This short story is based on Disneyland/Disney World'sHaunted Mansion attractions and the 1963 Robert Wise film The Haunting. Please read & respond.
I hate this house. I don't know why I even agreed to come here. It sounded very inviting in the letter. Join a team of spirit researchers to spend a week at Gracey Manor to see if it has any supernatural activity. I first scoffed at the idea, thinking ghosts were just a bunch of stupid nonsense, and just came along to have a good laugh. But now, there's nothing more than I want than to leave.
They have all abandoned me. All of the others left after what happened tonight in the upstairs hallway. Why didn't I just leave with them? Why on earth did I decide to stay here? But now the house is locked, and Mr. O'Dell, the caretaker, won't come here until morning. I'm all alone in this vulgar mansion. Why in heaven's name did I decide to stay?
I can see now why ghosts would roam this place. It's gloomy and depressing. This house seems to suck all the joy and life out of anything. It's as if darkness is always constantly surrounding you. I'm not surprised that so much death has taken place here. It definitely fits the stereotype of all haunted houses or mansions.
Death, murder, insanity, suicide: these are the words the local townspeople often associate with this mansion. And I can't think of better words that befit this horrid place. The master of this mansion, George Gracey, died in 1898 when he was only 35 years old – he committed suicide by hanging himself in the attic's tower. I'm not surprised; this whole place has a feeling of madness to it. It's dark and cold, like something is hiding within the walls. Like some secret is lying within the depths of this house.
Master Gracey's first wife, Lily, met an untimely end like her husband. Looking at her portrait in the parlor, she was absolutely gorgeous and it's easy to see why George Gracey loved and adored her. She had a bright, warm smile, sparkling hazel eyes, and her shiny brown hair styled into a Victorian bun. She originally was a tightrope walker at a circus, when she and George met. The two apparently fell head-over-heels in love with each other, and Lily left the circus when George proposed marriage to her. It's hard to imagine how such a beautiful and cheerful young woman like her managed to live in such an ominous and dismal place like this. She died in the summer of 1894, while performing her old tightrope-walking act over the river behind the house for friends at a party. Apparently, unknown to everyone, the river was actually infested with alligators. Lily's rope came undone and she fell into the river, and the large reptiles swarmed and attacked her.
Two years after Lily died, Gracey married Emily Cavanaugh, a young, wealthy woman who inherited her fortune after her parents passed away. The townspeople believed that Emily had only married George for his money, and that Gracey was still in grief over the death of Lily. Emily was only married to him for not even a day before she died. On their honeymoon at the mansion, Emily wanted to play a game of hide-and-seek with her new groom, being the young playful girl she was. She hid in a trunk in the attic, which closed and latched on her. She suffocated before being found.
And the deaths of some of Gracey's relatives and servants were just as shocking and tragic. Lily's cousin, April, took a fall down the grand staircase. The mansion's handyman Asa Gilbert, gardener Eddy Foster, and liveryman Daniel Patterson stumbled into a patch of quicksand near the river behind the mansion one night. Master Gracey's cousin, Huet, and his friend, Charles Sewell, both shot each other when they got into an argument, and challenged each other to a duel. And Gracey's great-aunt Victoria suffered a sudden heart attack before blowing out the candles on her cake at her birthday party. Now, it's so easy to see why people claim this place is restless with spirits…
Note: The names of George Gracey, Lily Gracey, Emily Cavanaugh, Asa Gilbert, Eddy Foster, Daniel Patterson, Victoria Boufont, and Dick O'Dell are all fan based names from the Haunted Mansion's Ghostly Gallery.