Count Napoleon! ...booga 2/11/05
There was a haunted house. A big one, unaffiliated with any circus and not specifically a Halloween gig. It was quiet scary, but it was also the most thrilling experience anyone had ever had. It was a sit-down ride through dark room upon dark, vast, amazing room and always there was a smooth creek below that glowed faintly white.
There was also a rumor, of Count Napoleon and his sisters. Napoleon was a horrible noble of the Middle Ages who was said to use is status and power to rain terror on the peasants he was in charge of. He wore always wore black with a strange gold trim, with a personality to match, and gave off an otherworldly feel. His three sisters, wearing earthly white dresses, would always follow him around. Their contrast to his darkness was like his anchor to this world.
He would occasionally find an excuse to arrest someone and it was generally excepted that the poor soul would never be seen again. The few who did return brought back stories of the most horrifying interior design imaginable. The hallways were lined with hideous beasts with five clawed legs or ugly pig heads under the pretense of statues, grotesquely misshapen portraits of screaming royalty, and black flowers in macabre vases wilting beneath candles that seemed to actually subtract from the light. And all the while the villager could hear screams that were just faint enough to make him wonder if he had only been imagining it.
He would be put in a room that, like the hall, was a frightening mockery of riches. There was a fireplace at one end framed by elaborately carved creatures, whose fire sucked at the light as the candles did. In front of it was a deep black rug (thankfully devoid of any "pet dog") and two surprisingly welcoming chairs that were well cushioned. In one sat Napoleon, his three sisters unusually absent. His clothes fit the style of the days, but there was something about them, the gold a shade off, a brooch bent at the wrong angle, that suggested they were just as twisted as the rest of the manor. Napoleon would smile pleasantly, ask the peasant to sit, and then engage them in casual conversation, his voice smooth and friendly. Before the peasant was allowed to leave, Napoleon would look him dead on the eyes, and the peasant could see a hint of madness there, like the edge of a cliff, as he rasped with a smile, "How is their fear?"
"Wh-what?" the peasant would usually stutter.
"Your fellow villagers, they are afraid of death, of illness, of... me" he smiled, showing more teeth than was humanly possible, "but what about their fear of life?"
The peasant would answer as best he could, sometimes not at all, then run as fast as he could from the tortured architecture of Napoleon's House.
This was the rumor going about in the local journalism community, mostly as a joke. I was the most interested, of course, because it was my job to write an article about the Haunted Manor of Count Napoleon. I should point out that I went into this business because of my nearly uncontrollable curiosity, so I was quite eager as well.
Early one October morning, when hype for the haunted house would be most welcome, I arrived at the front door. On the outside it looked like a plain two-story storage building, with only an elaborate circus poster next to the metal door proclaiming what was inside with a small sign below it listing the times it was open. Seven in the morning on a Thursday was not included.
Nonetheless, the door was unlocked and I stepped into the vast lobby. I was as quiet as I could be, but in the silence I felt like an elephant. For some reason I felt like a trespasser, in spite of the permission I had taken care to receive from the owner. I had forgotten the door and momentum slammed it shut behind me. I only relaxed when the echoes finally stopped.
The lobby looked much like a fancy movie theater's, and off to the left of the carved gilded wood of the ticket booths was a plain service door, ajar. The room was empty and the only other door led to the loading room, so I crept across the stiff carpet toward the service door.
Down a dim, low hall it opened into a darker room that was completely empty except for a door at the other end with muted light shining through underneath and a man standing beside it. He wore mostly graying blacks; loose, informal pants, workers' boots, sturdy fingerless gloves, and a worn jacket with many pockets. He glanced at me, but he did not appear to be surprised or angry so I edged closer, my feet sliding easily on the smooth dusty concrete.
The man had apparently reached this room just before me because he was just now working at the small lock on the door. "Come on in, the machinery is just getting warmed up," he said, opening the door grandly, as a joke, I thought, because nothing yet could be described as grand, but then...
Beyond the door was the largest room in all of the building I had seen yet. This was the part of the ride that carried the riders twenty feet above the ground, weaving around various frightening monsters hanging from the ceiling. The ground itself was textured like an immense black grotto, complete with trees and the occasional black rose bush. The black dirt melted into the white, foggy stream, ten feet across and unguessably deep. Up close it all looked quite real. I was taken aback by the dark beauty of it.
The man nodded and stared wonderingly at a nearby tree. "This room was my sister's idea. I think it turned out quite as she had imagined."
"So you're..."
"I am the owner, yes. You wanted to ask me some questions?"
"For the paper." I paused awkwardly, then remembered my list of questions. "Um, so how did this place get started? It looks like it required considerable capital."
"Yes. My parents, bless their souls, left everything to me, and I finally had the money to fulfill my dreams." He gestured at the scenery. "Some people might say it's a bit silly to dedicate one's life to a haunted house, but I think you agree that this is a bit more than that."
"Mmm..." I mumbled in confirmation, busy gorging on eye candy. I looked fondly at the detail in a nearby bush covered in tiny black flowers. The monsters in the air also looked quite more lifelike when I wasn't speeding along the track above. "How did you do all this?"
"Well, you'd be amazed what technology can do these days..."
The interview went smoothly as we traveled through some of my favorite rooms, but he started to look distracted. I became the leader in the conversation and often had to repeat my questions. When I asked him what was wrong he turned to me from looking thoughtfully at a morbid abstract sculpture. "Nothing, just... You know the way out, yes? I need to start getting things ready, customers will be arriving soon."
I tried for a subtle look at my watch but he was already walking away. It was only 10:30. Customers wouldn't be arriving until 4:00 in the afternoon. I watched him retreating briskly down a hallway and noticed that the silence and nervousness had grabbed me again. This place was a lot creepier when there was no one around to watch my back.
I searched around the walls and ceiling for any security cameras then headed quietly after the man. Now that I was blatantly intruding it was much easier to be stealthy.
His trail lead into parts of the building that the ride never reached, yet they were still decorated unnervingly. Everything was still in medieval style as well. For all the technology the man claimed to have command over there were elevators with bulky gears that looked quite inefficient and no electric lights at all. Some rooms were brightly colored, but the eerie black candles kept everything so dim that it all appeared faded and ancient. It was starting to look more like Napoleon's Manor than the ride did. I was feeling the excitement of mystery in my stomach.
Finally the man stopped in a room that looked like something out of old paintings of royalty, sitting at the top of what felt like hundreds of stairs. It was all white trimmed with gold and quite a startling change from anything I had seen so far. It even had several windows through which diffused sunlight crept. I ducked behind a fancy white couch before the mechanical door grinded shut. I didn't dare move to see, not because it would make noise (the man was creating enough on his own), but because there were other people in the room and I didn't know where they were. The man was storming about the room, his voice booming with frustration.
"That girl knew about our history! No one has spoken of me in centuries!"
"Ah, maybe you shouldn't have named this place after yourself," a woman said nervously from across the room.
"There have been other Napoleons, much more widely known than I."
"Then we should kill her so she won't tell anyone," a women's voice rasped from the couch in front of me.
"No, Rose. She didn't know what she was saying. To her it's just a story that she heard from the anonymous 'they' everyone's always talking about. It's always someone's best friend's mother's boyfriend's roommate's parrot was a witness or something. The Hunters must be behind this. They're infiltrating and preparing to get rid of me."
"Are you sure you are not... jumping to conclusions? This 'internet' has all the information in the world, maybe someone found it on there," said another, calmer woman.
"No again, Isis. I've heard of this before. The Hunters spread a rumor, usually true," he added with a hint of satisfaction, "Then they do what they can to ruin everything. Any superstitious people believe the rumors and feel that justice has been served. Everyone else blames it on the superstitious ones and leaves it at that. Looks like I had better get down to business." He sighed. "Fun can't last forever, but we'll sure try!"
I chanced a peek around the side of the couch next to a clean white dresser. I could see two ladies on the other side of the room wearing fancy white dresses like old royalty. One of them was looking downcast and fidgeting, the other was staring placidly in the general direction of the man. The man... he was Napoleon! Or just a very disturbed person. He certainly looked the part now, wearing deep black regal clothes trimmed in a reddish gold. His previously messy graying hair was now black and slicked back. The kind smile was replaced with a small frown of grim determination. I couldn't think of how he had made so many changes in such a short time...
"Ah..." said the nervous one.
"What is it, Delphi?"
"Ah, maybe I should have mentioned this before, brother. Ah, the security system went off a little while ago; someone has entered the house." She cringed. "I thought it was just one of the monsters escaped again!"
"Already?" Napoleon turned toward the door. "Maybe that girl is one of them... Did you hear an 'eep'?"
"No."
"No."
"Ah..."
"Yes?"
"No."
"No, I felt it..." He shivered and smiled widely. "She's here, and she's afraid..."
Thankfully a soft alarm went off just as Napoleon took a step toward my hiding spot.
"Another security breach," Delphi whispered.
"Can we track it?"
"No," said Iris. "We did not install security inside the House."
"Blast! We need to finish this!"
"I'll go this time," Rose hissed. She stood up and glided toward Napoleon. "Maybe they'll have more nerve this time."
Everything went dark. A white haze started to form in the center of the room around Napoleon and Rose. It swirled like a smoky tornado, then gradually gathered into small orbs that took on a pink shade. Sparks were jumping around the vortex, and I felt life in it. As the orbs gained substance, the outline of Rose seemed to dissolve. Below the whirring noise of the mist I could hear Napoleon breathing heavily.
Whatever was going to happen, I thought, it certainly wasn't going to do any good, and that lever over there couldn't make things any worse...
While Iris and Delphi were too enthralled by the faintly glowing orbs dancing around the vague figure of Napoleon to notice I darted out from behind the couch, grasped the lever, and pulled with all the power of my adrenaline.
There was a short period of creaking of old, neglected gears, then nothing. The two sisters froze and I could feel Napoleon's rage as he glared straight through me. No one moved except for the pink orbs which were now revolving slowly as Napoleon came into focus.
After a few eternal seconds the floor gave another sharp creak and the floor jolted, then unfolded entirely from beneath our feet, revealing a crisscross of flat poles like a cage. It was very rusty and gave way under some of the heavier furniture. I myself was standing over a preexisting hole, as was Napoleon. For a split second we seemed to hang in the air, staring into the round, smooth, dark tunnel below, then gravity pulled us down the nightmare slide.
"You stupid fool!" Napoleon roared at me as we tore through insane twists and turns, "You've ruined everything!"
"Why do you have a room that flushes?" I yelled back.
"Do not question my incredible sense of style!"
Above us I could hear the wails of the remaining sisters as the orbs finally lost their levitation and fell through the numerous large cracks, tumbling toward us.
When the tunnel began to level out I prepared for a rough landing on the coarse carpet that covered most of the "House". If it turned out to be a sewer or something there'd be water to cushion the fall. It caught me entirely off guard when I shot out twenty feet above the smooth concrete floor of a dark, circular, three-story room. The walls were fluted like columns and the ceiling was a sculpted bronze dome. In the center of the twenty-foot-diameter room was a red and yellow cylindrical elevator with the same elaborate designs as the rest of the room and the same large gears and straps of the rest of the technology in the House. It ran up and down a pole as thick as me, made of a dark metal with a screw thread along its surface. It fell short of the ceiling by ten feet but instead reached parallel to the ground toward a half circle opening with a solid metal gate across from the tunnel. Everything but the gate looked centuries old and streaked in rust.
So anyway Napoleon and I shot out of the hole. I managed to grab a pulley strap then lower myself to within a safe distance of the ground. Napoleon missed the elevator entirely and hit the wall, but he recovered and gracefully landed without making a sound. The orbs continued to fall through the grates that dotted the floor. Napoleon moaned remorsefully.
For some reason there were no doors here and the gate in the wall was opening. The hanging ropes and cracked gears were a good sign that the elevator wasn't going to help. Napoleon quickly turned to me when the gate squeaked to a halt. His eyes were full of rage and the promise of a very painfully drawn out death.
I ran to the pole and my jump earned me several feet as I clung to the grooves in the metal. I began to climb with Napoleon not far behind. When I reached the top I sprinted with the kind of rushed carelessness that one gets when one knows that doom is on her tail across the poll and jumped headlong into the Haunted Manor's gift shop.
In all the times I had been here before I did not once recall such an opening in the wall, and yet here I was among the cheesy merchandise and a few startled early customers. I turned around to see Napoleon swoop in after me like an angry storm cloud. Behind me a scruffy-looking man in a bowler hat pushed a woman standing near him to the floor and with his other arm shaking madly he pointed a plain-looking handgun at Napoleon. "Keep back, demon!"
I happened to be right between the man and Napoleon, and I knew that moving toward Napoleon was a bad move. I opted to get on the other side of the wavering gun and slid quietly to a position just out of arms' reach of the scruffy man.
Napoleon was now directing his attention at him and his gun. He laughed derisively. "Oh, are you going to shoot me, Hunter?" He stepped calmly through the opening, his cloak flowing behind him menacingly. "Not very prepared, are you?"
He stopped in the middle of the room and looked at me. "Dear girl," he said with venomous irony, "This man's ignorance may exceed your own. I am Napoleon! No one in this room will ever see the light of day again! But if you'd be so kind as to assist me I may just kill you and leave it at that."
---What will the narrator do?! Vote on the tag board!---