.
"What are you thinking about...?" The car whispered.
"What?" Gia asked.
"No no," the car replied, amused. "That's part of the song. 'Crawl on me, sink into me, die for me...'" the voice sang. "We could make this into your theme song – hey, you okay?"
Gia dabbed at the blood dripping onto her lips and shook her head no. "The headache's back. Mind if I pull over?"
"Lemme take it." And Gia felt the controls come alive in her hands. It was strange, sitting in the driver's seat yet surrendering control to some unseen entity. Gia let go of the wheel and tilted her head back to stop the nosebleed, while the music from the speakers went on unheeded.
"I sometimes wonder why you keep me around," Gia admitted.
"Yeah, you don't wanna tempt fate like that, hon."
"I mean you drive perfectly well yourself."
"I've got more important things to do; you can tend to that... when you can." Christine's tone betrayed concern for her driver.
"The doctors said the headaches and nosebleeds wouldn't last more than two weeks."
"The hard riding's wearing you down." The music faded away, and the car rode silently for a minute. Then the AV system lit up and projected a map onto the reflective surface of the windshield.
"Okay, change of plan. In three miles, make a right turn."
"I didn't know you could do that!" Gia said, pleased. "Heads-up display: pretty high tech for an old car. Someone's put a lotta money into you."
"GPS is tip of the iceburg," Christine said proudly.
"What else you got?"
"Modesty forbids."
"Yeah huh! Couldn't stop you now if I wanted."
"Hard part was getting an old V-8 to run on modern fuels. Catalytic converter... I care about the environment, y'know."
"Don't polish your halo just yet."
"Heh! Limited slip differential, heavy-duty brakes, nice speakers, supercharger intake up front an' all the structural improvements that gotta come with that. Wider rims and tires in back for traction. Traded the ol' push-buttons for a manual transmission. Kinda miss those."
"Nitrous," Gia added, lightly tapping the red button attached to the stick.
"Do not touch that 'less you wanna use it," Christine warned. "Doubt I'm street-legal, but those laws change so much I can't be bothered to keep track. Refittin' me with an active suspension was expensive too."
"I don't even know what that is." Gia followed the GPS's directions and made the turn from route thirty-nine onto route five. "Where're we headed?"
"I'm gonna talk to some old contacts. Get the 'secure courier' job going again."
"Smuggling contraband."
"It keeps fuel in the tank. You on the other hand are going to rest. Reminds me, you'll need food. Hope the diner in Hillsdale's still open."
Gia smiled. Christine can be very thoughtful. Odd how she can be so kind one minute and a monster the next.
"I know a quiet, out-of-the-way place you can rest up in 'til I get back."
Down Route Five
- Halfway House
Gia took over the driving because of the roughness of the road. It was an old country road, barely more than a trail. She knew that Christine, ever impatient, would beat them both half senseless at the speeds she preferred.
"Uhf! My rest holiday's off to a terrific start." She winced. The headache was getting bad enough to make her nauseous.
The smell of food permeated the car. They had pulled up to the receiver in the diner's drive-in lane and Christine had ordered, in her own voice, several to-go boxes of chicken, hamburgers and sandwiches – three days worth to be safe. Plenty to last, she'd explained, until her return. Gia had not been too surprised to find, at Christine's direction, a small envelope of spending money hidden away in the otherwise unused ashtray.
"It's not much further," Christine encouraged. The GPS had called their turnoff an "unnamed road" and become useless. They were off the map. Gia shut it down and stared at the rough, neglected pavement and grass coming at them by the brights' illumination.
Her ears popped. "We're going up into the hills."
Abruptly they found a gate, rusted and derelict. Hinges on either side dug into high brick walls that vanished into the night's blackness.
"Some resort!" Gia idled to a stop. "Where are you taking me?"
Christine honked her horn, startling a year from the end of Gia's life. The noise seemed so unwelcome in this close night hush.
"No one's going to come to the gate at this hour."
"Huh!" Christine grunted. "Drive through it anyway."
"I can't do that. It's illegal."
"Oh right, the operation. Gia, I'm telling you to drive through that gate."
Gia complied. The formidable-looking gate had rusted over the years, and the impact from so strong a car as the Fury knocked it right off its rotted hinges. The noise was terrific.
They followed the pavement along a right turn. Gia watched, entranced, as the car's damage healed itself before her eyes. Abruptly Christine's fierce halogen lights, another of her aftermarket modifications, settled upon a set of stairs and a doorway. Gia could just sense a mansion looming over them but couldn't make out details. No lights burned inside.
"Christine?" Gia protested. "Is it abandoned?" She idled into neutral and pulled the parking brake.
"Yup. You'll have it all to yourself. It's got power and running water from its own well. Been quite a while since I saw it, but some places never change. You'll be made real welcome and cozy. Now go on."
Unable to do otherwise, Gia found a flashlight and opened Christine's door. She proceeded up the steps. They felt very solid and did not creak under her feet. She reached a grand veranda with stone columns, and for the first time the scale of a place that would have such a porch hit her. The door awaited. An iron knocker with a cherubic child's face greeted her.
"Well?" Christine's voice urged her on. So impatient!
Gia raised the iron knocker and let it fall. It landed with a heavy, dull thud that ought to have echoed, but the noise seemed instead to vanish inside, as if the house was filled floor to ceiling with heavy cloth.
Gia, framed in Christine's blinding lights, turned and shrugged. On a whim she tried the door-handle, and found to her surprise that it turned easily. The door seemed almost to fall smoothly open, pulling the handle from her hands. The hinges did not creak.
Christine's lights caught the entry hall, and it was as stately as any house Gia had ever seen. A tall central stairway dominated the room, with closed double doors on either side leading off deeper into the mansion. Gia used her flashlight and quickly found a heavy-duty switch, old fashioned and sturdy like everything else in the place.
The lights came on. Incredibly, not a single bulb had burned out. No cobwebs had formed. The house was a trifle dusty perhaps, the air a little stagnant and suffocating, and the wood paneling dark and heavy. She could see and feel the weight of age and time. But the place was luxurious, with everything sensibly in its place.
Gia couldn't help but smile her twisted smile down to Christine. She gave the car a thumbs-up.
"Come get your food, silly." Christine chided. Gia descended the stairs and took the white plastic sacks filled with boxes from the passenger foot well.
She reached the door again to find that it had already shut. Odd! The way it seemed to fall in I'd expect the door to stay ajar. It opened again easily enough.
"You go have yourself a nice rest." With no further comment, the Fury turned and pulled away from the house. Gia watched Christine's taillights a little forlornly as she reached the turn. Then thick shrubbery hid her away in the moonless night.
"Well, here I am." Gia said into the house. She shut the door behind her and stared into the entry hall. Just as a precaution she tried the door again. It opened easily in her hands, revealing stark blackness outside. She let go of the handle, and it stayed ajar.
The silence was deafening. No crickets. No breeze. By the hanging lamps, not quite a chandelier, Gia could see the room more clearly. There was, if anything, an overwhelming excess of detail, with patterns of velvet on the wallpaper and ornate carving on the wood. The effect was a little overpowering.
I wonder if anyone else is here? With the light turned on like this I certainly announced myself. What if there are squatters? But the perfect way the house was ordered and the light coat of undisturbed dust on the polished floor reassured her. Certainly it was awkward, even frightening, to find oneself deposited in a big strange deserted house in the middle of the night. But she was a grown-up now, and grown-ups didn't let their imaginations run away with them, no indeed!
It's so quiet! The silence alone was a kind of aural assault. Well, upstairs is the most likely place to find beds. But somehow Gia couldn't make herself go far away from the front door. It was senseless, because out there was cold void and in here was warmth and light. But still...
...why would such a big, luxurious home be abandoned? A voice inside her head whimpered.
Click! The front door had shut neatly again on its own.
The first door to the left led to a comparatively little sitting room, if anything in this house may be called "little." Gia found, to her immense satisfaction, a couch among the chairs. I've been keeping Christine's weird nocturnal schedule. Can I still sleep at night? The dreadful pounding in her head and the weakness in her knees reassured her of that point, at least.
She put the rustling plastic bag of food at the foot of the sofa. Oh very clever, Gia! Attract a bear with that smell. Nothing for it, though.
The curtains were closed. Gia peeked through them, and found a big bay window and the vast darkness outside. Something from outside could get in. But the panes were undamaged and must have stood there undamaged for years. Of course, I could also theoretically get out, couldn't I? Still, she was grateful for the curtains that hid her from anything that might peek in at her.
Wish I had a gun or something. Anything.
She returned to the entry hall and flicked off the light. Then she turned on her flashlight and resolutely doused the drawing room's lights too. Grown-ups aren't afraid of the dark. I'm attracting unwanted attention with these lights. If anyone's here, I don't wanna meet 'em until the sun comes up.
So Gia curled up on the couch, hugging herself against the slight chill and clutching her flashlight, until she at last turned it off too.
Complete, cave-like darkness descended upon her. It was a darkness she could feel. Inky. Impenetrable. And silence, unbroken. Even the oldest houses make little creaks in the night. The day's heat causes thermal expansion and contraction. Shouldn't there be animals rustling about outside? Mice? Bats squeaking?
But the only sound was the rhythmic throbbing of Gia's head. So she closed her eyes and waited in the darkness for sleep.
...Maybe I'm not a grown-up? I do not like it here, Christine. What were you thinking? I don't feel safe here in this strange silent house….
Gia slept. She did not dream.
Some places never change.
Gia awoke, stretched, smacked her lips and yawned hugely. Daylight was peeking in around the window's heavy curtain. She sat up.
Morning? What time? I really slept hard. I slept myself out but I don't feel rested. Or is that I rested but I didn't really sleep? Gah, wake up! She tossed aside the warm quilt and got up to open the curtains.
Sunlight reached into the thick pine forest and found the road leading up to the house. Grass was peeking up through the cobblestones, but everything looked perfectly normal and safe. Amazing how sunlight can make a place so much less spooky. Thank goodness! And my head's stopped pounding.
She turned to examine her room by the light the bay window granted. The air was stuffy. The chairs were covered in plush leather as she remembered. There were tables and a little bar in back for serving drinks. The sofa she'd slept on was red velvet, with a purple knitted quilt lying crumpled over it. It's a perfect little room for guests to wait comfortably until somebody comes to receive them, except this little room is bigger than most people's houses. Mmm... not awake yet. I'd sure like some coffee.
I'll need to fold that quilt. Can't leave the place untidy, whoever gave it to me wouldn't apprec– Gia stuffed a hand into her mouth to stop the scream. Where did that quilt come from I didn't have that last night!
Someone had found her sleeping last night. There was somebody else here– who obviously doesn't mean you any harm at all or you'd be dead right now, you stupid, silly girl!
Gia laughed at herself. She let her breathing return to normal and the adrenaline drain out of her system. "Some nice old granny lives here and found me and put that over me," she scolded herself aloud. And it was a really nice, hospitable thing to do so get a hold of yourself!
She set about folding the mysterious quilt and left it on top of the sofa. Her food was missing! She felt a little panic until a quick search of the room revealed a mini-refrigerator behind the bar, and her bag of food safely stuffed in it. Nice! Let's go find our host.
Gia made a quick foray and soon found a kitchen. It was in perfect order. But it had no less than five doors, one leading outside to a terrace. Gia retreated to the little receiving room and began exploring the shelves and drawers for pen and paper. Gonna need a map!
Soon equipped with a pen and legal pad, she began exploring in earnest. It took hours before she had finished a round of the interior and found her way back to the kitchen. She had discovered several curious facts about her holiday abode.
The veranda actually wrapped around the mansion, though dividers and breaks prevented one from using it as a shortcut anywhere.
The manse itself was nestled in a valley high in the hills. Trees and thick foliage grew almost right up to the railings. Cozy, almost smothering.
There were plenty of rooms inside the rough "ring" of exterior rooms. These had no windows nor natural light at all.
Everything was in perfect order. The faucets, after a spurt of dark stagnant water, ran clear, icy cold and scalding hot. Light switches by the doors invariably gave a slightly dim but adequate view of the handsomely furnished rooms. Though she carried her flashlight like a talisman, it saw no use.
Her personal map made precious little sense. It might take her a week just to figure her way around. And that was just the first floor! She hadn't even tried going upstairs yet.
And finally, she was alone. Completely. This enormous nest that could house an entire clan comfortably was utterly derelict.
Nonsensical! What the hell is this place? Though her headache was gone, her sense of uneasiness continued unabated.
Highlights of her tour were a central dining room with a long table and matching long mirrors, a stone turret used as a library with a tall metal spiral staircase, a game room that made Gia positively pine for company, and a neglected greenhouse dominated by a massive familial statue done up in a self-consciously classical style.
I'm no art critic, but that sculpture's definitely not winning any awards.
Gia had heard of big, rambling hulks like this before – wealthy men making opulent, lifeless "country houses," monuments to themselves and to bad taste, then failing to fill them with laughing progeny. This was simply an older specimen of the type built by someone with the initials "H.C." by the examples left in the woodwork.
Gia used the kitchen to heat up a meal, ate silently, then felt compelled either by her operation or perhaps by the house itself to tidy up afterward.
I am so lonely I could scream. I'm gonna scream!
Gia was startled to see darkness falling outside the kitchen window. Had she slept even later than she expected, or had her explorations taken so long? No, there was a large sturdy clock in the kitchen that read a quarter to six. Between the trees and the hills, it just gets dark here early. She sat back down at the plain wooden kitchen table.
If I scream here, no one will hear. The morbid thought came to her unbidden, and filled her with such a horrid sense of isolation that she felt she might bolt for the front door, and run the six miles back to that flyspeck town and the diner and humanity.
No, it's getting dark. I've had it! Tomorrow morning I'll set off and I'll do it in about two hours walk. Christine, did you honestly think I'd find this restful? Are you insane?
"It's a murderous talking car, Gia; what do you think? And by the way, you're talking to yourself now. Guh!" She buried her face in her hands. Go to bed. Find a real bed and sleep and get the hell out of here tomorrow morning before you completely flip out!
Gia climbed the stairs for the first time. After all the complications the simple straight hallway was something of a relief. She opened the first door on the left.
Blue. Lots of blue. As with every room in the house, the sheer quantity of details overwhelmed her. Patterns on the carpet, completely different ones on the bed's comforter, a half-canopy, lamps, a baroque chair... all in blue and somehow managing to clash and to feel smothering and cold and dismal. But there's a bed. And she flopped down on it. Okay, get some sleep and bright and early tomorrow morning–
Gia sat up in alarm just as the door opened and a woman entered. The stranger put her hands up to her mouth and shrieked, provoking an identical reaction from Gia.
After a moment the woman said, "Oh! Oh, you gave me a fright."
"Yeah," Gia agreed. "Wow."
"What are you doing on my bed?"
Gia gaped. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know the room was occupied." She jumped up immediately.
"For that matter, what are you doing in my house?"
"Oh, it's your house. Hi. I'm so sorry," she repeated. "I was dropped off here by someone who said it was deserted."
"Well it is. I mean... I'm the caretaker. Nell."
"My name's Gia. I'm sorry to intrude. Pleased to meet you."
"Oh! You... you're not intruding, dear," Nell said. "You seem nice. And it's been a long time since I had any company here."
Nell was a smallish, frail-looking woman just approaching middle age. Her pale gold hair was harshly swept back into a bun. Her shoulders hunched forward. She was exactly the sort of person people meant when they called someone "mousy."
"I'm embarrassed," Gia admitted. "My uhm... friend said this would be a good place to recuperate in peace. She wasn't wrong there. I've never seen a place that was so quiet."
Nell nodded. "You have a lady-friend?"
"Oh... yes." How to explain this? Oh, why not the truth? "Christine. I'm her driver."
"Recuperate?"
"I had an operation recently."
"You poor dear! Why don't you take the next room? We can share the bathroom and that way I can help tend to you if you need it." She waved Gia over to the door.
"What a sweetie!" Gia said. "Were you the one who gave me the quilt earlier?"
The bathroom, of all places, featured the first skylight she'd seen, and a welcome sight it was after all the enclosed spaces. The amenities were very old fashioned indeed, and somehow failed to charm Gia with any sort of nostalgia. Rather they depressed and vaguely annoyed her.
Nell nodded. "It gets cold here at night, in the dark. I went back down to the sitting room but you'd already gone. I've been looking for you ever since. When I didn't find you I assumed you'd just stopped to rest for the night and moved on."
Gia laughed. "I gave myself the grand tour and got lost. We probably just missed each other several times."
The adjoining room was in essence identical, but done up in a dull, drab olive. I've seen worse, but who decorated this place?
"It's not exactly cheerful," Nell said, as if reading her mind. "but the bed's comfy. And yes, it's easy to get lost here, until you're used to it."
"You're being very kind. Here I just let myself in and you're being so hospitable." Nell's very sensible and grown-up, but it's still kinda weird. But then, my whole life's been weird for a while.
"It's so rare I get any company at all! I'm glad you came, Gia. Would you stay up with me for a little while? It's been a long time since I had a nice chat with someone."
"Don't you stay in town?" Gia asked, surprised.
"Oh no, I live here. The caretaker before me, Mrs. Dudley, she stayed in town. But I like it here. It's my home, the only one I have. It does get lonesome, though."
Suddenly a chilling picture of Nell's life here came to Gia: a woman with no other means hired by some wealthy family to keep the place up, and her fussing and dithering about the place all alone while the years passed her by. You don't suppose she's an agoraphobe?
"It seems so sad, I mean... staying here all alone."
"Oh, yes. Perfectly dreadful." She sat in a chair as Gia sat on the bed. "But this is my home now. How long will you be staying here?"
The question took Gia aback. "Uhm... until Christine comes to pick me up. I don't honestly know how long that'll be."
"Well let's hope it's a while," Nell said with a smile. "Why don't you tell me about this 'operation?'"
Gia decided letting people know how easily she could be bossed about would be very unwise, and she of course deduced that such a lonesome soul would happily gabble until sunrise. "I'd love to, but maybe after a bit of rest." Ever since that fright, my head's starting to pound again. She rubbed the back of her head and winced.
"Perhaps I could make you some warm tea before bed?"
"Oh thanks, but I ate dinner in the kitchen just before we met."
Nell got up and smiled. "Then you can join me there tomorrow morning. I have breakfast ready at nine."
"G'night," Gia said happily, and even she could tell it was real and unforced, not her usual automatic cheer. The door closed, and Gia felt the silence and the loneliness descend upon her again. She briefly regretted saying good night to Nell so soon.
Well, now everything's perfect. I have Nellie to keep me company and nurse me back to health, in this superbly luxurious antique of a house. She stripped off her leather jacket and black jeans and went to the light switch. Christine, you're cleverer than I thought. In the sudden, cavernous darkness Gia padded hastily in her socks back to the bed and jumped under the sheets. They were cold at first and she shivered.
Gia's last thought before sleep overtook her was, it seems out of character for her to do something so kind. You don't suppose she's got some underhanded scheme?
Blood on her skin,
dripping with sin,
do it again...
"We could make this into your theme song."
Who's talking?
Gia stirred in her bed, waking from a dreamless sleep. A conversation was taking place nearby. Her eyes flitted open. Those are male voices. One sounds old. Is somebody here besides Nell?
Laughing. Gia immediately felt the cold. Intense, bone-chilling cold all around her in the dark. Even the coverlet that should still carry her own warmth felt frosty. How is that possible? Gia sat up, alarmed, fully awake now. The voice was that of a creaky old man... and then another, deeper one. An argument?
"Nell...?" Gia asked the darkness.
BOOM! Gia's hands flew to her cheeks in alarm. It sounded like someone had dropped a bowling ball onto the wood floor. And just as the echoes died away, another. Another!
Gia sat in her bed, trembling from the cold, thunderstruck and helpless against the noise. It's somewhere outside in the hall!
Silence again. I'm getting up and I'm going into Nell's room. I'm getting up and going to Nell's room but her body refused to move. She just sat there shivering. Silence.
Jacket! She'd feel safer wearing some protection. Gia grabbed her jeans and shoved her legs into them and her feet into her sneakers in scant seconds, and was just reaching for her coat when BOOM! again and Gia's body jolted to a standing position. She ran to the bathroom door. She scrambled blind through the unlit room and opened the next door.
Gia could barely see Nell – chilling portrait! – with the blanket pulled almost over her head, spectral herself. She was sitting on her bed shaking, her eyes wild.
"It's started again," Nell said in a hissing whisper. Gia scrambled onto the bed alongside her and hugged her in her terror.
"What? What is that?" Gia whimpered.
"I don't know. It sometimes happens here. In the night. In the dark. I don't—" Nell's whisper was cut off by a thunderous clatter banging on the room's door. Gia thought she actually saw the door shake and bulge from the impact, but it being dark, it might have been her eyes tricking her. The doorknob rattled as someone or something tried it. Then... silence.
The pair shivered together in the hush. Then, "Nell, you've heard that before and you don't know what it is... and you stay here?" It seemed to Gia utter lunacy.
"I don't have any other home," Nell whined miserably.
"Oh, I'm out of here," Gia whispered. "I'm gone. I am so out of here – right now!"
Then a horrid thought occurred to Gia. I didn't lock my door. I didn't lock my door or the bathroom door and that leads right in here! Her eyes darted up to the bathroom door, which had unsurprisingly shut by itself behind her. She looked up just in time to see:
The door knob's turning it's in the bathroom and the door knob's turning it's turning! A voice in her head gibbered idiotically at her. Gia jumped up and rushed to the hallway door.
"No! Don't open the door!" Nell pleaded, and Gia felt something go taut in her head like a leash and she froze. Oh damn! She couldn't disobey but it's coming through the bathroom run! And Gia wept in helpless terror for a long frozen moment until she saw, feeling strangely disembodied, her hand turning the doorknob and her arms yanking open the door.
Dark emptiness waited for her in the hallway. Gia barreled out as fast as she could run. She reached the stairway and leaped down, taking three at a time recklessly until she heard:
"Gia no don't leave me alone! Please!" from the room behind her. Her own legs locked up beneath her and Gia toppled down the final steps to the floor and landed with a jarring thud.
She picked herself up carefully, horrified that some unseen unimaginable thing could even now be standing at the top of the stairs leering down at her. Don't look back don't just get up get up and run! Gia got up on unsteady legs and stumbled for the front door.
"Don't leave meeeee!"
Nell! In pity's name, stop that! Of course, some still-sensible part of Gia's brain knew even then that Nell had no idea about the operation and didn't realize what her commands were doing to her. Gia stood frozen before the door, hand half-raised to grasp the doorknob. Her mouth opened to scream but no sound came out.
BOOM!
Now Gia screamed and yanked open the door. She was abruptly blinded by horrific, painful white light. The world had gone insane, with light and shadow changing places and Gia hurtling forward, her ears filled with a dreadful screeching and her eyes hurting as badly as her head, through the veranda and – POW! Something hit her and sent her reeling backward onto what felt like cold dirt.
Gia lay there, curled up in a trembling ball of pain and fear. Then she heard:
"Now that's tempting fate! What is wrong with you, girl? You tryin' to get yourself killed?"
Christine...?
It took a moment for the world to stop spinning. Then, slowly, Gia rose up to a kneeling position, sore all over. Her thighs throbbed where Christine's bumper had hit and she desperately rubbed at them to ease the pain. The muscles were already starting to swell.
"Christine? Is that you? Am I glad to see you!" Gia rubbed the purple haze out of her eyes and beheld the car, who thoughtfully killed the headlights for her.
"You just about jumped under my tires, y'know. What's got into you?"
Gia blinked. She was standing just outside the veranda. Christine was idling at almost the same spot she'd parked in earlier. It was Christine's headlights that had lit the world crazily as she exited the house. The sky overhead was just showing the strange pale white that preceded dawn.
"Some rest home," Gia muttered. She turned to face the house.
She saw it for the first time, and exhaled slowly. The house was massive, ornate, a tangle of towers and gables that filled her vision completely. It wasn't any one detail she saw, but the whole felt gaunt, narrow, dour. It reminded Gia of the stiff nurse in her tight white canvas dress mouthing in businesslike tones, "now this won't hurt a bit."
Vile! The word came into her head all on its own. This place isn't fit for humans to live in. Christine... you bitch!
"Get me out of here."
"You sure? You look a mess."
"Yeah, I'm sure!" Gia growled. She'd left food and her flashlight inside. She was just lucky she wasn't walking around in her underwear. I am not going back in there, no way not ever!
Gia opened the driver's side door and stopped. I just escaped one trap... am I trading it for another? But after the moment's hesitation she fell into the seat and closed the heavy metal door behind her.
She could see the house through the windshield, staring down at her. It sees me! Her hands were shaking as she turned the car about. Her head throbbed worse than ever.
"You better let me," Christine said. "I'm not in the mood to get intimate with any trees 'round here." So Gia sank into the leather seats with gratitude and passively watched the mansion recede in the rear view mirror.
Inside, morning sunlight peeked into the outer rooms and found the antique luxuries and trappings of a bygone age, unchanged by years uncounted and perhaps unchangeable by countless more. Within, walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm and doors were sensibly shut; silence lay steadily against the wood and stone of Hill House.
...and whatever walked there, walked alone.
.