Page 8 of Monster Mansion

“Don’t tell me you’re already hungry, Ruse,” Nox lamented. “We’ve just had a girl a week ago, and this one is proving she won’t be so easily taken.”

The snake slithered around the creature’s neck like a collar. “I’m notstarving, but I could eat. I could always eat, to be honest. Who couldn’t?”

Nox shook his head. “You and Thorn are both going to drive me insane between your incessant appetite and his stomping about all day. One day, I’m just going to stake myself in the heart and to strike myself down to dust if it means I’ll no longer have to be stuck here with the both of you.”

“I know you don’t mean that, Nox! Come now.” The snake shifted into a spider-monkey and clung affectionately to the creature. “Us three have made the best of the last hundred-seventy-odd years. You’d be struck down with boredom if you were alone here all this time.”

Just as the shifter stopped speaking, a colossal bump rang out over their heads.

“Shit, there he goes again,” Nox hissed. “Does our friend knownothingabout the concept of subtlety?”

The pale creature disappeared into the dark space inside the fireplace, and Ruse shifted into a moth, fluttering to a hiding spot in the drapery. The two of them eyed the balcony in silence for any sign of the girl, to see if she’d come to investigate the noise.

She emerged from the hallway with a force of determination and paused near the center of the balcony.

“Hey!” she cried out with a viscous attempt at intimidation. Nox watched her with genuine curiosity. This girl was the first of all the many, many young women the Man delivered to them to actually come out and face the noises—the unknown threats that could be lurking around every corner of this dusty old mansion.

The girl—Logan, he knew her name was—looked about for a moment as if she was challenging the noise to threaten her again, but when she was met with quiet in return, she retreated to her bedroom of choice and slammed the door behind her. Nox felt compelled to follow her, just to continue watching from a safe distance. She was the most interesting thing to happen to him in longer than he could remember, and he wasn’t quite ready to leave her be quite yet.

“What does she think she’s going to do?” Ruse questioned him after drifting as a moth down from the drapery. “Fight a sound? She looks crazy.”

“Ruse. Shut the fuck up. For once,” Nox insisted as his smoky black tendrils emerged from the dark fireplace. The rest of his shadowy form followed them across the floor, up the wall, and onto the ceiling of the east wing’s second-floor hallway.

Logan’s door was shut, but he could hear her quietly singing along to the music she played for herself, and the scent of her wafted through the gap under the door. His human form rose from the floor, and he inhaled deeply. She smelled… delicious. Devouring her would be the equivalent of a five-star meal, but he wanted to do more than taste the metallic tang of her blood. Nox rested his hands on the door, and then his face, just to feel near the girl. He wanted totouchher, to experience the sensation of her full lips on the ends of his writhing tendrils that extended out from his spine. He wanted to wrap her up in them, hold her down, and—

The sound of her approaching footsteps forced him to melt into shadow on the floor as she pulled the door open, hung something around the knob, and shut the door once again to isolate herself. He heard the sound of her speaker’s volume raise a touch higher. With Logan distracted once more, Nox slipped up the wall next to the door to inspect what she had hung there.

Witch bells.

A wooden ring hung around the knob like a wreath, and from it dangled a variety of bells, feathers, and dried herbs in tiny jars. It was a traditional magick item, and Nox had seen many of them in his years prior to the mansion. Supposedly, they were meant to accomplish two tasks: announce when a visitor was opening the door, and prevent evil spirits or negative energy from entering.

Too bad for Logan, Nox was neither a ‘spirit’ or ‘energy.’ He was very real, and he wanted herverybadly.

“Let the games begin,” Nox snickered as he slunk away from the door to plot his next move.

Chapter4

Logan

Great! I had been in the house for all of two hours and I was already convinced the place was haunted. The thumping I could hear in the walls had to be something larger than squirrels, and though the game of closing my suitcase wasn't particularlythreatening, it was rather frustrating. Whatever was messing with me was not doing a very good job of frightening me, if that was its goal—theirgoal? Either way, I was glad I’d brought along some things my grandmother had given me. We would have to see how effective her Appalachian magick trinkets were in action.

After I’d organized my clothes in the childish navy-blue dresser the room provided, I gathered my notebooks and my phone charger. I pulled out the drawer of my side-table to put them away, but found the side drawer to be occupied already. Carefully, I pulled out a tiny diary. On the cover were two fluffy white kittens in an Easter basket, and when I carefully unlocked it with the tiny key laying next to it in the drawer, the first page was dated May 10, 1972. The handwriting was legible, but unstable, as a child’s would be.

Dear Diary,it read.

I saw a monster in the garden behind the toolshed. Mama and Papa don’t believe me, but I know what I saw. I am going to say my prayers twice tonight. I hope I do not see it again.

-Daisy

I couldn’t believe what my eyes were reading, and even more couldn’t believe that this diary had been sitting in this drawer for fifty years essentially undisturbed. How could it be possible that not a single person opened this drawer in all that time? My curiosity couldn’t help itself as I turned the page to another entry dated May 23, 1972.

Dear Diary,

I saw the monster again. I saw him eating Penny after Papa told me she ran away. Nobody believes me.

-Daisy

A monster? My first reaction was to read the pages a second time through the lens of a child. I knew there could be an obvious explanation. This mansion was situated in the thick woods of West Virginia, and fifty years ago, I’d wager there wasn’t nearly the population as during my stay, which was already minimal at best. The monster she saw could have been a bear, or a coyote, or even just a mangy groundhog creeping around.

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