#window 3

March 18 2025 - now it gets to sit and cure for 24 hours.

It's now also time to install door handles, since with windows in we can't open the doors through the window opening anymore.

March 18 2025 - sikaflexed window #3 looks good

Window #3 (x3)

There was a shift in the dormant shape of the tall dark curtain on the left hand side of the window. Peter's breath caught. His mind darted, trying to figure out what the movement had been.

But there was no one there.

But there was someone there.

Peter's skin began itching inside of his suddenly claustrophobic clothes. Phoebe! He thought urgently to himself. I must find Phoebe!

'Whooo ... is ... Phoeeebe?'

Peter's bottom jaw began to chatter, his teeth clamping together on his tongue in fright, drawing blood. The sharp pain made him gasp, clearing his vision, making him refocus. He almost wished he hadn't.

The curtain had stopped moving. It stood tall and upright in the inkiness of the room. The room he shouldn't be in, that wasn't Peter's, it was not his room, it was not his grave.

'Phoooebe?' He heard the voice again. Already he had caught a glimpse of it, the owner of the voice, but he refused to look at it again. Pushing down the scream that was rising in his throat, Peter forced himself to look down. No, not down! he reminded himself. His broken ankle was down, its peculiar angle scared him as much as she did.

No, he had to look up, but look beyond, look to the window, to the silvery moon lighting the midnight sky, to the bare trees watching him, to the owl whose shadow just seemed to jump the moon. Funny, Peter thought, I could have sworn it was a cow that jumped over the moon in the rhyme...

'Phoebeee?' The thing before Peter asked yet again and he heard his own breath come out in a low scream. Peter's blood pumped in his eardrums, adrenaline scaring his body into action, urging him to flee. But he couldn't flee. Knowing there was no other option, Peter swallowed tightly, a bead of sweat dripping from his crew cut. Blinking his eyes shut for a moment, he exhaled and looked up at the spectre before him.

She seemed to almost float. She was terrifying yet lovely. Staring back at him with eyes that were simply black holes with empty light emanating from where pupils should be, the girl's head was to one side, studying Peter, her full lips pressed firmly together, her pretty grey face showing no expression of interest, anger or anything else.

Peter was an artist. His eyes took in every detail of an image or person or landscape and his mind registered them automatically, within seconds, noticing things others may not.

The girl before him wasn't transparent or lucid or white as he might have imagined a ghost to be. She had a thick chestnut brown mane of hair that had come loose from its style, falling naturally with the angle of her head. Her small frame was covered by a pale blue dress, long and loosely fitting, Peter could only guess at its date. It looked like one of those period dramas Phoebe adored - the one with the snotty man and the eloping cad.

Her grey arms fell to her sides limply, offering no malice nor assistance to him. The shoulders of her dress were torn, Peter realised, and there was a dark stain, perhaps of dried blood, at her waist. Fine glistening cobwebs were attached to her elbows and the skirts of her dress, giving the illusion that she was sewn to the material. Peter's eyes flicked upwards and noticed a dark mark around the thin neck of the ghost girl before him and only then did he register that it was a frayed old rope hanging from around her neck, resting on her brittle collar bones.

His examination was over once Peter saw the state of her bare feet. They were bloodied from underneath and a small toe was angled incorrectly. Broken. Maybe from when she had kicked out in her death throes, her feet scratched from a splintered chair...

'Phoeeebeee?' Peter trembled at the sound of his beautiful girlfriend's name but he swallowed and told himself to man up. After what he had seen downstairs... that thing... that terrible thing that had... which had... Phoebe...

'Phoebe,' The ghost repeated. Peter blinked through the tears clouding his vision and sniffed, his arms tightening to hug himself.

Oddly, he thought about how he would sketch her... He would use charcoal, he thought... Use them as a base. When he was content he'd draw her again in pencil and then he would fill her world with colour, purple drapes at the window, perhaps a candle in her hand -

A rat's squeak brought Peter to his senses - so did the sharp teeth that dug through the front of his trainer, piercing his toes. The toe of his broken foot. Peter's reaction was to jerk his leg and this caused such a blinding pain that his entire body reacted and his face went white and his canines bit painfully into his lips. The rat scurried off. Peter felt splinters beneath his torn fingernails, ripped up from the ancient floorboards beneath him.

He let out a whimper of pain and fright. The girl, still staring at him, came a little closer, seemingly hovering.

'Phoebe.' She said. Her lips never moved. Peter blinked.

'Phoebe.' The ghost decided and stopped just in front of his sprawled out legs. With a little pain as possible, Peter shifted his good leg closer to his torso.

'Phoebe!' The ghost seemed elated at the sound of the word. Her head still did not move, leaning over her left shoulder. Peter's mind wandered if he'd use water colours or oils on her portrait...

'Phoebe.'

'Please,' Peter finally spoke. 'Please, you've got to help me.'

'Help you?' The ghost's voice was like a song. 'Help Phoebe?'

'Yes! Yes, help me, I need you to help Phoebe!'

'Phoebe.' Peter scrunched down his irritation (could you be irritated with a ghost?) and concentrated on his girlfriend's face in his mind. He counted the freckles on her cheeks and the ones that kisses her nose, as he always did when trying to calm down.

'Please. Help me.'

The ghost seemed to nod her head. But Peter quickly realised she couldn't have done that. There was a reason her neck was to the side. It was broken.

But her arm wasn't. Lifting the left arm of her tiny body, the ghost pointed a bruised finger to the corner where all of the rats came from. Peter blinked, twisting his head, back propped up against the fireplace. His vision took several minutes to find whatever it was he was looking for and when he did he gave a hopeful gasp.

There was a second door.

Not that door in front of him, the one that he had dragged his damaged body through, which he had slammed shut. The skin of his fingers felt suddenly soft and a brassy smell assailed his nostrils as he recalled the heavy key turning in the scraping lock. He also recalled the sound of children's voices as he pulled himself to wards the fireplace, crawling the expanse of the room on his stomach. He thought he'd imagined them...

'Phoebe.' The girl said. It was becoming her mantra. Peter found himself a little annoyed. She may be dead, but surely she was a little more helpful than this. Eyes still locked on the second door, now that he could see it in the gloom, Peter licked his lips and felt a little hope spring within.

But he had no way of moving.

His ankle was broken. There was a bone protruding from his skin. To move, to attempt to move, would be folly. Peter's eyes ran the length of the space from the door back at the ghost and he noticed something glint in the moonlight. She wore a silver locket around her slim wrist. He didn't know why he found this an important detail.

'Please,' Peter said, 'I need to get out of here,'

'Leave?' The ghost said once more, her voice drooling like liquid through his mind. His panic was erupting within him and his anger at what had happened this night was beginning to scratch away at him too. He wished he had a weapon or some sort of aid, something he could use to keep himself safe but also to prop himself up. There was a small old chair near him but it looked riddled with wood worm.

'Do you know how I can get out of here?'

'Door. Phoebe.'

'I can leave through that door?' Peter checked, pointing a shaking finger. The ghost tried to nod. She couldn't.

'I can leave?'

'Hallway... Dark...'

'There's a hallway? Through there?'

'Yes... Dark...'

Peter took a steadying breath and began to think harder. How could he do this? How could he move himself to the door. His ankle... Maybe he could stand -

There was a terrific snapping noise coupled with a high pitched scream from Peter and a screech from the ghost as he desperately tried to move some weight onto his foot. Panting harshly and waiting for the dizziness and the lights darting in front of his eyes to pass, he swallowed bile.

'Please,' His voice was scratched now, that of a broken spirit, tears rolling down his unshaven face. 'Please, I need to leave, I need help, I don't want to die -'

'Door.' The ghost could only say. She remained immobile. Peter let out a frustrated sigh that mixed into a laugh at the ridiculousness of the situation and rubbed a dirty thumb into his right eye. A splinter mixed in with his dark eyelashes.

There was a terrible sound then. One so familiar from his earlier encounter that its repetition made Peter's heart stop for a full second. He looked to the first door, skin going whiter than the paper in one of his sketchpads. His mind flailed wildly for a plan of escape. It gave him none.

A voice came to him again. 'Door.'

'I can't,' Peter cried, shaking his head. 'I can't, not without her.'

There was a sudden shift in the ghost's tangible mood. her head remained to the side but seemed to have jerked at the word 'her'. Peter felt something drop inside of his gut.

'Her?' The ghost girl asked. Peter's words came out as a low whistle before he was able to explain.

'Phoebe, I need my Phoebe.'

'Phoeee... be?' He could see the dead mind of the ghost working behind those shining pit eyes. The locket around her wrist began to swing as she moved a little closer on those awful feet. Her skin was turning darker, as though her lover had been an artist and his method of choice was a stick of charcoal... charcoal that had transferred from his skin to hers as his fingers had run up and down her body.

'Phoebe? You're ... not ... Phoebe?'

Peter told himself to lie. Instead he said, 'no.'

And as if the whole scene was playing before him instead of happening to him, Peter watched and listened as the sound of young boy's voices began to shout and beg and plead, calling out to the ghost, saying a name, shouting it wildly, telling her, no don't, don't do it, please no don't!

As these little words pulled together into sentences he watched as the ghost who had seemed so fragile and pretty and helpful before, so pitiable, transformed into something as petrifying as the thing out in the hallway that was getting nearer and nearer.

Her hair was flying out wildly. Those eyes were no longer black as coal, they were completely lit, shining dazzlingly at him, anger conveyed through them. Her head cracked upwards with a grinding sound and her aura produced a coldness that poured into the room and caught his skin like digits, nails biting into his flesh like tiny iced daggers.

'No,' Peter moaned, fright now bursting into panic. 'No!'

'Not Phoebe?' The voice that came out was harsh, low, a growl. The eyes lit and she seemed to be taller, she was suddenly in front of him, faces just inches apart, her breath rancid and garlicky. Peter trembled.

'Name!' She shrieked at him. 'NAME!'

'P-Peter!' He stuttered, hoping this would appease her somehow. Instead she straightened and looked down on him, lips grim and turned downwards now, a power reaching out from within her that blocked the light of the moon though it were still visible behind her and caused her to bleed from her wounds. The rope had tightened around her neck until Peter could see the contusion marks, until he heard the strings grinding together in the plaited murder weapon. Her hands rose and as she took the other end of her rope which dangled to her knees and lifted it into a loop shape up to her chest, her bones crackled, the loudest sound in the room.

'Not again,' A harsh woman's voice came out from within her, her face changing from a cold and dark contortion of hatred and ugliness to a beguiling and false beauty that gave her cheek bones sharpness and her eyes a flash of blue. Her voice was commanding and it was addressed to him, and her head shook slowly but intimidatingly, telling him no.

'Not again, Peter.' He caught a glimpse of her teeth, sharp points, her inner mouth rotted. Her nails were ripped and blackened and her flesh was now stretched over her bones.

'I won't let you go to her again, Peter... I won't let you do THIS again.'

There was a mingled cry from the boy's voices again, Peter heard it echoing in his brain, it made him dizzy, everything was fuzzy, he felt drowsy all of a sudden.

'Not Phoebe.' The ghost girl said determaindly, mouth twisting, jaw setting in anger. Peter put out a hand, readying to plead for his life, to ask for forgiveness for whatever he'd done wrong, to try and find a way out of this nightmare -

'Not again, Peter.' The rope was finally looped, the same size that her loop had been before it had begun to tighten and crush her windpipe.

Peter looked up at her, at this disgusting evil death before him, the rope she was lifting, the hatred in those eyes, the determination in her shaking limbs. And all he could think was how beautiful she would look with the right shading -

'STOP THINKING OF HER! NOT AGAIN, PETER, NOT AGAIN!'