Chapter 6 — The Painted
Mason leaned against the hallway wall, finishing the last of the cheap whiskey Douglas had poured.
“Dude…” Mason muttered, squinting down the long corridor. “We need to find Jeffrey.”
Douglas blinked slowly, processing the thought like it had taken the whiskey a second longer to reach his brain.
“Jeffrey?” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “He probably wandered off with someone.”
“Jeffrey doesn’t wander,” Mason replied.
Douglas shrugged lazily.
Douglas was the kind of guy who let life happen around him. Things sorted themselves out eventually — or they didn’t — but worrying about it never seemed to help.
Still, Mason had already started moving.
“Come on.”
They moved down the third-floor hallway, their footsteps muffled by a thick burgundy carpet that looked far older than the party downstairs.
Four doors sat spaced along the corridor.
Tall. Narrow.
Each made of dark carved wood that seemed to swallow the dim light coming from the wall sconces.
Mason slowed.
Something moved.
He squinted.
At first it looked like shadow shifting across the doorframe.
Then he saw it.
Fingers.
Long.
Too long.
Thin as sticks, bending around the carved wood like pale spiders.
The nails were yellow and cracked, packed with black dirt. Something darker stained the tips — dried and flaking.
Blood.
The fingers slowly slid along the doorframe… feeling… searching.
Mason froze.
His breath caught in his throat.
“What?” Douglas asked behind him.
Mason didn’t answer.
The fingers slipped out of sight.
Mason stepped forward.
“Dude,” Douglas said again. “What are you looking at?”
Mason moved slowly down the hallway, eyes locked on the door.
“I saw something.”
Douglas laughed under his breath.
“You’ve had like six shots.”
But then the air shifted.
A cold drift of wind slid down the corridor.
Douglas felt it crawl across his neck.
His hair lifted instantly.
The sensation spread down his spine like tiny insects walking across his skin.
He stopped.
“…Okay,” Douglas muttered. “Why does it feel like someone just walked over my grave?”
Mason was already moving.
Slow.
Focused.
Following something Douglas couldn’t see.
“What do you see?” Douglas whispered now.
Mason didn’t respond.
The door creaked slightly.
Not opening.
Just… breathing.
The hallway lights flickered once.
Douglas stepped closer to Mason.
“What do you see, man?”
Mason leaned forward toward the doorframe.
The fingers appeared again.
Sliding slowly across the wood.
Curling.
Then disappearing around the corner like they were inviting him closer.
Mason’s mouth went dry.
He reached toward the door—
—
Meanwhile downstairs…
Mallory stumbled into the long hallway beside the staircase, pulling Brandy with her.
Brandy gasped for air like she’d just surfaced from deep water.
Calathea was already there.
Standing perfectly still.
Her eyes locked on the wall.
“Mallory…” she said quietly.
Mallory followed her gaze.
The picture frames.
Dozens of old portraits lined the hallway.
But three of them were different now.
Mallory’s stomach dropped.
Jeffrey.
Painted onto the canvas.
His face twisted in terror.
His eyes moved.
They darted around the painted room behind him, as if he were trying to find a way out.
Mallory stepped closer.
Her breath caught.
Another portrait had appeared.
Mason.
Standing in a dark hallway.
Exactly like the third floor.
His painted eyes shifted.
His hands pressed against the edges of the canvas.
Trying to push through.
The third painting…
Douglas.
His head turned slowly within the portrait.
His mouth moving.
Like he was calling out.
Brandy covered her mouth.
“Oh my God…”
The paint wasn’t still.
The figures moved.
Hands sliding.
Eyes roaming.
Trapped.
Alive.
Inside the mansion.
Mallory’s heart pounded.
The realization came to her suddenly.
Clear.
Cold.
Like a memory she had forgotten was waiting.
“I know how to save them,” she said.
Calathea turned toward her immediately.
“How?”
Mallory looked back at the portraits.
And for a moment…
She swore the painted version of Jeffrey looked directly at her.
“The mansion didn’t take them,” Mallory said quietly.
“It painted them.”
She stepped closer to the wall.
“And if it painted them in…”
Her fingers hovered near Jeffrey’s frame.
“…we can pull them back out.”
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Mallory didn’t take her eyes off the portraits.
“They’re alive in there,” Brandy whispered.
Mallory nodded slowly. Her mind was racing, pulling together pieces of something she hadn’t understood before.
“When I pulled you out,” Mallory said to Brandy, “I heard something.”
Brandy looked up at her.
“Heard what?”
“A drum.”
Calathea’s head lifted slightly.
Mallory continued, trying to describe the memory.
“It wasn’t loud. It was slow… deep. Like a heartbeat somewhere far away.”
She rested her hand against the wall beside Jeffrey’s frame.
“Every time it sounded, the air around you changed. Like the space between us got thinner. And that’s when I could grab you.”
Brandy frowned.
“And that’s how you pulled me back?”
Mallory nodded.
“That’s the only moment it worked.”
Calathea looked thoughtful now.
“The drum…” she murmured.
Mallory turned toward her.
“You heard it too?”
Calathea shook her head slowly.
“No.”
She hesitated.
“But I was hearing drumming.”
Brandy looked confused. “What do you mean?”
Calathea took a breath, remembering.
“After you ran off looking for Brandy, I went upstairs to my room. I kept hearing this faint drumming somewhere in the house.”
Her eyes shifted slightly as she replayed the moment.
“It wasn’t loud. Just… steady. Like something echoing through the walls.”
Mallory listened closely.
“So I followed it,” Calathea continued.
“It kept leading me down the hall… until it brought me right back to my bedroom.”
Brandy blinked.
“Your bedroom?”
Calathea nodded.
“The drum was there.”
Mallory’s brow furrowed. “The heirloom drum?”
“Yes.”
Calathea crossed her arms lightly, still confused by it herself.
“I had placed it in my room earlier when we first got here. I thought it would be safer there.”
She paused.
“But the drumming I was hearing… it was coming from it.”
Mallory leaned forward slightly.
“Was anyone playing it?”
Calathea shook her head.
“No.”
Her voice dropped.
“It was just sitting there.”
Brandy shifted uneasily.
“That’s… not comforting.”
Calathea continued.
“I walked over to it. The sound stopped the moment I touched it.”
Mallory felt a chill crawl up her spine.
“So I tried playing it myself,” Calathea said.
She lightly tapped the air with her fingers, remembering the rhythm.
“Just one beat.”
Mallory’s eyes widened slightly.
“Thum.”
Calathea looked up.
“That’s exactly what it sounded like.”
Mallory nodded slowly.
“That’s when I could grab Brandy.”
Silence settled between the three of them as the connection finally became clear.
Calathea spoke carefully.
“If the drum is affecting whatever place you went…”
Mallory finished the thought.
“Then it weakens the barrier.”
Brandy looked between them nervously.
“You’re talking about going back there, aren’t you?”
Mallory looked at Jeffrey’s portrait again.
“I know where he is.”
Her voice was steady now.
“I saw him before.”
She turned toward the staircase.
“And I know how to get back.”
Without waiting for anyone to argue, Mallory started walking.
Through the mansion halls.
Past the staircase.
Toward the cellar door.
Calathea and Brandy exchanged a look before following her.
The cellar smelled of damp stone and old wood.
Rows of wine racks stretched through the dim space, bottles catching the flicker of the overhead lights.
Mallory moved quickly.
Past the shelves.
Past the narrow doors.
Through the corridor leading to the tiled restroom.
The deep jacuzzi sat in the center of the room.
Mallory turned the brass knobs.
Water roared into the tub.
Steam slowly rose as the basin began to fill.
Brandy leaned against the doorway, watching nervously.
“You’re really going to do this again?”
Mallory didn’t answer right away.
She watched the water rising.
“I don’t think the mansion wanted me to fall in last time,” she said quietly.
Calathea frowned.
“What do you mean?”
Mallory glanced at her.
“I think it showed me something.”
The tub continued filling.
Mallory stepped closer.
“Jeffrey was in a dorm room,” she said. “But it didn’t feel like a real place. It felt like a hallway between worlds.”
Brandy swallowed.
“What else was there?”
Mallory stared into the water.
“Things.”
Her voice dropped.
“Wrong things.”
The tub was nearly full now.
Mallory stepped onto the tile edge.
Then she stepped forward.
And disappeared beneath the water.
The warmth vanished instantly.
Mallory slammed onto cold carpet.
She gasped and pushed herself upright.
The dorm room.
The crooked fluorescent lights buzzed overhead.
Mallory stood slowly and stepped into the hallway.
She knew the path now.
Past the doorway where she had found Jeffrey before.
Past the corner where Mason and Douglas had appeared.
But this time—
Jeffrey wasn’t there.
Mallory’s chest tightened.
“Jeff?”
Her voice echoed faintly down the hall.
Silence.
Then movement.
Shapes unfolded slowly from the corners of the corridor.
Tall.
Bent.
Their bodies twisted unnaturally.
Their smiles stretched wide as they watched her.
Mallory forced herself forward.
Past them.
Their hollow eyes followed her as she walked deeper into the strange dormitory halls.
Until she reached the place.
The spot where Jeffrey had been before.
The hallway looked wrong now.
The walls stretched and warped like fabric pulled apart.
The air shimmered faintly.
Reality itself looked torn open.
Mallory stepped closer to the fracture.
The tear in the mansion.
The place between worlds.
She waited.
Hoping.
And somewhere far away—
Deep within the mansion—
The drumbeat rolled through the torn space.
Thum.
The hallway around Mallory shuddered.
The walls stretched like cloth pulled too tight. The ceiling bowed and twisted, the fluorescent lights bending with it as if the entire place were made from fabric instead of wood and plaster.
The air rippled.
Mallory steadied herself.
Another beat echoed through the strange corridor.
Thum.
The tear in reality pulsed outward.
The twisted figures in the corners recoiled slightly, their crooked smiles tightening as the space warped around them.
Mallory scanned the hallway desperately.
“Jeff?”
Her voice sounded thin here, swallowed by the shifting air.
Nothing.
No movement.
No sign of him.
She stepped farther down the corridor, looking into each doorway she passed.
Empty.
The place where she had found him before now felt hollow, like whatever had been there had already moved on.
The drum sounded again.
Thum.
The hallway stretched farther, the floor warping beneath her feet.
Mallory’s stomach dropped.
Jeffrey wasn’t here.
Panic crept into her chest.
She turned back toward the dorm room, forcing her legs to move as the warped corridor twisted around her.
The smiling figures watched her go.
One of them leaned slightly forward as she passed.
Its grin widened.
Mallory didn’t stop.
She pushed through the dorm doorway and dove forward—
The world twisted again.
Warm water swallowed her.
Mallory burst back up from the jacuzzi, gasping for air.
Brandy rushed forward immediately.
“Mallory!”
Calathea grabbed her arm, helping pull her out of the tub.
“What happened? Did you find him?”
Mallory pushed wet hair from her face, breathing hard.
“He wasn’t there.”
The words hung heavy in the small tiled room.
Brandy shook her head.
“No… he has to be there.”
Mallory climbed out of the tub.
“We need to check the portraits.”
Without another word, the three of them ran.
Through the cellar.
Past the wine racks.
Up the stairs.
Their footsteps pounded through the mansion halls as they rushed toward the staircase gallery where the portraits lined the walls.
Mallory reached it first.
Her chest tightened immediately.
Jeffrey’s portrait hadn’t moved.
He was still there.
But something was wrong.
Very wrong.
His face looked stretched, pulled slightly longer than it should have been. His painted expression was frozen in terror.
His eyes stared forward now.
Not searching.
Not moving.
Just staring.
Mallory stepped closer to the frame.
“Jeff…”
Nothing changed.
No movement.
No shifting.
No hands pressing against the canvas.
Brandy stepped up beside her.
The moment she saw his face, her hand flew to her mouth.
“Oh my God…”
Her voice cracked.
Tears spilled down her cheeks.
“He looks so scared…”
Mallory’s stomach twisted.
The painting was still alive.
But Jeffrey wasn’t moving anymore.
Brandy wiped at her eyes, trying to breathe through the panic.
And then suddenly she froze.
Her head lifted.
“Wait.”
Mallory and Calathea looked at her.
Brandy’s voice trembled.
“Where’s Shelby?”
Silence settled around them.
Brandy looked between them, her eyes widening as the realization sank in.
“We haven’t seen her since we got here.”
The three of them stood there beneath the silent portraits.
And suddenly the mansion felt even bigger than before.
You know, it had a way of pulling each person toward something different.
Shelby followed books.
The third floor was quieter than the rest of the mansion. The music from the party downstairs barely reached it—only a faint thudding bass that sounded more like a heartbeat than a song. The hallway lights flickered in soft amber tones, casting long shadows across the wallpaper that peeled in delicate curls.
Shelby moved slowly, running her fingers along the spines of the occasional book she carried with her from home. Reading had always been her escape—worlds within worlds where nothing could truly touch her.
At the end of the hallway she found a door slightly ajar.
She pushed it open.
The room beyond made her breath catch.
A library.
Floor-to-ceiling shelves wrapped the entire room. Wooden ladders leaned against rails. The scent of aged paper and cedarwood filled the air. It felt untouched for decades, maybe longer.
Shelby smiled for the first time since arriving at the mansion.
"Jack would love this," she whispered.
Her brother had always teased her for reading so much. Called her “the walking encyclopedia.” But he would have loved the secretive, mysterious feel of this place.
She stepped deeper inside.
Her eyes scanned titles—old philosophy books, leather-bound poetry collections, ancient engineering manuals, journals written in curling script. Some of the titles were in languages she didn’t recognize.
Shelby reached for one.
It was thick and heavy, bound in dark green leather. When she pulled it from the shelf, a thin layer of dust puffed into the air.
But the book slipped.
It fell to the floor with a dull thud.
Shelby sighed and bent down to grab it.
That’s when she saw movement.
Under the large wooden desk near the center of the room.
She froze.
For a moment she thought it might be a rat, or maybe just a shadow shifting with the light. But something about it didn’t feel normal.
Shelby crouched lower.
Her heart started to beat faster.
Under the desk was a loose floor panel.
She reached out slowly and pressed against it.
The panel lifted with a quiet creak.
Beneath it was a small metal mechanism set into the wood.
A lock.
And dangling from the lock was a skeleton key.
Shelby blinked.
“Well… that’s not suspicious at all,” she murmured nervously.
She hesitated only a moment before grasping the key.
The metal was cold.
When she turned it, the sound echoed through the library.
Click.
For a second nothing happened.
Then the entire bookshelf beside the desk shifted.
Wood groaned as the shelf slowly swung inward like a door.
Behind it was a narrow hallway made of old stone.
Dim bulbs hung from the ceiling every few feet, flickering weakly. The light barely reached the end of the corridor, which disappeared into darkness.
Shelby stared.
She should have left.
She knew that.
But curiosity had always been her fatal flaw.
She stepped inside.
The bookcase quietly sealed shut behind her.
The hallway smelled damp and ancient. Moisture clung to the stone walls, and the faint sound of dripping water echoed somewhere deeper in the passage.
Her footsteps felt too loud.
Shelby wrapped her arms around herself as she walked.
“Hello?” she called softly.
Only silence answered.
She turned a corner.
And froze.
Someone was standing at the end of the hall.
Her breath caught.
The shape looked familiar.
Tall. Slightly hunched shoulders. Dark hair.
Shelby’s heart dropped straight into her stomach.
“…Jack?”
The figure slowly turned.
Her brother.
Jackson.
Exactly as she remembered him.
The same crooked smile. The same worn hoodie he used to steal from their dad. The same gentle eyes—
Except the eyes weren’t right.
They were black.
Completely black.
And bulging.
Shelby stumbled backward.
“Jackson?” she whispered again, voice trembling.
Tears filled her eyes instantly.
He had died the year before.
A drunk driver.
One second he had been driving home from work. The next—
Gone.
Her chest tightened painfully.
“Jackson! Jack! It’s me!” she cried. “Your sister!”
The figure stared at her.
Its head tilted slightly.
For a moment Shelby thought she saw recognition.
Then it turned and began walking away down the hallway.
“Wait!” she shouted.
She followed.
Her mind raced with confusion and hope tangled together.
Maybe this house was strange. Maybe something impossible was happening. Maybe—
Maybe it really was him.
“Jackson please!” she called.
He turned a corner.
Shelby hurried after him.
But when she rounded the corner—
He was gone.
Instead, she saw something else.
A door.
Her bedroom door.
Her stomach dropped.
The hallway around her had disappeared.
Now she was standing in the hallway of her childhood home.
Soft yellow lighting. Family photos on the wall. The faint sound of a TV playing in the living room.
Shelby’s breathing became shaky.
“This isn’t real,” she whispered.
The bedroom door opened.
And Shelby stepped out.
Not the Shelby standing there now.
Her younger self.
She watched in stunned silence as the memory played out.
Her younger self stomped angrily down the hall.
“Jackson! You’ve been in the bathroom forever!”
The bathroom door remained closed.
Inside, the sound of running water.
Young Shelby threw her hands up in frustration.
“You’re such a jerk!”
Finally the door opened.
Jackson stepped out, grinning.
“Relax, Shelbs,” he laughed.
He walked past her and lightly punched her arm the way older brothers always do.
“Your turn.”
Young Shelby rolled her eyes dramatically and stormed into the bathroom.
The door slammed shut.
The memory Shelby stood frozen in the hallway.
She had forgotten this moment.
Forgotten how annoyed she’d been. How small and stupid it seemed now.
If she had known…
If she had known that less than a year later he’d be gone forever—
Her chest tightened painfully.
But then something moved.
In the corner beside the bathroom.
A shadow.
It slowly peeled itself away from the wall.
Shelby’s breath caught.
The shape was wrong.
Its limbs were twisted. Its body hunched and elongated like broken bones had healed incorrectly. It dragged itself across the floor with slow, scraping movements.
The air around it darkened.
The thing turned its head.
And began crawling toward her.
Shelby staggered back.
“No… no no no…”
The creature’s movements were jerky, unnatural.
Its arms bent the wrong direction.
Its face wasn’t fully formed—just a hollow shape shifting in darkness.
It crawled closer.
Closer.
Shelby screamed.
The entity lunged.
Darkness exploded around her as the creature wrapped itself around her body like smoke made of bone and shadow.
Her scream echoed through the hallway—
And then abruptly cut off.
Silence fell.
The memory faded.
The hallway returned to stone.
And Shelby was gone.
