The Haunted House Tour: Entry

The house as we approached it looked the part for being a haunted house attraction. It looked as if the houses of the Munster's and the Addams family had given birth to a smaller copy and then someone had decided that it did not look decrepit enough and added their own touches; such as shutters hanging askew on the upper floor. Despite the lack of even a breeze, the gate in the peeling picket fence was clattering open and shut as if shaken by a gale. Next to the gate creaked a sign saying "Haunted House" and indicating a price for a guided tour.

As my hand went to hold the gate open for my fiancée and stop it slamming on us, it swung open with a suitably eerie creak. We walked up the path between beds of blackened and dead looking foliage that rustled in the lack of breeze. As we arrived at the ominous looking door some things that might have been bats swooped low over our heads. To our surprise as I reached to push on the panelled door it swung silently open, which I found more disconcerting than if it had creaked and been stiff.

Through the door was a dingy hallway with stairs leading up into the dark. There was a red rope across the bottom of the stairs saying 'Private, No Entry'. This warning seemed unnecessary as about half way up there were three steps missing and the rest did not look particularly secure. Over hidden speakers played the standard low-key haunted house organ music. As we stepped down the hall, between the dust-laden furniture, a hatch suddenly opened and a woman behind it asked for the admission fee. She was a plain woman in her late-40s and there was something wrong about her that I could not quite put my finger on, but it had to do with the way she moved when she turned to put our entrance fee into her till.

"If you will go through the door at the end into the drawing room, the tour will start shortly," she said. Then with a suddenness that took us by surprise the hatch slammed shut, guillotine fashion.

As we entered the room beyond the door, four other couples sitting together on the lumpy but clean sofas looked up expectantly and then, slightly embarrassed, returned to their private conversations or looking about the room. The room contained the expected dull red and tarnished gold decor and dusty cobwebs in the corners. The dusty paintings were suitably dull, but I could have sworn that I saw the flicker of a pair of real eyes behind the dark eyes of the portrait over the unlit hearth.

We did not have long to look around, because we heard a polite throat clearing. Everyone turned to see the shrunken figure of a butler. He certainly looked the part in his dusty black jacket and hunched back. Even his wild white hair gave him a look of slightly menacing and decrepit authority.

Once he had all our attention he spoke. "Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our haunted house. The tour of our macabre exhibits will begin shortly, when the last of our guests have arrived. I think I can hear them now."

As we listened we could hear some fuss happening in the hallway and then a group of girls in their late teens burst into the room. There were half a dozen of them, each wearing knee-length skirts, shirts and cardigans. They seemed to be your usual gaggle of girls out for a bit of fun and all seemed a bit giggly.

"Good afternoon ladies, I was just telling the rest of this tour that they were welcome here and you are too." He then went on to tell us some of the supposed history of the house and some of the bizarre characters that had lived and, if his tales were true, died here. From his story it seemed that the custom of the occupants of the house to seal up the room where the previous occupant had died. Everyone, of course, took these tales with more than a pinch of salt. He also asked those persons of a nervous disposition or with known heart problems should let him know.

"Now folks, before we go to view the preserved rooms in this house, we shall visit the current owner, Mrs Mills. You will all have met her already, but not known what makes her special. Follow me if you please."

The group swivelled as the butler shuffled to a door next to the door by which we had entered. Deferentially he knocked. From the other side a call of "Come!" was heard. The butler opened the door wide enough to put his rounded shoulders through, but not enough that we could see anything.

"May our guests come in?" enquired the butler.

"Wait a moment while I get ready," replied the woman's voice, which I now recognised as being the same as that of the woman we had paid just minutes before. For a short while we could hear sounds of someone moving about. Soon the voice said, "Ok, I'm ready. Bring them in!"

"What you are about to see is the only genuine living half woman in the country, Mrs Mills." The butler opened the door and bustled through. We filed into the room beyond, which was an office, with a wide counter down the wall where the hatch could open into the hallway and a desk in the corner. The desk was the type that had a pedestal of drawers under each edge of a flat desktop. There were two unusual things about this desk; the first was the curtain across the front between the two pillars; the other was the upper half of the woman who had taken our money seemingly resting in the middle of the desk.

"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I am Mrs Mills and I own and run this haunted house. I know Barnes has told you something about this house and as you can see I am uniquely qualified to be here. I hope you enjoy the exhibits. Before Barnes takes you on to the next exhibit, do you have any questions?"

I'm the kind of person who likes to try to work out how things are done, so I took a good look at Mrs Mills and discovered that it was not obvious how the illusion of a half woman was achieved. I had expected to be able to see a hole in the desktop or that it would be easy to tell it was being hidden. This effect was more sophisticated, because it looked as though the bottom edge of Mrs Mills' shirt was tucked in between the bottom end of her torso and the leather inlay of the desk.

The girl from the youngest couple, in their late teens, put up her hand and on receiving a nod from Mrs Mills asked, "Weren't you over there?" She pointed at the area of counter next to the hatch to the hallway. She continued by asking, "How did you get from over there to there without legs?"

"I walked here on my hands," replied Mrs Mills as she rolled up a sleeve to show a quite muscular arm. There was a slightly embarrassed silence. "I suppose, some of you think I'm a fake," she observed. "Barnes, would you remove the drape, please." The butler shuffled forward and put his hand to the nearest edge of the curtain. As he slouched across in front of the desk, we heard the inimitable rip of Velcro. He stopped at the opposite corner of the desk to gather the freed curtain and arrange it across the desk. While he did this, we marvelled at the lack anything between the pedestals and directly under Mrs Mills upper half (if that is a correct way of referring to someone who does not seem to have a lower half).

One of the group of girls who had arrived after us asked, "How do you go to the bathroom?" The group giggled.

Mrs Mills gave her a look that could have melted granite and the girl looked down embarrassed at having asked.

"The short answer, and the only answer I'm going to give, is you don't want to know. Suffice it to say it is not pleasant, but I don't have to eat as much as a complete person, so it is not as much of a problem as you might imagine. It think it's about time you started the tour as it's the last of the afternoon," she concluded.

As Barnes crossed in front of her again, she leaned forward and seemed to whisper something to him. He slouched to a door and said, "It's time to start the tour proper. This next room was the laboratory of mad scientist, which we preserved almost as it was found, so if you would please not touch the artefacts as some of them are hot."

As we left the office I noticed something behind the desk. It was a wheelchair with a block of extra cushion on it. I thought, 'Now there's a detail I would never have thought of, a wheelchair for the person with no legs. Perhaps this haunted house is going to be more interesting than I anticipated.' As I was the last to leave the office, I shut the door, but before I closed it I said, "Thank you," to Mrs Mills. She favoured me with a smile and a nod of acknowledgement.