Deserved Fate

Rosanne Lemick unfortunately passed away on the night of a full moon. Copper poisoning was to blame as the large mansion she lived in was old enough to be filled with enough legal breaches to startle the most esteemed high court official. She was an old woman who kept to herself and barely left the house. Many people just assumed she spent her whole day dusting the skeletons of the visitors she never seemed to have. So when she passed on, her Last Will and Testament stated that the morbid mansion was to be passed on to a distant family member of a sister’s daughter’s cousin, Thomas Hamlington. 

Thomas was a man of 25 who was obsessed with riches. He wanted to be big famous and rolling in the green, purple and yellows of money. He and his girlfriend, Penelope Tate, were the picture of health. Young, free, careless and striving for their lives, they received the summons with shock to learn that they had inherited a massive mansion from a distant deceased relative. So setting out some days later, they made the long winded journey to the house.

The door creaked open with a moan that sent shudders through the rotting floorboards. Shuffling through the layer of dust as thick as thirteen sheets of thawing ice the house pressed against them on all sides. A musty smell of mildew made its meandering march through the noses of both Thomas and Penelope as they stepped further into the house. The large room to their right contained cobwebs and creepy carcasses of spiders long dead while the room to their left provided more interesting objects.

Penelope was the first to set foot into the room, a room which moaned and creaked along with the rest of the old timbers of the house. As Thomas moved in beside her, the entire world froze. A chill that seeped to their bones began to bore into them. A soft silky whispering began to slide through the silvery webs between the furniture to meet the ears of both Thomas and Penelope. As a slight breeze wafted the musty smell of the house into the room, Penelope suddenly screamed and became paralysed with one finger pointing towards the wall on the opposite of side of the room. Her eyes crazed like a mad-man, she began to tremble with fear.

Dumbstruck with the reaction of Penelope, Thomas turned his terrified gaze with trepidations towards the object she was pointing at. A shiny silver frame around a softly glowing slate of glass illuminated what looked like a gilded mirror. Within the mirror was the horror. A woman of about 84 years was glaring out from behind the looking glass at the two intruders into the house. The whites of her eyes were glazed with absolute hatred as wrinkles around her mouth were pulled into a snarl that accompanied her vicious dentures.

“AAAARGH, HOW DARE YOU COME HERE? AFTER WHAT YOU DID, HOW DARE YOU,” the apparition cried, “SO THEY THOUGHT IT WAS COPPER POISONING? WELL NO BODY BELIEVED ME. THEY SAID I WAS CRAZY. THEY SAID I WAS MAD. THEN THEY LOCKED ME IN THIS HOUSE BECAUSE OF YOU! YOU! YOU!”

Thomas trembled as a violent wind began to roar through the room to whip the cobwebs in the house into a frenzy. 

“YOU THOUGHT YOU’D GET AWAY WITH IT!” she screeched at the top of her lungs as the dirty, dusty dungeon they were now in erupted into a pandemonium. The mirror on the wall shook violently as it crashed to floor sending shard of glass around the room. Two sharp shards pierced the hearts of both Penelope and Thomas before they could run for their lives. As their lifeless bodies began to descend to the floor to join the surrounding morbidity of the house, several sharp knives fell out of their pockets coated in the old woman’s blood. Forged signatures and Will paper came out alongside the knives as they spiralled together through the air. When they landed, the knives pierced both the names of Penelope Tate and Thomas Hamlington.  As they did, two drops of blood leaked from the pages.

The Carving

But all was not right in the house of the Caddys. Soft whisperings could be heard when the house was under the spell of slumber, the walls moved and the paintings sighed as one when none of the household watched. Some believed the house was a common meeting point for the spirits of the long gone as they came from different time periods and whispered secrets to one another. A hushed scream muffled by a soft cry from another would be heart late at night if one listened closely. All the while the house was sleeping...

Babies and small infants were not permitted within the house's walls as everytime they crossed the threshold, they immediately began crying and calling for their family. This did not bother the Caddys as they were people who seldom wished to be bothered. They would potter around the house during a dull winter's day muttering seemingly to themselves as they went about peculiar businesses. One clanging pots and pans, another hugging the moth eaten hallway carpet and a third walking in circles rasping tales of woe to the ceiling. The surrounding neighbourhood thought this family as very very odd. So odd as to be escaped inhabitents of an insane asylum seeking refuge in an innocent part of the country.

The house itself was somewhat of a piece of outdated terror. Marked by the sagging wooden turret in the northern corner of the mansion, the entire structure looked as if a grotesque 3-year old had mashed the individual sections together into a large rambling moldy construction worthy of a good bulldoze. However it was not the mansion that inspired terror into the indivduals who looked upon it, it was instead the large carved face imposed upon the front wooden door of the house that glared at passersby with accusing eyes...

(Gothic Beginning)

The New Host

Hariette Flemming had no friends. She had bright turquoise blue eyes which sparkled out from a beautiful face. Her face was hidden behind a waterfall of brunette hair that dripped down to her shoulders. She was what the other kids at school stereotypically named her: “A Loner”. Everyday, she pretended that she didn’t care or didn’t ‘need’ friends, but deep inside her heart she wished (more than anything else in the world) that she had a best friend. Every night she would rest her head on the soft feathery down of her pillow and weep. The tears would flow from her face like water flowing from a tap that was about to burst with pressure. She did this every night for 7 years. This was until Harold  Smockley arrived as a new boarder at Smithington Preparatory School for Girls and Boys.

Smithington Preparatory School was a bleak and boring place. Every thing about it had the musty aroma of old age and of ancient times located far away in past history. This included the desks, the walls, the books and even the teachers. By this point in her life, Hariette Flemming had decided that she had had enough of being discriminated by her fellow peers and being called “The Loner” of the grade. She was desperate and thought that she would either have to make friends with someone, or be moved to another school. With this thought and the knowledge that a mysterious new boy had just arrived at the school, firmly planted in her head, she marched straight up to the newcomer and tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around and Hariette noticed that he had a pale complexion with unusually red lips. Two large green orbs rested in his eye sockets and a mysterious smell of spices emanated from him that tingled Hariette’s nose.

“Excuse me!” exclaimed Hariette, “What’s your name?”

“Umm…umm… i..i.. its Harold…” stammered the little boy in reply.

“Well hello Harold! My name is Hariette and I have decided that we will be the best of friends!”

“Oh! B..But I don’t want any friends… it’s not safe…” whispered the little boy.

“Nonsense, everyone has to have friends,” said Hariette with a look of sympathy on her face, “and besides, as if I’m going to hurt you!”

“It’s…It’s … not me that will get hurt…b…but I wouldn’t mind a friend if you wanted to take a risk?”

“Sure, why not? I don’t see any risk involved with you!”

And so Hariette had finally found her first friend.

The friendship between Harold and Hariette grew stronger and firmer as the days rolled into weeks and then into months. They would talk for hours about the silliest of things and would play with each other non-stop for hours and hours on end, day after day. They shared similar likes and dislikes, and all of their personal information with each other. However Hariette thought it strange that Harold wouldn’t talk much about his past or family at all. She also began to see changes in Harold. He was slowly getting paler and paler every time she saw him and his skin was becoming like parchment.

Also, she saw that bandages were slowly making their way around his body, covering his skin like snakes slithering up a tree. At first, Hariette simply thought that Harold must be very fragile and sensitive to his surroundings (just like the porcelain dolls that she used to play with) and that his bones can break quite easily if he were to fall over. She dismissed any silly thoughts that he was changing psychologically too and thought that he must just be sick and grumpy.

However, as the weeks rolled on, the bandages covering his body slowly got worse and the entire lower part of his body was completely hidden from view by them. Hariette did not think much of this as she thought that Harold had had a particularly bad fall and was still recovering from it. It wasn’t until the bandages had reached his chest and covered his arms that Hariette thought that something strange was going on. Harold began to act strangely, his mysterious timidness that he had when Hariette had met him was gone and he was now surprisingly confident, too confident for Hariette’s liking.

“Why are you strutting around the playground like that Harold?” asked Hariette with annoyance.

“I’m not strutting… although I do believe I should be!” Harold curtly replied.

“And why do you think that Harold? You’ve changed heaps since I met you!”

“It’s because I am somewhat better than you, you poor girl.”

“Ugh, I’ve had enough! Quit it Harold!” shouted Hariette as she stormed away to the other side of the playground.

The very next day, Hariette arrived at the school gates earlier than usual, wishing to apologise to Harold for her behaviour the previous day. She searched the playground high and low for Harold and finally found him in a corner behind the flying fox and other broken and run-down play equipment. His entire body, including his head, was now covered in bandages. That is everything besides his red lips and luminescent eyes. Hariette was startled by his appearance and cried out when she saw him.

“Harold! What is this?”

“Nothing, don’t worry! Just go away now!”

“Rrrrgh! This really has gone too far! You and your ridiculous bandages!” exclaimed Hariette as she lunged across and grabbed at the fabric.

She tugged and pulled at them with Harold crying out in the meantime to stop it. She finally loosened his bandages enough for them to fall away freely to the ground. Hariette gasped as she took in what she saw. A wispy and misty-white outline of a ghostly figure remained. The only thing left of Harold was his large green eyes and his lips, which Hariette now noticed were like the colour of freshly drawn blood. This spirit then whispered in the softest of tones.

“I have found my new host…”

Hariette screamed as the spirit flew at her, but nothing could stop it as it wove between the inner fabrics of Hariette’s soul. She was never the same girl again.
Susan Bockley had no friends. She was known as “The Loner” at her school and was sick and tired of people calling her that. She was also fed up with the sense of loneliness that she felt within her being. Susan was so desperate to find a friend that she was even prepared to make friends with the mysterious new girl that had just arrived at her school. The new girl’s name was Hariette Flemming.

(Gothic)