If walls could talk.

The pearls were now resting on the bed as I had unwound it from my hand with a look of distaste, not because of how they look but because of the reason in which they were used. These brutes were begin to annoy rather than scare me.

I was not a morning person and my neck and lower back were cramp from my falling asleep seated upright due to my vigil of watching the spot for the image I felt I saw there.

I got up stretch and rotate my neck slowly when I felt majority of the creaks were gone I made for the door. I need to fine me a kitchen for my rumbling stomach and a bathroom for my overburden bladder.

Instead of going to the far right of the landing to lead me back into the living room I made for the left, purposely ignoring that specific door which conjure up that all too real daymere back at the Inn.

I was brought to a flight of other stairs that took me to a close door that I realise took you into the back yard. I reach for the handle then pull my hand back when I remember the big no leaving the house rule.

I made a full turn and head for the kitchen the only other door that was there. I look about the kitchen that had an ample array of cooking untencils and cutlery, neat stocks of pots and pans and an old cooking wood burn stove. I saw also a huge circular tub that was sitting near a fire pit I walk up to it to see that it was filled with water and on its handle rests a bar of thick home made soap.

Nice, I thought, no freaking bathroom!

I march back upstairs and head for my room ready to record a not so kind message for my host when I stop in my tracks. The white dress was laying against a now made bed with the pearl head band nestle on its bodice. I look about me searching frantically for whomever was responsible. I hurried to the bed and grab the camcorder.

I rush from the room and head for the stairs to the living room hoping to find the one responsible for the not so funny arrangement upstairs. I was heading to the front door to see if it was unlocked when I almost trip over the box I had left there completely forgotten. As I right myself up and sigh with relife that I did not kiss the floor unceremoniously I came face to face with the now open palour doors.

Persons were sitting inside and by the look of it it was a young lady and a gentleman. I walk slowly to the door my feet feeling light as if floating. I stare in at them but pause at the door as a figure sat half mask opposite them, it somehow send a frightening feeling to the pit of my stomach. All I saw was his black pants, shiney boots and the lower half of a lean chest. From there upwards he remain a mystery.

I try to make it through the palour doors but I seem to be bombarded by an invisible barrier that locked the three away from me. I watch them as they spoke the gentleman speaking to the shadowed figure as the young lady listen.

I wanted to hear what was being said but all I could see were the figures deep in conversation. I watch as the man took a sachel that was handed to him by the figure who I was still trying to see and walk towards me. I took a surprise step back as I saw it to be the old man at the Inn. It was the Wizard of Oz himself only now much younger and he walk right by me without so much as a passing glance.

My attention was brought back to the palour where the lady now sat slumped and I realize from her shaking shoulders she was crying. I move towards the door again intent of going to her but I was still bar by that which I could not see.

I open my mouth to speak but the words died in my throat as I saw a hand I will never forget reach for the weeping figure. It was the matted disfigure limb of the baby I had seen from my unexplainable viewing of the painting, only it was no longer short and stubby but grown out and look like a clump of play dough that a child had squished between their palm and fingers.

I watch as the girl's head rose from its slump position and flinch. Her face look up at the figure then turn away in utter repulsion causing her to face me as she did so. I was looking at myself only I seem to be trap in the figure who sat in the painting above the fireplace. I no longer had my coily thick black mane but her soft silky brown strands and when the figure's raspy voice filled my ears the first sound to reach me from the room it was saying.

"Alley you belong here now with me, you'll never leave."

The girl in the palour was the younger version of the woman at the school and somehow she was me, not only that I saw other sad, pleading, anguish and scared faces wither like a swarm of flies on her face that had suddenly became skeletal and twisted in the never ending cry of depair and torment.

I back away from the door as I shook my head trying to clear the images away. It seem all those faces were burned into my memory and like a broken record they lamented their cries of pain and agony over and over. I heard them get louder and louder as they turn into agonize wails like the screams of a banchee mixed with the high pitch of a cheerping cricket.

I clamp my hand over my ears and fell to my knees as the sound escalated. My ears vibrate and pain fill them as my head pound under its unrelenting onslaught.

"Stop!" I beg, "please stop!"

It seem like an eternity before it decided to have mercy upon me. The sudden silence would have been much appreciated if it did not stand out as a testament to the fact that all I had in this empty house were walls to witness all that were too scripted to be real, but just as frightening to instill an all to real fear in my gut.

I rose from my knees and stare into the now empty palour and felt my body shiver with fear and uncertainty. I was starting to question my decision and if Scarlett Ruins was indeed haunted by ghosts that were trapped here begging for a release, or worse yet waiting to hurt me.

I walk into the palour determine not to be conquered by fear. The camcorder is set on record but as it took in the perfectly intact furnishing boasting style, class and comfort, the stain glass windows with satin backing drapes, furniture with minature crafts and photoes, rugs, cushions vase with fresh flowers upon a coffe table showed a perfectly hospitable palour but the air inside was cold and the lucid feel of what I and only the walls around me could share was rather overwhelming.

But walls can't talk and I was not ready to convince myself against my belief Scarlett Ruins was just a house rigged to get me to high tail it away from my five mill.

I left the room as the cold seep into my body and cause me to shiver. I tried not to compare the relax and warm cozy comfort of the living room as I rush back to my room.

What would these walls tell if they could talk?