Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder
-Margeret Wolfe Hungerford
She had barely eaten in the days that followed, having left her sparsely furnished New York apartment to meet her new husband in Drymount. Reluctant, Julie's arranged marriage was orchestrated by well-meaning college friends, believing it would bring her solace. However, when news of her husband's sudden fortune reached their ears, the joy was palpable among everyone except Julie herself.
It had been two years since Julie last vomited, but the sickness overcame her once more after consuming a club sandwich on a ship bound for Maine. Racing to the lavatory, adorned with eerie nautical decor, she bore witness to unsettling photographs of her grandparents at a circus, the pictures were in neatly ornate gold frames and placed on the tank of the toilet. Despite her best efforts to expel the contents, Julie found herself retching until the sandwich was violently regurgitated, caught in a terrifying cycle of sickness and dark revelations.
In a surreal twist of fate, Julie felt compelled to scrub her feet with a grimy kitchen floor brush, all while a distant voice whispered chilling questions about death. As the ship veered unsteadily on the stormy sea, a loud and ominous knock echoed at her cabin door. Startled, Julie cautiously opened it, only to be confronted by a sinister, shadowy figure holding a silver tray with a bloody club sandwich on it.
"Excuse me, ma'am, would you care for another club sandwich?" the figure croaked in a haunting voice. Julie, trembling with fear, stammered, "No, ah no thank you, that's very kind of you, no thanks, I feel sick." With a shudder, she hastily closed the door, leaving an ominous feeling of dread lingering in the air.
That fateful night, Julie drifted into a nightmarish dream, traversing eerie corridors within the foreboding Cypress Correctional Facility of Manhattan. Eavesdropping on a chilling conversation about ravioli, she bore witness to a macabre encounter between her grandfather and a mysterious woman wielding a bone ladle and silver cup. Desperate to intervene, Julie found herself ensnared by the woman before breaking free, tumbling through a void filled with specters and still, floating bodies.
Waking up to the ship's horn as they neared Drymount Harbor in 1933, Julie was greeted by men donning tattered war coats. They escorted her to her husband's mansion, where she was to begin anew after inheriting a fortune from his family.
Upon arrival, Julie's attention was immediately drawn to the tall, rugged man with a thick beard.
"Are you Julie?" he inquired.
"Yes, I am," she confirmed.
"I am your husband, Sir Thomas Moore," he proclaimed.
"Yes, I know. My mother knew your father," Julie uttered as they proceeded into the dim, antiquated residence.
As they approached the porch, he opened the door, only for it to slam shut behind them.
"You're so thin, I need to feed you," Thomas remarked in a soft voice. A chill crept down Julie's spine as she detected a malevolent gleam in Thomas's eyes.
Suddenly, a dog bounded down the stairs.
"Haha, haha," chuckled Sir Thomas as the dog showered Julie with slobbery kisses.
"So, I see you two have met. This is Slobbers," Thomas introduced the dog with a peculiar grin.
Julie attempted to force a smile, but an unshakable unease enveloped her. The house's atmosphere felt stifling, and Julie sensed a lurking darkness beneath the superficial hospitality.
There was a knock at the door. The door flew open off its hinges after several minutes of relentless knocking. The trees outside were swaying wildly in the eerie moonlit night. Emerging from the shadows, a tall, sinister woman dressed in a flowing white gown approached. Her laugh echoed through the air, sending chills down Julie's spine as she taunted, "The Moores, the Moores, Julie."
With a sudden and inexplicable strength, the woman, Leretta, grabbed Julie and held her over her head, recounting the tragic fate of Julie's father in a rockslide. Julie felt a force pushing her across the ground and up the stairs, with Leretta's haunting presence all around her.
As Leretta and Sir Thomas entered the house hand in hand, a sense of impending doom shrouded the atmosphere. Julie, clad only in lavender panties, descended the stairs slowly, gripping the banister tightly. Leretta greeted her in a chillingly calm manner, welcoming her home. The twisted invitation to dine together, with sinister undertones, hung heavily in the air, setting the stage for an unsettling and disturbing meal to come.
