Chapter 9: A Tangled Web
Taylor sprinted down the stairs but a wall of skeletal creatures quickly closed in, blocking her path. Her eyes widened as she saw what had once been a statue of a headless horseman now galloping off with Alyssa clutched in its grasp.
Eric yanked Taylor behind him, his grip firm on her shoulder. "Everyone, get down. Now!" he shouted.
Wes grabbed Andros' arm and yanked him to the ground, while Jen tackled Ashley out of the way of an advancing scarecrow. Taylor huddled behind Eric as he wrestled with the controls of his Quantum Defender.
"What is he doing?" Andros mumbled
"Shhh," Wes hushed, his eyes fixed on Eric.
Eric aimed the Quantum Defender at the torso of the nearest skeleton, adjusting the device's settings. The yellow lenses that resembled eyes flared, shifting to a brilliant blue as the device powered up. With a decisive motion, he swung the blaster in a wide arc, unleashing a bright blue beam of energy that swept across the skeletons. The beam hit every target, encasing the skeletons in ice as the energy dissipated. As the last of the beam faded, the lenses sparked, and Eric jerked his hand back, wincing as tendrils of smoke curled from the blaster's barrel.
Taylor placed her hand over Eric's, her eyes scanning the scene. The skeletons were now frozen in place, their struggling against their icy prisons. While their feet and some of their heads remained exposed, their movement was severely restricted. The smaller skeletons began to crumble, but cracks were already forming on the ice surrounding the larger ones.
Their friends, who had been huddled on the ground, slowly began to push themselves upright, their faces a mix of confusion and relief. "How did you…" Andros started, but his question was cut off as Taylor dashed past him, her jacket flapping behind her.
Eric barreled down the stairs, adjusting the controls of his Quantum Defender once more as he moved. "Come on! Let's go. I don't know how long that will hold, and I can't do that again," he urged.
They glanced back at the struggling skeletons, watching as the ice continued to crack and strain under their attempts to move. Sharing a determined look, they tore after Eric, Jen and Ashley joining the group as they fled down the path.
Taylor huffed as she raced ahead, as fast as she could, just barely able to see the horse trodding ahead of her. She pushed forward keeping up the chase, eyes fixated on the horse as she watched it gallop through the gates of the haunted house, leap onto the porch and vanish through the door. She ran forward as fast as the uneven ground beneath her feet would allow and slid past the gates and up the stairs, bursting through the door.
She skidded to a halt in the hallway. The space before her was bathed in an eerie blend of blue and purple lights, punctuated by the occasional flicker of yellowish glows emanating from the sconces along the walls. The shifting hues cast strange shadows, making it both captivating and unsettling. As she cautiously stepped inside, the glow revealed no trace of the horseman or Alyssa. The large table in the entryway stood untouched, every glass jar and sheet of paper perfectly in place as if they had never been disturbed.
The hallway ahead, barely wide enough for a horse to navigate, appeared pristine and unblemished. Not a single picture was askew, not a shadow out of place. Taylor drew a deep breath, her nerves steeling as she moved forward. She peered into the expansive dining room that the hallway led into. The scene was eerily familiar yet unsettlingly different; the skeleton that had once been propped up at the head of the table was missing, along with the other monstrous figures that were previously scattered around the room. Despite this absence, everything else remained as she remembered, the room's elaborate decor undisturbed.
Heavy footsteps echoed ominously from the front hall, their rhythm a stark contrast to the stillness of the room. She made her way back cautiously as her friends hurried through the door, their faces etched with worry. They stopped short upon seeing her, a collective breath held in anticipation.
"They disappeared," Taylor whispered, her voice barely more than a breath. "There's no sign of them."
"Are you sure you saw it bring Alyssa in here?" asked Andros.
"Positive"
"So it just vanished?"
"Because that's the strangest thing that could have happened tonight?" Ashley bit out as she caught her breath. "What do we do?" she asked Taylor.
"Split up and search? They could still be here."
"If that's all we got, then we do it," said Jen, as she stepped up and placed her hand on Taylor's shoulder.
"Do we really think there's a horse with a headless rider hiding out in here?" Wes put forward, looking at the rest of them.
"Magic isn't logical Wes," Jen snapped. "And in case you haven't noticed, that is probably what we're dealing with right now."
She turned back to Taylor and volunteered to go upstairs with her and Eric. "This way we have two morphers with each group if things get hairy."
"Jen…"
"This counts as an emergency Wesley," she cut him off and strode toward the staircase.
"We've got her," Taylor offered as she turned and followed as Eric placed a hand on his shoulder and gently squeezed before nodding and following after them.
"Guess that leaves us with the downstairs," said Ashley as she tugged her jacket closer and stepped into the hallway.
Andros turned to Wes and placed his hand on his shoulder, guiding him down the hallway into the dining area. "Do you think a horse could run through here without knocking anything down?" he asked
Ashley lifted the cloche on the table and the room was immediately filled with the clacking of teeth. Startled, she dropped the cloche back in place, cutting out the sound. She pursed her lips and stepped away from the table. "Like Jen said, we're probably dealing with something magical, so I doubt the laws of physics apply. And even if it isn't in here anymore, Tay saw it come in here so we need clues as to where it might have gone."
The lights flickered and the purple and blue gave way to green as the lights on the chandelier flickered to life and the candles on the table and sideboard lit up. Ashley and Andros immediately slid into defensive stances but Wes just took a deep breath.
"Relax guys, it's all part of the show. All the lights are on timers. Our host…" he waved his hand to the head of the table, "would be cackling right about now but apparently he decided to ditch his own party."
"There's something missing?"
"Yeah, we had a skeleton up in here and a couple of others around the room. My guess is they've joined the horde outside."
"Is anything else out of place?"
Wes looked around and walked up to the mirror on the sideboard, a goofy, big-eyed monster face blinked back at him before disappearing. Unblinking, he turned to look at the rest of the room, but apart from the missing skeletons, everything seemed to be in place.
"Nope, everything else is working as it should."
"Gah!"
Wes turned to Ashely who stared back at him before they looked around but saw no trace of Andros, only an open door leading to the next room. They hurried towards it, stepping into the kitchen to find Andros shirking away from a large, scaly, clawed hand retracting into the wall.
Ashley's shoulders slumped as she stifled a laugh and walked further into the room with Wes right behind her.
"It surprised me," Andros defended, as she tugged on his jacket and moved further into the room.
"That was the idea," Wes offered, as he stepped right in front of the wall and waited for the hand to reach out and settle on his shoulder before retracting again.
"That reminds me of a mechanical piggy bank I used to have. I'd put the coin on the button and a little puppy used to come out the door and pull it in."
"That's where I got the idea. I saw that in some of the toys donated for the kids."
Andros shook his head, taking in the strange and unsettling kitchen around him. The room was bathed in the same bluish-purple light that suffused the rest of the house, but it was punctuated by eerie, glowing red lamps set high near the ceiling. These lamps cast a faint, unsettling glow on the odd assortment of bottles that lined the shelves and the counter, their shapes and contents giving off a faint, otherworldly luminescence.
On the stove, a large cauldron bubbled with a mysterious green light, casting shifting, eerie shadows across the room. The soft, rhythmic sound of the cauldron's contents bubbling created an almost hypnotic backdrop. Hovering over the cauldron was a tall, hooded figure, its features obscured by the dark folds of its robe. Beside the cauldron, a sleek black cat perched on the counter. Its eyes gleamed with an almost otherworldly intelligence as it turned its head from side to side, its gaze shifting with a mix of curiosity and wariness.
"At least some things didn't come to life. Looks like whatever is behind all this didn't want to mess with the witches."
Wes looked over and smiled as he moved through the room, scanning the tables and floors. Ashley however scowled and narrowed her eyes at him.
"What?"
"You're being insensitive."
Andros scoffed and looked over at Wes whose downcast posture and quietness were evident. "Yeah, I'm the insensitive one."
Ashley looked over at Wes but returned her gaze to her boyfriend, crossing her arms over her chest. "I know you don't buy that something supernatural may be behind this but that doesn't mean it's a joke."
"Ash, we're wandering through a haunted house where nothing is out of place because Taylor saw a horse run in here. For goodness sake how does a horse get upstairs? Oh right… it's magic. Just because Eric, Taylor and Jen are convinced that magic and the supernatural is real, doesn't mean it's true. We need to find the real reason all this weird stuff is happening and find Alyssa."
"What do you think we're trying to do? And for the record, I believe it too. What else could be responsible for all this? We haven't seen anything like this before."
"That doesn't mean there isn't another explanation."
"Guys come on. This isn't the time to argue. The faster we get through these rooms, the sooner we can get back on the trail of some real clues."
"You don't believe either," Ashley stated looking over at Wes as she dropped her arms, her eyes flickering with unreadable emotion.
"You two may think the story we told you about last year is funny and from an outsider's perspective it might be, I'll give you that. But you forget that you were essentially unconscious for all of it and have no memory of it - hell even I was out of it for the most part. None of us here knows what those three were going through."
Her hands clenched into fists as she turned to Andros, "Jen had to keep you from hurting our friends while dealing with the fact that she had been turned into a vampire and was fighting the urge to hurt someone herself. The only other person who can relate to that is Taylor. So yes, they believe the supernatural is real and comes out to play on Halloween. And yes, we fought witches and whatnots, that part was very real. And we've been dealing with the impossible for years, this should not be so hard to accept."
Turning back to Wes she allowed her shoulders to slump once again. "I don't know the details but you and Jen have something you need to work out. Getting frustrated with each other instead of talking isn't going to help. And you looking down on and making light of what she experienced and believes isn't helping either."
She stalked into the other room. Andros and Wes turned to each other but before either could say a word they heard a heavy clunk, like the sound of a table falling over. Their eyes widened in sync before they darted through the door, Andros pushing past Wes as he called Ashley's name. They burst into a room and found her standing still with a table knocked over beside her.
The room itself was a large sitting room, lit with the same bluish-purple light, with heavy drapes across the windows. There was a faint shimmer running across furniture and objects but what stood out most were numerous red eyes.
"Ah, you found the spiders," said Wes as he followed them in. Andros chuckled and sidled up next to Ashely, placing a hand on her lower back.
"I didn't know you spiders freaked you out."
"They don't. But a room filled with glowing red eyes is enough to startle anyone," she huffed as she pulled away to pick up the stool.
Wes walked in and tapped one of the spiders sitting on the head of an armchair. "This room was a bit of a debate. Spiders freak people out, but there are also some that love 'em, especially kids I'm told, they think they're cool."
Andros scanned the room, taking note of how the eyes varied in size and rolled his shoulders, trying to shrug off the involuntary shiver that ran down his spine. "The last time we had to deal with bugs, Carlos and Cassie turned into them, so I'd prefer to stay away from anything insectoid."
Wes chuckled and ran his hand over the armchair as he stepped further into the room. "Well bugs on Earth aren't known to cause mutations, I mean some of them have venom that can kill you but so far no one's turned into a bug, so you're safe there."
He stopped and looked down at his hand, barely hearing Andors mumble a response. The remnants of torn cobwebs clung to his fingers. He rubbed his fingers against his palm and looked up at Ashley who was caught in a similar battle as she furiously brushed the cobwebs off her shoulder. His eyes drifted across the room, there were a lot more cobwebs than he remembered.
Andros wandered through the room, stopping in front of a large spider hunched in the corner, about the size of a cat, angled so that it looked like it was about to leap off the wall. He approached cautiously, eyes fixed on the many red eyes. Hesitantly, he reached out and touched it, feeling the prickly fur beneath his fingers, his shoulders relaxed when there was no movement.
"I got to hand it to you, these guys are pretty realistic… Yeoww!
He jumped back, knocking into a lamp. Wes lurched forward and caught it before it crashed and looked up at Andros who was shaking his hand while glaring at the spider.
"Relax, we threw in a little animatronics to make it more realistic. Turns out kids are pretty critical about this stuff."
"Well this room is full of spiders but no horseman or Alyssa, we should keep moving," said Ashley as she walked toward the door. Wes nodded and followed. Andros stood in place for a moment, glaring at the spider before following the others. As Ashely stepped through the door she heard a giggle, louder than before. Her eyes widened and she turned around as a soft clicking sound began echoing through the room.
"Guys let's go," she calls
The large spider in the corner shuddered and sprang into action. It dropped to the floor with an unsettling grace, its legs moving in a blur as it shot a stream of glistening webbing toward Andros. He leapt sideways to evade it, but the webbing struck Wes' feet, swiftly wrapping around his legs and pinning him in place. Wes struggled frantically, almost losing his balance as he fought against the webbing's constriction. Ashley rushed in, her hands steadying him as she guided him toward the door.
Andros' eyes narrowed in intense concentration as he focused on the tangled webbing. With a surge of effort, he ripped the webbing apart, allowing Wes to stumble forward with Ashley's help. As the smaller spiders began to move, their skittering legs created a sinister rustling sound, Andros shifted his attention to the large spider now charging toward him.
He tried to focus on the advancing creature, but its rapid, erratic movements made it nearly impossible to get a clear aim. The spider skittered up the sofa and launched a sticky strand of webbing directly into Andros' eyes. The world around him turned to a blinding, sticky mess.
"Andros!" Ashley's voice cut through the chaos as she abandoned Wes by the door and sprinted back into the fray. The floor was now crawling with smaller spiders, their tiny legs creating a writhing carpet that impeded her every step.
Meanwhile, Andros stumbled in circles, desperately pulling at the webbing now blinding him. The spider took advantage of his disorientation, releasing a relentless barrage of webbing that ensnared his arms and legs, knocking him roughly to the ground.
Ashley grabbed one of the stools that served as an end table and fought her way through the writhing sea of spiders. She swung the stool with all her might at the larger spider. The stool cracked with a sharp, splintering sound, and the spider was knocked backward, crashing into the sofa before tumbling to the floor.
Turning back, Ashley's breath caught in her throat. The smaller spiders had swarmed over Andros, their tiny bodies moving in a frenzied mass. She pushed her way through, but as she reached him, the wriggling mass of spiders seemed to sink into the wooden floor as if absorbed by it. The spiders fell lifelessly to the ground, their tiny forms becoming inert and motionless. There was no trace of Andros, leaving only the eerie stillness of the room.
"Andros!"
Thanks for reading.
Till next time...