The 100th Anniversary

The darkness stretched on forever. The only sound that broke the silence was an owl warning danger. The smell of salt and dust lingered about the air. The full moon was the only source of light, setting an eerie shadow over the derelict house. The harsh wind battered their faces.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Clive asked his friend for the tenth time.
"I don't know... Why do you want to do it?" Gretchen whined.
"We'll be legends!" Clive replied dreamily, his eyes glazing over. "Imagine! Seeing the ghost of Demetrius Olav on the 100th anniversary of his death!"
"Fine..." Gretchen sighed. Clive grinned excitedly and heaved against the huge metal gate. It creaked open slowly. Clive slipped through, followed by Gretchen. The girl opened her backpack and took out a torch. She threw it to Clive, who clicked it on, shining it over the garden.
The two teenagers were standing on a wide gravel path that led to the abandoned mansion. Wild weeds, flowers and bushes sprawled across the path.
Carefully, Clive and Gretchen made their way up to the house, avoiding the overgrown plants as they went. The empty garden echoed with every footstep.
They arrived at the front door. There was no doorbell for the once majestic black door. Instead, there was a knocker in the shape of a serpent's head. But as Clive reached up, the door swung open, the hinges creaking.
"Probably just the wind." Clive shrugged, with a laugh that he hoped sounded reassuring. Gretchen whimpered. As she stepped over the threshold of the house, a strange feeling possessed her. Her chest closed up, but she forced herself to be brave.
"What's this?" Clive asked, flashing the torch on the wall of the hallway.
"It looks like some sort of portrait." Gretchen answered, tracing the delicate patterns on the frame with her finger.
The painting revealed a middle-aged man with short grey hair. He stared sternly at the two teenagers. It was Sir Olav, head of the house. After shining the torch across the wall, Clive and Gretchen discovered another painting. It showed a woman in her fifties with pale blond hair and wide frightened eyes. It was Lady Olav, Sir Olav's wife, and Demetrius' mother. There was another painting, one of Gladys Olav, Demetrius' sister. She was an exact replica of her mother, although about thirty years younger.
Clive gulped. Shaking his head furiously, the torch tumbled to the ground, sending the whole hallway into near darkness. Crouching down to retrieve the torch, Clive spotted something shining in the moonlight that streamed in from a gap in the front door.
It was blood. It started at the bottom Sir of Olav's portrait, all the way past the other two, and off into the darkness. Clive cautiously touched it.
"It's fresh." Clive said, the scarlet blood dripping off his finger. Gretchen's heart skipped a beat.
"Where do you think it's going?" Gretchen struggled to keep her voice calm.
"I don't know. Let's look." Clive said. The pair continued down the dark hallway, following the trail of blood. They finally reached where the blood ended. The torch shone on the wall.
Clive nearly dropped the torch for the second time. The painting was of Demetrius Olav. His grey eyes glinted with malice and his teeth were bared.
"What's that?" Clive asked. He had to squint in the darkness to see what Demetrius was holding in his hand. He jumped back in fright. Gretchen's blood froze.
It was a dagger.
One hundred years ago, on the 15th of November, Demetrius Olav went insane, and stabbed every member of his family, before turning the dagger on himself. Many brave people have ventured into the Olav mansion in search of fame and glory, only to disappear mysteriously. On the 100th anniversary of his death, it is said that he will resurrect from the grave.
"Let's go upstairs." Clive changed the subject, before shining the light away from the picture.
If he had only shone the torch a few centimetres lower, he would have seen the message that had been inscribed on the wall with a sharp object.
All that enter, shall not leave.

Clive curled up against the wall, his knees to his chest to conserve as much heat as possible. A cold wind swirled in from a smashed window.
The nursery was probably the scariest room in the whole house. A statue of a clown in the corner loomed in the shadows. Every now and then, a soft lullaby would play from somewhere in the room. Rats scurried across the damp floor. And the scariest part of all, was that Demetrius had presumably spent the majority of his infant life in the nursery.
It had been Clive's idea to split up, an idea that he now regretted. He chose the nursery, leaving Gretchen to stay in Demetrius' bedroom. If either one of them were to see his ghost, they were to quickly snap a picture of him, before bolting out of the house.
Clive buried his head in his knees as a demonic cackle echoed around the room.

Gretchen huddled in the corner of the dusty room. The wooden floorboards she was sitting on creaked under her weight. She cried silently from fear.
All of a sudden, she heard footsteps from the hallway outside. Slow and steady. Gretchen hoped the footstep's owner wasn't coming into the room. But it was too late. The door was pushed in from the other side. Gretchen could hear her heart hammering inside her ribcage. A transparent figure floated through the doorway.
Demetrius Olav had not aged a day since his death. His brown hair was sticking up in all directions. His eyes were deranged and empty. His mouth was upturned in a smirk. Gretchen felt sick as she saw the stab wound in his stomach. It was deep, and surrounded by dried blood.
Gretchen was frozen with fear. She couldn't shout for Clive, let alone take a picture of the ghost. Demetrius grinned with malice. He pulled something out of his waistcoat pocket. It was his dagger. Gretchen screamed.
"You'll meet the same end as my family." Demetrius laughed wickedly. But as he advanced on the girl, wielding his dagger, Clive burst through the door.
"What's wrong?" Clive asked Gretchen puzzlingly. Gretchen couldn't answer, but pointed at the retreating ghost in the corner.
"There's nothing there." Clive said reassuringly, walking over to his friend.
Finally, Gretchen understood. She was making it all up in her head. The ghost of Demetrius was just an illusion of her mind. The dagger in the painting and the trail of blood were just a creation of her and Clive's brains. All she had to do to make the ghost disappear was simply push him out of her mind.
Gretchen forced her eyes shut and shoved her hands over her ears. Slowly, the crazy laughter drained away. The images in her head faded into darkness. She opened her eyes.
Demetrius was gone. Clive crouched in front of her, his hand resting on her shoulder.
"Are you okay? What did he look like?"
"He was really pale, and thin. His eyes...they were crazy. His hair was crazy. He had a massive stab wound. It was horrible. He was missing some of his front teeth. He was so short."
Because the truth was, Demetrius Olav had been only eight years old.