Halloween By Day: Tales for the Good Children

Tale 2: The Servants

John listened to the howling wind screaming at him. He turned onto his stomach, hoping the mattress would drown out the dreadful noises. But the untrustworthy mattress did no such favor for John. He sighed, annoyed with himself. He thought buying this dilapidated house was the smartest thing he ever did. All he cared about was the money he was saving. But John learned the hard way that every pleasure has its price. The literal price of the house wasn’t too bad, but the bad price was the results of the botches that the construction workers did.

         It was a month after he bought the house, and he already hated it. He planned on buying a new house. He had the money to. John only owned the real estate business. He was very successful for himself, and had enough money to buy five yachts. But he was cheap, and wanted to spend money on the finest wines around the world, instead. He was a wine enthusiastic. However, the most important goal for him at the moment was to leave the house. The shutters slammed loudly on him, and the pipes in the walls banged and clanged loud enough to wake the dead.  But that’s another tale entirely.

         The next morning, John called his real estate agent about moving. Within five months, the real estate agent found a house that he thought would be perfect for John to live in. Two weeks later, the agent met up with John in front of a house that made his jaw drop down to his feet. His stared in marvel at the mansion held before him. The house shined so brightly, that he thought it was made of stainless steel.

         “Is this it? It-it-it’s beautiful, Frank!” laughed John. Frank, the real estate agent, smiled with pleasure. Whenever John smiled and joked like that, it was a good sign.

         “It is quite a beauty. Shall we check the inside out?” he questioned the millionaire. They walked inside, John staring at the house in awe. When they stepped inside however, John was a little frightened at first. He saw a large room with the highest ceiling imaginable, and all the walls were the same color as the outside of the house. Shining stainless steel gleamed at him from every corner of the house. Except for the pieces of elegant furniture and exotic pieces of art, the entire house was like a large mirror. Zebra fur carpets lead them into a kitchen that looked like it was painted with melted bronze.

         However, he found the same thing that scared him in the foyer was here in this kitchen as well. It smelled pleasant, like fresh fruits. The table was large enough to hold eight people. The table looked like it was carved from dry ice, but actually was made of a weird type of crystal that John couldn’t pronounce when Frank told him about it.  But his eyes were locked on the white, tall, thin robot in the corner.

         Its posture was just like a human, and its sides were curved and bumped to appear like human skin. It had a large head with grey eyes that stared deep into John’s eyes. It had no nose, but it had lips. However, it appeared as though the robot couldn’t move its lips. They stayed in the same, eerie smile. This robot had on a chef’s hat, and was grasping a large knife. It took its gaze off of John, and grabbed a green bell pepper off the kitchen counter. It cut the pepper into perfect slices, and then handed one to John to test its perfection.

         In the foyer, there was a robot similar to this one, but was wearing an apron, and was holding a vacuum. They both had that weird smile, and gazing eyes. They had bumps on their chests to indicate that they were supposed to be female robots. Three other rooms were the same as the kitchen and foyer. Everything was perfect in the house except for the lifeless robots that stood in the corners. Frank seemed to not care about the robots. In fact, he was very fond of them.

         Nevertheless, John bought the house two months later. As soon as some furniture of his own was added to the mansion, he started decorating for Halloween. Halloween was his favorite holiday, and it came in three days. He hung up a few witches and a few ghosts. He set up five jack-o-lanterns in front of the house. When he finally finished decorating, he went into the kitchen and walked up to the robot.