The Recordings

by Gray Compass

Rating: teen
Tags: Dark, Alternate Universe, Romance, Comedy, Human
Length: 6283

David is buying the house of his dreams, however, during the renovation of the mansion he finds something quite unexpected in the basement, something that would change his life, and the life of another 'being'...

David decides to move back to his hometown in order to close relations with his brother Alan, who was coming out off a troubled marriage.

There, he finally found the house of his dreams, however, he also finds something 'extra' in the house, something that was not included in his plans; At the basement, David and his brother discovered a bizarre room, and a wardrobe filled with strange recordings of the previous owner of the mansion.

Recordings that reveal a terrible past, though what they don't know is that this 'past' it still alive somewhere in the house.

Next Chapter Progress : (~30%)

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2014-01-09 03:32:13 UTC

Prologue

The Recordings

Twilight walked to the window - the floor, covered in old wooden planks, cracked to the most subtle step - as she usually do everyday. But those days were all the same: no more schedules to obey or tasks to complete, her life sadly resumed to a pure feeling of melancholy – memories of an old world. Her crown, the only "Equestrian" thing that still remained, is now covered in dust: as she is just a specter of her own past, trapped between walls of a strange unknown room. Years passed so quickly...time for her doesn't matter, she is weak. Since "that day" things changed so drastically! But they ought to improve: this would not be an ordinary day, but the beginning of the "restart" of her life began with the sounds of an old gate opening...

Thin rain fell on the windshield of the car while it crossed a road flanked by a forest reserve, it was afternoon and some spots on the forest were beginning to dusk, the trees casting their shadows over the street created a mosaic with the light rays which managed to escape from the thick leaves of the woods.

Two men occupied the front seats of the vehicle; they were going back from a long day in the city, one of them, the driver was a real estate broker, Harry; 35 years, not so tall, hazel hair, successful look.

The other one was a little bit younger maybe in his early 30’s, tall, dark wavy hair; David Grayhills, a well-known architect looking for a new house on Washington.

David was rather eccentric, he had some odd architectural preference for houses, but not ‘any’ kind of houses, he was looking for an exact type of residence, one of the Victorian style, and if you are wondering what is a ‘Victorian’ house the best way to describe it is ‘The Adams Family House’ however, this kind of construction is quite rare, and expensive.

Redmond wasn't a big city and the Victorian houses options were rather limited, some houses were just too big, another ones were just too expensive, and some houses were simply creepy enough even to David.

After a long day, and many houses later, David (and Harry) were exhausted, and they hadn't found a single house who match all the requests.

“So Mr.Greyhills, none of the houses interest you?”

Harry was an old school friend of David, when he knew that David was returning to the city he volunteered to help him to find the house, David still insisted on paying for his job.

“Harry… I swear if you ever call me ‘Mr’ again I’ll cancel your payment.” David Frowned

“I wasn’t asking you for payment though…”

Harry was smiling by the corners of his mouth; he knew how exactly bother him and also knew that David would pay for his job anyway.

“Harry… All the houses you shown me were really great… But-“

“Yeah, Yeah, I know… ‘This isn’t Victorian enough’ blah blah blah” David chuckled

“Dude, I’m talking serious here… Those were amazing houses, it’s just that… I felt that something was missing, you know… Something ‘more’” David sighed and shook his head.

“Look David, I know you since we were kids, and I know that you have this ‘dream’ of living in a house like this, and I really appreciate this...

...tough you have to understand that this Isn't a big city, and we don’t find this type of house you’re looking for on every corner…”

“…Perhaps if we sought in another town.”

David looked through the window, the sun rays were becoming fainter and dispersed, Harry had just turned on the headlights of the car.

“You know I can’t go to another city Harry… Alan just finished one troubled relationship… His wife got his house, his car, his pants, and almost his own business; he needs some brotherly assistance until his life got back to the rails.”

Harry seemed to think for a brief moment before slow down the car and went into a cobblestone path besides the road.

“Where are we going?” Inquired David slightly confused.

“I remembered something… There is another house...” Said Harry on a strange tone.

“There is? And why you haven’t said it before?”

The path they went were quite narrow and gloom, some old iron fencing bordered the sides of the road, a strange kind of gas lamp swung at the top of iron poles now and them besides the path, unfortunately none of them were lit.

The trees around the road were very old, and they branches and leaves created a species of cloak above the way.

“Well… You see David, this is a… well, this is a quite ‘secluded’ house, personally, I though you wouldn't like.”

David remained in silence, Harry’s explanation wasn't very convincing, and he knew enough of him to know when he was lying, or at least hiding something; certainly there was something ‘extra’ on this story.

Sometime later the trees became less dense and gave space to some overgrown bushes, suddenly a majestic ornate iron gateway arose blocking the path, the sun was almost setting, but there were sufficient light to see the house behind the gates.

Harry stopped the car ahead of the gates but left the headlights on to enlighten the house, both of them got out of the car and stood in front of the gate; David was dumbfounded.

“H-harry… T-t-the house is… AMAZING” David got close to the gates and put his face between the iron bars like a prisoner.

“Can we enter there??” David was looking like a children opening gifts at Christmas.

Harry removed a rusty key from its pockets and gave to David.

“Yeah… It’s getting slightly dark, but I think we can have a quickly glance around the house.”

David smile was immeasurable, just like his madness, any other ‘normal’ person would think twice before entering there, but he wasn't a normal person…

The creaks of the opening gates would give anyone chills, the rusty hinges squeaked like the doors of an old cage.

Twilight suddenly awoke from her sleep, the sound of the gates opening were clear, the squeaks were like a omen to her memories.

She stood up shakily, her strong hooves were long forgotten...

As Twilight got close to the windows millions of thoughts passed trough her mind; maybe they were going to attack her, maybe they knew the guy who made all those things with her.

She hid behind the torn drapes and watched all the moves of the two intruders entering in the house gardens; she couldn't listen to them, but could barely understand the situation.

One of the two guys was short, and was explaining something to the other one; the other guy was little bit taller, and was circling the house at a slow pace.

Sometime later, one of the guys took a sit at the stairway and looked almost directly to Twilight's window, but luckily she managed to crouch and avoid him.

The house wasn't that bad, mostly of the windows were sealed with wooden planks in order to avoid unwanted visits to the residence.

The weeds grew uncontrolled around the ‘gardens’, years without a gardener created a small forest around the house yards, some weeds even reached the chest high of the two guys.

It was a three stories house, and at the very top of it a beautiful tower stood on the roof, it was like the icing on the cake.

“Do you know something about the story of this house?” David was walking through the ‘gardens’ and circling the house at a slow pace, paying attention to every single detail.

“Well, I know what the owner told me…”

“He said that this house was built at the turn of the past century, she belonged to a wealthy merchant of the town, unfortunately during the crisis of 1927 the business of the family went bankrupt and the majority of the family moved to Alaska, the house was given to one of the businessman son, the only one who stayed here at Washington, he was a very lonely men… lived alone in the house until he passed away seven years ago…”

David had just given a full turn around the house, and now he was trying to see the interior of the mansion between the planks of the window.

“I loved the house Harry… I really REALLY loved it, but I don’t know if I can afford it; one house of this scale must be very expensive…”

Harry’s expression was very peculiar, something between curiosity and awe.

“A-are you REALLY interested?”

“W-what? You still have doubts about my interest?” David chuckled.

“Well… The house is for sale for $ 500,000.”

.David jaws almost felt on the floor.

“$ 500,000? This house… THIS freaking house, it’s for sale for $ 500,000???”

He said pointing to the old mansion.

“Well David, I’m sure we can lower the price with the owner if it is expen-“

David pinched his nose and chuckled

“HARRY, the price is perfect! I was sincerely shocked, how can the owner ask such a LOW value to this house?”

“Well… the only heir was a distant cousin of the guy who lives in Florida, and as he had no interest in inhabit the residence, besides the OBVIOUS difficulties in selling this kind of house... He thought that $500,000 was a fair price.”

“It is more than fair!”

David has just sat on the floor of the staircase who leaded to the front door of the house, he had for just a second the slightly impression of seeing something moving on the attic window, but it was just some old curtains floating in the wind.

“I’m going to buy it.” Said David unhesitatingly.

“You are going to do WHAT? But we haven’t even seen the interior of the house” Harry stood by the side of David on the stairs.

“I am going to bought it anyway, I can discover the interior of the house during the reform; Harry, this is a lifetime opportunity, and I can’t lose it”

The darkness of the night begun to crept trough the grounds, David stood up and they headed to the path, locked the gates and got into the car.

Some moments later, Twilight returned to the window, right at time to see the two guys leaving the house in one of that strange carriages.

They did not appear to be threats, but after years of traumatic experiences, Twilight couldn't judge it.

Whatever those creatures would be doing at the house, they couldn't get into Twilight shelter, or at least she thought...

“David… You are completely insane.” Harry smiled.

“Yeah, I know that, but I still want that house!”

The car turned around and returned to the main highway.

“Sometimes I ask myself what your brother must think about this…”

“He’s used to it…” David smiled and laughed like a crazy during all the way back to the city, and to Harry’s office.

When they arrived, Harry sat at his desk, and began to pick up a ton of papers and files of his archives.

“Very well ‘Mr’Grayhills… If you really desire to acquire such residence, we must begin with the paperwork’s…” Harry said sarcastically, but the piles of papers, documents, tax statements, and a million of other bureaucracy were really fearsome.

“But to your ‘unhappiness’ David, this is going to wait until tomorrow; I’m exhausted, and I don’t think that the owner of the house could get to Redmond in one single night.

“You’re right dude, I ‘think’ I can handle one more day” David chuckled and shook Harry’s hand.

“Thank you, very very much Harry, I don’t know what could I do without you” David smiled.

“Dude… that sounded a little bit gay, but coming from you, I think I could expect it…”

They broke into laughing.

“Very, very funny of you Harry, I see you tomorrow…”

David got back to his car, and back to the hotel that he was staying.

Surely, David would find many ‘extras’ in his new house…

My Little Problem

The Recordings

The last week was not that easy to David (and Harry); following the crazy and sudden decision of buying the property. A real war between the guys and the paperwork had begun.

The actual house owner and one of the heirs of the family money, Mr. Vermont had to come from Florida to sign some papers.

He was a strange man though; of very few words, still he had such a strange accent (something of Eastern Europe, or maybe Russian).

Mr. Vermont was a distant cousin of the old owner of the house; however he never talked a single word with the guy; still, the most peculiar aspect of the whole situation was that Vermont appeared so eager to sell the property as David to buy it. As soon as the last certificates and documents were given and properly signed by both of them, he disappeared from the city almost instantly, not even bothering to take a last look at the house.

David wasted no time too, and when Harry gave him the mansion keys he almost teleported to “explore the residence” as himself described the act of poke around every corner of the place.

The days that followed the strange visit of the two humans were quite unexpected to Twilight. One of the guys, the tall one, was now doing periodic visits to the house, mostly accompanied by strange groups of humans.

About one week after the first visits, the surrounding fields of the mansion were bustling like never before; some humans were cutting the grass (if you could call that mess of weeds of ‘grass’) and restoring the gardens to their original glory, others came and painted the old rusty fences and the house, some of they were inside the house doing things that Twilight was unaware.

Certain day, she was awoken by strong and loud hits on the walls of the attic, even the access door reverberated with hammer assaults against it, but after hours without success whatever was trying to come in gave up and got away.

By the looks, the spell was still working…

One of the current pastimes of David was watching the house makeover; it felt like he was inside of one of that ‘Extreme Makeover’ reality shows, in a few days, the mansion was back to its old splendor.

The dark marble tiles were polished and waxed, the whole garden was pristine, and the scary bushes around the place have been pruned, David opted to preserve the antique steel fences as so the old gas lamps (that were just prepared to work with electric lamps).

The almost ‘ancient’ looking house was now fully recovered, you could really call it a ‘mansion’ now, it took almost an entire month of work, but the place was finally ready; time to bring Alan.

“Mr. Grayhills” David was going to his car in order to pick his brother when the contractor responsible for the makeover called him.

“Yes?” He stood by the side of the now shiny gates.

“We finished the interior of the house; the guys are bringing the rest of the furniture, we managed to recover that stone pillar that you wanted, but…” The guy cut the sentence in half and rubbed his neck.

“But?” David asked curiously.

“Well… the fact is that we finished the interior of the house… at least we finished it mostly, because we had a little… problem.”

“Please, don’t tell me that the electric grid has given us trouble again…” He sighed.

“No Mr. Grayhills, the grid is just fine, its working perfectly, the problem is that even with all our efforts we couldn’t manage to open the doors to the basement or the attic …" David hadn’t paid any attention to those rooms before; in fact they had passed completely unnoticed until now.

“What’s wrong with the doors?” While talking, they got back to the house, and into the kitchen.

“You don’t know?” The guy stood at the entrance of the kitchen, and stared David with an astonished face.

“N-no… What should I have to know?”

‘Oh god, problems just now at the end of the whole thing… Perfect’

“Come with me Mr. Gray…” He made a signal with the hands to call David to one of the corners of the room.

“W-what the HELL is that????”

David had already seen many strange things during his live, but this certainly was something faaaaaar beyond the other oddities.

Right there, behind the door that would lead to the basement should have a staircase, however, a staircase was the last thing that the guys had there.

A massive iron door stood there, between them and (probably) the basement staircase, there was no apparent lock, or even a door handle, just a narrow ledge on the metal that David assumed that it was utilized to pull the door. Unfortunately, the door refused to be pulled, in fact, all the edges of the gate were welded to the wall itself

“We tried Mr. Gray…  We pushed, knocked, hammered, all in vain; not even our saws could do some damage to the door” The guy pointed to a severely damaged circular saw lying against the wall.

“Have you tried to dig from the outside of the house, or … I don’t know, enter through one of the walls?”

“Well Mr. Gray… its right there when things began to get a little… strange”

“And here I was thinking that a steel door at the entrance of my basement was strange enough…”

David leaned against the wall and chuckled; rage would not open the door anyways…

“We tried to dig from the outside of the house to the basement, break the kitchen wall, and we even tried to blast the floor underneath the door” The contractor gave a light pat on the wall

“This is reinforced concrete, those used to built bomb shelters; the thing is all around the walls of the basement… Maybe the old owner of the residence tried to made a storm shelter, or by the way it looks, a bunker”  David facepalmed and got ready to ask the important question number two.

“And the loft, what’s the matter with it?” By the face that the other guy did, David expected something like: ‘We discovered an indigenous cemetery there’

“Well… the situation of the loft is slightly weirder…”

‘Oh great… so it’s probably just a satanic temple’

“…the walls of the attic are normal, there are no concrete, or iron, or anything, and this is why it is strange…” David made a signal to the guy resume the explanation; the waiting was killing him.

“As I said, it’s everything on the standards, but we still, couldn't open the door, or break the wall, the wooden is hard as stone; the planks don’t break with anything!”

“The same thing is the roof, we tried to enter by the top of the house, but the ‘Titanium’ planks prevented our entrance, all the

windows are blocked from inside, and the only one that is open is too small for someone to pass through.” While they talked, David and the guy went to the main hall of the mansion; he sat on the staircase and stared at the air.

The contractor awkwardly took a sit by his side and waited for some response of David.

And then a probability came to his mind; His brother, Alan, owned a company that manufactured gears and tools to the heavy industry, but the company's specialty truly was the acetylene torch; this tool is capable of melt steel to over 3000 degrees, commonly used in the nautical industry to weld the hulls of ships. If something could open that door, it would be one of those torches.

In one of his unexpected insights David stood up and shook hands with the contractor. “My problems are solved Michael, thank you for you and your crew services, you guys no longer have to open the door; I’ve founded the solution…” Before the guy could think in a logical answer, David left the house, and got into his car.

Now it was just make a call and convince Alan to lend one of his toys to his beloved brother, which would generously share the house with him.

David parents were everything but usual; he and his brother had a very… let’s say ‘odd’ childhood, in fact the own story of how their parents met is quite the bigger oddity.

His father, Desmond Grayhills, was a renowned physicist and professor, he tried to develop a theory able to sample the existence of parallel universes and even the probability of interdimensional gates. Desmond and his crew spent over a decade of tirelessly research to reach a dead end.

He began to freak about the results and eventually went into a psychotic outbreak. Grayhills became paranoiac with anyone who tried an approach; according to him, a creature named ‘chaos’ speaking inside his head prevented him to sleep.

He tried at all costs to proof his theory to the point of making an insanity.

At Christmas night when everyone was at home sharing love and kindness, Desmond went to the nuclear lab, and tried to modify the particle accelerator in order to create a black hole and eventually a portal.

A fire and half of the campus destroyed and tainted with plutonium later, Desmond was sent to a psychiatric center...

David’s mother case was indeed, very different from his father one; A beautiful woman of a rich family, nice house, good reputation… well, you can erase the ‘good reputation’ passage.

Alice Di’Lorenzo, better known as ‘The White Falls Witch’, lovely woman… Daughter of the famous “Di’Lorenzo” two renowned magnates, and occultists…

Alice was famous to have powerful psych abilities; telekinesis, pyrokinesis, aterokinesis, and many other ‘kinesis’.

Truth or not, she and her family were feared, but foremost respected;

Alice frequently went into strange trips; to ‘where’ no one knew, certain day after a walk in the woods she came to the city totally crazed screaming about an encounter she had with a ‘demonic’ creature.

Alice always had a low profile life and behavior, but that day… she was completely insane, Alice adopted a strange and non-sense conduct. She planted chaos around the entire city, fires, explosions, bizarre weather, and many other oddities to a point where the army had to intervene.

Alice fled into the forest but was found some days later (with considerable effort) inside a cove.

She was lucky though, they lived on Canada… Instead of drag her into a lab and dissect her brain, the government just decided to put her in a psychiatric institute, the same place that Desmond went after his surge.

It became a perfect couple; between their hallucinations and remedies they found the true love.

When they finally were released from the clinic the lovely couple moved to Washington, married and had two children; David, and Alan. Everything was fine, nice house, nice children’s, married psychos, until one ‘special’ night…

It was late at night; the local police station received a call from a frightened old lady:   " Please, you just have to send someone here!!! The house of the neighbors is whizzing!! - Oh my god, is that light? Oh my… I think their house is melting ! "

An explosion at the basement and half of the local press around the house later, the Grayhills had vanished without a trace, nothing, except the two children’s peacefully asleep upstairs.

David and Alan eventually were raised by their grandparents, the Grayhills ones who lived in Redmond, a neighbor city. The fact is that after their parent’s disappearance David and his brother became closer and far more attached, and for being the older brother he always had a protective instinct towards Alan.

And now, in a troubled moment to Alan, he had invited him to live for a while at his house and take some time to solve his issues.

The car crossed the same road lined with dark trees, fortunately the rain had ceased (just for a couple of hours). However, you couldn’t call it a ‘sunny day’. Indeed, the skies were always cloudy as usual this time of the year.

David had scheduled to pick Alan in a roadside hotel that he was staying since his crazy wife had kicked him out of their house.

The hotel was close to the city in a not so forestry neighborhood, it was a typical inn for travelers wanting to pass the night (or guys expelled from their homes).

Before David stopped the car Alan was already waiting on the park, two huge bags at his side, and a grin on his face.

Alan was a peculiar guy; he was about two years younger than his brother, had the same eyes and also the same dark hair, but preferred to use it almost shaved.

He was one of the athletic types, played sports (preferably a rough and stupid one), and despite being the younger brother, never was the smaller; In fact, almost everyone thought he was the eldest.

“Man… I swear, if you don’t stop working on those muscles, you will not even pass through the door next time…” He said by the car window.

David got out of the car, and a second later was surprised by a bear hug from Alan (A whale hug would apply better to the situation).

“DAAAAAVY ,  How mah big brother’s doing huh??” Luckily David achieved to mover his neck just enough to breath and disentangle from the hug or would probably faint from lack of air.

“Y… *huf*  Y-you have... *huf* To stop doing… this thing your idiot!” He said between puffs of air. He gave a ‘light’ pat at David's back that almost displaced his collarbone, but David knew better than anyone that argue with Alan about his ‘softness’ was equal to argue with a pole.

“So… where is this ‘mansion’ you’ve been speaking?” Alan asked.

“Yeah… well, you’ll see it soon”

David opened the car trunk to put the baggage, but after several unsuccessful attempts to shove the couple of giant bags their decided to put one of them on the backseat. Alan settled down at the passenger seat, and turned all of the air conditioning vents to him.

“Dude, are you in heat or something??” David chuckled. He appreciated low temperatures, but Alan… If he could probably would live inside the fridge. “My body produces large amounts of heat… The girls like it.” David rolled his eyes.

“So, where is this house anyway?”

“Patience my young Padawan, you shall discover it soon…” David started the car and returned to the main road.

During all the way back to home, they spoke about everything; Alan told the news about his business, something about a ‘great deal’ related to his investments on the nuts and bolts market; According to him, it was ‘promising’.

Alan also could manage the prowess to explain to his brother the odd situations that his ex-wife had put him through trying to ‘spice’ their relationship; A very complex and disturbing story involving marshmallows hanging from the ceiling and leather whips…

“Ok, ok Alan, you already managed to get me sick… you can stop now.” It was no wonder why their marriage did not work out… After the marshmallows incident…

‘I’ll never see the marshmallows the same way again…’

Shaking the thought away, David went into a narrow street of cobblestone. “We arrived!”

Alan glanced through the windows with a confused expression, and then turned toward his brother.

“You are living in this alley???” David facepalmed (for the fifth time, since he picked Alan). Sometimes It was surprising to see Alan’s reasoning ability, and even more impressive how could HIM keep a company running.

“Of course not you moron!” David shook his head.

“The house is about half a mile ahead…”

‘I wonder how high must be the QI of this creature…’

“Hey Dave… I think I know this road…” Alan observed the road surroundings puzzled, those iron fencing reminded him something.

“You know? How?” David asked curiously.

“Dude… I think we came here at Halloween many years ago… Don’t you recall that?” A long lost memory began to rise on David’s mind, something very old and incomplete, but indeed, he remembered something...

“Dude… that was the street of those freak guys, remember? The boys had told us that those guys enjoyed eating brains or something… Hahaha” Alan laughed, but David remained still.

He drifted for a while, and then he remembered:

David, Alan, and a small group of costumed kids walked through a gloom alley; one of the boys was telling a creepy Halloween story about the place they were going to, but David wasn’t interested; it was all a stupid idea of his brother anyways…

When the boys were getting closer to the main gates of the place they left the road and hid themselves in the tick bushes, from there they could have a slightly good view of the mansion and at the same time get some cover.

Everyone was in silence, something was happening inside the mansion; dim lights that appeared to be torches lit up the chambers behind the large windows of the house.

A shiver ran from the base to the top of David’s spine, together with a strange feeling of been watched.

“Guys… let’s get out of here…” He whispered.

The front doors of the house went open, and a few people wearing strange dark cloaks left. For the boy’s misfortune, one of those strange men’s pointed some sort of light directly into the kids cover.

"HEY! WHAT ARE YOU GUYS DOING HERE!!?”

“I WILL RIP YOUR FILTHY SOULS YOUR LITTLE MAGGOTS!!!”

It was enough; in a blink all the boys went running and screaming like crazy by the road, but David legs refused to work, he tried to run but the fear took hold, he tripped and fell on his back at the ground.

The strange man opened the gates and walked towards him; David was frozen, his voice faded away, it was the end, those guys would eat him!!

Something clutched David by his collar and dragged him backwards, but it wasn't the hooded man; Alan caught him by the arm and started to run and tug him by the road.

“ARE YOU CRAZY??? THEY WOULD KILL YOU!!”

They ran, and ran, and ran even more, until they were far away from that damned place.

“Dave? Man… are you alright?”

He made David come back to reality shaking his hands in front of him; the car still ran through the road and fortunately  it didn’t left of its way while David daydreamed.

“I-I… am…” He put the bad thoughts out of his mind and returned to reality; indeed, there was no way back now, he had bought the house that he swore to never even come close again.

As the vehicle approached the gateways of the mansion he stopped the car, but remained seated, only staring at the wide gates ahead.

“So… You home is near here? I still can’t believe you bought a house so close to the… ‘Freaks’ place.”

Alan as usual, still had not understood the facts.

“Alan…”

“This is my house…” He bleakly motioned to the gates.

“Haha, Ok Davy, I've got the joke… But can we go to home now? I have to pee”

David sighed and left the car, Alan awkwardly left the vehicle too and glared his brother from the other side.

“Dude, this is serious, let’s go home, or I’m going to piss myself right here”

“Alan, I purchased… the ‘freaks’ mansion…” ... “ I've bought it…”

Alan face… was a complex mix of fear and disbelief, though, the best way you could describe it was: ‘You are fucking kidding me right?’

“D-david… Say this is a joke… please!”

David stared at the ground for a while, but he couldn’t delay this situation anymore; he stuck his hands into his pockets and retrieved an old key ring, one of the keys was slightly bigger and ornate; the gates key.

“I’m not… I bought the house bro, sorry…

”

“N-no… y-you, you couldn’t have done t-this… HAVE YOU LOST YOUR FREAKING MIND???”

“David!! Do you remember what those guys did there???”

Alan had approached the gates just enough to get a clearer vision of the place; during the day the house looked so harmless…

“Alan… I didn’t recall that this was ‘The house’.”

“When I saw this place for sale… I mean, it was an incredible house, I did not remembered that fatidic day…” David opened the gates and returned to the car to park it inside the garage.

He expected to see Alan waiting at the door or something, but no; He was still at the same place, standing behind the open gateways.

“Won’t you come in?” David asked.

“I don’t have any other option do I?” Alan slowly walked through the gates and by the path surrounding the front gardens.

“Well… everyone has options… you can simply go back to that hotel, or… beg to your wife to let you go back to your home”

“Maybe she can get you some marshmallows…”

Alan shivered to the mention of marshmallows.

“Where is my room?…”

Twilight had just got used to the humans around the house, they usually worked during the day, and left at night; however, they didn't came back today.

In the afternoon she saw two of them arriving in one of those strange carriages, one of the humans seemed to be quite nervous about entering in the house, but then the other guy must have convinced him (or at least she assumed it was a ‘him’) to come in.

Twilight had not been in contact with many humans before, in fact, the only few contacts she had before were nothing close to ‘enjoyable’

Apparently, those creatures possessed a similar society to hers, by the old newspapers she found around the attic and other minor objects, Twilight concluded that mostly of the humans held a neutral to peaceful behavior. Yet, some memories buried deep into her mind still bounded her to that place; there, she felt safe…

After much insistence, finally, David convinced Alan to come inside the house; one of the best bedrooms of the house, the one above the tower had been arranged to Alan, the room had a beautiful view of the gardens and was just beside the staircase, in case of Alan tried to run away from the house or something.

David hasn't any kind of housekeeper or butler, so the entire mansion had to be kept tidy by him; not that he couldn’t afford a butler, but David was one of those persons who enjoyed privacy.

Once Alan was settled and got used (as far as possible) to the house surroundings, David decided to ask about the acetylene torch.

They were at the living room; David was in the couch reading the papers, Alan was sitting in an armchair staring awkwardly to one of the corners of the wall.

“Alan… the house is not going to eat you…” David chuckled.

“Easy for you to say…” He sighed and leaned his back on the chair.

“Anyway… Hey, did you bring that torch I’d asked for?”

“Yeah… It’s in one of the bags… But you still didn't said me why the heck do you need a torch”

“Well… I could just tell you, but I think this might not be the best option… You have to see it with your eyes to understand the situation…” David put the papers aside and stood up.

“Get the torch and meet me at the kitchen, I have a little ‘surprise’ to show you”

With that, David just left the room leaving his brother (strangely more pallid than usual) alone. Alan didn't like surprises since his six years old birthday party; poor kid wasn't expecting to find grandma teeth inside the frosty…

“Dude, I really expect you to give me a VERY GOOD reason to bring this thing here…”

With a faint thump Alan rested the heavy equipment on the kitchen stone floor.

“Yeah… I have a reason… a very peculiar one…”

“Dave… Spill the beans, you’re getting me nervous”

“Relax Alan, you’ll see it soon”

David stood beside the old wooden door that (supposedly) would lead to the basement; he turned the knob, but kept the door closed.

“What do you think’s behind this door Alan?”

“Duude… please, don’t tell me there’s a corpse there…” David sighed.

“No you moron, there isn’t anything ‘dead’ there… ‘well at least I hope so…’”

“What??”

“Never mind; as I was saying, this door should lead to the basement, unfortunately we have a ‘little’ problem between the door and the cellar…”

“C’mon man, tell me what’s the ‘problem’ and yada yada yada.” David moved away from the door and motioned towards it.

“Go ahead, open the door and see it by yourself.”

Alan walked to the door and warily held the knob, them he opened it.

He expected to see a staircase or some kind of corridor, but that was not the case; at his front stood a massive iron door blocking the way to the basement, not a standard iron door, that was one of those things you see in a high security facility.

“W-w…”

“What the fu- ????” David put a hand at his brother shoulder and sighed.

“This Alan, is why we need an acetylene torch…”