Who's the Scaredy Cat?

[Olivia Oeland]

(closed to striker)

The old carriage was less agreeable than she would have liked it to be, but all the little village had to offer to the old gray manor was the one horse buggy. She was glad it was a one seat, since she wasn’t to hot on the idea about squishing inside with the tiger man body guard. The last thing she wanted was cat hair all over her black clothes, what a hell that would be.

Giving the reigns a pull Olivia moved her head this way and that to get a better view of what she thought looked like the pathway up to the manor. Good, she was tired of sitting in the hard wooden seat, it must have been uncomfortable on the back for Striker. Oh well, he looked tough.

“ We’ll walk from here, that pathway looks pretty torn up, the wheels will probably get stuck,” she set the reigns down and attempted the edge of the buggy, swinging her right leg over first then her left. She made a small pounce backwards and landed on both her feet. The pebbles beneath her boots shifted a little bit, but the ground was pretty firm, they weren’t going to sink. There might have been an actual road here a while back.

The manor up the pathway was gray just like the patch of sky above it. In fact it looked like it might have been made of the same gray matter the clouds were made up of. The stones in the walls had worn over the years and smoothed themselves out. Ivy and other vegetation crept up the sides of the crumbling gray walls, like veins they clung and branched off across the walls and windows. Some had grown right through the window, the glass shattered as evidence of the pressure. The roof was in sad shape, the shingles were clinging for dear life, everyday their grip slipping.

“ What a mess,” Olivia observed and walked closer, disturbing the still pathway. “ Come on, Striker. Let’s do this before it gets dark,” she beckoned for the cat man to follow. “ While she was turned to face Striker through one of the upper windows a cloudy … well shape passed by but it was near impossible to make it out entirely since the windows were pretty hazy. It looked something like a person…If Striker was looking up at the house he couldn’t have missed it. Then again, Olivia had mentioned something about investigating a potentially haunted house. But she wasn’t serious, right?

[Striker]

Striker stretched the second his feet hit the cobbled ground. Short as it was, that buggy ride felt like it had lasted aeons, his rear planted firmly on hard wooden seats, cramped into the corner of that abomination. If he had known the going would be this slow, he would have walked. Still they were here.

Here. Here was an old manor of a classical style, screaming of victorian era nobility drama. Simply by looking at the place, one got the feeling that he or she was next in line of a long string of mysterious poisonings as part of some ambitious family member's plan to take the family fortune. Assuming the butler didn't kill you first. The ugly moonlight shadows criss-crossed acrost the overgrown garden, a golgotha of thorns. The building was a witch in a dress gown. Somehow, that made it worse.

Shaking off the waves of bad vibrations crashing up his spine, Striker struck the buggy with the blunt end of his weapon. He had brought it along for two reasons. One, you never know what living things might hole up in this kind of god-awful trench and two, Striker had been around long enough to know that dead men can be right awful bastards when they get their mind to it. Like that sorry looking...

Striker stopped, mid-pace. Despite Olivias beckonings, he shook his head, and checked his head against reality. Straightening up, he continued walkling.

"You said this house was deserted? Someone's on the top floor. Or something. Or both." Subconsciously, the halberd came a little closer to the beast man. Like a security blanket, almost. "Shouldn't be too tough. Just one, I mean."

"...unless there's more." The distant howling of a wolf gave Striker a bit of a surprise, and he looked over his shoulder rather less than casually.

[Olivia Oeland]

“ On the top floor?” She slid a foot back turning to see. There were quite a few windows on the top floor but none of them were more than just empty panes of glass, dim from years of neglect. She held her gaze on the house for a few following moments, just in case.

A chilly breeze blew a wolf’s howl to her ears and she turned back to Striker. He looked a little nervous so now was probably as good of time as any to tell him they were going to walk into a presumably haunted house. The thought that it was genuinely haunted made her eager to hurry in. but every ‘haunted’ house previously had just been an old rickety mess where stray animals made nest.

“ The house is haunted,” she said plainly, like it was no big deal. Moving some black hair over her shoulder she added, sighing regrettably, “ But it’s probably just a rumor.” The wind blew by again pushing her hair back, this time she didn’t bother to fix it. “ I’d like to take a look, regardless. Now come on,” she was eager to get moving and Striker stopping wasn’t helping the moving part.

Olivia, whether Striker was moving or not, continued towards the manor’s great double doors, calling out behind her. “ It’s just one man, like you said. Don’t be a scaredy cat.”

She placed her hands gently on the antique door knobs, afraid even the slightest force might break them. Pressing her thumbs down carefully she heard a click and felt the doors loosen up enough for her to push them open. The first thing she could smell was dust. Ages of dust. It was too dark to see anything really.

Loud groans came from the door, after all those years they were finally awakened. The hinges must have been rusted over rust by this time. With the doors further open some of the gray light from outside shone in upon the foyer. There was a large oriental rug, a shadow of what it once was, no doubt eaten away at by moths and mice. Just beyond the rug was a wooden stand and a cracked vase. The stairs, which Olivia was looking for were straight back. A grand stair case leading up into who knew where.

Olivia stepped inside, looking upwards at the great chandelier now half broken and full of cobwebs. Something scurried over her foot and she could feel it through her boot.

“ Ahhhh!!” she made a well placed leap away from her standing spot and eyed the floor, she saw a mouse disappear into a hole in the wall, and her heart began to settle. “ Striker!” she shouted to outside, would he just get in here?

[Striker]

Oh, haunted. Is that all? Haunted as in unholy ground where the dead roost and evil spirits suck on souls and vampires and ghouls come back to chill at the end of the day. No thank you, none of that please. Striker turned around. If it was just a rumor she could figure it out for her self, the beast man was not going to take a chance. No siree. Two things in this world were trouble. Flowers and Dead People, and Striker wanted nothing to do with either. This... Olivia can handle her self, but this scaredy cat was going to get blotto in the first bar he saw among the living. He started walking back down the path.

The scream had barely reached Striker's ears before he had kicked the front door back open, nearly unhinging it. The blade of his weapon came down so fast it left trails of displaced air in its wake, and slammed into the ground mere centimeters from Olivia's boot.

Striker had caught... something, pinning it's tail against the blade. Once his breathing slowed a little, he looked up at Olivia.

"What in the hell is that thing?"

[Olivia Oeland]

She didn’t know which startled her more. The mouse than skittered over her shoe or Striker’s sudden bombardment of the door. There were many thing sin this world which could strike fear into hearts, and seeing a tiger man hybrid crashing through a doorway with a large halberd in hand was one of them.

“ It’s just a rat!” Olivia exploded, feeling a temper boil underneath her skin. She’d been scared twice now, she hadn’t let her scream escape the second time but she thought her heart might have stopped. A small furrow came out in her eyebrows and she turned sharp on her feet.

She was facing the foyer now, not from the outside but from the inside. She could feel the chilly air that floated about, and she could see up close and personal the dust caked onto… well, everything. The stairs still looked sturdy enough to ascend but she had a mind to make Striker go first. No, probably not a good idea, she thought looking back at the body guard inning the mouse down like it was a threat. She didn’t want big halberd holes all over the staircase.

“ Don’t be a scaredy cat. Ghosts are like … they’re like that mouse, they’re more afraid of you then you are of them.” She was already at the base of the stairs, hoping Striker would follow. She didn’t know how much sense her analogy made to Striker but if just in case it wasn’t convincing enough she added. “ They go right through you anyways. Now come on, I’ll go up first.”

Her first step onto the stair way let out a long groan. The wood probably had all sorts of air pockets in it. She paused, just in case the wood wanted to give way, but after a few still seconds she proceeded. Her destination was the upper most room where Striker had seen the man. If it was a bandit the big halberd could handle him, if it was a ghost. Olivia smiled to herself at the thought. It was like finding gold.

[Striker]

Striker looked up, unhinging his blade from the moldy floorboards to let the rat squeak off into the shadows. The interior of the house was much like the outside. Twisted nobility. Sneering portraits glared down at him with following eyes, labeled with names that ended in long strings of roman numerals. The carpeting, largely of the faded purple variety, was now more alive than dead with all manner of nasty crawling things. It seemed that, during a certain point in the life of this palace, someone felt compelled to put up rather a lot of shelves to house all of the glittering claptrap that comes with the station of nobility. Dust was all that remained here, and it somehow gave the house an even emptier feeling. A gust of chilly wind blew gossimer drapes through the house as shutters crashed against one another.

Floorboards creaking under him, Striker held his bladed weapon, a shining point in the darkness. A grin twisted its way across his features before he could stop it.

"If you insist, Olivia, then rest assured - Ghosts cannot harm you."

The shining blade's edge followed her up the stairs.

[Olivia Oeland]

The first step’s floorboard creaked a small cry, causing Olivia to hesitate to step onto the next. But once her ascent began she felt compelled to continue. The wood was rotting she was sure, and she would have held to the banister for stability if it wasn’t coated in a thick layer of dust. A small look of disgust crossed her face when she saw a small spider drop itself down and swing like a clock’s pendulum before her.

“ Ugh,” she side stepped the arachnid, keeping a close eye on the dangling creepy crawly. In the corner of her eye she caught a glimmer in the very sparse light that actually made it through the cloudy foyer window. It was only Striker’s weapon. She wished he’d put that big thing down, even though it was a symbol of comfort, in its own way. Maybe it was just the ay he was carrying it, and that peculiar expression worn on his cat face. In fact, it was downright creepy, and made Olivia a little uneasy.

“ You don’t have to follow so close,” she said continuing up the stairs, a little quicker to put some distance between her and the tiger-man.

The second floor as no better off than the first and may have even been in worse conditions since there were spots on the floor which looked like they’d been smashed in, or were sinking. Pictures on the wall were distorted behind broken glass and their frames tipped, sinking along with the house. The ceiling hung lower than the first floor, and the spiders were much closer. Olivia was beginning to regret deciding to investigate this house. But the villagers had been so convinced it was haunted.

“ I can’t see a thing,” against the darkness her eyes caught only dim shadows darker than others, if that was possible. She hadn’t thought to bring a lantern, foolishness on her part. But she had a good set of eyes right with her.

“ Striker, you go first,” understanding cats had nocturnal vision she shot a glance over her shoulder at the body guard.

[Letho]

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