Text The Nightmare Of Nightshade Manor

[Philip Ellwell 5,487]

The house was regal, tall and majestic, with Victorian accents and gingerbread scrolls, a work of art unmatched by any building in town.

Locked away behind tall iron gates, the mansion loomed over a bed of decayed grass, shattered statues, and withered trees, holding the remnants of destroyed hopes in its chilly embrace and icy halls. 

The house was called Nightshade Manor, after the once wealthy family who'd owned it in the early 1900's. 

Owners of a large saw mill, the Nightshade's had been very well to do, building their beautiful manor on the largest hill in all of the town, dubbed ' Witches Hill ' by the locals due to old legends telling of witchcraft and arcane rituals said to have been performed there years ago by a group of old women descended from Salem colonists. 

These were just legends, and construction went on as planned, the house slowly taking shape day by day, as lovely as a fresh rose. 

But, the land wasn't too kind to these outlanders, as the legends were, in fact, not legends; evil lurked in the very soil of the hill, an deity far removed from the known gods and monsters of man. 

The completion of the house took place on a rainy, miserable afternoon, when the last window was placed in the ballrooms massive stained glass mural, depicting a fairy tale scene of great beauty. 

As lightning split the sky, a grand ball was occurring inside the great house, every window alight with sound and movement. 

The sounds of organ and piano playing a jazzy waltz echoed into the night, as a fantastic time was had by all, unhindered by the storm outside, even as the river, swollen by the heavy rains, slowly flooded out the driveway, stranding the mansion in an ocean of water, unreachable by land, offering no escape for the guests inside. 

They danced, unaware of their entrapment, swirling to the music like lost wraiths, their shadows flickering along the walls in warped images, as the party went on. 

The lights flickered every time the thunder boomed, and finally, with a crash and brilliant, eye bursting flash of white lightning, they went out altogether, plunging the guests into both darkness and fear.

In the darkness.... noise. 

Something approaching them, slithering om nimble toes towards them. 

They screamed, all of them, panicked and terrified as if children of the darkness and the sounds. 

The mansion echoed with the sounds, as the storm raged on, water over flowing into the ballroom as strong winds blew out the other windows. 

No one was alive to mind. 

The fairy tale window, depicting a castle on a hill above fields of roses changed, the roses blackening, thorns twining around the castle in a lover's embrace, blue sky replaced by a terrible storm filled, lightning struck landscape out of a nightmare. 

Silence settled over the mansion, as the storm slowly faded away, its work done. 

Edited December 27, 2013 by TheTimidLight

[TheWaywardWind 1]

beautifully written!

[Philip Ellwell 5,487]

beautifully written!

Thank you.  

I'm glad you've liked it so far. 

[Philip Ellwell 5,487]

Chapter 1: The Fall of The House of Nightshade 

It was 100 years ago when the darkness fell over the mansion of the Nightshades, that terrible night destroying the hopes and dreams of all in attendance of the ball. 

The house was left, along with everything inside it, to ruin, all in the town afraid to dare cross the threshold into the nightmare inside. 

Strange shapes were seen behind closed windows, and the stained glass of the ballroom's fairy tale window glowed from within with a pulsing blueish light almost nightly, twisted figures, dark caricatures of humanity, waltzing to a toneless organ within the confines of the house. 

Dark secrets were hidden behind those walls, and all believed the guests at the party...

didn't leave, even in death. 

The house gently rotted over the years, taken over by spiders and rats, the once elegant furniture rotting by moths and age into useless junk, the halls dank and mildewed. 

Whatever was there.... was alone in its solitary, lost in the maze of rooms and cold corridors of the mansions interior. 

Edited December 28, 2013 by TheTimidLight