Haunted House Tour: Headless Exhibit

The room we entered was nearly empty with black painted walls. The only furniture being an ornate chair with a frame jutting forward from the back at head height and a small table, upon which stood a box.

"This room used to hold our headless woman exhibit," explained Barnes, "but we had to fire her last week for abusive behaviour; she persisted in making obscene hand gestures at our guests." He seemed lost in thought as if regretting the necessity of letting her go. Then a thought struck him. "Well folks, as you will have guessed this exhibit was a fake and after the unfortunate accident next door we will probably be shut down, so why don't I show you how this exhibit was done."

There were general expressions of agreement, some for a desire to know how such an illusion was achieved and some as a distraction from the horror that had occurred in the previous room.

"Alright, I'll need a volunteer," stated the butler. Three hands shot up, two of the group of girls and my fiancée's. I was a bit surprised. I was also relieved when one of the girls was selected. She said her name was Bernice.

"OK, Bernice, if you would come and sit on the chair, so that your head is inside the frame at the top." Bernice complied. "Could you sit a little straighter, please?" Bernice shuffled back in the seat so that her head and half her neck was within the frame. "Now we need to fit the special collar, which will cover your lower neck, so that the spectators can't see that it's your real neck; it's designed to seem like life support equipment and appear to be placed on neckless shoulders." Barnes went to the table and opened the top of the box there. From inside he withdrew a shiny metallic collar and asked Bernice to undo a couple of buttons of her blouse at the collar and neck so that he could fit it. As he fitted it he said, "You may find that this restricts your head movements a bit, but it shouldn't be uncomfortable." After some fiddling and adjustment, he asked, "How does that feel?"

Bernice smiled and said that as it was only going to be for a short time she could put up with the slight chafing at the back of her neck. "It's alright for you lot," she said to us, "but I'm not going to get to see this."

"Well, you won't be able to see what's happening while it's happening." Barnes continued, "You see that lens up there? We installed that to get evidence against Carolin, so we could fire her and not be taken to court for unfair dismissal. That will video this and we will give you the tape when you go. OK?"

Bernice attempted a nod and then said "Yes, that'll be great," when she realised that the collar arrangement did really reduce her head movements.

"So ladies and gentlemen would you mind taking a step backward so the camera can get a clear view."

We all stepped out the line of sight of the camera. While Barnes retrieved the box from table and explained that the set of mirrors and such like that made the headless woman's head appear not to be there were fitted in the box. This was mainly to protect the fragile mirrors and their delicate adjustment.

He removed the front and base of the box and we could hear a faint chinking. From behind the chair he lined up the box to slot it in the frame and with a swift movement, which seemed to make the brave Bernice jump, pushed it into place. She smiled apologetically.

"Are you OK there? Because when I shut the front the mechanism will be in place; you will be in the dark for quite a while. But first this bit must be slid into place." He took up the base of the box from the table and with a little fiddling slid it back into the base of the box.

I noticed and was slightly puzzled by the fact that the base, while it definitely did not touch Bernice's neck, it went under her chin. I thought to myself, 'that is going to make it difficult to move the box off her head'.

While Barnes was putting the base back in the box, Bernice's expression showed a mix of concern and determination not to be unnerved. In order to keep her hands from wandering to where they might be in the way, she was gripping the base of the seat.

"Now," explained Barnes, the butler character, "I'm going to slide the front into the box and pull the box out of the top of the frame, leaving the mechanism behind to conceal Bernice's head. Bernice, could you be silent while you are in the dark so as not to spoil the effect.

As Barnes slid the front of the box into place, I noticed that Bernice's fingers had found something under the chair, so I was not paying as much attention as I might normally have when Barnes smoothly lifted the head box from the head frame, leaving it apparently empty. I was particularly amazed when he passed his hand behind the head frame and we could see it. This quite obviously shocked him too.

"Ladies and gentleman, please remain calm, but I think something has gone wrong." He paused. "Bernice, Are you OK. It's OK to speak."

To everyone's evident surprise, a muffled sound came from the box that Barnes had placed on the table moments before. He went over to the box and opened the front to reveal a disembodied head that had a frown on its face. It looked so much like Bernice's face that it had to be her. She blinked.

"I'm sorry, but we could not hear that, Are you OK?" queried Barnes.

"Well, it was dark, then this funny feeling went through my neck. I felt a bit giddy after that, but otherwise I'm fine." I got the impression that she would have smiled if she had not seen the worried expression on Barnes' face. "Why? What's wrong?"

Rather than try to put the situation into words, he rotated the box so that the open front faced the seated headless body directly. It took Bernice a short while to realise the implications of what she saw. Her response was to scream, so loud that we all put our hands over our ears.

When her scream had finished and we were tentatively taking our hands from our ears, she asked what exactly had happened.

Barnes explained that everything seemed to go normally until he had passed his hand behind the frame, expecting it not to be visible, because of the mirrors, and when he saw it he knew something was wrong.

Quite reasonably, she asked what went wrong. The butler did not have an answer and shrugged, which is an amazingly effective gesture when performed by someone with a hunch. He then suggested that the seat's previous occupant had sabotaged it somehow. The reaction to this was disbelief and questions of how. It took Barnes a while to quiet us so that we could ask our questions in an ordered manner. An older man was asking the first question when Bernice said, "I think I've found something. I think it's an envelope taped under the chair."

With a sudden burst of speed, that we would not have anticipated, Barnes crossed back to the chair with its headless sitter and reaching under, pulled out a brown envelope, with the ripping sound of masking tape coming unstuck. In moments he had extracted the contents by inserting his crooked little finger and drawing it across the fold of the stuck down flap. He automatically handed the envelope to Bernice's seated body, which took it after two unsuccessful attempts. The letter inside was on headed note-paper and Barnes read through it, in silence. Until several people inquired what it said.

"OK, I'll read it out, but its contents must not go beyond these four walls."

We all readily agreed to this condition.

"OK, it's a note from our ex headless woman, Carolin, and she says, 'To the next sitter in this chair,' (that I guess is you, Bernice,) 'If you found this letter before sitting down and allowing the effect to happen you will save yourself a lot of worry and heartache. If you found this too late, then you are stuck like that for a while. When I was first threatened with the sack, I arranged for a friend of mine to curse the equipment so that the first person to use it that was not me would genuinely lose her head. Once he had done this he told me that he would not be a party to murder, so despite losing your head you will not die. He also told me that I should write a letter of explanation saying this and pointing out that the magic that achieves this curse is local to the chair and the room so if the chair or either part of the victim is removed from this room the victim will die, nastily. This curse was laid as a protection against me being sacked, so until I get compensation I am not going to tell you who laid the curse for me and he is the only one who can lift it and reattach the victim's head."

We were all quite agitated by the letter, most of all Bernice, who had tears making tracks down her cheeks. "I can't stay here like this for the rest of my life," she sobbed.

"This seems to be a total disaster," commented Barnes. "If you will wait here, I will get someone who can look after Bernice."

We milled about while we waited for the promised help to arrive. I took the chance to check out Bernice's detached head and the frame that had been its former location and could not detect how either illusion was achieved. I was circumspect about these examinations, so as not to offend Bernice or her friends.

After a few minutes, during which Bernice's friends fussed over their friend's head promising to locate the person who had cursed the chair and force him to put her head back, a tall guy in a brown lab coat came in. He had a few private words with Barnes.

Barnes cleared his throat to gain our attention. "Humphrey, here, will look after Bernice's needs until we can work out how to reunite her head with her body. But as you will have noticed this room is a bit crowded. Mrs Mills has suggested that we continue the tour. It will keep us from dwelling too much on the incident in the lab, and keep you from getting too bored, while you wait for the police to arrive. And it will probably be my last chance to tell some of the stories that this house holds. Sorry, Bernice, but given the content of the letter, we can't take the risk of taking you with us."

Barnes shuffled to the door opposite the one we had entered and opened it, inviting us to go through.