The Hackneyed Haunt

The others in my appetite, and I, swayed and shuffled as we stood among the trees, docile since the food had run out. The last of the light disappeared over the horizon. The forest fell into a gloom. I doddered through an opening and came to stand beside a looming elm. Standing next to it felt right. Some of the others were standing by trees as well, a natural instinct. 

The snap of a twig caught my attention. I turned slowly and staggered toward the shadows. I clawed at the bushes and found nothing. I listened. Nothing. Eventually I came to stand next to the bushes. It was a nice place to stand and sway. 

Another rustle. I lunged at the sound a bit quicker, this time it came from the other side of the brush. I fell over quite a few times, and even got stuck once, but eventually I was thrashing away at the far side of the bush. Nothing. I thrashed some more and still nothing.

The rustle came from behind me. I turned even slower than usual, unconvinced that there was going to be some food there. But when I looked, there was a furry, black cat. It was sitting, its tail curling back and forth as it stared up at me with giant green eyes. “Mrow.”

I growled and gnashed my teeth quietly as I crept toward it. Its furry head was tiny, but there was probably a tasty little snack in there. I lunged and it stepped away. I lunged again. It stepped away again. I groaned in frustration. I tried to fall on it. It hopped. I crawled toward it. It sashayed casually through the woods. Meowing and snorting and holding my attention. After being this slow for long enough, something you learn is patience. I continued to follow. The rest of our group slowly followed after me.

I stumbled after the cat for miles before seeing the faint glow of the fire through the thick forest. The cat headed straight for it. I followed, stumbling through the thick chaparral. The brush gave way to a clearing. A small fire burned in the center of a circle of makeshift tents. The cat disappeared into one of them. A tinkling churn of coals, a fleeting spark. I grew closer to the fire. Seated on a stump beside the flames, poking at the coals was a man. I could see from here that he had a ton of tasty, tasty brains. I made a beeline straight for him. 

I was almost on top of him before he turned and tossed his stick and yelled, reaching for his rifle. He missed and knocked it over as he fell back. “Wake up! Wake up!” He scrambled on his hands and knees for the gun. He found it and hurried to train it on me. A wild shot hit me in the lower ribs. I groaned. Getting shot was pretty annoying. 

The rifle jammed as he tried to reload. He scrambled to his feet and backed away, trying to free the bolt. I kept on him. He freed the bolt, reloaded the chamber and as he brought it up to my face, nearly point blank, one of our guys jumped him from behind and sunk his teeth into his neck, tearing away a flapping slab of flesh. Instead of a scream, his throat let out a gurgling gush of blood. We dove on him as he fell.

Campers began emerging from their tents, wielding blades, and clubs, and guns. They converged on us. Just as it looked like the end, the cavalry arrived. The rest of our party stumbled into the camp from all sides, thrashing and gnashing and snarling. Mayhem ensued. 

We ate most of them in short order. I finished off my third brain and stood, the hunger returning almost instantly. There had to be at least a few brains left. I glanced around, most of our party members were also cleaning up their last meals. A flash in the corner of my eye. I saw them just as they disappeared into the forest. A group had escaped, at least five or six of them. I set off after them.

I came to the edge of the forest. The full moon pushed over the horizon, fat and red, looming behind the dilapidated mansion. Lights moved inside. I took my first step into the field and tripped. My foot had become entangled in a root. I struggled against it as my comrades marched past me, toward the house. I growled in frustration, trying to free my leg. 

By the time I made it up the drive and to the front porch, the small group had almost finished picking off our horde, their bodies piled up in front of, and around the entrance. Intermittent shots and shouts rang out. I was halfway through the side yard when fresh screams of terror erupted from within the house. 

I turned the corner and started toward the rear entrance, a sunroom and screen door. Before I could close half the distance two figures burst from the back door. One; a young lady in torn clothes, the other; a shirtless, strapping fella holding a table leg. They raced for the screen, and just as the young lady reached for the door, both of them were sucked back into the house by an invisible force. The door slammed shut behind them. I grunted in confusion as I tugged and yanked my way through the rose garden.

I pushed through the screen, tripping into the sunroom. I shambled toward the dark door, the house had grown silent. I thought I’d find the back door locked and latched and blockaded, instead, it pushed open with a breath. I stepped in and jerked an ear, listening. Nothing. I shambled through the kitchen. The tiny tink of cutlery and the ring of stainless-steel clattered in the dark. I stopped and turned to peer. I heard the shining hiss of many blades unsheathing in the dark. I took a step. With the gust of a spectral hand, two dozen knives and similar impliments of assorted size and shape came shooting toward me, half of them embedding themselves in my arms and torso. It was a miracle none of them hit me in the head. I stepped into the kitchen, activating the overhead lighting. They blinked on just in time for me to see the ghost disappear into a swirling puff of smoke. 

The kitchen lights blinked out as I left and shuffled into the foyer. Something had killed this small group of refugees, but it sure wasn’t us. Whatever did this was far more gruesome. Bodies hung from the highest rafters. Others were skewered on broken chandeliers and the antlers of taxidermied big game. I limped into the middle of the massacre, and poked around at the corpses, there were a lot of great brains in here.  

After chomping down the brains of the bodies strewn about on the floor, I was reaching for the lowest of the hanging bodies, still twitching with dreams of its death throes, when a glow grew at the top of the arching staircase. I snarled and disregarded the last cadaver, stumbling toward the light. The glow coalesced into the form of a mystical woman. Long hair pulled back, dress flowing. She called out, her voice caught on a distant wind as she floated down the stairs.

I met her at the foot of the stairs. As I lunged, she flew at me, her fair face transforming into a gruesome ghoulish glare. It snarled. I gnashed at its throat. We were clenched in an impasse. It screamed in my face and disappeared, again, in a swirling cloud of smoke that trailed up the stairs. I stumbled to a knee, a few of the knives embedded in my torso falling free. I pushed myself to my feet and stumbled up the stairs after it.

The worst thing about ghosts is that they don’t have brains. What’s the point of even having ghosts, if they don’t have any tasty brains? It turned out the mansion was haunted. I’m not sure whether it was a ghost or a demon or other, but one thing I know is that it sure does talk a lot, frequently referring to itself in the third person. ‘Argus this,’ and ‘Argus that.’ After the year and half we’ve milled around this house together it has started to get a little exhausting.

On a cold November evening the two of us haunted the drawing room, cool blades of moonlight cutting through the gloom. We both stood at the picture window and looked out, over the wild, overgrown estate gardens. I swayed and held a hand to the window longing for someone to come and alleviate the monotony of spending all my time with Argus. Especially at times like this, when Argus was just droning on in a one way conversation. Recapping the history of murder linked to the haunting of the mansion. Honestly, I wasn’t listening to most of it. But it’s got something to do with the civil war, or the revolutionary war, I don’t remember. One of the wars.

“...and in the fires of purification you will know your true form,” it rambled, “A waterfall of blood will wash away the blessings of the saints…” it continued.

I pushed against the glass, wanting to escape the needling monologue and let out a moan of frustration.

It froze mid-speech. “Sorry.” It swirled into a puff of smoke and trailed around the room before coming to float next to me as I watched the horizon past the edge of the field. “You ever think, maybe they’re all dead?”  

I grumbled at the possibility.

It apologized again. “I know. What’s the point of all this if there’s no one left to feed us with their fear?” It floated to my other shoulder. “Or in your case, their brains.”

I snarled. Argus was annoying, but it could be kinda funny sometimes, too.

Argus’ smokey form coalesced into one of its many apparitions, the spooky baseball player. I knew what he was doing, trying to cheer me up. The baseball guy was, by far, my favorite of his characters, with its silly pants and oversized baseball cap. It was supposed to be scary, but, to me at least, it looked like a giant eight-year-old, surely doomed to be picked last for teams. My least favorite was the spooky farmer. That guy creeped me out, dragging his pitchfork around, half his face gone. Sometimes when we weren’t getting along Argus would sulk around as the farmer for weeks. He could be a real jerk sometimes.

The baseball guy crossed a foot over his ankle and leaned against my shoulder, working his glove with the ball and pontificating, and every few sentences, spitting ghostly globs of tobacco juice that shimmered and disappeared as soon as they hit the floor. “I’ll say this, Max,” (he always called me ‘Max.’ I hated it.) “If we do have to spend the rest of eternity together, I think you’re a pretty great ghoul to pass the time with.”

I rolled my eyes, and held my sneer. He knew the feeling wasn’t mutual.

The grandfather clock echoed the single dong from the foyer mezzanine and right on cue Argus began to fade away. “Alright then, Max. Have a good night. See you on the other side.” The jokes were exhausting. I grunted and waved the last puff of smoke away with a swipe. I had the next twenty-three hours to myself, but I knew it would fly by in the blink of an eye and Argus would be back to follow me around. It was only an hour a day, but it felt like forever. 

I stood there through the morning and the afternoon and into nightfall, I watched the swollen moon rise from behind the horizon and listened to the grandfather clock tick. It always seemed to grow louder as midnight approached. I really wasn’t in the mood for any shenanigans and made up my mind that, for tonight at least, I was going to give Argus the cold shoulder. Pun intended. I’ve been hanging with that hackneyed haunt for way too long.

I stared into the brilliant moon, hoping it might blind me before my friend arrived. It pushed over the ridge into the cold cloudless sky and as I watched it lift away from the hills beyond I saw something else. Silhouetted figures traversing the ridge against the moon. At least a dozen. The hunger stabbed at me. The clock struck midnight.

Argus materialized as the tiny, masked doll-girl (not one of my favorites), and was already blabbing away a mile a minute before it had even fully manifested. “I was thinking tonight we could try something new. Have you ever been up to the attic?” He knew I had, and I knew that all Argus wanted was to watch me fall down the rickety, old attic ladder over and over again as I tried to get up there. Fool me a couple hundred times… shame on you. 

I tried to keep it cool but I’ve never been a good liar. Almost immediately Argus noticed the nervous twitch in my eye and followed my gaze. It was all but giddy, slithering in foggy figure eights, the masks of its alter egos floating to the surface, one after the other. “Max. Max, they’re coming this way.” It turned into its rotting corpse costume, a transparent attempt to appeal to my friendlier side. “Ok, I kind of forget what plan we settled on last. Plan F?” Argus scratched at a hole in his head and then raised half a finger. “Oh no, that’s right. We were on to plan H, for hide until they get in here.”

I tried to wave Argus away, He weaved around and through my hands in wispy trails before leaning against me as the baseball guy, working the ball and glove. “Here’s the thing, Max. I can already tell, just from your body language, that when they get close you’re going to go shooting out the door and across the field and they’re going to take you out before you even realize what’s happened.” Argus stopped working the ball, turned into the mystical lady, and ran a hand along the back of my neck. “Just keep it cool until they get in here and you can have all their brains.” I growled and swiped its hand away. We stood and watched them make their way down the face of the ridge in the rose-tinted moonlight. 

They had disappeared into the shadows of the foothills. The click of the clock grew louder. Argus was darting around the mansion muttering notes of preparation to himself. I held a hand to the window and waited. Before long I heard a rattle from the back of the house. I took a final gaze through the window. 

I rounded the parlor and made my way into the kitchen, following the clinks and clanks. As I grew closer I began to hear their murmurs echoing through the atrium. I spotted them from the shadows. Argus was already lurking in the rafters above them. There were only minutes until the stroke of one, it had very little time to waste. It transformed into a hooded specter of death and descended upon them. It was good to hear screams in the house again. I shuffled in to join them.