Tales from the Haunted Mansion Vol. 1: The Fearsome Foursome

by Amicus Arcane

  For now, there was only night.

  Steve checked the time. Rolly was late, three whole minutes. Maybe he wouldn’t show and the dare would be declared a forfeit. But Steve was hoping it wouldn’t come to that. He needed Rolly to show. Oh, yes, foolish reader, this was going to be the dare—make that the scare—of the century.

  Another minute passed and Steve grew anxious. It didn’t help that those black shutters were now flapping, and what was that other sound? Clump-clump-clump. That one he couldn’t explain. It must be nerves, and anyway, where was Rolly Price?

  A hand crawled up Steve’s back, then slithered insect-like along his shoulder blades. Steve didn’t really want to turn, but he had to look. He slowly twisted his head to find…Rolly Price, all smiles, standing behind him. “Little jumpy there, Steve-o. What’s the matter? Didn’t think I’d show?”

  Steve located his cool voice. “You’re late.” He pointed to the lot behind the funeral home. “Thataway. Back entrance.” Where the clients come to stay, though there’s always room for one more…

  “Lead the way, Steve-o,” said Rolly. And that’s just what Steve did.

  A company hearse was parked at the far end of the lot, next to a roped-off section where some construction had been going on. A rail-thin man in a chauffeur’s uniform was leaning against the driver’s door reading a newspaper. He glanced up as they rounded the corner, and acknowledged Rolly with a tip of his cap.

  Rolly realized something: “That must be…”

  “Cousin Drew,” confirmed Steve. He pointed to the back entrance, shrouded by a black-and-white awning. Rolly hesitated. He had never been inside a funeral parlor before. He’d been lucky that way. On that night, his luck ran out.

  They entered through a narrow corridor, which expanded into a waiting area. There were some cushiony chairs and a fancy red carpet. Oh, and the lights were kept low. No need for a hefty electric bill. The dead didn’t require much light.

  Steve pointed out the three doors leading to the separate viewing rooms. Rolly could guess what was behind them. Coffins, stuffed with dead folks! Steve tapped the sign in front of viewing room three. It read THE PRICE FUNERAL.

  Rolly acted brave, with an emphasis on acted. “Oh, boy, that was unexpected.” And actually, it was.

  Steve unlocked the door and escorted Rolly inside. There were three rows of folding chairs facing a stage, and for a second, Rolly closed his eyes and made a silent wish: Please, let it be a Taylor Swift concert. But a concert wasn’t on the agenda. At least, not one for the living. As they made their way down the center aisle, Rolly’s chest grew tight. The star of the show had revealed itself: an oblong box, made of polished steel, with a faux wood exterior. It was a real coffin, just like Steve had promised, lying horizontally on a wooden riser. The lid was open, inviting Rolly in.

  Steve stepped onto a kneeling bench and looked inside. “Check it out, Roll. Your new home.” In the same moment, the lights flickered: a power surge. “That wind’s really acting up tonight,” said Steve. Rolly wondered if that wasn’t all a part of his grand scheme.

  “Step right up, Mr. Price,” Steve said like a carnival barker. Rolly joined him on the bench. “What we have here is the Eternal Rest Deluxe Recliner.”

  “What do you mean? They name these things?”

  “Of course they name them. They name everything. Cars, mattresses, hot wings. What we have here is the Rolls-Royce of coffins.” He patted the inside. “Blue velvet interior. Matching throw and pillows. Fully adjustable bedding.”

  “Why?”

  Steve didn’t understand the question. “Why what?”

  “Why’s a dead guy need adjustable bedding?”

  “They’re in there forever.” Steve displayed his best Fearsome Foursome smile. “You never know.”

  “Never know what?”

  “When you need to adjust,” Steve continued. “It’s guaranteed not to rot for ten years.”

  Rolly raised his hand like he was in class. “Question: how would anybody know? I mean, does somebody inspect these things after they’re buried?”

  Steve shrugged; he hadn’t thought about that. He slid his fingers under the lid, maneuvering a stainless steel catch. “Reinforced lock.” He clicked it into position with a reverberating snap. To Rolly, this seemed the strangest option of all. Again, he raised his hand.

  “Question: why put locks on the outside? Are they worried a customer might crawl out and complain?”

  Again, Steve flashed that ghoulish grin. This time with elaboration. “Don’t think so. You see, regulation depth is six feet under the ground. Even if you could open the lock, you’d still have all that dirt to deal with. All that dark, wet, worm-infested earth weighing you down. Two tons of it between you and the surface. You’d be going nowhere fast, Roll. Unless you had superstrength. You don’t have superstrength, do you?”

  “The last time I checked, no.”

  “Didn’t think so.” Steve held up his cell phone, setting a timer for exactly one hour. The moment of truth had arrived. He stepped down from the kneeling bench, inviting Rolly to take his place inside. “Ready to do this?”

  Rolly lifted his leg to climb in. There was a natural hesitation. It wasn’t the sort of thing one usually did voluntarily.

  “Wanna quit?” Steve goaded him. “Last chance, buddy boy.”

  If Rolly had any doubts, Steve had just erased them. He lay flat inside the Eternal Rest Deluxe Recliner. Rolly had to admit it was pretty darn comfy.

  Getting into the spirit of things, Rolly crossed his arms over his chest. Steve just shook his head. “I wouldn’t do that. Once the lid goes down, it’s a pretty tight squeeze. Folding your arms might constrict your breathing.”

  Rolly sat straight up. “Really? Did you have to say that?” He was sweating big-time. All over the blue velvet interior.

  Steve had him right where he wanted. “Ready to quit? I dare you to say the words…‘I quit.’”

  That seemed to do it. “I got some words for you, Steve-o.” Rolly wiped off the sweat with his sleeve.

  “Oh, yeah? What’s that?”

  “See you in an hour.” He reached up to detach the safety bar that propped open the lid. Steve got to it first, the genial host. “Don’t pull down on the safety bar. I will lower it for you.” And that’s what he did.

  From inside the coffin, Rolly watched as the lid slooooowly came down, eclipsing the light. Now there was only darkness, Rolly’s sole comfort being his own labored breathing, amplified by the natural acoustics of the casket. That sound alone could drive one to madness. The intermittent puffs, growing smaller with each exhale. But being interred under the ground, that would be worse. Knowing that your loved ones were standing in their best shoes a mere six feet above you, unaware that you were still alive, and doing nothing to help out. As you lay there, boxed in like a sardine, with the knowledge that those cries you wasted used up what precious little air you had left. Oh, yes, that would cinch it. Being buried alive would be a fast pass to insanity.

  “How we doing in there?” came a voice from the viewing room, interrupting Rolly’s morbid musings. It was Steve-o, of course. “Comfy cozy?”

  “You want to keep it down? I’m trying to catch a little shut-eye in here.” Rolly sounded calm, and in fact, for a kid who had suffered an extreme panic attack in a janitor’s closet, he seemed uncommonly relaxed.

  Steve snapped the lock in place, and in case Rolly had forgotten the sound, Steve cheerfully reminded him: “You’re locked in. There’s no escape. But the good news is a whole minute just went by. That means you only have fifty-nine more to go, buddy boy. I’m going to grab a smoothie. Want anything?”

  “Strawberry-banana,” replied the voice from inside the Eternal Rest Deluxe Recliner, and a thought flashed through Steve’s mind: in the vast history of human existence, that might have been the only time the words strawberry and banana were said from inside a locked coffin.

  Steve played a little drum solo on the lid. �
�You got it.” He heard Rolly shifting inside, providing him with immeasurable delight. Drew had entered and was silently observing from the top of the aisle. He exchanged knowing looks with his cousin, and Steve’s grin graduated from ghoulish to devious. He had something else in mind for Rolly. A plot so insidious Steve would be the talk of the middle school for years to come.

  Drew went directly to the coffin. Rolly could hear something going on out there but couldn’t tell what it was. But we can tell you: Drew was assembling a dolly. “Hello? Who’s out there?” Rolly asked. Drew said nothing, whistling while he worked. He slid the coffin onto the dolly. It weighed a ton, with or without Rolly inside. “Hey! Where are you taking me?” Drew proceeded in silence, wheeling the coffin out to the parking lot. “Hellooooo! Someone’s alive in here!”

  Well, that was the point, wasn’t it? That whole “fate worse than death” thing, as discussed ad nauseam. (Some more Latin for you, foolish reader. It means “If you say that one more time, I’ll vomit.” Loosely translated, of course.)

  To really appreciate the terrors that went on next, you’d have to experience them from Rolly’s point of view.

  For some of you, this next section won’t be pleasant. But the rest of you came for a reason. You’ve made it past a possessed baseball glove and an enchanted wishbone and an ancient sea beast. You might as well go the distance.

  Rolly felt the dolly traveling across gravelly pavement. He could hear the sounds the night makes: the swirling wind along with its friends, the crickets. And then there was a feeling of unsteadiness as the coffin was lifted into a vehicle—a hearse, of course—followed by a short drive. Rolly felt each bump, every turn. Where were they taking him, and for what purpose?

  The answer came just moments after the hearse stopped. Then, dread of all dreads: Rolly felt his body being lowered. One, two, three, four, five, six. Six feet under. It had to be a joke, right? Ha-ha, very funny. Except for the following sound, which was anything but a punch line.

  Shnnnnk! What was that?

  Oh, nothing much. Just the sound a shovel makes when it enters dirt. Followed by something decidedly worse. Hmmm. What could be worse? Try the sound that same dirt makes when it’s being dumped onto a coffin—your coffin—as you’re buried alive!

  Forty minutes later, Steve’s bike zipped into the parking lot of the Davis Family Funeral Home. In his left hand was a bag containing a strawberry-banana smoothie—Rolly’s consolation prize for being the butt of a pretty sick joke. After he dismounted, Steve noticed an Eternal Rest Deluxe Recliner by a small mound near the construction pit. His cousin hopped out of the hearse and met him halfway across the lot. Steve was eager to hear how it had gone.

  “Like a dream, Cuz,” Drew replied before reconsidering. “For him, maybe a nightmare.” He gave Steve the details. How the coffin had been loaded into the hearse and driven in circles. How he’d lowered it into the construction pit and dumped dirt onto the lid. And—voilà!—buried alive.

  Roland Price wasn’t really buried alive. You may breathe, dear reader. For now.

  Steve was barely able to breathe, he was laughing so hard. “Did he scream? Did he say the words ‘I quit’?”

  Drew thought about it. “Now that you mention it, no. He didn’t say anything at all.”

  “Sure he did.” They approached the coffin. “There had to be some begging. Just a little.” Again, Drew shook his head. “Not even a whimper?”

  “Seriously, dude, he didn’t make a peep.”

  In a fit of temper, Steve threw the smoothie across the lot, a strawberry-banana splat! How was that possible? Was Rolly Price truly unbeatable?

  By then, Drew was ready to call it quits. You win some, you lose some. He approached the coffin and undid the lock. But before he opened the lid, Steve stuck out his hand. “Wait!” He checked his timer: three more seconds to go. Drew shook his head. “Dude, really?”

  Steve nodded. “Three…two…one.”

  Drew opened the lid and took a step back, allowing his cousin the first look inside. For a moment, Steve didn’t know what he was seeing. Or, more accurately, what he wasn’t seeing. He brushed his hand across the blue velvet interior. “Where is he?” Drew returned to his side and they both stared down, bug-eyed, in silence.

  The coffin was empty. Roland Price was gone.

  “This is crazy!” hollered Steve. “He’s in there somewhere. He has to be!” He frantically examined the coffin—the top, bottom, and sides.

  “I did everything like we planned!” explained Drew in a panic. “I snatched the coffin from viewing room two, loaded it in the hearse—”

  Did you catch that? Because Steve certainly did. “Wait–wait–wait! Viewing room two. You said ‘viewing room two’!”

  Drew nodded. “Uh-huh.”

  “Rolly was in viewing room three. Drew, you took the wrong coffin!”

  Drew stood there, teetering in shock. It was like he hadn’t heard what he’d just heard. Except he’d heard it! Steve couldn’t wait for him to play catch-up. He had to act—fast! Rolly’s life might depend on it. He ran back into viewing room three, only to discover an empty riser. “Wh-wh-where’s the coffin?” He kicked over a folding chair, collapsing all the chairs like dominoes. “Where did it go?”

  Drew arrived seconds later. “They must have taken it.”

  “Who? Taken it where?”

  Drew knew his cousin wasn’t going to like the next bit, but he said it anyway. “Where do you think? Where coffins go. To get buried in a cemetery.”

  “Which one, Drew? Before his air runs out! Which cemetery?”

  The look on Drew’s face said I dunno. “We go everywhere. That’s our motto. Mr. Davis must have scheduled an after-hours pickup.”

  “Find out. Call your boss!”

  Now Drew was on the brink of a full-blown panic attack. “Call my boss? Do you know how serious this is? I can lose my job. Worse than that, I’ll go to jail!”

  “It doesn’t matter! Don’t you understand? We locked a kid in a coffin!”

  Drew glared at his cousin. He didn’t like the implication, not one bit. “No, Cuz. The way I see it, you locked a kid in a coffin. All I did was sprinkle a little dirt on an empty box.” And on that note, Drew headed to the hearse and settled in behind the wheel.

  Steve chased after him, on the verge of begging. Okay, it wasn’t the verge. This was a full-on beg fest. “Please-please-please! I’ll do anything! You have to help me!” He smushed his face against the windshield. “It’s Steve-o! You can’t do this to me!”

  “You did it to yourself, kid. We warned you. The whole family warned you! These dares would be the death of you. But you wouldn’t listen.”

  “I’m listening now!” Steve took a breath, then backed away from the windshield. “I’m listening now.”

  “Tell that to Rolly. A little too little, a little too late—wouldn’t you say?” Drew threw the hearse in gear and peeled out of the lot, leaving Steve standing alone with nothing but his terrible thoughts. He had to think, to figure out his next move. But before he could do that, his phone buzzed with a text. There was a message from Rolly. Steve’s hand shook as he stared at the display. It said:

  DIG ME UP.

  Still, as bad as the text was, Steve was somewhat relieved to know Rolly was alive and breathing, and that was a start. At the same time, he was trapped in a coffin—the Eternal Rest Deluxe Recliner—with about two more hours of air at best.

  Steve returned a text, asking Rolly if he knew where they’d taken him. A reply came back almost immediately: HURRY THE WORMS.

  That was horrible news. Mostly for Rolly. The worms, they were another story. Logistics-wise, Steve couldn’t possibly cover every graveyard in town. He would need help, his first recruit being the always reliable Noah, who Steve figured might still be up, perusing his dad’s old horror comics. But Noah texted back: CAN’T—BIGGER FISH TO FRY. (At the moment, Noah was attending a pool party. Heh.)

  Steve was about to try Willa and Tim wh
en it occurred to him: cell phones are equipped with GPS! He’d be able to pinpoint Rolly’s exact location through his phone signal. Several swipes later, he did just that, locating Rolly Price at the Eternal Grace Cemetery, one of the oldest, most distinguished boneyards in the land. All Steve had to do was dig him up, as per Rolly’s written request, and they could put this whole misunderstanding behind them.

  In theory, anyway.

  What would he need? The proper tools, of course. To dig up a grave!

  Steve remembered seeing a spade in the garage; thank goodness Mom liked to tinker in the garden. Or maybe she was a gravedigger. Who knows what mothers do while their children are at school?

  Steve hopped on his bike and was back home within minutes, rummaging through the garage. He located the spade, stuffed it into a duffel bag, and was soon gliding back down the driveway when his father stumbled onto the front porch, barely awake. In his underwear. “Yo! Where you goin’ with that stuff at this time of night?”

  Steve didn’t have time to discuss it. “Some dude’s buried alive and I have to dig him up!”

  His father nodded, never quite opening his eyes. “Okey-doke. Got your house key?”

  “Got it!”

  His father scratched his butt and headed back inside.

  Steve tore across town, topping his best speed. Eternal Grace Cemetery was thirteen miles away, and by the time he arrived, the moon was high in the night sky. It had to be after midnight.

  From the outside, the graveyard looked even older than its reputation suggested. There were no streetlights, of course, but there was plenty of atmosphere. You know the kind. Leaves rustling in the wind. Creaks, rattles, and a familiar caw-caw from within a blackened tree. Steve looked up.

  A large raven—yes, that raven—was perched on a branch, peering down as if to pass judgment.

  Steve had to keep moving. Clouds began to pass in front of the moon. It was too dark to wing it (bad pun intended). To compensate, he switched his cell to night vision mode. Moving it back and forth, he picked up an image: there were three dudes hunched together by the side of the road. Hitchhikers in old-fashioned attire, thumbing for a lift. An unnatural glow pulsated around them—probably a camera defect or a lens flare; Steve couldn’t tell which. But when he glanced up to see them “live,” the hitchhikers were gone.