Chapter Four
Welcome
Watson Pritchard leads the costumed guests down another dim corridor. An arras is suspended at the end where they'd come up the candlelit stairs and Batgirl gives it a wide berth. The other end of the long hallway leads off to a blind right turn. "These will be your rooms tonight - if you dare to be alone in them. Only this room is off limits, it is reserved for your host." He turns the knob, opens the door and grants them admittance into the 'off-limits' bedroom.
Not everyone can fit into the first group, though Abby makes certain she's right behind Pritchard. When she's in the candle-lit bedroom, her heart leaps for joy.
There's a large bed to their left that's straight from the nineteenth century. It's covered by a canopy and coated with a layer of dust probably undisturbed since those long gone days. On the bureau beside the door stands a silver bucket with an open bottle of champagne. Two empty glasses stand on the table on their right, and next to the glasses rests a hairbrush replete with long fine strands of blonde hair.
"Feel good to be back for your party?" the white smocked doctor asks Annabelle Loren.
"'I told you, darling'," she replies with an arctic smile, "'it's not my party'."
Pritchard turns to see Leia standing beside the bed, regarding it and Skywalker with a speculative smile. "You don't want to be thinking that," he tells her.
"Trust me, my dear," Annabelle says, stepping beside their guide, "any woman who uses that bed comes to a sad end."
As the first group moves out, Pritchard favors Loren with a grateful look.
xx
In the Library, every wall is lined with a staggering collection of antique books. The Scarlet Witch walks slowly along one wall, scans the titles, happu to find an eclectic variety. She pulls one off the shelf and ruffles through it, disappointed though quite unsurprised to find the pages are blank.
"Who died in here?" the policewoman asks.
"The Literary Critic," Wanda mutters too softly to be heard.
"William Deluca was found one morning seated in that chair," Pritchard points to a large leather chair behind a desk, "a dagger plunged into his throat. His hands were raised as though he'd been grappling with someone, and thus he was found in full rigor in the morning."
"Cadaveric spasm," Wanda corrects absently.
"Excuse me?" Pritchard hadn't expected to be interrupted.
"Oh, it was a cadaveric spasm, not rigor mortis. That's the only way it could've happened. You see, rigor mortis begins at the extremities some four hours after death, comes to full term by twelve, will last up to twelve hours more and then gradually reverse until the body is flaccid again by the end of twelve more. A cadaveric spasm, if it occurs, will happen immediately."
"Really?" Rather than being annoyed, Pritchard seems interested by the correction.
"Really. It occurs in extremely violent physical confrontations. The corpse is frozen in place at the moment of death," she assures him with a smile. "It's caused by the overutilization and depletion of adenosine triphosphate during extreme activity-" Elvira, beside her, jabs her elbow into Wanda's rib. The witch, in turn, becomes aware of her audience.
"We must talk later," Pritchard tells her.
"Love to," Wanda assures him, certain she'll have an excellent time.
"You seem to have almost as much experience with death as I've had."
"I could knock your monochromatic socks off."
x
But as the group walks out, Wanda hears a sharp whisper from behind her. "If you don't refocus your eyeballs I'll knock something of yours off." She turns, expecting to see Vampirella confronting Dracula, but it's Cleopatra, hand covering her chest, who glares back and up at the white coated doctor.
As Wanda continues out the door Vampirella is beside her, and the petite woman mimes a sharp downward look. It's enough to tell Wanda what had set this off; the doctor had been standing behind Cleopatra, looking over her shoulder.
Wanda casts a quick glance back from the candlelit hall at the doctor's companion and decides she could take the blonde Nurse's blood pressure without a cuff.
xx
At 11:45 Pritchard leads the group back into the drawing room and closes the door behind them. "It's almost midnight and I've only had time to introduce you to a few of the dangers of this house. There are some areas so dangerous that if you intrude into them the ghosts will surely take you and you will be lost forever. They are-" The doors behind him fly apart, bang against walls. A blast of thunder splits the air, riding a shrill chorus of shrieks.
In the doorway, illuminated for an instant by a flash of lightning before being darkened to obscurity, two gaunt figures stand. The tall man is little more than stretched skin on thin bones, the shorter woman is a haggard crone whose white hair reaches out in insane directions. The doors close on their own and the Vincent Price simulacrum, standing at the black table, comes to life.
x
"Good evening. I'm your host, Frederick Loren." Several guests who had stood near him are doubly startled and hurry away from the moving robot.
They're amazed. Price moves just as the original had; his face changes expression, eyes move, all in lifelike similarity to the real man. He speaks, rather than his voice coming from a concealed electronic device.
It's only too late that some realize the more practical explanation is the real one. The speaker is concealed in the simulacrum's mouth.
x
"Now before the party begins, let's go over the details," Price, as Loren, tells them. "The Caretakers will leave at midnight, locking us in here until they come back in the morning. Once the door is locked there's no way out. The windows have bars a jail would be proud of, and the only door to the outside locks like a vault. There's no electricity... no phone... no one within miles, so no way to call for help." He manages to make the simple words sound dreadfully ominous.
"So if any of you decide not to stay for the party you must let me know before midnight. Of course, if you leave, I shan't be able to pay you anything." The smile is chilling.
"I think you all remember the bargain we made about staying all night: $10,000 a piece. If any of you don't survive, $50,000 will be divided amongst the rest of you. If I should die," his smile turns ironic, though he doesn't cast a sidelong glance at his wife Annabelle as the real Price had done, "you will be paid by my Estate."
Several people start to move closer, to try to discern the workings of the device. Pritchard prevents them from going around the table or touching him.
x
"When the door is locked from the outside by the Caretakers," Price continues, "we'll all be forced to stay in the house until morning. If any of you decide not to stay you must leave with the Caretakers now. You won't have a chance to change your minds later, because there'll be no way to get out."
There are no takers. They know the famous - or infamous - terms and no one wants to leave.
x
Rushing wind blows the living room doors back open and the heavy breeze from previously unnoticed vents distracts all but the most wary as the crystal chandelier in the foyer tinkles. While the others are distracted, even those who allow themselves to be so, the outer door slams. The striped Prisoner and Superman cross the foyer to the outer door. Moments later, Superman steps back into the room. "It's locked."
"I was going to ask you if you wanted to leave or not," Price, still in the character of Frederick Loren, continues, seemingly unfazed by the news, "but it seems the Caretakers have made the decision for you. We're all locked in now. We will all have to stay in this house until 8:00 in the morning.
"But we have some party favors for you, in these little coffins."
'Loren' reaches for the first of the black coffins arrayed on the table before him, opens each in turn to reveal deadly black pistols. "This is my wife's idea. I must say I think it's rather dangerous.
"I suppose you all know how to use one of these things," he says as he draws one out of a coffin, "but in case you don't, you just press down on this lever with your thumb," he cocks the hammer back, "and then," he aims at a cobweb covered black vase across the room, "pull the trigger."
The loud bang almost drowns out the shattering vase. Elvira, Wanda and Vampirella note there's a corresponding bullet hole in the wall beyond, though none of the cloud of dust nor the tiny debris that would accompany a real gunshot.
Wanda won't tell anyone that she'd already sought for and found the hole during her first moments in the room earlier tonight.
"You see, they're loaded."
The robot puts the gun back into the coffin, turns to its right and stops.
x
"Is it going to say anything else?" Dr. Who wonders as he approaches the motionless Price. The smile upon the simulacrum's lips is not reassuring.
"I think it's off," the Cowboy confirms.
"Who's for pictures?" Who asks as, with a flourish, he produces a digital camera from one of his copious pockets.
"Me," Supergirl exclaims, being the first to reach Price's side. She strikes a slinky rather than Superheroinish pose. Superman and several others take her picture.
"Me next," Barbarella exclaims as she takes Supergirl's place, but then she hesitates.
Captain Jack Sparrow discerns her dilemma. "Dear lady, only provide me with your e-mail address and I will see you obtain a sumptuous collection."
"Okay."
Though careful not to touch the android, mindful of Pritchard's earlier direction, she strikes a pose suitably scandalous for her character. As the room is turned into a cosmic storm of flashes, Vampirella observes sotto vocé to Wanda Maximoff: "That's not all he'll give her once he gets her e-mail address."
"She's a big girl."
"That said," Vampi agrees, noting Barbarella's décolletage.
"Annabelle, do you want a picture with your husband?" Jack offers.
"The only picture I want of him is a mug shot," she replies coolly. "He murdered me, remember?"
"Oh, yeah."
"You look good for a corpse," the white smocked Doctor assures her. Elvira notices the nurse beside him is once again not amused. Wanda predicts a new client for Ducky Mallard.
Annabelle does pose for a picture, but when the Doctor moves in a moment later, she holds up her hand. "I've sworn off doctors after the last time."
He takes her rebuff with good grace under a chorus of chuckles. Not many notice that his nurse doesn't join in the merriment.
x
"How about it?" Wanda asks Vampirella.
The petite woman shakes her head. "I had enough pictures taken the other day by that 'We' magazine photographer." Her normally straight hair is still styled with a wave she'd adopted for that photo session. "He must've taken about twenty shots until he had what he wanted."
"Me too."
Vampirella remembers her friend's image from that day. Abby had outdone herself. In answer to Shepherd's directive about professional appearance of all the women on interview day, she'd worn a daringly low cut Victorian dress - black, of course - that would've given the Director nightmares had she seen it. "He must've used a roll of film on you," she quips.
"What roll? Digital."
Vampi will not flush at the mistake; she doesn't want the joke to fall flat. "Then an entire flash drive."
"More like flesh drive."
Vampirella smiles, recalling her own session.
Actually in photographing Abby the man had shown professionalism and admirable restraint. He'd confined his views of the Goth woman to her neck upward. If he'd kept one or two for a private collection, she won't say anything.
x
"Come on, get up there." The push Wanda gives Vampirella makes her stumble on high leather boots into the center. Trapped in the open, she goes to Vincent as graciously as she can.
For all the generosity of her costume, actually because of it, she strikes a pose considerably more demure than many of her predecessors. Wanda uses Vampirella's camera as well as her own to capture the moment; certain that, though not provocative, Jimmy will enjoy the views.
Vampirella gives the e-mail address Jack Sparrow should send the pictures to as Jimmy's, emphasizing James. Sparrow doesn't blink an eye; he's already collecting a bumper crop of addresses.
Wanda leans back toward Price, not touching him but tilting her head to expose her neck to his attack.
"He's not a vampire in this movie," the striped Inmate reminds her.
"Vincent can put his mouth anywhere he wants," she coos.
x
Elvira, her back to the robot, strikes a pose much more restrained than her fictional counterpart, very cautious of her own décolletage.
"Come on," Wanda protests. "That's not an Elvira pose."
The Mistress of the Dark reaches up, her hand draped sensuously about Vincent's neck and feels the tape securing the dress give way. She ducks and hurries aside, escapes before more than one bright flash can light the room.
"Did you get it?" Wanda asks Vampirella as Elvira presses the tape firmly into place.
"Got it," Vampirella announces, showing Wanda the little screen, not letting others see.
"Gibbs'll love that."
"Michelle, don't you dare, that's an order."
"You mean I can't barter this into a threeweek vacation?"
"No you can not."
"Missed it anyway," Vampirella admits with a faux pout as she turns the device around. Elvira had gotten out of the frame before the button had been pushed. "I was just playing."
"You mean you couldn't film 'Elvira's Haunted Hills'?" Wanda quips.
"Oh, blech."
The Scarlet Witch shrugs. "Breast I could do."
"Well," Elvira cools down, managing to smile and accept having been momentarily had, "Gibbs has seen better anyway."
"Do tell," Wanda urges as the revelers, no longer interested in the drama, resume taking pictures with Vincent.
"I could, but you know what I'd have to do."
"Nothing compared to what you'd have to do with Gibbs," Wanda smirks.
x
Pritchard resumes the tour, starts the group up the staircase from the foyer to the second floor. Only Sparrow and Cleopatra delay. "Quite a piece of work," Sparrow says.
"Yes," Cleo agrees, looking the robot over.
"Want another?" he asks, hefting the camera.
"That's not necessary." She's confident she'll remember the night without it. The chandelier, the blood marking, they had been more than enough.
"Come on, it's Opening Night." He glances toward where the departing group had gone. "Running out of time."
"Well..." she considers, "why not?" She adopts a seductive pose, her back against Vincent. She raises her left hand as though to stroke his face, her chest thrust outward.
xx
As the party passes an antique suit of armor, most of the guests suspicious and passing in a wide arc closer to the left wall, an unseen panel opens and a hand grabs Barbarella's bare thigh. She shrieks, but by the time anyone looks the wall has reclosed.
They turn a corner and the lights in the wall sconces dim. Before them appears an ethereal woman, flesh and rags decaying from her gaunt body. She runs at them, human and ghostly shrieks mingle before she reaches them and vanishes.
They ascend a creaking staircase, but when they reach the next landing the creaking footsteps continue. Several look back, haunted by their invisible pursuer and a blast of thunder splits the group in all directions.
They pass down a hallway when all lights suddenly go out and lightning splits the darkness, thunder rocks the house as doors around them burst open singly and in pairs, the lightning mingling with ghostly laughter and human shrieks. All the doors slam shut in unison and the sconces reignite.
x
In the Study, not far from the chapel they'd visited earlier in this fragmented, intentionally disorganized tour, Pritchard points out scores of books on Black Magic used by a man who had sacrificed his girlfriend to the Devil.
Vampirella looks at the book set on a pedestal, which Pritchard has identified as a 'Book of Shadows'. She turns a few ancient, yellow pages, recognizes several of the 'spells' as having been lifted directly from episodes of 'Charmed' and from several horror movies. She stops at one and giggles.
"What's up?" Wanda asks, stepping beside her.
"'To Find True Love' it says, but it says to use 'root of a carrot'. That's not it at all. Orange works far bet-" Glancing up, she sees this is far from a private conversation. She steps away from the book, self-conscious but unable to let it rest. "Well, anyway, it's wrong."
"How would you know, Vampi?" the Cowboy asks and points to Wanda. "She's the witch."
"The hex she is." She touches the starred circle and cross charm that hangs between her breasts.
"What would you suggest?" Superman asks as puts his arm around Supergirl's midriff.
She pushes him off. "Is there a spell in there so he won't be the man of steel at three in the morning?" she asks longingly, garnering a laugh from everyone.
Every candle in the room goes out.
The darkness is cleaved by a bolt of lightning as a storm rises and heavy rain pelts the window glass. The candles are gradually relit, but not before several hearts have been raised into throats.
The distraction saves Vampirella the need to evade the fact that there is a way to grant Supergirl's wish - though she can't imagine ever wanting to use it.
Most of her private efforts, even to using this costume, are intended for the opposite effect.
x
The tour of the musty building continues. Despite knowing that the entire structure was only begun two years ago, the dust, cobwebs and mustiness continues to insist this place has been shut up since the 50's.
They make their way down another hallway, Pritchard's words occasionally drowned out by blasts of thunder when, from the other end steps a figure in a long black robe. His face under the hood is a grinning skull and he hefts a large silver scythe and charges them, laughing maniacally. The crowd scatters to the walls. Death swings the scythe at Captain Jack Sparrow, misses by an inch and disappears into a cloud of smoke that rose unobserved to fill the hall behind them.
"Captain, are you all right?" Pritchard asks, coming back to the terrified man.
"All Right?" Sparrow exclaims, his voice two octaves too high, his chest heaving. "What do you mean ALL RIGHT? That thing almost killed me, Pritchard; that fucking scythe was real! You're supposed to scare us, not fucking KILL us!"
"My dear Captain, I'm terribly sorry-"
He pushes him off. "Look, don't give me 'sorry'; just make sure it doesn't happen again."
He breaks from Pritchard and stalks angrily back through the dissipating smoke.
x
Pritchard stands shaken for a moment, then turns to the rest of the group. Most can see him work to regain his composure - and his persona.
"The ghosts are angry tonight - and more dangerous than I'd thought. We must all be cautious... or there could be more ghosts before the night ends. Come."
He resumes the tour. Though the group follows him down the hall, Elvira, Wanda and Vampirella linger. "That was real," Vampirella declares.
"Looked like it to me," Wanda admits.
Vampirella shakes her head. "I grew up around edged weapons. That was real."
No one contradicts her.
"Watch yourselves," Elvira advises. "This fantasy is starting to look a bit too real."
They follow the group.