The Crumbling Mansion

It was but a simple, old decrepit Victorian mansion.  No one would ever think that anything exceptional could ever happen behind its walls.  But happen they did, and quite often if I do say so myself.  The shifting shadows, the creepy, dark portraits, might you say have been playing tricks on my imagination.

And yes, I do say that I think many tricks were played on me in that decrepit old mansion.  But it was certainly not my imagination that was playing the tricks, but rather the house.  The mysterious, old evil stench that always laid about the place never seemed quite natural to me, from the very beginning.

It all began from the day I set my foot across the threshold, and the first thing that my eyes did behold was a fat, piggish little man, shovelling food into his face like a forklift, while an old, disgusting, filthy woman with an obscenely garish mop of tangled red hair stared off into space, also shovelling food into her mouth with unmatchable avarice, eyes glazed, mouth sagging, jaw slack.  Yet there was something certainly unsettling about this unsightly woman.  It was as though I was observing an ancient, wicked witch, long gone to seed, but I could still detect the unmistakeable emanations of evil that this thing, thing I must say, was to say the least, still distinctly dangerous, much more so than her slovenly, retarded looking man, who looked as if he had just stepped out of a barnyard after falling into a pile of putrefying manure, and had the odor to match it.

They sat there, looking at me, the witch and her lackey, in a most disturbing way.  It was as if they were thinking of a way of cooking and eating me.  Drool was running out of the corners of their mouths and splattering on the floor.  They rose, as if zombies, and slowly shuffled past me and up the stairs, leaving me thankful that I did not have to defend myself from becoming the disfigured pair's next lunch.

They disappered from my sight, much to my relief.  I was left wondering though, what else the house had in store for me, despite its sorted inhabitants.  Strange that I should think that, for I am an educated man and deal in more than feelings and superstitions.  Spending 14 years as a lawyer has left me to deal strictly with facts, so I would have to push my feelings to the side and think of the place as merely what it was, a slowly deteriorating relic, sinking slowly, year by year, back to the muck from which it came.  The swamps were certainly eager to claim back what is theirs.

I turned my attention to the next inhabitant of the decrepit mansion.  She was a tall, beastly woman with long stragly gray hair and a mouth full of crooked, broken teeth.  This mannish figure looked me up and down, eyes full of crafty appraisal. 

Seated just behind this unsightly "woman" was a crooked old crone, stuck in a chair, feet gnarled and swollen.  Her toenails were black and filthy, the chair she was trapped in was covered in urine, as she was herself.  Scraps of rotted food protruded from underneath the couch.  She was mumbling to the air around her, as if speaking to someone, or perhaps reciting the words to some sort of spell, if I was a man who believed in such things.

The man who accompanied me on my sojourn, Dan, looked around in disbelief, as I peered up at him, I detected a faint wrinkle to his upper lip, however, he displayed no other sign of emotion, Dan was a dispassionate man by nature.  "To show feeling is to show weakness", he always told me.

I myself was having a hard time mastering my feelings and emotions, it was hard to describe the feelings the house imbued in me.  I felt hemmed in, trapped, the crumbling house itself seemed to carry a vast, cloying, suffocating power of its own, threatening my sense of reason and logic.

I heard a click and saw the door through which we had entered click and lock.  Dan and I were left standing in front of the beastly woman.  "My name is Rachel", she lisped out between her curved teeth, "and that", she gestured vaguely over to the old crone mumbling in the corner, "is my mother Martha".  She smiled in a greatly unsettling way.

"My guests", she jerked her thumb up the stairs, "are Daphne and Arnold, they are my borders here, and they are supposed to be my servants actually, but they've been of no use to me."

Rachel then ushered Dan and I into a small, cramed library that reeked of feces, body odor, dust and mold.  Books were chucked all over the place in an untidy fashion, and thick drapes were drawn across the window, as if the presence of sunlight was an unwelcome visitor here.  Tow ancient and repulsive looking couches furnished the room.  Rachel unceremoniously sprawlded on onef them and stretched out, as if shere were some king or queen from the darkest corner of the dark ages in history. 

Dan and I reluctantly took seats on the smaller couch.  I myself was afraid of getting all manner of nasty things stuck to my body.  I looked over at Dan and I could sense he felt the same way.

"What brings you two out to my abode", she lisped.  The truth was that by profession I was an investigative attorney, and Dan dealt more in the matters of history and the occult, and we were here to solve a dark mystery of several people who had disappeared here.  But I could not reveal that to her.  If she knew our real purposes, the best we could hope for was a quick expulsion from the house, at worst, we may just disappear from the earth forever.

So instead of voicing our true purpose, Dan stated "we are merely looking for a place to stay for a time, until we can find suitable lodging elsewhere, to tell the truth, there is no lodging to find in this area while we research this area."

The woman seemed unconvinced as she peered at us sharply, as if to see into the very depths of our souls.  Instead, she said, "I've been expecting you, unfortunately, you will have to share the remaining bedroom together, my servants occupy the other rooms on the second floor, and the third floor is", she paused, licked her lips and smirked "unsuitable for human habitation."  The flat look on her pale face made it clear there would be no further discussion on this topic.

"Let me show you to your room", she rasped, as she moved briskly to the staircase.  As we reached the first step Dan and I noticed the old crone mutttering.  "Oh, she talks to herself all the time, pay no heed", she remarked, as she flapped her filthy hand in Martha's direction.  But I could swear I could hear her chanting something, there was a distinct pattern to her speech and a gesturing of her hands.  I made a note to discuss this matter with Dan as soon as we had a moment of privacy.