The foyer of Hillhurst was a mess. Garbage littered the floors and eighty years of dust and cobwebs caked every surface. The windows facing outside were mostly boarded up, except for one nearest to the door, its lower half uncovered. The window was broken below the boards covering the rest of it, allowing light and fresh air into an otherwise stuffy and stale room.
“Shit, it’s not gonna be the asbestos that kills us,” Roland murmured. “This place dusty as hell.”
Drew led them across the vestibule towards the stairs. “We won’t be long.”
“Yeah,” Jo whispered before the door swung closed behind them.
They looked back at it for a moment; when nothing happened, they headed on.
Drew reached the bottom of the curving staircase to the overlooking second floor balcony. He shone the light up the carpet-covered stairs, the piercing white glow catching the metal frames of paintings and gleaming off a dusty mirror at the stairs’ turn, before scattering off the cobweb encrusted suit of armor standing guard at the top of the stairs..
Jo looked at the finely carved wood railing and the paintings with a hum. “You’d think this place would be… worse than it is.”
Roland agreed. “This place hasn’t had people in here for 80 years, you think it’d be…”
“Rotting?” Drew asked as they walked up the creaking stairs.
“Nothing rots in LA,” Jo said, “But 80 years is a long time for this place to never have been ransacked.”
Drew saw what she meant when he reached the top of the stairs and saw the armor was intact. All it needed was some cleaning and polishing and it’d be good as new. Much of the house they’d seen so far, he realized, was the same way–dirty but undisturbed. “That is weird.”
Passing a partially open door, Jo glanced inside and slowed down to take the knob and pull it open.
Inside were untouched boxes full of stuff dating back all the way to the 1920s. Cobweb covered boxes of old medical instruments, wooden toys, and what looked like old office equipment were stacked near the back wall, and just beyond them an open box with an Egyptian Mummy that looked like it came from a movie set leaned against the wall.
It stared back at her, body wrapped up in tattered old cloth strips, its skin and face desiccated and gray with brown, worn-down teeth pulled into a rictus of death.
Jo shivered and turned towards Drew and Roland. “Seriously, none of this junk probably hasn’t been moved since it got dumped here. With all the hipsters in town, this place should’ve been unironically picked clean.”
Roland and Drew both had a chuckle at that as she left the door and followed them along the balcony and into the hallway towards the rooms facing the front of the house. There were two doors, one was slightly ajar and the other was tightly closed.
“Which door?” Roland asked.
Drew went to the closed door and turned the knob, the mechanism turning with a loud, rusty “kerchak” after a bit of effort. “Check the other room.”
Jo stacked up with her brother and helped him work open the door to the creaking protest from its hinges. A bedroom with sheet covered furniture and no open windows greeted them.
“Nothing but more junk,” Jo muttered in disgust.
One door over, in the roughly L-shaped room that extended along the side of the house, Roland found the open window but no comic in sight. It was another bedroom, with sheet covered furniture and a dingy old Afghan rug on the floor.
Not seeing the comic, and confused by the abundance of furniture, he shook his head. “Seriously, ain’t no way this place is this intact. Who they got out here watching all this shit…?”
As he turned to leave, he froze in place.
Standing in the back of the room, around the corner from the door and thus out of sight when Roland walked in, was an abomination of a man wearing a dirty brown suit-jacket over a lighter brown turtleneck sweater.
He had a large, squarish head with a bulging forehead and crown covered in obvious surgical scars and staples–and was reading the front cover of the sealed comic like he was trying to decipher the mysteries of the universe on it.
Stock still, Roland’s mouth fell open, but no sound came out. His mind locked up trying to process what he was face to face with.
Jo was stepping out the door ahead of Drew when a dried out, cloth-wrapped hand with long gnarly nails grabbed the strap of her overalls and yanked her around. Shaken, she went pale as she found herself facing the same Mummy that she’d written off as a bizarre prop, its one good blue eye scowling maliciously from its left socket back at her.
“Where do you get off, breaking into somebody’s house and calling it junk?!” The male Mummy yelled.
Jo, and Drew behind her, answered the reasonable question with terrified screaming. The noise startled the disfigured monster, causing the comic to flip out of his hands and glide to the floor and land on Roland’s foot. Looking at the young man, the monster man himself screamed in surprise.
Roland screamed back, but his brain found the throttle and he moved–grabbing up the comic and bolting out the door as the monster man lunged for him. He barreled out the door, surprising the Mummy and allowing Jo to twist herself free of the his grip. Drew shoving her ahead, both scrambled from both monsters and followed Roland.
“You two really stepped in it now!” The Mummy shouted after the fleeing siblings and their friend. He looked at the man monster. “Hey! Frankie! Get ‘em before they get away!”
The man monster let out a slow-toned grunt and lurched after them with arm’s outstretched and his large fingers clawing at the air.
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Leaving Dudley with the engine idling, Trip and Van found a back door of the mansion and forced their way into the great house’s kitchen. Much like the rest of the house it was in complete disuse, caked with grime and spiderwebs, but otherwise unused for a long time. The kitchen’s old icebox sat in a corner next to the stove, and the cabinets and doors of both were open, displaying none but the faint remains of a few scraps of dried food and vermin.
Van turned to his brother, doing his best to ignore the rat scurrying across a countertop near where pots and pans were stacked by the sink. “I really don’t like this. It’s so dusty, and I feel like I’m trapped in a box.”
Trip looked around, sure it was old and stale, but this place was anything but cramped. In fact, the place looked bigger inside than it was outside. “You’re freaking out man, calm down. This is going to be awesome, trust me.”
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
He reached into the bag, pulling out some monster masks and heavy-duty flashlights. “So, here’s what’s going to happen. We’re gonna take the back stairs, and we’re gonna make enough noise so those idiots get curious about what’s making the sound.”
“Yeah? Then what?” Van asked.
Trip weighed his flashlight in hand. “Andrew’s definitely going to be up at the front. When he comes to investigate, we beat the shit out of him.”
He gave it several short, hard swings for emphasis. “And if Roland and Josephine try to jump in, we give ‘em some, too.
Under any other circumstance, Van would be overjoyed to crack some skulls. It’d be a great warmup for round two against that Pine Tree guy, even! But they were doing this in a creepy old house he heard a lot of rumors about. “Y-yeah.”
Sensing his brother’s unease, Trip scowled. “Are you chickening out on me?”
Van Vanderhoff was not a chicken. “No! I’m just… mad stoked, you know?”
Trip bought the bluff. “Come on, I ‘m pretty sure there’s some back stairs we can use to sneak up on-”
“What do you mean I have to change my name?!”
Both brothers froze where they stood and looked at each other.
“Did you hear that?” Trip asked.
Van squeaked. “You did too?”
“This is an outrage! I will not stand for it!” The muffled voice with a heavy Eastern European accent made them jump, and both brothers looked towards the source of the sound–a door in the hallway leading from the kitchen.
“Orders from up top; I’m just going through the list of everyone who is using some ‘clever name bullshit’ and informing them that they have to change their names within three weeks of this call.”
The very black and sassy voice that replied sounded more like something they’d hear at a Rodeo Drive hair salon.
“But I like my name, I chose it myself.”
“Listen girlfriend: I loved the name I chose when I got turned too, but nobody was fucking with Lord Sparklebottom, so I changed it. You can too!”
The Vanderhoff boys shared another confused look, and Trip looked at the doorknob. Grabbing it, he swung it open.
Inside was a startlingly pale, black-haired man in his mid-20s dressed in a black tuxedo with a flamboyant red vest and yellow shirt underneath. He was sitting on a stool, talking to what appeared to be a magic mirror of some kind, or had been until the door opened and he turned to look at them.
In the mirror, a dark-skinned androgyne with a high crew-cut and wearing a pink shirt off one shoulder was leaning in their chair, clearly trying to see what the pale man on the stool was looking at and coming up short. “Wait, who’s that?”
The pale man held up his hand to the magic mirror. “I will have to call you back…”
Trip and Van’s confusion melted into terror as the man smiled bigger than any normal human should be able to, their corners reaching almost to his ears as his lips rolled back to reveal a mouth full of sharply pointed teeth and his eyes turned from a wispy gray to a frightening crimson.
“… My lunch just arrived.”
“Gurl, go on and get it!” The androgyne in the mirror cheered.
With a boiling hiss the monstrous man lunged, and a screaming Trip slammed the door in his face.
“GAH! OW!” The creature yelled. Trip and Van didn’t hear it, the boys were running for their lives towards the front of the house, hollering as loudly as they could.
One floor up, Drew, Jo, and Roland thundered down the hallway with the mummy and his monstrous buddy trailing behind them. Their flight came to an end with the hall, which split in two different directions… for a lot further down than the house obviously went.
The three looked back and forth, momentarily befuddled by the strange interior dimensions of the house, before the grunting and growling behind them brought the terror right back.
“This way!” Drew said as he went left, and his sister and best friend followed him.
“Hey, can you not run so fast?! My rigor mortis is acting up!” The Mummy yelled after them.
Reaching the intersection only to see the herd of brats already opening their lead, the Mummy groaned and threw up his hands in frustration. “Come on! You brats are supposed to be slow and constantly looking over your shoulders! That’s how the monsters keep up with you!”
Screams from downstairs caught the Mummy’s attention. “Oh great, it’s an infestation!”
Red energy crackled over his hands, and he grabbed the man monster’s head. “Okay Frankenbeans, we gotta go all out if we want to get rid of these brats. Just like with those hippies!”
“Rrr… yeah!” The man monster said before the energy from the Mummy’s hands jolted his body like a violent electric shock.
“There, a little more brain power to work with. Don’t use it all at once, I’m gonna go deal with the others,” The Mummy instructed.
Bringing a hand to his chin, Frankenbeans as he was called spoke with a clearer and more refined tone, dialect, and vernacular. “Quite, I shall make haste. Good luck with your own quarry, Mums. Tallyho!”
“What did I just say about using those brains up?!” Mums shouted as Frankenbeans sprinted off. “Oh whatever, I better go get those other brats under wraps.”
He paused for a moment. “Hah, wraps.”
He turned and hurried back to the lobby as fast as his undead bones could take him.
Down the hall, Drew, Jo, and Roland reached the end and once again found themselves looking left and right down very long corridors.
“What’s going on? How is this house this big?!” Jo said, her voice tight.
“Nah, this whole house is scuffed as hell,” Roland said as he turned to Drew.
Drew looked to the left again. “If we keep turning left, then we’ll have to come back to where we started!”
“Are you sure about that, cuh?” Roland asked.
The heavy thuds of Frankenbeans’s footsteps approaching, like iron weights hitting the floor growing louder, eliminated the luxury of second guessing. Grabbing Jo by her hand, Drew fled around the corner and Roland followed.
“Run all you like, spirited children, but I will have you yet!” The man monster called after them.
Roland looked back, that guy didn’t seem all that articulate before.
“If I must chase you to the ends of this house, I will capture you!”
And he was gaining too. It didn’t look like Drew’s plan was going to pan out. Roland looked at him again. “We can’t outrun him!”
“I know!” Drew gasped back.
“I don’t want to die!” Jo shouted.
“We won’t!” But Drew was going to be a liar if something didn’t change.
A door up ahead offered salvation and he cut left, grabbing the handle, and shoving it open to allow Roland and Jo to enter. Slipping in behind them, he swung it closed and turned the lock. They were in another bedroom, furnished with a large bed, a dresser, an armoire, and a loveseat.
Not a second sooner there was a bang as Frankenbeans struck the door, followed by an urgent pounding. “I say! If you know what’s good for you, you’ll open this door right now!”
“We have a firm grasp on what’s good for us, thanks!” Drew pointed to the dresser, then to Jo, and the two slid it in front of the door.
Roland shoved the loveseat up against it, and the banging on the door grew louder.
“I would be rather dismayed to have to break this door down!” Frankenbeans offered. “If you behave, I can assure at least one of you will live. Sure, it would be as a pet, but it wouldn’t be a bad life. You’d quite like it.”
“Ew, no!” Jo shouted.
Drew had gone over to the armoire and began to move it, but despite his best efforts it wouldn’t budge. “Huh?”
Roland came to his side. “What’s up?”
Drew began shoving it, to no avail. “It’s stuck! Like it’s attached to the wall or something…”
He opened the door and paused. He, Jo, and Roland all stared into the armoire, and the secret slide that lay beyond a moved false back of the furniture.
“I am afraid you have given me no recourse. En garde, lads and lass!”
Sharing another look, all three bolted into the armoire, Drew shutting the doors behind them a split second before the door and the furniture they stacked in front of it exploded from the sheer strength of Frankenbeans’ shoulder barge into it. Splinters scattered across the room like deadly wooden blades–embedding in the bed, the walls, and the Armoire itself.
“I suppose Mums and Fangula will have to settle for ghoulash…?” The man monster stopped and looked around the room before he could chuckle at his own pun. Instead of eviscerated victims, he found only a ruined bedroom and not even a scrap of his quarry.
“Blimey,” he said, his accent shifting from refinement to a more casual vernacular. “Where’d they bloody go?”
Down. The slide, made of polished stainless steel, was practically frictionless so Roland, Jo, and then Drew went hurtling at high speed down the dark, winding chute. Cobwebs, scattering rodents, and even a few bats passed them as they descended, picking up more and more speed until the slide suddenly leveled off and they came out in a room on the first floor.
“Great,” Jo wheezed, “Where are we now?”
Roland got up. “Man, as long as we don’t run into another monster, I’ll be fine with being in the septic tank.”
Jo cringed in disgust. “I would rather be monster chow.”
Roland sighed. “You’d end up there either way.”
In a moment of bleak humor, Jo managed a laugh. “Gross.”
Roland began laughing too, Drew joining in for a few merry moments, before they slowly got up and looked around the room they had entered.
It was a large, windowless, but comfortable room that was much cleaner than anywhere in the house they’d seen so far. No cobwebs, no strewn garbage, not even a speck of dust covered the couches, cushions, tables, or the main feature of the room–a polished gleaming pipe organ set into the back wall of the house.
Drew, Jo, and Roland stared up at the massive instrument in awe of it–more than they felt they should, but they were unable to help themselves.
They could feel the tremendous power radiating from it.