Wicked Secrets

Chapter 14

After the coughing fit settled down, everyone was all dusted and annoyed with this place.

"Should have been clean, at least," muttered Dean.

"Well, Dean's right on that one," Hip agreed.

"I'll take care of it!" Lulu exclaimed and off she goes, going to find stuff to clean this place up.

"Now, back to business..." Ape began, "Is there anything we should know about this place?" this all said pointedly to Riddle.

"Well, sir..." Riddle began, ", there's a security room in the basement that controls all the traps in the forest, but absolutely no one is there to control it!"

"Why?" asked Corine, intrigued.

"Well..." Riddle said, ", the government believed as everyone else that this mansion is haunted. So, they thought that the ghosts themselves would operate the security room, so that's why it's empty,".

"And why..." started Ape, a bit of fury hinted, ", did you never switch off the security whenever you go to this darn mansion?!".

That was a good question and immediately all eyes were on Riddle who unsurprisingly backed off from the glares but spoke calmly when answering, "That's because the security controls never had an off switch to it,".

"Why?" everyone asked simultaneously.

"That's because the government thought that the ghosts would never want to shut the traps off, so they didn't bother," Riddle answered.

Stunned a bit speechless, he ordered "Dean!" and Dean spun around to Ape, shocked, "I need you to fix an off switch on the controls so we could off those darn traps when out hunting. Riddle would escort you there,".

Neither were particularly happy with this assignment but rather than arguing or complaining about it, they stayed silent, glaring at each other.

"Shadow," Ape addressed to Corine, ", you help Lulu clean this filthy mansion. I definitely don't want to walk this place, coughing every time and if you see something useful to us, bring it right over there," he pointed to that table, ", and hopped to it!" which left Corine scurrying to the direction where Lulu headed.

"The rest of you," he pointed to Buff, Stealth and Hip, ", you can explore this place and find items worthy of our cause, got it?".

Everyone nodded and was going to the tasks assigned, including Ape to explore this enormous mansion that contains mysteries unknown.

Riddle and Dean were silent on their way to the security room. They still remembered their fight the other day and it still stung.

"So..." Dean making a stab at a conversation, ", why did you explore around here in the first place?"

"I just wanted to have fun," Riddle answered.

"But didn't you know about the place being haunted?" Dean asked, curious about it.

"I don't believe in ghost so don't believe this place is haunted and no one explore this here place so why not?" Riddle shrug off the answer.

"But what if this place is really haunted?" Dean asked, a bit scared.

"Well, I've been to this place a few times and you are here too, so tell me now, is it haunted?" asked Riddle.

"Well..." Dean thought, ", no, not at all!".

"So, why worry?" Riddle asked.

"Yeah, why?" Dean was agreeing and they were silent again to the security room. Dean thought 'Riddle ain't bad,'.