Betrayal at the House on the Hill Shorts

Flesh Walkers

     There are always questions about what you would do if you met your clone.  Romantic advances to one of the opposite sex?  Asking it questions to see what it knows and seeing if you think the same?  Murdering yourself...yes...even this.  Of course, these are hypothetical questions as of now.  As you know...this type of technology doesn't exist yet...not in this world anyway.

     No one knew what happened that night...nothing seemed wrong until the last moment.  Three thrill seekers went up to the old manor on the hill; Mary, Arthur and Howard, not really looking for anything.  It was just an old house, no rumors surrounding it just old and decrepit.  The perfect spot for the three young adults.

     "Who knows what we're going to find inside?" Arthur asked excitedly.  "There could be anything...."

     "Keep your shirt on," Mary said, attempting to pick the lock.  "We'll find out soon enough...."  They watched as she worked, the quickest one out of the three of them, and then she pushed the door open with a creak.  Their flashlights peered into the gloom, catching on the broken mirrors and cobwebs that adorned the walls.  "Spooky...but not what I was expecting."  Howard and Arthur nodded, looking a little unimpressed.  

     "Well," Howard said.  "No point in staying here for hours.  Nothing's going to happen if we don't move farther inside."  He took the lead as they moved into the creaking building, looking around with their flashlights.  To them, it seemed like a haunted house at an amusement park: creepy but not necessarily scary.  

     "I honestly thought there'd be more," Arthur said, poking his head into the kitchen.  "Just dust and cobwebs...."  They walked inside and began looking around, opening drawers and cabinets, searching for anything.

     "Guys," Mary said, pulling something from a drawer.  "I think I found something...."  Both moved to look over her shoulder at the object she was holding.  It was a wooden mask, carved in some semblance of a face, but eerie.  The mouth was covered by sharp wood to resemble teeth and the smile was almost malicious.

     "Cool," Howard said.

     "Bizarre," Arthur breathed.  "Why would someone keep something like this in a kitchen drawer?"  They stared at it, unable to answer.  Something was strange about it, no doubts there but something compelled her to keep it.  

      "Let's see what's upstairs," Mary said.  "There might be cool stuff up there...maybe an attic."  Without another word, they found the grand staircase and climbed to the next floor.  

     Dust lay thickly on the floor and carpet, softly crunching under their feet as they moved down the hall, looking for a hatch or a plaque for something interesting.  This thrilling adventure to stay in this old house was slowing turning into a boring escapade and a waist of time.  That is to say...until Fate played her hand.

     Just before they'd given up trying to find an attic or storage room, a door at the end of the hall slowly creaked open.  The three looked at each other, uneasy but excited.  None of them were afraid of ghosts, but something didn't seem right about a door opening itself.  Slowly, they crept toward the open door, Arthur in the lead, and stepped into the room.  

     The windows were boarded up and the floor was barren except for two things in the middle of the room.  A polished end table stood in the dead center of the room and, on top of it, a crystal ball in an immaculate holder shaped like a claw.  A certain feeling of anticlimax fell over the troupe again as they looked around the empty room.

      "Not so much as even a roach," Mary muttered, sounding cheated.  "All that excitement for nothing...."  Arthur made his way over to the crystal ball and looked into it.  It was perfect, unwarped, but he couldn't see through it.  He saw something else...something familiar.