Of Stories and Songs: A Haunted Mansion fanfic
Jul 14, 2018 4:20:03 GMT
Post by Unto-Myself-Together on Jul 14, 2018 4:20:03 GMT
BEFORE YOU READ: This is a story based off of Disney’s ‘Story and Song of the Haunted Mansion’, a CD story that was first available back in 1969. The following trigger warnings are for this entire fic unless otherwise specified. If you are affected by the triggers listed right under the read more, you might want to skip this whole story (as there will be plot points tied to these things).
I am unsure of how much editing will be done to the fic as it stands on here. My Tumblr will have an always updated version though.
I also apologize for my sporadic uploads.
Trigger warnings: ghosts, death concepts/discussions, murder, suicide, abuse, blood, lots of scary stuff (horror), implied sexual abuse, cursing (damn and hell), drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence, attempted rape (implied; never completed; in a later chapter).
(The audio file is mine. I made it. You have to open the link to listen, as it will link to another tumblr post.)
~~~~~~~~~
Prologue (Overture)
“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream.”
–Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was a silver flask.
Probably not the first thing that would be in the forefront of most people’s minds, as it was small, barely holding 3 ounces, and had no decorations whatsoever. No set initials, no carvings or gems set into it, nor even a bit of polish to hide the jutting pewter layers that betrayed the idea that it was of pure silver.
But it was well worn and used, and much beloved by its owner; a man that clung it to himself as any thief might cling a nugget of gold.
He was a plain looking man with a plain look about him. A goatee, a mustache, brown hair, brown eyes. Plain clothes and a plain hat. In the light of day, he might have looked like anyone else, perhaps even an upstanding citizen, albeit one that never won popularity contests. But in the dreary dead of night at the cemetery of an abandoned mansion, with his back hunched over and his eyes always shifting to look behind him? Even the most righteous of people would look suspicious.
A quick drink from the silver flask for courage, and the man creaked open the cemetery gate, lugging behind him a burlap sack and, inexplicably, the large case to a concert contrabass.
Once he chose a friendly spot among the gravestones, he took out a shovel from the sack.
For the longest time, he dug in silence. The only noises he made were the sound of shifting earth, accented by the occasional pause by which he took another swing from the flask. He spoke no sound, but it was just as well, as there was no one in sight for which to speak to.
No one…in his sights….
One foot…
Two foot…
Three foot…
Somewhere, deep in the bowels of the mansion, a grandfather clock struck midnight, and the echoes of its chime, remarkably, could be heard all the way through the cemetery. The man paused in his labors to listen; it caught his attention not just because it was strange for there to be a working clock in an old mansion, but because of the song it played. It sounded vaguely the same of the Big Ben chime, the usual song any respectable grandfather clock would use, but it was warped and distorted as though the clock had grown tired of telling time:
Listen to the clock
Little did he know, for he was nowhere near the clock to see it, that this grandfather clock was…special. It had eyes. It had teeth. It had a tail, swinging gently with each second. And its bony fingers graced a face that held thirteen at its height. An impossible thirteen hours. As the chimes finished counting out their marks, the fingers began to move….backwards.
They started slow, but, with every passing of the thirteenth mark, they grew faster.
And faster.
And faster.
And all around the halls where the clock stood proudly, the walls seem to vibrate in delight. Doors opened on their own; the very air seemed to trill with excitement.
But of course, the man could not have known of any of this, as he was firmly in the graveyard, busy once again with digging.
Four feet…
Five feet…
Six feet…
A crow grabbed at his hat, right as he stood to drink again. He made a valiant effort to grab his precious flask, but it was no use. The flask fell to the ground, the little bit left emptied.
The crow perched at the edge of the hole, puffed up with pride and eyeing the man gleefully.
“Stupid crow,” He muttered, hopelessly shaking the flask to his ear for any signs of leftovers.
“Stupid man,” The crow croaked back at him.
The man glared at it. “I won’t look so stupid to you when I get back up there.”
“Caw caw-You will, you will. When they catch you, little fool. Caw caw.”
He’d heard of crows mimicking words, but holding actual conversations?
“Oh, but if I catch you, my feathered friend.” He began the tumultuous climb up the sides of his nicely dug hole. “I feel as though I should light you on fire. Do you know I could roast you so thoroughly, no one will ever know what you once-“
A green dress.
“…were….”
There was a green dress in front of him right as he hoisted himself up the edge. As his gaze drew upwards, there was a matching green striped apron. And upwards again, there was a face.
“Good evening,” The girl said, quite pleasantly.
He swallowed thickly. “Good evening.”
She seemed a child, but perhaps too old for his sense of ease. Teenagers that just turned adult were the worst brats, but at least she didn’t look threatening. Curious, perhaps, in the way she stared at him, head cocked to the side. Strange, perhaps, in her clothes and how the rain never quite fell on her. But most certainly not threatening.
Dark brown hair that was cut neatly just as they reached halfway down her neck. In contrast, her bangs were messy and clumped in three, long, uneven strands, but at the very least they did not reach far enough to impede the view from her startling, brilliant blue eyes.
“What are you doing all the way out here?”
“I could say the same, girl. This isn’t a place for children to play games. Run along home.”
“I am home. And I’m not playing games….Yet.”
He hoisted himself the rest of the way up and stared at her harshly. “Didn’t your parents ever teach you not to lie?”
“On the contrary, they taught me how to.”
“Ha! Tell me, where in the hell are your parents that they let you run around in the middle of the night, dressed like that, at an abandoned house.”
“They’re dead,” She said, matter-of-factly. “And I’d rather not consider them to be in hell, thank you very much.”
“Oh.” He made himself busy with the latch on the case. “My condolences. I don’t envy them that.”
“You won’t have to. Would you care for a drink?”
The offer was sudden, but it was enough to perk the man’s attention. His hand hesitated on his contrabass case, before he made the slow, tentative effort to open it. Inside the case was another burlap sack, wrapped loosely around something (or somethings) so that they were undiscernible. He gave the object a poke in several places, as if assuring himself of something, before clamping the case shut quickly.
“…What sort of drink?”
“Name your poison.” She said, smiling in a disconcerting, daydream-like way.
The man reached to feel for his silver flask, empty but safely tucked in his inner coat pocket.
“…I’ve always been partial to gin. But I don’t suppose a little girl like you carries around alcohol, especially visiting a place like this.”
“Au contraire, good sir. We happen to have a few good bottles, unopened, from 1883. I wonder, sir, if that might hold your interest…?”
“Ha. You’ve got to be joking. You’ve got a bottle that’s made its way all from the eighteenth century?”
“Nineteenth.” She corrected, “And yes, we do.”
“Whatever century, that’s got to be nearly a hundred-year-old piece of heaven. That’s quite a find.”
“If you say so.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “Once you get older, I think you’ll better appreciate the quality of an aged drink.”
“Of course, sir. I do hope you’ll allow me to lead you inside, so that we may provide to you the very best gin we have.”
There was an odd twitch in her smile, which made him suspicious that she was keeping something from him. His gaze was drawn back to the case.
“I assure you, your…case will be left undisturbed.”
The call of the drink was stronger than his desire to keep the case secured. There was no one here except the two of them. No one would touch it...and yet….
“It’s coming with me.”
“As you wish.”
He put the effort into hoisting the contrabass case onto his back once more.
She made an elaborate display in opening the door to the house and bowing to him to enter, which he did after shifting the case around.
“Follow me, please.”
She took a nearby lit candelabra, an ornate thing that had carved monsters and five candlesticks. As he followed behind, he considered the girl once again. Something was strange about how she moved, how she dressed, how she seemed perfectly at ease in an eerily empty house that she was likely squatting in. But she didn’t seem to have any weapons on her person, despite the air of confidence she emanated; not a hint of an anxiety in the way she carelessly walked in front of him, not once looking behind to see if he would stab her in the back. Perhaps that was what discomforted him.
This child had no fear of strangers, and he could not for the life of him tell whether he should be wary of this fact.
“Is it far?” He asked, not at all liking the idea of having to trek through a whole mansion and then finish his digging.
“The parlor isn’t, no. At least, not at this time. You aren’t afraid of the dark, are you?”
“’Course not. Only children are….are afraid of…”
The strangeness in the air had magnified gradually as they walked. The eyes on the portraits seemed to follow his every move, but only out of the corner of his eye did he ever notice.
“…I’m not afraid of the dark.” He said, resolutely. He whipped his head at the latest portrait, intending to catch it in the act of spying, but froze as he stared at it.
Because his own face was staring back at him.
It was the very painted image of himself, and his hat, in front of a building that was…
That was…
“Where did you get this from, girl?” He hissed at her.
“Get what?” She said, in that infuriating innocent tone of hers.
He turned angrily at her, nostrils flaring.
“This! This portrait of me! How do you know about this…this?! What happened back then-Where did you get this from?!”
“A portrait of you? Here?” She came to take a look.
But when he went to present it to her, his face and the building were gone. Instead, the visage of a man, quite impossibly tall and with a gnarled face, stood in the frame. Each of his eyes was unique, and each of his hands held something unique as well; in one was the end of his long noose, and in the other was a sinister looking axe.
“…Is this you?” She said, incredulous, “It doesn’t look much like you. If it is you, you certainly did a good job cleaning yourself up, as the man in this portrait looks rather downright ugl-ouch.”
His mouth was still agape when he turned to witness her sucking her finger.
“It’s funny, isn’t it?” She said, smiling at him with her finger between her teeth. His alarm and confusion was still a little hard to gulp away.
“What’s funny?”
“How candlewax will wait for the perfect opportunity to fall on you.”
“I…I suppose.”
“Shall we continue then?”
“But the portrait…” He eyes darted back to it, daring it to change again, utterly at a loss as to what to do about it.
“Could it be that you’ve had too much to drink already? That you’re seeing things that don’t exist? Perhaps I should withhold the gin from you…”
The man hesitated, and tried to consider the logic.
The incident he thought he saw in the portrait happened ages ago. He had a solid alibi, the police never once considered him a suspect, and half the community didn’t even remember him when he passed through years later.
Nobody looked for him, nobody knew it was him; why on earth would a girl in the middle of nowhere half the country away know anything about it?
Maybe he was more stressed than he thought….
And then there was still the one-hundred year old gin.
“Let’s continue,” he said, motioning for her to continue on. “I must…I must just be imagining things. It’s been a long night.”
And anyways, he could still kill her if she blackmailed him.
“I’m sure. Right in through here.”
The parlor was a small room, as many old parlors were, but it was far too cold for comfort. Between the couch on the one wall and the three cushioned seats surrounding the fireplace, it was perhaps only designed to comfortably satisfy, at most, ten people. The far opposite wall of the couch had a three tier, long bookcase and a service table replete with glasses and decanters. The mantelpiece was decorated with a long mirror above it, and cherubs that no longer looked angelic carved into the wood. His throat grew tight simply looking at it.
“I do apologize for the lack of light,” The girl said, placing her candelabra up on the mantelpiece. There was still something so very odd about the way she moved. “We’ve a lack of firewood at the moment. If you’ll sit down, I’ll pour you a drink mister…?”
He waved her off. “It doesn’t matter. Call me whatever you’d like, girl.”
“A pleasure,” She smirked, “And you may call me ‘Nell’. I’d prefer it to girl.”
He huffed, unloaded the burden of the contrabass case, and took his relief in the cushions of one of the fireplace facing seats. They were still soft, despite looking like antiques that ought to be in a museum.
“Do you mind someone to drink with?”
“You’re too young, Nell.” He said, flatly, rubbing his arms to get some warmth.
“Oh no, not me. It’s just that the Master was wanting to see you, and he’s certainly not one to pass up a good drink.”
The man couldn’t tell if she was serious or not and eyed her funny.
“’Master’…? Who is this ‘Master’?”
“Someone who doesn’t like gin.”
He laughed. A short laugh that gave off his unease, as the tightness in his throat was still there.
“Sure. Sure, if he isn’t drinking any of my gin, by all means.”
“Well then, your drink, sir.”
She handed him an unopened bottle of ‘Collison’s Gin’, dated 1883 in its feeble looking, plain tag.
“Heh. The best service is a fast service.”
“I do try.”
Between his chair and the empty one to the left of it, she placed a slew of items on the end table. First was a unique looking glass that had a bulge straight in its middle. In it, she poured to the top end of the bulge a liquid that was of a sickly green. Next, she placed a strange looking slotted spoon over the lip of the glass, and a white cube (sugar?) on top of it. Finally, she added a clear liquid, steadily pouring over the cube so that it dissolved and the rest of the glass was filled. Almost instantly, the green clouded into a murky white.
She noticed him staring. “It’s the Master’s favored drink, and it needs to be prepared very specifically.”
The man swallowed, the tightness beginning to irritate him. There was something so very ‘off’ about the girl, even up close, and he had yet to put his finger on just what it was.
“Tell me, what brings a respectable gentleman such as yourself out in the middle of a cemetery attached to, and I quote you, ‘an abandoned house’?”
The man took a long swing of his newly gotten goods, contemplating on just what to tell her.
“You know the old mine to the east of here?”
“Sightseeing at Big Thunder Mountain? I’m sure a lot of the buildings of the town of Rainbow Ridge still stand, though I can’t imagine there would be much to see.”
He paused. “Last I heard, the town was called Tumbleweed…”
“It’s been called many things over time. Haunted would be another.”
“I don’t much believe in silly superstitions. The miners back then were just out of their depth in trying to rake a twisted forming mountain.”
The girl laughed, her shadow dancing in the light of the candles in an unnatural way.
“Perhaps you should start believing in superstitions. You never know, sir, just what sort of place you’ll end up at. Better late than never…But, may I ask, does this mean you wish to try and re-open the mine?”
“There’s gold to be had. Plenty of it. If others want to avoid claiming it, that’s all well and good. More for me.”
“Is it gold that you have in that case of yours that you were burying?”
He hesitated. He had hoped she wouldn’t have brought up the subject of his case; that she had just forgotten about it, despite its presence in the room.
As he took a slow and steady drink, letting the alcohol linger and burn, he looked towards the ‘Master’s’ glass.
…It was empty…
He nearly choked on his sip.
“That…the glass. That ‘Master’s’ glass…”
Nell turned to it. “Oh. Dear me. I must have forgotten to pour the Master’s drink. How silly of me.”
He watched, the goosebumps creeping, as she painstakingly repeated her earlier actions.
Pour the green liquid up to the top of the bulge.
Balance the slotted spoon on its lip.
Put the cube on the spoon.
Pour the clear liquid over the cube.
With each action, his throated tightened more, and he fiddled with his collar to relief the pressure.
“Now, where were we?” She said, returning to him. “Oh yes. Tell me, what brings a respectable gentleman such as yourself out in the middle of a cemetery attached to, and I quote you, ‘an abandoned house’”
The hair on the back of his neck stiffened and prickled. Hadn't she just asked this question?
“You…you know…the old mine…to the east…”
“Sightseeing at Big Thunder Mountain? I’m sure a lot of the buildings of the town of Rainbow Ridge still stand, though I can’t imagine there would be much to see.”
“T-tumbleweed…” He sputtered out, correcting her.
“It’s been called many things over time. Haunted would be another.”
“Don’t believe…No superstition is going to stop me…Not the earthquakes or the flash floods they say about it…”
“Or the runaway ghost trains?”
He fiddled nervously with his collar again.
“Perhaps you should start believing in superstitions. You never know, sir, just what sort of place you’ll end up at. Better late than never…But, may I ask, does this mean you wish to try and re-open the mine?”
The tightness in his throat irritated him again…and then he heard it.
Slow and mournful, a musical voice. A human voice. She was singing, singing so beautifully and slowly and mournfully that it sounded like the lament for a loved one long since dead. The hallways carried her chime-like, enchanting voice very well, although the echoes made her sound like an unearthly creature.
“What is that?” He whispered to the girl, mesmerized.
It was the most alluring sound he had ever heard in his life.
“What is what?”
“The singing…someone is singing…Who else is here?”
“No body is here. Except, of course, the ones we ourselves dragged here.”
“The singing…Beautiful singing…I-“
He froze, as if remembering something, and twisted his head around back to the ‘Master’s’ glass.
His stomach dropped, the singing stopped, and the goosebumps multiplied down his back.
The glass was empty again.
“The…the glass…” He managed to sputter.
“Oh. Dear, dear me. I must have forgotten to pour the Master’s drink. How silly of me.”
Bulge. Green liquid. Spoon. Cube. Clear liquid.
“So tell me, what brings a respectable gentleman such as yourself out in the middle of a cemetery attached to, and I quote you-”
“Just what are you playing at here?” The man spat, trying to work himself towards a rage.
“Playing?” Nell asked, her clearly faux look of innocence infuriating him more.
“What do you take me for, hm? You’ve filled that glass three times, asked that same question three times.”
“Have I really filled the Master’s glass three times already?” She asked, and her faux innocent smile twitched to a smirk. “And to think, after all these years, the Master still has a drinking problem.”
The room began to shake, bristling and threatening to topple over the candelabra. The man held onto his seat, a gnawing worry in the back of his mind that maybe the stories about Big Thunder and earthquakes were true. But the rumbling stopped almost as soon as it began.
“Now you see?” The girl said. “A true gentleman can easily show his discontent by giving the room a little shake…not pouring hot wax on me. You should take notes and follow the example.”
“What are you talking about?” The man was on the very end of his seat, nerves galore, as the girl hadn’t even been looking at him.
When she did, a layer of surprise clouded her face, as though she had briefly forgotten he was even there or perhaps didn’t think he would comment.
“Oh. My apologies if you thought I was talking to you.”
He couldn’t take it anymore. In mere seconds, the man had the girl up against the side of the mantelpiece, the blade of his three foot folding knife against the pretty little girl’s pretty little throat.
“Now you listen here, girl,” He hissed, “I’ve played house with you long enough. You better start wagging that tongue of yours and tell me what in the Hell’s going on around here or else I-“
HE WAS BACK IN HIS CHAIR.
It had happened so fast, it was almost a blur. At one moment, he had the girl’s life in his very hands while she stared, unconcerned and without a trace of fear, back at him. The very next moment, he was being driven back by a powerful and invisible force; powerful enough to send him sailing through the air and crashing firmly back into the chair.
He sat there shaking, trying to get up again. But an unseen heavy weight kept him anchored against the cushions, his knife somehow lodged into one of the creepy cherubs out of his reach.
“My, my, my,” Nell sighed. She looked unconcerned by men flying through the air, just as unconcerned as she had been when he had held his knife against her throat. “And here I thought we could all be civil about this. But I suppose that was too much to ask from someone like you.”
“Someone…someone like me-?” He croaked out as the tightness in his throat got phenomenally tighter.
It suddenly occurred to the man that tightness wasn’t the result of nerves.
She took hold of the candelabra once more.
She stepped closer to him.
“You don’t care for riches…”
With every inch made towards the man, the man felt his neck tighten even more.
“And you don’t give two wits about Big Thunder…”
She stood directly in front of him as he struggled for breath.
It was like a rope…
A rope that had been pulled tighter and tighter around his neck this entire time, and he only just started to pay it heed.
But as he struggled and gasped and scratched at his throat, there was nothing there.
There was never anything there.
“L-l-ll-little b-b-bi-” he heaved.
“Insulting the woman you just tried to kill? It won’t do you much good from where you’re sitting, but by all means, keep digging your own grave. You’ve already dug a physical one for us. That was so very kind of you, by the way. Did I ever thank you?”
The man could no longer speak. He was forced to glare at her instead.
“No, someone like you isn’t much interested in mines. And I can especially understand why you might be uncomfortable with ‘silly superstitions’. I mean, given what you’ve been up to these past few months.”
The man’s eyes grew wide.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that, good sir. I know someone who knows things. So much so, that I happen to know what’s really in that case. …And it most certainly isn’t gold from Big Thunder Mountain.”
He tried to resist the invisible restraints, wanting more than ever to run.
“No. What’s in your music case is far worse than gold, isn’t it? And you’ve been worried that people were going to come looking for you because of what you did. You would kill to keep that from happening. ….And you have killed, many times. Yet in your attempt to get away, you’ve made one very fatal mistake…”
She loomed over him, the light source in one hand. And in that terrible, terrible moment, he finally realized what was strange about the girl.
Her shadow was too tall.
Her shadow was too impossibly tall and thin. And, though the girl was holding a candelabra, her shadow was not.
It was holding something much different. Longer and thinner, with a bladed edge.
His terrified eyes flicked back to the girl. Something about her demeanor, the smile that grew on her face, suggested that she knew what he was thinking. That she knew what he’d just noticed.
“For someone who doesn’t believe in ‘silly superstitions’, you seem to have great faith in the silliest of all,” She said, her smile wide as she held a finger to her lips, “Did you honestly believe the dead tell no tales?”
The candles in her hand went out, plunging everything into darkness.
The sensation in his neck grew tauter, and he reached out, grasping, yearning for anything that might bring relief.
Take the axe and cut the rope Take the axe and cut the rope Take the axe and cut the rope Take the axe and cut the rope-
Chanting. The chanting in the room grew mind numbing. Something heavy was in his hand.
He could feel his fingers growing colder. The world becoming fuzzier.
He knew what he had to do.
Take the axe and cut the rope Take the axe and cut the rope Take the axe and cut the rope Take the axe and cut the rope
-
With the last of his strength…as he still struggled for breath…he swung the heavy object in one fell swoop towards his neck.
But there was no rope. There was nothing there.
There was nothing there.
There was nothing there.
There was nothing there but flesh and blood and the remnants of the man’s final screams.
I am unsure of how much editing will be done to the fic as it stands on here. My Tumblr will have an always updated version though.
I also apologize for my sporadic uploads.
Trigger warnings: ghosts, death concepts/discussions, murder, suicide, abuse, blood, lots of scary stuff (horror), implied sexual abuse, cursing (damn and hell), drug and alcohol abuse, domestic violence, attempted rape (implied; never completed; in a later chapter).
(The audio file is mine. I made it. You have to open the link to listen, as it will link to another tumblr post.)
~~~~~~~~~
Prologue (Overture)
“No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream.”
–Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was a silver flask.
Probably not the first thing that would be in the forefront of most people’s minds, as it was small, barely holding 3 ounces, and had no decorations whatsoever. No set initials, no carvings or gems set into it, nor even a bit of polish to hide the jutting pewter layers that betrayed the idea that it was of pure silver.
But it was well worn and used, and much beloved by its owner; a man that clung it to himself as any thief might cling a nugget of gold.
He was a plain looking man with a plain look about him. A goatee, a mustache, brown hair, brown eyes. Plain clothes and a plain hat. In the light of day, he might have looked like anyone else, perhaps even an upstanding citizen, albeit one that never won popularity contests. But in the dreary dead of night at the cemetery of an abandoned mansion, with his back hunched over and his eyes always shifting to look behind him? Even the most righteous of people would look suspicious.
A quick drink from the silver flask for courage, and the man creaked open the cemetery gate, lugging behind him a burlap sack and, inexplicably, the large case to a concert contrabass.
Once he chose a friendly spot among the gravestones, he took out a shovel from the sack.
For the longest time, he dug in silence. The only noises he made were the sound of shifting earth, accented by the occasional pause by which he took another swing from the flask. He spoke no sound, but it was just as well, as there was no one in sight for which to speak to.
No one…in his sights….
One foot…
Two foot…
Three foot…
Somewhere, deep in the bowels of the mansion, a grandfather clock struck midnight, and the echoes of its chime, remarkably, could be heard all the way through the cemetery. The man paused in his labors to listen; it caught his attention not just because it was strange for there to be a working clock in an old mansion, but because of the song it played. It sounded vaguely the same of the Big Ben chime, the usual song any respectable grandfather clock would use, but it was warped and distorted as though the clock had grown tired of telling time:
Listen to the clock
Little did he know, for he was nowhere near the clock to see it, that this grandfather clock was…special. It had eyes. It had teeth. It had a tail, swinging gently with each second. And its bony fingers graced a face that held thirteen at its height. An impossible thirteen hours. As the chimes finished counting out their marks, the fingers began to move….backwards.
They started slow, but, with every passing of the thirteenth mark, they grew faster.
And faster.
And faster.
And all around the halls where the clock stood proudly, the walls seem to vibrate in delight. Doors opened on their own; the very air seemed to trill with excitement.
But of course, the man could not have known of any of this, as he was firmly in the graveyard, busy once again with digging.
Four feet…
Five feet…
Six feet…
A crow grabbed at his hat, right as he stood to drink again. He made a valiant effort to grab his precious flask, but it was no use. The flask fell to the ground, the little bit left emptied.
The crow perched at the edge of the hole, puffed up with pride and eyeing the man gleefully.
“Stupid crow,” He muttered, hopelessly shaking the flask to his ear for any signs of leftovers.
“Stupid man,” The crow croaked back at him.
The man glared at it. “I won’t look so stupid to you when I get back up there.”
“Caw caw-You will, you will. When they catch you, little fool. Caw caw.”
He’d heard of crows mimicking words, but holding actual conversations?
“Oh, but if I catch you, my feathered friend.” He began the tumultuous climb up the sides of his nicely dug hole. “I feel as though I should light you on fire. Do you know I could roast you so thoroughly, no one will ever know what you once-“
A green dress.
“…were….”
There was a green dress in front of him right as he hoisted himself up the edge. As his gaze drew upwards, there was a matching green striped apron. And upwards again, there was a face.
“Good evening,” The girl said, quite pleasantly.
He swallowed thickly. “Good evening.”
She seemed a child, but perhaps too old for his sense of ease. Teenagers that just turned adult were the worst brats, but at least she didn’t look threatening. Curious, perhaps, in the way she stared at him, head cocked to the side. Strange, perhaps, in her clothes and how the rain never quite fell on her. But most certainly not threatening.
Dark brown hair that was cut neatly just as they reached halfway down her neck. In contrast, her bangs were messy and clumped in three, long, uneven strands, but at the very least they did not reach far enough to impede the view from her startling, brilliant blue eyes.
“What are you doing all the way out here?”
“I could say the same, girl. This isn’t a place for children to play games. Run along home.”
“I am home. And I’m not playing games….Yet.”
He hoisted himself the rest of the way up and stared at her harshly. “Didn’t your parents ever teach you not to lie?”
“On the contrary, they taught me how to.”
“Ha! Tell me, where in the hell are your parents that they let you run around in the middle of the night, dressed like that, at an abandoned house.”
“They’re dead,” She said, matter-of-factly. “And I’d rather not consider them to be in hell, thank you very much.”
“Oh.” He made himself busy with the latch on the case. “My condolences. I don’t envy them that.”
“You won’t have to. Would you care for a drink?”
The offer was sudden, but it was enough to perk the man’s attention. His hand hesitated on his contrabass case, before he made the slow, tentative effort to open it. Inside the case was another burlap sack, wrapped loosely around something (or somethings) so that they were undiscernible. He gave the object a poke in several places, as if assuring himself of something, before clamping the case shut quickly.
“…What sort of drink?”
“Name your poison.” She said, smiling in a disconcerting, daydream-like way.
The man reached to feel for his silver flask, empty but safely tucked in his inner coat pocket.
“…I’ve always been partial to gin. But I don’t suppose a little girl like you carries around alcohol, especially visiting a place like this.”
“Au contraire, good sir. We happen to have a few good bottles, unopened, from 1883. I wonder, sir, if that might hold your interest…?”
“Ha. You’ve got to be joking. You’ve got a bottle that’s made its way all from the eighteenth century?”
“Nineteenth.” She corrected, “And yes, we do.”
“Whatever century, that’s got to be nearly a hundred-year-old piece of heaven. That’s quite a find.”
“If you say so.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “Once you get older, I think you’ll better appreciate the quality of an aged drink.”
“Of course, sir. I do hope you’ll allow me to lead you inside, so that we may provide to you the very best gin we have.”
There was an odd twitch in her smile, which made him suspicious that she was keeping something from him. His gaze was drawn back to the case.
“I assure you, your…case will be left undisturbed.”
The call of the drink was stronger than his desire to keep the case secured. There was no one here except the two of them. No one would touch it...and yet….
“It’s coming with me.”
“As you wish.”
He put the effort into hoisting the contrabass case onto his back once more.
She made an elaborate display in opening the door to the house and bowing to him to enter, which he did after shifting the case around.
“Follow me, please.”
She took a nearby lit candelabra, an ornate thing that had carved monsters and five candlesticks. As he followed behind, he considered the girl once again. Something was strange about how she moved, how she dressed, how she seemed perfectly at ease in an eerily empty house that she was likely squatting in. But she didn’t seem to have any weapons on her person, despite the air of confidence she emanated; not a hint of an anxiety in the way she carelessly walked in front of him, not once looking behind to see if he would stab her in the back. Perhaps that was what discomforted him.
This child had no fear of strangers, and he could not for the life of him tell whether he should be wary of this fact.
“Is it far?” He asked, not at all liking the idea of having to trek through a whole mansion and then finish his digging.
“The parlor isn’t, no. At least, not at this time. You aren’t afraid of the dark, are you?”
“’Course not. Only children are….are afraid of…”
The strangeness in the air had magnified gradually as they walked. The eyes on the portraits seemed to follow his every move, but only out of the corner of his eye did he ever notice.
“…I’m not afraid of the dark.” He said, resolutely. He whipped his head at the latest portrait, intending to catch it in the act of spying, but froze as he stared at it.
Because his own face was staring back at him.
It was the very painted image of himself, and his hat, in front of a building that was…
That was…
“Where did you get this from, girl?” He hissed at her.
“Get what?” She said, in that infuriating innocent tone of hers.
He turned angrily at her, nostrils flaring.
“This! This portrait of me! How do you know about this…this?! What happened back then-Where did you get this from?!”
“A portrait of you? Here?” She came to take a look.
But when he went to present it to her, his face and the building were gone. Instead, the visage of a man, quite impossibly tall and with a gnarled face, stood in the frame. Each of his eyes was unique, and each of his hands held something unique as well; in one was the end of his long noose, and in the other was a sinister looking axe.
“…Is this you?” She said, incredulous, “It doesn’t look much like you. If it is you, you certainly did a good job cleaning yourself up, as the man in this portrait looks rather downright ugl-ouch.”
His mouth was still agape when he turned to witness her sucking her finger.
“It’s funny, isn’t it?” She said, smiling at him with her finger between her teeth. His alarm and confusion was still a little hard to gulp away.
“What’s funny?”
“How candlewax will wait for the perfect opportunity to fall on you.”
“I…I suppose.”
“Shall we continue then?”
“But the portrait…” He eyes darted back to it, daring it to change again, utterly at a loss as to what to do about it.
“Could it be that you’ve had too much to drink already? That you’re seeing things that don’t exist? Perhaps I should withhold the gin from you…”
The man hesitated, and tried to consider the logic.
The incident he thought he saw in the portrait happened ages ago. He had a solid alibi, the police never once considered him a suspect, and half the community didn’t even remember him when he passed through years later.
Nobody looked for him, nobody knew it was him; why on earth would a girl in the middle of nowhere half the country away know anything about it?
Maybe he was more stressed than he thought….
And then there was still the one-hundred year old gin.
“Let’s continue,” he said, motioning for her to continue on. “I must…I must just be imagining things. It’s been a long night.”
And anyways, he could still kill her if she blackmailed him.
“I’m sure. Right in through here.”
The parlor was a small room, as many old parlors were, but it was far too cold for comfort. Between the couch on the one wall and the three cushioned seats surrounding the fireplace, it was perhaps only designed to comfortably satisfy, at most, ten people. The far opposite wall of the couch had a three tier, long bookcase and a service table replete with glasses and decanters. The mantelpiece was decorated with a long mirror above it, and cherubs that no longer looked angelic carved into the wood. His throat grew tight simply looking at it.
“I do apologize for the lack of light,” The girl said, placing her candelabra up on the mantelpiece. There was still something so very odd about the way she moved. “We’ve a lack of firewood at the moment. If you’ll sit down, I’ll pour you a drink mister…?”
He waved her off. “It doesn’t matter. Call me whatever you’d like, girl.”
“A pleasure,” She smirked, “And you may call me ‘Nell’. I’d prefer it to girl.”
He huffed, unloaded the burden of the contrabass case, and took his relief in the cushions of one of the fireplace facing seats. They were still soft, despite looking like antiques that ought to be in a museum.
“Do you mind someone to drink with?”
“You’re too young, Nell.” He said, flatly, rubbing his arms to get some warmth.
“Oh no, not me. It’s just that the Master was wanting to see you, and he’s certainly not one to pass up a good drink.”
The man couldn’t tell if she was serious or not and eyed her funny.
“’Master’…? Who is this ‘Master’?”
“Someone who doesn’t like gin.”
He laughed. A short laugh that gave off his unease, as the tightness in his throat was still there.
“Sure. Sure, if he isn’t drinking any of my gin, by all means.”
“Well then, your drink, sir.”
She handed him an unopened bottle of ‘Collison’s Gin’, dated 1883 in its feeble looking, plain tag.
“Heh. The best service is a fast service.”
“I do try.”
Between his chair and the empty one to the left of it, she placed a slew of items on the end table. First was a unique looking glass that had a bulge straight in its middle. In it, she poured to the top end of the bulge a liquid that was of a sickly green. Next, she placed a strange looking slotted spoon over the lip of the glass, and a white cube (sugar?) on top of it. Finally, she added a clear liquid, steadily pouring over the cube so that it dissolved and the rest of the glass was filled. Almost instantly, the green clouded into a murky white.
She noticed him staring. “It’s the Master’s favored drink, and it needs to be prepared very specifically.”
The man swallowed, the tightness beginning to irritate him. There was something so very ‘off’ about the girl, even up close, and he had yet to put his finger on just what it was.
“Tell me, what brings a respectable gentleman such as yourself out in the middle of a cemetery attached to, and I quote you, ‘an abandoned house’?”
The man took a long swing of his newly gotten goods, contemplating on just what to tell her.
“You know the old mine to the east of here?”
“Sightseeing at Big Thunder Mountain? I’m sure a lot of the buildings of the town of Rainbow Ridge still stand, though I can’t imagine there would be much to see.”
He paused. “Last I heard, the town was called Tumbleweed…”
“It’s been called many things over time. Haunted would be another.”
“I don’t much believe in silly superstitions. The miners back then were just out of their depth in trying to rake a twisted forming mountain.”
The girl laughed, her shadow dancing in the light of the candles in an unnatural way.
“Perhaps you should start believing in superstitions. You never know, sir, just what sort of place you’ll end up at. Better late than never…But, may I ask, does this mean you wish to try and re-open the mine?”
“There’s gold to be had. Plenty of it. If others want to avoid claiming it, that’s all well and good. More for me.”
“Is it gold that you have in that case of yours that you were burying?”
He hesitated. He had hoped she wouldn’t have brought up the subject of his case; that she had just forgotten about it, despite its presence in the room.
As he took a slow and steady drink, letting the alcohol linger and burn, he looked towards the ‘Master’s’ glass.
…It was empty…
He nearly choked on his sip.
“That…the glass. That ‘Master’s’ glass…”
Nell turned to it. “Oh. Dear me. I must have forgotten to pour the Master’s drink. How silly of me.”
He watched, the goosebumps creeping, as she painstakingly repeated her earlier actions.
Pour the green liquid up to the top of the bulge.
Balance the slotted spoon on its lip.
Put the cube on the spoon.
Pour the clear liquid over the cube.
With each action, his throated tightened more, and he fiddled with his collar to relief the pressure.
“Now, where were we?” She said, returning to him. “Oh yes. Tell me, what brings a respectable gentleman such as yourself out in the middle of a cemetery attached to, and I quote you, ‘an abandoned house’”
The hair on the back of his neck stiffened and prickled. Hadn't she just asked this question?
“You…you know…the old mine…to the east…”
“Sightseeing at Big Thunder Mountain? I’m sure a lot of the buildings of the town of Rainbow Ridge still stand, though I can’t imagine there would be much to see.”
“T-tumbleweed…” He sputtered out, correcting her.
“It’s been called many things over time. Haunted would be another.”
“Don’t believe…No superstition is going to stop me…Not the earthquakes or the flash floods they say about it…”
“Or the runaway ghost trains?”
He fiddled nervously with his collar again.
“Perhaps you should start believing in superstitions. You never know, sir, just what sort of place you’ll end up at. Better late than never…But, may I ask, does this mean you wish to try and re-open the mine?”
The tightness in his throat irritated him again…and then he heard it.
Slow and mournful, a musical voice. A human voice. She was singing, singing so beautifully and slowly and mournfully that it sounded like the lament for a loved one long since dead. The hallways carried her chime-like, enchanting voice very well, although the echoes made her sound like an unearthly creature.
“What is that?” He whispered to the girl, mesmerized.
It was the most alluring sound he had ever heard in his life.
“What is what?”
“The singing…someone is singing…Who else is here?”
“No body is here. Except, of course, the ones we ourselves dragged here.”
“The singing…Beautiful singing…I-“
He froze, as if remembering something, and twisted his head around back to the ‘Master’s’ glass.
His stomach dropped, the singing stopped, and the goosebumps multiplied down his back.
The glass was empty again.
“The…the glass…” He managed to sputter.
“Oh. Dear, dear me. I must have forgotten to pour the Master’s drink. How silly of me.”
Bulge. Green liquid. Spoon. Cube. Clear liquid.
“So tell me, what brings a respectable gentleman such as yourself out in the middle of a cemetery attached to, and I quote you-”
“Just what are you playing at here?” The man spat, trying to work himself towards a rage.
“Playing?” Nell asked, her clearly faux look of innocence infuriating him more.
“What do you take me for, hm? You’ve filled that glass three times, asked that same question three times.”
“Have I really filled the Master’s glass three times already?” She asked, and her faux innocent smile twitched to a smirk. “And to think, after all these years, the Master still has a drinking problem.”
The room began to shake, bristling and threatening to topple over the candelabra. The man held onto his seat, a gnawing worry in the back of his mind that maybe the stories about Big Thunder and earthquakes were true. But the rumbling stopped almost as soon as it began.
“Now you see?” The girl said. “A true gentleman can easily show his discontent by giving the room a little shake…not pouring hot wax on me. You should take notes and follow the example.”
“What are you talking about?” The man was on the very end of his seat, nerves galore, as the girl hadn’t even been looking at him.
When she did, a layer of surprise clouded her face, as though she had briefly forgotten he was even there or perhaps didn’t think he would comment.
“Oh. My apologies if you thought I was talking to you.”
He couldn’t take it anymore. In mere seconds, the man had the girl up against the side of the mantelpiece, the blade of his three foot folding knife against the pretty little girl’s pretty little throat.
“Now you listen here, girl,” He hissed, “I’ve played house with you long enough. You better start wagging that tongue of yours and tell me what in the Hell’s going on around here or else I-“
HE WAS BACK IN HIS CHAIR.
It had happened so fast, it was almost a blur. At one moment, he had the girl’s life in his very hands while she stared, unconcerned and without a trace of fear, back at him. The very next moment, he was being driven back by a powerful and invisible force; powerful enough to send him sailing through the air and crashing firmly back into the chair.
He sat there shaking, trying to get up again. But an unseen heavy weight kept him anchored against the cushions, his knife somehow lodged into one of the creepy cherubs out of his reach.
“My, my, my,” Nell sighed. She looked unconcerned by men flying through the air, just as unconcerned as she had been when he had held his knife against her throat. “And here I thought we could all be civil about this. But I suppose that was too much to ask from someone like you.”
“Someone…someone like me-?” He croaked out as the tightness in his throat got phenomenally tighter.
It suddenly occurred to the man that tightness wasn’t the result of nerves.
She took hold of the candelabra once more.
“You aren’t here for gold…”
She stepped closer to him.
“You don’t care for riches…”
With every inch made towards the man, the man felt his neck tighten even more.
“And you don’t give two wits about Big Thunder…”
She stood directly in front of him as he struggled for breath.
It was like a rope…
A rope that had been pulled tighter and tighter around his neck this entire time, and he only just started to pay it heed.
But as he struggled and gasped and scratched at his throat, there was nothing there.
There was never anything there.
“L-l-ll-little b-b-bi-” he heaved.
“Insulting the woman you just tried to kill? It won’t do you much good from where you’re sitting, but by all means, keep digging your own grave. You’ve already dug a physical one for us. That was so very kind of you, by the way. Did I ever thank you?”
The man could no longer speak. He was forced to glare at her instead.
“No, someone like you isn’t much interested in mines. And I can especially understand why you might be uncomfortable with ‘silly superstitions’. I mean, given what you’ve been up to these past few months.”
The man’s eyes grew wide.
“Oh, don’t look at me like that, good sir. I know someone who knows things. So much so, that I happen to know what’s really in that case. …And it most certainly isn’t gold from Big Thunder Mountain.”
He tried to resist the invisible restraints, wanting more than ever to run.
“No. What’s in your music case is far worse than gold, isn’t it? And you’ve been worried that people were going to come looking for you because of what you did. You would kill to keep that from happening. ….And you have killed, many times. Yet in your attempt to get away, you’ve made one very fatal mistake…”
She loomed over him, the light source in one hand. And in that terrible, terrible moment, he finally realized what was strange about the girl.
Her shadow was too tall.
Her shadow was too impossibly tall and thin. And, though the girl was holding a candelabra, her shadow was not.
It was holding something much different. Longer and thinner, with a bladed edge.
His terrified eyes flicked back to the girl. Something about her demeanor, the smile that grew on her face, suggested that she knew what he was thinking. That she knew what he’d just noticed.
“For someone who doesn’t believe in ‘silly superstitions’, you seem to have great faith in the silliest of all,” She said, her smile wide as she held a finger to her lips, “Did you honestly believe the dead tell no tales?”
The candles in her hand went out, plunging everything into darkness.
The sensation in his neck grew tauter, and he reached out, grasping, yearning for anything that might bring relief.
Take the axe and cut the rope Take the axe and cut the rope Take the axe and cut the rope Take the axe and cut the rope-
Chanting. The chanting in the room grew mind numbing. Something heavy was in his hand.
He could feel his fingers growing colder. The world becoming fuzzier.
He knew what he had to do.
Take the axe and cut the rope Take the axe and cut the rope Take the axe and cut the rope Take the axe and cut the rope
-
With the last of his strength…as he still struggled for breath…he swung the heavy object in one fell swoop towards his neck.
But there was no rope. There was nothing there.
There was nothing there.
There was nothing there.
There was nothing there but flesh and blood and the remnants of the man’s final screams.
