Flicker and Snaps

Mom always says,'curiosity killed the cat,' but my father also made note with, 'satisfaction brought it back.' So doesn't that comment null itself out all together?

I try not to be curios about things, but when plagued with boredom I find it hard to resist my father's genes.

It was not something I was on whole content with; exploration was not consistent. Yet, while sucking on another peppermint as I laid on my bed, I came to realize that consistency could not be established if I did not fully understand my environment.

I mean I'd seen and gotten to know a few of the rooms, and placement of things, but there was a lot I had not seen in this house yet. This house was the oldest thing I'd ever been in before, who knew what I could find? Maybe I would find a way to cut off some time from my schedule!

No one said I was a visionary.

With those thoughts in mind I eagerly grabbed my trusted Hasselblad and started on my adventure.

From what I had been told the house had two main floors, with three different wings to the house for each floor. Below the first floor was the basement/cellar, and above the second floor was the attic and old servants' quarters.

Although it did not seem too big, the size of all of the floors was humongous! Plus, there were many places that Chad had locked up, that I could not get into. Okay, that I was not 'suppose,' to get into... Well, maybe he never said I could not go there, just the fact that there was locks on half of the doors, made me assume.

But, he had never actually told me not to go into the rooms with locks on it? This was my house now too, right? With that thought in mind I felt little to no guilt as I made my first stop, the men's parlor, that Chad had refurnished into a second office for himself.

How many offices do you need to make yourself feel like you are important? Although Chad had said that he had refurnished this room, I could not help but cough at the smell of old cigars which had long since been smoked. The entire room still smelled of the time spent in here by old family members. Although called an office, it was more of a hodgepodge of the houses history. This was the room Chad used when deciding what to do with the house. Pictures of family members and of lost memories littered the cork board behind his desk. The desk itself was made out of the same kind of light wood as the hardwood floor below it. Old formal chairs sat near an ancient looking bookcase. As I walked across the room the floorboards creaked, making me nervous. I was unsure why, Chad was at work and obviously not going to be able to yell at me, and my mother was in town shopping. Not to mention Gage had gone to Benedict's house, and Cicil was no where to be found; not that I had been looking for him or anything.

Maybe Karia and Marcy's words were getting to me, this house was creepy.

Still I paid no heed, instead I walked determined over to the key ring which was on a hook on the wall. The key ring was littered with dozens of different keys all different shapes, colors and sizes.

Taking the key ring off the hook was harder than I thought, it was actually quite heavy, for keys after all.

I fiddled with the keys for a moment running my fingers over each of the different blades, until I found the one I remembered, from when Chad had first explained this room.

I would only need the skeleton key, because none of the locks on doors that I have seen were new enough to need any more attention then that of a simple skeleton key could provide.

If I was in a hurry one key would not be missed compared to the entire chain. Also, I was pretty sure half of them opened trunks in the basement, or old house keys. The skeleton would work just fine for me.

Pausing over one of the keys my fingers traced the familiar shape of the key that I wanted, nodding to myself I pulled only that key off, then after putting the key in my pocket I put the others back on the hook.

Content with my actions I left the room to figure out what the big deal of this house was.

I had gotten to know all the rooms downstairs since I had arrived so I did not really think much of them, none of those rooms had seem to stand out, a parlor here, a kitchen there, normal, well unless you took into account the locked door in the very back of the pantry.

That had been something that had bothered me from the first time mom had made me get something out of it.

Who puts a door in a pantry?

When I had asked my mom where it went she had shrugged and told me to ask Chad, and trust me I was not that curious.

But now I was at liberty to find out on my own.

The pantry looked exactly as I had left it before, same dark cramp place as it had always, I suppose, been. Some people who are claustrophobic might run in terror of such a place, I must admit that I've never understood why. It was a small space, not a 12 foot long burmese python! Nothing in my book to be scared of.

Who was I to judge though?

One thing that I was thankful about Chad doing was that he had put a light in the pantry, although it took way too long to find the pull string, I was still happy on that note for finding it, or I would have a hell of a time locating the keyhole.

Looking at the door I did my best to dust a portion of it off around the keyhole so that I could make my job much easier. I noticed for the first time that the door itself was not gray, but had once been a faded blue.

As I dusted off the door I suddenly was caught in a large cloud of dust, sputtering I tried-and-failed at not sneezing.

Repulsed I quickly grabbed opened the door, wondering with earnest what was behind it.

I had imagined something amazing, some secret room or something that had been locked away for years, instead I found more dust, cob webs, and stairs.

For a moment I felt stupid, I had been in the kitchen after all, this obviously was the servants' stairs. I did wonder where in the house it lead to, although from the looks of things where ever it went was dark, too dark to go without a flashlight, and from the look of how unkempt it was I doubted that Chad had installed lights.

In that moment I decided I needed a flashlight, conveniently for me, I found one in the pantry and was able to move on.

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the light the flashlight gave off, its rays just barely touching the darkness of the stairway. The air gave off a musty and pungent smell only supporting my thoughts that no one had been in here for a while.

It boggled my mind that someone had gone this way multiple times a day. I now understood what Karia had said about, 'creepy'. This was very creepy, almost so that I wanted to turn tail and run, but I had made it in my mind to do this so I would. I needed to do this.

Taking a deep breath I readied myself for what I planned on doing. The longer I stood at the bottom of the stairs the darker the room seemed to get, if I didn't now I don't think I would have the nerve to do it later, nor the opportunity. Taking a deep breath I pulled a peppermint out of my pocket plopping it into my mouth, and began my climb.

The stairs gave creaks and groans as I stepped on them, dust caked the floor coming up in little clouds as I stepped on them, the light reflected off the musty walls giving them an eerie glow. The walls had once been a lovely yellow color, but now in their neglect looked like a mildewy nightmare. Spider webs seemed to be everywhere, I was not scared of spiders, but even so this gave me shivers.

My arms had goosebumps on them from the coldness of the area, which made me nervous, it was hot outside, and this room was not air conditioned; so why was it so cold?

Reaching the top of the flight of stairs, I was left with an option, there was another flight of stairs or I could see if my key would unlock the door.

Holding in a scream I jumped back as a loud crashing noise came from behind the locked door. Hitting the wall I fell down with a thud becoming coated with dust as it flew all around me, my heart was racing a mile a minute. Fear gripped me as my flashlight hit the floor going out, leaving me surrounded by darkness.

Now I was petrified, on my hands and knees I looked desperately for my flashlight, the darkness like a suffocating blanket had washed easily over me. What's worse was that the noises behind that door continued, thumping and gurgling, the sound of voices that I was not familiar with floated in the air, their words entering my ears like sirens. The voices chanted over and over 'Get her, Get her, Get her!' like a chorus of banshees screaming in the night. I felt like I was being watched, like I was not alone in the room, something was off something that I did not like one tiny bit. I know someone was watching me! I just wish that I could see them. Something brushed against my leg, and then my arm, and then back against my leg again, screaming I flailed away in complete darkness from what ever had been touching me. But no sooner had I moved away did the feeling come back again, in an instant I realized exactly what was touching me; fingers, and fingers meant a person. Now I was screaming my throat hurting as I tried to bat away whowhat ever was touching me. For a moment the touching became more and more violent almost hitting my arm and leg now, then for some reason that I could not understand it stopped.

Suddenly as if on on cue the darkness was obliterated by the sound of the locked door swinging open and a blinding flash of bright orange light shinning right in my face, screaming I jumped back against the wall looking in that moment to try and find a weapon. Looking for the person who had been speaking and who had touched me, but the room now illuminated with light showed no one.

"What the hell are you doing here, Jade? You scared the shit out of me!" Came out the all too familiar voice, Cicil

"What! You sneaked up on me! Wait, we aren't alone, I heard voices, and someone touched me! Did you see it?" I said quickly standing up I grabbed my flashlight that I could now see, holding it up like a weapon I waited for the voices to come again, and for me to see who was in the house without our permission. Creaking rushed to my ears, Someone was on the steps! Turning quickly I tried to get a good look at who ever had touched me, but from what I could see no one was there, and my flashlight after falling would not turn on. I could faintly see the light from the pantry shining up at me.

"You mean my Television?" Cicil asked giving me an odd look as he covered his mouth with his sleeve. following me only half way over, he obviosly thought I was crazy.

"Your television doesn't touch people!" I asked hesitantly.

I watched as he gave me a weird look before letting out a deep cough, the cough looked like it really hurt too, he was not doing well with all of the dust. He let out another cough mixed with a wheeze. I watched as his eyes widened, he looked panic stricken as he quickly ran back through the door, leaving me in the darkness again.

Running after him I quickly found the door, which led to another hallway, the first door in the hall was wide open, looking inside I saw Cicil bent over his desk, coughing up a storm as he fumbled with his inhaler.

This scared me, even more so when the inhaler slipped from his fingers landing far under his bed.

Running into the room I tried to get the inhaler, my back hurt as it hit the underpart of his bed, I think I was more scared now as I heard him gasping for breath then I'd been when I was in the dark.

A feeling of relief entered my body as I grasped the cool plastic of the inhaler wasting no time I painfully pulled myself out from under his bed, wincing in pain as a few strands of my hair got caught and painfully pulled out as I went.

Hurriedly I handed him his inhaler. Between wheezes he was able to rasp a few demands, "T-the-e door, leave!" I did quickly close the door leading out to the servants' stairs, but I was not about to leave him here alone wheezing like he was going to die.

Realizing that I was not going to leave as soon as he was able to catch his breath he ran, inhaler in hand out of his room to somewhere else I had a feeling I was not invited to.

I half thought that that was kind of rude, then I noticed that I was still covered in dust, and had now tracked it in and all around his room. Being in here would only cause him to have another attack, which I was technically to blame for.

I knew that I felt was not my imagination, although Cicil had been right about one thing, his television was to blame for the voices I had heard... But it did not explain the touches, and the pulls, and the jabs I had gotten in the dark.

Sighing in defeat I left Cicil's room, more annoyed at myself than anything, and now I had a feeling that I would get little rest. I know someone was there!

Climbing down the stairs on my way to get the vacuum, I felt something odd against my thigh looking down I saw something bulging out of my pocket.

Confused I stopped mid step, digging deep into my pocket in it I found a.... Key?

Okay, I know I sound crazy but this was not the key I'd taken, this looked nothing like the skeleton key that I had 'borrowed,' the key that I'd borrowed from Chad was gold and very simple looking, this one was silver, and had a heart shape to the head of the key.

I know I was not crazy, I may be a lot of things but crazy was not one of them, someone had taken my key and switched it out for this one.

But, who and why would someone do that?

If I was not 100% sure at this point when I went to the pantry door, and found the door closed, I knew that I was right. I had seen it open when I was at the top of the stairs!

Someone had been up there with me, and I was going to find out why, and who; if it killed me.