The Spooky Chronicles: Forget Me Nots

Chapter 3: So Not Looking

Spooky was giddy with anticipation. Every concession was made to make Spooky comfortable before the midnight ritual, which he thought was very hospitable of Bill. Spooky also volunteered his pendant and mobile phone to play his part properly; after all, alerting the authorities while sacrificing children just wouldn't do.

To prepare for the ritual, Bill had Spooky placed into a room they called the Preparation Chamber (which was essentially a narrow closet with an overhead light and a wooden chair inside). A long, silken white shirt had been left for Spooky to wear. He imagined what another child would have thought, being made to wait before their impending doom (trying to get into the mood and all), but it was all just too cool not to be excited. After putting on the shirt, Spooky sat in the chair and waited for perhaps fifteen minutes, but it felt like an eternity.

Finally, the door open.

“It's time,” the Third Minion said. “Are you prepared?”

With a grin, Spooky nodded. His happy expression seemed to disturb the minion a bit.

The doors to an old, open-faced elevator were open. Inside were the two other minions Spooky had met earlier, still dressed in black robes. Bill himself, seated comfortably in his wheelchair and dressed in red robes that matched his bow tie, smiled pleasantly as Spooky was led onto the lift. The Third Minion drew the door shut behind them and pressed a large button on the side to start the decent.

“I've got a bad feeling about this,” Spooky wisecracked.

The Third Minion shushed him. Bill merely chuckled.

Spooky looked around as the elevator traveled downward. The First Minion carried the “book of the dead” while the Second Minion carried a sacrificial knife (presumably one with a collapsing blade) on a silvery pillow.

Once the secret elevator cleared the floors between the attic and the cellar (“secret” because it was enclosed not to be seen from the main floors), the so-called cellar was revealed. More like an underground cathedral, wooden chandeliers lit up a stone chamber dug thirty feet down into the foundation of the mansion. There was a fire already going in an enormous, ornate fireplace that bathed the chamber in an orange flickering light. Doors to other rooms were on either side of the fireplace, and a stone spiral stairway curled up from the chamber floor, around the elevator, and up into an enclosed hallway. Spooky thought there must have been a secret door out (or in), probably in the foyer under the grand staircase.

In the center of the room was a dark pit with a raised stone wall like an old well, capped with a metal grating with openings too small for Spooky to have poked his head in. There were four heavy rings, each set into the top of the masonry ringing the pit, perfectly arranged to bind a sacrifice. Tied to each ring was a small length of rope.

After the elevator came to a stop, the Third Minion motioned for Spooky to step out and toward the grated pit. Spooky complied solemnly, walking the way he would imagined a choir boy at a Catholic church would march down an isle, then turned silently towards Bill as he reached the pit. Bill in turn wheeled himself out between the fireplace and the pit, creating a powerful image as the flames roared up behind him. The Third Minion took a stance beside Spooky while the other two stood on either side of Bill.

“The book,” Bill commanded.

The First Minion placed the book open to a marked page into Bill's lap. He looked over the text, then motioned to the Third Minion.

“The offering,” Bill commanded.

“Hop up,” the Third Minion whispered to Spooky. Complying, Spooky climbed onto the grate and laid himself down on his back with his hands folded across his stomach. The minion placed Spooky's hands to his sides instead. Looking to Bill, the Third Minion indicated one of the rope rings. Bill looked to Spooky, lying calm and prone without a care in the world, and merely shook his head with a grin.