The Haunted House

April 14th, 2023 - 8:20PM

On Carrie’s way to the library, she thought about how Vivienne had said there was a cat wandering around. About how it had possibly been through the vents… she glanced up above her, envisioning the tight, tinny tunnels laced with thick, dusty cobwebs and infinite insect corpses. She imagined something slinking around in them and shuddered. She laced her arms around her laptop, clutching the thing to her chest in a comforting hug, and hurrying along.

While she’d been in her room grabbing her sleek, thin laptop, she changed into what she would consider to be casual loungewear. Not something to be seen wearing outside the home, nor before 8PM. A silky set in a pale pink color, the top tucked stylishly into the waistband of the bottoms so as to not lose her figure in the loose clothing. The brand tag sewn into the back of the bottoms spoke of a price that wouldn’t seem casual or lounge-y to most folks.

She arrived through the stained glass doors of the library and immediately her eyes lifted to the glass domed ceiling. The stars stared back at her from beyond it.

Vivienne had peeked into her room quickly. Thankfully she had found nothing amiss and her... project, was coming along well. Satisfied, she then retrieved her camera and stand and headed off toward the library at a brisk trot. She had gone up to the loft pretty much as soon as she got there and set up the camera, pointing down, on the big old desk. She was about to re-open drawers and check if the objects of interest were still hidden within like she hoped when she heard footsteps coming in.

Carrie-Mae sees Vivienne's head pop out from over the loft's railing. "Up here," Vivienne says, beckoning, "There are some nice chairs near this big old desk. Also, it's where the business-related items should be." She pulls back from the rail and disappears from view. While the HR rep makes her way up, Vivienne opens the drawer with the mysterious tin and the middle drawer where the string of deeds had been. With any luck they would still be there, and she wouldn't have to tell Sebastian "I told you so" about the paperwork going missing.

Carrie Mae chirped a pleasant, “coming!” as she ascended the steep stairs to the library loft. She immediately made herself cozy after pulling an armchair up to the grand desk, placing her laptop on the desk before curling both legs up in the chair. She flicked open her laptop and her speedy, manicured figures got to work opening to her virtual notebook. Her screen saver had stylized strawberries on a pale blue backdrop, and her virtual notebook was organized by files, chapters, dates and A-Z depending on the topic.

The drawers, graciously, still contained its prior contents with no meddling.

“Okay, some ‘To-Dos’,” Carrie narrated, “you mentioned the issue with access to the ventilation, that’ll definitely be needing to be looked at. The idea of something crawling around in there gives me the heebie-jeebies, even if it is only a cat. What else ya go for me?”

She leaned back in her plush seat, looking more like a girl ready for gossip at a sleepover than anything much else.

Vivienne sits on the other side of the desk, one foot on the ground with the other leg crossed over the straighter thigh. For what she's about to reveal, she's pretty relaxed.

"I'm not the biggest fan of random open vents, either, yeah," Vivienne notes, "And guests probably won't like the idea of losing things down them. More business related, 'Bastian and I briefly stopped in the basement so I could set up some air quality devices, and there was... nobody else there, and there hadn't been for a bit. No smell of sawdust, but pretty fresh and dry looking lumber along with other signs that things should have been happening today. I'm not sure what the schedule was, but something struck us as odd about what had and hadn't been done recently. And then, there's these little treasures we stumbled on up here..."

She gingerly lifts the odd-smelling metal box by its corners and places it on the desk, still closed for now, along with the pipe. Then, she pulls out the deeds and lays them out like a spread of cards on the desk. She also picks up the old letter opener as a handy pointing tool. "The key to the desk was in an unlocked drawer with these," she says, pointing at the tin and pipe, then flicks the tin open with the letter opener's blade. "I don't actually know what this stuff... is, but I do not like the look of it and seeing it made my guide look like he was having flashbacks. That can probably just be disposed of, whatever it is, but the bigger deal is that the key, found easily with only mild poking around, gave access to these," the blade tip swirls above the deeds, "which... I'm pretty sure I shouldn't be able to touch these this easily. I kept the key on me after, so they were at least somewhat safer, but these should really be in a vault somewhere or something."

"Like I said, nothing related to my specific role exactly, but it all seemed like important enough business to talk with you about it privately, and as soon as possible. It feels like there are a lot of old bits of trouble floating around this place."

Carrie’s fingers were about to take diligent notes as Vivienne spoke, but they hesitated. A peculiar frown knitted her light eyebrows. “Nobody down there…?” She repeated softly, more of awe than clarification. Her fingers darted and pulled up a calendar on her screen, the Wednesday square two days prior had marked the arrival of Maine’s Main Construction, Inc. @ 7:30AM. “hmm… maybe Daniel had them postpone the foundation repairs to focus on something more pressing and he forgot to tell me,” Carrie Mae fruitlessly justified, because making excuses and pleasantries was in her DNA.

“I will absolutely ask him as soon as we’re done here,” she murmured, moving back to her notes and typing, ’Foundation work/basement repairs?’

Her blue eyes were swept to the discovered treasures that Vivienne displayed and adamantly gestured to with the letter opener. She wrinkled her nose when the sour scent of the tin box wafted her way, and she nodded eagerly at the idea of disposing of it. She didn’t much care for what it was, if it smelled that way. She stretched forward, reaching for the woven trash basket beside the desk and motioning for Vivienne to scoot the tin into it using her tool. Then, she tossed the thing back down and replaced the attached woven lid over the basket and sat back in her seat.

Carrie leaned into the desk to examine the deeds next, her gaze alighting with intense interest. “Oh!” She gasped lightly when she realized what they were, immediately running her fingers over the text as she read them, each page more aged in her hand than the last as she traveled back in time. “Yeesh, so many estate PRs and power-of-attorney signatures…” So many owners had been unable to sign their own deeds to pass the property on. She wondered if Daniel had seen these. She thought he must’ve, but couldn’t believe he’d leave them here. If she knew Daniel, he’d want to hoard these treasures.

“Do ya have the key still?” She asked politely, and held out an open palm. “You’re right, we are trying to cleanup the trouble, we definitely don’t want these bits and bobs floating around.” A soft sigh escaped her and she crumbled back against the chair once again. “Well, ya didn’t find any blood drippin’ from the walls, did you?” Carrie joked weakly.

"And signs that they should have been but hadn't," she says in agreement, "Could have been some other priority or complication, but it felt... off somehow. I figured it would be worth checking in if anyone else knew, and either it would be resolved or passed up the chain." And passed up the chain looks like this evening's answer, she thinks to herself as something between a smirk and a grimace comes to her face, Yeah, not suspicious and weird at all. Carrie's rationalizations sure were appealing right now, though. Vivienne didn't particularly want to try fathoming the complexities of the corporate-side impacts of anything unusual.

Vivienne is tentative about just... tossing the box in the trash. Hazardous waste was always more complicated to dispose of, and she had a feeling that whatever was in there was more than just dust and decay. "I, uh, just because I don't know what it is, I'd kinda like to make sure it's destroyed fully or disposed of properly. With that pipe I'm assuming it's some kind of drug or other recreational substance, and probably expired by a couple of decades at least. Do you have hazardous waste containers for, like, caustic deep cleaning supplies or whatever? Might be best to toss it in there." If pushed or promised it would be handled properly, she will reluctantly sweep it in, but will otherwise leave it where it is to stow in the lockable drawer once they're done here.

"Quite the collection, yeah," she notes about the deeds, "I hadn't read them too much when we first found them, but it's definitely interesting. Especially since the current one is here too, see? He has to have seen these, or at least the last one. It's weird that they stayed in the house and wound up here, honestly, and weren't spirited away to a bank or something the moment the transfer was signed. Or at least, it is to me. Oh, there's a small hidden compartment with an antique looking hand-drawn map of the property, too. I'd like to get a few pictures of it for my own reference while on the hunt for anything out of the ordinary, but it seems like the kind of thing to have preserved and put on display somewhere in the house for future guests to look at, too."

She passes over the key with a nod when prompted. "A lot of this job is being good at spotting normal problems in weird contexts, so I'll let you know if I find anything else like this, stuff where it shouldn't be or weird stuff that's been left behind or whatever." She can't help but laugh at the blood in the walls joke, and answers, "Thankfully no. Fun fact, though, that's usually either because of humidity letting the paint separate, or a leak causing water damage which is either rusting metal or letting certain kinds of algae grow. If you see it happen, call the workmen before you page me." She pauses before adding, "Unless it starts forming into words or inverted pentacles or something. If it does that then... then come straight to me."

“I don’t… have one on me,” she said, in regards to a hazardous waste container. “And I ain’t just touchin’ on the thing. I can take the basket out with me to be disposed of properly once we’re finished here.” Carrie offered amicably, suddenly wondering what was done with the blood stained table-ware from earlier. Her cheeks were rosy and her limbs were light and fuzzy, her last glass of wine settingly in. She remembered the woman with the wide, side-eye stare from dinner, carrying off the tarnished wads of cloth napkins into the back.

Carrie caught the gifted key and swept it to her chest, dropping it to the warm crevasse between her breasts. Her eyes were on the deeds again as she spoke.

“You’re right, it feels incredibly improper for these things to be out here… Daniel isn’t an improper man though, he must’ve gotten distracted and forgot to come back to take care of these. It’s unlike him.” She murmured, a soft frown settling on her brows once again. She gently brushed the papers together, gathering them and quickly tapping them into alignment. It felt incredibly… dirty… to be holding these, like she was possessing someone else’s diary or a note only meant for eyes.

“Lets see the map!” Carrie insisted, shedding the soft frown for manufactured jubilance. She watched with intent interest as Vivienne extracted the thing from the compartment in the open drawer. It made her shiver. She tried not to think of what other hidden things in this place were waiting to be found.

“It’s, um,” she fumbled, looking at the hand drawn map. “Kind of creepy…” Such tiny, complex detail. It had taken special dedication. She didn’t really want to lay her fingers on it, for fear of being stricken with whatever manic madness had plagued it's artist. The thousands and thousands of tiny trees surrounding the depicted manor made her feel very small herself, and very isolated.

“It’s pretty easy to get caught up in the stories of this place, after the sun goes down…” Carrie admitted sheepishly, blue eyes glancing at Vivienne.

Well, as long as someone was getting that stuff somewhere to dispose of it.... "Sure, works for me," Vivienne shrugs, "Also, that reminds me, I should be keeping gloves on me. Usually I only end up needing them in more commercial buildings, but there's enough stuff here that a layer of nitrile would be good to have available."

"Could have been that he had something come up and left them here, could have been someone from a legal or finance that was handling them who slipped, could have been that he'd stashed them here before workers got here and never really got around to coming back, could have been a lot of things," she agrees, "Glad I could help, whatever caused this."

She extracts and unfolds the map onto the desk with care and focus, making sure not to stress the paper, and turns on her camera as Carrie Mae takes a look at the meticulous sketches. "There are some interesting symbols that I want to check the locations on. Whatever was there might be long gone, and I'm not going to try to do an archeological dig or anything, but it seems like my line of work," she comments cheerfully, "Those x's, too. Burial sites? Natural hazards? Planned spots for work of some sort? It's exciting and, more importantly, potentially informative." Once the map is free to handle, she moves it under the camera and starts fiddling with the stand and focus, catching segments of the map in data to minimize how much she needs to handle the thing later and with the hope of stitching it together into a composite picture if possible.

"Heh, the quieter it gets the more you hear," she chuckles at Carrie's admission of rumor-filled thoughts, "I always find these kinds of rumors and stories interesting, day or night. Any mysterious occurrence or weird event is a puzzle to solve, an interesting data set to analyze and test. Anyway, any stories coming to mind now? Anything weird that you've run into? I'm gonna be here for a bit grabbing images of this map and a couple of other things, so it's a good time for it."

“For the love of god, please no burial sites,” Carrie Mae groaned, re-examining the eerie map with that notion in mind. She crossed her arms over herself, nestling backwards into the chair, her button nose wrinkled with discontent.

Then, a look of illumination brightened her face, sparked by Vivienne’s question. She leaned back towards the desk, fingering through the deeds once again.

“Actually, I heard about one of the last guys to live in this place. He was from a very wealthy family, so his name was redacted from all public records, I couldn’t find it anywhere.” She stopped at the deed done before Daniel’s. “Jacob Bellvue,” Carrie read aloud. Forbidden knowledge… It both thrilled and disturbed her.

“I heard he was committed to the psych ward after they got him out of here, and he was under investigation for the suspicious disappearance of his girlfriend for months, but they couldn’t prove anything. I couldn’t find any articles about her ever being found again,” she retracted her fingers from the papers. Her thoughts drifted back to those Xs on the map, and burial sites. Then, she glanced over her shoulder, out the domed window around them. Past the glasswork, to the forest beyond. “Honestly, I didn’t have the stomach to read too much else of what they said online.” Carrie forced her eyes back onto Vivienne, unnerved by the darkness outside.

"Good news is that it could be a lot of things, bad news is that's one of them," Vivienne sighs, eyes on the camera's viewfinder, "I'll find out tomorrow, if I can." She hits the shutter and there's a synthesized click as the camera grabs its image. She zooms in on the capture, checking that details were captured properly as the conversation continues.

Vivenne had read some about that story, but hadn't found resources going all that in depth. "Yeah, I noticed that no names were ever given on that one when I was doing my research. Definitely a weird one, but not the weirdest somehow. Hopefully I'll find some local environmental factors that add up to explain something and the company can figure out solutions to stop any other stays here from ending badly."

"If I didn't have stuff to do tomorrow I'd want to take a walk in the woods. Seems like a nice night," she comments as she moves the map, putting a section of said woods in the viewfinder, "When you've been to enough unsettling places, and especially once you understand them, the strange sounds of wind and creatures moving around in the dark start to be familiar and welcoming. I don't mind a comfy bed either, though. Should be a nice night."

“I was really torn on how much readin’ into the lore I wanted to do,” Carrie admitted. “I like those monster movie horror ficks an’ such, ya know, but I don’t really like the real stuff all that much. Too gritty,” her nose wrinkled and she looked like she got a chill. Yet at the same time when she looked at Vivienne, Carrie had an impish gleam to her eyes.

“I got’a admit though, finally settling in here… it’s sort of thrillin’. I mean, sort of like Halloween night, something about the expectation of mystery and ghouls; it does somethin’ to people.” Carrie, out in the real world beyond this property, wouldn’t admit in social situations that she had a fascination with the macabre and hollywood horror. It wasn’t proper. Here, it felt more okay to be less proper.

“How about, weather pendin’ the day after, I’ll join you for a little hike around. I haven’t left the lot here yet, not beyond the garden. I don’t want you goin’ out and about in those trees by yourself anyway, in fact I insist you don’t.”

Vivienne smiles as she says, "Possibly surprisingly, I'm not the biggest fan of most of either. Horror movies care more about triggering feelings than about making sense, most of the time, and I tend to find most true crime stories to be presented as overly-gritty and dramatic shock fuel." The camera makes its shutter sound again. "I just like to pull information out of it to try to understand what's going on. Well written horror literature is good, though. Some games, too. And the first couple Alien movies were a good time, even if the biology wouldn't really work, probably" The map gets gently shuffled to another position, and she starts checking the view and position again.

That was certainly true. The sense of anticipation in the house was downright palpable, even if she isn't convinced it's all coming from its new occupants. Her brow furrows slightly as she peers into the viewfinder. "Yeah... hopefully it doesn't make too much of a self fulfilling prophecy though, right? I think that's at least half the reason I'm here, if people can know that there's nothing to be afraid of, they won't be in a state where they're likely to make mistakes..." She glares at the camera before muttering, "And this antique won't focus on these trees right... is it because they ink is smudged or...?"

She lets herself be distracted for a moment, getting her eyes off the slight disruption to her work as Carrie-Mae suggests a hike in the woods. It gets a brief, fiery glance before Vivienne's expression settles. "Normally the suggestion that I can't handle myself by myself would bug me, but it's a big property which I don't know my way around yet, and I'll be looking for the locations of the strange map markers I don't know the meaning of. Probably for the best that I don't go alone, yeah."

Except that it's for the worse. Being alone would be more efficient, easier, and safer for me, but they can't know that, now can they? Just act like a normal, sane person who takes reasonable precautions, V...

After a few seconds of disguising her frustration as being toward her camera she asks, "Have you ever been hunting? I don't know why, but it doesn't feel like it would be surprising if said you had."

“I could understand where if you’re doin’ somethin’ for work every day, you probably don’t want t’come home and watch a hollywood rendition of it,” Carrie considered aloud. “I’m sure sometimes it could feel like a mockery.” She hadn’t thought of it before.

While Vivienne fiddled with her camera, the mention of its inability to focus went over Carrie’s head as a mundane everyday comment. Sometimes lenses wouldn’t focus, ya know… she lifted a hand to twirl a loose strand of hair, pondering on if she should pour herself a last night cap.

“Oh, I didn’t mean any offense,” Carrie’s eyes widened a stretch and gave the notion she was being genuine. “I’ll be honest, the company is more for me than concern that you can’t handle yourself out there. I haven’t gotten the chance to make-friendly with too many of the folks stayin’ here and helpin’ with the project yet... I’m afraid I’ll get cabin fever or somethin’.” Also, from a public relations standpoint, the corporation wouldn’t want any new stories of lone gals gettin’ lost in the woods out there to surface.

The question about hunting caught Carrie by surprise, it showed in the way her pale eyebrows lifted and she blinked a few times.

“I used to hunt during the summers when I’d go visit my grandparents in the country. It’s been at least ten years though.” Without being aware that she was doing it, she rubbed her thumb and index finger together, reminiscing on the explosive sensation of pulling a trigger. “My dad didn’t really care for that being a hobby I kept up,” she explained with a shrug. She hadn’t dwelled on the memory of summers in the country in a long time.

"Reverse for me, actually," Vivienne corrects with a sneaky smile, "Seeing it done wrong annoyed me enough to make me want to do it right." She then laughs sheepishly and adds, "Actually I guess that's true about almost everything I do. But you are right on the fact that I cannot stand media throwing around incorrect technical jargon."

Vivienne again looks more sheepish than she tends to be. Of course it wasn't a concern about danger. The woman is the social type, wanting to meet with people and chat and the like.
And showing some reasonable self-preservation instinct might be a good move, anyway. There's no reason I'd be able to handle much more than anyone else, right V? Right.
"Ah yeah, I get that, at least kinda. I tend to need to get out into the woods, too. Staying inside for too long makes me get a little work-obsessed. So sure, feel free to come with. Especially if you don't mind being an extra set of hands."
And extra set of hands I wouldn't need if you weren't there... how the hell do you turn someone down politely?

She shushes her thoughts as she tries to work on making this focus work properly, until that particular question slithers its way to the front of her mind. Finally, a bit of social intuition paying off.

"Ha haaa, thought so," she exclaims quietly, "I don't know why, but I felt like you might have. Kindred spirits, maybe, I'unno. My partner and I like to. Mostly snares, some larger game. I'm more enthusiastic about it than he is. Another one of my friends..." the shutter sound makes its click and Vivienne's jaw tightens for a moment at the oddly imperfect image, "is actually into falconry, believe it or not. She's got this gorgeous bird...." A yawn takes her, interrupting her idle chatter.

For an instant the yawn looks inhuman, bestial, but only for an instant. Maybe it's the way her teeth flashed or the talk of hunting, but surely it's nothing more...

"Right, late," she sighs, "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good, finish up, get to bed, talk more about hunting on our walk tomorrow. If that works for you. We can talk about other things, too, obviously. Same intuition as before, I get the feeling we're both pretty well read, though maybe in different ways."

If nothing else comes up, she'll finish up getting her initial snap-shots of the map and head off to her room. After all, this isn't her last bit of business for the night...

Carrie watched Vivienne as she chatted and maneuvered her camera, attentively and without judgment. Only admiring what was there, like someone would with a trickling waterfall or a particularly lovely starry sky. Carrie loved watching people act in their element, it was a beautiful thing.

Her heart skipped and she dropped her eyes immediately to her open laptop screen. Her mind replayed the image she’d thought she’d seen. Vivienne’s jaws had stretched what seemed to be a little… too wide. What time was it anyway? It must be getting late and she was exhausted, maybe she’d had too much to drink.

“Oh, that’s perfect! Remind me to ask about that falconry, that’s got to be an interesting endeavor.” Carrie was eternally grateful for the out Vivenne provided. “Thanks, for letting me tag along tomorrow. I’ll cya then, sleep tight!” She swiftly stood from the chair and gathered her laptop.

A trickling waterfall, a starry sky... fresh snow, a sword on display in a museum, or a perfectly-captured picture of lightning almost feel more apt somehow.

....It really must be getting late, between those analogies and that strange impression of her yawn.

"Sounds good to me. I'll see you then," she answers, giving a small wave as Carrie leaves. Once she's alone again... at least of normal company, she gets back into progress on the images of the map, now just shooting for Good Enough in terms of detail. It wouldn't be a perfect composite edited image of the thing, but it would be enough to navigate. Once she's done, she caaarefully folds the thing back up... and considers it. Carrie has the key to the drawer now, and she'd really like to protect the map if she can.

She tears a page out of her notebook and scrawls:

It gets tucked into the compartment the map was stashed in before she closes up it and the drawer. She takes down her camera and stand, gently sandwiches the map between the camera and her notebook, and heads back to her room...