This is the house, come on in
This is the house, built on sin
This is the house, nobody lives
This is the house, You get what you give
-Rob Zombie, “House of 1000 Corpses”
Even nearing midnight, the heat lingered. In the small, unincorporated community of Bosco, nestled between Monroe and Columbia, restless sleep prevailed under the half-moon's glow. A black SUV thundered down the near-empty streets, and Daniel thought to himself with a hint of sarcasm, "Good thing old Drellassi believes so much in stealth."
Daniel found himself trapped in the SUV alongside the magician, his henchmen, and the overpowering scent of his aftershave. The onset of carsickness hit as Drellassi steered the vehicle down a desolate dirt road on the outskirts of Bosco, halting near a modest gravel driveway surrounded by a stand of live oaks. Daniel and the bodyguards exited the SUV and surveyed the area.
Daniel observed that the grass in the clearing was predominantly dead and brown. A tall brick wall rose abruptly in the clearing, resembling a tombstone emerging from the earth of a cemetery. It appeared ancient yet solid, cloaked in vines and crowned with battlements. Nearby, Daniel spotted a substantial wrought iron gate, its top adorned with menacing spikes. The gate stood ajar, sufficiently wide for an individual to pass through. On the ground beside it lay a hefty chain and lock, the lock seemingly severed by bolt cutters.
Daniel inhaled deeply, warmed his hands, and started chanting the "Matia tes Stygias" from the small tome he carried in the pocket of his fishing vest. As the Shroud unfolded before him, he noticed it was more delicate here, and the air was filled with ethereal echoes of ancient slave spirituals and the clank of ghostly shackles. Tattered figures roamed the clearing and passed among the trees, mimicking plantation labor, completely oblivious to the living. Many of them still bore marks of the lash on their phantom flesh. Drones, he mused. Residual hauntings. Never seen so many.
He turned to his companions. “This place,” he announced, “is haunted as hell.” The five thugs they had brought with them looked unnerved by his chant and its results. Drellassi just snickered.
“Welcome to Whispering Oaks, my good son.” He gestured expansively.
Looking through the ancient gate, they noticed that others had ventured onto the estate beyond the wall ahead of them. The glow of flashlights and the sound of raised angry voices emanated from inside. Lucky, they haven’t woken the spirits yet, Daniel thought.
They tried to infiltrate the grounds without making a sound. Daniel soon recognized that his stealth abilities had waned over thirty years, yet this seemed minor given that Drellassi's enforcers seemed to lack any stealth skills whatsoever.
Within the walls, spectral slaves reenacted the routines of their past lives, and Daniel glimpsed the silhouette of an enormous antebellum house, outlined sharply by the moon. To his living eyes, it appeared as a crumbling relic, yet through the Matia Tes Stygias, its splendor in the Shadowlands was revealed to him. It looked like a Confederate fairy tale, if such a thing existed.
Daniel and his companions approached the old mansion. As they drew near, Daniel could see two figures on the porch. He recognized one of them as the tall old man who had been present when Buford was shot. The other was a young blonde woman in Goth attire. The old man held her at the point of a .38, though his hand was shaking.
"I don't like this place, Silas." the girl said. "It feels bad. We need to get out of here." But Silas refused to listen.
"We have to stop it," he said. "You were weak, and now it's gotten loose. And you are going to help me…" He waved the gun threateningly.
“DAMMIT!” he shouted as Daniel and his group barged through the gate. He aimed the .38 towards them but was met by Drelassi’s thugs aiming several guns back at him in turn. He dropped the .38 with a wordless cry and raised his hands.
"I know you," Drellassi said. "What are you doing here?" Silas began to cry. "I didn't mean it, I didn't mean it, I didn't MEAN it," he sobbed.
Drelassi started to interrogate Silas further when a loud roar of an engine and screeching tires broke the graveyard silence of the old manor. A police cruiser rammed through the old gate, strobes flashing and siren blaring. The occupant threw open the door, shotgun in hand, and bellowed “FREEZE!”
The girl cried out "Chance!" to the figure that appeared in the police car lights. Daniel could see that it was none other than Officer Chance Gallicinao, who was far out of his West Monroe jurisdiction. Daniel wondered what had brought Chance to this remote location. Drellassi and the thugs turned to face this new threat. Daniel felt a familiar tingle in his hands as lights no one could see but him began to appear in the windows of the old mansion.
“Oh, shit,” he whispered to no one in particular. “They’re heeeeere.”
“Who’s here?” Silas asked, “The police?”
“Not exactly…”
A deep and sonorous voice began to sing, "Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin' for to carry me home..." The apparition of a shirtless African American man wreathed in chains materialized on the dilapidated porch. “Swing low, sweet chariot. Comin’ for to carry me home.”
Daniel felt a chill run up his spine as the eerie song filled the air. The voice was as cold as the grave, and the song had an eerie resonance. But the Matia tes Stigias insulated him from the Fog of terror surrounding the dead. Th others were not so protected.
The enforcers looked around in apprehension at the voice that seemed to come from nowhere. The cop hid his terror behind bluster, demanding "Who's doing that?" Silas started crying again, and the girl ran toward the cop, unhindered by any of them.
Drellassi himself had the most extreme reaction. Soiling himself, he screamed, covered his ears, and ran blubbering toward the now-demolished iron gate as fast as his designer shoes would take him. Chance was more concerned with the unnerving singing than with Drellassi, so he let him pass by unmolested. “Don’t move,” he ordered the rest.
Another figure emerged from the house, a shadowy form with a stovepipe hat and burning red eyes. The thugs and Chance's eyes widened in surprise, and Daniel realized that they could see it too. It barreled from the porch directly at Chance, who barely had time to say “What the hell?” before it struck him with a loud snap like the crack of a bullwhip. The cop staggered back from the force of the blow, a deep cut like a whip’s lash appearing on the side of his face.
Daniel fumbled in his vest for a the nub of a black candle, lit it, and began bellowing the Apoklesmos spell at the top of his lungs while tossing salt at the ghostly figures. The shadowy figure recoiled as if it had been struck, and the eerie music faltered. Unlike the wards at his house, he knew this hasty blessing would only last a few minutes. He could already feel the spirits pushing back against the barrier. He didn’t have the time for a full casting or the strength left to maintain it long against their assaults.
Daniel quickly planted the black candle in the ground, and poured the remainder of the salt in a line between him and the ghosts. Then he herded all of the living toward Chance's police cruiser, shouting at Chance to get in and drive. Chance peeled out of the carriageway, police lights still blazing. Daniel saw the African American spirit lift a gigantic ghost hammer and bring it down on his barrier, shattering it like ethereal glass. The giant black man and the red-eyed shadow, now unhindered, gave chase to the police car. Daniel shouted to Chance to go faster, and Chance did not argue.
“What about the boss?” asked one of the thugs.
“Do you want to go back and get him?” one of his friends asked.
The thug gulped in terror at the thought. “Nuh-uh.” he said.
“I didn’t mean it, I didn’t mean it, I didn’t mean it,” Silas continued to cry.
Chance brought the police car to a stop on the other side of Bosco. The girl tried to check the cut on his face, but he pushed her hand away. "What the hell just happened?" he asked.
Daniel wasn't sure how to respond, but he didn't have to. The Goth girl summed it up perfectly: "That place is haunted as hell!" Daniel recognized her as the one he'd seen outside the Whispering Willow when it burned down. And he recognized Silas as the man who had been accusing her.
Chance turned to Silas and asked him why he kidnapped his girlfriend at gunpoint and took her to the haunted mansion. Silas just kept crying and repeating, "I didn't mean it. I didn't mean it. I didn't mean it."
“Well, this is helpful,” said one of the thugs.
“I just wanted the promotion,” Silas continued. “I needed the money. They said they could get it for me if I let them look at those weird books in back of the bar. I didn’t know what they were going to do. I just wanted a better job.”
“Who did this?” Chance seemed interested now.
“The Blackwoods.” If possible, Silas looked even more terrified than he had before. Daniel remembered that he had discussed the Blackwoods, whoever they were, with the other person who had been present when Buford was shot.
"What were you doing at the Munsters mansion?" Chance pressed him. "And what does this have to do with Evelyn?"
"I thought Evelyn could help me," Silas said evasively. "Sort of like the magician brought along, well, you know, him." Silas indicated Daniel.
“And you couldn’t just ask politely?”
“No way was I going in there,” Evelyn chimed in. “Not ever. Not EVER.”
“You’re all nuts.” Chance observed.
“I wish.” Daniel snorted. “Listen, Drellassi said he knew what was going on, or at least he could figure it out if I could get him into Fantasy Farm back there. So maybe we should find him.”
“How do you suggest we do that?” Chance growled angrily.
“Look for someone running and screaming?” Daniel snarked. Chance still did not appreciate his humor. “I have an idea. Let me borrow the hood of your car.” Reaching into another pocket of his fishing vest, he pulled out a bag of rune stones and began shaking it.
“This is the stupidest thing I have ever seen,” groused Chance.
“Quiet,” said Daniel. “This isn’t easy with an audience.” Casting the bones took some time, particularly with Daniel's will depleted from his earlier casting. Chance's inherent skepticism made it more difficult, but he did finally get a bead on where Drellassi might be.
He told them that they would find him near the mansion they had just left. Chance reluctantly agreed to go back. They found Drellassi shaking and nearly catatonic not far from the gate. Daniel and one of the enforcers dragged Drellassi toward the car when Daniel saw two red eyes peer around the gate and heard a loud whistle echo through the grounds. He gestured to Chance to start the car and they shoved the magician inside as Chance gunned the engine. Daniel thought he felt ghostly fingers grab his fishing vest, but then they were out.
Chance kept driving at high speed for several miles before finally stopping and turning around to look at the people in the back seat. Distance from the mansion hadn't improved Drellassi's condition at all.
"What did they do to him?" Chance inquired. Daniel was at a loss. Physically, he seemed shocked, yet the song was a mental onslaught meant to instill fear. Lacking the necessary materials to counteract it, Daniel rifled through Drellassi's pockets, only to find them devoid of anything helpful.
Daniel had not been paying close attention to where Chance had stopped, but abruptly, Silas started crying again, and Evelyn began to whimper as well. "We need to go. We need to go, we need to go now. We need to go now," they insisted. Puzzled by this sudden urgency, Daniel looked up and saw a towering brick wall crowned with wrought iron spikes. An imposing iron sign hung over the gate, declaring “Darklawn Cemetery. Est. 1845”. In contrast to Whispering Oaks, this cemetery was securely locked.
"Uh, are we... alone?" asked one of Drellassi's enforcers, his voice tinged with nervousness. Daniel shook his head; he could see several spectral figures meandering through the cemetery, seemingly oblivious to the car that had halted near the gate.
"Yee-haw!" yelled a ghost dressed in a Confederate cavalry uniform. He kicked at a nearby tombstone. "Come on out of there, y'all hear?" He jabbed the dirt beneath the stone with his spectral saber.
"It will only be more painful if we have to come in after you," added a second Confederate ghost. He advanced towards the location of the first ghost, who seemed to be trying to enter a grave.
“Whoop! Whoop!” a third one exclaimed. That one was close enough that Daniel could see he had some form of metaphysical tattoo on his forehead that looked like the crest on the gate back at Whispering Oaks.
Several others were gathered around a ghostly vehicle that bore the semblance of a nightmarish steampunk creation, akin to something out of Frankenstein's imagination. The ghosts didn't bother to conceal their presence, likely because the living were unable to hear them, and they wished to instill fear in any other spirits that might be in the cemetery. Daniel couldn’t see anything of whatever they were looking for in the grave.
“"I'm done," declared the thug, crossing his arms. "I'm done. I'm done." The others appeared to concur. "Once we return to Monroe, you're on your own," he added.
"Going is definitely the best option," Daniel conceded to Evelyn and Thorne. The spectral soldiers seemed oblivious to their presence, yet he lacked the means to confront them should they turn aggressive. Lingering seemed imprudent, given the possibility that the ghosts might be able to detect him.
Finally persuaded, Chance started the police car, and everyone clambered inside. Daniel was uncertain, yet he thought he saw a wraith watching them as they drove away from the graveyard. Chance resolved to head to the nearest hospital to seek help for Drellassi.
Although perilous, the journey had ultimately been in vain for Daniel. They were no closer to resolving the issue of Zombie Buford, and now they also had to contend with the ghosts from the ancient plantation. He didn’t feel prepared.