Tales from the Haunted Mansion, Volume 4 Read online

  “What about them?”

  “They were based on real kids, too, weren’t they?”

  Prudence was flustered, as if she’d just been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Or is it “cookie in the hand jar”? I never can get that right. “That’s completely unfair.”

  “Oh, yeah? Why is that, Prudence Pock?”

  “Well, for starters, I changed all the names. Along with most of the details.”

  “Oh, you want details?” And for a flash, the angelic young girl took on the spectral image of a corpse, gnawed on by various animals. Clink-tink-clink. Prudence turned away, not wanting to believe. And in an instant, the angelic Willa had returned. “The real kids called themselves the Fearsome Foursome,” she explained. “Would you like to know where they ended up?”

  Prudence lowered her head out of respect. “I, uh, think we all know where they ended up.” She heard those boys again, their impish laughter moving among headstones.

  Willa pointed to a patch of blank sky. “They ended up there.”

  Prudence saw nothing, nothing but sky. “I don’t see anyth—”

  “Try harder,” insisted Willa. “It’s a place you’ve written about. A place you’ve seen in your dreams.”

  Caw! Caw! Caw!

  Prudence spun around. A large black raven had been watching them from the top of an old crypt, the surname ARCANE arched above the entrance. She regained her composure and, once again, looked to the sky where Willa was pointing.

  This time, she saw a solitary structure—a mansion—perched high on a hill. It hadn’t been there a second before; of that she was certain. “By God, it’s real! The place Rand was searching for!” And by God, it was! Real, that is. The mansion had been waiting for her, waiting all those years for Prudence to find her way. She could feel the lure of its enigmatic embrace. It was inviting her into its unhallowed halls, tempting her to partake in its devious delights. Welcome, dear Prudence. Enter freely and of your own will….

  “Am I imagining this? Or is it all a dream within a dream?”

  “It’s not a dream,” said Willa. “It’s a party!” She took Prudence’s hand. “And you’re the guest of honor. Shall we go inside?”

  “Yes…Yes!”

  Together, they journeyed up the path to the gated mansion, in a scene that seemed to jump right off the pages of Prudence Pock’s most frightening fiction. Just don’t count on a happy ending.

  A complete sense of awe had overtaken the more rational contours of Prudence’s brain as she and Willa passed through the front foyer of a splendidly spooky estate. There were fancy chandeliers hanging from vaulted ceilings and haunting sonatas playing from unmanned pianos. Again, it was the type of dwelling Prudence Pock often included in her prose. Everywhere she looked, there was something wickedly wondrous to behold. Grinning gargoyles bulged from the walls like beastly boils. There were serpents for door handles. And did we mention the eyes staring from the purple walls?

  “What is this place?” asked Prudence. “Why is it here?”

  “It began as a retirement home. A spirited retreat, if you will. But over the years, it’s evolved into so much more.”

  Prudence paused by an open doorway. “Is it all right if I take a peek?”

  “Be our guest,” said Willa. “But no flash pictures, please.” The thought hadn’t even occurred to Prudence. She was strictly a pen-and-paper girl. She poked her head through the open doorway, peering around the room with her penlight. It was a portrait chamber. The framed artwork featured ordinary-looking people in vintage clothing: a lady holding a parasol, another with a flower, two gentlemen who could have passed for bankers. “Who are they?” Prudence asked.

  “Retirees.”

  Prudence liked the idea. “You mean, they all live here?”

  Willa covered her mouth to hide her giggle. “I wouldn’t put it like that. But, yes, you’ll find them floating around here somewhere.”

  And that gave Prudence a thought. “I have a hundred and one Dalmatians—I mean, questions—to ask. Do you think I could have a chat with the owner?”

  “The master of tales?” replied Willa in a solemn tone.

  Prudence repeated it. “The master of tales.” She liked the sound of that, too.

  “You’ll see him. You’ll see everything. Eventually.” Together, they left the portrait chamber. Once they were gone, the portraits seemed to…stretch, the added portions betraying the horrifying fates of their subjects. The lady with the parasol was on a tightrope, about to get munched on by a crocodile. One of the banker types was standing on a barrel of dynamite, the other sitting on the shoulders of two other gents, sinking into quicksand. And the lady with the flower, well, she was sitting on a headstone. Lightning flickered above a domed skylight, adding strobe-like flashes of blue. A cadaverous form swayed from the rafters, its neck twisted in a noose. It was his way out.

  In the corridor, organ music seeped through the walls. A funeral dirge. The doors were swelling, as if they were alive and breathing. Prudence was trying to jot it all down, filling up the pages of her notepad with lurid details.

  “Your arthritis, it seems to be improving,” observed Willa.

  Prudence hadn’t thought about it. She flexed her fingers. It was true! “Yes, I haven’t felt this—” She stopped and stared at Willa. “How did you know about my arthritis?”

  “I know all about you, Prudence Pock. Like I said, I’m your biggest fan.” Willa drifted off to the next corridor, her angelic form swallowed by gloomy darkness, leaving Prudence to follow the clink-tink-clinking of her charms.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  Willa’s angelic voice came from the shadows. “Don’t worry, you’ll see. You’ll see everything.”

  They passed a row of picture windows where more lightning was doing some more flashing. The opposite walls were adorned with additional portraits of an uncanny nature: a werecat on a sofa, a gentleman vampire, and a grotesque Gorgon with live snakes for hair, to name a few. “More retirees?” mused Prudence.

  “Yes! There are nine hundred ninety-nine of us. With room for a thousand.”

  A knight in a suit of armor, standing guard at the end of the corridor, drew his sword to point the way. Prudence responded with a deep bow, playing along. “Why, thank you, kind sir. At ease.” The knight obliged, removing his helmet…along with his entire head! Prudence gushed at the sight. “Marvelous! The effects around here are simply marvelous!” She turned to Willa. “They really should do tours of the place. The public would eat it up!” And vice versa.

  “This way, Prudence Pock!”

  “But I want to stay. I wish to see, to touch, to experience everything this mansion has to offer!”

  “Please!” Willa put up her hand in protest. “You must always be careful what you wish for. Now come on. We’ll be late for the party.”

  Willa turned and departed quite suddenly, leaving Prudence alone. Prudence spun around when she heard Willa call from above.

  “Up here!” Prudence saw Willa waving from a balcony and climbed a grand staircase to join her. “Look! The first guests are starting to arrive.” Prudence peered down into a grand hall, a large dining room built in another time, seemingly for all time. New arrivals were showing up in horseless hearses from around the globe—Tokyo, Paris, and regions beyond. There were couples waltzing in Victorian garb, the men all wearing gray wigs. It was like a George Washington convention. And for a fleeting moment, Prudence considered that she might be one of them. They only honor you when you’re dead, right? Right?

  But the mere thought of it was patently absurd, for never had Prudence Pock felt so alive. You might even say she felt lighter than air.

  Once again, Willa took her by the hand. “Come on! You have to meet my friends.” And down they went into the moldering inner sanctum of the grand hall, the nonbeating heart of the festivities.

  The first thing Prudence saw was the banquet table. And honestly, you couldn’t miss it! It was long enough to acco
mmodate twenty Thanksgivings. Guests were everywhere, and we do mean everywhere—an arm here, a torso there. The invitation had called it a symposium, a gathering of prominent ghost writers. And the guest list did not disappoint. There was Poe, hobnobbing in a corner with Dickens. And Henry James talking shop with Shirley Jackson. Of course, Prudence assumed they were costumed look-alikes. To think otherwise would render her insane. So what does that make you, foolish reader?

  She was elated beyond words, twirling alongside waltzing couples, waving to the phantasms that hung from chandeliers. “This is incredible! I can’t believe my eyes!”

  Willa took hold of Prudence’s hands and twirled along with her. “But you should,” she said. “You of all people should believe. You’ve written about such places your entire natural life.”

  “Except I know this isn’t natural. It isn’t a tale. The places, those things I’ve written about—they were all make-believe. This is…is…is…” Not wanting to sound off her rocker, Prudence let Willa say it for her.

  “Real.”

  “Yes, real.”

  Prudence stopped twirling. Something was wrong. Reality was starting to sink in, and she was afraid. Unabashedly afraid. Like Officer Davis afraid. She wanted to leave. To go back to the real world, to her TV and her microwave dinners.

  But it was already too late.

  She felt an unwelcome distraction. Something flicked her bun. “Stop it! Who’s doing that?” It wasn’t Poe, and it wasn’t Jackson. Who knew? Maybe it was one of the George Washingtons. No! Not any of those.

  Prudence heard their impish laughter, and this time she saw them. Three boys, around twelve, were behind her, beaming with excitement. After all, they were big fans, too. Willa smiled as she introduced them. “Prudence Pock, meet my little jerkoids. The rest of the real Gruesome Group—aka the Fearsome Foursome—Tim, Noah, and Steve.”

  “Thanks for keeping our stories alive,” said Tim, the one wearing a baseball uniform.

  “I really liked the movie version,” added Noah, the chubby one. “Part one. Not so much the other ones.”

  “That kid they got to play me was lame-lame-lame,” chimed in Steve, the handsome one. “And whose dumb idea was it to make Willa a boy?”

  “Hey! What’s wrong?” Willa asked, seeing the look of horror on Prudence’s face.

  She was standing inert, petrified as a corpse. Ah, so there was nothing wrong. The rational side of her brain had been trying to convince the irrational side that this was all an elaborate put-on. And the rational side had failed. “I need to leave!” she told Willa. “I have a very important appointment in the morning!”

  The chilling chimes of a grandfather clock didn’t help. The jabbering guests went silent, as silent as the graves they’d crawled out of. It was time for the main event. “What’s going on?” Prudence asked in a panic. Willa pointed to the balcony. Clink-tink-clink.

  The hour of thirteen was upon them, and the master of ceremonies had made his way onto the balcony: a cadaverous figure dressed in the same three-piece suit they’d buried him in, a dead carnation in his lapel. He was the mansion’s keeper of tales, Amicus Arcane.

  He plucked the flower from his lapel, switching it out for another dead one from a standing vase. He looked down on his beastly brethren. The time had come to announce his retirement.

  “Good evening, extinguished and expired guests. Welcome to our grand celebration. For some of you, it was quite a climb. For others, it was merely a chop, a drip, and a thump. You, dear fiends, have provided tales that have rattled the nerves of the morbid masses. I have collected nine hundred ninety-nine such tales, along with the souls that accompany them. Tonight, we make room for one more.” He looked down on the spirited crowd and spotted Prudence standing uncomfortably among them. “My time as your humble librarian has run its unnatural course. All things must pass.”

  Curiously enough, he was right. A moment later, a thing passed.

  The guests reacted the way guests do in a haunted mansion; there were shrieks and growls and howls mostly. There might have been a “boo” in there somewhere. Probably from one of the George Washingtons.

  The librarian waited for them to settle down before continuing. “Before I depart, however, it is my distinct dishonor to select a beneficiary. The next keeper of the tales. The qualifications are maddeningly simple. Tell me a story. Your scariest story. Let the contest begin!”

  The grand hall erupted with sounds, some defying description, as the ghostly ghost writers began regaling one another with their scariest tales. And as their stories progressed, Prudence noticed sinister transformations occurring throughout the room. She could see right through the floating dancers, peer into the chest cavities of the world’s greatest ghost writers, see the glow of their telltale hearts thump-thump-thumping. Prudence understood what was happening, for better or for worse. The mansion was alive—alive with the dead—and Prudence Pock had been invited to join them.

  “Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!”

  She unleashed a scream, and some of the guests applauded—the ones with hands, of course.

  Prudence bolted for the stairs and only stopped when Willa materialized directly in front of her. “Wait! Where are you going? The party’s just getting started.”

  “I made a mistake, sweetie. This party’s not for me!”

  “But it is,” Willa assured her. “Your final tale needs to be heard.”

  “Not yet it doesn’t!” Prudence ran straight through Willa, going down the up staircase, trying to retrace her path through corridors where doors breathed and walls had eyes, across stairways that defied gravity. She ran through chambers where portraits stretched and masters hung. She moved as fast as her troubled knees could take her, because she could hear them coming. From the darkest recesses of the mansion, a parade of monstrosities was coming to get her.

  Those happy haunts she’d heard about—the hitchhikers and the mummies and the brides with hatchets—they had all materialized. And just so we’re clear: the haunts are mostly happy because you’re not! They were almost upon her, and with her writer’s block gone, Prudence Pock could vividly imagine what would happen if they caught her!

  She made a mad dash for a door—one that wasn’t breathing—at the end of the corridor. Its serpent-shaped handle was already turning. Too bad she hadn’t noticed. Prudence flew through the door and slammed it behind her.

  And instantaneously, the otherworldly noises ceased.

  She slowly pivoted, trying to see where she’d ended up. The room had no windows. And when she turned again, she saw that even the door had vanished. It was a quaint chamber, with its overflowing bookshelves, crackling fireplace, and marble busts of the greatest ghost writers the world had ever known. She had stumbled into the mansion’s library.

  Two female ghosts, one in a white shroud, the other in black, sat in silence in the corner, reading. Upon seeing Prudence, they nodded, gathered their belongings, and nonchalantly disappeared.

  Prudence gulped, then slowly passed the bookshelves, reading titles, hoping deep down to find one or two of her own up there. “Quite the collection, is it not?” She spun around, holding her hand to her heart. A figure was seated in a high-backed chair. She couldn’t see his face, but she could guess who he was.

  “Mr. Arcane?”

  The librarian’s skull-like visage creeped out from behind the red velvet; he looked like a worm crawling out of an apple. “Welcome, Mistress Prudence. Welcome to our library. Come. Sit inside the fire. Or is it sit beside the fire? I never can get that right.”

  Prudence nodded, but her legs refused to move. The librarian understood and sent a chair to collect her. It rolled behind Prudence and, after she sat, slid her to the fireplace—where it was oddly chillier. Prudence took a deep breath, gathering all the courage she could muster. It wasn’t enough, so she took another breath and gathered some more. “Why am I here, Mr. Arcane? Be honest. Have I gone insane?”

  “Hardly,” said the librarian. “But hardly’s
better than nothing.” There was a book in his gloved hands. An old tome with VOLUME IV etched into its spine. He began flipping through the pages—blanks, every one of them. The tales hadn’t been written—yet.

  “Th-th-there seems to be some misunderstanding,” Prudence stammered, her courage fading.

  The librarian looked up from the blank pages. “A…misunderstanding? Pray tell, elaborate.”

  “I-I-I don’t know that I can. All I know is I don’t belong here.”

  The librarian tilted his head in mock despair. “You are the writer Prudence Pock?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “And you did receive our invitation?”

  She nodded twice. “Yes, yes.”

  He opened his hands, allowing the book to float onto her lap, then added in a less cordial tone: “Then there is no misunderstanding.” Prudence glanced down at the first page and saw her name writing itself in black ink. The librarian offered his most comforting smile, which wasn’t very comforting at all. “You have a tale to tell, do you not?”

  Prudence slowly nodded, starting to recall. The time had come for Prudence to regale the librarian with her scariest tale of all. You will hear her terrifying tale soon enough, foolish reader. First, we must return to the asylum….

  Back inside the dungeon of Shepperton Sanitarium, Prudence Pock was holding the same book in her lap. Dr. Ackerman didn’t believe a word of what she’d just said and was visually sizing her up for a straitjacket.

  “This book, Doctor, it’ll make a believer out of you yet.”

  “It’s not what I believe, dear Prudence, it’s—”

  Their talk was intruded on by a long labored moan, a dispirited plea of gloom. “Cherreeeeeeeee!”

  Dr. Ackerman spun around to see where it was coming from. It seemed to be right outside the cell. “What in the world is that?”

  “That,” said the orderly, reappearing from behind him, “would be the current resident of room three.” The orderly readjusted the candelabrum, casting red, yellow, and orange flickers across their faces.