House of the Damned

I was definitely overreacting.

Maybe if they were just able to talk to each other…maybe that would be all she needed? This wasn’t some mediocre-budget Hollywood flick where the most dangerous, ridiculous option was the only way out. This was real life, which should be sensible, practical, and above all, normal.

But nothing had been normal since the fire.

And if I expected to do anything, anyway, I’d be trying to track down a man whose name I had never known. And there wasn’t any place where I could get any information on him…

My head snapped up from frowning at the book text.

Yes, there could be. Didn’t nearly all mansions have some sort of library?

Dropping the book on my bed, I left the room and began searching. I had never really seen the wing of the house opposite mine, but I remembered hearing that there were only a few bedrooms there and the rest were every other type of room you could think of—offices, a theater, a billiard room, an enormous master bath, and even servants’ quarters.

How on earth could just two people live in such an enormous house? I thought enviously. And I consider myself lucky to have my own room.

I walked carefully past the rows of bleached doors. This side of the house was definitely more ornate, but much mustier from being barely touched since we arrived here.

The dull murmur of the conversations of people coming back from breakfast drifted up to me, and I knew some kids might come up to play around in the wing for a few hours, but I paid it no mind. I doubted anyone would notice me slipping in the library to flip through books.

Although it wasn’t novels I was looking for, but documents. House deeds, bills, checks, signed papers, anything that would give me a name.

I gave a sad sort of chuckle at the thought. Two weeks ago my biggest worries were school and finding time to actually do what I enjoyed. Now I hadn’t spared a thought toward any hobby, couldn’t care less about class, and was searching for fifty-year old papers that could lead me to the killer of a ghost that wanted to slowly execute my entire orphanage.

Amazing how quickly things could change—all because of some idiot who let a blazing match slip from his fingers, or whatever had happened to burn my home to the ground.

My stomach twisted slightly at the recollection of that night. I had always delicately avoided memories, no matter how important they were. They’d never done anything for me except distort the person I was, and I wanted nothing to do with them.

Mostly I got my way. But every now and then, it’d rear its ugly head and—

But I was getting off track. I was supposed to be checking each room and figure out which one was the library.

So now I began wondering absentmindly about where it might be. It was probably bigger than the other rooms, and as a result the door might be further away from the others…

Some of the rooms I found were simply incredible—haunted or not, they were definitely done by some brilliant master of architecture. Every room had its own unique combination of colors, even though it was faded from the passing of time. I found a bathroom splashed in turquoise and green, with bathtubs mounted on clawed feet and intricately sculpted wooden shelves. There was even a studio with untouched supplies of every medium I could think of (and others I didn’t even come close to recognizing) and a blank canvas that stretched wider than my arm span. Nearly all of them had windows allowing sunlight to flow through.

Eventually, though, I reached the last room in the hallway. This had to be the library, then. Oddly enough, it was pitch black—there were no windows to be found. I reached out and started groping along the wall to look for a light switch.

That was when I saw the eyes.

Concealed by the blackness just outside the tunnel of light emitting from the hallway was a pair of glowing red irises, rounded and filled with a terrible fear. It was the ghost of a girl—but all I could see was her head, floating there five feet above the ground, staring right back at me as if she had gotten the fright of her life.

Her mouth moved like she was speaking. No sound came out.

“Oh! Oh, my God…” My heart thundered in my chest.

Her eyes continued to widen, and she retreated further into the room quicker than I thought possible. She never removed her gaze from mine, and I was too frozen in terror to move.

Soon she was just two fiery red pinpricks in the distance. I knew that look she’d given me would be burned into my head forever.

I slammed the door so hard it vibrated off the walls, and I sprinted out of the wing. Thankfully, there was no one around. I did my best to slow my still increasing heart rate as I slowed to a walk, panting hard and shaking so badly I had to stop and lean against the wall for a moment.

I should have known this was going to happen!

I’d forgotten that darkness was what made ghosts visible, not night and day. Just because it was morning didn’t mean I couldn’t see them…

Again my determination to ignore what scared me had screwed up my plans. And I was far from willing to go back in there for a long time.

Stupid of me to forget my fear of the mansion I was trapped in. And even more childish of me to run away, when I could have tried talking to the girl…

I had to go back there eventually. The clock was ticking, and that library could be the only place where I could start to learn who the ghost woman’s husband was.

I couldn’t believe I was letting some pathetic fear of things jumping out at me in the dark prevent me from doing what I needed to. But I was.

I wanted so desperately to get out of this prison full of nightmares. Away from these apparitions, away from the nighttime murder of last night, away…

Still trembling, I found the door to my room—casting a sideways glance at the one next to it—and stepped inside to find yet another person waiting for me.

Ms. White was sitting on the edge of my bed, face etched with disappointment and anger, with Poltergeists, Demons and Other Spirits: A Guide clutched in her hands.