At first Angel thought that the darkness and the small amount of light was messing with his vision, that he wasn't getting a good look at that paniting and maybe his memory was projecting Charlie's image on to the picture. But once Angel shined his cellphone light on to the portrait, he saw that it was no trick of the mind. Charlie resembled this woman almost perfectly. The only difference between them was the way they dressed and how they wore their hair.
"Okay this is a whole new level of creepy." He said to himself. "Why do these people have a picture of Charlie tucked away up here?"
He heard footsteps coming closer.
"Oh shit! I better get out of here! It might be that floating head lady! Coming back to cut open my head and put my brain in a jar! Oh wait that's aliens...Still I'm out of here!...If I can find my way that is."
Angel was in a panic. Terrified of who or what was coming toward the attic. He wasn't even supposed to be up here, so he was sure that if anyone found him in the attic, he would be in deep shit.
He didn't go back the way he came but he didn't find a hidden chute just behind one of those crates. Desperate not to be found, he jumped down that chute without second thought. He had just gone down when the attic door opened and in walked Alastor. He quietly approached one shelf containing old books and ran his fingers carefully over each spine of the book until he found the one that he seeked. Pulling said book from the shelf, he proceeded to exit the room but took a moment to stop and admire the painting of Charlie's look-alike.
"Oh Charlotte." He sighed devotedly. "You're just as I remembered you. More beautiful and precious than the flowers you so adored, more bright and witty than any scholar, and more kind and gentle than all who served in the Baptist church. Oh I never believed in miracles before but now..."
His shadow caressed the painting of the beautiful woman with such care and gentleness. Alastor closed his eyes and sighed with a smile, picturing his hands caressing the face and hair of the woman he had just spoken to moments ago. He could still remember the warmth of holding her in his arms. The feeling of her lips on his as they kissed. The scent of the lavender oil which she had bathed in the morning before.
Lavender and, cotton candy? Wait a minute, that was no memory of cotton candy. He was smelling it now in the present. He sniffed the air, it was very faint but he could detect the scent of cotton candy in this room. First he gagged at the aroma, finding cotton candy among the type of sugary sweets he couldn't bear to smell, let alone consume. But his disgust quickly turned to suspicion. The aroma of cotton candy up here? Somebody else had been in this attic. Someone who wasn't supposed to have been here.
"Hmmm..." He thought. "It would seem that one of my guests has broken a house rule."
He knew it couldn't have been Charlie. She was in the kitchen cooking with Niffty, also she was using perfumes and oils that were scented of flowers, not confections. That left only Angel and Vaggie, and it wouldn't take long for him to figure out who the guilty party was. All he had to do was follow his nose.
But first he needed to rearrange a few itmes that were kept up here.
The chute Angel went down took him right outside and he landed into a muddy and mucky bog. SPLAT!
"Aww gross." He said picking himself up. "Well at least it's only mud, I hope."
He stepped out of the bog while brushing the mud off his body.
"I gotta find the girls and get em out of here." He thought. "I don't know what the Hell is going on in this place but I'm starting to think it's not at all natural."
He quietly slipped back inside the house and quietly but quickly, sought out Vaggie and Charlie. He went to Vaggie's room first, he came in just as she had finished a phone call with her boss.
"Angel what happened to you?" She asked noticing his dirty apparel.
"I'll explain later. Where's Charlie?"
"In the kitchen."
"Okay, pack your bags toots. We're grabbing Charlie and we're getting out of here!"
"Why?"
"You were right Vaggie! This place is way off! I was just in the attic a few minutes ago-"
"You were in the attic? We're not allowed up there."
"It was an accident! I didn't mean to go up there! Anyway while I was up there I saw some freaky shit!"
"What did you see? Tell me what happened? Start at the beginning."
"Alright first I tried to find the kitchen so I could get a small bite to eat. But I didn't know where the kitchen was and I got lost, next thing I know I discovered this secret entrance in the wall and it took me higher up into the house."
"Okay then what?"
"Then there was this room with paintings, and they were changing."
"What?"
"One minture they were all happy then they turned creepy. Then this mirror appeared and when I looked into it, my entire face came off. After that I met this crazy gypsy head in a giant paperweight! It talked to me and it strapped me in a chair and spun me around! I was upside down and I couldn't move for twenty mintues! Also I think I may have pissed myself."
"Angel you lost me at crazy gypsy head. What exactly are you trying to say?"
"I'm saying that this place is haunted by a floating head! It probably wants to cut off our heads and collect our bodies to use like interchangeable clothes!"
Vaggie looked at Angel like he had lost any and all form of sanity.
"Angel tell me the truth, are you using drugs again?"
"I'm not high Vaggie! I know what I saw and I don't want to hear you say that I'm acting crazy cause I'm not! I was attacked by a floating head and before that I literally saw my entire face peel off! Something supernatural is haunting this place and in every horror movie I've seen, every horror book and comic I've read, the best thing you can do when you go inside a haunted house is to get the Hell out!"
"And you thought I was paranoid for thinking this was a cover for sex trafficking." She remarked. "Do you have any idea how you sound right now?"
"Yes! I sound like a man who wants to leave before things get any worse! Now pack up and haul ass! Quick! Before the psycho gypsy comes for us!"
"Angel, I know you're really into fictional horror but now you're really starting to scare me." Vaggie said with a tone that was greatly concerned. "You almost sound like you actually believe in this creep-show crap!"
"It's not crap! And I do believe in it! I do believe in spooks! I do! I do! I do!"
For a moment, Vaggie thought that Angel was just pulling another one of his pranks to scare her. But the sweat on his brow, the way his body trembled, the panic in his voice, he really believed that something out of horror movie was happening in this house. And that scared Vaggie.
"Alright why don't we just take a moment to just breathe and clear our heads?" She suggested. "Think things through, allow logic to takeover, and maybe we can-"
"Oh screw this!"
Angel scooped Vaggie over his shoulder stormed out of the room. He ran down the hall, looking for Charlie while bobbing Vaggie up and down on his shoulder.
"Angel what are you doing?! Put me down!" She yelled upside-down from behind his back. "Are you insane?"
"I am not sticking around here to be brutally killed, eaten, or zombiefied and neither are you!"
"Okay you've offically lost your mind, and as soon as we get home you are a seeing a therapist even if I have to chain you to the damn sofa-bed!"
But he wasn't paying attention to her words. He was only trying to locate Charlie and then flee the scene. He'd worry about their luggage later. Better they lose their stuff than their lives.
"Charlie!" He called. "Charlie! Where are ya?! Charlie we gotta go! Oh God what if it's already gotten her?! What if she's the first victim?!"
"Put me down you raving lunatic! I absolutely refuse to be manhandled!"
"Stop struggling! I'm trying to save your life!"
Vaggie groaned.
"Angel you better be going crazy for real because if this is another one of your pranks I'm going to do such illegal things to you!"