Tales from the Haunted Mansion, Volume 4

by Amicus Arcane

  With a sledgehammer slung over his shoulder, he made his way to the walled-up writer’s room. A fine piece of craftsmanship, he thought, admiring his handiwork. Not bad for a headshrinker.

  He struck the wall. Thunk! Thunk! Thunk! Over and over, until the bricks crumbled and a section collapsed, forming a hole large enough to pass through. Exchanging the sledgehammer for a high-powered flashlight, Dr. Ackerman ventured into the chamber. “Prudence, dear. Your deadline’s up. What sort of a tale have you written for me?”

  Dr. Ackerman shrieked when he saw her. He had expected to find a dead person—that went without saying—but he hadn’t expected to find a happy one. The corpse of Prudence Pock was smiling. She was smiling as if a great big surprise was in store for Dr. Ackerman. And it was.

  Dr. Ackerman peered across the room and saw her words, neatly stacked in the center of the desk. It was a handwritten manuscript, with its author, Prudence Pock, seated behind the desk, displaying her tickled grin. In her fossilized hand was Poe’s quill, its tip still pressed to the paper.

  The doctor stepped away, divorcing himself from the scene: the desk, the manuscript, the position of the quill. It was chillingly perfect. In an instant, he knew what to call his new exhibit. He’d name it Writer’s Block.

  With the fiendish task complete, Dr. Ackerman turned for the main corridor. There was still some cleaning up to do. But before climbing out, he heard a frenetic scratching from behind. What was it? More rats? It sounded like scribbling—like a pen moving speedily across paper! He turned to look, leveling his light.

  The beam moved across the chamber, stopping on Poe’s quill. It was moving on its own, writing the same phrase across paper, across walls, across the face of Prudence Pock herself. It was the title of her story:

  Memento Mori Memento Mori Memento Mori Memento Mori Memento Mori Memento Mori Memento Mori Memento Mori Memento Mori Memento Mori Memento Mori Memento Mori Memento Mori…

  Dr. Ackerman could feel the last vestiges of sanity escape his skull. He had always been insane; perhaps he had been born that way. But Prudence Pock’s tales had helped him control it. Now the madness was in control. He scrambled to escape through the hole. But the last thing he saw was the glowing arm of a ghost holding a trowel, bricking up the wall from the outside. Dr. Ackerman was trapped inside a chamber…with no windows and no doors.

  Trapped, as he had always been, within the endless corridors of his mind.

  The eyes of the orderly were glaring in through the slot of room 4, a slot the size of a brick. With his hand trembling, Dr. Ackerman returned the book to Prudence Pock, the final tale complete. “Thank you, Doctor,” she said. “You did a fine job reading. It even scared me, and I was there for it!”

  He still had one question. “What about the mansion? Is it real?”

  “Oh, yes. I attended the grand celebration I told you about. A carriage picked me up from Liberty Square the night after I died. Your actions provided me entry. It was a party that could only be attended by the dead.”

  “That’s preposterous! Impossi—” The doctor stopped speaking. The book in his hands was opened to the title page, where an inscription read To Dr. Ackerman, from your biggest fan—forever yours, Prudence Pock. It was exactly as she had inscribed it in the Liberty Square parking lot, and it was dated four years earlier. Prudence Pock smiled. “Is all that we see or seem but a dream within a dream?”

  The truth came flooding back to him, as it did every evening. “For four glorious years, Doctor, I’ve been visiting you inside this padded room, repeating the tale of your crimes. Watching the sanity drain from your eyes, night after night after night. The professional term is retrocognition.”

  Dr. Ackerman was no longer protesting. As it happened every night, he was starting to recall—to remember the ghastly details of the crime that had relegated him to his own asylum. And the more he remembered, the more he laughed. It was the laugh of the hopelessly insane, the ones they kept hidden in the dungeon like dirty little secrets.

  Prudence rose from the stool and floated across the room, passing through the wall where the orderly had been waiting.

  The orderly took the book from her hands. They were not in a sanitarium at all. They were seated across from each other inside a quaint chamber, surrounded by books, as they had been the entire evening. The orderly was the librarian. He had always been the librarian. “I suppose you’d call that Poe-etic justice,” he said, and released volume four into the air.

  Prudence Pock watched the book float back to its space on a shelf. There was a blue-green aura pulsating around her body. “I must admit, that’s my favorite tale of all.” She was especially delighted with the ending.

  Caw! Caw! Caw! They were interrupted by the cry of a raven.

  Amicus Arcane slid his gloved hand into his vest and checked his pocket watch. “Aah, it’s time to choose.” And so it was. Time to select the scariest tale of all. And time for another spirit to take over as the mansion’s librarian.

  The spectral figure of Amicus Arcane appeared on the balcony overlooking the grand hall while down below, ghostly revelers were scaring the night away. Mistresses Granger and Black, the two shrouded apparitions who helped Amicus maintain the library, floated over to Prudence Pock and invited her to join him on the balcony. An announcement was imminent. The librarian cleared his throat—before returning his throat to his body. “Attention, dear brethren!” The time had come to induct the latest librarian. Or is it “late librarian”?

  The spirits gathered below—creeping, crawling, slithering—countless souls from different times and different places: three hitchhikers, a mummy, a vampire, a bride with an ax, an old movie star, and a grinning ghost wearing a top hat were among them. Along with a pair of recent arrivals: Shelley and Chris. And, of course, four kids who called themselves the Fearsome Foursome.

  A crystal ball containing the bodiless face of one Madame Leota floated up to the balcony. Transfers of power were her department.

  The librarian twisted his head to face Prudence. A moment later, the rest of his body followed. “With my deepest sympathies, Prudence Pock, you have been selected. Your untimely demise has provided the scariest tale of all.”

  There was an uproarious reaction from the grand hall, with special emphasis on roar. The spirits, specters, poltergeists, and apparitions—or ghosts, if you prefer—were screeching and shrieking, along with some alarming applause from the ones with hands.

  But the warmest reaction came from Willa. Well, relatively warm, for someone minus a pulse. She was thrilled beyond her ghostly capacity. Having the late Prudence Pock as a fellow resident would be like inducting a fifth member to the Fearsome Foursome. Oh, the scary stories they would share for centuries to come!

  Prudence floated to the edge of the balcony, hovering above the grisly gathering of ghosts and ghouls. “I am truly honored, Mr. Arcane. I’m flattered beyond words.” She paused, looking first at Mistresses Granger and Black, then directly at Willa. “But at this time, I’m afraid I must decline.”

  The ghosts below grew suspiciously silent. So silent you could hear a heart splat. No one had ever refused such a dishonor. Prudence Pock’s announcement was a shock, even to a roomful of shockers. Willa’s face dropped; she was so disappointed. Tim politely picked it up for her.

  “Is your decision final?” asked Amicus Arcane.

  “It is.”

  “May I ask why?”

  A big, bulgy grin returned to Prudence Pock’s face. A grin so unsettling even a few ghosts hid their eyes. She had a reason, all right, and she proceeded to explain: “I still have a lot more haunting to do before I retire. There’s a patient in a padded room—once a doctor of the mind—who I must continue to visit, night after night, for the rest of his natural life.”

  Amicus Arcane grinned just a little too wide. “Aah, to haunt the guilty. I can respect that.” But the librarian still had a dilemma. “But there is still the matter of my repulsive replacement.”

  “
I have an inspired idea,” said Prudence. “There’s someone better suited for the job. The perfect keeper of tales is already here among you.” And she pointed to Willa.

  The librarian nodded. Why hadn’t he thought of that? Because a coroner removed my brain—is that not reason enough?

  “I couldn’t,” said Willa. “I’m not worthy.”

  Tim reminded her, “You wanted to be a horror writer when you grew up. This is even better!” He kissed her cheek. “Like you always say, be careful what you wish for.”

  The phantom organist began playing a funeral dirge as Tim, Noah, and Steve gave Willa a floating escort to the balcony. The librarian smiled as she glided into range. “Mistress Willa, do you accept the position?”

  She looked to her friends; they were bouncing, floating, gloating, giddy with excitement. Noah gave her a shove. “What are you waiting for? Say yes already!”

  Willa looked up at the librarian. “Yes already!”

  The crowd below went berserk…in a good, ghostly way.

  Prudence Pock gave Willa a congratulatory hug. “You’ve got this, kid.” She remembered the time. “Oops, I have to fly. My old friend Dr. Ackerman should be getting ready for his bedtime story about now.” Prudence gave Willa one last look, along with a reassuring smile, before floating up, up, and away toward Shepperton Sanitarium.

  As for the more pressing business of the evening: Madame Leota’s head floated between Willa and the librarian. “The spirit of Willa Gaines, do you accept your role as soul keeper of the mansion’s tales?”

  “I do.”

  “Will you carry on in your soul capacity to seek out the scariest story of all?”

  “I will.”

  “Then by the powers vested in me, I hereby declare you mansion librarian, for as long as you so shall die.”

  There was thunderous applause. And thunder, too! Followed by lightning.

  The librarian smiled at Willa, this time, for the first time, with a fatherly glint in his eyes.

  “Mr. Arcane, I don’t know what to say.”

  “There is nothing to say, Mistress Willa. Let the tales do the talking. Remember: Every spirit has a story. And everyone’s story deserves to be heard.” He removed the dead carnation from his lapel and placed it in Willa’s hair. She looked up to thank him, and in the clink-tink-clink of a bracelet…

  Amicus Arcane was gone.

  Willa’s friends hooted and hollered, as mischievous boys are wont to do. In her first official capacity as mansion librarian, Willa placed a finger to her lips. “Shhhhhhhhh!”

  The boys followed her to the library. There were books piled everywhere, new souls to be cataloged. Willa settled into the high-backed chair. “Boys, we have a lot of work ahead of us.”

  “We?”

  “Yes, we! Our search continues…for the scariest tale of all.” The new librarian contemplated the stacks of books surrounding them. Nine hundred ninety-nine tales in all, with room for a thousand. “It’s a daunting task,” she said; then she thought about it. “Or is it a haunting task? I never can get that right.”

  Aah, there you are, foolish mortal. Congratulations on making it to the bitter end. You didn’t think I was going to leave just yet, did you? For I have some ghoulishly good news to report. Unbeknownst to Mistress Willa, or the rest of her Fearsome Foursome, we have located our most terrifying tale.

  It is a horrifying story of supernatural terror. A tale so terrifying it will cause instant madness. And that tale, of course, is YOURS.

  You’ve yet to experience the sinister circumstance that will bring you to our humble abode. I won’t dare spoil the—I mean, your—ending, but rest assured…yours is the scariest story of all!

  All the arrangements have been made, so be sure to bring your death certificate. Enter freely, and of your own will, and stay for eternity.

  Welcome home, foolish mortal.

  Welcome to the Haunted Mansion.

  Memento mori.

  Amicus Arcane Little is known about the dearly departed Amicus Arcane, save for his love of books. As the mansion librarian, both in this life and in the afterlife, Amicus has delighted in all forms of the written word. However, this librarian’s favorite tales are those of terror and suspense. After all, there is nothing better to ease a restless spirit than a frightfully good ghost story.

  John Esposito When John Esposito met Amicus Arcane on a midnight stroll through New Orleans Square, he was so haunted by the librarian’s tales that he decided to transcribe them for posterity. John has worked in both film and television, on projects such as Stephen King’s Graveyard Shift, R. L. Stine’s The Haunting Hour, Teen Titans, and the Walking Dead web series, for which he won consecutive Writer’s Guild Awards. John lives in New York with his wife and children and still visits with Amicus from time to time.

  Kelley Jones For the illustrations accompanying his terrifying tales, Amicus Arcane approached Kelley Jones, an artist with a scary amount of talent. Kelley has worked for every major comic book publisher but is best known for his definitive work on Batman for DC Comics. Kelley lives in Northern California with his wife and children and hears from Amicus every October 31, whether he wants to or not.