Whisper Of Fear

I was woken up by a phone call late in the night. I opened my eyes and felt around for my phone. I found it and looked at who was calling me. It was my friend, Olivia.

I wondered why she was calling that late in the night, but I picked it up. "Hello?" I said softly. "Yo!" she yelled from the other end. I lifted the phone off my ear and put it in speaker mode, placing it on my bed.

"What's up?" I asked, rubbing my eyes. "Are you ready?" she asked. "For what?" I asked. "The Ambrose' house. Did you forget?" she said. "Not at all!" I said, coming to the realization that I had. "I'll meet you at your house in ten," I said. "Cool," she said and hung up.

I groaned softly and rubbed my eyes again. I pulled my blanket off and went to my wardrobe to get changed. Our whole gang was twenty-five and independent but, they still felt the need to go on haunted house tours.

I didn't understand them but, they were my friends, so I accompanied them. I put on a fancier set of clothing and my coat. I walked down to my hall and walked out of my house, making sure to lock it thoroughly behind me.

It was a five-minute walk from my house to Olivia's. There was little traffic at eleven in the night, so I got there faster. I shoved my hands into my pocket to try and keep out the cold.

I called Olivia when I reached her front door. "Where are you?" I asked her when she picked up. "I'll be right outside, just give me a moment," she said. "Fine. Hurry up," I said and hung up.

I entertained myself by watching my breath steam while I waited for Olivia. I made myself light-headed doing that but it was fun. Olivia came out a minute later.

"Yo!" I said, giving her a high five. "Yo! Take this," she said and tossed me a walkie-talkie. "Seriously?" I said, examining it. "Your phone won't work properly in there. This will," she said.

"Why will my phone not work properly?"

"I don't know. Some say it's paranormal,"

"Right. Why would I need this, though? We're not going to split up, right?"

She stayed quiet.

"Right?" I asked again.

She gave me a cold smile. "No," I said, unbelieving. "We are," she said. "That's how people get killed in horror movies!" I whispered harshly. "Nothing's going to happen," she said, leading me by my arm to the Ambrose' house.

We reached there in a minute and found the rest of the gang standing in front of the large front door. Emma, Neil and Arya were leaning on the compound wall surrounding the house.

I took a good look at the house. It was a large brownstone mansion that was overrun with nature. Plants grew in holes in the walls and along with the plumbing.

The small garden was like grassland and the trees were twisted and bent in odd shapes. I shook hands with the other three. As I looked through the front window I realized why I had put this place out of my mind entirely.

There was a creepy-looking doll with gouged out eyes sitting on the window sill. It had a hideous grin painted on its face and it looked to be made of normal cloth.

I could see Arya trembling slightly. At least I wasn't the only scared one. I decided I would stick with her during the trip. We split ourselves into teams. I went with Arya, Olivia and Emma stuck together while Neil decided he would go off by himself.

He was a big, lumbering dude, so I wasn't too worried about him getting attacked or anything. We entered the house together. The inside was heavily panelled with wood.

There was one large hallway to either side and a set of stairs going to the floor above. Neil went up the stairs, Arya and I went down the right and the other two went down the left.

There were burnt out torches in sconces along the walls and the floor had a red carpet with white edges. There were large windows with more creepy dolls sitting on each sill.

We reached the end of the hallway and turned left. There were a bunch of rooms lining the walls, so we decided to explore each one. The left side rooms had no light, so we got out our flashlights.

The first room on the left seemed to be some kind of worship chamber. There was the aroma of incense hanging in the air. There was a small stand with a doll on top of it.

That doll was dressed up all fancy and had all its parts intact. It had a garland of jasmine flowers that was fresh. That meant that somebody still regularly visited the house.

I pointed it out to Arya and she looked more terrified than before. I asked her to walk slowly as we explored the rest of the rooms. The rooms were damned weird.

One entirely consisted of shelves and racks but had nothing on any of them. I just had a giant head made of iron. I didn't recognize the face, so I assumed it was the face of the owner or somebody. One other room had an indoor swimming pool that seemed like it was cleaned very recently.

There was a whole sized mannequin floating in the pool. Arya didn't enter the room after seeing that, but I cleared the room. The hallway then turned to the left again. There was another line of rooms down each wall.

I saw the flash of lights ahead. I shined my light and found Olivia and Emma running towards us. I suddenly tensed up. "Why are they running?" Arya whispered.

"I don't know," I said. "Run!" Olivia said as they neared. Arya started to run but I caught her arm after seeing the barely hidden smile on Emma's face. "What's wrong with you?" I asked them.

"What's going on?" Arya asked, her voice shaking. Emma finally burst out laughing. Arya was livid. So livid in fact that she walked up to Emma and kneed her in the stomach.

Emma fell to the ground but was still laughing. It looked like Arya might kill Emma, so I pulled her away. "You found anything?" Olivia asked. "Dolls and a mannequin in a pool. You?" I said.

"We found a giant head made of gold and studded with diamonds,"

"Sick,"

"So we stole a few of them," she said, holding out her hand.

Inside the cup of her palm were several real-looking diamonds. I took one and examined it. It seemed to be real. "Take us there," I said. We all walked to the giant head and sure enough, there were diamonds there.

We took our fair share and tried to not make it obvious that diamonds were missing. We were walking out of the room when I heard Neil scream from upstairs.

It was a scream of genuine fear. We all looked at each other and we rushed to the stairs. We saw him at the top, kicking at something, but he was dragged away from sight.

I rushed up without thinking. The other three followed shortly. I reached the top of the stairs and turned to the right, where we had seen him. Nobody was there.

I looked around but I couldn't find anyone anywhere. I saw signs of struggle along the closest wall, but Neil had just vanished. I switched on the walkie-talkie and tried talking to him, but there was just silence followed by heavy breathing, not his.

I strained my ears to hear anything out of the ordinary. I heard something being dragged off to the right and I ran in that direction. Olivia and Emma took another approach to the place while Arya came behind me.

I took several turns until I came across an old man dragging something rolled into a carpet. I worried the dead body of Neil was wrapped in it but the carpet was too small to fit him.

I tried to stay out of sight but Arya stumbled past me and into his sight. Both of them stared at each other for a moment until the old man got out a damned pistol and aimed it at her.

I pulled her back into cover just as I heard the crack of his gun. It blasted a hole into the wood. It seemed to be a single-shot pistol since I heard him throw the gun away.

"What are you doing there?" I heard him call. "Don't shoot," I yelled and walked in front of him. Arya tried to pull me back but I shook her off. "What's your business here?" he asked.

"We are just exploring the place, we mean no harm," I said.

"You chose the wrong place,"

"We realize that, but one of our friends is missing. Will you help us find him?"

His expression changed when I said that. He threw down his carpet and came forward. "Did he get dragged away?" he asked with wild eyes. "Yes," I said, "Do you know where he might be?"

"He's most likely dead, but I will help you," he said.

"How could he be? He's the size of a truck!"

"The ghost that roams this place has taken out the world's strongest men, child. Don't make the mistake of underestimating it!"

"Let's find him quickly, then,"

He nodded and we followed him. He seemed to know his way around the place. He led us along the winding corridors and we reached what seemed to be the master bedroom.

"He'll be in there," he said. "You're not coming?" I asked. "I can't," he said, looking away. He seemed to bear a great burden, so I let it go and went inside. Arya stuck behind me.

I shined my flashlight around the giant bedroom. There was a lump under the blanket, so I approached and slowly lifted the blanket off. Neil was under there curled into a foetal position, his eyes unfocused.

"Hey!" I said, trying to snap him out of his funk. He looked up at me. Seeing me seemed to snap him out of his trance and he flailed around, trying to get out of the bed. 

I stepped back and allowed him to get up. "We need to get out!" he almost yelled at me. "Let's go," I said. He explained the situation as we went to try and find the other two.

Turned out he was kidnapped by some sort of spectral figure and was put under some kind of trance that kept him under the blanket. That only encouraged us to find the other two and get out fast.

The old man was nowhere to be seen, but I didn't have much time to think about that. We turned a corner and saw Olivia and Emma being carried by the backs of their shirts by what looked like a proper ghost.

It had the same face as the giant iron and gold head I had seen earlier. The ghost stopped and looked at us as we looked at him. I could hear Neil whimper softly.

"Hand them over," I said, trying for a commanding voice even though I was terrified. "And why would I do that?" the ghost asked. "Hand them over, and we'll go. We'll never return." I said. 

"Why come here in the first place?" he asked.

"We just wanted to explore. We'll leave immediately if you just hand them over."

"I'm trying to protect them. It would do you good to let me protect you too."

"How are you protecting them?"

"There are malevolent spirits that roam this area. I'm hiding them so they won't succumb to them."

"Don't listen to him." I heard a voice behind me say.

We turned around to find the old man, now holding a full-sized sword, standing there. "Get back, kids," he said. The three of us backed up. The ghost's mouth had twisted into a snarl.

He dropped Olivia and Emma to the floor. He flew over to the old man and said in a growling voice, "Stay out of this, old man." "You know I can't do that." the old man said.

While they were talking, Olivia and Emma started stirring. Emma looked up and I waved her over. She shook Olivia and they both rushed past the talking pair and over to us.

The ghost tried to get them but the old man held his sword out. "Run." the old man said. We didn't need any further encouragement. We all booked it down the stairs and to the front door.

Another ghost appeared in front of the door. I tried to stop but my momentum was too high, and I crashed into the ghost. We both fell towards the door and it opened. The rest ran around me.

The ghost tried to grab onto my leg but I shook him off and shut the door behind me. I ran out of the property and out into the street. I looked at the mansion. I saw the old man nod to me from the second-floor window.

I nodded back and we started heading back to our houses. Olivia headed off to our houses while the other went in the opposite direction. We reached her house and I told her, "I'm never going out with you again." before leaving.