The Box Set of Hauntings and Horrors

by Jeff DeGordick

  Bridgette stood there, once again feeling herself stunned and alone. She felt like she was walking through a linguistic thorn bush this afternoon. When she calmed down, she walked through the museum looking for the others and found Janet sitting in a plump armchair in a reception room on the other side of the entrance hall. She seemed dazed, staring off into the distance. "Hey, we're probably going to get some dinner together soon... are you sure you're doing okay?"

  "Yeah," Janet said absentmindedly.

  Bridgette hesitated. She sat down on a couch across from her and leaned forward. "Are you sure? You look a little spaced out."

  It took a moment for Janet's faculties to begin working, but slowly her head turned to her friend and her eyes cleared a little. "I'm okay," she said. She rubbed the back of her neck. "I'm just a little tired. I haven't been sleeping well. I've been having the strangest dreams." She stared at the hardwood floor, her eyes tracing the lines between the lacquered boards.

  Bridgette put her hand on Janet's knee. "I'm worried about you. Seriously, you don't look very good. You seem pale."

  Janet looked up, her eyes scanning across the ceiling. "I'm starting to think I don't like it here," she said. "Something about this place doesn't feel right. It's like a prison or something."

  Bridgette felt a churning nervousness in her stomach and didn't know how to help. "Jan, you should have told me sooner. I didn't know it was this bad."

  But Janet deflected her with a weak smile. "I'll be okay, really. My mind's just a little distracted. But I do feel a little peckish. I'll join you guys in a bit."

  "Okay," Bridgette said, standing up. "Dawson's a little riled up right now. I'm going to go see if I can get him to join us." She started to leave the room.

  "Sounds good," Janet said. "Tell Roger I said hi."

  Bridgette stopped. "Wait... what did you say?"

  "I said tell Dawson I said hi."

  She paused, looking carefully at her friend, then she realized she must have imagined it and left the room. She started to wander toward the rear of the mansion where she thought Dawson went, but she heard nattering from the direction of the entrance hall. At first she thought it was the sound of insects buzzing about, but as she got closer she realized it was just Billy and Karen arguing.

  "It'll just be for a few more days, sis, I know it will!"

  "You don't understand, you doofus! This place gives me the heebie-jeebies! This wasn't the fairytale I was promised!"

  "Come on, sis, give me a break. I know this place is a little out there, but I think Trevor's on to something."

  "No!" Karen shouted, her voice reverberating thunderously around the hall. "Did you see what was written above the bed last night?! It was written in blood, Billy. Blood!"

  Billy's face turned away. "Well..." he started.

  Bridgette stood in the hallway, watching the argument take place.

  "Well nothing!" Karen harped. "There could be a deranged axe murderer in here with us!"

  "I'm sure it's fine," Billy said. "It probably was just that old guy."

  "Are you even listening to what you're saying?! That's not what you said last night! I saw you! Your face was paler than a ghost!"

  Billy waved her away. "It doesn't matter. There's some precedent to think there's treasure buried out in the bay. It's definitely worth it to try and find it, at least for a little bit."

  "I don't believe this!" Karen said, throwing her hands up in the air. "My own brother, trying to get me killed!"

  "That's not what this is, sis. God, you're so impossible sometimes!"

  "ENOUGH!" Bridgette shouted. Her voice echoed so strongly through the hall that it practically shook the walls.

  Billy and Karen froze with a look of near horror on their faces. A few moments later footsteps could be heard drawing closer. Trevor came into view, his attention finally broken from the map. Dawson opened one of the doors from the antechamber, his head perked up, trying to see what was wrong. Even Janet wandered into the hall to see what the fuss was.

  Bridgette glanced at her friends. "In half an hour, we're having dinner!" she announced in a commanding voice. She had lost all her patience and she let her words fall out like a waterfall. "We're all going to sit in the dining room like civil people, and you are all going to be there. I don't give a damn if you like it or not! And so help me God, I better not hear one word to the contrary!"

  Silence fell over the mansion. No one moved. No one even blinked.

  Bridgette stood there, turning her gaze to each one of them, her eyes wide and daring. But none of them challenged her, each one bowing their head when her steely gaze fell upon them. Nearly half an hour later, she had them all sitting in the dining room, neatly lined up on either side of the table while she brought in dinner. She had rooted through the fridge and scrounged up some heated ham and roast beef taken from cans, with a side of toast that she'd managed to broil in the oven. She laid out their plates and gave each of them a glass of water from the tap.

  Billy quietly lit a fire at the end of the room; though the mansion was warm, all of them felt a strange chill come over them. They remembered their previous dinner in the dining room and how spooked it had made them all. No one was eager to repeat the experience, but Bridgette was insistent, saying that it was important that they stick together. And something about the six of them in the same room gave them all some comfort.

  They all dug into their dinner in relative silence. The fire crackled, the clock counted the seconds, food was chewed, and silverware clinked on plates. They tried making some small talk, but they quickly found they didn't have much to say; their minds were all wandering elsewhere.

  "This is good," Billy said, glancing at Bridgette with a smile.

  Bridgette leveled her gaze at him and rolled her eyes. "You don't have to pretend," she said. "We all know this is all the store had."

  Billy turned his gaze down to his plate and shrugged. "It's still good."

  Bridgette sawed through her roast beef and shoveled a forkful in her mouth. She heard the sound of cutlery loudly clinking on a plate. It repeated over and over and eventually she looked around to see who the culprit was. "Would you stop that, whoever it is?"

  The others' faces were painted with surprise. Their hands were motionless, suspending their forks and knives in midair. Yet the sound continued.

  Bridgette suddenly realized it sounded distant, like it wasn't coming from the room. And it seemed more like it was made from something sharp... as if a sword was digging through bone. Then the odd noise faded away, followed by something infinitesimal in volume: a scream.

  "What was that?" Janet asked, instantly going pale.

  "You heard it too?" Billy said.

  They all held their breath, even Trevor. They waited as silence once again held dominion over the estate. The grandfather clock ticked away, filling the silence with its cold, mechanical sound. And just when they thought it fit to draw breath again, a crack of thunder rang out over top of them, making them all jump.

  "Oh my God!" Karen cried. Her chair lurched across the marble floor, grinding against it and creating a sound like nails on a chalkboard. She put her hand over her chest to steady her pounding heart.

  "Is it storming out?" Dawson asked.

  "It must be," Trevor said, getting up and heading for the hallway, "but I thought it was sunny just a min—" He stopped in midsentence when he saw the landscape out the windows and how the sun bathed the entire bay without a single cloud in the sky.

  "What is it?" Bridgette asked. "Is it raining?"

  "No..." Trevor said slowly, meandering back into the room and taking a seat again. He looked lost.

  The sound of a rushing wave crashing against the shore echoed through the dining room, and they all instinctively pulled up their feet like water was going to wash over them.

  "Sorry!" Janet said, as timid as a mouse. Her water glass was toppled over on the table, and the water had spilled around their plates.

  Most everyone sett
led down, realizing that they were just spooking themselves. But yet it didn't quite sit right with them; the sound had been much louder and fiercer than a glass tipping over should have been.

  A peace settled over the dining room and a few minutes ticked by without any other strange noises or occurrences. Their shoulders, all tense with fear, slowly lowered. They started in on their dinner again and fell back into silence.

  The clock played gratingly, the even ticks eventually seeming to echo so strangely off the walls that it would be impossible to tell where they were coming from if the six of them couldn't see the clock next to them. The lights in the chandelier appeared to wane from time to time, and someone would glance up, suspicious, but unable to prove it. The air felt like it was getting colder.

  Footsteps marched down the hallway outside the room.

  Karen jumped up from her seat and knocked her chair over in her fright. "What the hell was that?!" she shrieked.

  Everyone at the table was frightened. They all watched the open doorway to the hall as the footsteps approached, waiting for someone to round the corner.

  Dawson stood up and held his hand out, trying to calm everyone. "It's okay," he said, "it's just that door at the end of the hall. It keeps banging on its own in the wind."

  "It's not a door!" Karen said, becoming manic. "It sounded like footsteps!" She looked around at the others. "Didn't it?"

  Sheets of white came over Billy's skin. He'd heard them, too. And not only did they sound like footsteps, but they sounded wet, like heavy boots coming out from the water, the same as the night before.

  Dawson headed for the door and Bridgette's heart suddenly seized up. It was completely irrational, but all she could picture was him stepping into the hallway and a swinging blade slicing through his flesh. She saw his blood splash against the wall and come out of him like a waterfall, and she heard a horrifying scream escape his lips. A whimper was all she could muster as she stretched her hand out toward him. But he left the dining room and looked left and right. "There's no one out here," he announced.

  But it wasn't enough to settle Karen as she backed into a corner, fanning herself with her hands. Her skin turned bright red, and the others knew that she was getting overheated. "I can't breathe," she said. She fanned herself harder. "I can't breathe!"

  Bridgette rose to her feet. "You're okay, Karen, just take a breath. You can do it."

  "I can't! I... I, oh God, I can't stay in here! I can't do it anymore!" Karen rounded the end of the table and moved toward another door next to the fireplace. The heat of the flames licked at her as she passed and made her even hotter. Her large frame heaved in and out as she began to panic. She felt dizzy, having a hard time standing. She stumbled and reached out for the wall to brace herself.

  "Karen, calm down!" Bridgette urged. "Just wait a minute!"

  "I can't!" Karen cried again. "I can't stay in here! I just—" she staggered and her hand danced along the wall to the side of the fireplace. Her hand caught onto something and her weight pushed down a lever. The lever sank behind the façade of the mantle and large gears ground somewhere below her feet. A huge rush of air came out of the fireplace, extinguishing the fire and drifting over the long table.

  The hearth inside the fireplace lowered into the ground, and the dining room was filled with the screeching sound of stone grinding on stone. The whole room rumbled, causing their plates to dance across the table and the chandelier's crystal pendalogues to shake and clatter against each other. When the disturbance was finished, the hearth had lowered into a set of stairs leading down into a black chasm.

  The six of them stared at the hidden opening as a draft of cold air rose out of it.

  "What the..." Karen muttered, backing away from it.

  "What's down there?" Billy asked.

  "No! No way!" Karen cried, throwing her hands up and marching away behind the others.

  "I mean, shouldn't we check?" Billy asked. "It's not every day you find a hidden passageway in a mansion."

  "Be my guest," Dawson replied.

  The chasm smelled musty, like old rot. Bridgette took a step toward it. Her eyes followed the first few steps illuminated by the chandelier as they led down into darkness.

  Dawson stepped forward to pull her back when suddenly Trevor moved ahead of them.

  "I'll go," he said.

  Trevor paused momentarily at the top of the stairs, staring down into the abyss. The others watched silently behind him. Then he descended them, his footsteps sounding almost lonely in the silence. The others' breath hitched in their chests as they watched him disappear into the dark. Their hearts leapt into their throats, and their skin prickled with pins and needles, waiting for some kind of sign that he was okay.

  The dining room was dead silent other than the grandfather clock ticking away. The sound was now hideous to their ears.

  Trevor's footsteps faded in the darkness like he was being swallowed up by a black hole. Then they stopped completely.

  tick, tick, tick

  "Trev?" Bridgette said quietly, and the volume of her voice in the silence sounded so loud and grotesque to the five of them that it made them jump.

  The chasm they stared into was blacker than the darkest night and that same cold breeze wafted out from it slowly, almost seductively, wrapping itself around their skin like a snake.

  Then finally: "It's safe down here. You guys ought to see this."

  The five of them crowded around the entrance, uneasy about going any further.

  "Come on guys," Trevor urged from somewhere down below. "It's all right."

  Bridgette gulped, but she rolled her shoulders back and began to descend. Dawson suddenly found his courage and hurried beside her, holding her arm. The others brought up the rear, making something of a conga line. The passageway was narrow and difficult to squeeze through. When Bridgette reached the bottom, holding her hands out in front of her to make sure she didn't run into anything, she saw a faint glow of light ahead. The passageway bent around a corner, and Trevor stood some distance beyond it holding his lighter.

  Bridgette led the way as they carefully navigated toward him. The claustrophobic subterranean path smelled like old bones, and freshly-broken cobwebs hung down from the low ceiling and walls, brushing against their skin. When they reached Trevor and the light, they saw something just past him. He was turned and staring at it.

  "What is it?" Bridgette asked.

  Trevor stepped out of the way so they could see.

  A black coffin sat atop a stone pedestal. There was a tarnished bronze plaque attached to the foot of it. It read: Orianne Jasper

  Mirror, Mirror

  "Jasper?" Billy said. "She must have been related to Jacob Jasper." His voice echoed strangely in the cramped space.

  "Orianne," Bridgette whispered, running her fingertips along the plaque. "That was her bedroom I found... the one upstairs I was telling you about."

  Trevor stepped forward and wormed his fingers underneath the coffin's lid.

  "What are you doing?" Bridgette asked.

  "What does it look like?" he said. She tried to protest, but he already pried the lid from the frame and shoved it aside. It teetered for a moment and crashed to the stone floor.

  The smell of decay intensified. It filled their noses and made them want to retch. Inside the coffin was a thin body, wrapped in a delicate white dress. The corpse's jaw hung open, its skin darkened to a leathery brown from decomposition.

  They all took a step back and held their noses in disgust.

  "She must've been Jasper's wife or something," Billy commented.

  "Or maybe his sister," Karen said. "But what's she doing down here?"

  "No idea," Trevor said. "But there's no gold buried with her, so I don't really give a crap either."

  Bridgette scowled at him then looked at the body of Orianne, feeling that they were desecrating the dead. She turned her head and noticed Janet shaking. "What's wrong?" she asked.

  Janet's teeth chattered. "I do
n't know," she said, staring blankly at the corpse. "I just feel really strange."

  "Are you cold?" Bridgette asked.

  "No," she replied. "I just... I feel like there's something here with us. I've felt it before."

  Paranoia set in with the others and they looked around, expecting someone to be watching them from the shadows. But Trevor only smirked. "Are you being haunted by the skeleton's ghost?" he said.

  "Knock it off, Trevor," Bridgette warned.

  A noise echoed in the narrow corridor from behind them. It sounded like shifting stone, the same sound that the hidden staircase had made when it revealed itself.

  All of them snapped their heads around and stared through the darkness.

  "Did you hear that?" Dawson asked. "It sounded like..."

  The noise stopped, but the passageway became filled with the quiet sounds of the masonry shifting, akin to an old house settling.

  "What if someone's up there?" Karen asked, looking toward the way they came.

  "No one's up there, sis," Billy said.

  "If I hit the lever, someone else could pull it back up and the staircase would close." Her eyes widened.

  The others weren't buying into the thought, but her logic was right: if they were all down here, what guarantee did they have that the lever or the stairs wouldn't move, even on their own, and trap them?

  "Oh crap, I don't like this!" Karen cried. She hurried through the darkness toward the hidden staircase and the others followed quickly behind her.

  Bridgette tried to replace the coffin's lid that Trevor had so carelessly dumped aside, but Dawson yanked on her arm. "Come on!" he said sharply.

  The six of them bustled through the corridor, scraping their arms on the dark and cobweb-filled stone until they rounded the tight corner and found the stairs. When they ascended into the dining room, they collectively let out their breath like they shared one giant lung. They each stood around, turning to look at the dark hole, wishing never to return there again as they picked cobwebs out of their hair.

  Sometime later, the gang went their separate ways in the museum. Dawson and Karen stuck together near the front of the mansion and Trevor had resumed his search for the missing map piece. Billy said he wanted to do some research, intrigued by their unexpected find of one of the Jaspers laid to rest unceremoniously in the bowels of the mansion. Bridgette and Janet stayed in the living room, watching the sun go down through windows overlooking Black Bay. The time passed without much comment, as each of them had their own reason to be unsettled and introspective.