Reason I put up Fiction and Yet Non-Fiction because A. the main characters are not real and 2. The people and the setting are true places...hence why I put that down. I am planning on using this for the future or put this as an extra chapter for a book I am planning to write. Please Enjoy~
After a long car trip from the San Francisco international airport, we had decided to go stay in San Jose for a few days. After a few days, we would go off and attend that fishing trip located in Lake Tahoe. I could only imagine the excitement we all held at that point about the trip, but we also knew we could try to appreciate what San Jose had to offer. So we had decided to go to that famous tourist attraction that was pretty popular nationwide. Sitting in an hotel, me and my friend Benji had sat on the bed looking through some magazines of popular tourist attraction while our guardian Blake was flipping through channels at the TV, with channels provided by the simple commercialized hotel.
“The Winchester House?”
“Yeah. It is supposed to be somewhat historical…yet spooky at the same time.” Benji chuckled, stroking back his short-spiked blonde hair. “So maybe we should go there!”
“You’re shittin’ me, right?” A well-built man with his straightened jet-black hair we call Blake glared at us with his golden eyes. “It’s just an attraction. It is nothing but some weird-looking mansion that everyone gawks at and wastes their money on.” Blake then waited for Benji to retort but instead he smiled:
“Ya’know. I also heard it was haunted, so maybe we can find a ghost while we take a tour.” Now it was Blake’s turn to debunk:
“Get real Arschloch*. Ghosts are just a figment of people’s imagination.” He then brushes some of the long fringes back so his eyes can scan the hotel room we were staying at. Our hotel room had two queen beds with a couch that acted as another bed. Along with that was a nice 29” TV, a wooden beige table which Blake sat at during the conversation, and also a moderate-sized bathroom painted white, unlike the room which was red and tan colored.
During their argument, I had decided to butt in. “But it will be cool to see a ghost.”
That was when Blake lost it: “Not you too Hidey?! Great…just ******** great.” He growled, showing his frustrated state. Benji turned to us and decreed his bet: “Whoever wins gets free ice cream!”
“You’re kidding’ right?” Blake raised an eyebrow, wondering if Benji was just joking.
“Not at all Blakey, Blake!” He chimed, a little crooked smile on his face: “Do you want me to make a bet on which one gets a free hooker or ******** no.” Blake grunted at him: “I rather pay for the ice cream. But I am saying there are no ghosts.” He then stood up and pressed on individual numbers to call the place. “Fine…Whatever. We can go there and ask if there are tickets available for tomorrow.”
Just as Blake was making the call, I could only stare at Benji as he peered through the window. He soon turned to me, adjusting his dark blue jacket trying to get it to a certain position with his brown cardigan shorts. His blue eyes start to stare back at me: “Isn’t it cool?! We can finally check the place out!!”
Sometimes I assumed Benji had ADHD, or somehow his body stocked up with energy like a bear after hibernation. Then I pivoted toward Blake again to see that he had a scowl on his face…still not pleased with what he was doing.
“So how much do they need for tickets?” Blake grumbled at us, giving us an ‘I hate this s**t’ kind of attitude. Benji responded, undeterred by his annoyance: “Well since we are all older than 13, each of us cost around 33 bucks. So that means we’re going to spend a good 100 dollars for this tour.”
<********’ Shitz.” Blake cursed, responding to the teenager’s predicament about the cost. “If it was this expensive, we would be at the movies.” He complained slightly.
“Well too bad Blakey!” Benji laughed heartedly: “We won! So we’re going on this tour!” We let Blake deal with the whole ‘ticket’ situation while the two of us just stayed and chatted on the couch. It also gave me plenty of opportunity to ask him a few questions: “So…why is this Winchester House so famous?”
“Well-” His hands go down to his pants pocket to reach out a piece of thin paper that had tiny texts on it. “The four story home with 160 rooms and 47 chimneys was built by the heiress of the Winchester rifle, Sarah Winchester. Apparently she built this home non-stop so the curse that was placed in her by ghosts would be broken.”
He then contemplated the picture of the mansion that was on the thin paper “38 years the poor builders have worked, non-stop with no holiday breaks. It wasn’t until she died in September 1922 that they could finally go home and rest up. There was also another-”
“Thank you very much.” Blake slammed the phone down and took a sigh as he then glared at us. “Tomorrow night we can get inside. 7:30 sharp, so we can hang out and do whatever you guys want until that time comes up.”
Both I and Benji were elated. We could not even go to sleep that night as we were thinking of the time we would have at the haunted mansion.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
We chose to visit the house on a holiday that made the place seem even spookier. Noises of witchery laughter made the night, with its black screen depicting blood on one of the windows. Finally, I thought, we could get a taste of the unfinished piece of architecture. The Gothic Victorian building was lying in the middle of the city, already feeling out of place besides the whole structure of the deformed bricks it was seen as.
We had got out of the parking lot and followed a cement sidewalk to access the botanic garden with a beautiful, silver water fountain in the middle. A structure of an angel was in the center of the fountain, in a position to where he was pouring limitless supplies of water in a small circular pond. We were lead by walls of vine to arrive in what might be the backyard of the house, seeing it was set up for two events: one, for the tour of the mansion, and the other for the ‘Scary Hike’ which used probably 2/3 of the whole 160 acres of land.
Arriving at the place at 7:30, we were lead inside a thin hallway that had a picture of an old lady; dressed in 1910 clothing sitting on a huge dark carriage pulled by a man and his horse. If I weren’t so focused on the strange lavender smell around me then I would be able to appreciate the picture.
I must have made a pretty funny face because Benji tapped me on the shoulder.
“What?”
I acknowledged my friend’s concern so I answered back: “I smell something strange...like it is perfume…maybe Lavender if I am correct. And I have no idea why.” I said in a hushed voice.
Benji, although wanting to believe it was a ghost decided it was best to be logical: “Someone in the group probably has perfume. We can check it out but they don’t want young adult perverts sniffing out every person.” Even though he told me what could be a possible reason, it didn’t make sense to me why I could smell it after 15 minutes of being in the room.
“Alright everybody listen up!” I heard a female voice echo on the hall, which happened to be the one that would lead us through the house. “Please squeeze to the back of the hall-” She continued to order us as if we were children on the playground.
That was when Benji did his ventriloquism tricks: “And touch yourself lovingly.” He mimicked her voice so perfectly that the group ogled at her, dumbfounded, and it wasn’t making the girl feel any more comfortable but we cackled like hyenas in spite. Blake soon realizes what we did and slams his fist on our heads. “You all are Ficken-Gesichter!** ********!” He hissed, keeping it low so no one can hear. “Sowwie.” Benji apologized, but was still in the middle of his laughter which didn’t convince Blake that it was meaningful.
So when everything got out of its awkward state she was able to show us the door in which probably is shorter than my height of 5”11. “-and since Sarah Winchester barely reached 5 foot, she would be able to get through this door right here.” She continued on, showing off some of the facts that were uninteresting. So when the tour finally began, the three of us could hear the music of the organ piano from outside. “What the hell? They play music here.”
“It’s from outside.” Blake poked Benji on the forehead, “So calm down already. And like I said: no such thing as ghosts.”
“We’ll see about that!” Benji hollered which got the group to shush him. He rubbed his neck out of embarrassment before continuing on.
We had to go through tiny little steps which didn’t even feel like steps at all…in fact we didn’t really lift our foot up. So during our ‘travel’ through the strange staircases, I heard an “Ow” coming from Blake. I rotated my body notice he had hit his head on a high beam. “You ok Blake?”
“Yeah I’m alright. It’s the con of being at least 6 foot.” He grumbled, but trudged on forward.
During the journey up the steps, the tour guide told us these steps were purposely made because Sarah had arthritis on her knees, thus making it hard for her to climb normal steps. I shrugged it off, just wanting to hear facts that are worthwhile.
I did, however, learn a few cool things from this tour. My favorite happened to be that at 12:00 and 2:00 am, a bell tower [which used to stand until a big earthquake in 1906] would ring to signify the beginning and end of Sarah’s session with the ghosts. I thought that would be pretty cool, but I could imagine a neighbor holler out a bunch of complaints about her abruption when people are asleep. But of course, I don’t know what it was like in the 1900’s, so I can’t say for sure. So we pursued along with the tour, to finally reach a blue bedroom with an antique-looking double queen-size bed, followed by a Redwood cabinet and fireplace. The carpet down below was grey-ish and it looked very fluffy, which I had to stop myself from diving onto it.
“Alright this is one of the bedrooms that Sarah Winchester used to sleep. And as you know, she had never stayed in one place. She would always move from one bedroom to another so she could confuse bad spirits. And for the ghostly part of the tour, there have been a few experiences. Some people say they have seen orbs of light floating on the bed and float down onto the fireplace only to disappear.” She then coughs a little, probably to get ready for another speech which was ignored by me and Blake. Blake obviously was not interested in the ghost story so he had decided to look on the different wallpapers on the walls. I then decided to meet him: “You’re that skeptic?”
“Well no durr. I will only believe in what I see.” He uttered under his breath, focused on the wallpaper. “And besides, from what I keep hearing: ghosts cannot harm anyone.”
“Except poltergeists, and demons…oh! And vampires.” I listed off a few different types of ghosts which did not soften the man’s face. But at a turning point, we catch sight of our group heading off so we followed behind. But that was when Blake stopped mid-step; it was as if he caught sight of something peculiar. I detected where he was staring at and suddenly realize that the bed was now ruffled up and untidy, as if someone went under the covers. “Did…did they mess with the bed while we were talking?” Blake spoke aloud, finding it hard to believe that someone touched the ‘bed’. I could only shrug: “Maybe. Who knows? The girl could have showed them the expensive sheets or something.” With that, Blake stopped looking horrified and lets out a smug, leaving me to mumble ‘p***y’ at his direction before pursuing him down the hall.
But I think we had turned to the wrong direction because now we were the only ones in the hall. Blake screams out of nowhere: “s**t! Where they go?!” He panicked, knowing that the girl warned them that if they got lost, they might not be found. “We just stood there for 5 frickin’ seconds!”
“They probably took a sharp turn!” I tried to console him, but he was already in a state of panic thus it won’t be easy. A heavy breath escaped my lips, as my eyes were now trying to adjust to the darkness. We were so used to the lighting of our ‘provided’ flashlights that it took a bit of time before we could move along.
After maybe 30 minutes of walking through the house, we then finally found the stairs. Blake was the first one up there only to yell out ‘********’ after a big boom. “Blake!” I cried out, seeing he had fallen backwards on his butt, rubbing his head. “What the-?! What is up with this s**t?!” He shouted, leaving me to wonder what was wrong. So I slowly went over to apprehend that the stairs…only ended at a ceiling; meaning it led to nowhere. “Well...It was to confuse the ghosts.”
“Ghosts or no ghosts, we’re still lost!”
He mounted himself up to pat down his jeans before crossing his arms: “So now we need to figure out how to get out of here, might as well just get to safety. But wandering around this place is only going to make us even more lost.” He then turned to me and blinked: “Maybe…we can retrace our steps so we can go back to that hallway.”
“You forgot did you? We went through a room which does not allow us to get back to the entrance of our tour.”
He muttered a ‘s**t’ after my logic. “So now, what do we do?” As if in perfect sync, footsteps were heard from behind me. And the lavender perfume smell consumed my nose again, making me gag. Blake cautiously eyed my way to notice a flicker of light growing bigger and bigger. I immediately got to him and inspected that flicker as well. Is it a candle? I thought as the light was now starting to get closer, showing us the person holding it.
An older woman, probably around her 70’s wore a blue lace dress with a drawstring neckline and a trumpet-shaped sleeve. Her face was covered in wrinkles, showing that she was very old. I took note that she was a very short lady…probably not even 5 foot yet. Her kind brown eyes stares at Blake, which helped calm him down a little bit. She then spoke: “Oh my! You seem lost.”
“Yes Ma’am we are.” He now was talking formally, which sometimes ticked me off after his curse words. “We lost our group during the tour; I think we mingled around the room for too long.”
The older woman nodded at the conflict we were now having. “Well shucks now. You two youngsters better follow me then, I know the way out.” She then gave us a warm smile, which for reasons unknown…gave me goose bumps on my arms making the hair stand up. “We really appreciate it.” Blake thanked her in such relief that it seemed like the weight on his shoulders drifted away. So now the older woman started to walk in front of us, holding onto that candle to guide her through. Her dress was dragging on the floor, making no sound when it shifted. “Well now, may I know your names?”
“Oh yes. My name is Blake Wulfram. And this is Hidehara Wolff. We were here with another person, Benji Aileron. I think he’s still with us, and hopefully he won’t panic that we got lost unexpectedly.”
“Well it’s a good thing I was walking by when I saw you. I heard a noise so I investigated. This happens sometimes, people always get lost in this mansion. Luckily I have been here for 38 years to know this place in the back of my head.” She sang softly, a little happy in a way. “We are very lucky.” Blake responded, not finding this suspicious like I was at that moment.
So following the woman around, I suddenly make out from the corner of my eye a shadow walk right past us in a different hallway. I immediately stopped and turned to that hallway to try and find that person. But no one was there…and that scared me. “Hide! Don’t fool around!” Blake scolded me, wanting me to return back to him and the old woman. So I rebounded to them, to continue our journey out of this freaky home.
“Alright now-” The woman stopped mid-track as she then pointed with her wrinkled hand to the left. “-Go through that door and keep going straight until you see an open door. That will be the dining room, and it will lead you to the exit.”
“Thank you so much!” Blake was elastic, and so was I as we said our byes and heeded her directions to end up where we wanted to be: outside and at the entrance to the tour. We then could see the group that we are familiar with, a little panicky and worried. Then we could hear Benji call our names: “BLAKE! HIDEY!” He ran toward us in such a way that would remind us all of a fear-driven mother. “Where have you guys been?! The people were looking for you all over the mansion!”
“Well…” Blake then told him the story of their journey through the creepy house, and how we were found by an older woman who wore an old dress, probably to mimic Sarah Winchester, as she got us to the exit and to safety. Benji exhaled in relief: “Whew! Thank god someone was in that house. You would’ve never gotten out of there alive.”
“Don’t even talk like that.” Blake warned him, as it was almost like a curse for the future. “But I will say my thanks to her, so let’s find the tour guide and let them know we got out.” Blake casually sauntered over to the tour guide and told her they were alright: “And tell that actress of yours that we thank her for getting us out.”
Silence emitted in the air. “What actress?”
“Huh?” Blake now was curious why the girl turned pale. “There was an older woman who got us out of there. She even wore a blue dress that came out of the 1900’s.” Those words made the girl eye him in pure trepidation: “We…don’t hire actors in the tour.” She then commenced her body language to show that of terror. I decided I should intervene: “Are you ok?” I ask out of concern, not realizing that Blake was trying to reason what had happened:
“Older woman…had a blue dress on…she held a candle…she even said she was here for 38 years-”
“Did you say 38 years?!” Benji interrupted him. “That was how long Sarah Winchester lived at that house! And she always held onto a candle at nighttime to get to the séance room!” With that, the color of Blake’s face drained until nothing was left.
“So…the bed being out of order…and the woman…”
“And that shadow I have seen…” I proceeded along with him in figuring it all out.
Synchronizing with each other, we both started to fade into our fears. Benji soon figured out why we acted the way we did, and had a grin planted on his face: “Guess who won?! I DID! Now c’mon Blakey! I am in a mood for chocolate!”
Immediately, Blake snapped:“IC WERDE DICH TOTEN! DU WICHSER!”*** He wailed as he now started to hunt Benji with such a demonic face that even I did not want to barge in. During their crazy s**t, I turned to the mansion wondering who that old lady was. Was she a servant? Ms. Winchester? Will I ever figure out the answer?
Oh well, time to get some ice cream.
