Chapter 85
Inspecting the Haunted
Despite being perfectly healed, Erin’s friends still demanded that she’s take some time to rest. The redhead tried to protest this, but was ultimately forced to comply. In fact, her companions were so insistent on it that they actually scared her a bit. When asked about why they wouldn’t budge on the subject, they all would only say that it was better for her not to know.
Luckily, there were some edible plants and animals in the woods that surrounded them, providing them with food. They also had shelter thanks to Zeldana’s house, although some of them, particularly Ryle, weren’t exactly all too keen on staying there.
On the subject of shelter, Erin and her companions had expected Zeldana to not be all too keen on having people staying at her home, considering how she had been upon their first meeting. However, the elf surprisingly didn’t have any issues with them staying over. While she hadn’t given any reason, Erin suspected that she simply found their group entertaining, as Zeldana would often watch the arguments between Lexton and Ryle unfold with snacks at the ready.
There were still a lot of issues that they needed to solve, but at the very least their biggest one had been taken care of. They still needed to find a way to build up Lexton’s workshop, so that he could provide them with much needed equipment and find a new vehicle to drive around with. Not only that, but Erin was still missing her right hand and was in the need of a proper prosthetic. Swinging her sword around with just one hand was not going to work out all too well.
Right now, Erin was staying at their current residence along with Ryle, Lexton and Zeldana. Arkay and Durge had gone back to Burrow’s Deep to see if they could find anything useful, such as merchants with goods they needed or potential odd jobs for them to earn money. Erin had wanted to go, but one vicious look from the eyes of Ryle had quickly crushed that idea.
With so much free time on her hands, the redhead had hoped to use it in a manner that would be as productive as possible. At first, she thought she could practice swinging her sword a bit in order to get used to her current situation. That was quickly stopped by both Ryle and Lexton, who demanded that the redhead would not strain her body after what it had gone through. With that option now shut down, Erin had hoped to practice the use of magic, since it wasn’t as physically demanding.
However, her friends thought differently about the subject.
“Erin, didn’t we just tell you that you need to be resting!? You almost died not too long ago! And you’re trying to put yourself in danger right away!?” Ryle ranted at the redhead. “Seriously, what will it take for you to understand that you have to rest!?”
“Guys, I get that you’re concerned about me, but you’re overreacting far too much,” Erin said with a sigh. “Honestly, I’m feeling fine! Why is it so hard for you to believe? Besides, practicing magic isn’t all that physically demanding. What’s the problem?”
“The problem is that your magical core was almost destroyed recently!” Lexton yelled. “It might have been fixed, but you shouldn’t go putting any strain on it! Do you want to get yourself killed or something!?”
“I’m honestly a bit offended,” Zeldana said as she watched the arguing between the three. “You’re actually suggesting that my treatment wasn’t good enough. I’ll have you know that once I’m done with a patient, they’re as good as new!”
“YOU don’t get to comment on this subject, you lunatic!” Ryle shouted angrily at the elf, before turning her attention back to the redhead. “Erin, we are just worried about you. Do you have any idea how terrible this whole ordeal was? We could only watch as you were dying right before us and couldn’t do anything to help! Is it too much for us to ask that you take it easy for a while?”
“I get that you guys are worried and I do appreciate it, but I think you’re all overreacting a bit too much,” Erin said. “Besides, I can’t just lay around all day. We still have a long way ahead of us and it’s going to be full of dangers. I need to prepare myself so that we can face them better.”
“And you won’t be facing them, if you get yourself killed by your own hands!” Lexton said. “What if you just end up in the same state you were in before!?”
“That’s not a problem!” Zeldana stated. “I can just-”
“NO!” both Ryle and Lexton yelled at the same time.
“Seriously, what happened while I was unconscious!?” Erin asked.
“Please don’t ask. It’s seriously better if you don’t know,” Lexton quickly replied. “But we are not changing our minds on this subject. You need to rest up as much as possible, before we can allow you to strain yourself in any manner. And that’s FINAL.”
“But-”
“FINAL!”
Seeing as there was no chance for her to win this argument, Erin decided to give up. Neither of her friends were going to be relenting, so further arguing would be pointless.
With nothing better to do, the redhead decided to go and look around the house they were staying at. While it was very creepy and dirty, it was still worth checking out. After all, who knew what she would find? For all she knew, there might even be a hidden treasure somewhere.
The mansion had two floors, as well as an attic and a basement. On the first floor was a lounge, a kitchen and a dining room. So far, they had only stayed on this floor, so the group was fairly familiar with it. Because of this, Erin decided to focus her investigation on the other areas instead, starting with the second floor.
Walking up the stairs to the second floor was not a pleasant experience, as the floorboards on each step creaked loudly. Once she reached the top of the stairs, she came to a hallway that went to left and right with doors on both sides. In total, there seemed to be five rooms.
For a moment, Erin debated as to which one she should check out first, but soon noticed something rather disturbing. On the hallway floor was a large blood stain that seemed to go into one of the rooms, like someone was murdered and the dragged there. Knowing that she would be constantly scared of it, she decided to go there first. This would allow her to get her mind out of any thoughts of supernatural beings haunting the place.
The redhead took hold of the doorknob and took a deep breath to calm herself before opening the door. The room that was revealed to her appeared to be a library of some sorts, as there were numerous bookshelves on the walls. Besides those, the only other furniture were comfy chairs and a carpet stained in blood. It seemed like whatever had been dragged in there had been removed a long time ago.
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
While there didn’t seem to be really anything useful, Erin did notice a picture hanging from the wall. It was a portrait of the family that used to live there. From that she was able to tell that the family had four members, a father, a mother, a daughter and a son. Each of the family members in pictured had been shot with a pistol, so whoever had attacked them had really disliked them.
Moving on to inspect the remaining rooms, the redhead next saw what seemed to be the rooms for the children. Judging by the furniture and objects inside, she could deduce which room belonged to which child. Much to her relief, the scariest things about these rooms were simply the amount of dust, filth and cobwebs that had gathered from years of neglect. The idea of bloodstains inside the rooms belonging to children wasn’t something she wanted to imagine.
However, when she found the master bedroom that most likely belonged to the parents of said children, her mind soon began racing with all sorts of horrifying images of what had most likely happened. The whole room was a mess and looked like a homicidal maniac or a bloodthirsty monster had caused havoc in there. All of the furniture was either knocked over or destroyed, making it look like very messy robbery. But the most horrific thing was the amount of bloodstains that covered the place. The floor, the walls and even parts of the ceiling were completely covered in old stains of blood. It was a scene taken straight out of a nightmare.
A lone tear escaped from Erin’s eye due to the two raging emotions within her. One was the feeling of terror that overcame her from seeing such a horrible sight before her. The other was grief, as she could only imagine what the people living in this building must have gone through.
Leaving the master bedroom behind, the redhead moved on the check the last room, which was at the end of the corridor. The door wasn’t hard to open, as it had been broken down, allowing her to get in without any trouble. What was behind the door was a flight of stairs, leading to the attic.
With nowhere else to go, Erin walked up the stairs and entered the attic, where another terrifying discovery was waiting for her. In the middle of the attic, hanging from the ceiling were two ropes that were tied into nooses. It seemed like that at least two people had managed to escape the initial blood bath on the lower floors, only to be trapped here until the attackers got to them.
The redhead shook her head in disbelief. What could the people living in this house possibly have done in order to earn such hatred from somebody?
Looking around, the attic itself seemed to be filled with nothing but boxes. Opening one of them, Erin found nothing of real use, as it was filled with old clothes that seemed to belong to the children at some point, but were now too small for them. The only one on their group that could possibly get any use out of them was Lexton and the redhead doubted he’d be thrilled to wear clothing meant for children.
The other boxes seemed to only contain other things that had been put away due to no longer being useful. Seeing as there didn’t seem to be anything of real use there, the redhead decided that it was time to leave.
However, she noticed something moving from the corner of her eye, causing her to whip around and see what it was, yet saw nothing out of the ordinary. Against her better judgment, Erin decided to move forward and inspect whatever it was, hoping that it was just a trick of light or something similar.
Despite being the middle of the day, the attic was still very dark. This was due to there only being one window and even that barely got any light through because of the thick treeline surrounding the building itself. This only added to how frightening the already scary house truly was. And for the redhead, the whole situation had only been made all the more terrifying by the possible addition of someone else in the creepy attic.
Having finally made her way to where she had seen something move, Erin took the Glow Stone out of her pocket, getting ready to illuminate whatever it was that she had seen. Just as she was about to peer behind the boxes and see what it was, the piles of boxes suddenly fell on her, as something burst from behind them. While the redhead wasn’t able to see who or what it was, she did manage to hear giggling, as her attacker ran down the stairs leading to the attic.
While what had just happened did scare her, the sound of giggling seemed to give Erin an idea of what had truly happened. With a frown on her face, she stood up and wiped some of the dust off herself.
“Goddammit, Ryle… It wasn’t enough for you to ground me like some misbehaving child, but now you’re pulling crappy pranks like this?” the redhead muttered to herself unhappily. “Real mature…”
Seeing as she no longer had anything to do in the attic, Erin was about to leave, but her foot hit something that skipped along the floor a bit. Looking down to see what it was, she saw a key.
“What’s this about?” the redhead said as she picked up the metallic object to have a closer look at at it. “Wonder where you’re supposed to go?”
Seeing no harm in taking it, Erin put her new find in her pocket and started to make her way out of the attic. It didn’t take long for her to reach the first floor, where the others were waiting for her.
“Hey, we heard some loud noises from upstairs. Did something happen?” Lexton asked. “We thought that sine you didn’t yell or anything that it was nothing.”
“Oh, nothing too serious,” the redhead said before glancing at Ryle. “It was just somebody trying to be funny…”
“Huh? Why are you looking at me?” the blonde asked.
“No reason. Say what’s that over there?”
Ryle turned to look into the direction Erin had pointed at, only to get hit on the head by the redhead. The blonde turned to glare at the one who had just struck her.
“OW! What the hell, Erin!?” Ryle yelled angrily. “What was that for!?”
“You know damn well what that was for!” the redhead yelled back. “That was for that stupid prank you just pulled!”
“Prank!? What prank!?” the blonde asked. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about!”
“Don’t try lying to me! You know exactly what you did!” Erin said. “When I was in the attic, you hid behind some boxes and jumped at me when I got close! Then you ran away giggling after almost giving me a heart attack!”
“I never did anything like that!”
“That is such bull-!”
“Uhhh… Erin? Ryle couldn’t have done that,” Lexton said, stopping the arguing for a moment. “She has been here with me the whole time you were upstairs.”
“...What?” the redhead asked with a dumbfounded look on her face.
“Yeah, why the hell would I go to the second floor!?” Ryle asked angrily. “The stench of old blood and filth is bad enough here, but it sure as hell is worse there! No way I’m going there!”
“So… neither of you ever left this floor?” Erin asked.
“They sure didn’t. I can vouch for that,” Zeldana said as she raised her arm up in the air. “Those two have been here the whole time, being very boring. Not a single argument has broken up between them during the time you were away.”
“...I’d prefer it if you didn’t view us as simple entertainment,” Lexton muttered in a disapproving tone. “Still, what she says is true. We have simply been waiting for Arnie and Durge to come back.”
Erin stared at her companions in stunned silence, as her mind processed what she had just learned. As she was doing that, Ryle stood up from her seat and glared at her.
“In case you’re in the need of help, I think the words you’re looking for are “I’m sorry” along with “please let me hit you in return,” the blonde said as she put on a forced smile that did nothing to hide her anger. “Come on now, I want to hear you say them.”
“...But if it wasn’t you, then who was it?” Erin asked. “Who was it that jumped at me back in the attic?”
Silence fell over the group, as both Ryle and Lexton now realized the same thing that the redhead had. There was apparently someone else in the house with them, but who?
“Well, obviously it was the ghost of one of the people who used to live here,” Zeldana stated like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Who else do you think it could have been?”
“...WHAT!?” Erin, Ryle and Lexton all shouted at the same time.
“You heard me! A ghost!” the elf repeated. “What’s so hard to understand about that!?”
“But you said that this place wasn’t haunted!” Ryle yelled.
“...I did?” Zeldana asked, before picking up a very large empty bottle of wine off the floor. “Goodness me, how many of these did I drink? I must have been very intoxicated last night.”
“So you’re saying that this place is actually haunted and you didn’t say that yesterday because you were drunk!?” Erin asked in a somewhat panicking tone.
“Have you looked around yourself even a bit? Of course this place is haunted!” the elf said as she pointed at all the signs of violence that were covering the room. “To be fair, I have never seen any ghosts myself while I’ve stayed here. I just always assumed that they knew better than to mess with me and left it at that.”
“...What kind of a world do you even live in?” Lexton asked, baffled by the nonchalant and uncaring attitude the healer had.
“One with a house and an easy way to make money. What about you?” Zeldana replied somewhat smugly. “Still… It was pretty messed up what happened to the people who used to live here.”
“YOU KNOW ABOUT WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED HERE!?” Erin, Ryle and Lexton all shouted at the same time again.
“...Okay, do you guys have a habit of yelling together or something? It’s starting to hurt my ears,” the elf said while tenderly rubbing one of her ears. “As for your sudden and LOUD question, yes I do know what happened here. How do you think I knew about this place in the first place?”
“I just assumed that you happened to find an abandoned building and started to live there, like a hobo!” Erin said.
“How rude! I’ll have you know that I’m a respectable healer! A true master of my trade! I’ve never gone homeless for even a single night!” Zeldana said, sounding a bit offended by the redhead’s remark. “Anyways, the real reason I knew about this place is because I lived here even before it got this bad. Back when the original owners were still around. That’s how I know what happened here back on that night.”
Erin, along with Ryle and Lexton, got ready to listen as the healer told them the story of the mansion, which would in a tragic night of blood and death.