“What was wrong with me?”
“That’s the million dollar question everybody’s been asking. I wish I knew. You were very close to death, though, I do know that.” The young man shook his head solemnly and rather sadly, then brightened. “But all’s well that ends well. You’re doing great now and that’s all that really matters, isn’t it?”
“How long have I been here?” I asked him.
“Four days total.”
“That long?” I asked incredulously. I didn’t know why, but the length of time made me feel antsy and uncomfortable, almost as if I were running late for an appointment. A feeling came upon me that there was something I was supposed to be doing right now, something important.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I feel like there is, but I just can’t remember.”
“It’ll come back, I’m sure,” he reassured me again.
“So tell me, has this ever happened before? I mean, has anyone else ever just landed on your doorstep like I did?”
“Not since I’ve lived here and I’ve lived here a very long time.”
“Do you think any of the others would remember?”
“No, I’ve been here the longest, so if anyone would know, it would be me. You were quite the unexpected surprise, young lady. I guess I can tell you this now that you’re all healed up, but you were so cold that I wondered if someone had trapped you in a freezer or something. Your temperature took so long to climb up to normal and once it did, it shot right into a fever. I’ve never seen or heard of anything like it. Your pulse was practically non-existent. If you hadn’t been breathing, I would have sworn you’d actually been dead for awhile. Even so, your breathing was so shallow and erratic that at first I almost didn’t notice it. What frightens me the most out of all of this is that if I hadn’t noticed your breathing, there’s a good chance we might very well have buried you alive.”
“You what?” I said horrified.
“Oh, don’t worry – I checked. Very closely.” The sudden change in his expression revealed that he was now sorry that he’d disclosed that little tidbit of information. “Please don’t be frightened. I was really, really thorough. I held a mirror to your nose and mouth and everything. Regardless, I would never have let anyone bury you for a few days at least, just to be safe. Hey, I’ve been a Poe fan for most of my life, so I’m familiar with catatonia. Still, with that being said, I’ve never heard of any person’s body temperature being that low for so long while they’re still alive.”
“I guess I’m one for the books,” I said, trying to minimize the impact of what he was telling me. “By the way, how many other people live here?”
“We add new members from time to time, but right now there are eleven of us. We’re sort of a ‘commune’, I guess you might say.”
“And all the others wanted to bury me?”
“Well, in their defense, they did think that you were already dead. Oh, but don’t worry, there was never any real possibility. No way I would have let them. I checked and double-checked and then checked some more. Like I said, I made very, very sure that you weren’t dead.”
“Thank you?” I said, unsure of how to react to this revelation.
“Oh, you’re quite welcome,” Ben replied, trying to sound casual. “But getting back to your state when you arrived here – we couldn’t figure out who would do such a horrible thing to you. At first I thought it must have been a drifter, but I’ve been here for decades now and I’ve never seen a drifter or anybody strange around these parts. To be honest, I’ve never even seen any of our neighbors. I don’t even think we have any neighbors.”
“You grew up here?”
“No, I came here as an adult.”
“How is that possible? You’re so young. You’re what, maybe twenty-four, twenty-five?”
Ben chuckled. “I know. Don’t even try to do the math. I don’t have time to explain right now, but I promise I will later.”
“Okay. But you have to have some neighbors. Somewhere.” I said, still puzzling at his youth, still trying to make sense of his years. “I mean, unless you live on a private island, it’s just a matter of distance as to how close or far away they are, even if it’s in the next town.”
“Oh, I’m sure we must, I’ve just never met them.”
“In decades.”
He looked at me as if that were the most natural thing in the world.
“I suppose you think that’s odd, but we’re pretty isolated, miles from everywhere out here. The estate grounds are massive and frankly, no one in our little group drives outside of the grounds.”
“But if no one drives outside of the grounds, how do you get anywhere?”
“That’s far too long a story to go into right now. Hey, I’m getting hungry, how about you?” He asked, deliberately changing the subject.
“A little bit,” I answered, letting the matter drop.
“Wonderful!” he exclaimed. “If you’re hungry, then you’re on the mend. The timing of your recovery could not be more perfect because our little family will be taking nourishment soon. Let me show you around a little. While I’d very much like to give you the full grand tour, there’s not enough time for it right now, but we do have just enough time for me to take you around the main rooms of the mansion before joining the others. I want you to be able to get your bearings, at least. I’ll show you the rest of the mansion in the next few days.”
“Promise?” I teased him.
“I promise.” He stood up straight, held two fingers in the air and said, solemnly, “Scout’s Honor.”
He flashed me such a huge smile that I couldn’t help but be enamored. He was such a sweet man that it was impossible not to like him.
“Come to think about it, I guess I could eat something,” I said, smiling back at him. “What’s for dinner?”
Ben looked back at me a little sheepishly. “Well, there really isn’t a choice. It’s the same thing we always have.”
“You eat the same thing every day?”
“Well, we don’t exactly eat, we simply take in nourishment. And we don’t need to do it every day, which is why your timing is perfect. Not that it would have really been a problem because I’m sure that Arrosha would have made arrangements for you later on anyway. She wouldn’t have wanted our guest starving to death.”
“Arrosha?”
“Let’s see, what’s the best way for me to introduce her to you? I guess you could say that she’s sort of the leader of our pack. This is her house.”
“Will I meet her at dinner?”
“Oh, no. She’s not here that often. But I’m sure you’ll be meeting her in a day or two. She told me that she wants you to get settled in first before she meets you.”
“Sure, I understand.” Actually, I didn’t understand, I was just trying to be polite. “So what is ‘taking in nourishment’ if it’s not eating?”
“Don’t worry, it’s very, very satisfying. It may not seem like much to you at first, but once you’ve had your first meal, you probably won’t want to ingest anything again, ever. I mean, it is so much better than eating.”
Imagining a dinner of sprout juice, I was disappointed. “Better than eating?” I protested. “You mean it’s better than shrimp scampi? Better than gumbo? Better than roast beef?”
“Infinitely better, I can assure you.”
“Better than pizza? No way it’s better than pizza.”
Ben rolled his eyes. “Well, it might not taste better than pizza, but it is better than pizza.”
“Nothing’s better than pizza.” New memories of crash diets past returned suddenly to my mind. “Hey, no offense intended, but please don’t tell me that’s it’s some kind of liquid diet crap.
Ben chuckled. “No liquid diet. No crap.”
I laughed a little until a horrible thought crossed my mind.
“You don’t eat food. You’re not vampires, are you?” At first I said it as a joke but the minute the words lef
t my mouth, it felt serious. I became anxious, realizing that I was about to enter into a group of people about which I knew nothing, a group living in a mansion so far removed from any neighbors that no one could hear me should I scream. I didn’t remember much, but I remembered enough to realize I’d seen that plot many times in horror films before.
Ben seemed amused at the growing fear in my eyes. “Don’t be silly,” he assured me. “We are most definitely not vampires. Ashley, remember, I said we weren’t on any liquid diets. That includes blood.”
“You don’t really eat. Are you aliens?”
His smile got bigger. “Of course not. Seriously, have I asked you even once for you to take me to your leader?”
“No.” I said. Ben’s disarmingly winsome manner allayed my new fears, so I decided to play along. Still, despite my instant rapport with him, I was still curious to see how he would react. So I asked him, tongue in cheek, “Let’s see, if you don’t eat, then you must be the living dead. You’re a zombie, aren’t you?”
Ben laughed a hearty laugh out loud. “So you think I’m inviting you to dinner as the main course? Don’t be silly. If we were zombies, we’d have to eat your brain. Everyone knows that zombies eat brains. Remember, we don’t eat solid food,” he said lightheartedly.
“All right,” I said, teasing him, “Let’s just keep it that way.”
“Ashley, you can put your mind to rest,” he said, giving me a hearty one-armed hug. “No one in this house is either an alien or a vampire or a zombie.” He put his hand on the doorknob and opened the door. “Besides,” he said, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, “If we were, I wouldn’t tell you.”
“Ben!”
“Wow, Ashley, you really are fun to tease. I’ll have to remember that. C’mon, silly, let me show you around the old homestead and then get something in you before you get too hungry.”
We entered into a drab, unadorned, off-white corridor with wood floors.
“Right now we’re in the wing that was once the mansion’s old slave quarters,” Ben said, entering into a tour-guide mode. “I wanted to put you into one of our nicer guest areas but Arrosha wanted you quarantined. I really don’t know why, since we can’t catch diseases, but I guess she had her reasons.”
“You can’t catch diseases? Are you sure?”
“Quite sure. Our immunity is perfect.”
“What makes you so immune?”
He turned around and said, in a mock-menacing tone, “Human brains and blood.”
“Ben! Stop that!” I scolded.
He laughed his friendly, contagious laugh again. “Sorry Ashley, couldn’t help myself. You really are too much fun to tease, but I’ll stop it until you get to know me better. It’s just that I feel so comfortable talking to you that it’s hard to believe that I just met you. Awake, that is.”
He was right. I felt it too. There was something about Ben, a sincerity, an easy-going quality and a heartiness to his sense of humor that made me trust him and feel safe in his presence. It was rare to meet an instant friend, someone with whom I clicked immediately. Another memory resurfaced out of nowhere when I realized that I’d had the same experience when I’d first met my best friend Carolyne. For some unknown reason, in the back of my mind, I felt that I should have been terrified in this strange place, but it was hard to be afraid when Ben was around.
We reached the plain wooden door at the end of the hall. When Ben opened it, a far different world greeted my eyes than the one we were leaving behind. Instead of the flat, dull, cramped realm of the servants quarters, a brilliant new universe of lavish and opulent splendor revealed itself to my eyes. In my entire life, I had never been inside a private residence such as the one that I was about to enter. I had only ever seen such grandeur in pictures and the movies. I had just stepped into a palace.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Wow,” was the only thing that I could say as I took in the majesty that lay ahead of me. The hallway enlarged tremendously in all directions; the floor offered up a plush carpeting of the darkest burgundy upon which to walk. The walls were covered with paintings framed in gilded hardwood; small statues and busts sat between every few paintings.
“It’s true. They’re right,” I said, stunned by the magnificence that lay before me. “Rich really is better.”
“Oh, but this is only the beginning,” Ben said. “Allow me let to me give you at least part of the grand tour. We have enough time for that. Let’s start with where we’re standing. We’re on the second floor now. Most of the paintings and smaller sculptures are on this floor.”
As we stood in the massive hallway, there was so much to see, so many paintings, sculptures, opulent rugs and tapestries; my eyes were so flooded with such an overabundance of art and riches that I didn’t know where to begin to focus my attention. I walked forward to view the paintings that hung to my right, but as I did, those few steps revealed to me a view of a vast space to my left that had before seemed miraculously hidden. The wall there had disappeared, replaced by a railing of thick, rich, hand-carved mahogany, varnished to the highest luster, as the hallway transformed itself into a balcony or mezzanine.
“How?” I asked, at a loss for words.
“Nice trick, isn’t it?” remarked Ben, watching my expression. “It never ceases to amaze me how she can keep that view hidden until she’s ready to reveal it. Of course, Arrosha never ceases to amaze me, period.”
“I’ll say. It’s completely breathtaking,” I answered as, mesmerized, I walked up to the railing.
“We call it this Great Room,” he told me.
“I can see why,” I replied, flabbergasted, for the word “great” was actually an understatement.
“For many years,” Ben explained, “Arrosha lived in and about Romania, after which she moved to Paris. She says that during these times, she was happier than she’d been in ages. That’s why those influences are so strong in the architecture of the room.”
The room was palatial in every sense of the word. It was overwhelming in its size, magnificence and opulence, displaying a level of wealth over which revolutions had been fought. Of monumental proportions, it was a unique combination of Gothic and Baroque, an unlikely cross between the dark palatial castles of the robber baron princes of central Europe and a ballroom at the Palace of Versailles as gold lacework merged with dark, rich mahogany wood. The ceiling, adorned with trompe d’oeil frescoes, held a myriad of crystal chandeliers that dripped from the high, ornate ceiling like huge, bejeweled earrings, drawing the eye downward toward an expansive marble floor containing a large, ancient-looking circular mosaic of a woman directly in its center. Corinthian columns with elegant scrollwork at the top stood guard in each corner and at various places in each wall’s mid-section. Flat columns sat in between them; each of these sported a fat, smiling carved cherub with extended arms holding lit candelabra. Further down the balcony, a grand staircase covered in the same rich, deep, burgundy red carpet upon which I now stood, spilled out onto the lower floor. The stairway was flanked by heavy banisters made of richly carved mahogany adorned with gold gilt work, an extension of the polished railing onto which I now held. Heavy drapes hid the windows; they matched the color of the carpet that dripped down the staircase and that covered all of the floor of this second story, a color so deep and rich a burgundy red that in the right lighting, it would have appeared black. The room was lined with statues, the most curious of which was an enormous crystal piece which took up almost the entire length of the far wall.
If ever I’d teased Ben about the group being vampires, my mind was put to rest as I noticed the huge mirrors in baroque gold frames or moldings taking up most of the walls upon which they were set, reflecting the huge room and making it look even larger.
“Beautiful, isn’t it, our Great Room?” Ben whispered reverently as he stood next to me at the railing.
“That’s quite the understatement,” I replied, not looking at him. I was so engrossed in the view that I was unable to tea
r my eyes from the sight that lay before me. “I thought you said this was a mansion, not a palace.”
“It is. Actually, it’s an old plantation home.”
“Really? Where?” I asked.
“We’re in bayou country in southwestern Louisiana.”
“That can’t be. This mansion isn’t just big, it’s gigantic,” I protested. “I’ve never heard of any plantation homes on this scale in Louisiana. I grew up in the state and nothing like this has ever crossed my radar. This house would have been famous. Nobody could keep something like this a secret.”
“Hey, you remembered something new.” I didn’t know if Ben was happy for me or just trying to change the subject again. “You know where you’re from now.”
“It just came to me,” I said, finally turning my attention away from the majestic view. “Like everything else I’ve remembered so far, it just popped into my head.”
“Keep it up and we’ll have the mystery that is you solved in no time.”
“I hope so, but you’re not going to change the subject that easily this time. How can this place be so huge and still such a secret?”
“Probably because we are very secluded out here and the house really isn’t this big on the outside.”
“What?”
“This mansion is extremely unique. It has an odd floor plan. The bulk of the house is devoted to this entry room. The rest of the house is smaller, relatively speaking, of course. Understanding the anomalies are actually easy because around here, anything is possible,” he said. “There’s actually a lot more to this mansion than meets the eye. It’s full of wonders, although the floor plan can be very tricky in some spots. Just enjoy the view for now. I’ll explain more as we go along.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“There is an explanation, one I’ll tell you soon. I promise,” he replied.
“I’ve heard that line before,” I only half teased.
“I always keep my promises, Ashley.” A perplexed look then crossed his face, as if he were almost unwilling to broach a subject with me. “Listen, I didn’t mention this before, Ashley, but there’s another thing that’s been bothering me a lot and it’s about you. I’m sure that if I would have met you before, I would have remembered you. I mean, it’s not everyday that I hit it off right away with somebody like I have with you. I could swear that I’ve seen you before. You look so incredibly familiar to me, but try as hard as I might, I just can’t place you.”
The Nightmare Game Page 23