The Dark Mile 2026 · Selected story
October House
by Inka Larson
OctoberHouse
by Inka Larson
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It was Halloween afternoon and Sloane was elbow deep in homework. Literally. Her desk was piled high with papers, notebooks and currently, she was typing furiously on her laptop, a pen dangling from her lips. Bad habit but it helped her focus.
Professor Edmunds said that tomorrow’s exam was going to count for forty per cent of the semester’s grade. Of course he would schedule it for after a night that most students spend awake, partying.
Rain tapped softly against the windows of October House, and outside, the university had begun its transformation. Students hurried along the sidewalks, flashes of makeup and costumes peaking out beneath umbrellas and jackets.
She was halfway through rereading the same paragraph for the fourth time when her bedroom door flew open.
“Why aren’t you ready?”
Sloane looked up.
Her roommate stood in the doorway wearing a coat, boots, and holding on to a small suitcase
“What?”
“We have to be out of here in, like, ten minutes.”
Sloane glanced at the clock beside her bed.
5:48pm.
“Shit.”
She launched herself off the mattress.
Every tenant of October House knew the rule. It was written into the lease in bold lettering and reinforced by their landlord, Eloise, so many times that it had become something of a joke.
The house must be vacated by sunset on October 31. Tenants may return after sunrise on November 1.
No explanation.
Just a prepaid motel room waiting across town and a warning that Eloise would personally check that every bedroom was vacated before 6pm.
Sloane shoved clothes into a duffel bag without bothering to fold them.
“Do you think she would actually evict us?”
“Yes.”
“For being here at six-oh-one?”
“Yes.”
Sloane groaned.
Her roommate tossed a backpack at her. “C’mon. It’s worth it for the price of this place.”
By 5:55pm, they were outside.
Sloane looked over her shoulder at the house as she made her way to the car. The October House stood beneath a bruised sky of purple, grey and orange hues – almost as if it was decorating itself for the night of festivities. The house was three stories of dark brick and covered in ivy. Warm light still glowed through its tall windows. It looked like the perfect mansion to cozy up in with a good book.
Sloane pulled her coat tighter as the rain started to pour harder.
“Still think this is weird.”
“It's one night.”
“Exactly. Why one night?”
Her roommate shrugged. “Ask Eloise tomorrow.”
The motel was ten minutes from campus and smelled faintly of cigarettes despite the NO SMOKING sign screwed to the door.
Sloane dropped her bags onto the bed and reached into her backpack.
Laptop.
Textbook.
Pens.
She stopped.
“No.”
She emptied everything onto the comforter.
No notebook.
Sloane closed her eyes.
She could see it perfectly: spiralbound, black cat on the cover, bent corner, and containing all of her handwritten notes for the exam tomorrow. She wouldn’t have time to get it in the morning before class started.
For several seconds, she considered accepting defeat.
Then she checked the time.
6:37pm.
Eloise would be furious.
But Professor Edmunds would kill her first.
She couldn’t risk either.
Or rather, she could. This grade was more important than a place to live. Worst case, she could move into the dorms.
Twenty minutes later, Sloane was standing on the porch of October House.
Every window was dark.
She unlocked the front door and slipped inside.
Nothing happened.
Of course nothing happened.
Sloane quietly shut the door behind her, leaving the lights off.
The old house creaked around her, settling into itself.
She had made it halfway up the stairs when she heard it.
Three soft knocks.
Sloane stopped.
They came again.
Not from upstairs.
From inside the wall next to her.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
It must be the pipes. Or one of the hundred other noises a house this old made when the temperature dropped.
The knock began again.
She held her breath.
“Hello?”
Her hands ran along the floral wallpaper.
The knocks stopped abruptly.
“Is…someone there?” she called again.
The knocks began again, frantically.
Someone was behind the wall.
A muffled sound answered.
But it was moving, back downstairs.
She retraced her steps, passing the framed photographs on the wall, past the table strewn with unopened mail, and into the living room, the antique chandelier glistening above her in the dark.
Sloane stopped.
A door stood before her, next to the ginormous fireplace.
She stared at it.
She had lived in October House for three months. She walked through this room every day.
There had never been a door here.
Another knock came from behind it.
Then a voice.
“Help!”
Sloane's stomach dropped.
“Please!”
Sloane rushed forward. “Are you hurt?”
No answer.
She wrapped her hand around the knob.
Some small, sensible part of her thought that she should call the landlord. Call the police. Call literally anyone.
“Help me!”
Sloane turned the knob.
The door flew open towards her.
A force caught her so violently that her feet left the floor.
She screamed, reaching for the frame, but her fingers caught nothing.
Then the door slammed shut.
Silence.
Sloane lay sprawled across the floor.
For several seconds, she didn't move.
Her shoulder throbbed where she had landed.
“What the hell?”
She pushed herself upright.
And froze.
She was still in October House.
Except she wasn't.
The familiar floral wallpaper was gone from the walls. In its place were vertical planks of dark wood, warped and split with age.
Sloane looked down.
The wallpaper was beneath her feet.
“No.”
She scrambled to her feet.
The staircase curved in the opposite direction.
The framed photographs hung upside down.
The chandelier was blooming from the floor, like a crystal tree.
The grandfather clock stood where it always had, just upside down.
And its hands moved backward.
7:58pm.
7:57pm.
7:56pm.
Sloane stared at it until something moved at the top of the stairs.
A young woman stood there.
Barefoot. Pale. Watching her.
Sloane swallowed her scream.
“Who are you? What is happening?”
The woman didn't answer.
Her eyes moved instead to the wall behind Sloane.
To where the door had been.
Then she whispered,
“You opened it.”
Sloane turned.
There was nothing behind her but wood.
No knob. No hinges. Not even an outline where the door had been.
She ran her hands across the wall.
“What did you do?” Sloane asked, her voice louder than she intended.
“Me?” the woman replied
“You were calling for help.”
The woman descended one step.
“I wasn’t though. I gave that up long ago.”
That answer frightened her more than anything else had.
Sloane stopped.
The silence suddenly felt different.
She looked toward the hallway, then back at the woman.
“What do you mean? Then who was?”
She didn’t answer.
“What the hell is going on?” Sloane yelled this time.
She pulled out her phone.
No service.
The screen flickered once before going black.
“You shouldn't have come back.”
Sloane looked up sharply. “How do you know I came back?”
The woman studied her.
“Because everyone leaves before sunset.”
Sloane's fear sharpened into suspicion.
“Who are you?”
“Tara.”
“Tara what?”
But Sloane already knew the answer.
She had seen that face before.
Downstairs, among the photographs Eloise refused to let tenants remove, was an old picture of two girls sitting on the front steps of October House.
Twin sisters. One of them was Eloise.
The other must be the one standing in front of her now.
Sloane felt goosebumps prick her skin.
“Your Eloise’s sister?” she whispered, incredulously
Something broke across Tara's face.
Hope, maybe.
Or grief.
“She's still here?”
Sloane stared at her.
“Still?”
Tara looked toward the backward clock.
“What's the year?”
“2026.”
For the first time, Tara seemed frightened.
Her lips parted.
Then closed.
Tara lowered herself onto the stairs.
Neither of them spoke.
Sloane looked again at Tara's face. She couldn't have been more than twenty.
“How long have you been in here?”
Tara's eyes drifted toward the wooden wall.
“If my math serves me correctly, fifty years.”
Sloane almost laughed. Not because it was funny, but because her mind had run out of reasonable responses. She had to laugh. Otherwise she would start to cry.
“That's impossible.”
“I used to think so too.”
“You have been trapped here for fifty years?”
Tara nodded.
“Alone?”
“Not exactly.”
They held each other’s gaze, then Tara stood and walked towards the wall.
She placed her palm against it.
“My sister comes every Halloween.”
Sloane stared at her.
“What do you mean?”
For a moment, Tara said nothing.
Then she knocked three times.
They waited.
Nothing.
Tara's hand remained against the wood.
“Sometimes it takes her a while.”
Sloane was about to ask what she meant when a sound came from somewhere deep inside the wall.
Three knocks answered.
Tara closed her eyes.
When she opened them again, they were wet.
“Hi, El.”
Sloane looked from Tara to the wall.
“You can hear each other?”
“Only tonight. Only on Halloween.”
“Then why hasn't she gotten you out?”
Tara gave a small, tired smile. “I guess she’s never found the door.”
“Then how did I? It was right there. I had never seen it before but…” She didn’t need to finish the sentence.
“How did you get here?” she asked Tara.
“Eloise and I caught cold one Halloween so instead of going trick or treating, our parents left us at home while they went out with their friends. We were playing hide-and-seek and I happened upon the door – just like you must have. I called Eloise, ending the game, and we pushed it open together. I fell in…to this,” she looked around. “But Eloise’s grip lost my hand and the door shut between us.”
They stared at each other in silence, until the clock suddenly chimed. It was an eerie, distant noise.
7:00pm.
“The door opened toward me in the real house,” Sloane said, slowly.
“What?”
“You just said you had pushed it.”
Tara stared.
Sloane looked at the backward clock.
Everything here worked the opposite way.
“You have been trying to open it at the same wall you found the door, but from this side, we need to find its opposite side. The wrong side.”
Tara’s eyes lit with hope. “What would be the opposite wall of this one?”
Sloane closed her eyes, trying to picture the house’s layout.
The kitchen.
She pounded against the wall.
“Eloise!” Sloane shouted. “If you can hear me, follow my knocks.”
Then Tara stepped beside her, knocking with her.
The wood shuddered.
Sloane nodded to Tara to lead the way. Tara led her through the dining room where the table was hanging from the ceiling, the walk-in pantry which had shelves on the floor, and they finally arrived at the kitchen. The cupboards lay on the floor and Sloane carefully stepped around broken dishes.
“Which wall?” Tara asked.
“I don’t know. Let’s start with one at a time.”
So they did. The first, the second…
Finally, the third.
Tara knocked. Sloane knocked. After a few seconds, Eloise knocked back.
Suddenly the wall started shuddering. A dim light began to appear through the baseboard.
A doorknob appeared.
Sloane grabbed it.
On the other side, someone did the same.
The door opened.
Eloise stood there, a flashlight in hand.
For one suspended second, neither sister moved.
Then Tara whispered, “Hi, El.”
Eloise covered her mouth.
Tara stepped through.
The door vanished behind them.
Tara reached for her sister's face with trembling hands.
“You got old,” she whispered.
Eloise made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob.
“You didn't.”
Sloane left them there.
Upstairs, her notebook still laid on her desk.
She grabbed it and headed for the stairs.
Then stopped.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
Behind the wall.
Sloane slowly turned.
Tara was downstairs with Eloise.
Another knock.
Then the same voice that she had heard before, whispered:
“Help me.”