Disclaimer: This author owns nothing but the setting for this story and every OC you see along with story line.
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Haunted House of Unwanted Truths
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There was a presence in these woods. It was like an echo of blue/gray coated soldiers and their cannons that are sometimes heard on nights light this when the veil is thinnest. Or maybe it's just the early Autumn wind with its warm/cold caress that leaves behind goose-bumps. Or perhaps it's that light, playful breeze that plays with the end of your hair one moment then flips girls' skirts the next. But whenever the low moan is heard within the dark sentinels the spiders like to spread their webs among-it makes it hard to believe that such a thing could be only the wind. This is the place of nightmares where low, wispy clouds brush the dark ground with near invisible fingers as if they were to trace the worn names of Mezzanis that had been buried there for many generations.
Perhaps that is the true reason why Jessamine Lucianna Zephyr-Mezzani never liked living so close to the slowly decaying monstrosity although it was hidden within the dark forests. At least The Admiral {as she calls him because of the distance he keeps between the only sister of his younger sons} had built the new house on the other end of his familial estate. The old three-story manor, complete with a widow's peak, had been the setting for more than her nightmares. Her seven older brothers{first four being steps while the younger three were halfs} open to the public every October for reenactments of various stories from the Great War. No matter the true source of the nightmares that had only increased since losing her mother-Lucia firmly blames her two oldest brothers for them.
"OOOh this is soooooooo exciting, Jaz, and soooooooo worth all the extra homework I have to endure to be here during fright week! " Her cousin, Abby, fairly bounced on black boots that most would consider to be too tall for someone just barely into their teens. But then Abby Scuito has always been able to get away with anything, including calling her Jaz, all thanks to her killer puppy-dog eyes. Calling her by the anagram of her name that only Abby was allowed to use, however, had more to do with the cousins-through-marriage's sister bond they had shared since they were tots.
"I know, Abs, you've been talking about it since forever!" Lucianna, or Lucia as she was called by her brothers, said with dry sarcasm to which the younger by two years winced.
"You don't really like working in the haunted house do you? I mean I know horror is similar to but different from the mysteries and whodunits we share the love for..."
"It's not that, Abby." Lucia sighed. "I mean I like the horror genre well enough, but when your older brothers use it as an endless means to terrify you at intermittent times of the year it just..."
"Gets old."
"Yeah exactly like I'd think you'd feel if we visited you more down in New Orleans with the family mausoleum with all that spooky hanging Spanish moss."
"Which, incidentally, you do have here as well, Jaz." Abby said with a careful expression on her pale face even though her dark eyes sparkled in amusement.
"Yeah but it's only around the manor." Lucia answered with a barely concealed shudder. "But at least you've never woken up in the autopsy room...I mean what house-mansion-whatever in it's right mind has an autopsy room?"
"Not like an inanimate object has a mind!" Abby laughed nervously then tugged on her sister/cousin's hand. "C'mon, Jaz, we're late as it is an' your brothers are gonna kill us!"
And yet they didn't see a soul when they first enter the house which was strange as one of them, Abner she thinks, was supposed to be greeting guests at the door as a ghost butler. Their movements must have triggered it...the voice...as it began to drone in such a creepy manner that it took several moments for them to register the words. "I never liked how they treated you."
Cold laughter chilled them in a way that the wind outside had not as it echoed through the well decorated room that still had its ragged horsehair covered furniture from another time. "I hated how he took advantage at you during the nights his father was away as if you were his property to do with what he wished."
"What's he talking about, Jaz?" Abby asked in a trembling voice to which Lucia shook her head.
"Let's go find the others, I don't like this one bit."
"You won't find them in the way they were for they were in the way...of true love."
"JAZ!" Abby shrieked when their fingers were separated from each other and Lucia looked on in shock as her cousin disappeared through the darkness of the open trap door ...just for a moment.
"WHAT DID YOU DO WITH HER?! IF YOU HURT HER..."
"No harm nor hurt will come to one who truly cares for you as our dear Knight Abigail does, sweet Lucia. She has merely been removed from this situation as this is a moment I have created for you and I. Also the truths that I shall reveal has no place in such tender ears."
"Where are my brothers?"
"In the roles they have picked forever will they play for their own actions they shall pay. To those who protected you they shall rest in time to see another day. But within this Hallow's Eve their fates are sealed such as the one you had called 'father' once but now is known as The Admiral. Follow the path of gold and I will tell you a tale of old."
She hated to give in to such a closet freak but considered this to be the only option when the room fell into darkness moments before a path of golden light appeared at her feet. 'Follow the light-how droll.' Lucia swallowed then did just that as it lead her down the path her now older brother, Abe, had picked for this year's 'spooktacular'. Abe, the creepy middle child of their father's first marriage to a woman who had also died under mysterious circumstances along with the first-born son. At least her mother's death was in the line of duty despite finding a biological bomb within the body she had been performing an autopsy on at the time...they still haven't found her killer.
Lucia shook her head then wished she didn't when the sideways action brought her face to face with her brother Abe's hanging head. She screamed once she realized that it was not part of their usual scenes they'd planned for weeks. The rest of him...the rest of him was too mangled to tell any more specifics. She wanted to run...she needed to find Abby... she-"
"You should not mourn the wicked for by marriage or not, he was still known as your brother and he helped one he believed to be half brother to you."
"What do you mean? What gives you the right to decide?" She screamed in pained denial.
"What gave them the right to withhold truth? Follow the path for therein truth lies."
The young teen swallowed hard then followed the path down the back stairs into a room where pale moonlight filtered through bars. She fought to keep down her last meal when she saw her eldest brother tied in a very familiar position, BDSM style, on his knees over a strange board thing with spikes protruding from his bare back. Tears burned her eyes as the nightmares clamored within her mind to be remembered until she turned away from both them and the sight.
"Relief you should feel and not those of tears choking you like he choked you all those different times before. Thought his favorite room in this house to be fitting for his final tableau. However this truth I shall give you: Revenge was Seth's true reason for his treatment of you. For such as your birth mother, his aunt, had taken advantage of him {as she did all her young male students}such as he took a similar, but more crueler, revenge from one he saw as 'prison spawn'."
"No." Lucia whispered, as tears of denial raced down her paling cheeks then rage overtook her. "YOU LIE!"
"Then from the words of the one you had once called father, you tale will tell the truth of why his distance from you was made to be felt."
This time, she struggled with the steeper stairs as well as her heavier heart as they took her all the way to the widow's peak. There The Admiral had been forced to his knees in a form of repentance, still wearing his no-longer pristine Navy whites. "Jessamine, what is the meaning of this?"
She jumped, startled at the unexpected words as they had been bit out in the same fashion she had become used to since the death of her mother. There were neither care nor concern within the proud man's face as he refused to feel fear. Despite every horror she had seen thus far, she couldn't not feel the resentment the man before her had fostered within her. "I should ask you just that myself, Father, but it has been implied by the voice that you are not."
"You always were too smart for your age and sharply observant. I'm surprised that you hadn't asked that before now."
"Grief clouds, slowing the mind to what should have been seen sooner. Now is the time for truth...to burn away the veil of doubt."
"Truth." The man laughed bitterly. "The truth is that no one wanted a child born in prison of a former teacher convicted for child molestation and statutory rape of a student after getting away with it before."
"No."
"If I had known the truth about you and her whore of a sister when I married Evaline then I would have run so fast from the two of you that her head would have spun." The Admiral spat out, his contempt clear in his tone. "I never saw you as my daughter just that bitch's spawn!"
Not wanting to show this man any of the hurt his words had given her this last time, Lucia stiffened her spine then stared him down with coldness in her blue blue eyes. "Then what of my true father?"
"So that you can bond with him in a way that you had never done with me?" The bloodied male-type person laughed menacingly.
"He was fourteen years old when he was raped by his teacher! Do you honestly think any man would even want to know the product of such a humiliating event? No, even if I did know his name, which was struck from the records as he was a minor according to the law, I would not tell you for that reason alone. Should you ever find that piece of information then I suggest you leave the poor man alone as she had caused him enough pa-"
His words were then broken off as electricity traveled through his wet body due to the mist that had been falling steadily for hours. Lucia choked on her tears and the charred flesh as she turned to run away from the sound of the world, as she had known it to be, shattering about her like broken glass. She tripped over the last of that man's sons intertwined with her own half brother...no that's not exactly true is it? However, Lucia was too numb to truly react to the added horror; choosing instead to huddle in a corner where she gave into her tears.
The light touch startled her, but she had almost expected it as Abby always found her when she needed an Abby-hug the most. Unfortunately she realized the figure was all wrong the moment he gathered her into his arms. She stiffened then let out a pained cry when she recognized the feel and woodsy scent of he that held as her crazy uncle-cousin thing. He was crazy and she wasn't clear to exactly how they were related, but he had been the only one in that crazier extended family that had actually seemed to like her. "Issac, please no..."
"I've got you now just as I always have." Despite the streaks of blood on his darkly handsome face, even if he was decades older than her...ewewew he KILLED her family!
"Abby! What have you done to her?"
He grimaced while only a mild form of regret shadowed his green eyes. "She's fine although she found an extra someone in the autopsy room that I hadn't planned on. Unfortunately she fainted but don't worry. Abby will wake up soon in the clearing with a note telling her to not come back here."
Lucia sighed shakily as she wiped away her own tears. "That's like telling a cat to go away when they don't want to. You know that she'll never leave me behind."
"But she won't be because you're coming with me...the note told her that." Issac said tenderly then leaned forward to press his lips against hers since she was in no position to avoid the unwanted gesture.
She shuddered at the bitter taste that invaded her mouth and hurt accusation entered her face along with betrayal. "W-why?"
"It is time for you to sleep so I can take you from this place unhindered. You don't need to see anymore until after you join me on the hunt. Before she could even wonder what that meant, Lucia fell into the black well of sleep.
Several months later she knew what he had meant in a full color detail Lucia had never wanted. A month after that Issac placed the cold, hard steel into her hand as he pressed his forehead against the opening of the barrel with a fevered chant, "Do it, do it now before they get here do it now...only by your hands...only you can stop me, my sweet Lucia."
Lucia screamed when the warmth of his blood splattered her pale, overheated face as the echo of the killing shot rang in her ears. He was so unnaturally heavy on her lap and it took familiar hands to free her from that weight...her Uncle Toby. "Lucia."
"No...I-I can't...no longer light. Please, just call me Luc from this day forward, I am J. Lucianna Zephyr."
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END
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AN~Yeah yeah I'm late, although there's no limit to chills and thrills, but I couldn't get motivated to write this in time...nor the right idea for this particular idea. Hope this does thrill and chill but if not...well then not my genre huh. Anyway if ya don't like no problem there's the door no need to sign the guestbook. This is just another introductory part of a much larger whole-how large...no clue as of yet as it's all in my mind. No matter what, thanks for reading. ~k~