom. The light that came on and off keeping him up pretty much the entire night and the reek of fresh piss that blew in his face every time someone came out again. It would’ve bothered him today, but a week ago he was just too happy to be warm and safe to notice anything negative. Now Harold’s on his way to his own home in the Alps, with money in his bank account, and even more on his crypto account, enough to mindlessly live life for two lifetimes. A little smile captures the corners of his mouth as he wanders off to last Wednesday.
Flashback
“Good afternoon, Mr. Harold Wagner. I am Bertrand Friedman, the notary of your late uncle, Herbert Wagner. First of all, allow me to offer my condolences before I inform you about his legacy?”
Harold shakes the notaries hand and sits down in an incredibly comfortable, thick cushioned chair: “Thank you, Mr. Friedman. To be honest, I haven’t seen my uncle since I was a little boy.”
The notary nods: “I understand. However, I have news that might change your life for the better, sir.”
After the formalities are done, the notary hands Harold an envelope with the mnemonic phrase of the crypto account of his late uncle and an address of a vacation home in Alpbach, Austria.
Harold is thirty-three years old. Three years ago he tragically lost his wife, son and a daughter in a house fire. He ended up on the street after his business went bankrupt. He had a driving school and one night he got a DUI (driving under the influence), lost his drivers license, his permit and so his business. Although psychologically-bankrupt he is now the only one of the Wagner family still alive and, with the inheritance received, Harold wants to take this opportunity to start over and make the best of what’s left of his life.
Austria
It’s only a short bus ride from the station in Brixlegg to Alpbach. Harold is super exited and is pleasantly surprised to see some people wearing traditional Austrian costumes. He literally has a million dollar smile on his face. Suddenly an uneasy feeling takes hold of him as though he is being watched by something really wicked. He quickly passes it off as an old reflex from his street days, where he was never alone—you’re never really alone on the street. It’s like living in the wild, you stick together, so potential attackers think twice about choosing you as their victim.
After the bus ride it’s a few minutes of walking, and shouting out grüß Gott (hello) to several of his new fellow villagers, that he finds himself right at the door of his home. It’s secluded from the rest of the village, and surrounded by pine trees. If you weren't looking for it you wouldn't even find it.
The bottom half is white like snow and the top floor is wrapped in a dark brown wood. There is a large balcony on the side of the house overlooking a huge lawn all the way up to the tree line of a large forest. Harold unlocks the door and walks into the house. He closes the door behind him and looks to his right straight into a large oval mirror. He’s shocked to see his own image. He became so thin this past year, and his blonde hair is rapidly getting thinner too. On the other side of the hall hangs the exact same mirror, only this one is pitch black. He stares into it for a few moments wondering why anyone would hang up a mirror without a mirror in it. Again he is overwhelmed by an uneasy feeling like earlier on the bus, the hairs on his arms stand up. He shrugs his shoulders and walks into the living room while seconds later the ghostly old female figure slowly appears inside the black mirror.
From the Inside
Harold takes his first steps in the living room. The house is clean, well maintained and huge. The furniture is downright modern, there’s nothing inside the house that would remind you that you’re in Austria. There are only two colors, the walls and the floor in every room, without exception, is red and every piece of furniture is black. Harold thinks out loud: “Well, this definitely is an awesome house. Oh my, it even has a sprinkler system.”
After unpacking and preparing a microwave dinner for himself, he sits on the couch in front of the TV with a beer, watching a schlagerfestival (a musical program). Harold can finally relax, he is exhausted from the trip and from the past three years, and before he can finish his dinner he falls asleep for the rest of the day, and a good portion of the night.
Harold wakes up on the couch with his TV-dinner spilled all over his clothes. A couple of hours later he hits the shower, comes out feeling like a newborn, and leaves the house in the morning to get some groceries. In the store a large blonde man in his late forties, dressed in a three piece suit, walks up to him: “You must be the new owner of the Wagner estate?”
Harold proudly responds: “Yes, I am, sir.”
“Do you like it here, Mr. Wagner?”
“Yes, I love it, people don’t even lock their door when they leave, that’s unthinkable where I come from.”
“True, Mr. Wagner, we are a different bunch here. By the way, do you like what we did with the house, Mr. Wagner?”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“Oh, forgive me. I am Dieter Weizmann, the chairman of the Clara Hiller Foundation. The Hiller family makes sure that our streets are safe and our houses remain well maintained, all free of cost.”
Harold is pleasantly surprised to hear this: “Why do they do this, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Oh, it dates far back. Clara Hiller was a local girl, in the year sixteen hundred seventeen, she fell, hit her head on a stone and died instantly. Shortly after her death, the Hiller Foundation was established. Their goal was and is: to keep everyone’s stay in the village as safe and pleasant as possible. If you like to, you can donate. We accept bitcoin and all major cryptocurrencies.”
“Yeah? I’ll think about it.”
Harold thanks Dieter for the history lesson and continues shopping.
The Bed Trip
Harold walks out of the store and is struck by an incredible sadness. Out of nowhere tears start rolling down his face. He’s forced to put down his grocery bag and he sits down on the sidewalk. In the distance, out of everyone’s sight, the ghostly old female is staring a hole in him. Harold doesn’t understand what’s happening and starts to panic, he can’t breathe, lies on his back, crying his eyes out. People come running up to him, but Dieter Weizmann is the first to arrive. He helps Harold up: “Come on, sir, I’ll take you home.”
After a short silent walk the two arrive at the Wagner residence. The walk has calmed Harold down and Mr. Weizmann tells him to go straight to bed.
Harold first drinks a cup of tea and wonders what happened outside the store. The only conclusion he can come up with is that the major changes in his life has taken a toll on his sanity. Harold has broke down before, but that was after he lost his family, he even took antidepressants for a while. But this feels totally different. He’s out as soon as he hits the hay, and wakes up in the middle of the night. He’s lying still on his back and feels an ice cold chill entering the room. The mattress starts to move as though there’s someone else in his bed. His eyes roll slowly to the left, he sees a man lying next to him.
Harold is paralyzed with fear. The man looks just like him, only a little older. Unaware of Harold’s presence, the stranger rubs both hands over his face, gets out of bed, does a hundred push-ups, grabs a towel and heads to the bathroom. Harold starts to move and gets up too. He walks to the bathroom and watches the man take a shower. The guy screams two times after he’s done: “Yeah! O! There’s nothing like a cold shower!”
Harold is stunned and shouts: “Hey, what the hell are you doing in my house?”
The man cannot hear or see him, walks past Harold and gets dressed. He grabs something from under his pillow, it’s a gun. He loads it, sticks it into his pants and walks out.
Harold follows him, but as soon as Harold steps out of the room the ghostly old female figure stands before him. Harold looks right into its black eyes, and falls flat on his back, he’s scared to death. The creepy lady floats over him as Harold crawls on his back to the other end of the room, until he hits the wall. The ghost puts her cold hands on Harold’s head. It’s like she’s now inside his skull, squeezing his brain to a pulp, he makes convulsive movements and his eyes almost pop out of his head. When Harold finally manages to scream, it’s instantly morning, and he wakes up in his bed like nothing happened.
The Morning After…
Harold is sitting at the kitchen table with a large cup of coffee, gazing outside over the lawn. He’s convinced it was just a nightmare, but he is still depressed. There’s a squeaking sound coming from the basement, but Harold only notices it after there’s a loud inexplicable bang outside the house. He holds his breath for a couple of seconds. The hair on his arms stand up and the ice cold chill is back in the house. Against his better judgment he walks to the door of the basement, opens it, goes down the stairs and clicks on the light switch. The light doesn’t come on. Harold walks on in the darkness. Suddenly there is a roaring sound, like a massive earthquake just hit the village.
Harold can’t see anything at this point. He stops right where the squeaking sound is. His hands move around in the dark, but touch only air. The sound slowly fades away and stops. Harold shuffles back to the exit as he stumbles over a stool. At the same time the light pops on, and Harold is looking at two feet hanging centimeters from the floor. He looks up and sees himself hanging at the end of a rope, wearing old rags, but it’s unmistakably Harold. He crawls out on his hands and knees screaming, and slams the door shut, runs to the front door and tries to get out of the house, but the door is barricaded. That roaring sound a minute ago was that of an avalanche. Harold is stuck in the house.
The Plot Thickens
Harold is desperately trying to keep it together, he's so depressed he could kill himself. All he can do is wait for the snow to melt, or for someone to come to his rescue. Outside there are two people watching the house. It’s Esmeralda Hiller (heiress of the Hiller dynasty), she has a pale face, and long black hair, and is dressed in a purple dress, with matching hat, and Dieter Weizmann.
Dieter looks at Esmeralda: “I’ve put the Hans Wagner Memoirs on the table like you asked.”
Esmeralda smiles: “Good work, Dieter, everything is going according to plan. All we do now is wait, until Harold Wagner kills himself. With Harold, the last Wagner dies, and Hildegard Hiller’s spirit can finally rest.”
Dieter wonders: “Why don’t we kill him ourselves, and make sure?”
“Rituals, dear Dieter. The spirit world has rules that we have to obey. We have to trust Hildegard Hiller will take care of him, like she did with the others.”
“I understand, madam.”
Esmeralda Hiller takes Dieter's arm, and the two leave the premises.
Inside, Harold struggles with his depression. The house is as cold as his soul and the old ghostly female continuously floats around the ceiling, working on Harold’s brain. He sees an old worn out book laying on the table, as he sits down in the kitchen. He’s too sad to think about how the book even got there. The cover reads: Hans Wagner, Memoirs -1617, AD. The last thing Harold wants to do, in his state, is to read it, but it’s like he’s being controlled by a higher power. He opens up the book, and starts reading. He reads the entire thing in one go in a zombie-like state, and passes out right after he’s done reading it.
The Memoirs
The memoirs of Hans Wagner. Hans was a married man, and had an affair with Clara Hiller—the girl from Brixlegg. Clara became pregnant, Hans had no intention of looking after “the bastard”, and tells Clara that she’s on her own. A desperate Clara decides to find Hans’ wife to tell her story, and to ask if Hans and his wife will adopt her baby after it’s born. On the way over she slips, hits her head on a stone, breaks her neck and instantly dies. Everybody is convinced it was an accident except her mother, Hildegard Hiller.
Her mother was a famous witch, and if she hadn’t come from an incredibly wealthy family she would have been burned at the stake for sure. Be that as it may, she didn’t trust Hans, and was convinced that he killed her daughter. So she holds a black mass in front of the Wagner Mansion, puts a curse on Hans Wagner, and all his descendants. The curse is that Hans Wagner will enter into a deep depression, until he takes his own life, and any descendant that will enter the house from that day forward will await the same faith. This is where the story ends, because there is one page missing, but Harold has read enough to know he has to escape this horror show, that is, if he ever wakes up…
The Dream
Harold’s in a deep sleep and lies with his head on the kitchen table with a wisp of drool running from his mouth. He’s in a happier place, and his subconscious is loving every second of it. But it isn’t long before a man puts his hand on Harold’s shoulder. Harold looks up and recognizes him. It’s the man with the gun that laid next to him in bed, and also the man hanging in his basement. The man introduces himself as Hans Wagner, his ancestor. Hans brings Harold two messages: “You must burn down the house, in order to lift the curse.” and, “Remember the loss of your family.”
Hans claps his hands and disappears. Harold wakes up at the kitchen table. The vivid dream is still with him. He has to find the solution before his depression comes back again. He repeats Hans’ words in his head.
Then it hits Harold—of course, burn down the house, that’s why the Hiller family keeps the house in such good condition, that’s why there’s a sprinkler system in place, and that’s why there’s this freaky old hag floating around. This house is hunted by Hildegard Hiller. The Hiller family wants me to kill myself because I’m a Wagner. Dieter, that snake probably placed the book here himself. That’s easy enough, no one locks their door in this area, thank God I didn’t donate. But what did Hans mean with, remember the loss of my family?
Harold doesn’t get that last part and roams around the house trying to find a way out. He feels his head spinning as tears start to well up again—depression is coming. His only chance is upstairs, but the snow is too thick. He has to wait until it melts. This may take a while, and he now realizes no one will come to his rescue.
The Next Level
Harold is sitting upstairs, leaning against his bedroom door. He is lost in his own mind and can’t find a way out. The stairs creak, and the ice cold chill captures Harold’s attention again—it’s the witch. He quickly gets up, and wipes the tears from his face. He can’t even see straight. The witch passes by as Harold watches through the keyhole of the bathroom door. After a couple of hours, Harold falls asleep in the bathtub. The sound of a door slamming shut, and a man screaming at the top of his lungs: “Leave me alone!” wakes him up.
Harold watches from the bathtub as the man puts his hands on the door, keeping the witch from entering. The man lets go of the door, and looks at his hands that seem to be frozen.
Harold recognizes the man now, it’s his late uncle, Herbert. His uncle stands before the mirror as the doorknob starts to shake. He grabs a razor blade and cuts his wrists: “No more. I’m not a part of this. God, help me.”
Harold wants to help his uncle, but it’s just an illusion, a replay from another dimension, meant to demoralize him. He can only watch as Herbert draws his last breath and dies on the bathroom floor. Then an icy female voice calls out: “You’re next, Harold Wagner.” Resulting in goosebumps all over Harold’s body. He has to escape, but he’s so tired from crying and fighting. He looks at the floor, there he sees the razor blade his uncle used to take his own life.
He grabs the razor blade off the floor, rolls up his sleeves, and holds the blade to his wrist. Every fiber in him wants to cut, but out of nowhere Hans’ voice sounds through the hall of the house: “Remember the loss of your family!”
Harold places his hands on his mouth and squeezes his lips together, as he always does when he thinks really hard. Then the solution comes to him—the loss of my family, of course! The strip.
After he lost his family he broke down and took antidepressants for a while. But he kept a strip of it with him at all times, as a reminder that he could conquer anything. He grabs his wallet and takes out three pills. He symbolically saved three pills: one for his wife, and two for their son and daughter. He pushes one out, sticks it in his mouth and swallows.
This Is the End
It takes three days for enough snow to melt, so that Harold can escape through the balcony. Three days that, thanks to his old medicine, was a piece of cake. Harold has been haunted by the witch, but he kept his sanity like a champ. Now it’s time to leave. He heads to the basement and turns off the sprinkler system, pours anything flammable he can find over the floors and lights it. He runs upstairs as the house catches fire, opens the door to the balcony and crawls out on his hands and knees into the snow. From a safe distance he watches the house burn. Inside the house a page, lying under the closet, is slowly smoldering away. It’s the last page of Hans' Memoirs, the page Harold never read. On this page, Hans Wagner comes clean:
Memoirs: H. Wagner. Alpbach, 06-05-1617
Clara, she didn't slip. I killed her, pounded on her skull with a stone, placed her body in a specific way to make it look like she had fallen.
Everyone believes it, except her mother. She knows. I’ve denied everything, but she knows.
I’ve told my wife to leave with the children to nearby family where they’ll be safe. I didn’t think Clara had told her mother about us. I gambled, and I lost.
Yesterday, Hildegard Hiller came to my house, held a black mass and put a curse on me and my descendants. She made no secret of it neither. For my sins against her daughter, Hildegard has given the Wagner family the worst thing one can give to natural born killers: a conscience.
I will suffer a depression of which only death can free me. I can already feel it creeping inside me. Any Wagner who enters the house from this day forward will suffer the same faith. I come from a long line of killers. My father always told me: “Some people work for a living, we kill for a living. This is who we are, this is what we do.”
They’re right outside my house, waiting for me. I’ve been a professional hit-man my whole life, but I can’t look at myself anymore, I smashed one of the mirrors in the hall.
Love of my life, if you read this: I love you, take care of the children. Tell them I’m sorry. I’m done, I’m done.
Hans Wagner.
Hans Wagner, psychopath with a conscience, finishes writing his memoirs, signs it, grabs a rope, and hangs himself in the basement of his house.
End Goal
Somehow Hans Wagner has found a way from beyond to pass on a message in Harold’s dream. There was only one way to break the curse of the Brixlegg witch and that was to burn down the house. By burning it down, Harold has lifted the curse of the Brixlegg witch, but also, without realizing it, got rid of his conscience. Harold has had enough of Austria and ‘new beginnings’.
A strange sensation grabs a hold of him while he watches the house collapse and get completely destroyed by the fire. He turns around and looks up for a moment where a dark, ominous cloud is preparing for a discharge.
Harold Wagner, a killer is born. He puts up his collar and slowly disappears into the cold, misty morning, unsure where his path will lead. Perhaps to you?