Pitter-patter, pitter-patter, pitter-patter, went their feet while huff-puff, huff-puff, huff-puff went their breaths. The coffee shop waitress, Peggy and the Inspector’s assistant, Roy ran with all their might while at their heels rolled a giant, perfectly round boulder, rumbling loudly as it mercilessly chased them.
“Just where in the world did that thing come from!?” screamed Roy.
“I don’t know!” screamed Peggy. “But less talking, more running!”
They tried taking turns left and right, hoping the thing would roll past them. But those hopes were dashed and whatever turn the pair made, the boulder made with them.
“It’s still chasing us! It’s still chasing us!” screamed Roy.
“I can see that!” Peggy snapped.
Ah, no good, she thought. Her lungs burned, her sides were painfully splitting, and her heart felt like it was going to implode at any moment. The back of her shirt was drenched in sweat and stuck to her skin, but that was the least of her concerns.
“Can’t you do something about it?” Roy asked.
“Me?” yelled Peggy. “I’m just a waitress! What do you expect me to do about huge, blasted boulder?”
“Aren’t you the Trickster’s apprentice?” shouted Roy. “Didn’t he teach you anything?”
“I’m not anyone’s apprentice!” Peggy shouted back. Technically, George was helping her study, but there’s no way she was going to admit to someone she just met that she was being tutored by an elementary schooler half her age. “All Boss did was give me an old notebook with tips on beginner level magic!”
“So you’re just a normal civilian?” Roy cried out.
He looked way more surprised than he should be, Peggy thought.
“What else would a waitress earning minimum wage be?” Peggy snapped. “Ack!”
Upkeep of the dungeon was poor, so plenty of the stone blocks that made up the floor had come loose and popped up. The tip of Peggy’s shoe happened to hit against one such block and it made her trip and fall.
Roy stopped and turned around. When he saw Peggy lying on the ground, he swore.
Peggy scrambled to get back up, but when she happened to look back, her vision was overtaken by the view of dark rock.
As the boulder approached, Roy suddenly leaped into Peggy’s view. His right hand was covered in thick metal plating and his fingers were balled into a fist. Warm light shined from the metal glove and blanketed the hall, as if his hand had become the sun itself.
With a mighty roar, Roy threw his fist and punched the boulder. He mustered all his magic power and strength into that punch. Even if that wasn’t enough to destroy the boulder, surely it could at least stop the accursed thing in its tracks. That was Roy’s thought.
His fist hit the boulder and then –
POP! SPLASH!
The boulder exploded into water that splashed onto Roy and Peggy.
**********
Meanwhile, back on the ground floor of the house, Boss the coffee shop owner, the Inspector, and the knights were dealing with problems of their own.
After failing to find the trigger that opened the pitfall trap that Peggy and Roy dropped in, Boss hurried deeper into the house and up a flight of stairs that led to the second floor. The Inspector and the knights followed close behind, asking the Boss where he was going and what he was planning to do.
“I remember Uncle Theo mentioned he had a dungeon last time I was here,” the vampire explained. “Since the basement is not nearly as deep as that hole, I’m guessing that’s where Peggy and Roy must have fallen to. We can get to the dungeon through the secret passageway in the master bedroom.”
As he spoke, a slight creek noise reached his triangle ears and he immediately threw himself onto the railing and tightly latched on.
“Grab on, quick!” he shouted to the others.
But it was too late. In a snap, the stairway became a slide and everyone else went tumbling back down. Avalonia and Bob, who remained at the back of the group, were the first to reach the floor.
Splat!
The carpet below had become a giant glue trap and the two knights became stuck. Percival and the Inspector were luckier. They managed to avoid getting stuck in the trap by landing right on top of Avalonia and Bob.
“Oof! Sorry about that, Bob,” said Percival.
“That’s okay, sir,” Bob responded. “Thanks to my armor, I didn’t feel a thing. But it looks like I can’t move.”
“Me either,” said Avalonia.
All around them came the sound of children laughing.
“Blast this house,” Percival swore angrily. “It’s as if it is making a mockery of us! No, it really is! To think it could take down two knights just like that. I’ve really underestimated the dangers here. But do not worry, Avalonia, Bob! You will be avenged!”
“Uh . . . We’re not dead,” Avalonia pointed out. But Percival ignored her.
“Come, Inspector,” he said while helping her to her feet. “Let us be off! After the Trickster! We will have him in shackles!”
Boss, who had shimmied up the railing to the second floor, looked down and scowled. He could hear everything being said downstairs.
“Why?” he shouted down in dismay. “I didn’t even do anything!”
“Sorry! Force of habit!” Percival said.
After Boss pulled Percival and the Inspector up using a rope he pulled out of his sleeve, the three of them continued down the hall to the master bedroom. But along the way, a big cylinder-shaped stone dropped from the ceiling. Boss jumped aside, pulling the Inspector with him, to against the wall, but Percival stood his ground. In the blink of an eye, he drew out his sword and with a mighty roar, cut down the stone. The stone split open and hundreds of tiny white feathers flew out, many of them stuck to Percival’s armor, making the knight look like a giant chicken. It turned out, the “stone” was actually a giant pillow.
That was not all. When they passed by a mirror, a pale lady’s face appeared, twisted into a weird shape and let out a horribly loud shriek. It startled the Inspector to “Eek!” And she jumped back to where about a bucket’s worth of water fell onto her head, drenching her from top to bottom.
All throughout their troubles, children’s laughter echoed from all over.
Despite these setbacks, the Boss, the Inspector, and the knight reached the master bedroom in almost no time at all. But wise to the house’s tricks now, they approached the door cautiously with Boss in the front. He was forced into the front by the other two who thought it was unfair that he hadn’t been hit by a trap yet.
Slowly, Boss reached for the long door handle. After gingerly wrapping his fingers around it, crouched down and twisted his hand clockwise. He opened the door a crack and then – BOOM!
White flour exploded out of the room. Boss dove away just in time, but Percival and the Inspector weren’t so lucky. It was impossible to see what face Percival made beneath his helmet, but Inspector’s right eye twitched a lot. And Boss could feel the both of them just glowering at him.
He ignored their angry stares and started running his fingers down the left-side frame of the doorway. The former Trickster did the same to the right side, and then looked up at the ceiling, before crouching down on the floor.
“What are you doing?” Inspector asked him.
“I’m looking for the trigger that sprung the trap,” Boss said. But he found nothing, and muttered, “I knew it.”
“Knew what?” asked Percival. “Did you figure something out, Trickster?”
Boss straightened up and replied, “Yeah. I figured out the truth about this house. And that is . . .”
**********
Splish-splash, splish-splash, splish-splash went Roy’s feet as he trudged alongside Peggy. He was sopping wet after punching a boulder that turned out to be a water balloon in disguise. Peggy was shielded from the water by an invisible wall that was created by the magical cape she had borrowed from Boss.
All around them, creepy invisible children giggled. They stopped when Roy hammered his fist against the wall and snapped, “It’s not funny!”
Anyone could see he was understandably grumpy. And then he fell into a sneezing fit.
Feeling a little sorry for Roy, Peggy offered her handkerchief to him.
"Here," she said. "It's not much, but you should dry yourself up before you catch a cold."
"Thanks," Roy replied.
He gratefully took the handkerchief from Peggy's hand, but just before he was about to wipe the water out of his hair, he noticed something and froze.
"Peggy, you're bleeding!" he exclaimed.
"Huh?" Peggy looked at her hand and saw her palm had torn skin. "Oh, I must have scraped it when I tripped earlier."
"Forget about me, I think you need this handkerchief more than me," said Roy. “Although it’d to get that scrape cleaned up or it’ll get infected.”
"It's fine, it's fine," Peggy said. She was old enough not to let a few scrapes bother her. "Besides, I think you have it way worse. This place is really chilly. You'll definitely get sick if you don't dry up."
“But!” Roy was going to protest some more when, suddenly, he felt something soft and warm fall onto his head and block his face. He pulled the thing off his head and looked at it. “What’s this?” he said. “A towel?”
In his hand was big, baby blue bath towel.
“Well, that’s random,” he said. “Where’d it – gah!”
Roy looked up to see where the towel had fallen from, when lots more suddenly fell on his head. Lots and lots, and lots more. Enough towels fell on top of him to bury him in a small mountain of warm, soft fabric that reached all the way up to the ceiling.
“Roy! Are you okay?” asked Peggy.
She went over to pull the Inspector’s assistant out from the towel pile, but stopped when she felt a tug on her sleeve. The young waitress turned around to see what had snagged onto her shirt and yelped out in fright when she saw a pair of disembodied hands floating in front of her.
Peggy leaped back, but then paused when she saw what one of the hands was holding. It was a white box with a big, red plus sign on it.
“Is that a first aid kit?”
As if to answer her, one floating hand gave a thumb up before taking one of her own scraped up ones. Peggy watched as one floating hand dabbed a cotton ball soaked in medicine on top of her scrape, wiping away the blood while disinfecting the cuts at the same time.
“Ow!”
It stung, of course, making Peggy wince. But she quickly got used to it and began to think.
After thinking back to everything that happened so far, she came to the conclusion that the house must have a mind of its own. That was the only explanation she could think of. It wasn’t so strange. After all, didn’t the town’s admin tower also have a mind of its own? The tower even straight up talked to her.
And remember what Boss said about his uncle? Before he was a Baron, Theo Bellbrook was a horror fanatic and a crackpot inventor with lots of free time and money to make whatever he wanted. And a doctor who was also kind.
While looking at her hand which was now expertly bandaged up, Peggy muttered, “Could it be?”
When she looked up, the hands had disappeared.
“Peggy!”
Suddenly, a familiar voice called out to her. Peggy looked up and was relieved to see Boss rushing over to her, followed by Percival and the Inspector. For some reason, the two of them were covered in flour.
“Are you okay?” Boss asked. And then he saw the bandage on her hands. “What happened to your hands?”
“I’m fine,” Peggy said. “I only tripped and got a few scrapes. Some ghost hands came and gave me first aid.”
“Where’s Roy?” asked the Inspector. She looked around, but didn’t see him until he called out.
“Over here!” he said. He was halfway out of the bottom of the towel mountain and waved his hand left and right over his head. “Someone mind giving me a hand here?”
“I got you,” Boss volunteered.
He walked over to the towel mountain, lent Roy a helping hand and pulled the young Inspector’s assistant free. No longer was Roy drenched in water. The towels had drained all the water off his person, leaving him warm, dry, and also freshly clean.
“Thanks,” Roy said.
“You’re welcome,” Boss said back. And then he said, “Is there something on my face?”
Roy was staring at Boss, and Boss took notice.
“Huh? Oh! Sorry! I-it’s nothing,” Roy stammered. And then he looked up and his eyes became as wide as china plates. “Behind you! Look!”
Everyone turned around to look at what he was pointing at and saw a legion of deformed baby dolls marching towards them. Some were covered in mold. Some had eyes missing. A few was missing an arm or a leg. And a couple had too many arms and legs. They were followed by a squadron of skeletons bearing rusted spears and swords. And right at the skeletons’ heels were transparent, glowing blue ghost children. Balls of blue fire flew over the army of horrors as glowing white hands sprouted from the walls.
Roy quickly pushed his way between the gang and the army. There was a flash of light and metal covered his hands.
“Peggy, Inspector, stay behind me!” he said. “Sir Percival, on your command. Huh? Hey, Peggy! What are you doing?”
Peggy gave Boss a quick glance, got a knowing glance back from him, and then boldly walked past Roy, getting between him and the army of horrors. Ignoring Roy’s calls to get back behind him, she lifted her eyes to the ceiling and said, “Haven’t you had enough, Uncle Theo?”
The horror army stopped just a few inches away from her. There was a short moment of silence, and then laughter broke out. It wasn’t the laughter of children, but the laughter of a single old man.
“Clever girl,” the old man’s voice echoed throughout the dungeon halls. “I was wondering if any of you would catch on.”
“For the record,” Boss spoke up, “I figured it out before we got inside the dungeon.”
“Huh?” Roy looked right and left, flabbergasted and confused. “What? What’s she talking about? Uncle Theo? As in Theodore Bellbrooks, the Baron? But isn’t he dead? Can someone please tell me what’s going on?”
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