Inside the house had absolutely no light except for what little spilled in from the front doorway. From what little Peggy could see, the carpet was red, there were a few cabinets made of dark wood that was carved in a fancy way. The walls were lined with paintings of various people, probably the last owners of the house from different times, who all wore sour frowns, as if they were angry at Peggy and the gang for intruding in their space. Some of those paintings had white cobwebs strewn over them.
Basically, the inside of the house was as dark and gloomy as outside, matching the setting for any classic ghost story. Just all that alone was enough to give Peggy the shivers beneath her borrowed cape. But that was not all the house had going for it, unfortunately.
Percival let out a low whistle.
“You weren’t kidding when you said Bellbrook was a horror fanatic,” he said. “Just look at all these creepy statues lined up between the paintings. There’s snarling gargoyles, faceless phantoms, skeletons . . . And I think one of them’s a monster from that really famous scary story. I can see why you didn’t like this place, Trickster.”
Peggy took one look at the nearest statue and quickly turned her gaze to her feet. Those statues were so hideous that if they were ever used in a movie, that movie would be rated R. Just one glance at them was going to give Peggy nightmares.
“You haven’t seen anything yet,” Boss grumbled forebodingly.
Before anyone could ask what he meant by that –
SLAM!
The doors swung shut, hard, behind them, making a loud noise that made Peggy jump out of her skin with a high, “Eek!”
Everyone was plunged into sudden, pitch-black darkness.
“I can’t see!” cried out an unfamiliar voice. It was that of a clear, young man’s, so Peggy guessed it belonged to the Inspector’s assistant.
“Everyone, don’t move!” Boss’ voice pierced through the darkness. “Stay where you are! This place is rigged with booby-traps! Don’t do or touch anything!”
There was a bang and the young man cried, “Ow!”
“Roy!” shouted the Inspector. “Didn’t you hear the Trickster? Stop moving!”
“Avalonia! Bob! Lights!” barked Percival.
“Yes, sir!” the two knights shouted.
That was a good idea, thought Peggy.
Wanting to be extra helpful, she decided to bring out her own light. She held up her right hand, palm up, and whispered magic words under her breath. It took her a week to master the spell, and it still embarrassed her to remember it involved being tutored by a ten-year-old kid.
Just as she had wished it, a small ball of light appeared floating over the palm of her hand. It was a bright, vivid pink glow that looked almost like a glass ornament. The ball of light would have been really pretty to look at, if not for the ugly bat creature with bloody fangs hovering over it.
“AAAAAAAAH!”
The monster was, of course, fake. But it was realistic enough that it gave Peggy a severe fright. She screamed her head off, jumped back, and bumped into the Inspector’s assistant.
“Whoa!” the young man cried out.
He stumbled and took three steps back. On the last step, there was a loud click noise.
“That . . . doesn’t sound good,” said Peggy.
It definitely wasn’t a sign of anything good. The floor beneath her feet suddenly disappeared in a loud snap and she, and the young man, both plunged into the darkness below.
“Peggy! No!” Boss reached out to catch her, but it was already too late. The trapdoor closed over Peggy and the young man, taking away any chance for the vampire to save them.
“Blast!” Boss swore.
He dropped on all fours and started crawling all over the floor.
Puzzled, the Inspector asked, “What are you doing, Trickster?”
“What’s it look like to you? I’m trying to find the switch to the trap door, of course!” replied the coffee shop owner. “What about you? What are you all doing just standing there? Shouldn’t you be helping me? Peggy aside, one of your own’s down there too, you know.”
“Although just an assistant, Roy is still an Inspector,” the Inspector said. “He is trained to handle danger.”
“Besides,” said Percival, “no matter what you say about him, Baron Bellbrooks was a doctor. Whatever he did to the house can’t be that bad.”
**********
“This is bad,” Peggy said as she stared ahead at the pale human arms popping out of the walls, balls of white-blue fire drifting back and forth, and the lone little girl in red overalls standing in the middle of the hallway with a big smile on her face. The girl was see-through and had no eyes.
After falling through a trap door, Peggy and the Inspector’s assistant landed on a slippery slide that took them further down, down, down into the darkness. It curved up, and then down. Peggy and the Inspector’s assistant went through three loop-de-loops before finally dropping down through a hole at the end. The hole opened up into a large hallway and (thankfully) over a big, old mattress. When the pair dropped onto the mattress, a huge cloud of dust puffed out and sent the two into a coughing and sneezing fit.
It took a while for the dust to clear from their eyes, noses and throats. But when things finally settled down, Peggy sat up and looked to see what could be the Land of the Dead stretching out ahead of her.
“This better not really be the Land of the Dead,” Peggy muttered.
In her mind, she knew that it was all fake, but that fact didn’t make it any less terrifying. Boss’ Uncle Theo should’ve become a crafter instead of a doctor. He certainly had the talent for the job despite being a crackpot amateur.
With a groan, the Inspector’s assistant climbed off the mattress.
“Are you okay?” he asked Peggy. “Can you stand?”
“Uh, yeah,” said Peggy. When the young man reached out his hand, she took it and got up. “Sorry, but what’s your name again?”
“It’s Roy,” said the young man. “And your name’s Peggy, right?”
“Yeah,” said Peggy. “Where are we?”
“Well, if I had to guess, I’d say we’re in some kind of underground dungeon,” Roy said. “A really deep, underground dungeon, going off how long our slide ride was.”
He looked up at the ceiling and swore. The opening that he and Peggy dropped through was no longer there.
“Well, looks like we’re going to have to find another way out,” he said.
“Hold up,” said Peggy. “You want us to look for another way out through all of that?”
She gestured down the hall.
Roy looked and then asked, “Through all of what? There’s nothing there.”
“Huh?”
Peggy turned to look, but all those hands, the ghost balls, and the creepy, eye-less, transparent girl were all gone. Before her was just a big, empty hallway. The only light came from the small pink ball floating by Peggy’s head, which had fallen through the trap door with her.
She rubbed her eyes a bit and looked again, but the hall was still empty. “Where’d all the horror stuff go?”
Roy looked at her funny and said, “Are you really okay, Miss Peggy?”
“Yes,” Peggy replied. “I’m not crazy.”
“I never said you were,” Roy said.
But he was clearly thinking it, Peggy thought.
Seeing she would only be digging herself into a deeper hole if she said anything more, she decided to just drop the subject and move on.
“A-anyway,” she stammered, “you’re saying we should try to get out, right? But is that really a good idea? Wouldn’t it be better to just stay put and wait for the others to come find us, instead?”
“But who knows how long that’ll take?” Roy said. “I think it’ll be better if we try to get out of here ourselves as soon as we can. But if you want, you can stay here and rest while I go find help.”
And leave me here alone? No thanks!
Of course, Peggy couldn’t just say that, not to someone who was clearly younger than her. But nor was it appealing to her to stay here in the dark, creepy hallway with who-knows-what lurking in the shadows.
“You know what? Never mind,” she said. “I’ll go with you. I’m older than you, so I can’t just sit around twiddling my thumbs while you do everything on your own.”
“Okay?” Roy looked puzzled, but didn’t say anything more.
And so, Peggy and Roy started exploring the underground dungeon.
They were quick to discover that it was like a maze with many twists and turns. Sometimes, they’d run into a dead end, in which case they turned around and then went another way. They walked for a long time, but didn’t run into anything or anyone. This was a good thing, because Peggy wasn’t sure what she could do if those ghost things showed up. But that also came with its own problem.
Ugh, so awkward! Peggy thought. They’ve been walking for a while now in total silence, total AWKWARD silence, and Peggy couldn’t stand it anymore. I have to say something. But what?
Truth be told, Peggy was never much of a talker. Even when she was a kid, she was considered the quietest of the bunch. Of course, that pleased the adults to no end. But it can be a bit inconvenient when you don't really have anything to say.
Oh, I got something! Peggy thought.
"Say, Roy?" she spoke up. "I never really got to ask, but what does an Inspector really do?"
"Huh? You don't know?" Roy said. "I suppose we sort of rushed into here, but I figured you'd have been told about the job before signing up."
"Yeah, sorry," Peggy said. "Things were a bit hectic on my end too, so I never got the chance to learn the details."
"Well, an Inspector's job is basically just to inspect things," Roy said. "We look at stuff and if we think it's dangerous, we take it away."
"So you go to every dead person's house to make sure their stuff is safe before giving it back to the family?" Peggy asked.
"Not every house," Roy said. "Just anyone's you'd think would have something dangerous, like say a crackpot inventor. The Inspector and the knights sing praises to Baron Bellbrooks, but of course they know how he liked to make crazy things. They just don't say anything because, well, Baron Bellbrooks was still a Baron. It'd make the royalty and knights look bad if the people who work for them start badmouthing a noble, even if it's just the Trickster with them."
"Yeah, about that," said Peggy, "why do you guys keep calling the Boss, Trickster?"
Roy blinked and looked at Peggy, astonished. "You don't know? That vampire used to be one of the biggest troublemakers the kingdom had ever seen!"
"What? Boss, a troublemaker?" Peggy looked at Roy doubtfully.
"It's true!" the young man insisted. "Just ask anyone and they'll tell you how he used to break into nobles' houses twice a month and take their most precious treasures only to return them the next morning, acting out the romantic thief."
"Uh-huh, sure he did," Peggy said.
Roy scowled. He could tell right off the bat that Peggy didn't believe a word he said.
"He really did do those things!" he said. "Always, always making a big show of things. He's had the knights running around in circles and turned them into a laughingstock! That troublemaker even kidnapped a Count's daughter one time right under their noses, which gave the Knight Order the biggest headache of their lives!"
“Right, and then he took that Count’s daughter on a magical date around town,” Peggy said. She was being sarcastic, and still wasn’t convinced Roy was telling the truth.
But then again, she paused to think, Boss was pretty good at sneaking into places. She remembered how he expertly broke into all those houses on Christmas night to deliver presents for Santa Claus. He was in and out like a ghost.
“By the way,” Peggy said, “do you hear that?”
For a little while now, she’s been hearing a low rumbling coming from behind.
Roy paused to listen.
“Yeah,” he said. “What is that?”
“I don’t know,” said Peggy, “but it sounds like something really, really, REALLY heavy rolling through the halls.”
Huh? Wait a minute . . . A dungeon . . . Something really heavy rolling through the halls . . . Why does that sound so familiar? Peggy crossed her arms and wondered.
She froze and went, “Ah.”
As the rumbling got louder and louder, her face turned paler and paler.
“Roy?”
Roy stopped and looked back. “Yes, Peggy?”
“Run.”
“Why?” Roy asked.
“Because of THAT!”
Peggy pointed down the hall where coming to crush them was a giant, round boulder.
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