Immortal Memories

by Hibbard, Michael

  “How long do you think?” Seamus’ expression grave as we excited the library and walked through the lobby to return to the others.

  “It has already begun,” I replied with certainty in my voice. “But, if you are referring to the time of the Transformation, we have less than a decade.”

  He sighed with a nod. “We will become a bastion to those who must endure.”

  “You already have, my friend,” I said patting him gently on the back. “But we will need more than the guests you currently have.” I spread my arms wide in the open, empty hall just outside the ballroom. “We must fill every room, and remove the memory of this place from the world.”

  “And how do you propose we do that?” He asked, knowing my mind had already devised a plan. We knew each other as well as brothers, yet from another time and place. Though separated for such decades, my return was as if I’d never left.

  “First, I will resume my tests and experiments. But, what I have learned is that it is possible for a place to be hidden from sight and forgotten by memory. The Hilltop will remain visible only to those you choose. And they will be drawn by your will, or the will of the Weird.”

  “The reason we chose this location to begin with,” Seamus reminded me, “so that I might see in all directions.”

  “Precisely.”

  Seamus regarded me silently for a few moments, and then nodded. “You must forgive me, my friend. Your return required a great deal of energy, and I am finding it difficult to maintain the specter you see before you.”

  “We will speak again soon,” I said with a warm smile. “Besides, there’s a certain gal I need to see.” Daisy had been my wife when an unseen assassin plunged his cowardly blade into my back, rather than face me as a man. The thought of reuniting with her again erased the dark visions from my mind; muted the thought of the end of all things.

  “She’s been waiting patiently for your return,” he responded with a sagely nod. “Your suite is just as you left it. I believe you know the way. Good evening, my friend.”

  “Good evening, Seamus”

  Without another word, he simply evaporated into a purplish mist that seemed to fill the air with sparkles of light as he permeated every crack and crevice of the building, assuming his watch on the eternal sea. Those with the sight can see his aura, protecting the building, as he inhabited it. My challenge was to make that invisible to those who would present a threat.

  I have written this story as the only record of the existence of the Hilltop Hotel. As the mind becomes Immortal, it is difficult to retain all memories, as they blur together with time and age. Nothing can be forgotten, but it can be misplaced.

  I will remain in this place until it is time to take a body again, when the dust has settled and a new dream imagined. It is our desire to retain this one pocket of the Dream, this glorious hotel, because it was our Dream; all of us who dwell within its bosom and under Seamus’ protection.

  If you find this story, you were meant to find it. The will of the Weird is immutable. Those who feel they can destroy the nature of reality, are sadly misguided and continue to waste their existences and the existences of those who protect it. You will see the Hilltop if you search for it. There are always vacancies, and our eyes watch you impossibly across time and space.

  The end times are near, or have already happened. It is your choice to join the battle. Every action is always your choice.

  The Charnel House

  Morgantown, PA, October 2008

  There exists a strange house, similarly haunting and forlorn as any other abandoned, dilapidated, edifice one might find hidden beneath years of neglect and creeping vegetation. Yet, unlike others of its kind, this particular house had a presence, a presence that compels one to gaze up from the foot of its decayed, wooden steps, pondering exploration. However, despite the beckoning and the nagging in one’s mind, a large oak door embossed with strange symbols barred the entrance, scarred with the hapless warnings from previous visitors, deterred most from entering.

  Scrawled into one of the shutters were the words ‘Help me’ with deep, desperate cuts. Pest eaten draperies of matted velvet darkened the windows, yet none of the panes were broken, chipped or cracked. Above the strange door, a stained glass transom glowed eerily from some unseen light source with the words ‘Liberum Arbitrium’ cut from milky, white shards set in the cold blue palette of the remaining glass, as if to offer sanctuary.

  Everything about the house invited and repulsed those who happened upon it, unpredictably existing; looming, and beckoning on the outskirts of some unsuspecting town. Most solo adventurers would peer into its dark, dirty windows, but fear is a powerful force, so they would hurry along, never looking back.

  However, fear is inversely proportional to the number of members in a group, courage of a pack. This particular Halloween, three gamers gone ghost hunter, found the house with the intention of exploring its shadowy rooms in the hopes of being the next hit reality show. High adrenaline mixed with youthful audacity is a calamitous potion, and when unified in thought and purpose, it can become a beacon for dark things that feed on the iridescent light of the Weirdness that exists in us all. The glow of their collective energy seemed an inviting campfire for the things we cannot see, inviting them to skulk in the lapping shadows of their flames.

  “What’s that mean?” asked Justin, the oldest of the three at 25, standing slightly hunched at six feet with a thin build.

  “Free will,” replied Jakob, reading from his tablet computer. “Glad I got all those dictionaries on this thing.” Jakob was a few inches shorter than Justin, a bit stockier and wore a pair of horn-rimmed glasses.

  “What the hell does that mean?” asked Jeremy with a bit of concern in his voice, though this was his normal reaction to almost all situations that presented any risk, no matter how slight.

  “It means, chill, Jer,” answered Justin in his usual patronizing voice. The three had been friends since elementary school, and over the years, they had learned to ignore certain quirks that each of them possessed. Justin used his slight age advantage, a few months over the others, to lead them in the direction he wanted to go, he was not above bullying the others. The other two just let it happen, for the most part to avoid conflict, and to have something else to do besides playing the same game every Friday night.

  “I don’t like this, man,” complained Jeremy, knowing he’d become white noise at that point.

  “Let me get some video before we go in,” Justin said to Jakob pulling out his mini-cam.

  “Alright,” Jakob nodded absently, turning on the EVP recorder and his EMF detector – standard equipment for amateur ghost hunters, but also the most inexpensive.

  “That looks recent,” Jeremy pointed at the “Help Me” carved into the shutter, hanging as if to fall away from the house like a decayed tooth. “Maybe we shouldn’t go in”

  “Dude, shut up already,” Justin zoomed in on the scrawled words, before panning sloppily to the stain glassed message. “Just someone messin’ with us.”

  “C’mon guys,” Jakob sighed, the necessary skeptic of the group. “It’s secluded, it’s abandoned.” He raised his eyebrows at them hoping they’d get it, but ultimately frowned a minute later, his only answer the sound of the leaves stirring under the devil’s wind. “Druggies, homeless people, partiers. Jeez. Could be anything. We’re about to enter crazy town, so just be careful, Justin.”

  “Stop being a puss,” Justin chided. “We said we were gonna do this shit, and how lame are we gonna look if we just get some video of us having a circle jerk on the front porch.”

  “Fine,” replied Jakob. “But we’re going to need to take this seriously, if we wanna sell it to some television network.”

  “I know, ass,” Justin said, whirling to place his hand on the cold brass of the front door. “We can edit shit out, you know.”

  “Here we go into the abandoned, creepy house outside Morgantown, PA.” Justin began to narrate, which he lacked the n
ecessary skills for, creating extra work for Jeremy editing out his cheesy, and sometimes offensive, commentary in order to stitch together a cohesive video. Justin had the attention span of a gold fish, which is about twelve seconds, so it was hard to keep him focused on the task at hand.

  The door to the house opened with no resistance, and despite its apparent age and state of disrepair, it did not make a sound. A puff of dust and mustiness assailed them, as if opening an ancient Egyptian tomb. Fearlessly, they entered into a modest foyer, dominated by a staircase leading up to the second floor. Decayed and weathered runners covered the hardwood floor of the hallway beside the staircase, which led past a large, ebony Grandfather clock, ticking like the heartbeat of the house.

  “Shit,” Justin said, zooming in on the walls lining the foyer and the two double doors on the opposite side of the foyer. Just as the exterior of the home, messages of warning and despair disfigured the interior, velvet wallpapered walls. Some seemed to have been scrawled with bloodied fingers, the ancient wood clawed as if someone trying to escape a premature burial, seeking a way out.

  “This is some serious shit. Almost like an asylum.” Justin said ominously into the camera.

  Jakob pulled out a high-resolution camera and took photos of some of the more pronounced sayings. ‘Beware the unkindness’, ‘The beast is stalking me’, ‘I tried to die but I can’t’, ‘Deliver us from evil’, ‘Don’t go beyond the porch.’ They covered every wall, marring the remains of the wallpaper that peeled away from the plaster like decaying flesh from a corpse. So many different styles of writing, it made them wonder how many others had been here.

  “This was really a terrible idea, Justin,” complained Jeremy. “I can tell you, something just ain’t right with all this.”

  “Yeah, this one is a bit disturbing,” Jakob pointed to one of the messages etched into the wood of a double door on the left side of the hallway, which read, ‘Kill me if you see me’. “There’s still a fingernail stuck into the wood, with dried blood.”

  “Are you guys morons?” Justin said excitedly. “This is the best friggin’ thing we could ever have done. Dude! We’ll sell the shit out of the video!”

  None of the three noticed that the front door had closed behind them, just as silently as it had opened, distracted by fear, excitement, and trepidation.

  “I think we should go now,” Jeremy said with dread in his voice. “I’m really starting to feel like I’m going to freak out.”

  “Come on,” Justin chastised. “Thirty minutes then we’re outta here. Let’s just explore the downstairs at the very least.” With that, Justin opened the door to the left of the front door. It appeared to be a formal living room, still filled with Victorian era furniture and decorum.

  “And this must be the living room,” Justin said resuming his narration. “It looks like whoever owned the house, just left everything behind. “ He looked into the camera for dramatic effect. “Or maybe they never left.”

  Jakob rolled his eyes, turning on the Vox application on his tablet. “This thing is going crazy,” he said with a puzzled expression. The Vox application allowed ghosts or other entities to use the tablet as a method of communication. Ninety-nine percent of the time, it was gibberish, but the steady stream of words that were filling the message queue had context. He turned up the volume so the others could hear.

  “Death…Despair…Trapped…Night…Basement…Caretaker…Time…Clock…Suffer…” it said in the robotic voice which Jakob chose to speak the words.

  “Dude,” Justin said, zooming in the camera on the screen of the tablet. “This is going to be epic.”

  “No,” Jeremy said, pointing to the space in the center of the room. A circular section of the carpet had been removed and there was a faint chalk outline of an elaborate circle, a magic circle, which had long since faded with time. “We really need to rethink this, and get the hell out of there.”

  “What about the EVP?” Justin ignored Jeremy, looking back to Jakob. “Is it saying anything?”

  “Lemme check,” he said looking at the customized recording device. “Umm, it’s already full. There is definitely something trying to communicate with us.”

  Justin took more footage of the room before leading the others to the room opposite the living room. “Let’s just get as much video footage as possible, then we’ll figure out what we’re gonna do from there.”

  “I’m leaving,” Jeremy said with resolve. “If you two jackasses want to walk around in the dark, when clearly we are being warned to get the hell out, then that’s up to you.” He headed towards the front door. “I’m going home.”

  “I won’t do that iffn I was you, but it’s your choice,” a man’s voice echoed from the top of the stairs. “But it’s always your choice.” All they could see was the dull glow of a cigarette, before the man began to walk down the stairs.

  Jeremy stood frozen with his hand on the front door. The three stared at the man, dumbstruck as he descended the stairs. He was dressed in a brown duster, with a matching cowboy hat, adorned with ornate Conchos made of silver and turquoise. His long salt and pepper hair framed his face like a cowl.

  “But, I thank ya for comin’,” the man continued in a deep southern drawl. “Now I can leave.”

  “What do you mean,” Justin asked, always the first to assert himself like the rooster he was.

  “It means,” the man said, “One of you will have to take my place, or none of you will ever leave. But thankfully, I’m free.” He snuff the cigarette out on the floor as he stepped off the final step, then took a seat on the third one from the bottom.

  “Oh that’s a load of shit, dude,” Justin said with a frown. “You’re just trying to freak us out for intruding into your personal crack house. Look, we’ll leave and not tell anyone you’re here, okay?”

  “Hmm, I reckon you aren’t as bright as you think you are,” the man said then winked at Justin. “With that attitude, you’ll be dead first.”

  “Hey man,” Jakob said, trying to speak before Justin could make another smart-ass comment. “We just wanted to check the place out, looking for ghosts and all.” He motioned to the door, “We’ll just get out and you won’t ever see us here again.”

  “Wish it was that simple,” replied the man through nicotine stained teeth. “I ain’t gonna propose to know much more than you, but I will tell you, there was two of us that came here, and I’m the only one left.”

  “What happened to the other one,” Jeremy asked his breathing belabored with the weight of his growing fear.

  “The unkindness,” the man said flatly. “He was dead before he got six feet from the house, despite my intuition.” He paused, regarding the three, “You gotta do what the house wants, or you’ll never leave.”

  “What the hell is an ‘unkindness’?” Justin asked defiantly.

  “See for yourself,” the man said motioning to the door. “Open it. They oughta be waiting by now.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, Jeremy opened the door. The three strained to look into the darkness, but all they could see were ravens perched on the rails and banister of the porch of the house, the sound of their calls and croaks was almost deafening, thousands of them were circling the house, like the scene from the Hitchcock film, The Birds.

  “You’re safe as long as you don’t step off the porch,” the man warned. “But, if you do, they’ll pick yer bones clean faster than ya can fall to yer knees to pray for the Lord ta save ya.”

  The three stood peering into the darkness. The birds all watched them intently, even as they flew by, waiting for one of them to step into their midst, their eyes glowed blue in the moonlight, piercing their will and chipping away at their resolve.

  Jeremy closed the door, “I told you assholes we shouldn’t have come.” He said as hysteria set in. “Goddamn you and your bullshit ghost hunting garbage. I just wanted to play games, but nooooo, we gotta go off into the woods and find some screwed up house meant for an episode of the Twilight Zone,
so we can make some dumb ass ghost adventure video, all so Justin can get his face on the television.” He continued, his chest heaving with each breath. “Way to go, idiots. Way to go --”

  “Shut the fuck up, already,” Justin said, thinking, scheming. “I don’t know why I haul your whiny ass around with us anyway.” He turned back to the man who was rolling another cigarette, watching the three, and amusement curling his cracked lips.

  “What do we do to get out?” Jakob asked. “I mean, there’s gotta be a way.”

  “It’s really very simple,” he smirked. “Even for you, young ‘uns.” He took a long drag on the cigarette before continuing. “One of you will have to stay and become the caretaker of the house. Once you’ve decided, then the others will be able to leave unharmed.”

  “What?” asked Jeremy, “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means,” the man said with a grin. “One of you must sacrifice yourselves for the others.”

  “Why don’t we just run out the door before you and leave you as the caretaker?” Justin asked the man. “We could just knock you out and leave you here.”

  The man laughed heartily. “Lemme tell you something, son,” he pulled his duster to the side, revealing a revolver glistening in the pale light of the hall. “I’ll shoot you dead before you take your first step towards me. And lemme tell you, dyin’ inside the house is a thousand times worse than being the caretaker. But even if you did manage to best me enough to run out the door, you’ll still be stuck in the same predicament.”

  “So, it doesn’t matter,” Jakob said, understanding the situation with more clarity. “The house has already freed you.”

  “Ayup,” the man replied. “And, I’ll be taken my leave now. I’ve got me a pretty woman waiting on me, and you never wanna keep a woman waitin’. They tend to wander when you do.”