May as well

You swing open the heavy passenger door, stepping cane first onto the grounds for the first time.

Still shaken up from the marsh, you have the unrealistic fear you’ll sink into the ground, and you feel more than a little silly after you give the grass a few testing stomps.

Glancing around the clearing you find the world is eerily quiet, you don’t hear any sounds of nature, nothing at all except for the rumble of the idling truck.

A shutter runs through your body, the fact that this is all a perfect setup for a horror story isn’t lost on you.

Gazing upon the old mansion, it’s towering presence illuminated in the headlights is enough to elicit a sense of vertigo.

You muster your resolve, and gripping your cane tightly across the top, you begin to cautiously creep towards the front steps, as if sneaking up on a slumbering giant.

The steps are fortunately short, the front doors only elevated above the half basement.

Standing just in front of the intricately carved double doors, you fully appreciate the scale of them, and you guess they’re around twice your height.

Pulling out the skeleton key from your suit, you take a steadying breath, before sliding it into the door lock and turning it with a heavy, echoing click.

A gust of wind suddenly takes your feeble frame by surprise, and both you and the double doors are swept forwards into a lavish entry hall.

You manage to regain your balance, and looking up you see the hall is slightly illuminated by the trucks high beams. The floor is covered in a long intricate Persian rug that puffs with dust at every step.

The walls and ceiling are covered in a rich dark wood paneling, and you can see a few doors on either side, the gaps between them having a number of large paintings covered with white tarps.

At the end of the hall is a second set of double doors, these ones are sliding, and are partially ajar.

You make your way deeper into the hall, towards the set of sliding doors.

At this point the light from the truck is having trouble penetrating this deep, and the glimmering frosted glass panels of the doors is easier to make out than the dark wood surrounding them.

You reach the doors and pull out your cellphone, attempting to turn it on. Your phone screen flickers for a moment, and you feel a brief panic before the picture stabilizes and you flick on the flashlight.

Odd.

Pointing your phone through the gap in the sliding doors you can briefly make out a large staircase, before you jump as a loud bang rings out from behind you, and the dim light of Johns truck goes out.

You whip around, trembling at sight of the now closed front doors “wind?” You ask, muttering to yourself. That seems a reasonable explanation you think, but you were done for tonight.

Calmly as you can, you make to leave, stepping steadily towards the exit. You make it half way before once again you hear a noise from behind you, this time the scraping of metal rails and two gentle thuds.

You want to ignore it, to leave whatever is the cause of the noise for tomorrow. You can’t, and you find yourself turning your head back towards the dark hall, and lit by your flashlight, you see the two sliding doors at the end are now fully open, silently beckoning you towards the foyer within.

At this your blood runs cold, and you stay perfectly still, mind racing to think of an explanation for the doors opening.

You don’t have the chance to come up with one before your phone flickers once more. Glancing down at the dim screen, your heart skips a beat as you only briefly see the battery bar displaying (1%) as the device goes dark.

In the pitch black hallway panic overcomes any reason, and your mind only registers one thought.

“Fuck this”

You find yourself breaking out into an awkward run towards the front door, and you can only make it a few steps before you mistime the walking pattern of your cane.

Your foot catches on the shaft, and the handle is wrenched out of your grip as you fall hard, face first into the dusty Persian rug.

Both your cane and your phone lay forgotten on the floor as you struggle to your feet and clamber across the hall. Your weak legs and joints burn, but you make it to the door handles, and with one mighty pull swing it open to reveal the headlights outside.

You half expect the door to be locked again, and you mutter a silent prayer as you limp your way down the steps and towards Johns truck.

You see john himself is partially standing out of the driver side, and his face is painted with concern, he calls out “you okay James?”

You wave him off, not wanting to sound as stupid as you already feel, and you silently get in the passenger side, nodding yes when he asks if you’re done at the Estate for tonight.

Much of the trip back is spent in silence, the both of you unwilling to speak first. When the lights of Yellowfen finally come into view proper, you let out a long breath you didn’t know you were holding, and shortly after that John speaks.

“You’re covered in dust”

You look down at yourself, and see that he’s right. Your once jet black suit is covered in a thick layer of greyish white powder, and your similarly dark tie has come undone from its clip, and is now loosely bunched up above your jacket.

You shrug, not wanting to sound like a fool you say “i tripped” and leave it at that. “Ah” john replies “you weren’t in there for very long, I’m surprised you made it all the way up to the third floor”

A silence falls over the cabin once more as his words, spoken so innocently, but carrying so much implication sink in.

You find your mouth is bone dry when you grow the courage to speak “what? I didn’t even get to the staircase…”

You watch as Johns dark skin pales a bit, and his grip on the steering wheel tightens.

He begins to speak slowly, carefully choosing every word “you… should know. That house has a long… not altogether happy history, it…” he seems to drop his train of thought, and a few moments pass as you wait with baited breath for him to continue.

When he speaks again it’s with a different story “y’know i used to live on the property. There’s a small groundskeeper cabin on the grounds, it was nice not having to pay rent y’know…” you nod, urging him to continue.

“I just couldn’t…” his voice is shaky now, “i hated when it got dark. There’s a couple windows in the cabin, they look directly at the manor, and i had to stop looking through them at night…”

John is quiet for a time longer, as if he’s building up the nerve to say more. “I could have sworn i saw faces in the windows sometimes… I haven’t been there after dark for ten years so i… I thought maybe it was all in my head but i…”

That’s all you need to hear, and John seems to agree as the rest of the ride to your hotel is spent in further silence.

Eventually, you wave him off after he drops you off at the hotel and pulls away into the night.

You limp to your hotel room, thinking wearily of all that had happened tonight, and once inside the predominantly beige room you strip to your heavily dick laden boxers and sit on the bed exhausted.

You think to yourself there’s no way you’re going back to that property alone, and glancing out the hotel room window into the streets below a single brightly lit business sign stares back at you, a bright beacon in the night presenting you with a solution to your problems.

The sign reads: “RealDreams”