The door groaned as it creaked open, dragging splinters across the warped floorboards. Dust curled in the air like cigarette smoke—thick, acrid, and oddly sweet. Marla stepped inside first, her flashlight slicing through the gloom with a narrow, trembling beam. Behind her, Theo and Kay hovered just outside the threshold, hesitating. Whether it was morbid curiosity or something less willing to let them leave, they crossed into the darkness together.
Inside, the manor felt alive.
Not in the metaphorical, haunted-house sense they'd nervously joked about during the drive over, but in a visceral, skin-prickling way. The air pulsed softly, as though the walls exhaled when they entered. Floorboards creaked not under their feet but ahead of them, as if the house was anticipating their steps. It was colder inside than it had any right to be, even for late October.
"Jesus," Kay whispered, rubbing her arms. "Feels like we walked into a freezer."
"A freezer with lungs," Theo muttered.
A sudden crackle split the silence. Somewhere deeper in the house, a radio buzzed to life. The static fizzed, crawling under their skin like ants.
"Why did the ghost stay at the party?" a voice asked, tinny and far away.
A pause.
Then, laughter—canned and hollow, the kind piped into sitcoms long after the joke's gone stale.
None of them responded. The punchline never came. The static swallowed the rest.
They inched forward down the central hall. Their footsteps echoed oddly, like the sound was looping back on them. The carpet underfoot, once likely plush and regal, was now moth-eaten and streaked with mold. Every few feet, posters curled from the walls, their edges browned with time: EDEN GRAY: KILLING IT NIGHTLY! The woman in them grinned too wide, her teeth too white, her eyes shining with a manic energy that felt preserved, not captured.
"It's like this place hasn't aged," Kay muttered, brushing a hand along the wall. "Frozen in her prime."
"Or her decline," Theo said. "Depends on when she died."
They rounded a corner. The radio crackled again.
"For the boos," the voice finished.
All three froze. The delayed punchline slithered into the air like it had never left.
The silence that followed pressed against them, heavy and expectant, as though the house was waiting for them to laugh.
None of them did.
Upstairs, something thudded. Heavy. Deliberate.
Kay jumped. "What was that?"
"Rats," Marla said, but her voice was tight, uncertain. "Just… keep moving."
They explored the house in wary silence. It was a time capsule—mid-century glamour rotted into grotesquerie. Velvet armchairs eaten through. A grand piano drowned in cobwebs. A bar cart sagged under the weight of dusty bottles, their labels smeared beyond recognition. Mirrors adorned nearly every wall, but none reflected quite right. Faces stretched too long. Smiles hung a beat too late.
Theo was the one who found the locked door.
It sat at the end of a side hallway where the light grew thin. The wallpaper had peeled in long curls, revealing plaster veined with water damage. The doorknob, once brass, was tarnished black with age. Above it, a smear of faded lipstick had once spelled something out. Most of it had been scrubbed away, but remnants clung to the wood.
THE FINAL SET.
"What the hell…" Theo breathed, reaching toward it.
Marla pulled him back. "It's locked."
"Yeah, but look—the hinges are rusted. I think I can force it."
"Maybe we shouldn't," Kay said. "If someone tried to keep this room shut—"
"It's Eden Gray's manor," Theo snapped. "No one's lived here since she died. Don't you want to know what she was hiding?"
The question silenced them.
Theo shouldered the door. Once. Twice. On the third slam, the lock cracked like a bone. The door groaned open.
A wall of cold air hit them, so sharp and sudden that Marla staggered. It smelled like mold soaked in formaldehyde—chemical and rotting, as though someone had tried to preserve something far past saving.
Inside, a single spotlight blinked to life with a soft click.
The beam illuminated a narrow stage set against the back wall. The floor, black and polished, reflected their faces—distorted and wrong, eyes hollowed, mouths stretched.
Eden Gray sat center stage on a tall stool.
Her legs were crossed. One hand clutched a broken microphone, the other rested limply in her lap. Her skin was pale, waxen, lips painted a blood red that matched the posters. Her smile was too wide, too forced. Her head tilted slightly to one side, as if listening.
Her eyes were open.
Kay gasped. "She's—she's dead."
"No shit," Theo whispered. "But she's not… decayed. That's not possible."
There was no refrigeration. No preservation tools. No signs of embalming. Yet Eden looked almost fresh—like she'd just delivered a punchline and was waiting for applause.
The microphone sparked, a flicker of blue and red.
The PA system buzzed to life.
"A good audience is hard to kill," Eden's voice echoed. It wasn't a recording—not exactly. It carried weight, presence. As if she was still here, somewhere deeper.
The radio downstairs crackled again.
"Why did Eden Gray walk into the dark?"
They said nothing.
Her grin seemed to stretch.
"To bring the house down," Theo whispered.
The lights dimmed.
A blood-red glow filled the room, seeping through cracks in the floor. The spotlight on Eden sputtered, then steadied again. The mic hummed low, an electrical thrum that crawled up their spines.
"She's performing," Marla said. "Still. Even now."
"Or something's making her perform," Kay whispered. "Like she can't stop."
Behind them, the door slammed shut.
Theo turned. Yanked at the knob. Locked.
"We need to leave," Kay said, panic rising.
But the room disagreed.
Speakers in the ceiling clicked. Laughter spilled out—wild, warped, hysterical. It echoed with no source, doubling in pitch and speed, until it was a screech. Kay clapped her hands over her ears and screamed.
The lights pulsed with the rhythm. Theo stumbled toward the stage. Eden's body didn't move—but her fingers tightened on the mic.
Marla rushed forward. "We have to shut it off!"
She reached for the microphone—but the second her fingers touched Eden's cold hand, the laughter stopped.
The lights died.
Darkness swallowed them.
Then—
A spotlight snapped on.
But it wasn't Eden under its beam.
It was Theo.
Alone.
The stool was gone. The corpse gone. Just Theo, standing center stage, his mouth open, breath hitching.
"Oh god," he whispered. "I didn't move—how did I get up here?"
From the shadows, the radio's voice returned.
"Ladies and gentlemen… give it up for our next guest—"
Theo's eyes darted around the room, wide and panicked. He was trembling. But somehow—he knew the line. It was in him, buried deep.
"My name's Theo," he said softly. "And I—I killed Eden Gray."