Geist Ch. 02

"Yes! I watched that movie and after that he just kept doing everything. He even went so far as to pour flour all over the floor and make footprints in it! It took the maids days to clean up all the flour!"

"He does have a sense of humor..." Michael couldn't help but smile a little.

"He's sick, Michael. He'll kill you."

"He wouldn't." Michael wasn't even scared of Avery. He was nice, just troubled.

"But he would. You haven't seen him when he's angry!" His grandfather said.

"Believe me, I've seen him on a Wednesday." Michael chuckled.

"I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about when he's REALLY angry. You'll fear for your life when you see that."

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Michael sat at the table, no sounds but the clock ticking quietly. He wondered what was on the third floor. He found it weird that he had never been up there and this was, after all, his house. He finished his drink and jogged up the first steps. It was time for him to see all of his house.

He stopped at the door that led to the third floor. Where was Avery? He shrugged. The sorrowful ghost was probably at his window. He reached for the knob and turned the handle. It clicked satisfyingly and revealed the dusty steps leading to the third floor. He left the door open behind him and climbed up the creaking floor. His feet left prints in the thick dust and he saw more than a few spiders scurry away as he stepped past them. He reached the flat surface of the third floor and looked up and down the hall. It was almost identical to the second floor. A few doors lined the way and he could guess what lie behind most of them. He walked to his left and decided to just look through each room. He opened the first one at the end of the hallway and was greeted with a plain empty room.

He shut the door and opened the one across from it. This one was empty as well. Michael was about to leave when he saw the item covered by a sheet in the corner. He frowned and stepped inside the room. He flicked the light switch and nothing happened. He frowned and stepped inside the dark room. He pulled the sheet off the item and revealed the painting beneath it. He turned his head. Whatever the painting USED to be, was long gone now. The canvas was ripped apart and the only visible part of the picture was a picture of his grandfather. He held a drink in his hand and was obviously posing with whoever else was in the picture. Michael lifted one of the torn edges of the canvas and tried to piece together the other person. He finally managed to put the shreds back roughly where they belonged. A man a few years younger than his grandfather stood next to him, a smile on his face. Michael laughed.

His grandfather did like to live large. Who else would have an actual canvas painting of themselves in their mansion? He couldn't give him to much shit about it, he did look pretty nice in the painting. Michael covered it back up and left the room, moving to the next one. He opened the next few doors and every one was empty. Occasionally there was a piece of furniture covered with a sheet, or an exceptionally large spider on the ground, but nothing of any notability. That is, until he found the locked room.

Michael frowned. he jiggled the handle again, maybe it was just stuck? But no, it didn't move. He stepped back and stared at it. He skipped it and only after he searched every other room would he come back to it. He had only gone a few rooms when it started driving him crazy. He went back to the locked door and rattled the lock again. He growled in frustration. The wood looked weak enough. He hesitated for only a moment, before kicking in the door.

~~~~~~~~~

Avery heard the crash and it snapped him out of his trance. He floated downstairs to see what Michael had gotten up to and saw it empty. He frowned. Had Michael left?

"Michael?" He called out softly, searching the study again. He would have noticed if Michael had left. He could still sense him in the house. But that could only mean...

"No...There's no way he went up there." Avery floated back up through the floorboards and was going to search the second floor rooms when he saw the door, that should never be opened, opened.

"No..." he whispered. He physically climbed the steps and looked up and down the hallway. All the doors were closed except for one. He ran to it and saw Michael standing in the doorway, pale and gasping for air. If his heart could beat, it would break his chest. Avery froze at the scene and felt his dead heart tear at the sight of his own body.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The house shook and every last window in the mansion shattered as Avery screamed. Michael turned around to see him clutching his head like he had the worst headache in the world. His eyes were squeezed shut and he just screamed. Michael felt like he was going to throw up.

He had assumed the locked room was a bathroom, as the identical second floor had a bathroom in the same place. But he wasn't even close to prepared for what he was met with. A thick trail of long dried blood ran from the edge where carpet met tile, to the bathtub. The tub itself was filled with a vile black mixture of blood and what Michael assumed was once water.

Lazily thrown in to the tub was the body. Most of it's flesh was rotten away, revealing stained bones. But some pieces still clung to the bone. He, Michael assumed was Avery, was flung diagonally into the tub and his right hand and foot hung outside the once what porcelain. His fingers, though a little pale and grey, still looked untouched by death. But the rest of him did not. The lower half of his head had sunk into he water and all that was left of his jaw was a few scraps of muscle holding his jaw together. Michael was unable to pull himself away before he stared into the one perfect eye, and one hollow eye socket.

The jaw sagged in a long silent scream. A large knife sat on the bathroom counter and the sink was also filled with bloodied stagnant water. Two bloody hand prints were stapled onto the mirror and the finger tips dragged down to the edge of the mirror. The scene was truly horrific.

Avery continued to scream and the house shook. Michael finally snapped out of his trance and he covered his ears. Avery suddenly faded out and Michael heard pounding foot steps followed by the sound of a slamming door on the second floor. Michael staggered back from the gruesome scene and swallowed the bile rising in his throat. Even the smell was revolting. It was obvious the corpse had been there for quite some time and had been left untouched behind the locked door. Michael wondered how the smell was kept from seeping through the cracks. It was then he noticed that the door had not only been locked, but had rags, towels, and a thousand other things taped around the edges to keep the smell in. Michael reached forward and shut the door, trying to catch his breath as he staggered away from the cursed room. He stumbled downstairs and looked at the shut door.

"Avery..." He was still choking from the smell. It seemed as if it had soaked into every piece of wood in the house, now. "Avery...Come out here." Michael said. His ears were ringing from the scream that had died out on his way downstairs. He looked down the next set of stairs and saw the floor covered in shattered glass. He shook his head, trying to get rid of the ringing in his ears.

"Avery!" He said again, giving himself a headache. It sounded like someone had fired a gun next to his ear. Everything was muted except the ringing. He stumbled down the hallway and the door swung open at the end of the hall. He stopped and looked at Avery, who was paler than usual. When Avery finally spoke, it stopped the ringing and were the clearest words Michael had ever heard.

"I remember who killed me."