Meet Me at the Boarding House

Chapter 3: The Stories of the Deceased

How lovely would it be not to live in misery

~Unknown~

--

As we walked through the house, Sophie told us her story.

She was killed at the young age of seventeen, from a stab wound to the heart. She used to hide her diary under the painting that the page came from, but she had been writing in it the night she died. The man she talked about on the page we found was a murderer, known to kill his victims in the most creative ways. She was going to tell someone about what she had found out, but he got to her first.

“I was lucky.” She admitted. “I got away with a quick stab. His victims are usually killed much more different, and horrifying than that.”

Apparently he died in his room a few years later of a broken neck.

As we walked down the halls, we stopped at the first door.

“This was my friend Jude’s room. He, uh, he killed himself..” Sophie looked down at the floor, shuffling her feet.

“I’m sorry…” Rose looked at her sympathetically.

She smiled a little. “No. It’s fine. It’s not your fault. He was depressed, and I guess after I died...he couldn’t take it anymore. He once said that I was the only thing keeping him alive. As a friend, I mean, and when I was gone…” Her voice wavered and though she had said she was okay, she had much pain showing evidently in her eyes.

“I watched it happen. It’s not like I could’ve left. He hung himself from there...” She pointed to the fan above us.

I went to comfort her, then realized that it wouldn’t do much good since I couldn’t touch her anyway.  

“Let’s go on.”  Rose broke the silence.

Once we got to the next room, Sophie sniffed and took a deep breath.

“This was my friend Sara’s room. I always thought there was something off about her, but I found out once I died that she was schizophrenic. She started seeing dark things sort of like shadows at the age of eight, and it didn’t stop, after she left here, she got too violent because she was trying to “defend herself” but nobody understood and her parents sent her off to some mental institute. I wanted to visit her, but I couldn’t because I’m bound to that diary, and the diary has always been in this house.”

I thought for a moment, then looked at Rose.

“We could take it with us, then we could go visit her and Sophie could at least see her friend.” I said in a hushed voice. She gave me a pointed look, and didn’t say anything, but simply nodded with a small smirk as if she wasn’t telling me something, but whatever.

I turned back to Sophie.

“What if we took the diary with us, so you could at least go and see her, when we go visit?” I suggested.

“Thank you very much for the offer, however, I figure it might be a bit difficult to see her since she’s dead..” Sophie stated the obvious, -which was clearly not obvious to me- with a ghost of a smile. No pun intended.

Oh yeah, the 1800s. Right. Wow Ce, nice one there. I mentally hit my head against a brick wall for being so stupid. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Rose holding in her laughter, and I gave her a flat look.

She let out a very unattractive snort and a short bark of laughter. She then quickly composed herself and said,

“Let’s keep going.”

-

As we walked, we learned that there were ten rooms in the house. In some there were just honestly normal people, like Toby Lofton, who came with friends some years ago and rented two rooms, or Cassidy Mixton, who came to California for a vacation. But in other rooms, there had been some misunderstood people, a drug and alcohol addict, and of course, Jude and Sara. At the end of the hall there was a closed door three doors down from what had been Sophie’s room.

“Who was in there?” Rose asked curiously.

Sophie seemed nervous, and was silent, not answering Ro’s question. I furrowed my eyebrows, but then my eyes widened in a sudden realization.

“The man who killed you. This was his room wasn’t it?” I murmured.

She nodded silently.

Since we had gone and seen all of the other rooms already,  we only really had one thing left to do. Look in the killer’s room. I knew that Sophie didn’t want to, so I didn’t make her, but Roselynn agreed to come with me.

“Why don’t you just wait out by the door?” I suggested to Sophie, who gladly agreed.

When we got to the end of the hall, I breathed in deeply, and opened the door. The first thing I noticed was the musty smell. This room hadn’t been opened for many, many years. That much I could tell. The second thing I noticed, was the sudden cold spot. The third thing I noticed was a broken salt line on the inside of the door I just opened .

“Oh, crap.” I realized.

Standing in front of us, was a man. More specifically, the man who killed Sophie, and multiple other innocent people. He looked relatively normal, and you might’ve even been able to call him attractive, except for the fact that his neck was broken in a grotesque manner, and he smelled like a sewer under a sulphur factory. Ghost or not, this guy seriously needed bath.

“Rose,” I said slowly, “back out the door slowly and go to the kitchen and get the salt please.”

She nodded and left. I felt a whoosh and I quickly looked back to the man, but he was gone

I tipped my head back and groaned. “Awwww man!”

Well,  this is going to be a lot harder than I thought.