There was a rusty pang in the air, a strange and repugnant smell that was carried through the long, empty hallways on a cold breeze. Jackson frowned in distaste, momentarily distracted from his overbearing surroundings.
The light from his torch plunged into the darkness ahead of him but seemed to be swallowed into nothing, disappearing into the yawning black mouth that stretched out an untold distance in front of him. Ancient floorboards groaned beneath his feet, agonised by his weight and a strain that they had not had to withstand for countless years. The footfalls from his boots seemed to be muffled by the darkness around him, he was greeted by no comforting echo of his own existence here.
Despite the familiarity of his surroundings, night time seemed to bring with it a strange mutation, as if the halls and doorways he knew so well were all at once changed as soon as the sun had set. The light of the full moon outside had not the power to penetrate the thick, icy shadows that grasped for the windows, aching to cover them up, to hide what dwelt inside from the outside world.
The torch flickered and a sudden rush of panic took him. He'd brought a back up battery with him, as he knew that electrical equipment often rebelled in this place, but the sudden few seconds of all-encompassing darkness had filled him with a strange fear. A long lost feeling from years ago, a memory of awakening suddenly from childhood slumber in the grip of some incredible nightmare, drenched in cold sweat and crying out for help.
The torch came back to life and he continued on, feigning confidence and fooling himself into believing there was nothing in this dark old house that was watching him. He was alone. He was utterly alone.
His thoughts wondered back to earlier that day. Fooling around with his friends in the echoing expanse of atrium, other men who had been pulled into this place on the promise of a big pay off. Other men whose lives had amounted to nothing more beyond sledgehammers, plastic masks, asbestos and floor buffers. They would make a mint on one job, a job in a place where no man had been for decades. Urban legends abounded about this place. Stories of old men who had lived and died alone in the grip of madness, of families slaughtered by a lone killer, of mischievous teenagers breaking in for late night sessions of drinking and groping only to disappear without a trace.
"I saw a face in one of the windows up in that house this one time," people had said. "but as soon as it saw me it vanished, just like that!"
Wails and screams heard on the wind, voices of small children, the devil himself heard rumbling in the cellar.
Bullshit, he thought to himself. The only thing that rattled around this dusty old dump in the dead of night was the promise of a big fat paycheck after two weeks work. But it had to be him that would forget something as important as his wallet deep in the bowels of the fortress. It had to be him that remembered at this time of night, and only he'd decide that it just couldn't wait.
Something jarred him out of his thoughts. An extra step. From neither in front nor behind him, not at either side. It seemed to have come from all around, a third creak after his foot had left the floor, after a footfall he'd heard, clear as day.
That fear returned with amazing speed and with impeccable timing the heavy flashlight hanging by his side picked it's time to die.
Surrounded by blindness he shook the torch violently as panic began to creep up on him. His slammed his palm against it, desperately trying to resurrect his only friend in the mansion. As he quickly fumbled in the bag at his side for the spare battery something new caught his attention, something more terrifying than an extra creak or than the cloying darkness.
A whisper.
A distinct, throaty, pained whisper searing the deafening silence, coldly clawing at his side, climbing into his ear with prickling nails.
For a moment he froze. In that one moment a lifetime of incomprehensible fear, of utter blackness, of silent crying panic passed through him, amplified by something invisible, as if a syringe had emerged out from the dark corners of the house and pierced his tightened skin, filling him with a freezing sickness.
His flight instincts kicked in and his determination honed in on getting the working battery into the flashlight. His hands moved swiftly like a well-oiled machine. In a moment the dead battery was discarded and the new battery was slotted in. He flicked the switch with a small sense of victory.
Nothing.
No light, no comfort, nothing.
He flicked the switch off, then back on. Still nothing. It was then that he noticed a fresh new horror. More footsteps. Fast this time, one after another from somewhere ahead of him.
Someone was running towards him, racing headlong in his direction through the shadows.
"Hey!" he called out, his voice cracking slightly. He cleared his throat and tried again in a more commanding tone, "HEY!"
The running feet continued, getting louder, shifting their position slightly to his left and now accompanied by a second sound A panicked, heavy and fast breathing. A woman. From somewhere in the supposedly empty old house a panic stricken woman was running from some unseen terror.
Before he could call out again she passed him.
In the brief second he saw her he was struck dumb. What he saw of her was dressed in a long, flowing white gown that lit everything around her in an unearthly glow. For a moment the hallway was illuminated and he could see where it split into a T ahead of him. As soon as she had passed there was, once again, dark silence.
He stood in shock before realising what had happened.
"Hey, wait!" he called out, all logic and reason leaving him as he took flight after her, charging forward and colliding with the corner, crashing down onto the hardwood floor.
He pulled himself up in time to see a door ahead of him, light spilling out of it briefly before it swung shut.
"HEY!" he called out yet again, dragging himself to his feet and keeping his eyes fixed on the light from the crack under the door. He sprinted for the warm glow, but just as he reached the door the light went out.
He stumbled in an attempt to stop, falling forwards towards the door and readying himself to collapse headfirst into another dark, empty room.
The door gave way before him and he was suddenly overcome with bright light and gripping cold.
He forced himself up to his feet and stood stunned. All around him was an ornate, homely room, draped in decorations from various different periods. Gold and silver sparkled on antique fireplaces cast from the glittering chandelier suspended from the ceiling. Plush red carpet was laid beneath his feet, lined with intricate gold patterns. Three deep, red sofas with gold trims were placed either side of him, facing ahead. Despite the apparent warmth the room was filled with an agonising cold air. His breath appeared before him in a mist and it was as he watched it curl away that he noticed what the sofas were facing.
Stood not twenty feet ahead of him, facing him with a wry smile and a wicked twinkle in his eye was a short man in a smart suit, standing over a long grey box that appeared almost to be a casket. The man's shoulders barely reached over the box.
It was Paul Daniels.
He blinked, attempting to wash the image out of his eyes but it did no good. There in front of him, looking him dead in the eye was the master magician himself, and before him, locked inside the casket, legs stuck out from one end and her head from the other was the woman he'd seen running past him in the hallway. He could see her clearly now, in all her blonde beauty.
It was Debbie McGee.
She cried out to him for help, pleading to be set free as Paul continued to stare with that same smile on his face, unmoving. Despite the desperation on her face something about her seemed lifeless and dead. It was as if he was watching a replay of something that had happened a million times before.
Suddenly Paul began to move. His motions were slow and distorted, as if playing back on a ruined tape. He produced a saw almost his own height and held it out in front of himself, letting it linger above the box, which contained his lovely assistant. His smile was broken as his lips begin to move, his speech coming at a slow, deliberate pace.
"You'll like thisnot a lot"
He touched the saw to the box and with a bone chilling shriek the box, and Debbie within it, slowly faded from existence.
All of a sudden the room was changed. The glow was gone, replaced by faded moonlight pouring in from ceiling-high windows. The furniture remained but now covered with a thick layer of dust, draped with white, flowing cobwebs. All gold and silver turned to rust and ruin.
But there he still stood. Barely four foot high, in his dinner jacket and with the wry smile back on his wrinkled, elfin face. Now in his hands he held a top hat, the opening facing up at him. He turned in the other way and tapped it to show there was nothing inside.
"Nothing" said Jackson, feeling suddenly overcome.
"Nothing" repeated Paul.
Daniels held the hat up so that the darkness inside could be seen, darker than any shadow within the house.
"You'll like this" uttered Paul.
"not a lot.." Jackson said, slowly, coldly, dropping the dead torch with a heavy thud to the old carpeted floor.
"not a lot.."
He began to step forwards towards the magician, staring deep into the blackness inside the hat. The shadow inside seemed to stretch out to meet him, beckoning him to become one with it. To disappear. To be nothing but a small footnote in the long history of this ghostly place. To become nothing. To be where there is nothing.
There is nothing.
There is nothing.
There isnot a lot
HalloweeeeEEEEEEEEUUUURRRRGGHHnnn
The light from his torch plunged into the darkness ahead of him but seemed to be swallowed into nothing, disappearing into the yawning black mouth that stretched out an untold distance in front of him. Ancient floorboards groaned beneath his feet, agonised by his weight and a strain that they had not had to withstand for countless years. The footfalls from his boots seemed to be muffled by the darkness around him, he was greeted by no comforting echo of his own existence here.
Despite the familiarity of his surroundings, night time seemed to bring with it a strange mutation, as if the halls and doorways he knew so well were all at once changed as soon as the sun had set. The light of the full moon outside had not the power to penetrate the thick, icy shadows that grasped for the windows, aching to cover them up, to hide what dwelt inside from the outside world.
The torch flickered and a sudden rush of panic took him. He'd brought a back up battery with him, as he knew that electrical equipment often rebelled in this place, but the sudden few seconds of all-encompassing darkness had filled him with a strange fear. A long lost feeling from years ago, a memory of awakening suddenly from childhood slumber in the grip of some incredible nightmare, drenched in cold sweat and crying out for help.
The torch came back to life and he continued on, feigning confidence and fooling himself into believing there was nothing in this dark old house that was watching him. He was alone. He was utterly alone.
His thoughts wondered back to earlier that day. Fooling around with his friends in the echoing expanse of atrium, other men who had been pulled into this place on the promise of a big pay off. Other men whose lives had amounted to nothing more beyond sledgehammers, plastic masks, asbestos and floor buffers. They would make a mint on one job, a job in a place where no man had been for decades. Urban legends abounded about this place. Stories of old men who had lived and died alone in the grip of madness, of families slaughtered by a lone killer, of mischievous teenagers breaking in for late night sessions of drinking and groping only to disappear without a trace.
"I saw a face in one of the windows up in that house this one time," people had said. "but as soon as it saw me it vanished, just like that!"
Wails and screams heard on the wind, voices of small children, the devil himself heard rumbling in the cellar.
Bullshit, he thought to himself. The only thing that rattled around this dusty old dump in the dead of night was the promise of a big fat paycheck after two weeks work. But it had to be him that would forget something as important as his wallet deep in the bowels of the fortress. It had to be him that remembered at this time of night, and only he'd decide that it just couldn't wait.
Something jarred him out of his thoughts. An extra step. From neither in front nor behind him, not at either side. It seemed to have come from all around, a third creak after his foot had left the floor, after a footfall he'd heard, clear as day.
That fear returned with amazing speed and with impeccable timing the heavy flashlight hanging by his side picked it's time to die.
Surrounded by blindness he shook the torch violently as panic began to creep up on him. His slammed his palm against it, desperately trying to resurrect his only friend in the mansion. As he quickly fumbled in the bag at his side for the spare battery something new caught his attention, something more terrifying than an extra creak or than the cloying darkness.
A whisper.
A distinct, throaty, pained whisper searing the deafening silence, coldly clawing at his side, climbing into his ear with prickling nails.
For a moment he froze. In that one moment a lifetime of incomprehensible fear, of utter blackness, of silent crying panic passed through him, amplified by something invisible, as if a syringe had emerged out from the dark corners of the house and pierced his tightened skin, filling him with a freezing sickness.
His flight instincts kicked in and his determination honed in on getting the working battery into the flashlight. His hands moved swiftly like a well-oiled machine. In a moment the dead battery was discarded and the new battery was slotted in. He flicked the switch with a small sense of victory.
Nothing.
No light, no comfort, nothing.
He flicked the switch off, then back on. Still nothing. It was then that he noticed a fresh new horror. More footsteps. Fast this time, one after another from somewhere ahead of him.
Someone was running towards him, racing headlong in his direction through the shadows.
"Hey!" he called out, his voice cracking slightly. He cleared his throat and tried again in a more commanding tone, "HEY!"
The running feet continued, getting louder, shifting their position slightly to his left and now accompanied by a second sound A panicked, heavy and fast breathing. A woman. From somewhere in the supposedly empty old house a panic stricken woman was running from some unseen terror.
Before he could call out again she passed him.
In the brief second he saw her he was struck dumb. What he saw of her was dressed in a long, flowing white gown that lit everything around her in an unearthly glow. For a moment the hallway was illuminated and he could see where it split into a T ahead of him. As soon as she had passed there was, once again, dark silence.
He stood in shock before realising what had happened.
"Hey, wait!" he called out, all logic and reason leaving him as he took flight after her, charging forward and colliding with the corner, crashing down onto the hardwood floor.
He pulled himself up in time to see a door ahead of him, light spilling out of it briefly before it swung shut.
"HEY!" he called out yet again, dragging himself to his feet and keeping his eyes fixed on the light from the crack under the door. He sprinted for the warm glow, but just as he reached the door the light went out.
He stumbled in an attempt to stop, falling forwards towards the door and readying himself to collapse headfirst into another dark, empty room.
The door gave way before him and he was suddenly overcome with bright light and gripping cold.
He forced himself up to his feet and stood stunned. All around him was an ornate, homely room, draped in decorations from various different periods. Gold and silver sparkled on antique fireplaces cast from the glittering chandelier suspended from the ceiling. Plush red carpet was laid beneath his feet, lined with intricate gold patterns. Three deep, red sofas with gold trims were placed either side of him, facing ahead. Despite the apparent warmth the room was filled with an agonising cold air. His breath appeared before him in a mist and it was as he watched it curl away that he noticed what the sofas were facing.
Stood not twenty feet ahead of him, facing him with a wry smile and a wicked twinkle in his eye was a short man in a smart suit, standing over a long grey box that appeared almost to be a casket. The man's shoulders barely reached over the box.
It was Paul Daniels.
He blinked, attempting to wash the image out of his eyes but it did no good. There in front of him, looking him dead in the eye was the master magician himself, and before him, locked inside the casket, legs stuck out from one end and her head from the other was the woman he'd seen running past him in the hallway. He could see her clearly now, in all her blonde beauty.
It was Debbie McGee.
She cried out to him for help, pleading to be set free as Paul continued to stare with that same smile on his face, unmoving. Despite the desperation on her face something about her seemed lifeless and dead. It was as if he was watching a replay of something that had happened a million times before.
Suddenly Paul began to move. His motions were slow and distorted, as if playing back on a ruined tape. He produced a saw almost his own height and held it out in front of himself, letting it linger above the box, which contained his lovely assistant. His smile was broken as his lips begin to move, his speech coming at a slow, deliberate pace.
"You'll like thisnot a lot"
He touched the saw to the box and with a bone chilling shriek the box, and Debbie within it, slowly faded from existence.
All of a sudden the room was changed. The glow was gone, replaced by faded moonlight pouring in from ceiling-high windows. The furniture remained but now covered with a thick layer of dust, draped with white, flowing cobwebs. All gold and silver turned to rust and ruin.
But there he still stood. Barely four foot high, in his dinner jacket and with the wry smile back on his wrinkled, elfin face. Now in his hands he held a top hat, the opening facing up at him. He turned in the other way and tapped it to show there was nothing inside.
"Nothing" said Jackson, feeling suddenly overcome.
"Nothing" repeated Paul.
Daniels held the hat up so that the darkness inside could be seen, darker than any shadow within the house.
"You'll like this" uttered Paul.
"not a lot.." Jackson said, slowly, coldly, dropping the dead torch with a heavy thud to the old carpeted floor.
"not a lot.."
He began to step forwards towards the magician, staring deep into the blackness inside the hat. The shadow inside seemed to stretch out to meet him, beckoning him to become one with it. To disappear. To be nothing but a small footnote in the long history of this ghostly place. To become nothing. To be where there is nothing.
There is nothing.
There is nothing.
There isnot a lot
HalloweeeeEEEEEEEEUUUURRRRGGHHnnn