The Haunted Mine: A Lorimer Graveskeeper Choose Your Own Adventure Story

Chapter 7: The Old Henderson House

Lorimer took a deep breath and finally look at the girl. He felt profoundly uneasy. She waited, looking at him, her ice cold hand resting gently on his forearm. He closed his eyes and tried to clear his head. He took himself back to that quiet patch of Appalachian woods where he was 3 months ago. He remembered the warm night air, the crackle of his campfire. The complete, all encompassing darkness and quiet, the light of the unforgiving stars above his head. He remembered his dirty, tired limbs crouched and resting on the earth. He remembered the taste of the rehydrated beef and lentil stew in the pot and the merciful lack of voices and faces. He thought then that there has never been and never will be anywhere safer than a place where he was alone. He counted to five and opened his eyes again. The girl was still there, waiting so patiently. He knew he couldn't trust her, but whatever the dark and terrible mystery of this place was, it had already found him. There was nowhere to go, and he couldn't stay safe and alone forever.

"Ok, I'll go with you," he whispered.

He put down his whiskey and turned off the lights, closing the door behind him. She walked quickly, glancing over her shoulder furtively to make sure he was still following. He lit a cigarette. They walked past Cecile's, past the crumbling hotel, past the old Cribwalker house and up the hill to the very far end of the town. They'd been walking for ten minutes in complete silence before they stopped in front of the same cast iron gates Jim and his tour group stood in front of hours before. Lorimer had a wild impulse to pull out one of the ghost detectors laying discarded in a bucket and see if it lit up. Instead he threw his cigarette, crushed it with his boot and awkwardly ran his hand through his hair.

"So you brought me here. What do you want?" 

The girl smiled at him serenely. The wind blew and the smell of rancid meat wafted over from her.

"In life, my name was Rebecca Benoit. My parents brought me over from France when I was a small child. I was raised in New York City. I was wealthy, I was beautiful. In 1883 I was fourteen years old, wearing a beautiful lace white and blue dress, descending from the grand staircase at the opening of the Metropolitan Opera House. My parents bought tickets to see the very first performance of Faust. I was something to behold. Every girl wanted to be me. Every boy wanted to make me his bride. I was drinking champagne from a crystal glass, smiling at the sea pearl bracelet my father bought me for my birthday. My father then introduced me then to an older man. He was well dressed, but ugly, with coarse manners. I gave him my hand and was as polite as a lady of good breeding is expected to be. My father said he would be joining us in our box. I remember the feeling of confusion, quickly replaced by indifference. I sat next to him the entire night, fanning myself, trying not to look at his crooked smile or the bits of food in his teeth. We chatted, I laughed at his jokes, knowing he was likely an important associate of my fathers. The play was a foreshadowing of the day my own soul was sold to the devil," Rebecca paused and took Lorimer's hand. She opened the gate and led him into the threshold.

It was a trick of the light, it must have been, when he saw the broken windows of the house glow red.

"The next day my father said that that old man was to be my husband. He owed Rudolph an enormous sum of money ,and because of me they were able to reach an agreement that prevented the financial ruin of my entire family. I cried and screamed and begged but there was no mercy there for me. The family I loved turned their back on me for the sake of their opulence and greed. We were married quickly. I won't bore you with the sordid details of the ceremony and the corruption of my own young and beautiful body with his old stinking and wrinkled flesh."

"Why did you bring me here? Why are you telling me this story?" Lorimer asked.

"I know all about you, Lorimer Graveskeeper. I've been watching you for days. I've heard word from some of my friends here on the other side. I've heard you've been on the run from us. I've heard you've been in hiding and there's a man, one of us, who is looking for you." 

"Yes, that's true."

"I can clear your name. Even on this side we have law and order. We have those who are rulers and those who are ruled. I know who to talk to to make sure no one from our side ever hunts you again. You won't stop seeing us. You can't un-know what you already know. But I can make sure one of us never speaks to you, never possesses you, and never invokes your name. I can make sure the man who looks for you stays away from your bedchamber. I can make us all forget." 

"In exchange for what? Why would you do this for me?"

"Rudolph was a man prone to rages. He hated the way I cringed when he touched me. The way I looked at him with fear and sadness. He beat me, raped me, humiliated me, and never forgave me for the crime of never loving him. I found out I was pregnant with his child 2 years after my imprisonment in this house. I went to a Cribwalker in secret and took a tonic which made me bleed out the child. One of the servant women knew of my wicked deed and told Rudolph. His rage was more terrible than I had ever witnessed. He tied me to our bed and whipped me raw. He left me there, bleeding from the wounds he inflicted and the Cribwalkers tonic. He returned two days later to find me barely conscious, reeking of piss and blood. I was pale and barely breathing, but I may have recovered from my hemorrhage had he not put his filthy hands around my neck and stolen my last breath. He elected to bind me to this house, so that I could not escape him in death. Using the instructions of the same Cribwalker witch who sold me the tonic, he buried my bones in the basement and invoked a spell  ensuring that I was forced to gaze upon him every day of my afterlife, and that when he passed away I could be his prisoner in this house once more. Not a day has passed since my fourteenth birthday that I haven't been a victim of his cruelty. I ask that you free me, and in return I will free you."

"How do I free you?"

"You must go to the house and find my remains. You must re unite the remains with my skull, which the Cribwalker witch placed in the deepest part of the mines. Dark magic is strongest the closer you get to the center of the earth. Once my remains are reunited we must burn the bones until they are black dust, and scatter them free in the desert wind. Only then will I be free to walk from this place. Only then will I be free to seek justice for you."

Lorimer remembered the rickety staircase that led to the mines. Even if Rudolph did part with the remains in the house, the journey to the deepest part of the mines would very likely kill him. Old mines that haven't been maintained are filled poisonous gases and caved in tunnels. Local newspapers in Arizona were always filled with stories of high school kids going into old mine shafts for a dare and never coming out again. Then again, if Rebecca was even telling the truth, she was offering him the only chance at freedom he was likely to get. Every day of the last 6 months he felt them closing in on him. Every foray into civilization they had become more and more aggressive. He knew that sometime soon they would no longer be so docile. He knew a time would come when the man from New York would find him and exact whatever justice he felt he deserved. The veil between him and the apparitions was disintegrating, he knew it deep in his core.  There was no telling how long it would hold. But could he trust her? Should he trust her?

"Will you help me?" Rebecca asked.

ENTER THE HOUSE, ATTEMPT TO STEAL THE REMAINS ---> PROCEED TO CHAPTER 12

DECLINE HER OFFER, SHE CAN'T BE TRUSTED---> PROCEED TO CHAPTER 13

ACCEPT HER OFFER, BUT YOU WON'T GO IN THE HOUSE ALONE. ASK TO BRING SOMEONE WITH YOU--->PROCEED TO CHAPTER 14