Zoe

Papillion Manor. A mansion with a chequered past. If you were a horror themed Youtuber you did at least one ‘Spooky story’ video on this haunted house. It had all the great hits. Murder. Betrayal. Rumours. All of it false or exaggerated but a tantalising story nonetheless. And if you didn’t possess the skill to make one of those videos but instead had the fortune to live a short drives away from the Papillion manor then you could just film a video of you walking through the house, pretend a ‘spook’ happened, post it on the internet and voilà! A few thousands of views for you. At least that’s what Gene thought. As far as Gene knew, he would be the first to ever do one of these videos. An opening for him to go viral. Everyone else was going viral, so why couldn’t he?

Why couldn’t he?

And while everyone else was off doing ‘horror experiences,’ he was going to do the real thing. Well, as real as can be. So after a bit of dubious fence hopping he was finally at the front door. Gene was not as prepared as he could be. He had a small bag with snacks for the road and he had dressed for the summer weather, forgetting he’d be out at midnight, so all he was wearing was a plain t-shirt and some jeans. But that didn’t matter now. All he had to do was make the video and leave. Shouldn’t take too long. With his phone in hand, he pressed record and walked in.

The door made a loud creak as he opened it. Nice He thought. He obviously couldn’t say it out loud but the more this place conformed to what people thought was scary, the better his video would be. On the inside he was delighted but on the outside he pretended to be scared as best he could. Shaking the phone as he walked. He made sure to breathe deep heavy breaths close to the microphone. The house was dark, but not too dark. The moon was shining out of the windows giving Gene just enough light to see his way. The house had all the perfect elements. Cobwebs in all the right places. Pictures hanging on the walls. Dilapidated support structures. As he crept forward, the floorboards underneath sagged. He was careful not to push his weight too much in one area. “I feel like the floor’s going to split open.” A genuine thought he was happy to express to the camera. “Look at all this, guys. This is a proper haunted house, I don’t wanna be here any more than I have to, let’s just go through the house and get out.” The foyer of the mansion was just a single staircase that led to the second floor with two rooms either side and a closed wooden door at the end of the hall. There was no door leading to the living room. Just a large square archway. At each side was a framed portrait. Gene naturally assumed these were the previous owners. He walked up to one of the paintings and moved his phone in for a closeup. “Is this like… the owner? They really le-” He messed up “Is this like… the owner? They really let this place go.”

“Boring!” A young girl standing behind him shouted.

“Wh-”

“You’re being boring. Are you just trying to fill the silence? If you don’t have anything valuable to say, don’t say anything at all. Just let this place speak for itself. It’s already scary enough, we don’t need your ramblings ruining the vibe.” Gene just looked at the young girl completely perplexed. “What?” She was fairly short. Probably around 15 years old. She was wearing a purple hoodie, with her hood down, that was barely visible in the dark. “You look like you’ve seen a ghoOooOoooOooo0st!” She mocked.

“Who… are you?”

“Gene? Are you ok?” Gene was most certainly not ok. “I’m Zoe. How scared can you be of a few cobwebs that you forget that?”

“Oh… Oh yeah…” Gene remembered as soon as she said her name. Of course, my sister. This didn’t get rid of his questions however. “Wait? But… why are you here?”

“You invited me.”

“I did?”

“You did.” Gene remembered once again. He was being very forgetful it seemed. “Anyway, give me your phone.” Zoe reached out to snatch his phone away from him but Gene stepped away. Accidentally knocking into the painting behind him, tilting it in the process

“What do you need my phone for?” He said, turning around and readjusting the painting to its previous position.

“Because, you are boring and I think your viewers are going to want to see you wet your pants when we see a ghost.”

“Well, I don’t think there will be a ghost nor do I think there will be any wet pants.” As Gene was readjusting the painting, with his phone barely held in his hand, Zoe snatched it from him. “Oi!”

“Wanna’ bet?”

“What?”

“I’ll give you your phone back if you can successfully not get jumpscared in the next, let’s say, 5 minutes.” Gene jumped after the phone but Zoe stepped out of the way faster than he could get to it. She may be short but she was also full of energy. Energy he didn’t have any more. “Come oooooon, Take the beeeeet”

“Fine! But you better actually film, I’m not losing footage because you decided to play Candy Crush.”

“Excuse me, I’m a Clash Royale player!”

What is there to be proud of? Gene, and now Zoe, explored the house. Zoe filmed them walking around the living room, pointing the camera at anything that could be of interest. Cobwebs, old TVs, silverware that was silver no longer. Gene aimlessly walked around the room. Occasionally in shot of the camera but most of the time avoiding it entirely.

“Come on Gene, you have to actually be in the video.”

“What’s the point, we’re here to see the house aren’t we.”

“Yeah, and it’s your YouTube channel. No one’s going to subscribe if they can’t put a face to the name. You want people to subscribe don’t you?”

“Yeah.” Obviously, that was the goal of any YouTube channel. They both left the living room and went back to the Foyer, this time heading to the door down the hall. “I’m going to open this door and we can, like, pretend that it was open the whole time and peer through. It’ll feel scary.”

“Won’t that be inconsistent. Isn’t there a shot of the door closed from when you walked in.”

“Hmm… I guess. We’ll just acknowledge it then. Say it was a ghost or something.” Gene opened the door and walked back into the living room where they reshot them walking up to the door. “Hey? Wasn’t that door closed before?” Gene said to the camera. He walked into the room. Zoe lagged behind to get a shot of him slowly entering. Almost looking as if he had been eaten by the room. She then entered the room with him, closing the door behind her. The room was small. Smaller than Gene had been expecting. From the outside it looked like some kind of large storage space but the inside was more akin to solitary confinement. A featureless room with the walls and floor completely made out of concrete. A stark contrast from the wooden floorboards. “Well, I guess there’s nothing here. Film some of it and then let’s go.” Gene said. He walked towards the door to exit the room.

“I can’t film it, I don’t have your phone.”

“What do you mean you don’t have my-” As he spoke he went to try the door handle but the door wouldn’t open. “What?”

“What’s wrong?”

“It won’t open.” Gene kicked the door with his foot but it slammed into hard metal. Gene fell to the ground and held his foot in pain.

“You ok?”

“No… That hurt.”

“Well, I guess we’re stuck then.” Zoe said.