The Haunted Hill Horror

The mansion that my cousin Spooky lives in isn't normal. It wasn't then. It wasn't now. People can't be born bad, and I never thought a house could be "made" bad, but…

But this one is different.

My cousin kept insisting that he didn't feel safe inside the house. That something was wrong with it. And he was right.

It was an evil old house, the kind some people call haunted, a house like an undiscovered country waiting to be explored. That old house had stood for over a hundred years and might stand for a hundred more. Silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of the house on Haunted Hill, and whatever walked there... walked alone.

A desolate place of wood and brick and tinder, with cold winds blowing from the north, a home without life, without light, without the slightest trace of warmth…the House on Haunted Hill was as aloof and creepy as a gargoyle on an old church steeple. In fact, there were several tiny gargoyles on some steeples at the top of the old mansion, rusted away, even slightly cracked, though not in nearly as bad shape as the shingled-up windows or the decaying chimney in the far back. With it's rotting wood walls, decrepit pillars holding the roof up and its boarded up doors, the only conclusion one could come to outside of "This place is haunted? Uh, DUUUH" was that the whole place should have come down years ago thanks to a single good gust of wind!

And yet…

And yet it stood eerily strong, as if trying to mock the elements around it.

Nobody could touch it.

It touched THEM.

"I just LOVE it here! It's like "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" meets "The Addams Family"." Sage of the Hamsterviel family remarked cheerily as she held up a thick black suitcase to her chest, her dark eyes glittering as she gazed upon the mansion on the hill. It wouldn't be too much of a walk for her and the rest of the group, which included her brother, Pyro, a half Muridean, Half Experimental American like herself with a curled moustache, dark fur and piercing blue eyes. She and Pyro had immediately volunteered for an interesting "study" into what was going on at the house.

You see, the Experimental American citizen of Kokaua Town, a rather showoffy-type named Spooky, had unique powers: shapeshifting into anything that his victim feared. But now he was scared stiff of the place he called his home. Terrified even. And when scary things got scared…this was bad. Very bad.

When Page, experiment 620 had brought up the issue on a simple trip to pay a visit to a christening in Sage's home, she and Pyro had been quite eager to see the house for themselves…most likely to aid in their continual attempts at trying to off their grandfather Stitch, their Grandmother Angel, and do in Lilo Pelekai if the mood struck them. Page feared they were probably interested in making some deal with a devil inside the house, they were, to put it bluntly, twisted.

BUT…they were family. Ohana. And you didn't give up on family.

As such, Page had volunteered along with their creator, Dr. Jumba Jookiba, and their dear benefactor, Lilo Pelekai, to go to the house and test it out, see what was going on. She, of course, thought this was all equally awesome.

"Say "Gorgonzola"!" The black-haired Hawaiian teen remarked cheerily as she snapped a Kodak moment of a fat, four-eyed, badly-dressed purplish alien in a Hawaiian t-shirt who was carrying two big suitcases filled with equipment and a backpack to match. He grinned broadly before turning and heading up the crickety stairs and through the creaking set of double doors, Sage following Page, and Page following Pyro, Lilo bringing up the rear, deciding to dress for the occasion with a green t-shirt that had a hood, a pair of blue denim jeans, and a backpack loaded with stakes, garlic, holy water and other veritable bad-guy-busting knickknacks.

Pushing the doors open, experiment 620 looked around the house with his pond-surface-colored eyes, his cute little button nose sniffing the air as he brushed some of the light brown hair atop his head back. His foxlike brown tail swished back and forth, his creamy/brown/tan fur and soft, white, plushy chest and tender-looking white wings making him look very much like a lost little angel in a house of the devil.

"This place is discomforting to me, I have to say." Page insisted, his voice soft and beautiful, like morning rays of sunshine kissing you awake as the faintest twitter of songbirds echoed through your garden on a fine Sunday morn.

"Is nothing to be scared of, experiment 620. Perhaps you will take comfort in idea that God would not let true Christian be killed in haunted house?" Jumba laughed.

"I depend on God to take care of my soul. I depend on MYSELF to take care of my body, thank you very much." Page remarked. "There's nothing wrong with fear. I'm allowed to be afraid. But I'll face this anyway. That's courage."

"Is no need for fear." Jumba said as he put down his suitcases and unlocked one, holding up a Spectral Thermo-Vision, an attempt to examine the bodies of heat within the old mansion. "When people believed the earth was flat, the idea of a round world scared them silly! And then, they are finding out round world WORKS, is same for supernatural. Once we are knowing the truth…will cease being scary. Is no problem, you see?" Jumba laughed.

"They're coming to get you, Paaaage! They're coming to get yooooou!" Sage laughed, holding one arm over her eyes and sniggering madly as Pyro frowned, sniffing at the air, his tail bristling.

"…something isn't right." He mumbled. "…this place feels…"

"What?" Sage asked, looking surprised at his concern. She'd never seen him rattled, and certainly not around haunted houses!

"…who used to live in this house?" Pyro inquired as he ran one paw against the tattered, peeling, faded wallpaper, black tracing down against faded yellowish/gray.

"Mr. Joseph Stevenson." Lilo explained as she walked over to a large but faded portrait of an…INTERESTING…individual in rather pompous-looking clothing. Frills, overly-large and starched collar, huge hat, a pipe…

"Good Lord, he looks ridiculous."

"His neighbors back home thought so too. He moved here to the "Garden Isle" because he was hoping to find some measure of happiness, at least, that's what the oral tradition always said. He wanted to make a building resembling his ancestor's homes." Lilo went on as she led them over towards the living room.

"And did he FIND happiness?" Pyro inquired with his faint French accent, tweaking his moustache. It was quite the fine moustache too, though not NEARLY as fine as "Monsieur" Stevenson's appeared to be.

"Well, heh-heh." Lilo chuckled a bit and gestured at the living room's old, dusty chandelier…and at the very, very top…were the fossilized remains of what was unmistakably a noose. "The newspapers said that when the letters and newspapers kept piling up at his door, someone finally called the police to check on him, and they found him hanging from the chandelier!"

"So I'm guessing that's a "no"." Sage chuckled as well, holding a paw over her mouth as Page shivered, racked by "The Willies".

"This place is EVIL." He insisted darkly. "I haven't a doubt we'll find something terribly wrong with it before it's all over!"

"Don't tell me YOU believe in these ghosts and ghouls, eh?" Jumba laughed, holding one hand over his head and chuckling. "Is no such thing! Magic is type of energy, what you call "gods" are extra-dimensional beings, all these explanations are good and fine, we will be finding explanation for freakiness in house."

"…we'll see." Page mumbled as they walked past the picture, the staircase creaking as Lilo and he climbed to the second floor.

…

…

…

…"You think he can actually prove all that?" Lilo wanted to know as she pulled on her pajamas, a big green dress and slippers to match, Page fluffing up his pillow by the pumped-clear-of-dust bed.

"He doesn't believe it because he doesn't understand it. And he can't believe it if he can't explain how it works." Page decided. "Father was always like that." He sighed as he rolled his eyes. "I just have a feeling he's going to bite off waaaaay more than he can chew."

"I am observing Muridaeus Hypotithenai of the "Satanic" variety in its natural habitat." Jumba remarked to himself as he hid behind the enormous couch in the downstairs living room, across the hall from where Sage and Pyro were sleeping in a guest room. Sage was practicing putting pins into a tiny little doll of Jumba, with absolutely nothing happening. No shouts or screams hit her ears, so she let out a pout as she tossed the doll into her suitcase, Pyro putting on a little moustache protector around his precious little facial hair.

"What did you bring?" Sage wanted to know. "I've got some candles, my bible, some salt, a copy of the "Daemon Writus" and my "Princess Luna" action-"

"It's a My Little Pony doll." Pyro said bluntly as he removed a set of seals from his suitcase, blowing dust off of it before putting it by his bedstand, next to Sage's copy of the Satanic Bible.

"IT'S AN ACTION FIGURE AND PRINCESS LUNA IS AMAZING!" Sage snarled, tugging on his tail and making him shriek as Jumba began to write down the necessary observations on his notepad.

"Hmm. "Muridaeus Hypotithenai" has that cheeky glimmer in eye that signals he is soon be making nasty joke." Jumba murmured as he furiously scribbled down onto his notepad, Pyro holding up several candles he'd brought himself.

"You sure you got enough?" He asked.

"With yours, yeah. Two and two is four…"

"And four and four…" Pyro went on, holding up HIS candles. "Is six, plenty for a communique with the spirits, non?"

"Oui?"

"NON! It's EIGHT! That's why I'M the smart one in the family, cousin of mine!" Pyro sniggered, throwing a candle at Sage's head.

BONK!

"OW! Llame el policia! "

"That's SPANISH."

BONK!"

"DROP DEAD!!!"

…

…

…

…the faintest tap of crooked trees upon the windows every few seconds. The fluttering of moths that flapped their wings in a futile and misguided attempt to get inside a place filled with faint light…light that was hidden and soon to drown in the shadow of night. The House on Haunted Hill had lulled our protagonists into sleep, Lilo slumbering with Page, Jumba sleeping on the couch outside of Sage and Pyro's room. They had decided to rest their eyelids, unaware of just how tired they truly were, and sleep had claimed all the house's inhabitants quickly…well, all save for Page and Sage.

"…what do you want?" Sage asked, smelling Page's rosemary-esque scent.

"…just…checking in." He said gently. "…it's a terrible thing, being alone." He told her tenderly. "Especially in someplace so dark and lonely."

"I don't mind the dark." Sage insisted.

"We're cut off from everyone up here. The town's two miles away and there's no phone or internet. Nobody could come up here-"

"In the dead of night, I know." Sage finished, sighing deeply. "…don't tell me you're worried more about my soul than my body?"

"You've not been to Hell. But I've experienced it once before, Sage." Page told her quietly. "…Hell is loneliness and darkness and separation. Hell is a pit from which you can't climb out. It's cold and burning and sad and you want to just move, just close your eyes, but you can't, and all you can think is "Why me"? I felt Hell when I was stuck as a pod, Sage. Hell is separation from anything that makes Life worth living."

"…"

"And I think we're close to it here. But…but at least we're in it together. I just…I only want you to know that if you need me, I WILL be there to try and help." He offered kindly, closing the door and leaving Sage alone with the damp…and the dark. She shivered slightly, pulling the thick blue covers up to her chin and closing her eyes as Page headed back for the stairs.

"I don't like this. I gotta admit it, Page. Something about all this is…really weird. REALLY weird." Lilo admitted as Page gently patted her shoulder, Lilo looking out the window, brown eyes slowly blinking. "It's not that this place is old. It's not that it's stuffy or creaky. I usually think places like this is are so COOL, but…"

She hesitated as Page stopped, as if encouraging her to go on.

"It's just…something I FEEL." She murmured quietly. "Something's just off about this whole place. I can just feel it in my bones." Lilo shivered slightly as Page gently pulled up the covers on her so she could clutch them more closely to her body. "I just can't help feeling that someone else is here with us, and I don't know how to really feel about it. There's just an air about this place, y'know?" She asked, Page patting her shoulder again.

Then she could hear it. A faint laughing…far off in the distance, and yet…all too close, overlapped by strange voices. What were they saying? She couldn't tell…she just couldn't tell.

"Ah! Don't dig so hard into my shoulder!" Lilo groaned as the laughing suddenly became faint, sad sobbing. She blinked in surprise, stiffening. What was that? A child.

A child was crying. A child was crying as a stern, cold voice spoke down to it in that ethereal voice that was both far away and oh-so-close. Lilo dug her fingers into the bed.

"This is cruel. Someone's hurting a child? This disgusting house…I'm willing to take a lot, but not this. Not that. NOT THAT."  She thought to herself, Page practically clawing into her shoulder in fear, gripping tightly. "Open your mouth, Lilo!" She thought to herself.

The crying growing louder and louder…that terrible voice becoming more and more focused. She could almost hear the exact words.

"Open your mouth, open your mouth and"

"STOP IIIIIIT!" She screamed.

And with that, the lights flooded on in her room, Page pushing the door open, Sage clinging tightly to him as she stared at Lilo in utter terror, Page's voice coming out in a small, soft whisper…

"Lilo…Lilo, your…blanket…" He muttered out. "Your SHOULDER…"

Lilo slowly stood up and felt her shoulder…where something had been digging in deep, piercing through the fabric.

"…Holy Smokes." She whispered. "…who was holding onto me?!"

…

…

…

…Jumba had wanted to believe that Lilo had done it to herself inadvertently. Save for the fact that her nails were so deeply bitten that she couldn't have. And he didn't know her to be the kind of fake the terror or the fear he saw in her eyes.

And Sage had felt something in the room. Something different.

As she strode around the house, humming to herself, she felt the walls and their peeling paper, giggling a little at how easily it came off. Within that room had been something that was not demonic, something that was not satanic, something that was not evil. It was something that was…something much more human, and yet not.

And yet infinitely more frightening to her. She had felt waves of terror and fear, all soaked up by her spirit.

And that excited her. What was IN this house that was so strange and unknown? She wanted to know. She wanted to know all about it.

Luckily, Pyro, who'd researched the house, was busy in his room, making a makeshift little guillotine he'd use to cut the tips off his cigars. So she had some free time, and she was spending it in front of the picture of Mr. Joseph Stevenson.

"This house…does it want Lilo? I know I want it. I want to know everything." She thought to herself. "Why don't you open up, Joseph?" She asked the picture good-naturedly, giggling a bit as she held up one paw and began to do a tango dance on the spot, plucking a dead rose from a nearby flowerpot, sticking it in her mouth and striding up and down the hallway. "Ba-DUM-DA-DAH! Ha-ha-ha-ha-haaa!" She laughed in tango rhythm, twirling slightly, taking notice of something odd.

There was one door that was totally locked and barred, boarded up. And for some ungodly reason, the air within was positively chilling. She could see her breath before her eyes as she breathed in and out in deep breaths, holding one paw up as the rose fell from her mouth and she pressed her paw 'gainst the closed door.

Thwumpa-thwumpa. Nope. It wouldn't open. What was this room? Glancing up, she saw a sign that read "Suffer the Little Children" at the top. A nursery, perhaps?

"Breakfaaaast!" Lilo called out from the kitchen, Sage leaving the nursery behind, abandoning the cold and the dark for the warmth and tasty scent of fried eggs and apple juice as Jumba was scribbling furiously on his notepad.

"Have discovered COLD spots around house!" He exclaimed. "Temperature dropping to 30, 40 degrees! Simply fantastical!" Jumba grinned broadly as Lilo put one hand on her hip, depositing his breakfast onto a freshly-washed-with-wipes plate.

"Believe this place is haunted NOW?" She asked, rolling her eyes and chuckling wryly.

"I believe we are experiencing "preternatural" events." Jumba told them all as Pyro sniffed his eggs, pushing it away with a "hmph" as he took a swig of his apple juice, Lilo pouting at the sight.

"What's wrong with the eggs?"

"I HATE fried eggs." Pyro snapped. "I want an omelet!"

"We've not got any cheese or anything else." Lilo informed him.

"…yum! Fried eggs." Pyro mumbled, mouth half-full as Lilo turned back to look at Jumba again.

"Pre-ter-natural?"

"Before people knew how magnetics worked, they denied they existed. Then they were scientifically proven! What was preternatural to primitive man, is natural to us nowadays, you see? Am thinking most supernatural events are as such." Jumba explained as he dug into his eggs.

"OH MY GOD!" Page's voice shrieked out from the living room, Lilo dropping her serving plate as everyone leapt up from their chairs and raced in the direction of his cry, finding something that stopped them all dead in their tracks, and nearly stopped their hearts.

There, written in chalk on the walls, were the words "Please Help Belladonna Come Home". Sage slowly approached the words, entranced by every single line as she stroked the walls, cooing quietly.

"Sage, they're talking about you…" Pyro murmured, frowning darkly. He found this all unsettling. He was not getting that comfortable feeling he usually got from the places cloaked in shadows and dust. There was something freakishly "off" about the house, he'd never encountered anything like it before.

"It knows my name…" Sage murmured. "It knows my name…" She turned to the others. "Did any of you write it? Did you?"

"You know none of us wrote it." Lilo told her quietly.

For a long time, they just stood there, looking up at the wall. Then Sage spoke, softly, giggling a bit. "There's a nursery. And it's been blocked up. I think there might be something inside."

"A nursu-" Lilo stiffened. "I don't think we should go in." She said quickly.

"Who died in there?" Pyro chuckled darkly as he folded his arms across his chest, one eyebrow raised, moustache twitching.

"The room was burnt up." Page said bluntly. "…with people inside. With children inside."

"Pfft." Pyro snorted.

"Something funny?" Page asked angrily.

"Isn't it supposed to be? Lemme guess. We open that door, we'll find charred bones and ash! WOOOOO!" Pyro said, waving his paws above the air.

"Well, let's go in!" Sage laughed, striding off and bounding up the stairs.

"No you won't, it's locked and barred." Lilo said, stomping up the stairs after him, the others following behind. "The thing's been untouched for-"

The nursery door had been opened completely. There was a faint draft emanating from the end of the hall as the doors idly swished back and forth, a smell like bitter almonds filling the air.

"..that door was closed." Sage said wistfully as she weaved her way down the hallway, leading the group into the room. "The door was cloooosed and now it's open, it's open just for me!" She giggled.

The nursery itself was indeed charred, and the smell was practically choking them all. There was a balcony outside with soot-covered windows and furniture, several cradles with broken legs fallen to the side in the corner of the room, a few beds with the unmistakable sign of charred bone ash leaving a faint indentation under the covers. A chandelier at the very top with the inscription "To my dearest" was the only thing that seemed to have stood the test of time enough, and even that was creaking and squeaking as it swung back and forth ever-so-slightly.

"We probably should get out of here." Page insisted. "The entire room was scorched in fire and it smells TERRIBLE-"

THRUMP. The door closed tightly shut, and then they heard it. A loud, low creaking, like the wind had taken up residence directly inside the house. All of them slowly turned to look around at each other as a loud THUMPING began to fill their ears.

"Sounds like it's…it's coming from just outside the hall." Pyro whispered, frowning darkly.

"It knows my name. This time it knows my name." Sage thought, rubbing her cheek with its paw.

And with that, the door's knob began to slowly turn…and turn…and turn. Eyes widening, Pyro angrily leapt forward and quickly slammed the lock on the door into place, sticking his tongue out at the door. "HAH!"

And then the door began to get pressed from the outside, the wood pushing IN, into the room as they all stepped far away, Jumba dropping his notepad as his legs began to quiver. Lilo turned to Page, who genuflected, crossing himself rapidly and muttering a prayer in Latin. The door was shoved more and more, more of it being pushed in as if some giant force was trying to push through the door to get inside as Sage began backing away, towards the now-opened balcony doorway…

"It knows I'm here." She thought out loud, smiling broadly. "It knows I'm here…"

The door began to crack…

And then…

Thudding. Thudding over their heads. One by one they raised their heads up, Sage backing up further and further…

"It'll go on and on until it finds me. On and on until it finds me…"

Sage began to laugh, Pyro turning to look at her, seeing a new kind of light in her eyes that he'd never seen before, and before anyone could stop her, she had pushed past them all, rushing to the door, yanking the lock open as the others clung to each other, faces pale and eyes wide. The black-furred Muridean/Experimental American laughed and laughed, red eyes glittering, holding her arms out wide as the roar of heavy wind filled the air. She twirled around in a danse macabre as she hopped atop the balcony, the thudding noise above filling her ears, the charred curtains of the balcony window wrapping around her as she cackled madly.

_{"My GOD.}" Pyro whispered, clinging to Lilo for dear life.

"I'm coming…I'm coming! Whatever you want of me, you can have! I'M COMING!

I'M COMING! I'M

"

…

…

…

…The House on Haunted Hill is a sick, old house. It's the kind some people call haunted, a house like an undiscovered country waiting to be explored. This old house has stood for over a hundred years and it might stand for a hundred more. Silence lies steadily against the wood and stone of the house on Haunted Hill.

And we who walk there…

…walk alone.