Page 5
Anya, Ronnie, Tyler, and Cherise all joke around on the drive to Misery Manor; meanwhile Jamal, Megan, and I remain awkwardly quiet in the back. Jamal’s anger ripples off him the entire ride there, making the already tense situation even more so. I nervously wring my hands together and look out the window as we drive down the dark street.
Misery Manor isn’t that far away from the bar, and in about ten minutes, we’re pulling up to an illuminated sign with a large arrow that directs us down a long, dark dirt road.
From what I read online, the Manor is an old, abandoned mansion that was bought by a horror-loving millionaire who turned it into what it is now. But the story goes that sometime in 2000, a man killed his wife and three young children in the house before disappearing. After the murders, the mansion remained empty and decrepit until it was sold at auction by the state.
Twenty-six years later, the man still hasn’t been caught.
Chills run over my skin as we get nearer to the Manor. I’ve never done anything like this before, so I'm not sure what to expect.
When we finally reach the old mansion, Ronnie turns the van off and we all get out. Jamal and Megan get out before I do, and I have to keep myself from grabbing Megan’s extensions when I see him take her hand and help her out. I hold mine out, mostly just to see what he’ll do, but he ignores it like I thought he would. My throat tightens with emotion from the pain of his disregard.
I hang in the back and wipe my eyes as the seven of us approach the wide porch.
The dilapidated manor sits in front of us like a hulking beast ready to swallow us whole. Almost every window is completely dark except for two in the front with lit candlesticks glowing.
The weather is perfect for a night at a haunted house on Halloween. The air is fresh and crisp and makes me feel alive for the first time in two years.
I close my eyes and inhale deeply. The night is silent save for the wind blowing through the trees and dry, dead leaves crunching beneath our feet.
The path to the front door is lined with jack-o’-lanterns with grotesque faces carved into their skins. We walk up the wide steps of the porch and stand in front of the door. Tyler grabs the heavy skull knocker, but before he has a chance to use it, it opens on its own.
“What the hell?” Ronnie says, alarmed. Anya grips his arm and presses close to his side.
“It’s just part of the act, Ron,” Tyler reassures him, but I don’t miss the slight tremor in his voice.
Slowly, we enter the mansion and stand in the dark foyer. Our collective gasps echo off the walls when the door slams shut behind us. Moonlight filters into the room through a single oculus in the high, domed ceiling. Several candles help light up the large space, but it’s still not enough. On either side of the large, spiral staircase directly in front of us, I can see two dark hallways.
Footsteps come from one of those halls, and within seconds a man in a red devil mask and long black cloak greets us.
“Welcome to Misery Manor, where all of your worst fears are brought to life,” he says in a low, almost gentle tone. His voice is so quiet that I can barely hear him.
Seemingly out of nowhere, he conjures up some clipboards and hands them out to all of us. When he gets to me, his eyes linger on my face for just a second longer—or am I just imagining that?—than the others before he resumes his place by the stairs.
My fingers grip the clipboard nervously.
“What is this?” Jamal asks cautiously, eyebrows raised as he looks over the paper.
The man in the devil mask cocks his head predatorily. The holes where his eyes should be don’t yield us a glimpse into the man beneath the mask, so it doesn’t even feel like he’s a real person.
Maybe he’s not…
Get it together, Aliyah. Of course, he’s a real person. It’s just a Halloween attraction.
But I'm genuinely creeped out. The Manor is definitely doing what it’s intended to.
A family was murdered here, though; this is for sure one of the most haunted places in town.
“It’s a liability waiver,” Devil Man replies to Jamal softly. “The Manor is not responsible for any harm, physical or psychological, that may come to you.”
I swallow the lump in my throat and sign the waiver without even reading the text. My hands are shaking so violently that I drop my pen, the noise sounding ten times louder in this nearly silent foyer. Everyone whips their heads in my direction and glares at me.
“Sorry,” I mutter quietly, picking it up and holding it tight.
Movement catches my eye to the left, and when I look over, I see a floating white face in the shadows of the other hallway. My skin crawls with the feeling of its eyes watching me intently.
What the hell is that?
Devil Man takes our clipboards from us and sets them on a table next to him that I didn’t even know was there. Is that part of the act, stuff just randomly appearing out of nowhere? Or is this house really haunted?
