...that one time when Sally didn't make things worse...
“Look! ‘The Paragon
Paranormal Society has thoroughly investigated this site and guarantees its
authenticity’!”
“Huh. Who are
they when they’re at home?” I muttered under my breath.
Peter and Dad
laughed.
Mort was now
hopping from foot to foot, obviously excited.
Or he had to go
to the bathroom.
I gazed up at
the creepy-looking three-storey house and shivered. If they had a bathroom…
The five of us
started up the great front stairs to the doorway.
They creaked
‘authentically’.
So far so good.
“Oh, look at
that! A spider! Whoda thought?” Sally poked at a
large, furry brown member of the species in its
rather spectacular web.
It curled its
legs up, then scurried away from her.
“Oh. It’s real.
My bad.”
Just then, a
gust of wind blew over the porch, tossing Sally’s and my hair and almost
claiming Dad’s ball cap.
He opened the
door—another realistic creak—and we went inside.
“Welcome!” A
solemn voice called out. “Please join the group. We’ll be getting started
soon!”
The five of us
hovered near the door, allowing our eyes to adjust to the gloom. Finally, I was
able to make out a large, square room, with a stairway directly in front of me,
great shelves filled with…gee-gaws…on all the walls, and a rather
mundane-looking reception counter to the right. The voice seemed to have come
from there.
A group of 8 or
10 people were gathered/huddled beside the stairway. Some of them were, like
Mort, excited.
The rest seemed
more like me.
We gathered
with them.
A moment or two
later, a tall figure emerged from behind the counter and approached us—finally
coalescing into a young man.
Wearing a heavy
cowl.
Okay. Creepy.
“Welcome to
Dell House,” the young man said. “I’m Night and I’ll be your guide this
afternoon.”
His voice was
deep and sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a well.
I shivered. Of
course his name was ‘Night’.
“First, a
warning. Dell House spirits are capricious and unpredictable. They can appear
at any time and have been known to ‘attack’ in numerous ways. Blasts of wind.
Falling items and pictures. So please be alert. Best to stay away from walls at
all times. And hang onto each other.”
A timid hand slowly
rose on the far side of the group. “Ex-cuse me?” a faint voice said.
Night turned
toward them. “Yes?”
“Is it quite
safe?”
“Well…no one
has died here. Well…apart from the spirits.” Night’s laugh was, like him,
weird. “Stay together and let’s go.”
“Do you have a
history of this place?” Dad asked, falling into step beside our guide.
A long-fingered
hand dipped into some hidden pocket in Night’s robes and emerged with a handful
of pamphlets. “Our history is written here.” He handed one to Dad.
“Thanks.” Dad
fell back with the rest of us, squinting as he tried to read in the rather
inadequate light.
Suddenly, a
blast of wind, similar to the one we had felt outside, tore the paper from his
hands.
“Hey!” Dad made
a spectacular, but futile effort to catch it. Then he glared as the paper rose
nearly to the ceiling two floors above us.
Night silently
handed Dad a second pamphlet. “That happens a lot,” the young man said.
Dad looked at
me. “I’m beginning to believe the reports,” he whispered.
I giggled
nervously.
Night took us
up the main staircase.
By this point,
everyone in the group was clinging desperately to someone else.
My bunch wasn’t
any different. I had linked arms with both Dad and Peter and I saw Mort grab
Sally’s hand.
One man ahead
of me was gripping the heavily-carved bannister. Suddenly, he jerked his hand
away. “It’s hot!” he said.
“Oh, yeah.
That’ll happen, too,” Night said. “Careful.”
We had just
reached the top of the stairs when a stream of water came out of nowhere and
struck Mort in the chest.
“Hey!” he
shouted, ducking to one side and brushing hastily at his shirt, now dripping
wet.
Night paused
and looked at him. “Capricious and unpredictable.”
“Maybe you
should give us an idea of what more we can expect,” Dad said.
What can I say.
He’s an ex-marine, but the urge to plan and execute remains strong.
Night looked at
him and shrugged. “We don’t know, sir. It’s never the same twice.”
Dad looked at
me and Peter. I tightened my hold on both of them.
We were guided
along a wide hallway, hung with a dozen or more massive portraits.
“The family
through the generations,” Night said.
Man, this guy
wasn’t about to waste breath explaining anything!
As we were
passing one picture of a young girl and her beribboned pet goat, the picture
suddenly just…dropped, hitting the floor with a heavy thud.
Someone
shrieked and everyone huddled closer together in the center of the hallway.
Okay, I knew
why Night had advised us to stay away from the walls.
We continued
down the hall.
Doors slammed
open, then shut.
Light fixtures swayed
alarmingly.
Soft, strange music played. It would grow for a moment, then die.
And I’m pretty
sure I saw a translucent figure sail across the hall and into the wall just
ahead of us.
“Did you see
that?” I managed to gasp.
Dad and Peter’s
eyes were on the same spot.
“I did,” they
said together. They looked at each other.
“Keep up,” Night
said.
We hurried to
catch the others.
Throughout all
this, Mort and Sally were uncharacteristically silent. I kept glancing back to
make sure they were still with us.
Sally seemed
calm, but Mort’s eyes were bigger than dinner plates as he swiveled to watch
everything.
Night led us
into bedrooms, where rugs rolled themselves up and dresser drawers made a
staccato sound as they moved in and out. Blinds snapped up and curtains slid
back and forth across the rods.
Bedclothes were
tossed about.
A pillow sailed
past. Dad ducked, but I wasn’t as fortunate.
The resulting
cloud of dust made me sneeze repeatedly.
It was hard to
know how to react or where to look first.
As we made our
way back into the hallway from one of the bedrooms, Peter leaned close and
whispered in my ear, “Even if this is all fake, it’s pretty spectacular!”
Just as the
words left his lips, another wind blast tore through—this time seeming to
target him. It nearly pulled him free from my grip.
Our hold
tightened.
The tour
continued...
We couldn’t
have been in that house for more than half an hour, but it seemed days. Every
floor and room sported some new and startling event.
My fingers were
just beginning to grow slightly numb from Peter and Dad’s crushing grip when Night
finally steered us back to the main staircase.
We descended
it, relief writ large on every face in the group as we spied our escape.
Night stopped
at the bottom of the stairs, halting the group. Then he looked up at us. “We,
the spirits of Dell House hope you enjoyed your visit. Do tell your friends and
neighbours. And come back yourselves. If you dare.”
With those
words, he suddenly…disappeared.
I am not making
this up. He disappeared. His cloak was suddenly—empty. It dropped to the floor
in a heap of cloth.
We stared,
aghast.
One woman
fainted.
But Sally is
made of sterner stuff.
“Cool!” she
said. She cracked her knuckles and grinned at the rest of us. “Let’s go again!”
Use Your Words is a writing challenge!
Neither of us knows what the other will do with her words.
This month, Karen gave me:
ghost ~ grow ~ brown ~ spider ~ soft
Thank you, my friend!
Now go see what Karen did with my words!
