Classic Horrors Club

For once, I feel like it’s not all about me!

When I took Carolyn home tonight, Elizabeth came downstairs and commented that she hadn’t seen me in several days. She asked where I’d been keeping myself. When I told her I had been quite ill, she asked why I didn’t let them know? I replied that Carolyn was making it sound more serious than it actually was. 

When Elizabeth said she hoped I called a doctor, I told her I didn’t have to because Dr. Hoffman had wandered by on the way to the Old House and that she had told me it was just a bad case of food poisoning. I looked at Carolyn and again told her it wasn’t as bad as she thought. As she began to respond, Maggie came running and screaming down the stairs.

She claimed there was a strange man. She had never seen him before but had just opened the door and he was there. Elizabeth told her to try to get hold of herself and asked her to tell her what happened. She said she was looking for David and ran into this man. He just kept staring at her with the most evil eyes she’d ever seen. 

When she said she’d seen him in the west wing, Elizabeth told her the west wing was closed and that no one could be there. She insisted there was and that she saw him! I then offered to take a look. I grabbed a flashlight and Carolyn went with me. She held my arm as as I shined the light through a mass of cobwebs.

I asked if there were any lights in that part of the west wing and she told me nobody has lived there in years. She didn’t even know how big it was; she had no idea how many rooms there were. I said that meant someone could hide up there very easily. 

We came to a door and I asked what the story was. She thought it was a storage room. I opened the door and we stepped in. Nobody was in there. I wondered what we should do next. Carolyn said it wasn’t possible to cover the whole west wing and we might as well go back downstairs.

On the way, we heard laughing and talking from David’s room. We stopped by and asked him about it. He said he told himself a joke and thought it was funny. Carolyn told him that was absurd, but he asked her what she expected. Since his Aunt Elizabeth won’t let him play with anyone, he had to find some way to be amused.

Carolyn told him it was getting late and suggested he get ready for bed. He sarcastically replied that getting ready for bed sounded “so exciting.” She began to scold him, but he said he would do it. Carolyn said she would see him tomorrow and I told him good night, then we headed back downstairs.

In the drawing room, I lit a cigarette and listened to Elizabeth and Maggie continue their conversation. Liz told Maggie she knew she had a scare and didn’t doubt for a minute she saw something. Maggie speculated that David must have some secret up in the west wing; otherwise, why would he go there this evening? 

When Elizabeth told her it wouldn’t be the first time he went there, Maggie asked why he would go there tonight. Elizabeth replied that perhaps what’s important to him seems trivial to us. Maggie persisted because David knew if he got caught his punishment would be extended., so something up there must be terribly important for him to go up there and find it. 

Carolyn interjected that she thought Maggie may be right. She reminded Elizabeth that David really hasn’t been himself lately and she thought for his sake, as well as Maggie’s, she ought to try to find out what’s bothering him. Elizabeth agreed and they went upstairs to talk to him.

After a few minutes, Carolyn and I stepped into the foyer and she said she wondered how David was doing under the third degree? I told her if I were making book on it, I’d say he was holding his own pretty well. She asked what I meant. I told her that David’s not your ordinary kid. He has at least one very special quality: intelligence. He keeps his eyes and ears open, and I had an idea that that little brain of his stores information like a computer. 

She asked when I got to know him so well. I told her that he dropped by the cottage the other morning to see me, before I was sick. I mentioned that I had been wondering about his visit ever since. He was surprised to see me, almost as if he expected something to have happened to me. Nothing had, of course, but 12 hours later, something did…. something that almost killed me.

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