Chapter One

A Chapter by Sarah A. Nelson

The inside of the castle smelled like death. The stench rolled through the halls, but it was empty. Everything was dark, the castle look uninhabited, and uncleaned. Every room was covered in dust and the bricks were falling out of the walls. The breeze that came in through the windows stirred up dust particles that had been sitting for years. Coughing broke the silence that had set an eerie theme to the entire situation.

“We need to get a maid in here quickly,” Arla whined as she stifled another cough. Her short hair shook with her body when another surge of coughs ravaged her lungs. “Ethan?” the question in her voice quickly turned to panic, “Ethan!?” Terror grasped at Arla’s heart, as a hand forced itself down her top from behind her. “Ugh, are you trying to make me have this baby right now?” Ethan laughed and picked up the bags that were a few feet away from the door.

“Lets go find which room for us?” Ethan said, ignoring her obvious frustration at the dilapidated manner everything was in.

“This place is huge, let’s just go into town and stay there,” she replied, still annoyed.

“It’s not as big as it looks. The entire top floor is one room, and it’s blocked off anyhow. So we only have seven rooms to look at. And of course a kitchen, bathroom, and dining hall.”

    With a grunt, Arla gave in and waddled behind Ethan. He was much more enthusiastic about this place than she was. He was damn lucky she loved him, how could she not? His short curly hair glowed red with the light from the windows as they passed by openings into smaller rooms. She sighed, gazing at him with admiration in her eyes.

    Eventually they settled on a room. It wasn’t the biggest room in the “castle”, but it was close to the bathroom and the kitchen which was exactly where a pregnant woman wanted to be. She sat down on the floor against the wall as Ethan began to clear all the debris from the room.

“The furniture will be here in about an hour, care to help?” he grumbled at her.

“I’m sorry, I was too busy carrying this ten pound weight,” she snorted in return, but still she was pulling herself off of the floor to grab the mop. Soon enough the room was cleared and the movers were having a blast using the demon knocker located on the front of the door. Within three hours they had rooms full of plastic covered mounds, and they were $300 poorer, including a $50 tip, $10 to each man that was there. Ethan immediately set to readying the bedroom, pulling the plastic off of the bed and dresser.

A loud groan rang from the bedroom, Arla came stumbling in, “What’s wrong?”

“We forgot to buy new sheets for the bed.” he rolled his eyes.

“Oh bother,” Arla sighed, “we can do without them until tomorrow.”

    The night was uncomfortable. The windows in all the other rooms were open, and caused a slight howl throughout the castle, and the dust got stirred around by the winds making their way into every crevice that it could.

    The howling stopped abruptly, and the sound of water hitting a frying pan filled the space that the howling left. Arla stood up from the bed, and walked over to the doorway. It creaked loudly as she pushed it open, and she quickly looked to see if she woke Ethan. He was still sleeping soundly so she ventured on through the doorway. There was a staircase to the North that was barred off with planks of rotting wood. The window next to it was closed, and fogged over. A red light began emitting from between the broken planks. Quietly she tip-toed over to the stairway and peered through the wood, the figure of a woman’s leg came into her view through the knothole. Arla pulled on one of the pieces of wood, and to her surprise it took little strength to pull it off of the wall. It practically crumbled without a sound.

    The walls of the room upstairs were layered with what looked like blood. As it oozed down the walls, you could see old stains on the stone. The room smelled awful, and Arla had to cover her nose the moment she got to the top of the stairs. It was the span of the top floor, and practically empty. There was a pile of what seemed to be rags in the South-East corner. In the center of the room were bricks laid in a rectangle, creating a shallow bath. It couldn’t have been more than two feet high. However it was large enough for three to fit hip to hip.

    As Arla walked closer to the center of the room to get a better look at the stones on the floor, she noticed a clogged drain at one end of the bath. Her feet made a disgusting sound sticking to the floor as she edged closer. She kneeled down at the side of the tub and looked into the drain. She reached her hand down and grabbed the blockage. The tub began to fill with blood, it was already up to her elbow before she noticed. Eyes wide, she looked at what she pulled from the drain. Arla screamed and dropped the rotting infant arm into the filling tub.