"I left my phone in the bedroom upstairs," Bridgette said, still wiping tears out of her eyes from losing her friends.
"Same," Dawson replied.
"Oh God, what should we do?" Karen asked, wringing her hands together so hard that she almost tore the skin off.
"We need to find a way out," Bridgette said.
"And go where?" Dawson asked. "There's no escape."
Billy gave him a shot in the arm. "Don't say that, man! We'll find a way out. We just need to think."
"They've got the front of the place covered," Bridgette said. "Let's head for the entrance at the rear." She stuck her head out the door and when she saw that the hallway was still clear she told the others to follow her as she started to take off.
But Dawson grabbed her arm. "Wait a minute!" he said. "It's dangerous out there!"
"We can't just sit here," she argued. "They'll find us!" She broke free of his grip and headed back in the direction of the reception room. Dawson grunted and ran after her, and Billy and Karen followed.
A door creaked open in the hallway in front of Bridgette and a pale hand beckoned to her. She stopped in her tracks and nearly slipped on the floor, her heart skipping a beat. But then she realized the hand was small and feminine and didn't belong to a pirate.
"Orianne!" Bridgette whispered. She threw a couple more glances in either direction down the hall, then she crossed into the darkened room where the ghost waited.
"Are you crazy!" Karen said. "I'm not going anywhere near there!"
"I don't think she wants to hurt us," Bridgette said.
"Tell me that again once she makes mincemeat out of you!" Karen shot back in a harsh whisper.
But Billy grabbed his sister's arm and forced her into the room with the others. Orianne stepped back and motioned for them to shut the door. Bridgette did so, and when she turned back, Orianne had a look of rage on her face.
"Stupid!" she hissed. "Stupid!"
"What's her problem?" Karen asked.
Orianne rushed at her, making her press herself against the wall in fear. "You... unleashed them!" she accused in a French accent.
"We didn't mean to!" Bridgette said.
Orianne turned away in disgust and floated to a window. "You must... fix," she said. Her words were slow and choppy, like being stuck in the limbo of the mansion for hundreds of years degraded her mind and social abilities.
"How?" Bridgette asked.
"The green amulet... you... used it."
"Um," Billy said, putting his hand on the amulet in his pocket and turning it away from her.
"Can we use it again to get rid of them?" Bridgette asked.
"No!" Orient hissed. "It's too late! But..."
They all waited on pins and needles as she struggled with her words.
"But?" Billy said.
She growled at him and made him jump. "Another way..." she said. "There's... another one."
"Another what?" Bridgette asked. "An amulet?"
"Yes! A red one... you need both."
"Where is it?" Bridgette asked.
The anger and impatience drained from Orianne's face. It was replaced by something close to fear, and her bottom lip trembled. "Please... you must help."
"Orianne?" Bridgette said.
But in the next moment, the ghost fled through a wall and disappeared.
"What the heck was that?" Karen asked. "Where did she go?"
"I don't know," Bridgette said, confused and concerned. "We're just going to have to find it on our own."
"No!" Dawson said. "This is crazy! We're not running around the place looking for a stupid trinket."
"You said it yourself: there's nowhere else to go," Bridgette retorted. "If we find it, we can stop this from happening ever again. We've lost so much already. Let's make sure it wasn't in vain."
"This one was in the fireplace," Billy said, taking the green amulet out of his pocket. "Maybe the other one's not far from it."
"This is nuts," Dawson muttered.
Bridgette ignored him. "It could be anywhere," she said. "Maybe in the sealed wing. In Jasper's room, even. We're going to have to split up if we want to find it."
"We're not splitting up," Dawson said. He listened as he heard a rush of voices pass by the door. They all held their breath until they passed, and then he spoke again. "It's too dangerous. You're sticking with me," he said to Bridgette.
"Dawson, we'll cover more ground if we split up. By now they've probably got the whole place surrounded. We have to find that amulet."
"I'm not running around the mansion!" Karen said. "No way!" She hurried over to the window and tried to figure out how to open it, but it was a stationary window. So nervous she was about to explode, she grabbed a book off a shelf and wound up her arm.
"No!" Billy said, catching her wrist. "They'll hear it!"
"So what?" she said, frantically trying to justify it. "We'll climb out and run."
"When have you ever been one to run?" he asked.
"Shut up," she said.
"Sis, listen to me. They'll track us down. The van's busted. And they'll be waiting for us at the boat, I'm telling you."
"It'll be okay, Karen," Bridgette reassured her. "You and Billy can stick together."
Karen quietly gulped, knowing she had no other recourse. "Okay."
Dawson put his hand on Bridgette's arm. "I don't want you going out there by yourself. We have no idea what these guys can do to us. We need to stick together, too."
"Three search parties are better than two. We can cover a lot more ground."
"But—"
"You're just going to have to trust me," she said.
Dawson sighed. Trust wasn't in his repertoire. But he couldn't butt heads with Bridgette ad infinitum. Sooner or later, he knew he would have to stand back and let her go. "Okay," he said.
"Good," Bridgette replied. "We'll all cover different areas, and then we'll meet back here when we're done. If anyone runs into trouble, just yell. Billy, where are the two of you going to go?"
"We'll take a look around the front of the mansion... the kitchen, the dining room, the parlor... and then we'll come right back here."
"I'll take the wing at the back," Bridgette said. "If it's anywhere, it's gotta be somewhere there. Trevor found half the map back there, and the other half in Will's office. It could be there, too. I'll cover that as well."
"I guess that leaves the upstairs to me," Dawson said. "I'll cover as much of it as I can, and then I'll be back down. I don't know how many of them are out there, but there's gotta be at least a couple dozen. Just be quiet and stick to the shadows. Maybe if we stay unseen long enough, they'll think we escaped and look elsewhere."
"Don't count on it," Billy said.
The four of them broke off, and Billy and Karen headed back for the entrance hall. "The coast looks clear ahead," he whispered.
She clung to his arm and kept an eye out behind them. "Nothing back here," she whispered back.
They slowly and carefully made their way to the hall. When they reached it, Billy sidled up to the wall and peered around the corner.
The hall was empty, save for two pirates guarding the front doors. Another pirate suddenly skulked out of the opposite hallway from them, but didn't spot them. "Where are they?" he wailed, slapping his cutlass off the walls and filling the huge space with a skin-crawling sound.
Karen stiffened like a board and backed away into the shadows. She bumped into a vase standing on a table in the hallway, causing it to tip. She gasped and whirled around, trying to right it. But her frantic movements made it worse. The vase teetered the other way, then managed to hold on, but it wobbled and spun around on its bottom edge, making a loud and rhythmic sound.
Billy looked over his shoulder with wide eyes and saw that Karen had finally gotten a hold of it. She stared at him, equally shocked, silently expressing an apology to him. When Billy looked back to see if anyone in the entrance hall had heard, the wandering pirate was stopped in the middle o
f the room, staring at them.
"There!" he screeched, pointing the tip of his cutlass in their direction.
Billy squealed and clamped onto his sister's wrist. He dragged her away and they ran for their lives.
Upstairs, Dawson also fled for his life. He had three on his tail as he turned the corner and ran down the hallway. He almost got to the other end when one of the pirates bent down and grabbed the carpet runner. He picked it up and gave it a hard yank, and the ground came out from under Dawson. He spilled forward and smacked his cheek on the marble, rolling over and groaning. His vision blurred and he saw the three pirates marching down the hall for him, their swords drawn.
He scrambled to his feet and turned another corner.
A sword swung at his face and he slid onto the ground just as the pale blade shaved a few hairs on his chin. The sword buried into the wall, but then the pirate focused on the blade and it suddenly glided through the material like it wasn't there at all.
Dawson clambered to his feet again and rushed past the ghost. But another one turned onto the hallway ahead of him and sealed his escape. "Come on!" he said, and he fled into a room on his left with a grunt.
He was in the ballroom, with a large and ornate dance floor that had nothing but a grand piano on it in the far corner. Seeing nowhere else to go, Dawson ran for it and curled up behind it, pressing his back to the polished wood. He sat on the floor and tried to catch his breath as he heard the footsteps of the dead flooding into the room.
Downstairs, Bridgette had moved through the house slowly, sticking to the shadows and crouching in doorways before moving on to another part of the mansion. She had entered Will's office and gave a glance over her shoulder to make sure no one was following her. She strode past the suits of armor to the desk at the far side of the room and quickly got to work sorting through the messy pile of papers and binders. She pulled open drawers and searched around the furniture.
A tall pirate with a pocked, gaunt face walked into the room. Bridgette didn't hear him. When he spotted her, he looked her up and down, then he quietly approached her. He slowly retrieved the cutlass from the sheath at his side and held it in the air. He twisted the blade to the right angle so that it would sink nicely into her skin as he brought it down on the thin strip on the back of her neck that he was aiming for.
"Where could it be?" Bridgette said to herself. She caught a glint of something in the reflection of a Rolodex's plastic cover. She glanced at it and saw that there was a queer way that the light played off of it.
The pirate brought the cutlass down with a hard swing, but Bridgette ducked and spun around and the blade buried into the pile of papers, making them shoot into the air in a flurry. He pulled the blade out and swung at her again, but she ducked once more and began to run. The pirate turned and threw his sword at her. It sailed across the room, but Bridgette saw it coming as she watched over her shoulder as she fled. She fell to the floor to avoid it and slid along the hard marble, letting out a hard grunt.
The pirate turned his sights to an axe that the suit of armor next to him held and a twisted smile spread across his parched lips. He pulled it out of the suit of armor's grip and brandished it at Bridgette, marching up to her as she scrambled back to her feet.
She fled the office and made her way to the living room, trying to elude him, but the pirate was right on her heels. She scrambled past the furniture, knocking over ottomans, chairs and tables in an attempt to obstruct him.
The pirate reached into his belt and pulled out an old flintlock pistol. He aimed it at her and fired.
Gunpowder exploded and the bullet whizzed through the room, narrowly missing her and shattering a window that sat at the edge of the cliff overlooking the bay.
Bridgette took cover behind a couch, afraid to move.
The pirate dropped the pistol. "I'm coming for you," he rasped. He took the axe and started to cross the room for her.
Bridgette glanced at a hallway next to her, but saw three pirates approaching to investigate the commotion. She glanced in the other direction at the hallway leading to the sealed wing and saw two more ghosts coming for her.
She was trapped.
She poked her head over top of the couch and saw the tall pirate approaching her. There was a lot of furniture in the room that she'd tipped over and scattered, and she thought if she could just keep it between her and the pirate, she might be able to slip past him and escape.
But then the pirate began to walk through the furniture, a snarling grin plastered to his face. Bridgette stood up and backed away as her head swiveled around and saw her assailants approaching. She had nowhere to go and nothing to do. The pirate crossing the room raised the axe. "Stay still this time," he wheezed.
Just before he swung the blade—in a total panic—Bridgette turned and dove out the broken window leading to the jagged rocks down below.
Washed Up
Karen was chased into the kitchen. When she was cornered, she spun around and faced her pursuer. The pirate launched through the threshold and growled at her, shifting left and right to match her movements as she tried to get around him.
She grabbed a frying pan hanging from a rack on the wall and brandished it at the spirit. "The kitchen is closed!" she shrieked.
The pirate swung his sword at her and she shifted to the side. It bounced off the granite countertop and tore a chunk out of it. He swung again and this time he hit the sink after Karen dodged, a few orange sparks shooting through the dim room.
Karen swung the frying pan at the pirate's head. It sailed right through, not affecting him at all. "Oh come on, how is that fair?!" she cried. She tried to run around him, but the pirate grabbed hold of her collar.
She screamed and tried to worm away, but his grip was beyond material strength and he slowly pulled her toward him, raising his cutlass. Fear coursed through her, but so did her stubborn determination.
"Oh hell no!" she said as she saw the blade glinting above her. "I always knew the kitchen would be the death of me, but this isn't what I meant!" She pulled away from the ghost as he brought the blade down. Her collar tore and the sword narrowly missed her head. By the time the pirate spun around, she disappeared through the doorway.
In a distant hallway, another pirate skulked along the narrow space, stopping periodically to peer into the dark rooms to his left and right. He didn't see any movement at all, so he continued on. Near the end of the hall, he passed a solitary suit of armor, standing and holding a broadsword. The pirate carried on and disappeared into the drawing room ahead.
When he was out of sight, the suit of armor walked in the other direction. It peered around a corner then slipped past, eventually coming to a large maid's quarters. It stepped inside, the helmet turning and glancing around the room.
Noise from out in the hallway behind.
The suit of armor stiffened up, holding its sword in its normal pose.
A pirate stepped into the room and searched around for a moment, then left with a grunt when he found no one.
The armor looked over its shoulder, then when it was satisfied it was alone again, it pulled off its own head. Billy smirked at his own ingenuity, then he traipsed around the room, trying to make as little noise as possible, which was a challenge in the clunky disguise. He pulled open cushions and searched in dressers and desks, but he couldn't find the amulet. When he had searched the room thoroughly, he turned back for the hallway. The area was silent, and he decided where to go next. The coast seemed clear and quiet to one end, but he already searched most of that section, and he still needed to find Karen.
A cold chill rolled down the back of his neck, prompting him to put his helmet back on.
When he turned, the cutlass struck him in the side of the head, ripping the helmet off and sending it into a wall. Billy staggered and tipped over in the rigid suit, crashing to the floor. He looked around with blurred vision, trying to figure out what happened. He felt blood drip down from his ear.
The helmet he'd j
ust secured on his head a few seconds ago sat crumpled on the floor by a set of old, tarnished boots. Billy glanced up and saw Gaspar standing above him.
"No!" he cried, holding his hand out in front of him. "No, please! Don't!" Billy crawled away on the floor and Gaspar closed in, the first drops of blood dripping from his blade. And not the last.
Dawson hurried across the mansion, knowing he had lost his tail by now. He had some nicks and scratches, but he managed to get out of the ballroom okay after finding a decommissioned dumbwaiter shaft in the wall and taking it down to the ground floor. When he entered the living room he saw a chaotic scene of upended furniture and a broken window at the end of the room. The rain was still coming down heavily outside and a bolt of lightning flashed over the bay.
"Bridgette?" Dawson whispered. "Are you here?" He feared the worst. His legs were numb. But he forced himself to go on.
He'd heard the grunts and growls and movement in other parts of the mansion, but now an unsettling silence came over the area, save for the growing storm outside. The lights in the living room were off, leaving just what little light came in from the broken window.
He looked around, wary of the stretching shadows past the overturned furniture. "Bridgette!" he said again. He walked over to the window and peered outside, seeing the steep drop and the rocks below, but it was too dark to see any detail from up here.
Agonizing pain ripped through his calf and he sank to the floor. A scream tried to escape his lips, but he caught onto it, making it come out as a strangled grunt.
Will withdrew the knife and watched as Dawson's blood dripped from the tip of the blade onto the floor.
As Dawson writhed around, he twisted his head and saw his attacker.
A wide smile stretched across Will's face. He put a finger up to his lips, urging Dawson to be quiet. "You don't want to draw any undue attention," he suggested. He glanced around the room. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go find your friends. You've all done a wonderful job so far, and I'm going to make sure you all stick around to see how it ends. But for now I'll leave you for our new guests." Then he walked off down the dark hallway and disappeared.
The Box Set of Hauntings and Horrors Page 55