"When hinges creak in doorless chambers,

"When hinges creak in doorless chambers,

And strange and frightening sounds echo through the halls.

When ever candle light flickers

Where the air is deathly still,

That is the time when ghosts are present,

Practicing their terrors with ghoulish delights!"

Haunted Mansion Preamble, Disneyland

Chapter II

Entering the Haunted House

From a distance and during the daytime, Hangman's Folly did not seem so scary. Standing on its doorstep in the dead of night with only the silver light of a full moon illuminating the area was a whole other story.

Hangman's Folly was a towering five stories tall, not including attic and basement; a massive edifice composed of countless balconies, towers and turrets. If it had been any bigger, it probably would have resembled a small castle. It also looked as if it had been carved from a massive slab of jet-black rock rising from the earth rather than being built. The roof was shingled with black tiles that even though most of them were old and cracked, still looked slick and shiny. The old shutters of the boarded-up windows creaked softly even though there was hardly any wind. The staircase that lead up to the huge front doors beyond the massive front porch was nearly a story tall itself and dark stone gargoyles stared down at the unlikely party from the twisted balconies as stood awe-struck in front of the ghostly manor.

For several long moments, no one spoke as the gazed onto the looming house before them. All ten mutants were dressed in their regular school clothing; the only thing that looked slightly out of place was all the video recording material that had been clipped to their belts and in their hands. The only one who looked out of place was Pietro, who was dressed in all black, making him look thinner than usual and almost ungodly pale. He even went to the liberty of putting thick black smudges of some sort of makeup under his eyes. Of course Evan had teased him the entire time about wearing girl makeup all the way up to the house.

But now they were all silent, a very rare occasion, memorized by the phantom-like manor. They did however jump when Scott Summers spoke, breaking the silence and taking them all by surprise. "Well, who goes first?"

"You think you're all high and mighty, Summers. Why don't you go first?" Lance said coldly.

"This was your idea, Alvers." Lance shot back. "I think that you should have the first honor. Unless you're too…afraid to." Had he not been wearing sunglasses, he would have been looking at Lance from the corner of his eye, challenging him.

"All right then, if the rest of you are going to be so chicken about it." Taking a deep breath, Lance put one foot on the bottom step of the massive wooden staircase. It creaked loudly under his foot, but held. Frowning up at the house, he began to climb up the stairs, one at a time. "Well, are the rest of you 'fraidy-cats coming or what?"

The rest soon followed after, Scott right after, following Lance's lead up the stairs. The old wood creaked and moaned as if in agony as the group made their way up. It nearly screamed as Fred started up. "Sshh, Freddy!" Pietro hissed. "Do you want to wake up the dead?"

"D-do you really think that there might be ghosts in there, Pietro?" Todd asked. His voice was quaking.

"Aww, whas da matter?" Rogue said, looking over her shoulder. "Is da lil' Toady scared?"

"O-of course not! What're you talkin' about, yo?" Todd snapped back, picking up his pace as if trying to prove himself. "I was jus' takin' some precautions, that's all!"

"Oh, right Toad." Kurt put in. "We vouldn't vant you to get all scared now, vould we?"

"You should really talk, blue-boy!" Todd shot back at him. "I would think that you would feel right at home here!"

"Come on guys, knock it off!" Scott said, holding out an arm to keep Kurt from tackling Todd right off the porch. "We're never going to survive this night if you keep fighting like this! Anyway, we're here!"

The fighting came to an immediate halt, and once again they were plunged into speechlessness. The front porch was almost as large as the one in the Xavier institute, a long stretch of dark wooden planks under a sloping roof that disappeared around the corners of the house. Most of the wooden floorboards were warped and twisted with age although they were still as black as ebony. The banisters that bordered the parch were broken and jagged in some places. In the walls several of the bay windows had been bordered up, but through the cracks in the boards they saw hints of broken glass, black with dirt and grim. There was even an old swing capable of holding at least three people (or just one Freddy, it seemed) creaking softly in the next-to-nothing wind on rusty chains.

Then there was the door. It was a huge double-door, almost ten feet tall, ornately carved in swirls and waves. The knockers were a story all themselves. They looked like dragon heads; ugly lizard-like heads sprouting with horns and spikes, their narrow eyes peering at the ground, heavy iron rings grasping tightly in their mouths.

"Woah, will you check this place out!" Evan said, looking around. "It's like something out of a Steven King novel!"

"Nah, it's too modern to be Steven King." Pietro said. He seemed to be taking Evan's comment as some sort of challenge. "I would say more of Alfred Hitchcock!"

"Actually, Ah was thinkin' more of Anne Rice!" Rogue put in.

"What are you talking about? It's definitely Steven King!"

"No! Hitchcock!"

"Anne Rice!"

"King!"

"Hitch…"

"All right, all three of you knock it off!" Scott said impatiently. "Does it really matter what it looks like?"

"Yes!"

The older boy rolled his eyes. "Whatever." He looked up at the doors. "Now what?"

"What else is there to do? We go inside!"

"How?"

Lance growled. "Maybe you should think of changing your prescription! We break in, of course!"

"Wait a moment, you never said anything about breaking and entering!" Jean said, finally taking a step forward. "That's wrong, and you know it."

"Well, we are already technically trespassing, so why should this be any different?" Kitty asked. Jean seemed to be at a temporary loss of words.

"W-well, still, how are we going to get in? It's probably locked half a dozen times from the inside. If we can't get in, then there's really no point in trying, right?"

"That's what you think, Red. Stand back, Summers." Lance said. "I can take it down."

"Are you crazy?" Scott snapped. "If you do that, you'll take down the entire place and us with it! I can probably take it down." He moved to lower his sunglasses, his eyes glowing from behind the red shades.

"Ah, that's a great idea! Maybe if we're lucky, then maybe this place won't go up in flames!"

That brought the arguments to a standstill. "Well…" Scott thought, holding his chin. "What if we were to have Kurt pop on the other side and unlock it from there? Or have Kitty phase through?"

"Uh-huh!" The two mutants said together, backing up. "You're not sending us in there alone! It's an all or nothing thing, remember? Why not just have Fred knock it down?"

"That probably won't do any good." Pietro said quickly. "Chances are he'll knock down the rest of the rest of the house, too!"

"Well, I'm out of ideas." Scott said with a shrug. "Does anyone else have any?"

There was a silence. Finally Jean spoke.

"Maybe we should just try knocking."

Lance snorted. "'Just try knocking?' I almost like the idea of Freddy taking it down better…" As he talked Jean approached the door and took one of the heavy iron rings in her hand. She was surprised at how heavy it was – probably a good twenty or so pounds – so she left it fall back to the door. The bang it made when it slammed back down onto the dark wood was deafening, and most of the other mutants covered their ears to keep the sound out. Nothing else moved.

"W-well, I guess no body's home!" Todd said quickly, turning around to head back down the stairs. "Guess that means that we can all just…" He was cut off by a low, loud creaking noise. When he looked back over his shoulder, he saw that slowly, very slowly, one of the huge door was slowly opening. The weirdest part about was that no one was opening it from the outside, and there certainly wasn't anyone on the inside pushing it open! The door was opening…by itself.

"O-okay, now that's just freaky! I'm outta here, yo!" Todd turned to run, but was stopped when Fred grabbed him by his collar, lifting him into the air. "Ah, c'mon Freddy! I was just kiddin' man! Put me down!"

"How do you think that happened?" Evan asked, peaking out from behind Kurt's shoulder and peering into the house. "Did we trip something?"

"We must have." Scott said. "I mean, why else would it open like that?"

"Oh, you know what it was!" Pietro said. "It was ghosts!"

"Not funny, Speedy." Kitty said, hugging herself. "Jean must have like, jarred something loose when that ring was dropped. Right?" There was another moment of silence. "Now what?"

"What do you mean, now what?" Pietro snapped. "What else are we supposed to do? We go in of course! Lastoneinisarottenegg!" With that he took of like a shot into the house in a blur of white hair. Evan was right behind him. The other mutants groaned. Well, that did it. Now they had no choice but to go in. The small band of mutants took their flashlights off their belts and clicked them on before venturing into the mysterious unknown.

The front parlor of the room was huge, almost large enough to rival the one of Professor Xavier's mansion. It was a circular room with a balcony that circled near the ceiling. A massive staircase swept up to the upper levels of the house. The banisters were dark and twisted and evil-looking gargoyles leered at them from under years and year's worth of dust and cobwebs. There were some pieces of furniture in the room, but they were all covered in white sheets that had been stained brown over the years. Huge dust motes reflected the light of their flashlights. The lights appeared as pale beams that roamed about the huge open space of the front parlor. Puffs of dust that Pietro and Evan had kicked up were settling back down to the ground. The air was thick and musty, as if it had not been moved in years.

The mismatched brigade slowly made their way into the house, their footsteps muted by all the dust on the ground. Their flashlights moved all about the room, exploring. It seemed for a while no one knew what to say until all ten were in the center of the room.

"Wow!" Evan finally said. "This is so cool!"

Behind them, the door snapped shut with a startling boom.

"Welcome, foolish mortals, to the Haunted Mansion.

I am your host…your ghost host.

Kindly step all the way in please, and make room for everyone.

There's no turning back now…"

The Haunted Mansion, Disneyland