Haunted: A Lockwood & Co Story

Chapter Twelve: The Red Room

The sun had fully gone down now as George prepared everything they would need to bring with them. Lockwood had told them he would be back but had been gone for about five minutes. Charlotte had wandered over to where a grand piano was sitting in the corner of the gallery. Her fingers ghosted the top of the keys, which were covered in a thick layer of dust. As she touched one of the keys, piano music sounded through her ears. It wasn't her playing but it was a memory. She closed her eyes to see what looked to be a fancy party. Fancy dresses were swishing everywhere as guests walked into the hall. Several champagne glasses made a tinkling as they were clinked together. Laughter sounded through the room as conversations were made. But then very quickly, glasses fell to the floor and smashed as the guests started screaming. Charlotte's face screwed up in pain at the loud noises and just the overall pain and suffering coming from the house. She opened her eyes and pulled her hand away from the piano. George had started walking around the room with a thermometer. It beeped as the temperature dropped.

"This whole place is freezing up. And it's hard to map a source because the rooms don't fit together properly. I think there's something old that's hidden away." Charlotte started to hear a tapping coming from behind her. "It feels like we are going in blind. Are we sure we want to do this?"

"I'm not. I've been feeling strange for the last day." Charlotte told the boy. There was a whirring and then a clicking that sounded. "Lockwood?"

"Lockwood, what are you doing?" George asked. Lockwood started walking towards them holding a package and a fishing rod.

"Just a spot of fishing. Hopefully this will relax you both a bit. I came here after Satchell's to do a bit of recon and stashed this outside." Lockwood said, starting to unwrap the cylinder package.

"So that's why it took you forever to come home yesterday." Charlotte realised. He had been gone for pretty much the whole day but had only come home with the one bag.

"It was obvious. Fairfax being who he is, he was going to search our bags. And me, being who I am, was going to smuggle in flares. We don't have our usual kit, but we do have this industrial strength bomb flare. Better be. It cost enough." Lockwood said, showing the two the bomb flare.

"So the flare in your bag was just decoy contraband." George said, putting the pieces together.

"All part of the dance."

"Why didn't you tell us?" Charlotte asked. Lockwood turned to the girl.

"What, and deny us all this beautiful moment? Come on Char, I'm not a monster." Lockwood flashed her a quick and confident grin. "Right. Shall we begin?"

The three grabbed their kit bags and made for the staircase that Fairfax had indicated would be the screaming staircase. As they reached the bottom of the staircase, Charlotte listened. Apart from the sounds of the gallery behind them fading, there was no screaming coming from the staircase.

"Sense anything?" Lockwood asked the girl, as they started walking up the stairs.

"If it's a screaming staircase, it's being very silent." She told them as they reached the landing.

"Maybe it's taken the night off." George suggested, all though they all knew that wasn't true. Ghosts don't take nights off.

"Like we should have done." Charlotte added to George's sentence. George and Charlotte then started walking up the next staircase to reach the next level. Charlotte pulled her torch off her belt and flicked it on. She shone it around the floor. There were lots of wooden doors along the side of the walls but Charlotte was focused on the one at the very end of the hall. It was made of iron and she could feel the pain radiating from the room and instantly knew which room it was. She kept the light from her torch on the door as they got closer to the room.
"Everyone ready?" Lockwood asked, reaching out for the handle. Charlotte shook her head but Lockwood ignored the action and opened the door. Lockwood walked in first, followed by George who grabbed onto the wall of the room. Charlotte moved past him to look at the room. The room, despite being red, was definitely lacking red. The room looked like it had once been a ball room. There were several large windows that overlooked the grounds, a chandelier hanging in the middle of the room. One of the walls had several paintings of various locations nearby while another wall held a large mirror. If it wasn't the most haunted room in the building, Charlotte would be in awe.