"Who... who does?"
Gaspar appeared in the back of the room. His fiery eyes set on the back of Jasper's head. As if sensing it, Jasper turned.
The whole room began to shake, rattling the furniture. The chandelier hanging from the ceiling swung and the bulbs vibrated until they burst, leaving everyone in darkness. Then Gaspar's rage subsided and the room settled.
The two men, old friends and business partners, but now bitter enemies, faced each other without any words. Jasper's lip curled up in amusement, then he held out the red amulet toward Gaspar and broke into a full grin.
Gaspar stood resolute, unchanged by Jasper's use of the amulet. Jasper's face twisted into confusion. He took a step forward and squeezed the amulet, focusing all his malice on the captain. But Gaspar just stood with a gaze that could pierce steel.
"What is this?" Jasper asked.
Gaspar reached into an inner pocket of his overcoat and produced the green amulet. It glowed as if in response to the red one.
Jasper held his up again and a streak of crimson light stretched from it and wrapped around Gaspar's arm like a whip.
Gaspar clutched his own amulet and the red energy shattered like it was made of ice. He approached his foe. "You stole everything from me," he said, his voice dripping with hatred. "My company, my life... and now I've come to take yours."
For a moment, fear crossed Jasper's face. But then it was replaced by that same malicious determination as his amulet produced another stream of red light. Gaspar knocked it away with a wave of his arm and it shot into the ceiling, blowing it apart and causing the chandelier to fall. Bridgette rolled out of the way as it crashed to the floor with a mighty bang and all the crystal pendalogues exploded in every direction.
Gaspar broke into a run and took Jasper by surprise. He tackled him to the ground and they wrestled with each other, both trying to gain dominance. Gaspar punched Jasper in the face, but Jasper managed to throw him off and get back to his feet. Jasper backed up toward the hallway, casting more streams of red light at the enraged captain and true founder of the trading company, but with a flash of green, each attack was dispelled.
The storm raged outside as the two men grappled across the hallway, heading back to the parlor. Gaspar grabbed Jasper by the throat and shoved him down the steps of the loggia. He held him against the railing. The rain fell through their pale bodies as lightning flashed across the sky and briefly lit up the dark waters where Jasper had cursed him and his crew three centuries before. Gaspar hit him in the face twice more. He grasped at the red amulet in Jasper's hand and managed to get a firm grip on it. But Jasper held onto it too, and soon the amulet glowed a bright and constant red. Gaspar suddenly cried out in pain as if his hand had been seared by a hot iron. He tore his hand away from the amulet and spun around, then Jasper got his footing and delivered a strong kick to his back.
Gaspar sank to his knees and crawled up the steps to the parlor. Jasper held out the red amulet. Gaspar writhed on the floor, his hands splaying out and dropping the green amulet. Jasper approached him and circled around, torturing him with his power. Gaspar grunted and foamed at the mouth, struggling to get back up and fight, but he was unable.
Jasper picked up the green amulet from the floor as Gaspar reached out a feeble hand to stop him.
Bridgette slid to a stop in the room, watching the chaos.
Jasper stood over Gaspar's miserable form holding both of the amulets. When he spotted her, he raised them at her and smirked.
The Curse Lifted
"What do you think?" Jasper cooed. "Who should be the first victim of my infinite banishment? Gaspar?" he asked, turning the amulets down to him. "Or you?" he said, raising them again.
Gaspar was still too weak to do anything as he lay on the floor and tried to regain his strength. But with Jasper focusing on tormenting Gaspar, the hex of the red amulet was taken off all of the other inhabitants of the mansion. Some of the pirates began to timidly peer into the room from the hallways, watching woefully as their captain lay at Jasper's feet. Billy, Karen and Janet had followed her and stood at the edge of the room.
Jasper made his decision and grinned at Bridgette, pointing both amulets at her. "Say goodbye," he said. The mystic trinkets began to flash in unison. They both lit up to an eye-searing intensity and then twin streaks of light emitted out of them, the red and green twirling around each other and forming an intense white in their center.
Bridgette closed her eyes and waited for the end.
The beam narrowly missed her by half an inch and struck the wall behind her, blowing a hole in it and sowing debris across the loggia.
Bridgette opened her eyes and looked down at herself, surprised that she was still there.
Jasper stared at the amulets in confusion. "What the?" he asked.
Gaspar reached up and grabbed Jasper's pant leg, pulling himself up. Jasper looked down and kicked him in the face, annoyed by the occurrence. Then he used the red amulet again and Gaspar rolled onto his back and began howling as his fingers curled from the pain coursing through his body.
"Stay on the ground!" Jasper commanded. "That's where snakes like you belong."
The scene in front of her was too much for Bridgette to comprehend. There was so much death and chaos, with the bodies of Will and Boomer still strewn in the middle of the room, and the torment of Gaspar and everything else that had happened, that Bridgette wished she could shut her mind off and get away from all of this evil. In the quietness of her mind, segmented from all that chaos, she heard Boomer's voice. It spoke clearly in the silence: "Not all snakes crawl on the ground." The quote was curious to her each time he said it. She didn't understand it. His voice, again: "Satan was the first snake."
And like a key clicking into place in a lock, his meaning was laid bare to her.
The snake charm that Boomer gave her wasn't to ward off snakes specifically; it was a metaphor for evil. He gave it to her to ward off the evil spirits of the Jasper Estate.
Bridgette snapped her head over toward the hallway. "Janet!" she cried. "The charm!" She held out her hand, and Janet clued in after a moment. She pulled the strange silver rod from her pocket and tossed it to her.
"Goodbye old friend," Jasper said to Gaspar's pitiful form on the ground as he held both amulets in unison to him, ready to send him to limbo for all eternity.
Bridgette rushed forward and brandished the snake charm at Jasper.
At first nothing happened and Jasper stood there, aiming his amulets at Gaspar's sad and upturned face. But then he faltered and he raised one hand to his temple and squeezed his eyes shut as if he had a migraine. Bridgette took another step forward and brought the charm closer to him. He bared his teeth and scowled at her, staggering away.
Small bursts of light sparked out from the amulets, but he was too unfocused for them to do anything. Bridgette persisted and cornered him as he hissed and turned his head away.
"Billy! Karen!" Bridgette cried. "Now!"
Billy and Karen looked at each other, then he gave her a shot in the arm and they rushed forward and pulled at the amulets in his hands. Billy managed to pry the red one from his hand, and Karen confiscated the green one.
"If you can't play nice, you can't have your toys!" Karen said, then she took a huge step back and yelped, shivering from the feeling of touching a ghost. She turned to Bridgette, holding the amulet out like it was a dirty diaper. "What do I do with this?"
Jasper slipped out of the corner and began to regain his senses. Gaspar lifted his head from the floor and each of the pirates looking on from the opposite end of the room began to realize that Jasper had just been stripped of the power he held over them and was now defenseless.
"Seize him," Gaspar ordered.
With that command, his shipmates rushed into the room and chased after Jasper. Frightened, Jasper exited through the courtyard and tried to make his escape, but a few moments later, the pirates came back into the room, dragging him by his legs.
"
No!" he cried. "Please, you don't know what you're doing!"
By the end of it, they had him kneeling down before their captain. Gaspar stared down at him with contempt, holding both of the amulets.
"No!" Jasper pleaded.
Gaspar raised the amulets and in a flash of brilliant light, Jasper's form twirled and disappeared with a small pop and a wisp of smoke, banished forever into limbo. Gaspar lowered the amulets by his sides. Rage still coursed through his veins, his final revenge still not complete. He dropped the red amulet on the floor and crushed the ruby with his heel. A small shockwave shook the room, then everything was still.
He looked at his men. "Destroy it all," he said.
The pirates immediately set off and trashed every piece of history and plagiarized information in the museum they could find.
Gaspar turned his attention to the stone statue of Jasper standing in the courtyard. He let out a vengeful cry and picked up the sword that Jasper had stabbed Boomer with. He started in on the statue, smashing bits of stone off with each blow until the head was a deformed lump. He tore chunks out of the torso and the legs. The skyward arm crumbled off, then smashed on the floor.
When it was nothing but dust and the sword was mangled, Gaspar grabbed the bronze podium proclaiming Jasper as the founder of the trading company—the company Gaspar had built with his own hands—and ripped it out of the floor. He dragged it across the parlor, and Bridgette and her friends stepped out of the way. He took it down the steps onto the balcony and hoisted it over the railing. Then he tossed it into the stormy bay.
Gaspar gazed at the water—the site of the prison he and his crew had been locked in for the last three centuries. And now Jasper and his phony legacy were banished to that very prison forever.
As his men finished their destruction and came back into the parlor, Gaspar felt his blood cool. He looked up at the clouds and held his arm over the railing, watching as the raindrops fell through his body. He focused on his hand, and then the rain began to splash upon it rather than sinking through it. But in the next moment his shoulders slumped and the rain fell through his hand again. He knew no matter how hard he tried, it would never be the same as being alive again. He turned and looked around at the mansion that his ingenuity and capital had built, and he decided he was done with all of it.
Gaspar approached Bridgette. His eyes were still terrifying, even though Bridgette was fairly convinced he meant her no harm. He took the green amulet from his pocket and handed it to her, closing her fingers around it for her. His touch was cold.
"Men," he said, letting that one word tell his shipmates everything he wanted to say. They all nodded, knowing that this was the culmination of everything they had been through together. They were all ready to leave their mind-numbing torment behind, to leave this physical world of which they had no part anymore; they were ready to go to the afterlife. Some of the pirates closed their eyes and tipped their heads back in relief and elation. Orianne and Roger were amongst the crowd. He held her in his arms and they both stared into each other's eyes, their centuries-old love still fluttering afresh in their hearts.
"How do I use this?" Bridgette asked, gazing at the green amulet in her hand.
"Set your intention upon it," Gaspar said. "It is a well for your wishes. It holds onto them like water. Set us free."
Bridgette gazed around at the pirates and they all stared at her expectantly, some of their mouths hanging open in suspense. She looked at Orianne and saw something that she had never seen on the young woman before: a smile.
"Merci," she said. Roger nodded in appreciation.
Bridgette stood before the crew and held the amulet in both hands. She stared into the emerald and felt the strong desire to release all of their spirits and allow them to go to the afterlife. The gem began to glow and she closed her eyes, focusing on her intention. She felt at peace, and then she opened her eyes as a burst of green light came out of the jewel. The energy was like a soft cloud, and it fell over the pirates, thin wisps of green swirling around each one of them. Their already pale forms waned from physical reality and all of the pirates closed their eyes, feeling the heavy burden of their imprisonment and torment finally lifted from their shoulders.
Roger and Orianne gazed into each other's eyes. "I love you," he said. "I love you too," she said back. And they both shared a kiss.
Then the pirates and Orianne faded out of the physical world completely, replaced by long trails of brilliant light that shot upward and diffused until they were gone like the trail of smoke from a cigarette. And then the air and the mansion suddenly felt a lot lighter. The storm outside lightened almost immediately. The rain abated to just a trickle and the clouds began to drift apart, letting in some of the moonlight and revealing the stars in the night sky.
Bridgette turned and looked at her friends and they all realized that they were the only ones there anymore. The ordeal was finally over and this bizarre chapter in their lives had come to a resounding close.
Picking up the Pieces
Morning broke over the estate. The storm in the night had departed completely and the bright and shining early sun stretched over the waters of Black Bay. Inside the mansion, the five remaining friends of six gathered together in the entrance hall. There was no landline to call the police from in the mansion, and still none of their cell phones were working, most likely due to some kind of engineered interference from Will, they decided. And with Billy's van destroyed, they knew they would have to hoof it down the road and find someone to help.
In the starkness of the morning, the mansion took on an entirely different tone. The atmosphere was lighter ever since the spirits had been freed. The oppressive feeling of dread that was often present was gone, though the bodies of Will and Boomer still lay in the parlor; Trevor's still somewhere in the bay.
The five of them took a moment to reflect upon Trevor and pay their silent respects. He was always the odd friend of the group, pushing himself further away from them over the years, and though they all had their hopes and expectations regarding this trip with him, it played out differently than each of them thought it would. Despite the animosity that grew between Trevor and the rest of them by the end, a small part of each of them, even Dawson, felt sad at the loss.
When they were ready, the five of them went through the front doors of the estate and out into the shining sunlight. Bridgette and Billy pulled Dawson's arms over their shoulders and helped him hobble out. They knew they would have a long walk ahead of them, and Bridgette told him to let them know if he needed to rest. Dawson grunted that he would be fine, and he tried to put on the steeliest of faces he could.
A sense of calmness had come over Janet that Bridgette hadn't seen since they arrived, and she was glad for that. She thought that this was the first time she'd seen her smile in at least a week, and she was glad for that, too. For Janet herself, she still had some lingering sensation of Orianne's presence, even though Orianne and her love Roger were firmly in the afterlife now.
To Bridgette it all seemed like some strange fairytale—one that she couldn't believe she had actually lived. As they headed across the walkway and past the fountain toward the narrow road stretching under the bushy canopy of trees, they each had thoughts of what they were going to say to the police. All except for Dawson. There was something else on his mind.
"Hold up," he said.
Bridgette and Billy stopped.
"Do you need a rest already?" she asked.
"Not quite," he said. He cleared his throat and threw his shoulders back, trying to instill some confidence in himself that he had lacked before. He looked at Billy and gave him a strange nod.
Billy stared at him for a moment, perplexed. But when Dawson jerked his head to the side as if gesturing to something down at his side, Billy suddenly understood. Dawson couldn't do it on his own, but with Billy's help he sank down onto one knee in front of Bridgette. He winced from the pain and Billy asked if he was okay and he just grunted and waved him off,
leaning on his good leg.
Bridgette's face grew pale. "What is this?" she asked.
"Bridgette," he said, "I know that we've had our problems recently, and maybe this isn't exactly the appropriate time, but I don't care anymore. I'm not going to hide my intentions. I love you with all my heart, and even though you can be a pain in the butt sometimes, you'll always be my Bunnymuffin. So..." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a discolored gold ring fitted with a large, greasy diamond on top. "Will you marry me?" he asked. "I don't even care if you say no. But it needed to be asked."
Bridgette was taken completely by surprise. She felt her heart swell, perhaps bigger than it ever had before. Bigger even than when she read her romance novels. Her experience in the mansion and being able to witness Orianne and Roger's simple love and dedication for each other had given her an entirely new perspective on things. Always questing for adventure and never ready to settle down before, almost overnight her heart had grown more mature, as if it was older and wiser, prepared for a deeper love.
She threw her hands up to her mouth. "Oh my God!" she said, feeling butterflies in her stomach that she never thought she would. "Of course I will!"
"You... you will?"
"Yes! Yes I will marry you, Dawson."
A smile broke out over his face and he looked around as if he couldn't believe it. He wanted to kiss his fiancée, but he couldn't get up on his own. "Bill, come on man, help me out."
"Oh!" Billy said and rushed over to him, helping him stand up.
Bridgette put her arms around him and the two of them kissed. He took her by the hand and slid the ring on her finger.
"It's a little tight," he said. "But we can get it resized."
She stared at it and noticed how absurdly big the diamond was and how the ring had a general grimy quality to it. "Wait, where on earth did you get this?"
He smirked. "I actually had a ring in my pocket this whole trip. I was going to propose to you, but I got angry after our fight and threw it in the water."
The Box Set of Hauntings and Horrors Page 58