by Ron Ripley
Marie watched as he stood up, went to the bar, and took down a bottle of what looked like cognac. He carried it over, winked at her as he uncorked it, and topped off her glass. The aroma was potent and appealing.
She waited until he had returned to his chair before she took another drink.
“Tell me, Marie,” he said. “Do you like my home so far?”
She looked at the elegance of the parlor, vaguely recalled a stone building that resembled a castle, and nodded.
“So do I," he said with a sigh. "It cost me a terrible amount of money to build. But it was worth it. It was terrible that I had to marry for the money, she was a wretched woman, mind you. However, in the end, it was worth it. Decidedly so."
Marie nodded her agreement.
“You’re a very amicable woman, Marie,” he said. “I hope your friends are as pleasant as you are.”
“They are,” Marie assured him. “Well, Frank is. Shane can be testy. A little difficult.”
“You know,” the man said, leaning forward, “I suspected as much. He looks like, how do they say, like a hard case? I must say that while he would probably be a good man in a fight, that’s not really what we look for here.”
“He can fight,” Marie agreed. “He likes to fight.”
“Of course he does,” her host said, sitting back once more. “You only have to catch the glint in his eye to realize that.”
“Frank’s a nice man,” Marie continued. “Used to be a monk.”
“Really?” the man asked, a conspiratorial grin on his face. “You don’t say.”
Marie nodded. “And a soldier.”
“My,” the man said in a soft voice, “he’s duality in the flesh. Peace and violence combined in one body. I do hope Genevieve is careful with him.”
“He’s good,” Marie said. She took another sip of the cognac.
“Do you like that?” the man asked, grinning.
Marie nodded.
“It’s a Croizet,” the man said. “Exceptional. Monsieur Croizet began producing it shortly after Napoleon seized power.”
“It’s good,” she said.
“Yes,” the man said, chuckling. “It certainly is.”
A tremendous bang sounded, and the door in the wall behind her host shuddered in its frame.
Marie, drunk as she was, felt certain the look of surprise on the man’s face mimicked her own.
The door was slammed into again, and then it burst open.
A tall, naked man ran in. He was old and lean, his body muscular and the skin scarred and pockmarked. In his right hand, he carried a small, black object that looked like a coffin-head nail.
“Hello, Emmanuel,” the naked man said, and he sprinted at her host.
Emmanuel sprang to his feet, yet even as he did, the old man reached her host and lashed out with the nail. It struck Emmanuel’s temple, and the man vanished.
And so too did the façade of the parlor.
Marie was in a poorly lit room, the only semblance it had to the well-appointed parlor was the liquor cabinet and the naked man.
Horrified, Marie looked down into the glass she held and saw an ancient, fetid liquid. Small insects squirmed at the surface of the liquor.
Marie hurled the glass across the room, leaned over the frayed arm of the decrepit chair she was in, and vomited onto the threadbare carpet.
Chapter 48: In the Basement
Shane stood in darkness so complete it was as if the sun had never existed.
Around him, he heard scratching, a steady, repetitive noise. A dank, mildew smell filled his nostrils, and he could almost taste rot on the back of his tongue.
His heart thumped, and his blood picked up its pace within his veins.
He adjusted the rings on his fingers, shrugged his shoulders beneath the straps of his pack and closed his eyes.
An unknown creature moved towards him, the sound of scratching joined by that of dragging.
Shane slipped his right hand into his back pocket and withdrew his knuckle-dusters. They clicked against his iron rings, and he resisted the urge to take off the pack and retrieve his shotgun. Firing it would be counterproductive, he knew. The noise would deafen him, and the blast itself would do little if any good.
A soft voice spoke to him from the darkness.
“Hello?”
It was a woman. There was fear and panic in her voice.
“Hello,” Shane replied.
“Oh my God!” she sobbed. “I’ve been down here for days!”
A chill washed over him, and Shane knew she had been down there for longer than a few days.
“Why don’t you do me a favor and stay where you are?” Shane asked. He put no comfort in his words and the woman sensed it.
“Why?” she asked in a low, pitiful tone.
“It’ll work out for the best,” Shane said.
“I need help,” she pouted, and he heard her move towards him.
Shane grinned, and the woman stopped.
“Why are you smiling?” she demanded.
“How can you see me?” he asked in return.
She hesitated, then laughed.
“Oh, I see you very well,” she said. “What’s your name?”
“Not anything you need to worry about,” he responded.
“I want your name,” she spat, all humor gone from her voice. “Give it to me.”
“No,” he answered.
When she spoke again, it was from only a short distance away, her voice near the floor.
“Tell me your name!” she hissed.
Within Shane, he felt a tug, a desire to step forward and to crush the dead woman.
But he remembered Mr. Johnson’s letter.
Shane remembered the man’s warning of doing the opposite of what his instinct told him.
With a chuckle, Shane turned around and walked away.
The dead woman let out a stream of profanity, most of which he couldn’t understand. She screamed for him to turn around, to return and to name himself.
Shane ignored all of it, just as he ignored his own primal urge to destroy her.
Her voice fell away as he continued on. The echo of his footsteps came closer and closer, and he realized that the walls had begun to close in. He found himself in a narrow passage, his shoulders brushing against the stone on either side of him. Occasionally his feet tripped over an unseen object, and he would stumble.
But he never fell.
The temperature continued to drop until his teeth chattered as he walked. In spite of the chill in the air, Shane could still smell the foul, rank odor of mildew. Then the pungent scent of vinegar was detected a moment before the walls fell away and Shane came to a stop.
He listened and heard murmurs.
“Why are you here?” a man asked. “Have you come to fetch a bottle?”
“No,” Shane answered. “I’m passing through.”
“You’ve come the wrong way then,” a woman said. “You’re in the wine cellar.”
“Still,” Shane said, “I’m passing through.”
There was silence for a short time, and then the woman said, “Won’t you ask us for directions?”
“No,” Shane said.
“Do you know where you’re going?” the man asked.
“No,” Shane said.
“You can’t see anything,” the man added.
“Nothing at all,” Shane confirmed.
Suddenly the woman’s voice was near his right ear.
“And you’re not afraid,” she murmured. “Robert, he’s not afraid.”
"I can see that, Marta," Robert said, sighing.
“You’re not blind, are you?” Marta asked.
“No,” Shane answered. “Leastways, not yet.”
“Tell me,” Robert said. “Why are you here?”
“I’m going to burn this place to the ground,” Shane stated.
The man and woman laughed, but the laughter trailed off quickly. When the woman spoke again, it was from a little furt
her away.
“You’re serious,” she said.
“Yes,” Shane agreed.
“Why?” Robert asked. “Why are you going to do that?”
“Because it needs to be done,” Shane answered.
“That, it does,” Robert said in a low voice.
“Someone’s taught you the trick,” Marta said. “About not listening.”
“Yes,” Shane said.
“Good,” Marta said. “Very good. We never learned. Robert and I came here to visit Emmanuel. We had become good friends when he would summer in Newport. He invited us up to see the Vermont foliage.”
“We never left,” Robert said, his voice thick with bitterness. “His servants brought us down to the wine cellar, and they left us here. Emmanuel said he enjoyed our company so much that he wanted to see if we would age as well as his fine wines.”
“We did not,” Marta added.
In the distance, Shane heard a scraping sound. The first ghost he had encountered was on the move.
“That’s Abigail,” Marta said with disgust. “A new arrival. Far too gauche. She has an interest in you?”
“So it would seem,” Shane said. He resisted the desire to go into the passage after her.
“Follow your path,” Robert said, “and burn the rotten heart out of the Keep.”
“Not everyone will want you to,” Marta said.
“I know,” Shane said. He started forward again, focused on the opposite of what his heart told him.
“We will, however, pass the word along to those who want Emmanuel to suffer,” Robert added. “There are more than a few of us here.”
Shane nodded his thanks.
“Will it hurt him?” Marta called after him.
Shane hesitated and said over his shoulder, “I don’t know.”
“I hope it does,” Marta said, her voice filling with hatred and rage. “I hope he feels every last moment of it.”
Shane nodded and continued on his way.
I hope he will too, Shane thought.
Ahead of him, he saw a faint light, and in a moment he came to a fork in the passage. To the left, he could see a hint of a door. The passage to the right was black.
Shane plunged on into darkness.
Chapter 49: An Ally
“Hey,” the naked man snapped. “Pull yourself together.”
His voice was hard and commanding, in spite of the fact that he stood in front of Marie without a shred of clothing on.
Marie nodded, tried to spit the lingering aftertaste of vomit out of her mouth and got to her feet. She wavered for a heartbeat, but she got herself under control and looked about the room.
It was a far cry from the beautiful parlor she had imagined herself in a few minutes earlier.
“We need to get out of here,” the man said. “Before Emmanuel comes back. He’s not going to be happy with me.”
“Do you want my sweatshirt?” Marie asked, starting to remove her backpack.
“Why?” the man inquired. “Is it bothering you that much?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I wasn’t sure if you were cold or not.”
“Can’t worry about the cold right now,” he replied. “Name’s David, by the way.”
“Marie,” she responded. “Thank you.”
He gave a curt nod. “Thank me after we get out. What do you have in that bag of yours?”
She gave him a quick run-down of the pack's inventory, and he gave a small, tight smile of appreciation.
“Mind if I have something a little bigger than my nail?” he asked, holding the small piece of iron up.
It was then Marie saw the cuts and scrapes on the old man’s flesh. Some of it was fresh, others were scabbed over. He was dirty and looked exhausted.
“How long have you been here?” she asked.
“I’m not sure,” he said. “Probably between four and five days.”
Marie examined him and saw none of the tell-tale signs of dehydration or starvation.
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
He shook his head.
“Have you eaten?” she said.
David nodded. He held up a hand though and said, “Don’t ask that. Now, about that extra bit of protection?”
Marie took off her pack, dug through it and removed a length of iron chain. When Shane had given it to her, he had muttered something about the Slater Mill and had left it at that.
When she passed it over, David dropped the nail to the floor, wrapped part of the chain around his hand and nodded in approval.
“Good,” the man said. “Let’s get out of here. Do you know where we are?”
She shook her head. “No, but I didn’t come alone. There were two others with me. Emmanuel said something about Frank being with a woman named Genevieve?”
David shuddered, and in the thin light, Marie saw goose-bumps erupt across his flesh.
"If he's lucky, she killed him quickly," David said, glancing at the ceiling. Then he looked back at Marie and asked, "Were your friends armed like you?"
“Yes,” she answered.
“Maybe he made it out then,” David muttered to himself. He nodded. “Yes. He could have. And what about your other friend? Did Emmanuel say anything about that one?”
“I don’t know about Shane,” Marie replied. “He didn’t say where he was.”
The house shuddered, and Marie reached out and steadied herself with the help of the chair.
A high, keening wail went ripping through the air, and Marie felt a cold wind as it went racing by her face.
David let out a grim chuckle. “Evidently your friend Shane was in the basement.”
“How do you know?” Marie asked.
“That was Abigail who went by,” he answered.
“How can you tell?” Marie asked, shaking her head.
“I just can. Come on. Genevieve’s on the fourth floor,” David said, adding, “if Emmanuel hasn’t shifted the house again.”
Without waiting to see if she would follow, David turned and left the room. Marie shook her head and questioned her sanity as she followed a naked man out of the parlor.
David led her into a murky hall, a narrow affair with gray wallpaper hanging in curls to reveal horsehair plaster. A few picture frames, each askew, hung on thin wire from the walls.
“Straight to the end,” David said over his shoulder. “If everything is right we should find a stairwell.”
“And if it’s not?” Marie asked.
"Then it's not, and we don't," David said.
Marie rolled her eyes. The man sounded exactly like Shane, and another Shane was not what she wanted.
She passed a large, gilt frame, most the gold stripped from it by time. Within the frame itself was an old mirror, the silver backing spotted and faded. When she looked into it, she saw a careworn version of herself, and then a black hand snapped out of the mirror and grabbed her by her hair.
Before she could pull herself free, the hand yanked her forward, smashing her forehead into the wall.
Marie felt her legs give out, her hair was released, and she slid to the floor, unconsciousness rolling over her.
Chapter 50: Another Good Deed
David didn't know why he did it, but when he heard Marie's head smash into the wall, he turned and went back for her.
While she slid down to the floor, the thing in the mirror climbed out.
He had seen it once before, and only from a distance. A teenage boy had gotten into the house, and David and Harlan had heard the boy's screams. They had been there for a routine check on the property, to clean up whatever debris the dead had turned the living into. David and Harlan had the unfortunate experience of seeing what some of Emmanuel’s darker friends had been capable of.
David’s dreams had been plagued by the experience for years.
The black form which stood above Marie was sexless, its face without features.
David remembered the way it had stripped the flesh off of the boy's face, and he
lashed out with the chain.
The iron hummed through the air, ripped through the dark creature and smashed into the wall. Horsehair plaster exploded, dust and particles raining down on the unconscious woman as the creature vanished with a shriek that left David's head pounding.
He staggered back, the sound striking him like a blow. The chain bounced off his leg, cold and painful as a bit of skin was pinched between a pair of links. David forced himself forward, and he dropped down into a squat beside Marie.
Blood dripped from numerous small cuts on her forehead, and when he lifted up her eyelids, only the whites were revealed. David stayed beside her for a moment and considered what he should do. Every ounce of him screamed for him to strip her of her equipment, take at least a few items of her clothing, and get out.
David didn’t though. It felt wrong on a deep, primal level and in a way he had never heeded before. He took a deep breath and picked Marie up, slinging her into a fireman’s carry. David staggered a little, more from bearing her weight with his bare feet than anything else. With his free hand he steadied her, and with the chain dragging on the floor in the other hand, David made his way towards the door he hoped would be there.
Chapter 51: Through Borgin’s Keep
Frank hated to fight the dead.
In his mouth, he could taste the fetid dust of Genevieve and for a moment, he wondered how much of her he had inhaled.
He remembered the lighter in his back pocket, reached for it, took it out, and flicked it into life. The small flame produced enough light to show him that Genevieve’s remains were scattered on the bed, beneath the sheet. He shrugged his pack off, knelt down and rummaged through it, pulling out the salt and lighter fluid.
“That wasn’t nice,” Genevieve said with a pout.
Frank stiffened as he snapped the lighter shut, extinguishing the flame. Her voice came from across the room.
“Did you think striking me with iron would cast me from the house?” she asked.
Frank stood up, holding onto the lighter fluid and the salt.
“No,” he answered, opening the salt container and spreading some of it out over her remains.
