The bloody handprint on the window- calling card of the wicked. Of the sick. Entering the house, he could see straight away that there had been trouble in the hallway, which was the first thing one saw when they entered the house. Long abandoned was the house, built in the early 1900s and occupied until the 60s, where dark legends had surrounded it from local youth with the intent to scare, and now some sick fuck had turned that dark legend into reality. 

The legend of the house was a tale told by local youth who wanted to scare children, a ghost story that was told around the campfire. A young girl hadn't listened to her mother when she had been called to come inside to wash up for dinner. A creature, which no one could ever properly name or identify, swooped in and took this girl who hadn't listened to her mother and immediately followed instructions. The place this creature took the young girl was the abandoned house, where heinous things had occurred. Some said the only traces of the creature were a bloody hand or claw-print of some sort on the window, yet no one could ever identify which window as it changed with each re-telling of the story, and a child's shoe. A lone, sad shoe of a child was left on the porch. Now the place was known as the 'murder house' which it really was this day, not just in legend. 

It was all like a dream to the detective as he looked around the house. The walls where blood had spattered and dripped, but now dried. On one of the walls in the hallway, it looked as if the wall itself was bleeding and flowing. This has got to be a dream, he thought, this is a dream. I am not really here. This local legend hasn't really 'come to life' as the papers say. I am safe at home, in my bed, I am not really here. But God was it real. It was very real.

At that moment he questioned his choice to become a detective. The house was small, the floorboards creaky and dusty. Some of them felt as if they couldn't take much weight, so he threw to his team behind him "Be careful where you walk. Let us not injure ourselves today." 

"Yes boss," he heard from several different voices and from several different directions. The house was eerily quiet and very, very creepy. Why do teens come here to fool around? He thought oddly. He gently opened the first door on his left, and it creaked loudly. It was a small room, an old bedroom. A child's bedroom, he could tell from the faded pattern on the walls. He could have sworn he heard laughter in the walls, which added to the macabre feeling. 

The small child's bedroom looked untouched as if nothing had transpired there. It set him on edge. It looked too neat and perfect almost. Too untouched. He stepped back and motioned for two of his team members to enter and do a proper look of the room. He turned around and opened the next door that was on the right, opposite the first room. It was even smaller than the last room, and he couldn't tell what it had formerly been. A study perhaps? A woman's sewing room? A cupboard or storage space of some sort? A small playroom? That last one sent a shiver down his spine. 

He went further into the room, inspecting it, though there was nothing to really inspect. He went to the one, lone window at the end of the room, the floorboards creaking and squeaking underneath his frame, which was heavier than when he first joined the force. He felt the wood bend underneath him, and he mumbled a curse word. He inspected the window and saw that it had been tampered with, and it was fresh; he could tell. That at least was a clue. He looked at the array of paint chips and shaving and saw scratch marks in the windowsill. He backed out of the room and motioned two more of his team into there to do a proper inspection. 

"Watch out for the floorboards," he said once more. He then went into the room next door and saw some dried blood spatters on the floorboards in front of the large brick fireplace which dominated the decent sized space, though it was by no means a large room. He had a look around and saw some more fresh tampering, but whether or not that was from local teens who came here to have sex, or this 'creature' was another matter. He touched a corner of the brickwork and felt a piece crumble away in his hands, some of the brick dust falling to the floor below, some it landing on his black leather shoes. 

He went through the small archway on the right that lead to the kitchen and small dining area. It was very cold in the space as it was mostly stone. He got the sense that the family that had first lived here at the turn of the century can't have been very rich. It was just a hunch he had. He would have to do some more digging to find out who had first occupied the 'murder house'. Thank God for internet databases, he thought sarcastically. There was a wooden table in the corner, but it looked as if one touch and the whole thing could collapse. 

He sent four team members into the sitting room and kitchen space to do a proper inspection and went into the room across the hallway. Another bedroom that looked too perfect and untouched. It made no sense to him how the front of the house was bloody and messy, yet the rest of the house looked as it did when it was first abandoned. Sure it was creepy, dusty and cold, but you knew that people had once occupied it. The front room, when one first entered, was covered in blood stains. 

Two team members went into that room to do proper checks while he continued. His stomach had dropped all of a sudden, and he had broken out in a cold sweat. He felt queasy and ill. Something wasn't right. The rooms were too perfect; they had been left too well. It reminded him of when someone tried to blend in so much, that they ended up standing out. Like in the old spy and detective films. The men would wear hats and trench coats to try and fit in, but in their quest to be un-noticed, they became even more noticeable. The rooms had been left too neat and perfect, and it gave the impression of bad feelings and tampering. 

The last 'room' as it were was at the end of the hallway. It was the porch, which he imagined that children and family members had slept out there in the summer when it was too hot to be inside. The front part of the porch was covered, while the rest was decking that was out in the open. 

Oh dear God, he thought, his stomach dropping even further. There was a pool of dark blood that was thick and congealed in the middle but then thinned out towards the edges. There were no footprints or traces of a person having been here, save for the lone child's shoe that lay near the pool of blood. 

"Well I'll be God-damned," said one of the junior team members coming and standing next to the detective. 

"Indeed," mumbled the detective, echoing his thoughts. Goddamn indeed.