“Aye.”
“I don’t get it. What’s there to do?”
The old man spoke with a pride as grand as the sea. “I watch,” he said. “I can see the world from here. The sun rising. The crabs migrating. Life, death. I see it all.”
“What about Captain Gore?” asked Jaycie. “Did you ever see the Bloodmere? I mean, for real?”
The lighthouse keeper considered the question. And they could see him considering his response. But none was forthcoming. Instead, he turned his back to them and retreated to the opposite side of the deck. “I’d better fetch the lost-and-found box so you can be on your way.”
Jaycie turned to Niles. Hard rain was pounding the windows—the eyes of the pirate. “Do you think we should tell him about Chris? Before the storm gets worse?”
Niles didn’t hear her. He was straining to see something through the left eye. Something bigger than their obnoxious pal. There was a ship out there—a glowing vessel entering the universe from the black cloud. “Jaycie…”
“What?”
Niles was speechless. He needed Jaycie to see it for herself. He pointed to the other window. Jaycie pressed her face to the glass and stared out over the sea.
“Do you see what I see?” Niles was hoping she’d say yes.
Jaycie didn’t answer, at least not with words. Her mouth had opened involuntarily, and that was confirmation enough. Yes, she saw it, too. They both did. Just like the old man knew they would.
The perfect storm had facilitated its return. A pirate ship—glowing, pulsating, luminescent green—was rising and falling with the waves. It was the Bloodmere, replaying a scene, as it had many times since it had sunk. What had Chris called it? Jaycie remembered and said the word out loud. “Retrocognition.”
They watched with shock, with awe, as the ghost of the notorious Captain Gore came ashore, with his pirate pals carrying a treasure chest. The apparitions moved along the sand and entered one of the many caves in the Swiss cheese wall, visible from the past. It was the fourth entrance, the same cave Chris was in now!
“The curse! They’ll find him! They’ll find Chris and they’ll chop off his head!” shouted Niles.
Jaycie agreed. “We have to try to warn him!”
Just then, a shadow came to a stop behind them. Jaycie sensed it first. She gave Niles a swat and together they turned.
The lighthouse keeper was behind them, holding a cardboard box with LOST & FOUND printed on the side. “Sorry, no wallets,” said the old man. Jaycie and Niles tried to act surprised, but explaining away a white lie was the least of their worries.
The old man knew. He could see it in their eyes: a fear he understood well. “You seen it, then, aye?”
Jaycie nodded. “Yes, sir.”
And Niles added, “Our friend’s in a cave. The same one where they put their treasure!”
“What should we do?” asked Jaycie.
The lighthouse keeper had an answer—one they should have seen coming; his smirk should have given it away. “You die,” he said. “Dead boys and girls tell no tales.”
An explosion of thunder rocked the lighthouse, the tremor taking out the lights. It was pitch black inside. Jaycie and Niles blindly felt their way to each other, seeing nothing until a bolt of lightning flickered in through the pirate’s eyes. And in that moment, they saw the old man’s true self. That is, the true self he had corroded into. The lighthouse keeper was half skeleton, half rotted flesh; he wore tattered pirate clothes that hung from his shoulders like shredded rags.
Jaycie and Niles were too petrified to move. The lighthouse keeper raised his left arm, and they saw a pincer instead of a hand, this one not made of rubber. They didn’t even get the chance to scream….
Snip-snip!
From the outside, it looked like the eyes of the 168-foot-tall pirate were shedding tears of blood.
Inside the cave, Chris had already extracted the chest from the mud, all the while singing: “Yo-ho, yo-ho, a pirate’s death for me…” He broke open the lock with the butt of his stepfather’s flashlight and was about to open the chest when a luminescent glow overtook the cave. He released the lid to see what he assumed would be a scene from the distant past. In fact, he was looking forward to it. Like a favorite movie moment. This would be the scene that made him rich.
A pirate apparition entered the cave, just as Chris had anticipated. He knew it was Captain Gore from his pincer, now dripping with blood. But Chris’s terror reached a petrifying peak when he saw the captain’s features. The face was that of the old lighthouse keeper. He and Captain Gore were one and the same.
But that wasn’t all he saw. As the scene continued to unfold…
Two more specters entered the cave: Gore’s pirate helpers, carrying the treasure chest. The captain ordered it buried, and the pirates began to dig. They dug without protest. Up close, Chris could see their faces, too. But it couldn’t be. How?
HOW?
The pirates were Jaycie and Niles, now a part of the past, in a scene that would repeat itself, over and over and over…. That’s retrocognition for you.
Chris got up into their faces. “Wait! Don’t listen to him! Say no! Don’t do it! Just say no!”
Chris waved his arms, but it was no use. They couldn’t hear him. Not that it would have mattered. Jaycie and Niles never said no.
Captain Gore slowly turned toward Chris, and as the old ghost pirate raised his pincer, the luminescent glow that surrounded the pirates burned brighter than ever before—so bright, in fact, that Chis had to avert his eyes. A moment later, the images dissolved into nothingness. The scene had played out. The figures were gone; the storm had moved on, taking the past with it. Chris spun around, searching for the pirates, but there was nothing there. He was alone in the cave once more, terrified beyond all reason, his body shaking. He stood there for hours, not moving, barely breathing.
Until the dawn came. He heard the calming sounds of the morning sea. The surf was settling; the gulls had returned.
Chris had stood there all night. Now, with the arrival of dawn, the terror had left the cave. As if he had woken up from a nightmare, Chris was slowly feeling like his old obnoxious self again. He went back to the chest to finish what he had started. The moment had come. His moment. He clutched the lid and thought, This is the last time I won’t be the richest kid in town. Then he opened it to gloat over his treasure.
He saw a treasure, all right.
Resting in a mound of gold doubloons was a pair of human skulls staring back at him. And even without their skins, Chris recognized whom they had once belonged to by the mile-long chin on one and the gap-toothed grin on the other.
He dropped the lid, no longer interested in gold, and spun around to leave. The small shaft of light from the entrance abruptly disappeared. To his horror, the cave had once again been sealed—no way in, no way out. Or if you prefer: no windows and no doors.
“Heeeeeelp!” he cried, because they all try that one. “Somebody help me!” He tried that one, too. He tried every variation of help you could think of until his vocal cords gave out. And then he searched for an exit in every conceivable crevice until his stepfather’s flashlight gave out.
It was the very last time Chris was ever seen…but not the last time he was heard. He now lives in the tales told by the old lighthouse keeper. The latest iteration involves an obnoxious kid who dared defy the pirate code of Captain Gore and got all the treasure that was coming to him.
Snip-snip!
“Snip-snip!” said Prudence Pock, and she closed the book with a snap. Immediately following the tale, Dr. Ackerman excused himself from room 4, saying he had an errand to run. Prudence Pock had on that dubious grin she wore so well. “Don’t be long, Doctor. There’s still one more tale to tell.”
The reflected light of the orderly’s candelabrum drew near as the doctor exited room 4. “Will you be breaking for a meal?”
Dr. Ackerman spun around, startled, his exhaled breath extinguishing the candles. Or
had it? A second later, the flames arose on their own. Dr. Ackerman found his composure. “A meal? No. I’m taking a little trip to a cemetery.”
“Ah, a most pleasant diversion. Have we an appointment with a departed soul?”
The doctor looked at him oddly. “Nothing of the sort, Coats. It’s to lay to rest a patient’s claim, that a mansion resides beyond the graveyard. If it does, I’m going to find it.”
“So you have accepted the possibility of its existence? Or is it impossibility? I never can get that right.” The orderly slipped his gloved hand into his inside pocket and checked the time on an antique pocket watch. “You can just make it before sundown.” Dr. Ackerman headed up the corridor, almost past the security doors, when the orderly called out, “Oh, and, sir…”
“What is it now, Coats?”
The orderly smiled. “Hurry baaa-aack.”
The details of Dr. Ackerman’s errand involved a trip to Route 13. Driving up the single-lane path, Dr. Ackerman noticed a slew of commemorative wreaths, dwarfed by blackened trees concealing who knew what. There were bats dangling from the branches, glaring with their ruby-red eyes, laying to rest that old expression blind as a…Well, you know the rest. As his car passed, the bats fluttered off into the dusk sky. Where were they going with such urgency? Prudence Pock might suggest to a mansion on a hill, to warn the residents that an intruder was in their midst.
Yet if such a place existed, why didn’t it show up on Dr. Ackerman’s GPS? All he could see was the glowing outline of a capacious graveyard at the end of Route 13. Dead ahead, as we say in the trade. Maybe the answers lay in there.
A cemetery is sometimes referred to as a necropolis. That is, a city of the dead. And the Eternal Grace Cemetery more than lived up to the designation. It was a city populated by tombstones, a private district of the deceased. The grave markers appeared never-ending. Along with the tears, Dr. Ackerman surmised.
Death was final, was it not? That was what Dr. Ackerman believed. He had never been visited by an “expired” relative. There were no spirits; there was only sorrow. The only things at rest below those markers, Dr. Ackerman believed, were dust and decay. As for the inscriptions themselves, a name and a slogan were all the remains of a life that had been lived.
Lost in his thoughts, he didn’t notice the ground fog swirling in by his feet. He’d been preoccupied, reading the epitaphs on a pair of grave markers.
Forgetting where he was, Dr. Ackerman laughed. He laughed because death suddenly seemed less serious. The amusing epitaphs made the inevitable less foreboding. At least, momentarily. He recalled his father’s final words: “We all gotta go sometime. Why not go with a smile?” His father hadn’t noticed the speeding train. His smile arrived at the next station ten minutes ahead of schedule.
And then the doctor heard someone saying those same words aloud. “We all gotta go sometime.”
He spun around, half expecting to see his expired father. That was before he remembered where he was. There was a white-haired man, wearing a scarf and hat, with a trembling bloodhound at his side. The man lifted a lantern, adding yellowish hues to his complexion. He was the caretaker.
“What did you say just now?” Dr. Ackerman asked.
“I was just telling the gent over there we all gotta go sometime.” The caretaker motioned toward a mourner in the next row who was sobbing over a grave.
“That’s not for you to judge. We all grieve in our own ways.”
The caretaker locked eyes with the doctor, his expression gravely serious. “The dead don’t like it, sir. That sort of behavior, it prevents ’em from movin’ on.”
“There is no moving on for the dead.” Dr. Ackerman was unwavering in his opinion.
“The ones who’ve been wronged, sir. Those who’ve been murdered and whatnot. They can’t move on. Their kind’s got unfinished business to attend to.”
The remark greatly irritated Dr. Ackerman. “You are an authority, I take it? An expert on the murdered and whatnot?”
“No, not an expert. I’m just the caretaker.” The caretaker tipped his cap and kept moving.
“Just a moment!” the doctor called out. “What can you tell me about a mansion on a hill? I’ve made several inquiries in town. No one cares to acknowledge it, which leads me to believe it doesn’t exist. I even asked some hitchhikers on Route 13.”
The caretaker shuddered. So did his dog. “You didn’t give them a ride, did you?”
“Heavens, no! Unsavory types, the lot of them.”
The caretaker nodded. “The type that follow you home.” He continued on, only this time Dr. Ackerman followed.
“Were they from the mansion?” There was a hesitation in the caretaker’s step. “You’ve seen it, haven’t you?”
“I’ve seen many things…I ought not talk about.”
The doctor removed a gold watch from his wrist. “This belonged to my father. He wasn’t a very nice man but he had expensive things. Show me the mansion and it’s yours.”
The bloodhound starting barking, and it took a moment for the caretaker to settle him down. Afterward, he said, “It’s not mine to show. It’s yours to see. When you’re ready.” And with that, the caretaker and his trusted canine companion ambled off, disappearing behind the headstones.
The sun had begun to set below the cemetery gates. The darkness was coming, but Dr. Ackerman couldn’t leave yet. Was the mansion Prudence Pock spoke of more than just part of a madwoman’s musings? If it existed, why couldn’t he find it on a map? He could find no such dwelling. Nothing but unending tributes to the dead. Had they all been hallucinating? Had Route 13, the graveyard, or both produced some sort of mass hysteria?
The night was upon him now, and the usually discerning Dr. Ackerman found himself grateful to the moon. Of course, shadows of varying shapes and sizes came with it, but he’d worry about those later. For the moment, the emphasis was on getting back to Shepperton Sanitarium. Prudence Pock had one more tale to tell. Her tale. Perhaps the answers lay buried in her prose.
His walk became a trot, and soon Dr. Ackerman was running. The parking lot was in range; he could see its unusual sign: DEAD END—PREPARE TO EXIT TO THE LIVING WORLD. But a specific grouping of gravestones slowed him down. As desperate as he was to leave, he had to stop and read the epitaphs:
Dr. Ackerman felt like he could explode! Mops please, janitors. Confound that woman! She made it all up! Those tales. She saw the graves and made it all up. He would lace into her when he got back. If he got back. Because even Dr. Ackerman didn’t expect to see the next tombstone:
The doctor made it back to the sanitarium in record time. If Officer Davis had still been on the job, there would have been a citation. He was back inside the dungeon corridor, having squeezed himself out of the elevator before the doors fully opened. The orderly had been waiting to greet him. “Good evening, Doctor. Is something wrong? You seem unusually distressed.”
“I am! That’s the perfect way to put it, Coats! I’m unusually distressed!”
“Perhaps a cup of warm milk or some tea would help soothe your frazzled nerves?” But Ackerman didn’t even bother to acknowledge the orderly’s suggestion. He headed directly to room 4, snapping his fingers, impatiently waiting for Coats to do his job. “The key, man! Open up! Before I kick it in!”
“Yes, sir. Right away, sir.” The orderly turned the key.
The door creaked open and Dr. Ackerman entered the padded room. It was frightfully chilly in there. Colder than the graveyard. Looking around, Dr. Ackerman couldn’t see her…at first.
“Prudence?”
The door slammed behind him. Dr. Ackerman heard the key turn and the lock fasten. He could see the orderly’s eyes through the rectangular slot in the door. Coats slowly slid the panel on the slot shut, blocking out the light.
The doctor turned and found Prudence on her stool. She was smiling as if she’d always been there. “Welcome back, good doctor. You look as if you’ve seen a ghost. Or two or three or four.”
/> “There are no ghosts!” Ahem! “What kind of a stunt are you trying to pull? Is Coats in on this, too? Do you have the whole asylum in on your little game?”
“Game, Doctor? You must have me confused with your other patients.”
Dr. Ackerman took a long breath, trying to restore a semblance of professionalism. He ran his fingers through his hair, threw back his shoulders to straighten his posture, then stepped toward Prudence. “I didn’t mean to shout. I’ve just returned from the cemetery. I saw headstones bearing the names of your protagonists. You, my dear, are an imposter. Prudence Pock is dead.”
Her grin expanded. “So she is,” she gleefully confirmed. “Do you, perchance, remember how I died? Think back for me, Doctor, to the role you played in this final tale. A tale that binds us together, forever and ever.” Dr. Ackerman knew he didn’t have to respond. He was going to hear it either way. Just like you, foolish reader. “Let me remind you, Dr. Ackerman.”
Dr. Ackerman looked for the door, hoping to once again see the orderly’s eyes in the rectangular slot.
But the door was no longer there.
“Sit,” said Prudence, and the second stool slid in behind Dr. Ackerman. He surrendered to her request. Prudence was holding volume four. “It’s all here, Doctor. In this final tale from the Haunted Mansion.” She opened the book, the pages turning on their own before stopping on the last story. Prudence Pock handed the book to Dr. Ackerman. For the final tale, she insisted he do the honors by reading it aloud.
Pay attention! When hinges creak in doorless chambers and strange and frightening sounds echo through the halls—that is the time when ghosts are present, practicing their terror with ghoulish delight.
All is not as it seems, for our final tale is but a dream within a dream.
It’s almost over, Prudence Pock heard the voice inside her head say. The first visible signs of arthritis had crept in.
She was halfway through a signing event at Ye Olde Book Shoppe. A greatest hits package, as she cynically referred to it. Old wares in a new wrapping. Prudence Pock hadn’t produced anything new in years, and the smattering of fans reflected it. She counted thirty-one in total.
Tales from the Haunted Mansion, Volume 4 Page 8