It was just Chalista's luck to be stuck in some God forsaken little town with hardly any money and no way to contact anyone of consequence. Truly though, she would have to look at the bright side of the whole situation. At least she had car trouble in town and not on some deserted road somewhere.
The town itself was not much to speak of. It was just another little, southern town with a conclave of people that were suspicious of its new comer. Chalista wanted no trouble she just wanted to get her car fixed and be off as soon as possible.
After finishing her dinner Chalista made her way from the small road side café to the inn where not an hour before she had broken down in front of.
It was a week until Halloween and there was already a chill in the air. Chalista fluffed up her scarf around her ears and dug into her pocket to find the old key with the plastic key chain on it.
The octagonal shaped key chain read, The Cypress Inn #56. As she stepped into the room Chalista sighed with a certain amount of dismay. She would never stay in a place as shabby as this.
She could smell the distinct smell of wood rot and cigarette smoke. She wished she had asked for a non smoking room. However she was so tired that she had no intention of making any kind of vocal objection to her lodging.
The shower left much to be desired but that was no surprise considering the state of the rest of the room. None the less Chalista still enjoyed a hot shower.
After a dinner and the shower Chalista decided to turn in for the night. Usually she would shudder at the idea of going to sleep with wet hair but she was so tired that she decided to hazard it anyway.
With deft fingers she braided her brown hair into a thick rope and then proceeded to jump into bed.
That night she had the weirdest dream imaginable. She was walking up an old wooden staircase and at the top of it was a dark figure that was hunched over in a corner. Tendrils of thick black hair spun and curled like dark ribbons in the breeze.
The soft wind was coming from a broken window behind the crumpled figure. As Chalista took in all of her surroundings she realized that she was in a very old and dilapidated house. Everything was covered in wood rot, lichen, and termite infestations.
Something about the figured huddled against the autumn wind, and the disrepair of the old place made Chalista heart sick. Everything in the old place reeked of sadness and heartbreak.
She wanted out of there as fast as possible. She tried to head for the door but she became stuck in her tracks and that was when she saw the eyes.
Obsidian orbs stared back at her from a pale visage. The face was so pale it seemed almost blue in the silvery light of the moon.
There was nothing human about those eyes. She felt like she was staring at some predatory beast who was not sure if it felt like attacking. The person or whatever it was just stared back. Was it some sort of challenge?
Chalista took a step closer to the shadowy figure. Why she did it she was not sure. She was already frightened. Against her own good sense she stretched out her hand almost touching the silent mass of darkness in front of her.
The figure lurched back as if afraid and the look in its eyes filled her with as much sadness as the old house. It became apparent to her that whoever this person was they had been abandoned alongside the decrepit domicile.
Their loneliness engulfed her like a drowning man at sea. She felt sick and sad all at once. All she wanted to do was weep, but weep for who? Who was this person?
In the distance there was a faint ringing in the background. It became louder and louder until she could not escape its monotonous clang.
Chalista sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes and cursing. It was the damn telephone going off next to her on the night table. With one hand she picked up the receiver.
"Hello." She almost hissed. It was the local garage.
"Yeah, is this here Ms. Donavin's room?" The man on the other end asked. Chalista confirmed that it was her. It appeared that her car was ready and that she could pick it up at any time.
After a quick breakfast Chalista picked up her car and was on the road before noon.
She was able to get a fair amount of driving done that afternoon unfortunately she was waylaid by a heavy rain storm. It became so thick that she had to pull over onto the shoulder of the road and ride out the storm.
There was a fair bit of lightening and the wind and rain rocked her little car from side to side. This trip had not gone the way she had planned at all.
As she sat in her car thumbing through a magazine a huge crack of lightening flashed through the sky illuminating a huge old house across the road.
When she saw it plainly for what it was she felt almost ill with fear and realization. Realization in the fact that the house in front of her was the very likeness of the one in her dream.
How could that have been possible. The only thing that she could possibly attribute the strange situation she found herself in was the fact that she had traveled through countless spooky old parishes, and seen many plantation home.
They all looked alike after a while. This one was like any other save for how shabby it had become. Most of the old houses in Louisiana were lovingly tended by scores of historical societies and auxiliary clubs. This one was forgotten and untouched.
Why Chalista chose to get out of the car and into the storm was beyond her but she did. The water pelted her from the side and she was instantaneously soaked to the bone.
It did not take long for her body to shake with the chill of the water. As if she knew what she was doing she walked across the road towards the house. Chalista's feet squelched in the thick mud.
It took well over a half an hour to make it to the front door of the house. By then it was obvious that no one lived there. The entire front of the house was covered in ivy and other creeping vines.
It appeared that almost all of the windows had been smashed and Chalista noticed bird nests in the eves and overhangs. The front door itself was hanging off of one bent hinge which was green with age. If someone did live here what manner of person was it. She remembered those eyes staring at her. Her stomach twisted in a knot of despair and sadness. It over took her like a wave of black water and made her want to scream. She had never felt that way in her life.
Chalista should have ran back to her car but she was glued to the moss eaten ground. She needed to go forward into the house or she would not be able to move at all.
Her mud caked shoes trudged through the entrance and into the foyer. Dead leaves covered the cracked marble floor. The place must have been grand back in its hay day. Chalista thought.
To her left was a staircase spiraling up to the second floor. As she began to climb it she realized that the whole scene before her was right out of her dream. It was a carbon copy right down to the moon light showing through the broken windows.
When she almost reached the top of the stairs she found the place where the figure had been, but there was no one there. At the top of the stairs was a long hallway with more broken windows lining the far wall.
Chalista followed the hallway to a room with a large black door at the very end. By the look of the door it had not always been black but with the passing time and mildew it turned into a rotten dark thing.
She felt afraid as she pushed on the door but yet she still did it. It creaked noisily as it took all of her body weight to get it open all of the way.
The inside of the room was even more pitiful than the rest of the house. Something caught in her throat as she surveyed her surroundings. Eyes began to shed tears at the lonesome room.
Whoever had lived there had done there best to make the room less shabby if it were at all possible. There were piles of antique leather bound books, magazines and every other manner of thing to keep a person entertained.
There were curtains still on the windows though most of them were torn and just as bedraggled as everything else but there were no dead leaves on the floor and the widows were boarded up where ever they were broken.
Tears came to Chalista's eyes as she picked up an old volume of the Wizard of OZ. She had always loved that book as a child. The whole room made her feel nostalgic and very meloncholy.
