Candle in the Attic Window(5)

The figure revealed is tall and thin, wearing a yellow cloak. Something radiates out from its head, like a halo in an old painting, like a child’s drawing of the sun. Where its face should be is a pallid mask.

A voice from behind the camera says a word that sounds like “prince”, and then another voice, very clearly, whispers, “No.” That second voice is so close and clear that it must be the cameraman, or someone just over the cameraman’s shoulder.

No one else speaks as the figure raises its bony hand to its face and begins to peel back the mask.

Static.




The camera containing this video footage was found in the front drive of Arnold Zenda’s mansion on May 14, 2009. Nothing was left of the house itself but a smoldering ruin. No one from the documentary crew was ever heard from again.

Investigators were unable to determine the source of the blaze, and nothing that could be positively identified as human remains was found in the ashes of the house.

The film has been edited to include excerpts from interviews that were shot separately and that, we believe, give context to certain events contained herein, but none of the original footage has been modified or excised in any way.






Orrin Grey was born on the night before Halloween, and he’s been in love with monsters and the macabre ever since. Never Bet the Devil & Other Warnings, his first collection of supernatural stories, is coming soon from Evileye Books. You can find him online at http://www.orringrey.com.





Housebound





By Don D’Ammassa





I believe that ten days have now passed since I became trapped in my own house, but it might be as few as eight or as many as eleven. I am uncertain because there are periods during which none of the rooms I enter have outside windows and all the clocks have disappeared. I sleep when I’m weary, without knowing if it is day or night, perhaps in a bed, perhaps in a chair. The rooms are not always recognizable. I chanced to enter my study the other day, but it wasn’t my study, not exactly, although it had some of my things in it.

I found this spiral notebook today, so I have decided to keep a record of my experiences, before I completely lose the gift of language. Where to start is a problem. Perhaps with my name, while I still remember it. I was christened ‘Arthur Wade Wellstone’. I attended an assortment of colleges, my curricula designed by my father to prepare me to succeed him at the helm of Wellstone, Inc. It is entirely possible that I loved my parents, but during these past few days, my memories of them have faded. I remember remembering them, but I can no longer actually visualize what they looked like.

The first time I noticed a change in the house was on the second anniversary of their death, which may or may not be coincidental.

I had just returned from a two-week business trip to Europe. I’d been away from the house before, but this was the first prolonged trip since I’d moved back home. I was tired and irritable and somewhat preoccupied when I arrived. Jonas let me in and offered his services, but I dismissed him rather brusquely, intending to go directly to bed. I had chosen not to move to the master bedroom and my feet knew the way to my own quarters so well that there was no need for me to think about where I was going.

Not, that is, until I realized that I didn’t know where I was.

My house is very large. There are a total of 20 rooms arranged on two levels, with the servants’ quarters in a separate building. There were perhaps twelve rooms that I used regularly, but the rest – guest bedrooms, my father’s office and others – were locked up. My first reaction was to assume that I’d made a wrong turn.

It would have been a reasonable explanation, except that none of the rooms had a red door, as did this one. It was locked, or perhaps the door was just stuck in the jamb. In any case, my impulse to look inside came to nothing.

I turned back the way I had come, or, at least, the way I thought I had come. Nothing looked familiar here, either, and it seemed to take much longer than usual to reach the staircase. I was halfway down, intending to interrogate Jonas about the altered door, but decided to wait until morning. This time, I arrived in my room without incident.

The following morning, I went looking for the red door but without success. I concluded that either I’d been so fatigued that my senses had played tricks on me, or that I’d dreamed the entire incident.

For the next several days, I was unusually busy. Situations change rapidly within such a diversified entity as Wellstone, Inc. My father had been an excellent negotiator and had impressed on me the importance of personally involving myself with every aspect of the company’s operation. There were dossiers in my office containing the personnel files on all of my key people, as well as expensive-but-occasionally-revealing reports prepared by a private investigator.

During this time, I experienced brief periods of disorientation, both at home and elsewhere, which I attributed to fatigue. Father had always been impatient and irritable when I failed to match his seemingly limitless energy and I could almost feel his disapproval of my weakness. These episodes always passed quickly and I simply told myself that I needed to make time for a brief vacation.

The accident at the Verona plant came at the worst possible time. News of the explosion dominated CNN. The horrible loss of life and associated bad publicity were particularly humiliating because this scenario had been raised by one of my subordinates. The plant was situated in a densely populated residential area, maximizing the potential loss of life in the event of a catastrophic failure.