Spiked

The old house was filled with cats. They ran up and down the creaking stairs, and around Devon's feat.

"Grandmother has always been a little eccentric," Gavestin explained. In the parlor, decorated in dust and antique furniture, they sat and drank tea.

"Why are you allowing the cats to drink from your cup?" Devon asked her. She smiled, her grandmother doll face framed by the peeling wallpaper and two black cats on both sides of her. "They help me a lot more than you will ever know."

When the sun's glow began to wane through the ragged velvet curtains, she showed them to their room. A beautiful white-haired cat lead the way, running gracefully up each lopsided step.

The hallway was uncomfortably narrow and dark, but it was pleasantly decorated in old Victorian paintings framed in gold and a single glass chandelier that was laced in cobwebs.

Devon noticed the cat laying in front of a closed door at the end of the hall, staring at them with brilliant ice-blue eyes. On the knob, there hung a single silver chain, a crucifix that glinted in the shadows.

"Did I apologize for the state my house is in?" she asked them as she lead them to the largest door in the hallway.

"Grandma," Gavestin said, consolingly. "It's alright. Devon and I will help you tidy things up tomorrow."

She lowered her little raisin eyes and said, "It's been so hard with Beatrice gone. So hard."

The room was lavishly decorated in cherubs and antique rose wall-paper. Gavestin and Devon thanked her and closed the door behind them. "Who was Beatrice?" Devon asked, laying on the soft silk sheets, eyes shifting from golden face to golden face.

"I never told you of Beatrice?" Gavestin raised an eyebrow and lay next to him.

"After my grandfather had died in the war, Grandmother was so depressed that she was put in a hospital. When she was released, she brought a fellow patient named Beatrice home with her so she wouldn't feel so alone. From what I gather, they were inseparable"

"Were they lovers?" Devon asked, lacing their fingers together.

"Yes. I think they were."

The sky was already turning deep purple, but there were no stars. The moon's eerie gaze cast web-like shadows through the lace curtains on the window in front of them.

"How did Beatrice die?" Devon asked as they both lay, staring at the darkening sky.

"Ten years ago, when Grandmother was gone grocery shopping, a burglar broke into their house. Beatrice had been stabbed twenty times before the police even got there."

"That's awful," Devon said.

"Let's just not talk about it tonight," Gavestin said, sitting up and undoing each button on his plaid shirt. He pulled off his pants and threw them to the floor before pulling Devon into his arms and lifting the cool blankets over them. "I'm still tired from the trip here. Let's get some sleep."

Devon found himself standing behind the form of a young, slender woman, in a pitiful heap on the floor. Her long, red hair partially covered her pale face and she was dressed in a plain, pale pink nightgown. She sobbed quietly, gripping the chain to a crucifix tightly in both of her hands.

"Wh-who are you?" Devon stammered nervously.

Her cries stopped abruptly as she turned to face him, the curtain of her lovely red hair covering most of her face.

She whispered, "I am Beatrice."

Blood began to soak through her dress from her stomach and chest as her skeletal fingers reached towards him.

"They broke all of my dolls," she muttered, peering at him through strands of hair with two large glass eyes.


The cool hiss of wind awoke Devon from his nightmare. He looked around, groggily until his eyes became accustomed to the darkness. The other side of the bed was empty, the blankets disheveled as if Gavestin had gotten up in a hurry.

The window was open, crying streams of broken lace and icy wind. Devon stood to his feet and walked across the room to close it.

"The key," someone breathed onto his neck.

Devon jumped, turning around to see nothing but the empty bed. "Gavestin?"

He walked out into the hallway, feeling the walls so he wouldn't get lost. "Gavin?"

It was so cold that he could feel his nose begin to run, but he didn't want to have to return to that room. There was a door with white light spilling through the cracks.

Everything in the room was white, from the large amoire to the four-post bed that held a ruffled canopy. Although Devon knew that it was still dark outside, he could have sworn the cold winter light that permeated the room came from the large windows .Porcelain dolls covered the floor, all of their life-like eyes reflecting the brilliant light. One doll in particular caught his eye. It was the doll of a handsome young man with kind blue eyes and raven hair. It looked so much like Gavestin that Devon picked it up and peered closer at it. It even had a freckle painted on its chin exactly where Gavestin's was. When he sat it back down, he could've sworn that it blinked.

An old music box sat atop the dresser, the figure of a cat on a spring that spun around and around as a sad tinkering melody played.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something on the bed shift under the heavy veils of lace that surrounded it. He could see the figure of a woman sitting up through the canopy, robotically as if she were a puppet with metal joints.

"Snow globes crack," the figure whispered. "Snow globes crack and shards of glass get stuck inside your hands."

Devon stared in muted horror as the layers of lace parted and the woman turned to face him. Her eyes were stitched shut with red wires and her skin was same hue as the room; so white that she seemed to glow. The corners of her mouth were slit on either side in a permanent macabre smile. Her entire body was perforated by long, thick needles that stuck out of infected and bleeding wounds.

"Don't move," she said. "You will be my own little doll just like your lover. I will take out what's inside of you and leave you hollow."

Devon ran to the door, but it was locked. Trembling in terror, he turned to face the woman. "It still hurts in hell. Nothing is ever going to take this pain away," she moaned, standing to her feet.

The same white cat that had led them up the stairs crawled out from beneath the bed and jumped atop the dresser, batting at the cat on the music box. It looked at Devon, and back at the box.

The white lady, was walking slowly towards him; stumbling and breathing heavily as if each step was extremely painful.

The cat knocked the music box to the floor and it shattered into a thousand pieces, revealing a small silver key that slid across the floor and under the bed. The woman turned towards the noise and screamed, "No! Take the money! Take my jewelry! No, please don't kill me!"

She grabbed for Devon with long, corpse fingers, but he ducked under her and crawled towards the key.

"Where did you go, toy? I need another doll."

The key felt warm in his fingers, despite how cold the room was. In the darkness under the bed, he saw two glowing eyes. They moved further away, and then disappeared. Devon followed them, crawling until he felt a large hole in the floor. The woman's long arm erupted from the other end of the bed, reaching towards him.

"Leaving your love? Leaving your love?" she repeated mockingly.

He crawled into the hole and found himself back in the hallway. The two glowing eyes stared at him, then turned away, leading him to a large door.

He unlocked it with the silver key and found himself back in his and Gavestin's room. It was still dark, but the moon shone into the room and filled it in eerie light. Gavestin lay asleep on the bed, a black cat purring at his feet.

Sighing, Devon closed the door behind him and locked it with the silver key. He lay next to his lover and fell asleep.