annotated floorplan - simple floorplan

There was another door on the opposite side of the entranceway, wasn’t there? He was sure he’d seen one, a mirror to Richard’s office door.

Lennox watched the suit of shiny elaborate armour warily. It didn’t stand quite still enough to just be a robot, although he had no idea how it could have anyone inside it. Either way, the message was clear: that front door stayed closed.

It didn’t come after him, though, when he took a look around and identified the door in question. It wasn’t going to hide a way out, but he might as well be thorough. Maybe there was a deadbolt key hanging on the wall.

The room was a sort of feminine reflection of Richard’s office, decorated in softer furniture in a theme of roses rather than autumn leaves. A roll-top desk, a couch and chair, rug on the floor, stained-glass window. On one wall was a very large mirror. The simple black frame didn’t quite match the rest of the decor, and faint traces on the wall suggested that there had once been something a bit larger mounted in this spot.

“You’re being an asshole and you know it.”

Lennox started and drew back fast, looking around the room.

His own reflection was glaring at him, arms crossed.

“What the fuck?”

“Yeah yeah, magic mirror, get over it. Look, I’m not saying that the shit they’re telling you isn’t insane. Questioning everything, always, is still a good plan and we need to keep doing that. But right now we have a problem and it isn’t the one you think it is.”

“How to escape alive isn’t my current problem?”

“It’s not any kind of problem. Come on, think! They locked down the whole house in no time flat. But they left you free. What do you figure the odds are that between whoever’s in that armour, and you could not get free from them, plus that big minotaur guy, they couldn’t just throw your ass in one room, lock just one door with you on the other side, and leave you there while they go on with whatever they’re doing? You gotta admit, that would be easier for them than leaving you free and locking themselves in different rooms.”

“So maybe they want me to start believing them, or they want to show off, or something!”

“They’re avoiding you, remember? Just maybe, just the slightest non-impossible chance, they could actually know something you don’t, and I don’t mean special effects tricks. Look. On one side you have people who are certainly acting in ways that under other conditions would look unquestionably friendly and even concerned, not threatening. Nobody laid a hand on you until you tried to push that lady out of the way, and even then, they didn’t hurt you, just held you so you couldn’t. You’ve had good food, great booze that was definitely not cheap, and a couple of explanations that sound like magical technobabble but they seemed pretty sincere at the time. They’re leaving you as much of the house as they can to stomp around in having a tantrum. They’re acting like they honestly believe you’re in danger, so just maybe, even if they somehow have the facts wrong, the intentions are still good and from their perspective they’re telling you the absolute truth.”

“But...”

“Shut up for a minute, I’m talking. I’ll go away and let you go back to your sulking in a minute. On the side of it being deception of some kind, literally all you have is that it doesn’t fit in your worldview and you can’t find explanations for any of it. That’s normally a pretty huge red flag, but these are not normal conditions and there is a lot piling up that you can’t explain away but it’s internally consistent... sort of. I’m not suggesting making friends with them. This whole situation is bizarre as hell. But from their perspective, you must be the world’s worst asshole right now, and it’s possible that they don’t deserve that. You know that. You recognized it in the music room. You know it enough that you aren’t trashing the house or throwing furniture through windows or anything. But this is embarrassing, the totally irrational and downright obnoxious way you’re acting. And you know all this, because I’m you and I can’t tell you anything you don’t already know.”

“How can you be me? This doesn’t make any sense.”

“Oh, just shut it! I’m saying things you know are coming from your own head so stop arguing! Rationalize it later as a stress-induced hallucination or something, whatever, but right now, listen. You are being stupid. You are making yourself miserable and stressing out a lot of people who might be innocent in some sense and might honestly mean the best for you. Maybe they don’t. But the evidence right now, if you look at their behaviour and try to keep your own fear and your own anger at being scared out of the way, is not hostile or aggressive. Really strange, for sure, but not hostile, and you’ve dealt with some uber-strange people before. So maybe you should consider acting a bit more like you have a brain and can think things through and act even vaguely civilized.”

“I...” Lennox started to dismiss the whole thing, stung by the repeated insults, but he forced himself to pause.

Did he know all this?

It wasn’t impossible.

“Maybe,” he said finally.

“Maybe what?”

“Maybe it’s less black-and-white than it seems.”

His reflection scowled at him.

“That’s as far as I’m bending on this without some serious thought!”

“I guess it’s a start. This isn’t normal behaviour for you at all, y’know.”

“These aren’t normal conditions!”

“Gotta give you that one. But you can still do better.”

“I... maybe.”

His reflection shrugged. “From here it’s up to you. But you know damned well I’m telling you the truth. Good luck. Get us out of this intact, would you?” His reflection abruptly began to act like a normal one, just reflecting his own motions and his own rather taken-aback expression.

“Hello?” someone said from just outside the room, and then someone new looked in. “Oh, hey, thought I heard someone talking. Giving yourself a bit of a pep talk?” With an easygoing grin, the stranger came into the room. He looked, well, like any other man probably in his mid-twenties or so, on the skinny side, in blue jeans and a black t-shirt that was apparently tour merch for some band called Savage Garden, with of all things a crystal spear wrapped in copper wire on a black cord around his neck. Brown-blonde hair was long enough to look less like an intentional style than just being overdue for a trim.

“Could use one,” Lennox said. “Who are you? You don’t look like you’re part of the local freak show.”

“Hi, I’m Leo. Walking in the wrong door on Hallowe’en night doesn’t normally lead to the Twilight Zone. Leaving would be nice, but they’re all pretty insistent about that, so maybe they have a reason for it. So far everyone seems like they’re for-real majorly worried about going outside, so I figure I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and re-evaluate at sunrise.”

“That is... not a bad strategy,” Lennox admitted reluctantly.

“Seemed like the path of least resistance, and I’m sorta into that kind of thing. I found a room near here that’s still unlocked—a lot of doors that were open earlier aren’t anymore—and it looks like a good place to just hole up for the rest of the night. Want to come join me? Company’s nice.”

“What’s so special about it?”

“Well, it’s on the ground floor and not all that far from the front door, for one thing. It only has one door to keep an eye on and it has some fairly comfy furniture and it’s right next to a bathroom. And it’s open with no one in it. Is that wagon of electronic stuff in the hall yours? You can bring it along, easy. I think it might have been for servants to hang around in and wait to be needed, originally, or something like that. The room, I mean, not your wagon.”

Lennox hesitated. The mirror had pointed out that it would be easier for these people to lock him in a room rather than lock multiple doors, but it seemed unlikely they intended to suddenly change their minds now just because he’d walked into a lockable room with someone else.

It would also take him in the direction of the section of the building that might have a service door. He could check for that quickly while in the area. He wasn’t feeling very confident they’d have forgotten it, though.

“Yeah, sure. Let me grab my wagon.”

“No sweat.” Leo fell into step beside him, hands tucked into his jeans pockets. “I did have a bag with a few odds and ends in it, a flashlight and stuff, but it got left... actually, I don’t remember where. Might have been in the games room with Wanda, she’s the invisible one, did you meet her?”

“Yes.”

“And her friend Sally, she’s just a big mass of goo that can move around and change pretty much infinitely, it looks like. She giggles a lot. Cute giggling, not the psychotic creepy kind.”

“I’ve got everything in my wagon. Flashlights, food and drinks, first aid supplies.”

“Wow. You’re a lot more prepared than me.”

“Got curious about the house?”

“Pretty much. Heard about it and wanted to check it out. Wrong night to do that, I guess. You?”

“I’m a paranormal investigator. I came here to check out the rumours about it being a haunted house, gather as much evidence as possible, and find out what the truth is.”

“Wow. How often is the truth that there might really be ghosts because there’s no explanation?”

“Hasn’t happened yet.”

“You must be majorly thorough, then. Did you find out anything before things got weird?”

Lennox glanced over the contents of his wagon, concluded that it remained untouched, and seized the handle. “Absolutely nothing. I didn’t even have my cameras set up before, ah, things got weird.” He followed Leo, not exactly the way they’d come but roughly that direction, maybe because the corridor was easy for the wagon.

“Well, that kinda sucks. Maybe you can try tomorrow night? Wanda said that this only happens on Hallowe’en night and the rest of the year’s fine.”

“I... suppose I could try that. I’d rather not skip it. I have patrons and subscribers and all, that are expecting to see a Hallowe’en investigation here. If I tell them there was something unavoidable, they’d probably accept a day late. But I don’t know if I want to risk it. For all I know, this whole freak show will still be here and I’ll regret going anywhere near the place ever again. Probably what I should do is get out of here and call the police.”

“The police? You think they’re here all the time or something?”

“I don’t believe in the supernatural, and this doesn’t look like something they set up in a day in an empty building.”

“I guess. Turn right here.”

“Past the kitchen?”

“Yeah. Don’t mind the cook. She doesn’t come out of the kitchen very much and doesn’t care what happens in the hallway. Even in the kitchen, well, she looks a bit scary but she gave me some bread and soup a while ago that were actually really good and she was really nice about it. I wouldn’t go up those stairs, though, there’s a minotaur up there who’s a bit protective of his space and I know I definitely do not want to pick a fight with him. Yep, right down here, there’s the toilet at the end of the hall which is something it’s always handy to have in easy reach, and if we swing to the left at the corner we want the next door down.” Leo stepped in the door in question and retreated in front of Lennox, spreading his hands. “Taadaa. I can think of worse places to spend a few hours, eh?”

Long central table, sideboard, benches... it was plain but it did have the advantage of only a single door, and there was no one else in the room, no sign of weirdness, no mirrors.

“Yeah, sure, looks like a reasonable place to dig in.”

“Awesome,” Leo said. “This is going to feel a lot less long and scary with some company that makes sense.”

Leo struck Lennox as casual, friendly, and maybe a little scatterbrained, possibly the kind of person easily led into believing in pseudoscience on the grounds of keeping an open mind—that crystal was a bad sign—but generally harmless. More importantly, he was a reasonably normal human being in the same boat Lennox was, and that gave them common ground.

And he was right. Company helped.