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The hall was only ten or so feet in length, and narrow. The wood here was dark and dusty, and looping cobwebs hung down from the low ceiling. If she’d been as tall as Rory, she would have had to duck. Shuffling tentatively forward, the passage opened into a room shaped in a circle a dozen feet in diameter. In the center rose a pedestal like a college lectern, though it looked like it was hewn from the same dark wood as the passage walls. The curving walls were all books from the waist up, arranged haphazardly and atop one another, unlike the prim arrangements of the books in the library. These were used, referenced, placed where hands could find them again.

One book sat open on the lectern, an invitation to curious eyes. The tome was leather-bound and large, and it looked heavy with its thick pages and arcane script. She bookmarked the open page with a finger and closed the cover, reading the words inlaid on the front. 

“Liber animarum,” she read aloud, and re-opened the book where her forefinger marked it. Her Latinw as rusty to be sure, but she could pick out liber as book. The title of the page to which the book was opened, and had remained so for some time by all thinking, was titled Vitam Aeternum. Her med school classwork gave her enough familiarity to translate that completely. 

Eternal life.

A chill rattled up her spine, and Sara felt a sudden urge to get out of the room, a sense that she was no longer alone and the eyes that studied her were filled with ill intent. Unconsciously, she wiped her hands where they had touched the aged book. She scurried from the room, closing the hidden door until she heard it close with the same thin click with which it had opened. 

“Maybe the bitch was right,” she wondered to no one. “Maybe this house is haunted.”

David sat in the barely-private office, head in hands, eyes pounding yet again. For nearly a week, now, he’d been unable to shake the ever-present headache. It was like being hungover, with an acute sensitivity to light and a deep thumping in his brain that made him short-fused and tired.

“You okay, Mr. Henderson?”

He grimaced as he found the pretty young girl standing in the door of the office, her blue apron tied around her waist. She was just shy of her high school graduation, and had the baby-faced aura of youth yet to spoil. Tabby, that was her name, found after clawing trough the ache.

“Fine. Just a little worn down.”

“Maybe you should head home. Me and Josh can close up. He got the keys.”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “Maybe I will. So long as you two don’t throw any wild parties while I’m gone.” He offered her a wan smile.

She laughed, a shrill sound that stabbed him between the eyes, but he did his best not to wince.

“Nah, we’ll take care of it. Just feel better.”

Tabby retreated, chomping on some chewing gum, blissfully unaware, David thought, of how Josh, her fellow teen employee and he of the keyring, stared at her denim-clad behind while she navigated the aisles of the store.

He was thankful, though, for both of them, and gathered the few things he’d brought with him and rushed out the door, silently cursing the digital bell and its optimistic two-note chime. 

Janey was home, having done what shopping there was to do. He surprised her when he entered, drawing a yelp out of her that further hammered his brain.

“Still feeling bad?”

“Yeah,” he admitted. “I think it’s getting worse. I may have to call Dr. Freeman tomorrow if it isn’t any better. I’m glad you’re not sick, too. Can’t have both of us feeling like death warmed over.”

“Poor baby,” Janey cooed, taking her husband’s face in her hands and kissing him. “At least you’re shaving.”

He wasn’t hot to the touch, and so she didn’t register the odd look on his face before he turned away and shuffled toward their bedroom. 

The fact was, he hadn’t shaved in a couple of days. It was like he was going through some kind of reverse puberty, where his cheeks stubbornly refused to grow hair, and he noticed a fineness in the hair on his arms and legs, too. Another symptom for Dr. Freeman, if it came to the doctor’s visit. 

He drew the shades in the bedroom, casting long shadows around the room. His clothes were tossed carelessly toward the chair shoved under Janey’s vanity table. With a creak, he fell into the bed and pulled blankets around him. Maybe he didn’t have a fever, but he was definitely experiencing chills, only unlike any he’d had before.

This was a symptom he’d probably keep from the good doctor, should he make the trip in the morning, but he’d been horny as hell. While the fatigue kept him from doing much about it, he’d been feeling a pleasant stir that had him contemplating a good stroke, even if he hadn’t mustered the energy yet. His mind whirled with memories of the dark beauty from his dreams at Rory’s place, vivid enough that it didn’t take much recollection to get him antsy in the pantsy, as Janey liked to say. 

Except that he wasn’t getting hard, and that had him worried, too. Thankfully, he had a supply of pills from a friend of his upstate, a doctor who prescribed a remedy for a limp noddle, and he’d filled that prescription a few months back. Not that he had a lot of problems, but every now and again he’d find himself with Janey and frustratingly discover that the spirit was willing, but the cock was weak. Since his hallway dream, he hadn’t gotten hard once. He thought about popping one of his pills for a quick wank, then decided he’d rather sleep instead.

Janey crept into the bedroom, careful not to disturb her husband now that he’d fallen asleep. She could hear him breathing slow and steady under their puffy comforter, and her heart rose with a simple and honest love for David. She hoped he wasn’t coming down with something serious.

Scooping the clothes he left hanging off the vanity chair, or pooled on the floor beside it, she saw that he hadn’t bothered with removing his belt. It was still buckled around the waist, and the prong was pushed through the second-to-last hole, marking the smallest waist she could recall David having since their marriage. He did look smaller. Even shorter, though that was impossible.

She emptied his pockets, made sure the clothes found the hamper, and bent over her sleeping husband to kiss his temple. She thought he might even be getting soem hair back, noting the thickness around his ears and across his forehead. Wonders,s he supposed, would never cease. 

3.

Matt Collins had never been inside the house, but he sure knew about it. Everyone in Bear Falls did, he guessed. He never thought he’d actually be inside the place, though, and there was a childish and irrational fear that came with stepping over the threshold into the entry of the manor.

“Sara, this is Matt,” Rory said in introduction.

Sara was on the stairs, looking down over the railings as the two men looked up. Matt looked every bit the handyman, but perhaps one more suited to porn films featuring the rugged worker around the house. His dark hair was scruffy, with ringlets where it grew long at the back. A shadow covered his chin and cheeks, his features sharp and handsome. With the red flannel shirt, faded jeans, and a suede tool belt strapped to his waist, Sara thought he provided a fine contrast to the more bookish Rory. 

“Nice to meet you, Matt. What are you two working on today?”

“I will be getting some more of the old furniture we don’t want picked up. Matt’s going to check a leak in the basement. What are you doing?”

Sara shrugged, but there was a bright look on her face that spoke of freedom more than boredom.

“Most of my paper is done. I might actually do some reading for pleasure, if I don’t go for a run.”

“Yell if you need me, baby,” Rory called up.

“You know I will. Have fun, you two.”

As she abandoned the stairwell for the second floor library, Rory caught Matt looking a moment longer than he might have liked. 

“Let me show you the basement.”

“Yeah. Yeah, sure.”

It was easy to see how a guy like Rory could get a girl like the one on the stairs, Matt thought. All you need is a shit ton of money and a house you can get lost in. He laughed to himself and swung the flashlight around, hunting for the feeder pipes. There was definitely a leak. He could smell the musty scent of fresh dampness, an ability he would be fine sacrificing for some of the homeowner’s money. 

The basement ran almost the full length of the house. Supports rose like pillars from floor to ceiling. Some spots were carpeted, others plain stone, though it looked like cobblestone rather than the more industrial cement. There was a maze formed by stacked boxes, probably lousy with mice, and little rooms with thin walls that were hardly more than plaster and some narrow beams for support. Some of these were hidden by equally thin doors, some open like the empty sockets of a broken smile. 

He couldn’t say just where he was when he came upon the open space in the basement. Matt thought he might be somewhere in the middle of the home’s floor plan, but it was difficult to be sure given the twists he’d taken to find the spot. Still no feed pipes, but a hell of a sight nonetheless.

“I’ll be damned,” he told no one, his flashlight bouncing from the chaise lounge to the rich red carpet to the chairs nearby, and a pair of tall cabinets behind those. An end table held a lamp, the shade draped with silk cloth.

“It used to be quite something.”

He turned fast, holding the light at his shoulder, stepping away from the figure that appeared, impossibly, behind him. She shrank back, held her hand to shield her eyes from the light.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, lowering the light some, but keeping the beam between them. Illuminating them both in the windowless basement. “I don’t think you oughta be down here, ma’am. It’s a little dirty for a lady like you.”

“Ma’am?” she asked, clutching her hands to her chest in mock distress. “Surely I don’t look like I’m that old, do I?”

“Hell no,” he said quickly. “I mean, no, ma’am. Just how I was raised, you know. Being polite and all.”

“You are polite,” she grinned. “I like polite.”

Matt was struck by how wide and bright her smile was, especially in the gloom of the basement. She was dark haired, and that dark, thick hair was punctuated by a tumble of curls. She was draped in black and purple, a corset cinching her waist. Her long legs were encase din black stockings, the kind Matt had only ever seen in magazines and online, where the tops clipped to garters. Beneath the corset was a blossoming skirt that looked like it might have been the height of fashion a hundred years ago, but it was split in such a way to show off the gorgeous woman’s legs. She was close enough to rest a hand on his chest, and he saw a glove on that hand made of the same sheer stuff as her stockings. 

“You are a manly man, aren’t you, Matt?”

Had he told her his name? He didn’t recall doing so, but who was he to argue with a woman who looked like that?

“I play some sports,” he offered.

“I bet you do. I like games, too, Matt. Want to play one with me?”

“I should probably-” he began, but the woman stilled him with a finger pressed to his lips.

“Just nod your head, sweetie.”

He did.

“Good. See that wardrobe over there?” She gestured with a cock of her head. His eyes followed and he nodded. “I want you to go over there and pick something out. And once you have, I want you to show it to me.”

His brows knit together, puzzling out the strange turn of events. Before he could cobble a thought together, the dark beauty dropped a hand to his crotch, gently cupping him under his clothes. Matt gasped.

“Hurry along, now.”

Matt obeyed, looking back to make sure he hadn’t imagined the woman in the first place. She stood, shrouded in shadow, we he left her, waiting for his return. The wardrobe she directed him too was coated in dust, but the smell was different here. He could smell something sweet, like a woman’s perfume. When he opened the double doors, the scent struck him like a wave. 

He shone his light inside the cabinet and saw a row of dresses and feminine finery, hanging from wooden hangers, or clipped by wooden pins to the rod. The clothes looked old, but they were in perfect condition, as if age and rot sopped at the doors of the wardrobe and never ventured inside.

He puzzled over what game they might be playing, and decided it must be some kink of hers. ‘Pick out my clothes and I’ll fuck you in them,’ something like that. He pushed a few dresses this way and that, hunting for just the right thing. The woman would be hot in anything, but something just right would get him off in no time.

“You a friend of Sara’s or something?” He didn’t turn to ask, and was surprised when the voice was so close when she answered.

“Something like that. Hunting for something special?”

“Yeah,” he chuckled. “Gotta be just right, you know?”

“I do know. Men are all the same. They all have a portrait in their heads of what a woman is, whats he should be. And they cry like spoiled children when they don’t get what they want.”

“I don’t know about that…”

“I do. I have spent more years around men than I care to count, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Despite their brutish nature, they are so… delicious.”