Chapter 12: Rose Red's ghosts

Once they were all settled with a drink in their hands, Jake started telling.

'My departure at the boarding school was all fine. I left there on time, the bus was on time, and everything was as perfect as it could be. Even the weather was nice,' Jake added nodding to Emma who listened eagerly to him.

'Anyway, then I arrived here in Seattle and you have to believe me that from the airport, it took me an hour to get here. Mind you, if I had walked I would have been here even sooner. Now what happened is that I called a taxi to take me here, but guess what, we drove around here in the area, but we simply couldn't find the house anymore. It was nearly as if it had disappeared. After three quarters of an hour, the driver gave up. He said I didn't need to pay, because he knew this area very well though Rose Red had now gone. So there I stood again with all my stuff waiting for a cab to a house that I couldn't find. Then another taxi stopped, but when I said I had to go to Rose Red, he swore loud and just drove away! Anyway, after all of this I decided to just start walking for I knew that it had to be near and guess, a minute later there it was right in front of me. Kind of strange,' Jake finished his story.

'Awesome,' was all Kevin could say.

Emma couldn't just stop staring at her brother in awe. However, Steve was only able to produce a weak smile. Strange he found it indeed, and rather troubling. Ellen seemed to have found neither of it, for she laughed at the story.

'What an amazing adventure you had,' she told Jake.

Jake nodded in agreement, happy to be the centre of the family he hadn't seen for over a year.

'I also have a little surprise for all of you,' Ellen said looking at all of her three children.

'What is it?' Emma asked excited.

'You want to know?' Ellen asked giggling.

'Yes!' all of them chorused back.

'Your mummy is going to have another baby, which means you'll get a new brother or sister!'

'Wow that is brilliant!'

'I'll get a little sister!'

'No, a new brother to play football with!'

'Congratulations mom!'

They all hugged each other.

'Now, who is hungry?' Ellen asked.

'Me!'

'Let's go to the dining room then, to see what dear cook Peter has made for us,' Ellen suggested.

The children ran forwards, while Steve waited for Ellen and offered her his arm. She took it and in silence, they walked smiling after their children.

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'Mummy! Mummy, Kevin is mean to me! He stole me favourite doll!' Emma was shouting while running all around the house.

'Mummy where are you?'

Silence greeted the little girl's words. Emma stopped running around and looked around her. She was in front of the stairs that went to the attic with the small tower its beautiful stained-glass window. All there was to be heard were some birds outside in the garden, but the house itself was strangely quiet. It was as if it was taking a deep breath and holding it for a long time. The little girl shivered, though she didn't know exactly why. She turned on the spot, straining to hear anything at all from one of her brothers on her parents. However, all remained as still as ever.

'Hello? Mum? Dad? Is there anybody here?' Emma asked to her surroundings with a little shiver in her voice too.

Once more, no sound or words answered her. Emma now got a bit scared, because something inside of her told her that something was horribly wrong. Her breathing got faster and she stepped onto the first of the stairs.

'Hello, is somebody up there?' Emma asked to the attic above her, for she was sure that she had just heard something move there.

Again, there was that noise coming from the attic. It was as if there was some kind of animal moving around there. However, then it did sound like a rather big one. Slowly as Emma's curiosity won from her fears, she went up the stairs gradually not wanting to be heard. As she drew nearer to the door, the sounds became louder. However, except from the moving sounds, she couldn't hear whatever was there, making noise. She hoped it would, because then she would know if it was just a bird or something and not anything much worse.

After a minute or so, she had finally reached the top of the stairs and was now a few inches from the door separating her from what was on the other side. Now she was so close, she thought she could distinguish some sound, which sounded like hammering and building, but that seemed quite weird to her, since nobody had answered her shouts. Moreover, she just realised that it was Sunday, so there certainly wouldn't be any builders around working on the house. She took a deep breath, put her hand quietly against the door and slowly opened the door a tiny bit.

As she looked through, all she could see was a dusty floor and old furniture and paintings covered with rags. It was completely silent now, but Emma was sure that what had made the noise was still there in the attic. She opened the door a little further, so she could now overlook the entire attic. On the floor were small spaces where the dust was moved, like somebody had walked there not so long ago. The footprints seemed not at all big to Emma, which made her wonder even more who it then could have been that had walked here.

Emma walked over to one of the prints and put her own foot next to it. It was clear to her that it was not from an animal, though it was slightly smaller than her own. Since she was the youngest in the house, this was quite strange for she didn't know what other child might have walked here.

She jumped when she suddenly heard a sound again from out of the tower was. It was clearly a little girl, giggling.

'H-Hello?' Emma whispered.

The giggling stopped and there was silence again.

'Hello?' Emma now asked a little louder.

She heard movement in the tower and had the feeling that someone was watching her from the creek of the door opening between the attic and the tower. She strained to see if she could distinguish something in the shadows. However, she couldn't see anyone, though she knew that the girl that was up there could see her.

Emma decided to try and get the girl talk to her; perhaps she could find out why she was here or who she was.

'Who are you?' was Emma's first question.

To her amazement, she actually got an answer now.

'April', a voice replied out of the shadows. April's voice sounded distant, but was further like any other young girl's voice.

'Hi April, how did you come all the way up here, why are you here?' Emma questioned again.

Another giggle, but no answer yet.

'Please, you can tell me,' Emma pleaded.

'Well, I live here.'

It was now Emma's turn to fall silent. She still hadn't moved from the place next to the footprint, however, she now took some steps closer to tower.

After a few seconds when she still hadn't replied to April's answer, it was now the little girl's time to ask a question.

'Will you come and play with me up here, Emma?'

'Yes, of course,' Emma said at once, but then she suddenly noticed something. That little girl had said her name, though she hadn't yet given it to her.

'How do you know my name?' she asked first before she went to the tower.

'Because I live here of course,' was the girl's answer.

Emma just ignored that and started walking towards the door of the tower. April was giggling once more. When Emma had her hand on the door to open it further, April's voice sounded again out of the shadows, however, it now sounded anything but a little girl.

'Forever play with me!'

The door was thrown open and Emma grabbed inside, all she could still do was only scream. Then there was total silence again in the attic and nothing moved.

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Steve was walking through a corridor on the second floor, whistling. He was happier than he had been in a long time. Everything was right now. However, he couldn't help but feel that nagging sense telling him that this had happened before. Things had seemed right before, but then it had gone wrong again. Nevertheless, Steve had decided to ignore this and had told himself that this time it was different.

He was just stepping onto the first stairs taking him down to the ground floor, for he had decided the weather was so good he wanted to spent some time in the Solarium, when something made him stop.

Somewhere faraway in the house, somebody seemed to be yelling. However, Steve couldn't distinguish the words that were spoken, but he could hear that whatever she was shouting about, it was his little Emma. He still stood there, one foot already on the stairs, wondering what he should do. He decided just to check what was wrong, so he was sure nothing really bad had happened.

He turned around, and started walking backwards from where he just came from. The shouting seemed to be coming from somewhere far up into the house, like it was coming from the attic. While Steve followed the noise up, he speculated to himself why Emma would ever be all the way up there. Then suddenly, the yelling stopped.

Steve woke up out of his thoughts. He strained to hear something, but all he could hear, were the birds singing outside. 'Emma?' Nothing or nobody answered him.

Perhaps things were already solved, but again he just wanted to be sure, so he chose to have a look in the attic anyway. As he slowly walked on towards it, there was still no other sound to be heard from Emma. When he had nearly reached the stairs leading to the attic with the little tower, he heard a scream from Emma up there and then only deadly silence.

'Emma?' Steve now shouted panicked.

He run the last bit up the stairs and burst through the door into the grimy attic. There he looked around. He could see Emma's footsteps in the dust on the floor, but there was nothing else around that looked suspicious. However, as he walked on trailing his daughter's steps, he did find something strange. Emma's steps went up the stairs leading to the tower, but there they suddenly stopped like she had disappeared into thin air.

'Emma?' he said silently now.

There was still no answer, and Steve turned around again facing the attic. He noticed something standing there in a corner now, that wasn't there before. It had the shape of a human and was as small as a child, but it wasn't moving at all or making any sound. Slowly, Steve moved over towards it. As he was still only a few feet away from it, it suddenly moved towards him. He stopped and unable to move out of fear, he didn't back away as the creature came closer. It was only a feet from him, when it came out of the shadows and Steve could see what it was.

'You!' he said with terror in his voice.

He knew this time would come perhaps again one day, but not now. He was face to face with the ghost of April Rimbauer.

'Not only me,' she spoke in her blood chilling tone.

As she said this, next to her appeared the shape of the old Ellen Rimbauer too.

'No,' Steve whispered to no one in particular, 'This can't be true.'

'You better go far away from this house Steve, its powers are growing, I am growing again and nothing can stop it. Or it will devour everything you love!' Ellen spoke.

'I have new friend, her name is Emma. Do you know her?' April asked him innocently with a cold voice.

Steve couldn't talk anymore, he just shook his head hoping this was all not happening. The two ghosts rapidly vanished and once they were completely gone, the walls of the attic were closing in on Steve. Steve found the feeling back in his muscles and started running towards the door as the walls were still coming closer towards him. He dashed through and run until he was somewhere in the house he didn't recognise at once and stopped to come back to breath. After that, he looked around to see if he could figure out where he was. This was a wing in which he didn't often come, it was the guest wing. He started walking the route of which he thought he knew was towards the great hall. However, no matter where he walked, the corridors remained looking the same and he lost his complete feeling of direction as if he was walking through a maze. He started jogging, and finally after what seemed like hours, he saw a stairs ahead.

But this wasn't something to save him. As he reached the stairs, he looked up, but all he saw were never-ending stairs going up reaching the skies. However, he got a real fright when he looked down. There was a bottomless pit and on the stairs below him, he could see all the victims Rose Red had ever claimed climbing up slowly towards him. He could even see the mad scientist he had once worked with in the house, Joyce Reardon.

Steve just closed his eyes and hoped that it would all soon be over like a bad nightmare.

Chapter 13: Out of control