October Frights! The Phantom of the Opera, Part Four

Welcome back!

Are you ready to delve back into Godfrey and Serafina's nightmare? If you've just joined us, you may want to read the previous posts, which have parts one-three of my Phantom of the Opera retelling.

Part Four: The Angel’s Voice in Hell

Scrambling down the steps on hands and knees, I felt everywhere for the candle. I reached the bottom and felt about in the ancient dirt for that lifesaving cylinder of wax.

I found instead, a precipice. I could sense the void yawning before me, and I knew not how deep, nor how wide this chasm was.

I gave up on the candle and fumbled with my matches.

The light flared up and I immediately dropped the match. There was someone with me!

I was smothered again in darkness. I barely dared to breathe. There was no sound, just the rasp of my ill-concealed breathing. What leering countenance had I seen?

Cautiously, I lit another match.  A demonic statue bulged its eyes at me and sneered with fangs and multiple tongues.

I sighed in relief and looked about. The stairs ended on a ledge that ran along a massive chamber, whose bottom I could not see. The far side was raw cave wall. The precipice was dotted by demons of stone, leering and gesticulating obscenely. And there was another tunnel that ran on into musty depths of hell.

I stood and staggered deeper into the nightmare, my heart still cold with dread, blood on my lips. I knew something terrible was happening to Serafina and my mouth was thick with the copper of my own blood, from biting my tongue when I fell down the stairs. My premonition from my first night following Serafina had become reality.

The tunnel went on and on. My match burnt out. And another, and another, until I had one left.

And there was a sliver of icy light ahead.

In the dancing light of my last match, I made out a metal door with a large combination lock…but instead of numbers, it had demonic symbols…and I knew the opening rune.

The door creaked open and my match burnt out.

I was greeted by a heavy sour smell. Ancient metal. Acid. Anise. Mold. A bright white light flared from a lamp hanging in the middle of an octagonal white room with two other doors of corroded metal. One door stood open, leading into a perfectly normal-looking sitting room, lit by candles.

The second was unlatched…open just a crack, emitting more blinding light…and Serafina’s angelic voice. I froze in fear and delight.

She was going through a vocal warm-up, rising through the scale, each note dancing through unknown spaces, echoing eerily. I marched across the room, dropping my burnt-out match, and pushed open the door. A long corridor stretched before me; it was dark but light blazed through the door at the far end.

Serafina’s voice rose higher and higher as I made my down the corridor. Closer and higher. Closer and higher. I squinted into the light.

“Serafina?” I called tremulously.

I reached the door. Serafina cut off.

I emerged into light and silence. An amphitheater-like room spread before me. Great stage lights burned overhead, casting their light down onto the center of the room where—

I staggered and fell to my knees.

“Serafina…”

In the bowl of the amphitheater, surrounded by more mirror-focused flames and metal tables of surgical instruments, a gurney bore a white-draped form. Blood stained the drape and dripped down onto the white-washed floor. Anise and copper mingled in my choking tears.

“Serafina…”

It was she.

Her head protruded above the white drape, her eyes closed, her skin white, her hair a copper fan on the metal bed. And her throat.

God.

Her throat.

No.

NO.

NO!

I staggered, retching and sobbing, down past the tiered seats. Not my Serafina. I could go no closer. I collapsed halfway down into the amphitheater and just stared at the blood. Tears trembled on my lids and horror wracked my stuttering heart.

But I’d heard her voice! This was a nightmare. It wasn’t real.

A footstep sounded and I raised my eyes from the despoiled form of my love to a door across the amphitheater that I had not noticed.

In its shadows stood a tall man, pale and bald. His black eyes gleamed with a strange delight. His throat was bandaged and bloody, but the rivets were still in his jaw. And he spoke. IN SERAFINA’S VOICE!

“Godfrey, I warned you, didn’t I?” and then he sang. “You have fallen to the depths of Hell, but I have risen above the mountains, the clouds, and the stars.” And the last note rose up to an earsplitting C.

A note from Asmodeii:

Asmodeii! That is not my name. No one need ever know my true name. Let them call me phantom, ghost…Perhaps I will be the ghost of Serafina Szeman, singing in the opera at midnight, on every anniversary of her disappearance. The police will have found the suicide pact notes I forged for her and Godfrey.

She was a strange girl. Her fanatic obsession with Satanic lore and deamons allowed me to seduce her. She believed I was a messenger from beyond…come to offer her the thing she wanted most: to revel with the devils. Perhaps she got what she wanted. I certainly got what I wanted.

From the moment I heard her sing at the audition after Ridaphelm bowed out—she’d been my first option, but the surgery had failed—I knew I needed her voice. I had been robbed of my voice long ago…my invention was not enough to restore it. I needed human vocal chords.

And I would not settle for second best.

I wanted Serafina’s.

You cannot fathom the violence of my jealousy when I heard her voice. It surpassed any covetousness I had hitherto experienced, though my soul burned with agony whenever I heard anyone sing with skill. That I could no longer sing as they did! That I should be robbed of my purest joy—no. It was not acceptable. Was not. Now…

Now, though I remain in shadow, I have the angel’s voice.

I have risen above mountains, the clouds, and the stars!

This concludes our serial, I hope you enjoyed the Phantom of the Opera.

And please explore the chilling delights the rest of the hop has to offer:

October Frights! The Phantom of the Opera, Part Three

Welcome back!

Are you ready to delve back into Godfrey and Serafina's nightmare? If you've just joined us, you may want to read the previous posts, which have parts one and two of my Phantom of the Opera retelling.

Part Three: Into Gehenna

I did not run this time.

"Wh-who..." I began. But my voice was reedy and cracked. I swallowed.

"Who are you?" I demanded more firmly.

"Not who, Godfrey," said the sound. "What." I located the source: it seemed to come from the wall behind the dressing screen.

"What are you, then?" I asked, forcing myself to take a step towards the wall.

"I am in a transitional state," said the sound as it impossibly moved along the wall toward the corner. "I am not man, I am not quite deamon, I am the opera ghost!" The sound seemed to recede deeper into the wall, becoming fainter. "Soon, I will be fully manifested!"

Dropping the book, I raced out of Serafina's dressing room and followed the sound as it hummed through the wall, down the hall, deeper into the opera house.

"What do you want with Serafina?" I demanded.

The sound just strummed humorously. I was running now, down stairs, along dark passages, following a phantom noise.

The sound led me into a dusty storage room filled with old set-pieces. An Egyptian god loomed over the shadowy space, his bird-face faded. I dove between papier maché rocks and cardboard walls of varying colors and themes. As I passed between two Greek pillars a trip wire shot up and I staggered, collapsing beside a bust of some philosopher. The bust tipped, and I rolled out of the way—just as a trapdoor opened in the floor. The bust fell into a black hole and splashed into unseen water. The trapdoor creaked shut again, its seals so perfect that it was invisible.

I hunkered in the shadows, trembling. I dared not cough, though the dust tickled at my throat. I waited, but the sound did not return.

I made it out of the opera house without further incident and paced my flat all night, unable to sleep or cease imagining that the sound was back...

In the morning, I called on Serafina. Her maid said she was not to be disturbed, but I refused to leave and at last, Serafina agreed to see me in her parlor. She was wan, her eyes sunken and her lower lip under constant attack from restless teeth.

"There's no use pretending," I said, seizing her hand. "I heard that—that sound last night. It tried to kill me!"

She snatched her hand back. "You SAW HIM?"

"No, he led me to a trapdoor, I almost fell in...you can't do whatever it is he wants. You can't sing for—for whatever it is!"

Serafina hid behind her hands. They were skeletal and white. Her abjectness struck me with horrible pity.

"I don't care if you've dabbled in the occult," I said softly. "I love you. Please stay away from that THING."

She lowered her hands but would still not look at me.

"I didn't realize what it truly was I was getting into," she said, her voice trembling. "Not until I heard that voice..."

"It doesn't matter," I insisted. "You don't have to go through with it!"

"He's always watching, always listening," Serafina said, tears in her eyes. "He'll kill you."

"He almost did, but listen! We can leave Bamberg, go far away. To England, maybe."

"I can't leave before tonight's performance," Serafina said. "I have an obligation to the production."

"Right afterwards, then," I said. "I'll have a cab waiting outside, in case he knows my car. Slip out after the show and we'll escape. I'll just lay low until then. I think he thinks he succeeded in killing me."

Serafina contemplated this, her brow furrowed.

"Yes," she said. "I think that would work." She beamed at me through tears. "I'll come to you directly after the show. Take me away. I love you, Godfrey. Thank you."

I kissed her hand and smiled.

"Thank you, Serafina."

"One never realizes the horror until the reality strikes," she said softly.

"Say no more about those things," I begged. "They need never trouble us again."

I left her house, but not my worries behind. Did the owner of that sound really think me dead? What if it discovered our plot? She said it was always watching.

I returned to the opera house and snuck in through the stable to explore it in the daylight. I searched Serafina's dressing room more thoroughly, but could find nothing. The deamonology book was gone, too. The room where I had nearly fallen to my death was just as unyielding. I could not find the trap door and the trip wire had vanished.

Defeat hung heavy on my shoulders as I returned to my car, parked several streets away. The evening was fast approaching. I drove home and called for a cab.

I had him park by the side entrance of the opera, where many performers came and went. And I settled in to wait, restlessly tapping my watch. I could see the operagoers arriving out on the main Street.

I watched late performers hurry past into the side-door.

A tall, hatted gentlemen I had never seen passed by, pausing at the door. He wore a wool cape with a high collar drawn around his lower face. He turned toward the cab and I caught the gleam of his black eyes, glittering in his white brow—staring straight at me. He lowered the collar and grinned at me with gold teeth.

I gripped my watch so hard the glass cracked.

The man's neck!

His throat was missing, replaced by some obscene metal gadgetry. Gears and rods protruded around the edges. Long copper strips and wires tangled like tendons in place of his larynx. Rivets lined his jaw.

In a moment, the neck was covered again and the man as gone.

Not a man. But not a deamon, either. The opera ghost!

I leapt out of my cab and raced to the door.

The door slammed in my face and when I tried to open it, I found it locked. I beat on it frantically and yelled for someone to open it, but no one came. I raced around to the main entrance and dashed up the steps, shoving aside several fur-garbed dames.

They squawked in protest but I didn't slow down, hurling an elderly gentleman to the side as I charged up the last steps to the door.

"Sir, where is your ticket?" demanded the concierge.

"I'm a friend of Serafina Szeman," I growled, trying to skim past him.

"I'm afraid you must have a ticket or pay now," the concierge insisted, blocking me with a firm hand. I dug furiously for my wallet and handed him the whole thing.

"Sir!" Protested the concierge, but I was already gone, racing along to the backstage entrance.

I burst into her dressing room and found it empty. Except for the deamonology book, lying on the vanity, open to the hieroglyphics page.

I nearly lost it and went racing off to search the entire opera house, then I saw a note beside the book.

It had been hastily written in pencil.

I'm sorry, Godfrey. You don't understand. I need to sing this concert. I need to see the wonders of Gehenna and the Convocation. This is an honor beyond anything you would ever understand. When I come back, I will be all yours.

Love,

Serafina

I stared.

She must be mad. Or this was fake. It was her handwriting...but the man had a machine that spoke for him and a typewriter that worked on its own. He could surely replicate handwriting.

But where had she gone? Gehenna? What was that? Where was that?

My eye fell upon the symbol that was circled in the book. Opening rune.

Opening...I looked again at the walls. The man had been inside the walls. He'd spoken to me from within. There had to be secret passageways. I began probing the walls' unyielding surfaces.

I frantically went over every inch of the bored green wallpaper. And then again. And again.

A knock sounded and a stagehand called, "five minutes, Miss Szeman." I sank to the floor in despair. So much time had already passed. I would be too late!

The carpet stared back at me, intricately patterned, unlike the wallpaper. And there!

In the corner, nearly hidden by the wardrobe, the Opening Rune peered up from between the twining curlicues.

Breathlessly, I crawled over to it and placed my hand on it. It felt no different from any other part of the floor. I pressed on it and felt something click beneath the carpet. Before my very eyes, the wall beside the wardrobe slid away, revealing a sliver of ultimate darkness.

I stood and took a candle from the vanity.

There was no time to be frightened of the foul wind that blew from that chasm. I stepped into darkness and the secret opening slid shut behind me. I was horrified to find various miniscule peep-holes into Serafina's dressing room. He HAD seen me, and presumably saw Serafina whenever she changed behind her screen!

A passage led off, narrow and low. I had to duck and go sideways to proceed. I came to a fork and was unsure which way to go...until I saw Serafina's gold key lying several feet down the left hand branch. The tunnel suddenly stopped and I found a hole in the floor, with a ladder leading down. This must be the direction that the man-deamon-ghost had led me before.

The passage went on and I found the lever that must control the trap door. Down another ladder, and I found myself on a stone embankment high above the water into which I was meant to have plunged. It appeared to be an underground river...or a sewer, though it was only mildly rank...and rank with a strange sour-metal smell. Chemicals, maybe.

The embankment ended and I found a tiny arch. My candle was guttering and I was forced to stop to trim the wick clumsily with my knife against the stone wall.

On I went, breath shallow and limbs quivering. The new tunnel dripped with slime and sloped steeply downward. The anise wrapped in mustiness stole into my nostrils and my lungs pumped faster.

That smell. And I thought I smelled old copper, too. And decay. The tunnel leveled off and I faced three entrances, all trimmed with archways built from human skulls.

Which way?

In the trembling light of my candle, I saw words written above the arches, carved into the stone.

Tartarus, Abaddon, and ...Gehenna.

I took a nervous breath and plunged into the arch named Gehenna—too fast.

I sprawled down a flight of slippery steps. My candle bounced into the darkness and went out.

Return tomorrow for the horrifying conclusion of the Phantom of the Opera!

And explore the blog hop below:

October Frights! The Phantom of the Opera, Part Two

Welcome back!

Are you ready to delve back into Godfrey and Serafina's nightmare? If you've just joined us, you may want to read the previous post, which has part one of my Phantom of the Opera retelling.

The Phantom of the Opera

Part Two: The Blasphemous Sound

I fled that hellish chamber, madly racing through the dark and somehow emerged into the street—after breaking through the rotten door that Serafina had locked behind her.

I emerged into the night, tattered, scuffed, wet, and bleeding.

I got lost in the winding streets and fog and didn't make it back to my car until nearly dawn.

I called on Serafina later that afternoon. She was still distracted and the circles under her eyes were deeper. Yet she seemed to almost glow with a weird excitement. I did not ask her about the mysterious cellar or the ghoulish typewriter.

The impression that she was not of this world anymore haunted me.

Serafina did not protest when I suggested dinner that night and I watched in sickly fascination as her excitement grew with the night.

After I took her home, I waited again and sure enough, Serafina emerged from the side door, cloaked and candle-bearing.

I was not fortified by champagne. My legs were shaky as I stepped out of my car and made to follow her. The vague horrors of that nightmare flickered through my mind, like Serafina's candle in the mist.

It slowed me just enough and I lost Serafina in the fog. I had to return to that place. I had to know the truth. How much had the alcohol colored my first visit? I almost ran down the alley, my footsteps slapping on the wet cobbles. She was nowhere to be seen. Twice, the muted glow of a lamppost fooled me.

"Serafina!" I called, but the fog robbed my cry of volume.

I kept going, trying to follow my hazy memory, but it was useless. I got lost again and finally returned to my car, wet and dejected. I sat and waited for Serafina's return. I wondered if I should confront her.

Her reappearance from the mist, almost an hour later, robbed me of breath and I sat limply in my fog shrouded automobile as she drifted ghost-like from the night and vanished again into her house.

When I called on her in the morning, her maid told me she was feeling ill and was still in bed. She had another performance that night. I told the maid to tell her I would see her at the show.

The evening came, deliberately, and I knocked on her dressing room door before the show began.

"I'm fine!" She called. "Really. Tell Peroll he did an amazing job adjusting the bodice. I can breathe without being stabbed by the seam."

"Serafina," I said. "It's me. May I come in?"

"Godfrey?" Her voice took on an edge of anxiety. "Yes. Yes, come in."

I caught her in the act of recomposing her features. Fear and guilt vanished under a veneer of tired happiness.

The room was full of her perfume, sweet and Rosy. But again that weird spice odor whispered underneath...anise, metal, and mold.

"Are you all right?" I asked raggedly.

"Yes, I think I just needed more rest," she said. I can't go out tonight; I have a meeting with the director, discussing future projects, then I must get to bed."

"Yes," I said. "Yes." I was nearly taken in by the reality she offered me with word and tone. The nightmare of the night before last seemed distant: unreal and champagne-inspired. But...

I had seen her vanish into the fog.

I had seen the guilt on her face. Or had I?

"You look tired, too," she said, concern in her tone but something else in her eyes...almost accusation.

"Yes," I said. "I should get to bed early tonight, too."

"Perhaps I'll see you in the morning?" She suggested.

"Absolutely," I said. "I look forward to tonight's show." She smiled and I turned to leave.

I glanced back before I closed the door and saw that her face had returned to conflicted anxiety.

Whatever was bothering her, she used it to great effect that night, pouring her emotions into her role. Her voice sparked with angst and her high notes were more chill-inducing than ever before.

After the show, I returned to her dressing room to congratulate her for another stunning performance. As I approached, however, I heard her talking to someone. I stopped with my hand on the knob.

"He acts like he didn't see anything," Serafina said. "Are you sure he was the one who broke the door?"

Words answered her. My stomach leapt up against the back of my rib cage and I leaned against the he door to keep from falling. To call it a voice would be borderline blasphemy. God did not create such a mode of expression. It twanged and hummed, metallically—jarring—buzzing—non-musical, but with infernally musical tones sparkling amidst the grinding chaos.

Somehow...words tumbled out of that—that sound.

"I saw him, Serafina. I saw him. He must have followed you. You must get rid of him."

"He'd had quite a bit of champagne that night," Serafina said hopefully. "Maybe he doesn't remember. Besides, I took your transcript. He can't really know anything."

"We can't risk him finding out," insisted the horrible sound. "He'll interfere. Do you not want to sing for the Convocation?"

"Of course I do!" Serafina protested. "I told you I want nothing more. I don't know how to get rid of Godfrey. He already suspects I'm not well. If he heard or saw anything, he might worry about me. If I try to push him away, he'll likely pry into things more."

"You must want to sing more than you want any human affection. If the deamons hear any love in your voice, they will not be pleased. Do you wish to displease the Convocation?"

"No! I'll...I'll get him to leave me alone...I'll tell him I'm too busy to see him until after the last performance of the show."

"See that he believes you," warned the sound. "He must stay out of the way. Music is all."

"Asmodeii?"

"Yes?"

"It is you, isn't it? Why can't I see you?"

"You don't even know what I look like. Is it my voice? Did you not expect it to sound like this? It is horrible, isn't it? Now you see why the convocation wants you to sing for them. We cannot make the sounds you can. That's why I prefer to communicate via machine. But your GODFREY HAS RUINED THAT. I will speak to you again. In this voice, my Serafina. I hope it does not frighten you too much."

I gripped the door handle. My Serafina...spoken by such a hellish sound! No, no, it was wrong. My hand trembled and the doorknob rattled.

I looked down at my white knuckles in horror.

"What was that?" demanded the sound.

"The door!" gasped Serafina. I let go of that handle as if it were molten and leapt back.

"Who's there?" twanged the sound. I looked about, but there was nowhere to hide. Footsteps.

A gaggle of ballet girls rounded the corner and I dashed into their midst. They giggled and hooted in protest. Serafina's door flew open. I ducked around the corner, hoping the ballet girls would shield me from sight.

"Prima Donna!" The girls trilled.

"What are you doing here?" Serafina demanded.

"The night is young!" replied one and several other answers joined: "Why are you still in costume?" "What are you doing?" "Leading lady has nerves, eh?"

It seemed the girls were all a bit drunk.

"Oh never mind," Serafina said. "But you should all get some sleep. We have another show tomorrow night."

The girls moved off with a chorus of "Humbug!" and Serafina closed her door. I waited at the corner, shaking like a struck cymbal. I was too afraid to approach the room again.

That sound...and what? The source of that sound was invisible? Serafina could not see it. Had it mentioned deamons? I clutched my head. I was dead sober. But this...

I shook in silent agony for what seemed hours, but must have been only twenty minutes.

The door creaked open and I went rigid.

I listened to Serafina's footsteps fade off down the hall and slowly relaxed. Strange calm stole over me and I squared my shoulders. I marched around the corner and threw open the dressing room door. If the source of that sound were still here, I would kill it.

The room was empty. It was not lavishly furnished. After checking the wardrobe and behind it, as well as the vanity and dressing screen, I had to give up. The thing was not here. Its smell was, though...that clean spice, immured in decay.

The room felt empty, tomb-like in its vacancy. I did not believe in invisible things. But then I remembered the entrance to that crypt near the typewriter. I had been drunk then.

But I hadn't been drunk earlier, when that sound had called Serafina 'my Serafina.'

My eye fell upon the floor beside the chair.

A book lay on the carpet, partially open.

A surge of white hot horror passed through me and I seized the book off the floor. It was very old and musty, leather bound and cracked. The title was The Ways of the Fallen Angels: Secrets, Summonings, and Symbols.

Two ribbons protruded from the damp pages, marking separate places. I flipped it open to the first.

A sort of alphabet was depicted. Unnatural shapes, mostly intricate geometrical diagrams, triangles, stars, and interlacing circles. One was circled in red pencil: an upside down triangle with a cross hanging from the tip and a curved line intersecting the top side. It had a caption: Opening Rune.

I frowned. With a careful flick of the mildewed pages, I turned to the second ribbon and was faced with an illustration of creatures—horned and hooved—gathering about a huge pentagram of fire.

The chapter title was printed in gothic letters: The Great Convocation of Devills.

Absurd! But...why was I trembling? I was no longer alone!

The sound filled the room, soft and mechanical.

"I SEE YOU, GODFREY!"

Stay tuned for the installment tomorrow!
and check out the rest of the hop below:

October Frights! The Phantom of the Opera, Part One

WELCOME TO THE OCTOBER FRIGHTS BLOG HOP!

This is a super fun annual event where horror authors gang up to terrify and amuse you. You can 'hop' from blog to blog via the link we all share at the end of our posts. October 10-15 we will be serving up mayhem and madness, so stay tuned.

I have written a retelling of the Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux. One of my favorite classic books. I also love all of the movie versions I've seen as well as the musical. I'll be posting this story in installments, somewhat fitting for a classic retelling as many classic novels were published as serial in the newspapers.

The Phantom of the Opera

Part One: The Typewriter

It began, and ended, with a key. Firstly a key of gold. Lastly a key of C.

Serafina Szeman made her debut at the Bamburg Opera on the 13th of November. She was leading lady in a production of Freerenmeck’s Angelicus.

I had been seeing her for several months before the opening, but she had been strangely distant during the weeks of rehearsal. She was something of a last minute casting choice, chosen at a hasty audition to replace the famous soprano Edithe Ridaphelm, who had bowed out for unknown reasons.

So I had rarely been able to call on Serafina since she'd started rehearsing and when I had, she was always in a hurry—late to rehearsal, to voice lessons, to the costumier—or else she was very tired and understandably quiet, even cool towards me, but I put it down to exhaustion.

I hoped she'd be better after the opening. Happier at least. And it was a triumphant opening. She has the voice of an angel. Lucid and soft and when she hits the high notes, my spine tingles.

I took a massive bouquet of roses to her dressing room after the show. When I knocked, however, there was no reply. I waited a moment, then slipped inside, hoping to surprise her when she arrived.

I found she was already in the room, her face rapt as she poured over a letter on aged paper.

"Serafina," I said, "you were marvelous! I don't think anyone has sung Lilliana so well! You had me in tears, congratulations!"

She did not look up from her letter. Her eyes were wide...almost adoring.

"Serafina?"

She tore her eyes away from the letter and jumped a bit, quickly sweeping the letter behind her back.

"Darling," she said, extending her other hand as I crossed the room. I took it to kiss, and noticed she clutched a small gold key.

"What's this?" I asked.

"Nothing," she said, snatching back her hand. Turning away, she stuffed both the letter and the key into an envelope.

"You were wonderful," I repeated.

She smiled vaguely and tucked the envelope under her comb.

"Thank you, Godfrey," she said. Her gaze was still distant, looking past me, as if I were invisible.

She must still be on the stage...her marble cheeks glowing with the applause like noble edifices caught in a sunset. Her perfectly curved lips smiled meekly despite their obvious glory. But...her normally sharp green eyes were misty—like stained glass that was curtained, blocking the internal candlelight.

I was close enough to smell her perfume—thick with rose and honeysuckle. And another odor.

A mustiness. But spiced...like anise wrapped in ancient molding papyrus.

"Will you let me take you out, now?" I asked. "Now the opening is over?"

"I can't," she said, then she seemed to shake herself and looked guiltily into my eyes. I was about to protest. "Of course," she said, and then I noticed the circles under her eyes.

"I think you need rest," I said. "I'll just drive you home."

"No," Serafina said, smiling. "We should celebrate. I promised we could go out when I had time. I won't be able to sleep, anyway."

I went to get my car while she got changed and then drove her to Les Cloches. We had a delicious supper, but she was still vague and distracted, even after champagne.

After I dropped her off at her house, I sat in my car and smoked a cigar. What letter had she been reading? An admirer’s? She couldn't have any yet...unless they had written the note during the performance. Or perhaps a cast member? But surely not? She loved me, didn't she? We hadn't had much time together since the audition.

And the key?

My mind conjured symbolic heart-keys and secret rendezvous...

A flickering light caught my attention and I peered into the dark. The side-door of Serafina's house had opened and emitted Serafina herself, in a thick wrap, bearing a candle of all things. She did not glance around—and thus did not spot me—but headed directly down the alley with purpose.

I stabbed my cigar butt into my gloved palm and leapt out of my car to follow her. I'd perhaps had a bit too much champagne and had half a mind to seize her arm and demand to know where she was going—who she was seeing.

But as I caught up, I slowed, almost in awe. She moved like a shadow. Her hair shone in the candle-light like burnished copper threads. The gathering fog curled its fingers around her, beckoning her into the night, and I got the irrational impression that she did not belong to me, nor to this world. She was already lost.

I kept to the shadows and corners as I trailed her through unfamiliar alleys that sloped ominously downward. Dread crept upon me even as the fog rose, thicker and thicker. A chill settled on me. I stumbled, looking around at leering facades, decrepit and strange. I realized we must be heading towards the river, hence the fog and cold. Guilt slipped through me for following her like this—then anger—then she vanished.

I froze.

Gaping windows smirked at me, black holes in the soft whiteness of mist. I heard a clink, and took a few rapid steps forward.

Serafina had slipped into a deeply recessed doorway and her candle had been lost in the cloaking fog. I tiptoed along the wet cobbles—ancient but perfectly fit—we were in the old quarter of the city, very near the river.

I stopped behind a cracked and mossy lion statue by a nearby gate and watched as Serafina unlocked a heavy door and was swallowed by a rotting, crumbling house.

Her candle did not appear in any of the windows. I realized I was hunkered by the house's main gate. She had gone into the cellar.

The house, with its deformed lion, damp moss crevices, and stench of decay, repulsed me violently. But with a wracking shudder, I charged down the slippery steps to the cellar door and seized the icy handles.

Serafina had not locked it behind her.

The humid doors creaked open and heaved me into moist darkness, where I fell to my knees on slimy stones.

Dark emptiness bulged around me, menacingly soft with a hard metallic odor. I got to my feet, unsure why I was trembling. Trembling not with any understandable adrenaline from secretly following someone, but with an irrational premonition. Something terrible was happening to Serafina and there was a sick, coppery flavor in my mouth. A chilling draft wafted that anise and parchment smell to me and I set off impulsively into the stone hallway.

The passage hooked right and plunged down, into the bowels of the earth, it seemed. I went slowly, afraid of slipping on the slime-coated flagstones.

The incline leveled out and I ran into a cobweb-covered wall.

I felt along it until I found the passage made a sharp turn to the left. I followed it around yet another corner and saw a flicker of light at last.

Two doorways yawned before me.

One the entrance to hell. One heaven. The right door gaped, black and sucking, cold and promising of terrors unimagined. And I fancied the smell issued from that featureless hole; the air was heavy laden with putrid rot, mixed with molding paper...ancient parchment...and a hint of anise.

Through the left door, a candle glowed, illuming the silhouette of my sweet Serafina.

Her back was to me; she was seated, gazing with her candle deeper into the room. I crept closer, careful to avoid the right hand opening. Serafina was speaking to someone I couldn't see.

"When will I get to sing for them?" She asked. "Surely I proved tonight I was good enough?"

I pressed myself to the door frame and peered around into the room, hoping to get a glimpse of whoever she was speaking to.

But no voice answered her. A clacking sound filled the malodorous air, cacophonous and malignant. As I peered into the secret rendezvous, I was sure the champagne must be making its full force know, for there was no earthly reason for the sudden dizziness that seized me. My head swam and the strange but not unholy sight rippled before my eyes. I nearly doubled over with nausea.

The room where Serafina sat on a stool was small. She was not more than ten feet away from me, sitting at an antique desk pushed against the far wall. On the desk sat her candle, and a typewriter. The typewriter was the source of the horrid clacking.

Serafina was at a slight angle to me and I could see her hands were in her lap.

The typewriter was operating itself!

I clutched the doorframe to keep from falling.

"I will do my best, Asmodeii," Serafina said. As if replying to the typewriter. I could not read the candle-lit page from the door.

The typewriter clacked away, like bones rattling in a cemetery. Then silence.

"You flatter me," Serafina said, her voice eerily girlish...a giggle hiding on the edge. "I cannot wait, either."

The typewriter replied and Serafina said, "Thank you, I will. Good night."

She took the page from the typewriter and folded it carefully, tucking it into her bosom. She turned and I retreated into the shadows. There was nowhere to go but back, or into the other horrible doorway.

Inexplicably, I found myself slipping into that foul abyss. The cold sucked at me, metallic and hungry.

Serafina passed from the small room and vanished back up the passage without glancing into my hiding place, taking her candle with her.

I was frozen in place, alone in the dark but with the distinct impression I was not alone...a legion lurked in the chasm behind me.

Suddenly, I remembered my matches. Pulling the book from my pocket, I clumsily fumbled out a match with my gloved fingers and struck it.

I turned around and nearly screamed. A row of skulls leered at me.

My heart hammered, each stroke threatening to be the last. The skulls were mortared into the wall. It must be an ancient crypt, perhaps part of the legendary catacombs that spread labyrinth-like beneath the city.

I shuddered and took my guttering match timidly into the room where Serafina had held her strange communion.

The typewriter gleamed sinisterly in the rank shadows. I dragged my feet reluctantly through the room. The typewriter seemed to wink in the flicker of my dying match. It loomed larger and larger and my feet grew heavier and heavier, but I was determined to seize the hateful thing and throw it upon the flagstones.

I was hardly thinking rationally, but part of me was aware that the thing must be operated by some hidden mechanical means, and if I tore it from the table, the secret would be revealed.

I was so close.

Just a few mores steps.

My match went out.

Darkness swept over me and the typewriter burst into hideous clacking laughter.

RETURN tomorrow for the next installment!

And check out more October Frights on my fellow blogs:

The Last Day

   So...we arrive at the end. Every end is a new beginning, no?
   I want to thank everyone who stopped by my posts, read them, commented, entered giveaways, shared, etc! Merci beaucoup.
   I've really enjoyed this blog hop but the horrifying, dribbling, and chilling terror of October is only half over! On Halloween my horror-comedy will be unleashed and I will be signing books and handing out candy in my local bookshop. I will be sure to blog about that, and hopefully I'll get some more sneak peeks and bonus content posts in before then! So stay tuned. In the meantime, you can pre-order the ebook of Ambulatory Cadavers.

    And be sure to check out the blog list at the bottom of this post and follow, follow, follow! There are some great blogs and scary-good authors.

   Today I just have a little film review and giveaway. I love old horror movies (70s or 60s and on back to the genesis of film). I got started on them because of Christopher Lee and his portrayal of Dracula, and then I got hooked on Hammer and so on...then I found Metropolis and fell in love with silent films.

   WHITE ZOMBIE (1932)
   Directed by: Victor Halperin
   Starring: Bela Lugosi, Madge Bellamy, Joseph Cawthorne
 
   This film is the original zombie movie, the introduction of the Haitian tradition to America. Now, the first zombie movie of the modern style, with the whole apocalypse thing is Romero's Night of the Living Dead. White Zombie is much more stylish. It was filmed over the course of eleven days on a tiny budget on leftover sets from Dracula and Frankenstein. I think Bela's performance as Murder Legendre is almost better than his Dracula.
   The zombies are slow and silent, undead slaves. I think they're great.
   The story begins with a young couple arriving in Haiti to get married at the home of their benefactor, M. Beaumont. The first scene is a burial in the middle of the road, 'where people pass all the time,' to discourage grave robbers.
   M. Beaumont wants Madeline for himself and hires Murder Legendre to use his powers to steal her. Murder gives him a mysterious powder. You can guess where it will go from there.
   The plot is fairly simple, but gorgeous photographed, with a few wild but clumsy fade effects and great acting by Bela and the adorable Madge Bellamy. The sets are gorgeous, with a spectacular castle that is obviously a painting (I LOVE painted backdrops), but somehow incorporates moving surf crashing on the shore. The music is a little average, except in two spots, the chanting at the beginning and a weird hummed number that gives an amazing mood to the scene where the drugged Madeline goes to the gothic balcony and heatstroke-suffering Neil senses er form the camp on the beach.
   All in all it captured my imagination and I give it 5 of 5 stars!

   Now the GIVEAWAY! Just comment with your favorite horror movie or old movie recommendation and you'll be entered to win a blu-ray copy of White Zombie!
 

An InLinkz Link-up