Following the chilling success of their first collection, Lady Eckland, Glenn Riley, and new collaborator, Bella Darkwood return to guide you through the shadowy corridors of fear with their second compendium, *Whispers In The Dark 2*. These master...
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I would like to take the opportunity to thank Horror73 for providing the idea and inspiration behind this story and Bellawriter07 for taking this idea and creating a really good story from it. Lady Eckland
Night enveloped New Orleans like a mourning veil, the street lamps casting jaundiced circles onto the moist cobblestones. A chill crept between the narrow buildings, winding through the French Quarter and swirling around my neck. I pulled my collar tighter and quickened my pace, the click of my boots punctuating the darkness.
I reached the iron gates of the Maison du Fantôme and gripped the rusting bars, peering through the creeping ivy at the decrepit mansion. Once a symbol of the wealth and decadence that flowed through New Orleans like the Mississippi herself, it now stood decayed, a crumbling relic with darkness oozing from its eyes.
As I pushed open the creaking gate, the wind grabbed at my long coat. I couldn't tell if it was urging me inside or warning me away. I felt the weight of the mansion's history clinging to my shoulders—the lavish parties, the sinister rumors, the unexplained horrors that befell its occupants so long ago.
According to local legend, it began with the arrival of an enigmatic figure known only as The Count. He drifted into New Orleans one humid summer and purchased the mansion outright with a singular black briefcase. No one knew the contents of that case, or the origin of The Count's tremendous wealth. But his nightly entertainments became the stuff of legend, with the city's most prominent and eccentric personalities arriving in droves, never to reveal the shocking sights they witnessed behind the mansion's walls.
Until one storm-ravaged night, when blood and viscera painted its elegant interiors. The authorities discovered The Count himself buried alive in the garden. His hand jutted from the dirt, fingers twisted into a gruesome claw, as if frantically trying to crawl back to the world of the living.
The mystery of his entombment and the horrors leading up to it were never solved. And in the decades since, an air of superstition clung to the mansion. Dark rumors spread of vengeful spirits, violent poltergeists, and The Count himself, doomed to haunt its halls for all eternity...
I crept up the steps now, tracing my fingers over the spiderwebs draping the grand mahogany doors. My heart thudded as I pushed inside, the doors yawning open with an earsplitting groan. I raised my flashlight. Its beam cut through the oppressive gloom, illuminating the dust motes dancing through the still air.
The foyer still maintained traces of its former grandeur--faded burgundy wallpaper, once plush but now unraveled in long, writhing tendrils. An immense crystal chandelier coated with grime that glinted in my flashlight's glow. The intricate patterns in the parquet floor, the scratched surfaces of once-gilded tables and cabinets. Tantalizing hints of what used to be.
