Page 10 of Monster Mansion

I was already typing “pizza near me” into my phone’s web browser before making my way back to the living room to continue enjoying the oversized couch I had just left. Without even bothering to see which place I was contacting, I called the first pizza delivery spot the internet provided. A teenage boy’s voice picked up the phone on the second ring.

“Papa’s Pizza Paradise, is this for pickup or delivery?”

“Delivery,” I told the kid, keeping my hopes up that they actually delivered all the way out here.

“Address?”

Shit. I didn’t have it memorized, so I threw my phone on speaker for a moment while I pulled up my recent GPS searches. I recited the address to the kid on the phone, along with an apology for making him wait.

“Are you serious?” he asked with a laugh. “That’s the big-ass mansion, right? With the gargoyles?”

“Yep! That’s the one,” I responded, relieved he knew the place, but knowing it might not be for good reason considering Ted’s stories. “Someone bought it, so I’m just here making sure the property’s taken care of until they’re ready to move in, or whatever,” I added, just in case this was one of the kids who used the property as a teenage party palace.

“Yeah, good one. Everyone knows that place is bad-fucking-news, lady. No way someone’s actually staying there. Nice prank, though.”

Before I could even ask what he meant, he hung up on me. The pieces of this mansion’s puzzle kept growing in number. Clearly this place meant something to the local population—something I surely hadn’t been clued in on—and I wondered if Mr. Silver was even aware. Though I supposed it was possible that the attitude I’d just received from the kid at the pizza shop was strictly due to his awareness of this place as a place kids went to drink and get high. I could very well be giving the situation more credit than it deserved.

Either way, I was still hungry, so I dialed the next place on the list. Without even trying for delivery, I just opted to pick it up. There were a few more hours until sunset, and I figured it was worth it to save myself any more trouble and just go get my dinner myself. I also really wasn’t looking for any more reason to feel suspicious of this place—at least not tonight. The person on the phone quoted me only ten minutes, so as soon as we hung up, I pulled on my shoes and headed out to the car, sure to lock the door behind me and leave a light on.

I drove with the windows down and let the warm mountain air rush through my vehicle as rock and roll filled my ears. As weird as things had gotten in such a short amount of time, I was still feeling confident and excited for the month ahead. With even the worst luck, I’d at least be able to enjoy reading a few books Iwantedto read, instead of books I had to read for school. Ted had mentioned there was a library in town, as well as a couple of bars. Perhaps tomorrow I’d do some prowling around town to see what exactly Tallpine had to offer an alternative college girl.

It was a good thing I’d left right away because it was nearly a twenty-minute drive to get to my second-choice pizza spot, but the folks working there were polite, and the food smelled great, so I considered it a success, even if I was about to eat lukewarm pizza. I couldn’t help diving into the food on the drive home, especially as my stomach audibly groaned in protest at the thought of waiting until I got back to the house.

I pulled up to the gate and quickly unlocked it with the key Ted had given me. Part of me considered locking the gate as soon as I passed through, but I decided against it. All I could think of was my dad lecturing me about how important it was that first responders are able to reach you in an emergency, so I just shut the gates, but left the chain unlocked and wrapped around the bars. The sun had just begun to peter below the treeline as my little car made its way back up the drive.

The mansion looked beautiful against the backdrop of a West Virginia summer sunset, but as my eyes scanned the silhouette of the house, I nearly screamed in surprise for the second time that day.

Standing on the roof of the mansion was a creature my brain couldn’t name. I wasn’t sure the scale, but my instincts told me the thing had to be well over eight feet tall with a horrible, bent posture. Its long neck hung at the same level as the beast’s shoulders, and its elongated skull seemed to be looking right at me as I drove. I couldn’t make sense of it. The thing stood on two legs, but its arms hung long and low, like it could run on all fours if it needed. The most unusual thing about it was the pair of massive spiked antlers that fanned backward, as if every felled deer in the forest lent some of its former glory to the creature’s rack. It was all at once absolutely terrifying and incredibly impressive.

Curiosity pulled me forward, but my brain tried its best to warn me to be cautious. Still, I crept forward slowly, wondering if the beast was as scared of me as I was of it—if ‘scared’ was even the right word. I kept my foot pressed down on the brakes of my car when I was as close as I could get to the mansion while still being able to see the creature on the roof, but like it could sense me staring at it, it bolted off the roof toward the back garden.

Once the thing was gone, I drove my car back up to the front of the circle, where I’d parked before. At that moment, I wished, more than anything, that I could find the little girl who wrote the diary. I wished I could tell her that I believed her.

Chapter5

Logan

I spent the evening streaming a light-hearted show on my laptop, devouring half of the medium pepperoni-and-banana-pepper pizza, and trying not to think about thethingI saw on the roof. The way it stared at me entirely motionless made me feel like it might have been just as curious about me as I was about it. Something about the creature made me think of old hoax videos where folks would “prove” a cryptid was real, but it was actually just a dog with mange, or a guy in a costume. This thing though, whatever it was, was very real.

As the show played in the background, I logged all the strange things that had happened that day in one of my notebooks. As time went on and as I worked on my project, I had to make sure I wasn’t going to forget anything. Not that it would be easy to do.

The sky outside the windows faded from a pink and orange sunset to a clear navy blue, and I settled in as I watched the sky go to sleep for the evening. Even with all the suspicions I had of the mansion, I couldn’t deny the coziness. In the back of my mind, it felt like not only was I alone in the house, but I was alone in the world. It brought with it a sort of comfortable melancholy that wrapped me up like an old blanket, and as the credits ran for the show I was streaming, the weight of my eyelids told me it was time for bed.

The light from the living room cascaded over the bottom half of the stairs, and the darkened parts of the mansion were like the sea between islands. I got a lesson in which light switches were connected to which lights as I journeyed from the living room to the east wing to get ready for sleep. With my laptop shut for the evening, every noise on top of the chorus of crickets sounded like a racket. Even the creak in the stairs sounded like it was amplified through the house, so when the sound of something running dashed over my head sounded like a bull in an antique shop, I tried to convince myself it wasn’t as loud as I imagined it was.

The sound was unmistakably the sound of running on two feet. Loud feet. Like someone wearing heavy boots stomping overhead. It reminded me of the creature I’d spotted on the roof, and I wondered if it was the culprit—if it had access to the inside of the house as well as the outside. Goosebumps pricked over my arms at the thought, and I shoved down the idea as deep as I could. So long as I retained control over my thoughts and my fear, I would not give any power to the otherworldly forces at work within the walls. At least, I hoped I wouldn’t. And if all else failed, my gun would come in handy. Like bringing a knife to a… ghost fight. On second thought, bullets might not be as intimidating as I thought.

Sighing heavily, I squared my shoulders and walked determinedly down the hall to get ready for bed. Earlier, I’d chosen to make the bathroom closest to my bedroom my home base for my stay, and had already moved all my toiletries in. I liked it because it was decorated with a similar childish whimsy as my bedroom. Soft pink walls created a lightness to combat the dark wood bead board and vanity, and the claw-footed tub was lined with a unique clear-green shower curtain.

My reflection stared back at me from the circular vintage mirror, and I leaned forward to further inspect a blemish on my chin. Good thing I wasn’t out here trying to impress anybody, though the greasy pizza probably didn’t help. I washed my face and brushed my teeth before retiring back to my bedroom as the sound of steps overhead seemed to follow me wherever I moved. There was no way to be sure, but I was almost certain I was being followed from overhead, and I didn’t want to give whatever it was the satisfaction of knowing that I knew, so I played ignorant and did my best to ignore whatever presence followed me around.

I knew that, logically, if my stalker wanted to harm me, it very well could have, and on more than one occasion. It had the element of surprise on its side as well as a more complete understanding of the layout of the house, but so far it gave me no reason tofearit. Maybe the request I’d made earlier in the day that we all just “be cool” with one another had hit home, or maybe my initial assumption was correct and we were just more interested in observing one another.

I left the hall light on when I entered my bedroom and shut the door.Not my electric bill, I thought, and the glow of the lightbulbs peeking through the crack under the door made me feel more at home. Dad was terrible about turning lights off, and the dorm’s main lights seemed to be on all the time, so it helped to relieve what few nerves I was experiencing on my first night in the mansion.

The sensation of putting on my silk pajamas immediately relaxed me. I didn’t realize how uncomfortable I was after sitting in my jean shorts all day long. I brushed out my hair and threw it in a messy bun so it wouldn’t get too tangled overnight, crawled into bed, and turned off the lamp that sat on my bedside table.

My phone lit from where it sat next to me on the table, and I checked it one final time before swapping to “do not disturb” for the rest of the night. It was just after ten—much earlier than I would normally consider going to sleep—and I had a text waiting for me from Blair.

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