The Colonel’s Last Stand (pt. 5)
Anti glitches, unable to keep himself corporeal as the house bends around him. Wood creaks and dust particles float through the air like flakes of snow, and Anti feels in the back of his neck that he’s being observed. His form turns fuzzy like a TV losing signal as he looks around in this new, strange place.
“Yer a real piece of work,” Anti says to the house. “But yer not gettin’ anything from me.” Anti grins and looks around. “And ya know that, don’tcha?”
The house concentrates its shadows around Anti as if a hundred hands are running over him at once, and Anti grits his teeth, shuddering but refusing to scream. Then the shadows draw back. “See? Nothin’ for ya here. Nothin’ left to corrupt.”
There’s a moment of sheer silence as terrifying as a held breath before a scream, and Anti grips his hands into fists at his sides until he snaps out of his trance and finds himself in the main parlor where the Mayor and another man, a detective by the looks of him, are chatting and the Butler is still passing out drinks.
“I’ll take one of those,” Anti says, snatching up another champagne glass and drinking it quickly and shuddering again at the thought of the darkness searching for a way in. He looks up when he sees movement to find Mark descending down the stairs in a robe and looking rather proud of himself.
“Welcome, welcome one and all!”
Anti reaches for another drink. It’s going to be a long night.
The Host reaches for Wilford, searching through this strange, other place, but it seems as though the house is working against him, pushing him away from where the Host can sense that Wilford is. He fights back against the darkness, and a soft, golden glow begins to shine around him. “Let me see him, or I’ll tear you to pieces.”
The darkness considers this with no small amount of amusement and finally allows Host to follow his desired path. He traces an unseen trail through the house’s winding halls, and when he reaches a staircase going down, he smells the damp warmth of a cellar below him.
Host feels the house draw back, almost as if to say, “Go along and find what you will.”
The Host ignores the nagging feeling of dread building in his gut and follows the stairs down to the cellar where he can hear two men talking. “One bullet, old boy, just one. I’ll take a shot, and you’ll take a shot. If we both live, we’ll call it a draw and never bring up the past again, agreed?”
There’s a click before the other man can respond, but no bullet. The Colonel yells in outrage. “I-I never agreed to this! This isn’t what I wanted!” He’s drunk and flustered, that much Host can tell. There’s the sound of a bottle shattering. “What do you want from me? An apology? I’m sorry that Celine and I fell in love! I’m sorry that she chose me! I was in a low place, and she-she just knew how to-to make it all… go away,” his voice trails off into a whisper. The gun exchanges hands. “Is this what you want?”
Mark sighs. “Just one shot, and then no more bad blood. I promise, Colonel. This will all go away, and we can be friends again. Don’t you want that?” He sounds so sincere, so caring. So Dark.
There’s a moment of silence, a moment of deciding. The Host wants to intervene, but he cannot change this memory. He cannot change—a gunshot resounds through the cellar, and the Host gasps as a body hits the floor.
“No, no, this-this isn’t… this isn’t what I wanted!” The Colonel sounds terrified. His knees hit the cellar floor, and there’s the sound of him gasping for breath and muttering something over and over. At first the Host cannot make it out, and then… “It was an accident. It-it was an accident. It was an accident! I swear!”
The Host rounds the final steps and flies into the cellar. The memory dissipates and instead he finds Wilford, very much himself, kneeling on the floor. His hands search the pink reporter for injuries, but what he finds instead is a gag in his mouth and his hands bound behind his back. “Will?” Host removes the gag from his mouth, and Wilford shakes his head.
“Get out, get out now! I was just bait!” Wilford tries to push the Host away. “Get out! Get out!”
The Host holds Wilford down, trying to calm him. “It’s ok, Wilford. It’s alright! Listen to me!”
“No, you listen to me. This house isn’t what you think. It’s…”
“Tell me you came alone.” Wilford takes a breath as the Host pauses. “Tell me, tell me you came alone!”
“Bim,” Wilford breathes out. “Host, where is he?”
