Hsa 43 Soverom A Board Game

The house stood on the top of a hill in what seemed like a corner of the world. The long drive had lulled Ken into a stupor. His wife, Cindy, slept most of the way, waking up only to announce some bodily requirement which necessitated a stop. The woody countryside of Washington rolled by silently as they drove. Occasionally, the mist would thin enough for the windshield wipers to create a dry squelch as they dragged across their set path. The noise would cause Cindy to mutter in her sleep. Ken did not mind the solitude of the drive, but his legs ached with sudden stiffness as he stepped out of the car.

The house looked as unappealing in reality as it had in the pictures. Cindy found their vacation spot by looking for bed and breakfast choices in the rural Pacific Northwest. When they discussed getting away from the city for a while, Ken pictured a small resort community where he could spend a decent amount of time at a cozy bar. Instead, they had ventured into true obscurity. The grounds around the dark structure reminded him of something from a Dr. Seuss book. Strangely cut hedges and various topiary animals, mostly horses. If the rain subsided, the garden would probably be a beautiful spot to enjoy a picnic, but Ken doubted the constant drizzle would relent. His dour expression and lethargic mood did nothing to dissuade his wife. Cindy hopped out of the car with a broad grin on her face and ran over to one of the topiaries to inspect it, calling out for Ken to join her. Instead, he retrieved their bags from the trunk of the car and headed over to the front door.

As he walked down the small cobblestone pathway, another car appeared over the side of the hill. Ken dropped the bags under the protection of the front door's awning and went out to meet the newcomer. The dilapidated old Buick creaked to a halt, and the door swung open with a groan. A small woman with gray hair and thick glasses plodded along the pathway towards Ken, holding a massive ring of keys in her outstretched hand. Cindy ran over to meet her. "Miss Haverty?"

"Oh, yes, you must be Cindy," the woman rasped back. "And Ken. We're happy to have you staying for the week. Are the Mitchells with you?"

Ken stepped out of her way as she plodded on towards the door. "Um, no, they're about thirty minutes behind us. Late start this morning, I heard."

"I have an extra key for them," Miss Haverty continued, either ignoring or not hearing Ken's reply. She slid one of the large iron keys into the door and turned, opening the house with a loud click. "Come inside, come inside." The young couple followed her into the house as she scurried out of sight. Ken's sense of dread did not lessen as he entered his home for the next week. A stale, musty smell greeted him as he surveyed a large collection of uncomfortable looking furniture. Another click and the lights came on, the buzz in the walls making Ken sure the house had not been rewired since electricity's invention. "Oh, don't look so glum, this is only the entryway. Some sections of the house are kept in their original state, but don't worry." She led them into the kitchen. Though much of the cabinets and surfaces remained true to the house's aesthetic, gleaming silver appliances hummed with modern energy. Miss Haverty went to the refrigerator, "We've stocked it for the week with our normal supply and the special requests you made. For anything else, you'll need to go into town. There's a small grocery store about twenty minutes down the road for your essentials, but the only major supermarket is an hour away. I'll be in to check on you midway through the week, and I can bring anything you need if you let me know. The fees for that are all in the brochure. Come along, this way."

She led them through a slightly more modern sitting room and then upstairs. The bedrooms looked comfortably furnished, like preserved hotel rooms plucked from the early nineties. Ken did not expect to notice the lack of entertainment as much, but in every room he found himself glancing around for a television. The showers looked too short, the stairs creaked, and the whole house smelled slightly wet. Ken finally found an appealing room in the library. It looked like something out of a fantasy novel, the walls entirely line with shelves and leftover books stacked all around the room. Miss Haverty explained all about the history of the house and its original owners as she gave them the tour. Ken did not listen to much, but Cindy remained enthralled by every syllable. The house had been built by a wealthy industrialist, Harold Ogden, who moved west for the better air. Ogden and his wife lived in the home sporadically, spending most of their time traveling around the world. "It's why none of the furnishings have any one distinct style," Haverty said, "as they traveled from India to China to Russia, Ogden would purchase a sofa or a vanity and have it shipped here."

"Are you his descendant?" Cindy asked.

"No. The Ogdens disappeared. Originally, people thought they went to Egypt, but they never arrived on the ship. One of the sections in the library has a whole set of books about their disappearance. Lots of rumors and theories. The official word being that the Ogdens did leave for their trip, but were robbed and murdered on the boat before being tossed over board. Plenty of servants knew of the Ogden's odd tastes."

Ken's interest finally piqued, "Odd tastes?"

"Well, don't let it put a damper on your week. Some folk come here specifically because of it, I'll admit. I don't like to play it up though." She led them back down to the foyer. "Harold grew obsessed with the occult. It wasn't uncommon at the time. Lots of intellectuals around the world were suddenly fascinated by the idea of specters and demons. The Ogdens were particularly notorious though for their...uh, sexual tastes. The house was kept by the family for years before they sold off the whole of the estate. We purchased it at auction fifty years ago and turned it into what it is now. When we started cleaning it, we found a very large collection of material dealing with witch's sabbaths, occult orgies, and all sort of strange things. We knew Harold's history so it wasn't too surprising, but nonetheless. All of it was cleaned away to make the house a little more family friendly, but some of the paintings were beautiful despite their content. Everything that could be preserved, we moved off site, but we left a few pieces in the attic. You're free to go up there and look around if you like, the door at the end of the upstairs hall will lead you straight to it."

The strange little woman said it all so matter-of-factly that it unnerved Ken all the more. Clearly, the speech had been given many times to many different patrons, a last dash of local folklore to make up for the shabby interior. Still, Miss Haverty set the tone exceptionally well. "Anything else we need to know?"

Haverty handed them a set of four keys, "Two of them are for the Mitchells. The hot water can go about thirty minutes before you're out, takes another thirty minutes to charge after that. Space out your showers. Washer and dryer in the basement. Your cell phones may not work too well up here so use the land line in the kitchen if you have an emergency. There's a list of numbers beside it, mine included. Air conditioning units are separate for upstairs and downstairs. Shouldn't need either, but if you do, don't run them below 65, or they'll freeze up." She continued on and on, listing functional quirks of the house and how to deal with them, but Ken's mind wandered off again. He'd seen the door to the attic during their tour, and he eagerly wanted to go exploring.

***

In the short amount of time since Miss Haverty left them, they had taken their things upstairs and started to unpack. Cindy immediately shooed her husband out of the bedroom while insisting he was putting the clothes away incorrectly. Ken moved back downstairs to look around a little more. He turned on the air conditioners ushering out the musty air pretty quickly. He also discovered Miss Haverty had not been stingy on the alcohol front. An entire side of the fridge was stocked with various beers and liquor. He helped himself to a beer and moved back to the front of the house in time to see another car pulling into the drive. "Cindy, come down, Rob and Sarah are here!" Ken yelled up the stairs.

Ken went out to help with their bags, giving Sarah a quick hug and getting a very firm handshake from Rob. "Drive ok?"

"Sure. Sarah has been chittering ever since we left. You'd think we hadn't seen you guys in months. Had to stop her from calling Cindy nine times on the way. Mind getting that? Brought steaks for dinner. How is it in there?"

Ken reached into the trunk and pulled out a cooler while Rob hoisted Sarah's massive pink suitcase onto his shoulder. "It looks bad at first, but once you see the rooms it's not so bad. No tv and no internet though, so I hope we don't get fucking sick of one another."

They made their way up to the house, Ken marveling at Rob's effortless strength. His friend worked as a personal trainer and had the body to match. More than a few times, Rob attempted to recruit Ken as a gym buddy, but it simply was not part of Ken's world view. He preferred to spend his free time lounging on the couch and forgetting all of the monotony of his day. He took comfort in his average physique and healthy eating.

Cindy came out of the house with a squeal and grabbed Sarah for a big hug. The two of them linked the two couples, being old sorority sisters from college. On the surface, they did little to refute the idea that sorority sisters were airhead clones of each other. Ken thought as much of Sarah when they first met, but soon realized his wife, as intelligent as she proved to be, was the ditsy of the pair. Sarah worked as an accountant, and Ken learned quickly to avoid bringing up any economic issue while she was around for fear of receiving a very long winded lecture. Personalities aside, their wives did share other resemblances. Ken and Rob enjoyed a very confidential view of their wives. They often made friendly comparison of which had the wilder one in bed or which one had the softer butt or bigger breasts.

The women started talking about how beautiful the house looked and how excited they both were. Ken directed Rob up to the other bedroom and then took the cooler to the kitchen to put away the meat. Before long, Sarah and Cindy went upstairs to finish unpacking and Rob appeared in the kitchen. "House ain't bad. That a beer?"

"Check the fridge. Left side."

"Holy shit, guess we won't have to worry about a liquor run." Rob spent a few moments looking over the selection. "I guess this is what happens in hipster territory. If we did this in Texas, the whole fridge would have been Budweiser and Jack Daniels. Which one did you pick?"

Ken held up his bottle, "Rooster Neck IPA. It's alright. You're actually drinking beer? Not watching the carbs?"

"It's my weekend off. Besides, I think I'll be burning some calories later. Think these walls are sound proof? Maybe we can have a little shouting match later on?"

"Oh that reminds me," Ken fished in his pocket and produced the extra set of keys. "These are for you and Sarah. The lady who let us in told us about the original owners of the house. Apparently they were some kind of occult sex freaks."

"Yeah, the Ogdens, Sarah read about them on the way up. She's convinced herself that the servants murdered them and buried them in the basement or something. Don't be surprised if you hear her screaming about that later on too. She gets herself worked up about the dumbest things sometimes."

"God, I didn't think about that. Thanks, now I'll be freaked out all night too." Ken drained the rest of his beer with a sardonic grin. "Hand me another, don't care which. Anyway, they took most of the guys stuff out, but left some of it in the attic. Lady said we can go take a look if we want."

Rob shrugged. "We got nothing else to do."

Ken led the way upstairs. They popped into the Mitchell's room to talk with the women for a while. As Ken stepped in, Sarah quickly put away a skimpy outfit that noticeably did not have a crotch in the underwear. She blushed while Cindy shooed the men along. They continued down the hall to the attic door. As expected, the door rattled and held shut on their first attempt. The house key turned the lock. The humidity caused the wood to swell, but it moved with a mild amount of effort. A dark stairwell greeted them. Rob pulled out his phone and used the light to find an old electric switch which clicked on a single bulb. Both of them chose to ignore the cold, prickling feeling that came over them as they ascended.

They emerged into a large, stately room, not unlike a bedroom and very unlike an attic. Ken expected to find rafters and insulation where old books, boxes, and knick knacks had been stacked on the only stable ground. Instead, the room appeared to be an unused third story apartment. A small fireplace occupied one wall, another had several shelves full of black books, and the third was more shelving displaying odds and ends. A rocking chair and small end table sat beside the fireplace as if someone had been reading moments before they entered the room. "Well, this is fucking spooky as shit," Rob said.

"What're you guys looking at?" Cindy asked from the doorway, causing both Ken and Rob's hearts to jump to their throats.

Sarah skirted into the room, "Whoa, this is awesome. It's like a secret room. Maybe their bodies are behind the bookshelves!"

Ken looked over the books. "It's like he collected the Kama Sutra from every culture he could. And that's the not weird stuff. 'Ritualistic Sexual Acts of Early European Civilizations' or 'The Pagan Orgy of 1643'."

"Look at this," Rob said. His eyes were fixed on a painting hanging above the fireplace. Ken and Sarah joined him. The painting depicted a group of men and women dancing around a large fire. Beyond the ring, the painting hinted at trees and other forest scenery filled with watching eyes, none of which seemed to match those of the dancers. Several of the dancers had odd features, like tails or horns. The more they looked, the more the painting seemed off. Some of the dancers wore masks, but upon closer inspection it was clear that the faces behind those masks were not human at all. Despite the macabre depictions of primal humans, a strange shape at the center of the bonfire drew everyone's attention. A square, not more than a inch on the broad canvas, of pure black surrounded by orange flames occupied the exact center of the painting.

"Hey guys, check this out," Cindy said. She was hunched over a chest against a far wall. From within, she pulled a long rectangular box and showed them the top. Carved into the wood was a depiction of a naked man and woman intertwined in a rudimentary example of sex. Cindy read the words beneath, "Soverom, a game for couples. I think it's an old board game. We should play it!" She opened it up and showed them a simple, painted board of four intertwining paths leading to a line.

"Could be fun," Sarah agreed.

"Least it's not Monopoly," Rob said. "Sure it's not some kind of priceless antique? I don't want to spill beer on it and owe this place ten grand for a board game."

Cindy packed it up and carried it out of the room calling back to say, "We'll be careful."

The others followed, someone relieved to leave the strange room behind them. When they reached the second floor, Ken closed the door and started to follow Rob down to the kitchen to help cook. After a few steps, he turned back and locked the door, making sure the knob didn't turn before hurrying after the others.

***

Several hours later, after a heavy meal and several more beers, the two couples settled into the more comfortable sitting room. During dinner, the conversation turned to discussion of work and mutual acquaintances. Cindy told several horror stories from her job as a nurse and Rob told about his most obnoxious client, a fifty two year old man who defined mid life crisis. By the time they adjourned to the living room, the house felt much more cozy, and the men's concerns about boredom or isolation had diminished.

While it had been somewhat forgotten during dinner, the strange board game waited for them on a coffee table between two overstuffed couches. Ken and Cindy snuggled together on one while Sarah left Rob to pull apart the strange game. The game had two doors that covered a thicker piece of wood that made up the board. On the backside of one door were several compartments containing tiny figures they took to be player pieces and a single die. On the back of the other door were instructions, "Choose a game piece. Men take red pieces and women take blue. Place them on one of the four starting points. Roll the die to progress through the board while obeying the whispers of the fire. The first to reach the finish line wins."

"Whispers of the fire? I guess there's something in that center bit?" Cindy gesturing towards a small glass covered hole in the center of the board. "Maybe like a magic eight ball or something?" Sarah pressed gently against the glass, but nothing happened. She tried shaking the box and gasped as bright red lettering appeared behind the glass.

"Place the pieces on the starting points," it read.

"Magnets," Ken announced, as if that explained everything. "Go on then, let's see what it does. I'll be this little fox looking guy. Maybe it's a wolf."

The others chose their pieces. Rob took the figurine shaped like a bull. Cindy and Sarah argued for a moment before deciding that Sarah would be the cat and Cindy would be the rabbit. They lined up their pieces, had a brief argument on who would go first, and then decided Cindy would since she found the game. She took the die in hand and rolled it across the board landing on a six. As she reached to move her piece, the small figure began to slide forward. As the piece reached the sixth tile new letters appeared on the glass section. "Aren't kisses just the best, with each smooch get bigger breasts."

"Well, that's a weird thing to say," Cindy said. "Maybe it's just a bawdy game. I was expecting more of a kiss player three kind of thing. Like spin the bottle."

Sarah smiled, "Then we'll just have to add our own rules. Here, roll the die again. You're one, Ken is two, I'm three, and Rob is four. If it lands on one of us, you kiss that person. If it lands on one you get a pass, if it lands on five or six you have to drink for that many seconds."

"Deal," Cindy said quickly and dropped the die again. "Four." She gave Ken a glance and crawled across the coffee table to lean into Rob. She wiggled her butt at her husband as she planted a long, wet kiss on Rob's lips. Ken watched the two of them carefully, suddenly very uncomfortable with the game. Cindy pulled away and shoved the die into Ken's hand. "Your turn, honey."

Reluctantly, he tossed the die onto the board. His figure moved forward four spaces and new lettering appeared. "Suddenly no one is caring, wives are meant for sharing."

"That's a little kinkier," Sarah said. "Nothing about kissing or touching though. I guess just drink four."

Ken barely heard her instructions. Watching his wife kiss his friend had created a sick feeling in his stomach, but the second he read the new text on the board, that feeling vanished. Instead, he felt proud that his wife had kissed Rob. From the look on Rob's face, the other man struggled with a similar thought. Cindy didn't notice the exchange of knowing glances because her bra felt unusually snug. Noticing Sarah staring at him, Ken brought his beer up and drank while she counted to four.

Next, Sarah picked up the die and tossed it across the board. Her small bunny figure moved forward one space while she frowned at her luck. A new message appeared on the screen, "A lady is not defined by clothes, prove it by removing those." Without a word, Sarah started to take off her top. Ken and Rob watched with lurid fascination as her blouse was tossed aside and she started to remove her bra.