The Dusty Old House (F)

[NoV]

The Dusty Old House (F)

 

Rachel felt the sneeze coming almost instantly after taking her first breath in the wardrobe. The sudden influx of musty aroma hit the back of her nose with a irresistible itchiness, and before she could even begin to warn her friend Casey, her head flew back, mouth open and ready to expel the colossal sneeze that came roaring up from her chest.

‘AAARRRRCCCHHHOOOOOO!!!’

The sneeze exploded in the tight space like a bomb, the very wood of the wardrobe vibrating with the sonic force it unleashed. Without warning, a second one came erupting out of Rachel’s petite frame, her body thrown forward at the mercy of its release.

‘AAAAARRRRRCCCCCHHHOOOOOOO!!!’

This one was, if anything, even louder than the first. Casey shook her head as she watched her friend rub frantically at the itchy nostrils with thumb and forefinger, amazed that such a slight woman could produce such a gigantic sneeze. She watched as her friend gradually lost the battle, her eyes betraying the gradual erosion of her defences, before finally rolling skywards, and...

‘AAAAAAAARRRRRRRCCCHHHHHOOOOOOOOO!!!’

...an even louder sneeze, catapulting the poor sneezy Rachel forwards with its force, to tumble amongst the spilt clothes and jackets that covered the floor of the walk-in wardrobe in heaps of dusty cloth.

Casey realised that there was a very real threat that her friend would be unable to stop sneezing unless she intervened. The dust rose around the two woman like an insidious cloud, through which Casey stepped and leant over the fallen, sneezy Rachel, who was weakly attempting to get to her feet, making the most ominous, gasping breathes that spoke only of the violent urge to sneeze and sneeze.

She reached into her friend’s back pocket and pulled out the handkerchief she knew was stored there, for just such emergencies. It had borne the brunt of countless forceful sneezes from Rachel, and had been a gift from Casey after she had destroyed her last one with a particularly explosive fit, her frantic sneezing and blowing being too much for the fine cotton to handle.

Rachel was winding up violently, her hands fanning her nose with ineffectual vigour. In the gloom, her red, curly hair made her pale face glow almost luminous in contrast as her black eyelashes fluttered, her nostrils growing rounder, until...

 ‘WAAAAACCCCCHHHHHOOOOOOOOO!!!’

...Rachel sneezed full-force, making no attempt to cover it. People often misconstrued this as rudeness, but she had confided in Casey that at the point of release, she could not even think of anything else but the need to sneeze, making covering all but impossible.

‘Here, blow our nose,’ said Casey, pushing the soft handkerchief into Rachel’s hands. Her friend grasped it thankfully and gave three, dry honking blows, that to Casey’s ears seemed to rival the sneezes themselves in terms of volume. The blows seemed to appease Rachel’s nose, and the women were suddenly aware of the silence of the house around them.

*

The two women had crept into the abandoned manor house in search of expensive clothes or jewellery to sell. The house had been empty for years, the previous owner having died suddenly intestate, leaving a long, protracted battle of ownership to ensure amongst the many and argumentative siblings. For over a year, the court battles had raged, while the house lay empty, sinking into disrepair and decay, all the contents gathering dust. Stones thrown by local youths had opened up elicit points of entry, which Rachel and Casey had been unable to resist. They needed the money, and there was rumoured to be a fortune just sitting there, turning gradually to dust.

*

‘Do you think the watchman heard?’ asked Rachel sheepishly, her nose still buried deep within the handkerchief. Casey stuck her head out of the wardrobe, listening intently. Were those footsteps she could hear, tap tapping on the polished pine floorboards? She drew back in, closing the door gently behind her.

‘We better be quiet – until we know that no one heard us,’ she whispered, sinking down onto the fallen clothes, trying to disturb as little dust as possible.

Rachel, she noticed, had started to rub her nose again with a slow insistence. She watched as her friend’s green eyes stared into the middle-distance, her chest rising and falling. A tension crept into the silence.

‘Oh no,’ Rachel whispered. ‘I can feel another one starting to come on.’

‘You’ve got to fight it,’ hissed Casey. Rachel increased the tempo of her rubbing, her freckly nose becoming both flattened and elongated with each motion. ‘You simply must not sneeze. We would be in trouble with the police for sure!’

Poor Rachel nodded, but was obviously struggling with the sneezy sensation which was building up within her body. She whispered over the approaching sensation.

‘I don’t think I can... oh, it’s going to be so big, I can feel it...’

Desperately, Casey searched around for something, anything that she could use to somehow muffle the colossal volume of Rachel’s sneeze. Why did her friend have to sneeze with the force of a volcano, or at least have her own bomb-proof stifle? She found a pillow and thrust it against Rachel’s face, whose expression betrayed that she was a hair’s breadth from tipping over the edge. Her green eyes blinked gratitude before she plunged her nose down into the cushion, dropping her handkerchief.

Too late, Casey noticed the thin white wisps of feathers protruding through the fabric, and onto which Rachel’s nose pressed. Not feathers....!

Rachel sneezed with titanic force.

‘HHHAAAARRRRRRRRCCCHHHHOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!’

A true hurricane came billowing out of Rachel, barely modified the cushion at all. In clutching it to her face, the thin fabric covering the cushion split, releasing a great cloud of downy feathers that went coruscating up between the two women, their tickly, musty scent filling the air. Rachel’s head came rearing back from the ruined fabric, feathers clinging to her nose as she gasped in for a second, uncontrollable explosion.

‘HHHAAAAAAAARRRRRRCCCHHHHOOOOOOOOOO!!!’

It came bursting out of her, her head thrown forward to bury itself in what was now just a profusion of feathers, feathers drawn up her wildly hitching and twitching nose, sending off further tickles from which here was no escape or denying.

‘I can’t stop!’ she managed to gasp, her nostrils expanding and contracting with the strength of the itch.

Casey stared down at her wildly sneezy little friend, aware of a further complication. In the confusion, a feather must have slipped up her own nose as well, for she could feel the unmistakable ghost of an itch starting within. She pinched her nostrils together tightly, feeling the increased pressure of her breasts against her top, as she gasped in a series of breaths.

Faced with the approach of her own fit, she was only dimly aware of Rachel’s third cataclysmic sneeze.

‘HHHHHAAAAA... HHHHAAAAAARRRRRCCCCHHHHOOOOOO!!!’

The sneezy redhead was blasting them out as loudly and as regularly as cannon-fire, desperate to clear her nose of feathers. Casey blinked her big, dark eyes, gasped a final breath and began a fusillade of stifled sneezes, one after the other in quick succession.

‘HAAA...UUMMPPHHH   ....  HHHAAA...UUMMMPPHHH.... HAAAA...UUMMPPHHH!!!’

The fit seemed to go on and on, her shoulders hunching violently with each stifle, while Rachel drowned them out with her regular, room-shaking sneezes, which showed no sign of abating.

The sneezes rang through the house and out into the gathering dusk.

*

Eight miles away, the watchman was sitting down to his dinner. He looked at his watch, feeling a pang of guilt.

‘I probably shouldn’t have come off my shift so early,’ he muttered to his wife. She tutted at him, and piled more potatoes onto his already overflowing plate.

‘I’m sure that mouldy pile of bricks will still be there when you get back,’ she said.

 

The End

   

[justme]

Welcome back, Nov. this was amazing. 

[luvsfemalehonks]

Amazing story! And with a powerful sneezing honking noseblower what could be better?

[Mr Sneezy]

Continue???

[HideAndGoSneeze]

Ahh! Welcome back, Nov! I always love when I see a story from you... Another masterpiece as usual!! 

[Sneezingnonstop]

Lovely sneezes for a lovely scenario, your writing always has me wanting more, great work!

[luvsfemalehonks]

Definitely continue!

[zneeze]

On 8/15/2017 at 8:33 AM, NoV said:

She reached into her friend’s back pocket and pulled out the handkerchief she knew was stored there, for just such emergencies. It had borne the brunt of countless forceful sneezes from Rachel, and had been a gift from Casey after she had destroyed her last one with a particularly explosive fit, her frantic sneezing and blowing being too much for the fine cotton to handle.

Kee-yoot.

On 8/15/2017 at 8:33 AM, NoV said:

bomb-proof stifle

And an amazing, clever new phrase. All in a day's work for NoV! Great new story my friend!