Aberdeer Mansion, Maine (mission)

A secluded mansion situated in the beautiful Maine wilderness. It is on the outskirts of Crocker Mountain, nestled between a cluster of pine trees. At least three floors were visible from the outside of the gated estate. While still in good conditions, obvious signs of wear can be noticed, such as the chipping paint or cracked windows. If you weren't aware of the property beforehand, it's likely you'd never even know it was there.

Unsurprisingly, numerous stories of hauntings have popped up over the years. Insane fathers chopping up their families with axes, vengeful spirits of former owners killing everyone inside, portals to hell, Satanic rituals - all the usual. The fact of the matter was, however, that a family did once own the house; the Aberdeers. They were small, comprised of only a father, mother, young daughter, and a few house staff to tend the grounds and do the chores. No one is entirely sure what happened to them all. One day, they all just seemed to vanish. It would be impossible to determine when, exactly, this happened, though, since their sparse contact with the outside world and general seclusion of the house left anyone in the know completely oblivious to any irregularities. For all they knew, the family could have just moved to Canada.

Talk of the family died out as soon as the news of their disappearance. They had made no relationships in their brief time in the area, and no one was overly concerned with where they might have gone. It seemed like their ultimate fate would remain a mystery. Forever.

My stay at the enchanted bed and breakfast was unfortunately short-lived. In the early morning hours after the first decent night's sleep and meal I'd had in a while, an old friend gave me a call about a potential job in Maine. Standard stuff really. Disappearing family, unfounded sightings of "spirits", random psychotic behavior in normally calm residents. On their own, stuff like that's rarely enough to get my attention but patterns are everything. According to ole Chip, this had been going back for years now. That settled it, at the very least this had earned a visit and just my luck, the handy dandy relic in the tavern's basement loved to play spin the bottle with spatial reality.

Once I'd cleared out my tab and left the place, I barely had time to take in my new surroundings before a glance over my shoulder confirmed the place was gone. It made sense considering I didn't need it anymore. Magic is fun like that. Thankfully, magic also had a healthy respect for a man's car. The Hornet was parked right there waiting for him with that god given driver's seat that fit him just right. It was a short ride to Chip's place to pick up the case file and get a game plan in order. Ole Chip wasn't as spry as he used to be but he was damn good as research when he needed to be. Archived news articles, ownership history, police reports, he'd even managed to get his hands on a copy of the building's blue prints.

Three story place in the middle of nowhere...damn. Multiple stories were always a pain in the ass. More floors to check, more blind corners to clear, and nothing was ever where you needed it. Basement or attic...every time. Based on the local stories, he wasn't dealing with a physical target this time. Patterns didn't match up with vampires or lycans. Had to be spiritual in nature. Lingering spirits are tricky subjects but at least they played by set rules, purifying salt and cold iron were the best bets for holding them off until you can find the source of the problem.

I didn't waste much time at ole Chip's. Spent just enough time to get a good picture of the house in my head and organize my pockets. Pocket full of salt, check. Pocket full of cold iron nails, check. Can of gasoline complete with lighter, check. Pocket exorcism guide, check. Bat, double check. And throw in the pistol with standard rounds just to be on the safe side.

It took me about an hour to get from Chip's place to the old place. Country roads are murder on the undercarriage and I wanted a little more time to mull over the facts so by the time I got there the sun had been down for a while. Pity about all the deaths. It actually was a pretty nice place, if a bit on the lonely side. I left my case in the trunk of the Hornet, between my bat and flashlight I can't afford to be lugging that thing around. Besides, I've got everything I should need in my pockets already. Had to take a second to pop a little kink in my shoulder while I circled the building looking for any funny business. Didn't need to take a second to clean off my glasses but I wanted one last chance to psyche myself up. Sue me, I'm only human. Once I was finally comfortable I headed for the front door. It was unlocked. Always a bad sign.

The man pulled up in front of the house. It towered over him, the sun casting a shadow over the front and across the grounds. No sound could be heard in the entire area, not even that of animal life. The only noise came from the alchemist's actions outside the mansion. It almost seemed like the entire world was watching him, trying to figure out what he was doing in a place he most certainly didn't belong.

The large wooden door opened with a ear-splitting creak, fitting of its scratched and tarnished appearance. The inside was pitch black, walls and doors separating any windows that could have let the remaining sunlight filter into the rooms. It would have made little difference, though, considering the curtains were most likely just as drawn in the back as they were in the front.

Before he would have the chance to cross the threshold into the property, a voice behind him called out. "Hey!" A dark haired young woman ran up to the man. "Hey, do you live here?" she asked, straightening a crimson windbreaker from the sprint up. "It's just, I'm kind of looking for the owner of this place, and you opened the door like that, so..."

She was rather young, not much older than twenty, if that. She took her hair, tied together in a long ponytail, and draped it over the front of her shoulder, making it stand out against her pale face and icy eyes. Her motives for being here were a mystery, but it was apparently important enough for her to chase after any random stranger who passed by.

I heard her coming right about the time I was picking up my foot to step into the mansion. One creative little weight shift and I was able to round on her, my grip on the bat in my left hand tightening just a bit. Pretty young twenty something, little winded from running up here, but more importantly not trying to rip his throat out. Not a bad sign. I've gotten pretty good at keeping a poker face in situation like these. Had to in order to make all the lies I have to tell fly with local authorities. Sometimes though, it's just better to be honest.

"I don't actually. A friend of mine asked me to stop by and check up on the place. He's a bit worried about the family that's supposed to live here." Ok, so I didn't tell her everything but I didn't lie either. Give me a little credit. It's not like she'd have believed the whole truth anyway. "The door was already open. Now you mind telling me what exactly you're doing here, miss?"

I couldn't help but send a quick glance over my shoulder to the interior of the house. These things loved popping up during dry periods like this. Dark interior, very dark. For a bit of added insurance I shifted my stance a little bit to have one shoulder pointed at both the girl and the mansion interior. The jury was still out on which side posed the most imminent threat so best to be prepared.

"Oh," she said, blushing a bit at how foolish she must have looked rushing up to him like that. She tapped her foot against the heel of her other shoe as she thought of an answer. "I guess I'm kind of a ghost hunter." She was clearly embarrassed hearing the words out loud. "I live a little ways into town, and I always heard about this place as a kid, so I thought I'd come finally check it out." She pulled a blue camcorder from her pocket as proof of her story.

The amazing darkness inside the building hadn't scared her off. She'd never been afraid of the dark as a child and was more than willing to venture into it if she needed to. These kinds of adventures work best at night, too. Just to be safe, though, she had a flashlight with her, and her camera featured night vision for recording inside.

She had one question for the man, though. "Wait, you said your friend told you to go see about the people who disappeared here, right?" She furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. "But this place has been abandoned since I was a kid. Why would he tell you to come now?" She might be too suspicious of this weird old guy with a bat, but his story was a little weird. Not to mention he was holding a bat, of all things, to go explore a deserted house. She placed her camera back in the pocket of her coat, taking a grip on a bottle of mace for safety, ready to whip it out should he try to swing that piece of wood. Something didn't feel right about this man.

Oh hell, I thought to myself as she explained herself, another kid who watched way too much paranormal "reality" television. I like to consider myself a pretty good people person. I'm polite, I can keep a conversation going if I have to, but honestly I'm pretty bad at handling these types. Tell them to go home, they inevitably wind up following me in anyway. Try and scare them off and they call the cops on me. Sticky business all around.

"He's getting a little up there in years, tends to forget things here and there." I regretted that one as soon as I said it. For an accomplished liar, that was really bad. Reeeeeeally bad. I didn't even wait for her to poke holes in it before I gave up on the whole thing. "Aaaand you're not exactly the only ghost hunter in the business. Be honest with me miss, is there any point in me asking you to just get out of here?" Definitely a long shot, but it was worth a try.

She didn't buy his story at all. "If you're a ghost hunter, why don't you have a camera?" What would be the use in hunting if he couldn't at least capture what he found on video? And there was still that bat. Maybe he was some sort of looter, coming to smash up the place and take any leftover valuables left inside. The more she thought about it, the less safe she felt around this guy.

She used her other hand to pull out a teddybear-cased smartphone. "I think you should get out of here. You're trespassing. I can get Sheriff Ackerman up here in no time, so you better just leave." Being from the area, she was familiar with most everyone in her town. The sheriff, in particular, was a friend of her father, so she'd be able to convince him to take this creep into custody if he tried anything.

Of course she was one of those. Let me tell you, when my luck goes sour, it really goes sour. The bright side was I could tell she was bluffing from a mile away. God knows I've had to bluff my way around way too many run ins with stuff way higher up the food chain than myself and that kind of experience goes a long way to spot an amateur. I reached up to adjust my glasses for dramatic effect. Yeah yeah, I'm a nerd, I get it.

"Let's go through this step by step. First off, I don't have a camera with me because I'm not here to promote my youtube channel. I'm here to see if there's any weight to the stories about this place and take care of the problem if there is one." I held up my index finger to emphasize the itemized points. Speaking of which, gestures like that are great for emphasis but always point up. People hate being pointed at. "Second, you're just as guilty of trespass as I am, miss. And finally, no, you can't actually. I checked the cell signals out here myself when I first got here. We're too deep in the middle of nowhere for you to call me, let alone the sheriff way back in town."

I tried to keep from sounding like a jackass, really I did. It can be hard sometimes though, trying to explain why somebody is wrong and all that. "So please, will you just let me do my job?"

She actually wasn't aware of the cell phone problem. Taking a quick glance at her screen, the bars were nonexistent. She kept it clutched in her fist, though, refusing to let go of it. She might be able to leave and bring the police back with her, but town was at least 20 minutes away. Whatever he'd do would probably be over by then, which was probably burning the place to the ground and dancing in the ashes (her distrust and crazy implications had gotten more extreme by the minute). Either way, she wasn't about to just leave.

"You're a bad liar, old guy," she said, finally putting the phone into the pocket of her shorts. "I don't believe anything you just said, but I don't have time for all of that right now." She took the black cylinder from her pocket. "See this? You try anything weird and I'll spray it in your eyes, mouth, nose, and everywhere else I can hit you. Just don't bother me." If she could get this guy out of here with the threat of mace in the eyes, it'd be all the easier. If not, he'd at least think twice before trying to club her.

Yep, she was a problem alright. Somehow managed to combine both terrible extremes of the ghostly weekend warrior cliche. I had to just roll my eyes at the whole thing. The conversation was getting us nowhere so I decided to just give up entirely. Reaching into one of my pockets I snagged a spare talisman from my bag of tricks and tossed it to her. "If you're going inside, put that on. Best case scenario, you won't need it but it should protect you from getting possessed if things do go south."

I decided not to acknowledge her other comments. Way too much effort required and I was in no mood to head down that rabbit hole. So I took out my own flashlight and stepped through the still open doorway. Shifting my bat to my right hand, I held the trusty tool about midway down and kept the flashlight in my off hand. Moving the beam of light across the room's interior I was scanning for any signs of the occult that might have attracted something in the first place. It was a some kind of living or sitting room, I never could tell the difference. Plenty of duty old pictures on the walls, an overstuffed couch and a few chairs. The place stank of stagnate air and the slightest hint of iron mixed with rot. Bad sign. Very bad sign.

Grabbing the bauble with her free hand, she looked it over, not entirely sure what to make of it. She just held it until the man finally went inside, giving a snort before pushing the thing into her pocket next to the phone. Taking the camera out, she opened it up and turned on the night vision, going to opposite direction as the man.

Everything was dark, the shadows just barely inching back as the flashlight's beam shone on them. All in all, the room seemed fairly normal. However, there were a few oddities. On different shelves in the room were dolls. The fancy kind, with the porcelain white skin, brushed hair, and frilly dresses. Unlike the rest of the room (and, presumably, the house), not a single speck of dust covered the dolls. As cliched as the phrase was, the only way to describe them was that they seemed to be watching the room.

Across from where the alchemist stood was an opening to a different room, also in total darkness. Next to the frame was another doll, clothed in a blue and white dress with golden curls and a sunhat. It was looking directly at him.

And the kid just had to start wandering off. "Hey miss, stay where I can see you. Don't go wandering off in here," I called over to her just before I set eyes on the most suspicious thing in the room; a doll. The creepy little thing was staring right at me when I noticed it. Some might have called it coincidence but that is one thing I try very hard to not believe in which says a lot when you consider all the stuff I've seen over the years. Go figure. Another sweep of my light towards the girl confirmed that there were more dolls like the one looking at me and not one of them had any dust. In fact, they were the only things that didn't have any dust.

"Hey, whatever you do, don't touch any of the dolls. Oh, and if you get any static at all shout it out right away, you hear me?" I flicked the light at her again to try and drive the point home. Spirits do weird stuff to modern electronics. That's half the reason nobody ever get's a clear picture of the stuff. The other half is far less pleasant but we won't get into that right now. What does matter is that any activity near the kid should set off some telltale static and if that happened, I'd need to be able to get to her quickly.

"Alright, let's test a theory," I said to myself, reaching out to tap the doll's head with the end of my bat. Using the bat as a medium, I planned on turning the doll to liquid. In basic terms it was the equivalent of throwing rocks at old man Jenkins' window. Spirits hated having their physical tethers messed with. If I could get a rise out of them by targeting the dolls, I'd be a major step closer to understanding how to best purify the building.

She merely ignored the man, wandering deeper into the house. The dolls were kind of weird, but she payed them no mind, obliviously wandering through rooms and swinging the camera wildly for the best effect.

Unlike it should have, the doll did not react to the bat's power. It merely tipped over to the ground, still not removing its gaze from the man. Whatever they were made of, it was not within the natural realm of elements humans were familiar with.

Noiselessly and motionlessly, three more dolls had joined the others on the shelves. There was no indication of where they came form or sounds to signal a person or object arriving in the room. They just...appeared. As with the others, they glared down at the man with their dead-eyed, emotionless faces. The room's temperature began to drop, quickly reaching down to around 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Though it was impossible to tell with the covered windows, the sun had finally set outside.

We see you.

It was not spoken. Who would say it would be an even bigger mystery. It just seemed to appear in both of the humans' minds. Though she was far on the other side of the building by now, she was very much aware that something very bad was about to happen, and that she really should have stayed in bed today.

Not to toot my own horn, but when it comes to alchemy I know my stuff. That bat of mind may get its fair share of laughs but it takes some serious mojo to completely no sell it. And the creepy doll just laughed in its face. To make matters worse, when I turned around in response to its little telepathic introduction the number of them on the shelves had increased and the temperature had decreased. You know, a lot of people are quick to dismiss most of the cliche parts of ghost stories. Unfortunately, in many cases those cliches became such well known stories for a very good reason. In this case, the drop in temperature was the metaphysical version of a pitcher winding up before pegging you in the head with a fastball. Something big was coming.

Had I been on my own, the priority would have been the attic. As a rule of thumb I like to work my way top to bottom. Worst case scenario, diving out a window will hurt like hell but it still beats having no escape routes in a basement. Thankfully, this mansion's basement did have two entry points but that's besides the point. The far more pressing matter at this point in the story was finding my young partner in crime. Leaving the doll for the moment, I headed down the hallway after her. "Miss! I need you to answer me right now. Where are you?"

She screamed, then silence. She was in the kitchen when it happened, but there was no trace of her ever having been there, aside from the camcorder laying on the ground. It closed itself in what was presumably a fall towards the tile, but it seemed undamaged. Around the room, there were numerous little spots with no dust. Something had been there. More importantly, something had moved.

There were two rooms between the parlor and the kitchen. One was another sitting room, complete with a fireplace and bottles of wine on racks. Dolls were straddling some of the upper bottles, with others around the fireplace. It seemed to be some sort of guest area. After that was the dining hall. The table was set with dust covered silverware with at least 30 spots set. In each chair sat a doll.

The kitchen was a massive area with several ovens and other amenities. There was a large refrigerator in the corner, a rotting smell leaking out from the closed doors. The sink held a ring of rust around the drain, the faucet still letting out a tiny droplet of water every few minutes. For some reason, a single gas burner had been lit.

The girl's scream reached me clear as day while I was crossing from the parlor into the neighboring sitting room. There were more dolls here too, also arranged in disturbing patterns. Obviously they were the primary medium for whatever was inhabiting the mansion but there were still too many unknowns regarding the exact nature of the presence. Was there actually a finite number of dolls that had been possessed by the presence or were they simply pawns protecting something else entirely? Or worse, were these dolls the former occupants and visitors to the house? I quickened my pace to a light jog, passing through the dining room. More dolls. Damn it. If they worked like I thought they did then dealing with that number was going to be almost impossible.

I entered the kitchen with my bat half raised, sweeping the flashlight's beam over the room finding no trace of the girl. Her camera was on the floor closed but still recording. Even though there was no sign of her, there still might be time to find her before this thing did whatever it had to the previous family. First things first though, I had to check for the worst in that fridge. Sending another look down the hallway I'd come from I listened for tiny foot steps. The signs of movement in the kitchen dust confirmed it; the dolls were mobile. Hearing nothing, I moved toward the fridge and grasped the handle with my right hand before stepping to my right in order to open it. I didn't want my body in the doorway on the off chance that anything was prepared to come flying out fast.

Despite the precautions, nothing came jumpscaring out of the fridge. It was simply the presence of food having gone bad after the mansion lost power many years ago. What he should have been more concerned with was the burner. In only a second, half the kitchen was ablaze with purple flames.

You'll never leave.

It was the voice again. Still no origin for it. The flames should be the bigger priority, though. They were spreading fast on the side closest to the alchemist. Not only that, the dolls were back. A row of them completely blocked the path back into the dining room. It was almost like they wanted to watch the man burn to death. The flames were reflected in their glass eyes, shining back towards the man as they stared up at him.

Nothing popped out of the fridge. Lucky lucky me. Unfortunately I still had no idea where the kid was, the room was on fire, and the creepy dolls were in the doorway. Yeah, my job sucks. Thankfully, whatever presence was infected this place made the mistake of tossing around threats. I don't like things that feel the need to use threats and that was just the motivation I needed to get moving against this thing. The sink had been dripping all this time alongside the stove top where the blaze had started which meant that water was still flowing in the pipes. Covering my nose and mouth from the smoke, I took a hard swing at the water spout with my bat, not bothering to attempt any transmutation, I just wanted to break the damn thing. I got lucky and water spurted forth from the forced open valve, dousing the flames and a good portion of the kitchen with water to halt the progression of the flames. The next step was to make sure no more flames appeared. Another crack of my bat against the stove this time and the entire thing was a puddle on the floor. The dolls might have high powered mojo, but this thing couldn't alchemy-proof an entire house.

With water still puddling at my feet, I regarded the dolls in the doorway. "Hmpf, worth a shot," I said, holding my bat underneath my arm to draw my pistol. In one smooth motion I trained the sights on the head of one of the dolls in the doorway and pulled the trigger. If these things were indeed the vessels for the spirit, destroying them should theoretically solve the problem. They'd proven immune to transmutation already but I had yet to try brute force.

The flames died out, the oven melting into a worthless puddle of hot metal on the ground. Water continued to move around the floor. It seemed like, despite their immunity to alchemy, the dolls were not immune to bullets. The head of the target shattered to bits, the body flying backwards and smacking against the table. As if on queue, suddenly the rest of the dolls appeared to be looking in the direction of the kitchen from their seats at the tables.

Despite their porcelain appears outside, the dolls were anything but on the inside. A purpley flesh covered in veins rested within the dolls, lining the inside of their bodies. a black substance leaked out of the hollow doll missing its head, a puddle growing on the floor.

It was all your fault.

From under his feet, the boards supporting the floor began to creak. They splintered quickly after that, breaking open to form a hole right after. Large sections of the floor began to fall out after that, just in case he was able to evade the initial trap. The basement was below, and, as any horror movie would tell you, it wouldn't be good news.

The creepy little thing was filled with some fleshy substance and a strange black liquid. Ectoplasm was my first guess but I really wish it wasn't. Ectoplasm generally didn't come into play unless the spirit had some serious emotional baggage fueling it and the spirit's latest comment only furthered to cement that. The creaking floorboards were enough of a clue as to what was about to happen to get me moving in time. Knocking the end of my bat against the large puddle of water and liquid steel on the kitchen floor, I transmuted it into a solid state while hopping onto the sink counter. No sooner had I reached the sink, most of the kitchen floor collapsed into the basement like I'd figured it would. If it hadn't been for that thin layer of ice and metal reinforcing the floor I doubt I would have been able to avoid it.

That being said, I couldn't afford to just sit on my hands. I could already feeling the counter starting to give as the floor beneath it continued to buckle. Holstering my gun, I swung my flashlight's beam down into the newly opened basement. The rubble from the former floor didn't have any nasty impaley bits to make my descent hell and I couldn't see any dolls down there from where I was but based on what I'd seen so far, it was only a matter of time. As much as I hated the idea, my only option was to go where the force wanted me; the basement. Cursing under my breath, I climbed down from the sink and swung myself onto the top of the rubble pile before taking a 360 inspection of the basement. I found the two doors I was looking for right away. To my immediate right was a door leading to the rest of the house. In the back left corner was a small flight of stairs leading to a pair of double doors leading outside.

The room was entirely made of cement. No amenities of any kind were inside the room. The only irregularity was a wooden trapdoor in the center of the room. Water was still running from the broken faucet, causing it to pour into the room from the open ceiling. It didn't take long for the water to turn into a sickly black fluid, smacking against the floor with a much greater and thicker sound. Both doors leading out of the area were locked, the ceiling too high to climb into. Sooner or later, the room would be filled with the sludge if nothing stopped it.

On the plus side, I didn't see any dolls in the basement. The downside was that more of that black sludge was pouring in from the kitchen up above. Now, with my sigil tattoo I didn't need to worry about possession through the stuff but drowning wasn't very high on my to do list. That being said, the increase in ectoplasm meant that I was getting closer to the source of the problem that was likely underneath that creepy looking trap door. I'd have to move fast before the place became too flooded. I marched over to the trap door and yanked it open, careful again to keep myself out of the doorway. Checking it with my flashlight I saw nothing overly menacing waiting down below for me. Just dark. Lots and lots of dark. Have I mentioned how much my job sucks? As much as it sucked, I jumped into the unknown, grumbling curses into my mustache the whole way down.

Down below (next to the convenient ladder he, for some reason, declined to use) was more darkness. An abundance of it, even. The walls were much more narrow, only about the size of a person in width. Ceilings were low with barely 7 feet of clearance. What was worse, there were eyes. Just, eyes inside the walls. Doll eyes, human eyes, goat eyes. They were embedded in the cement, yet they could still turn and look in different direction. And right now, all of them were looking right at the alchemist.

Each glowed slightly, but not enough to illuminate anything but their own position. The path only went forward from this point on. It was clear someone had been doing unregistered expansion on their house, since none of this was supposed to exist according to the blueprints. A freezing wind was coming from deeper inside, which made little sense considering they were far underground by now. It almost seemed like a sousaphone should be playing over someone's shoulder to set the mood. Maybe have a giant man jingling chains come stomping over. Both of those were very real possibilities, though. It was anyone's guess what lived below this house.

She's going to die because of you.

Just when I was starting to get comfortable with the dolls, I just had to stumble into the hallway from hell.  With no time to sight see, I decided to press onward.  Once again my little flashlight was a godsend, illuminating just enough of the tunnel for me to have a halfway decent idea of what was coming my way.  The creepy voice actually came bearing good news this time.  It said the girl was going to die, not that she had died, because of him.  That meant she was still alive and he was still heading in the right direction.  

"Alright then, let's see if we can't figure this out," I said, advancing down the hallway towards the source of the evil presence that was currently holding a particularly stubborn young woman against her will.

The hallway continued on for an indeterminate length. Aside from different types of eyes (that no one but a crazy person with a photographic memory would take the time to memorize), there was no indication of how far he had gone. It kept going on and on forever, it seemed. Every now and then, a sound could be heard. Sometimes it was a woman choking. Other times it was a child screaming. Sometimes it was just the incredibly loud blinking of the eyes.

Suddenly, the eyes began to convulse, moving wildly in all directions. They began to turn white from the pupil outwards. After they, the black liquid started oozing from them. Up ahead, a red light seemed to "turn on" from an indiscriminate source. It was in a much larger room compared to the cramped hallway before it. There were no doors or any conceivable exit in the room. Not even a source of the red light. All there was was a very large doll. It sat in disrepair, unclothed and unaccessorized, near the back of the room. Its head convulsed violently in all directions, but the rest of its body was perfectly stationary.