When You Hear the Knell of a Requiem Bell by Flashbeagle

Author's Introductory Notes: I wrote this story months ago, before the Haunted Mansion movie came out. It's basically a cross between plot details from the movie, (those I heard about very early on) ride, and a character and situation I had already formulated. I based the Manor's back story on both the one given at the official Haunted Mansion movie website and the Ghost Gallery stories that can be found at doombuggies.com that were written by ride cast members. So anything that you find here in reference to the Haunted Mansion in any of its incarnations belongs to Disney. Certain characters are completely different from their movie correspondents. (For example, Ramsley and the Bride.) My heroine, Kimberly, was actually inspired by Becky Bloomwood, heroine of the Confessions of a Shopaholic series, and has a bit of Bridget Jones and Mia Thermopolis (The Princess Diaries) in her as well. The story's title is taken from one of the verses of "Grim Grinning Ghosts".

Rated PG-13 for language primarily. My heroine has a tendency to curse while in distress.

Chapter One

My God, could this place be any bigger? I mean, it's just colossal! Gracey Manor, I mean. I nearly dropped my notebook when I was staring up at the place.

Glad I didn't bring my camera. I probably would've dropped it and broken it, but I guess I'll just have to do that some other time.

This is my first major assignment, and I get shipped to New Orleans to do a piece on a giant haunted house, which according to local legend, is home to ~get this~ nine hundred and ninety nine ghosts. That's a whole lot of dead people. I was actually thrilled when I got this assignment; much better than those stupid profiles and 'exposes' on San Antonio local monuments I've been doing since I got this job.

By the way, I'm Kimberly Fox. I'm 24, and as you may have guessed, I'm a reporter. An investigative travel reporter for Carr News Service, to be precise, although from the stuff I've been doing, you'd think I'm just some school kid doing a stupid report on town history. I signed on with the travel bureau, and my boss, John Gilligan, thought it would be a great idea for me to explore my hometown and do reports on 'San Antonio's rich tradition of monuments', which all visitors to San Antonio are supposedly just 'dying to know about.' John, who moved to San Antonio from somewhere in the Midwest, adores the city and all of its mythology and such. The man would probably live at the Alamo if he could. When I got that duty, my stomach kind of flipped and I said quickly,

"Uh, maybe I could do something more along the lines of investigative reporting?" I had offered kind of weakly. The picture was great in my mind. Investigative travel reporting? I pictured myself on a beach in the Caribbean, staying at the most luxurious hotels and looking for any small flaw in service. I saw myself being pampered by the hotel staff, dining on lobster until John said,

"That's a great idea, Kim! I know people are crazy about the San Antonio attractions. You can give our readers a great picture of city life! And who better to write it than a hometown girl?"

"Uh, yeah." I stammered. "Sounds great." At that point, I wanted to kill myself for letting my dad talk me into working in San Antonio.

So for the past year, I've spent more time at Mission San Jose, the Alamodome, and the Alamo than I care to. I tried to get free tickets to a Spurs game, claiming that the SBC Center is a future city monument, but John said that would really be more of a Sports thing. Carr News is sort of like the Associated Press; the journalists write articles that are featured in newspapers all over the world and in the travel department's case, travel brochures all over the world.

I will admit that I've enjoyed some of my assignments. The Majestic Theatre was fun. Sea World of Texas was even more fun. I barely did any work the day I was there. I just kind of played in the park, went on rides, got really wet, and did most of my article looking at a souvenir book I bought. My last article was on San Antonio's haunted hotels and the ghost stories behind them. Nearly every damn hotel in downtown San Antonio is haunted, or so they say. I was in some of those "haunted" hotels at what some psychic lady said was the "most opportune time for ghosts to emerge" and I didn't see anything or hear any ghostly brouhahas or feel any strange presences. None of my pictures came out with any ghostly orbs, the way some guy on the Travel Channel said they would. I'm naturally a skeptic when it comes to the supernatural, so if anything, my visits to the downtown haunted menagerie only proved what I've believed since I was a kid.

The head travel editor loved the piece I did on San Antonio's haunted hotels, and John got him to give me an assignment for the national bureau that will appear on the cover of USA Today's Travel section, and may be picked up by many ghost enthusiast publications. My assignment was to fly out to New Orleans and investigate Gracey Manor, which was once home to an affluent family that was supposedly met with some kind of ruin. People are unsure of what happened here, and my assignment is to profile the house and try to figure out what happened here. Kind of a complex assignment yeah, but I didn't realize that until I was halfway to New Orleans. Ah, well, whatever. Like I said before, supposedly the house is home to nine hundred and ninety nine ghosts, but I really don't think that's possible, if ghosts even exist. I think that's just an excuse to turn the place into a tourist trap. Gracey Manor's located in kind of a swampy, deserted area of New Orleans, which was said to once be home to the socially prominent.

Socially prominent. Ha! I like that term!

Anyway, here I am. I'm supposed to meet the man who owns the place, a distant relative of the original owners or something and just outline what I'm doing. My actual work starts tomorrow. Actually I could start today, but I told my best friend, Ben Torres, who's also doing a piece out here in New Orleans, I'd meet him somewhere to eat Cajun seafood. Ben and I are food freaks; we know all the best places to eat back home, and anywhere we've been, which for us includes Corpus Christi, New York City, Orlando, Houston, Austin, and Dallas. I've known Ben since I was six years old, and we've been inseparable since. We even tried dating once, but that didn't work out too well.

I blinked. Oh yeah, I'm supposed to be doing a job here. I walked up the colossal stairs to the mansion, and made sure I had everything I needed.

When I'm on the job, I like to look professional. So I decided to wear a nice blue skirt, pressed white blouse, heels, and my glasses...even though I don't need them. I carried a brand new black notebook in one hand, with a new pen stuck into the cover. I walked with my head up high, adjusting my press passes. When I got to the porch, if you could call it that, I looked for a doorbell, but there was none. I shrugged and knocked on the door.

Nothing happened.

So I knocked again.

Again, nothing.

I groaned and banged on the door. It was no wonder no one could hear me; that door was as heavy as lead.

Still nothing.

I rolled my eyes and opened the door for myself. I half expected it to be locked, but to my half surprise it opened easily. I stepped inside, taking in a giant, extravagant place. Ornately styled, it looked like no one had been inside for a hundred years, and everything was covered in dust. It was so weird...the dust looked like blankets over everything. The air was strangely heavy, and hard to breathe. A table with a lot of candles was laid out, in front of a fireplace with an old fashioned portrait above it. Four other portraits hung on the walls in a nearby corridor, and I examined them, but suddenly I felt really lightheaded. I looked around me, and everything looked so different, but exactly the same. It was as if I knew everything about the place already. Like, I had been here before, many times...It's like I'm spinning in circles. I felt kind of woozy, sort of like I was about to pass out or something...

"Good evening, miss." A British accented voice said.

I jumped, turning around to face a short, slightly portly man, with wiry white hair and sharp blue eyes.

"Ooh, sorry. You kind of scared me!" I laughed.

The butler (I guess. I'm not too familiar with these household type people...the very few rich people I know only have maids) looked at me very strangely. It was as if he couldn't believe he was seeing me, like it was impossible that I was standing right there in front of him. He looked like he'd just seen a ghost, to put it in an everyday term.

"Um, hi!" I said, trying to get his attention.

That jolted him back to reality.

"Sorry," he responded slowly. "What did you say your name was?"

"Uh, I didn't. I'm Kimberly Fox, from Carr News." I said politely, holding out my hand for him to shake, trying to project the image of a respectable, responsible journalist. He still eyed me strangely. As he very slowly shook my hand, I saw him look at my press passes, studying them.

"Ah, yes. You must be the writer doing the piece on the Manor." He said incredibly slowly.

"Yeah! Um, I just wanted to come over here, introduce myself, and um, I just wanted to let the owner of the place know what I'm going to be doing, you know, since I'm going to be ransacking through his or her stuff and all to get my info," I babbled. Uh oh. I'm babbling. When I do that, I'm either really nervous, or really creeped, and everyone ends up thinking I'm a total ditz, 'cause I have this tendency to do it at important events, since I get easily creeped out and nervous at stuff like that.

Right now, I'm kind of creeped out in a different way.

"Alright. I am Ramsley. Master Gracey has been expecting you." The butler said, motioning for me to follow him.

Master Gracey? That sounds so 19th century! I had to stifle a laugh. The weirdest things amuse me sometimes. I guess, um, what did the butler say his name was? I'm terrible with names. Ramings? Rollins? Uh, I guess Rawley must work for Master Gracey personally.

There were some weird pictures on the walls. One was of a girl with an umbrella, one of an older lady, one of a frowning man, and one of a smiling man.

"Master Gracey rarely receives any visitors. This is a pleasure for him." Rodriguez was saying.

"Um, yeah, great." I said, distracted. I was looking at a new group of weird pictures. This one picture looked like Napoleon on a horse. Well, I think it's Napoleon, anyway.

"We often get lonely here. It's a large place and-"

That caught my attention.

"W-w-wait a second!" I stammered. "You mean he actually lives here?"

"Yes, miss."

"Whoa! But, this place has no electricity! No TV, no cable, no phones, no computers, no DVD players.... My God, how do you survive? Is there even a bathroom here?" I exclaimed incredulously.

Ronaldson gave me an amused look. "We manage." He stated simply.

I raised an eyebrow. Something about O'Reilly really freaked me out, but I couldn't quite figure out what.

"How long will you be staying, Miss?" he asked me.

"Uh, not very. I have to uh," Quick, Fox! Think of something intelligent to say, I told myself. "meet a colleague, to discuss our articles." I improvised. Well? You didn't expect me to say, "I'm meeting a buddy of mine to inhale Cajun food while guzzling down a few beers!" Which was the truth, of course.

"I'll let Master Gracey know you're here." He said.

"Ok. "I shrugged. I turned around to look at some more portraits, but as I did, my foot slipped and I crashed into the wall.

"Owww!" I shouted. "Son of a..." But I caught myself, and just whimpered instead. I could've sworn I heard Thompson laughing at me.

It seemed like forever until he came back.

"Master Gracey will see you now. I hope I did not keep you waiting too long." Worthington said, motioning for me to follow him again.

"Oh, no, not at all! Microsoft just came out with a new version of Windows while you were gone." I said.

He looked at me confusedly, and moved on.

We walked down a long hallway, one adorned with suits of armor.

Suits of armor? That's odd.

We arrived at two fancy French doors.

"Master Gracey's in here." He said.

"Um, okay. Thanks, uh, Wellsworth." I said, smiling weakly. I knew I had gotten his name wrong.

He raised an eyebrow at me, but in a different way than I did to him.

"It's Ramsley."

"Huh?"

"My name is Ramsley, Miss Fox." He said, nodding at me before he walked away.

Ramsley. Ramsley. Ok, I WILL remember that, I told myself as I opened the door.

Acknowledgement and Endorsement Time!

If you're a HM fan, I highly, highly recommend Tribute by Crescent Venus. It's over on the Sabrina, the Teenage Witch section, but even if you're not a big Sabrina fan, it's still understandable. It's based off movie, ride legends, and video game. It's got a GREAT plot and (one of my favorite things about it) it utilizes proper grammar! It's pretty rare to find a HM fan fic on the Internet- so it's a great thing to find one that's honestly well-written in both the plot and format department! As I write this, it's 11 chapters strong- with much more to come.

Special thanks go to my friends Kate, Sarah, and Rebecca for reading this in its original draft and suggesting possible changes and plot situations.

Special thanks are also due to Dominic Fiduccia, Lilac Moon, and Cmar for reviewing this story in advance. Thanks a million for all your help!!!!!!! It was greatly appreciated.