Spencer Mansion



The gate seemed to scream and holler in pain as we opened it to reveal the monster house in front of us. As we walked down the path towards it, the broken down house seemed to beckon towards us, challenging us to enter if we dared. In my stroller, I looked around at our party to see what they thought about going into this malevolent looking place that seemed like it would consume us as soon as we stepped into it; I thought we were doomed as soon as we set foot into the courtyard. My father seemed amused by the fact that we were about to be greeted by some otherworldly beings. If my mother seemed scared, she didn’t show it; she sensed the fact that her four year old son was not comfortable and reassured him with a smile; it worked. My uncle seemed to smile but underneath it, I could sense that he was just as scared as I was. My two cousins yapped with one another about a popular computer game that they were playing and arguing about who was the better player. It was fall and the trees were bare, but strangely, there were no multicoloured leaves on the ground, not a single one; what replaced them however, were tombstones that towered up to our thighs, I could imagine the undead rising up from their graves and eating us right here in front of the house; the thought sent Goosebumps shivering up my spine and the world felt cold. I placed my small hands over my eyes to block out the view in front of me to try to avoid whatever was in store ahead of us.

We reached the elephant sized oak doors that made us feel like dwarves; we paused for a second unsure whether we should head back or continue forward. My dad shrugged amused that we were all scared and tried telling us there was nothing to worry about; little did he know that the one that would be screaming the loudest……would be him. We opened the door and what light was outside spilled into the house like a flood. In front of us was a large staircase leading to the second floor which lead to multiple doors leading to the unknown, on the left side, there was a door which seemed larger than the others, on the right, there was a solid black door that stood out from the usual brown-oak doors that were located throughout the house.

“OK people, there’s no need to worry, I’ve played Resident Evil 1 and I know the Spencer Mansion from inside out, don’t worry, just stick together, and we’ll be fine.” My dad thought that with those words, he could reassure us that there was nothing to worry about. I wasn’t so sure, my mom wasn’t either; my uncle and cousins seemed confused. “Sooo, let’s go enter the door on the left, it should lead to the dining hall.” We looked at each other and shrugged. We followed him through the doors and sure enough, there was the dining hall. The dining hall seemed unusually large with white wallpaper on the top half and red wallpaper on the bottom half; the ceiling rose so high, it felt like it was part of the sky. The dining table seemed 20 meters long with a bone white tablecloth and silverware and plates on it. On the opposite end, there was a giant portrait of an old man with eyes that seemed to stare right through me as though they were laserbeams, I shivered and looked away. An obese sized diamond chandelier hung from the top of the blood-red ceiling which felt like an arrowhead threatening to fall down and strike all of us at once. There were smaller portraits that hung on the wall on either side; there was an occasional cabinet located under a portrait containing wine or some other things. No one spoke as we looked around the hall for there was nothing to say; as soon as we took a couple steps away from the door, the door creaked and closed behind us; it felt really cliché. I sank deep into my stroller and covered my eyes hoping to make it all go away; I could feel the constant beating of everyone’s heart, some faster than others, or, it was just my imagination. My dad took out a match the caretaker gave to us before we entered the house and lit all the candles; the light made all of us feel a lot better as it confirmed that there was nothing dwelling in one of the unusually dark corners of the room. There was a turquoise coloured door on the far right of the room which led to a hallway, or dad said. I felt a breeze of cold air rush past me but nothing seemed to be affected by it; I decided that my senses were deceiving me so I pushed the thought in the farthest corner of my mind.

We opened the door as slowly as we could, expecting something to jump at us right away, fortunately, there was nothing. I sat attentively in my stroller. Eyes darting from one shadow to the next. Goosebumps broke all over my skin; I gripped the handlebars as hard as I could, causing my knuckles to turn white. My mother slowly pushed the stroller along, making sure she could see in the darkness and nothing unexpected snuck up on our party. We ventured along the poorly lit corridor with doors on each end along with eerie paintings of people I couldn’t recognize, it seemed as if the eyes we watching us with each step we took. Although I was flanked by my father, uncle and cousins, the ominous feeling in the air did not improve. Something made a rustling noise behind us, it had seemed that I was the only one who noticed it or it could’ve been my imagination, I angled my head around the stroller looking to see if there was anything there, I started behind us for what seemed like hours until I finally reassured myself there was nothing behind us. We resumed our mentally exhausting trek through the haunted house and wandered into a pitch black room on the first floor, my four year old senses told me that there was a presence in the room but no one else felt it so I ignored it. The roomed smelled dusty and there was a hint of rotten eggs in the air, the wallpaper was worn out and were peeling off like sunburned skin, there were no lights in the room and no switches either. We stopped in front of the doorway thinking that we had taken a wrong turn and ended up in a dead end, a bad thing to encounter in a haunted house; our doubts were quickly answered by a half broken light that started to constantly flicker on and off to reveal a zombie kneeled over a half eaten mutilated corpse which started to turn around slowly to face us. The zombie had skin as green as broccoli were it was rotten in some places; maggots ate through some patches in the zombie’s skin; it had some patches of hair left and the room’s rotten egg smell became stronger, I figured this was what dead people looked like when you dug them up two weeks after their burial. I heard my mother scream first, my father, uncle and cousins were not far behind; these were the last things I heard, saw and smelled before I fainted.

Gamma Mike 22:57, July 16, 2010 (UTC)