Sarah stopped at the Hill House gate. It was open as if someone had dashed out without bothering to secure the bolt.
Her hand touched the metal, the black paint flaking, chipped away by weather and age.
Just like Hill House’s residents.
And in that moment, she wondered …
Should she wait for Jack? Bound to be here soon.
But no. If Val was inside, best to confront him as soon as possible. Who knew what thoughts could be going on in his head?
Now that he might suspect that the truth was known.
She pushed the creaky gate open wider, as more drops of rain started falling.
She pulled up the cowl of the matching cape for her Halloween costume, and raced to the front door of the red stone mansion.
In the south, she saw a flash of lightning — the autumn storm building in intensity; building in threat.
She grabbed the doorknob, and entered the house.
*
But once inside, she heard nothing. Alyssia — apparently away, dealing with the legal fallout from Basil’s death. Duncan, Karina — also vanished.
Leaving — supposedly — only Val, the houseguest.
But where was he? The house — which, when people walked through it, could creak like a living organism, almost wheezing with the footsteps — was tonight deathly quiet.
Funny, she immediately thought. Why did I think deathly quiet?
And, as she moved past the empty sitting room, down the hallway, past the staircase, she came to the locked door that led down to Basil’s own personal house of horrors.
His crypt with mementoes from his great films.
Except now …
That door was open.
Within, she could see the wall lights, flickering as before. Was that flickering on purpose? A little “twist” that Basil liked?
As if, at any moment, the lights could go out.
Again, another hesitation.
Jack will be here soon.
She could just stop. Stand here. Wait.
But that idea — just standing here — seemed no less … disconcerting than pressing on.
Talking to Val, even suspecting what she did, would be better than the sepulchral quiet of the house.
She went to the door of the crypt.
Pulled it open wider, revealing the stone steps leading down ahead. Lights on.
She took a breath as she pushed the cowl off her head.
Not the Halloween night she had planned. No flutes of bubbly and dancing.
Instead, this.
She took a tentative step down.
*
At the bottom of the stairs, a booming crash.
But not from in here. A massive thunderclap from outside, the storm moving closer to an unsuspecting Cherringham.
At first, all she saw were the props from Basil’s films.
Scary enough … with her being alone, no group of people or a single malt to fortify herself.
But then a footstep. From over by the electrical device that once held the ingénue who would become Basil’s wife.
Another step, and emerging from the shadows, she saw Val.
And the single word he said … chilling.
“Well …”
*
Normally, Sarah would wait.
Get whoever she wanted to question to start talking, perhaps tripping over their words, their story … as they realised that they were under suspicion.
Guilt could be so powerful that way.
But down here, the smell so dank, the lighting doing little to dispel the shadows, she felt the need to push at Val.
Her words coming fast.
“I-I saw the movie.”
“Hmm?”
“The Mummy’s Return. Just like all your other pranks, the ones you helped with—”
“Ah. So you know about all that, do you? The noose, the fabled bathtub of blood …?”
“But there was one little trick that we didn’t see, wasn’t there? Taken right from the film. All that careful research they did, back then. So accurate. So clever.”
Val’s voice shifted. It went from smooth aplomb, to suddenly a having a bite.
“You don’t know … anything.”
For a second Sarah froze. She resisted the temptation to look back at the stairs as another thunderclap boomed overhead, as if the storm was now hanging over Hill House itself.
“The scene in the movie … in a house not unlike this. Your character drinks his whisky. But in the film, Basil’s character had added something.”
She waited. Val said nothing.
“That poison he put in … undetectable, especially since its effects duplicated a heart attack. And poor Basil — everyone knowing about his heart. Who’d question that it would just give up?”
And at that, Val turned to the device behind him with its wires and straps, crowned by what looked like massive electrical transformers.
The scientific claptrap from another era.
She heard a “click”.
And the device came to life, sparks jumping from electrode to electrode. Other rippling waves of bright electricity nearly blinding, racing up exposed metal.
It was supposed to be non-functional.
That’s what Basil had said.
But here it was, terrifying, alive.
And when Val turned back to her, it was as if he had become a completely different person.
And with that, Sarah felt only one thing — pure, chilling fear.
*
“It was on here, that we both saw her, the beauty Alyssia. Strapped to these wires. So young, so beautiful.”
He took a step away from the machine, towards her. And Sarah took a step to the side.
“We both desired her. Who wouldn’t desire such a treasure? But—”
Another burst of thunder, and Sarah thought … in another few moments she would have to scream.
Even though there was no one to hear.
“But I fell ill. Ha! Fell ill? Makes it sound like an accident, doesn’t it? Fell ill. But that was no accident. Basil knew what he was doing. I disappeared. And he claimed her. He won that prize — just as he won every prize since!”
Another step. She realised that Val — moving closer, forcing her to move back — was lost to the past.
To his hate for Basil.
To his desire for Alyssia.
But his steps had Sarah edging closer to the snapping, crackling electrical monstrosity; Val growing more agitated with every moment.
“You know nothing. You are nothing.”
Val turned to the machine as if he just had an idea.
The device looked deadly.
Val raised his hand.
Which is when Sarah heard the door from above burst noisily open.
Then steps. Flickering lights at the back. Shadows, light and darkness. Someone bolting down to the crypt.
She didn’t have to look to know …
Jack.
But when she turned back to the now-twisted actor, lost to his passion, lost to his hate, lost to his memories, she realised that’s not what Val saw.
*
Jack stopped at the bottom of the stairs.
He saw the machine. Lights fizzing, bare wires. Not good. And Sarah so close. A misstep, and she would have her back against it.
Jack raised his hands. And his cape flew up in the air with the move, the flickering lights behind him.
He could see Val, Sarah, the device … but he, in his costume, was a mere outline.
He was about to shout at Val, order him to freeze.
But he didn’t have to do that.
*
Sarah heard Val, now distracted, yell at Jack.
Yell at the vampire …
“What? You? You’re dead. You’re … dead!”
And for a moment she didn’t know what he was talking about.
But then she realised … Jack in the vampire costume, the cape.
Val losing it … the past alive in this room.
It’s Basil.
Back from the dead.
“Y-you can’t be here!”
“Because you poisoned him?” Sarah said, talking over the loud snaps and pops of the crackling device. “The same poison used in the film? Only this time for real …”
And Val looked left and right, a caged animal.
Jack was blocking the way to the stairs. Val stumbled to the side, looking for anything that he might grab for support, his breathing ragged, panting steadily.
He stumbled into the sarcophagus case: the lid flipped open and the mummy rose as if eager to clutch the crazed actor.
Sarah moved quickly away from the electrical machine.
The mummy rising, hand outstretched, made Val recoil, his body stumbling backwards, this time into the sputtering crossbeams, alive with electricity.
Did it shock him? Would he, in this tortured state, even notice if it did?
The crossbeams rocked back when his body hit them, and then collapsed, smashing down onto the stone floor, spitting sparks everywhere.
We’d better get out of here, Sarah thought. This whole place could go up in flames.
All that dry wood upstairs.
Jack had come to her.
“We gotta go …” he said. “Need to get him to come as well.”
But seeing the two vampires together, Sarah in her costume, Jack in his, sent Val flying back again, reeling, scrambling to stand. Reality and imagination now one.
Heading towards the guillotine …
Tilting back into it. The apparatus shaking, wobbly, and the blade itself vibrating.
She saw Jack race to him, vampire now turned rugby player, crashing into Val, sending him flying to the ground just as the blade did indeed spring free, and come crashing down.
Val shook — his eyes wide as Jack helped him to his feet.
And as Jack led him, stumbling, dazed, up the stairs, Sarah following, she thought: Even at the end of this mystery, life — and death — in Hill House continues to mirror art.