The rest of us followed, with Levi bringing up the rear like always, looking like he wanted to be literally anywhere else. His whole body was trembling, and not just from the cold.
The moment we stepped inside, the temperature difference was noticeable. Not warm, exactly, but definitely not freezing. I pulled out my phone and turned on the flashlight, and the others did the same.
We were standing in what had to be a foyer, but it was hard to tell how big it was in the darkness. Our phone lights created small circles of visibility that revealed glimpses of expensive-looking stuff—marble floors polished to a mirror shine, what looked like oil paintings in heavy frames, furniture covered in white sheets that looked ghostly in the LED light. The sheets were pristine, not dusty at all.
When was the last time someone cleaned this place? I wondered. Today? Yesterday?
"This place is massive," Priya whispered, and something about the darkness made all of us lower our voices automatically. "Look at the ceiling."
I aimed my light upward and immediately regretted it. The ceiling was so high I couldn't make out where it ended, disappearing into shadows that seemed to move in the edge of my flashlight beam.
"Look at this stuff," Amara said, aiming her light at what looked like a grandfather clock that probably cost more than anything I owned. The clock's hands were moving, ticking softly. "This is all antique. Like, museum-quality antique. Someone's definitely taking care of this place."
We moved deeper into the mansion, staying close together. Our footsteps echoed weirdly on the marble, and every small sound seemed amplified in the silence. The air smelled old—not musty or rotten like you'd expect from an unused place, but old in a way that made you think of libraries and expensive perfume. And underneath it, that same cinnamon scent from outside, getting stronger.
"Check this out," Diego called softly, his light illuminating a sweeping staircase that curved up to the second floor. The bannister looked like it was carved from a single piece of dark wood, and the steps were covered in deep red carpet that seemed to absorb our lights rather than reflect them.
"We should stay on the ground floor," Kai said, sounding nervous for the first time since we'd started this trip. "Just until the storm passes, then we leave. We shouldn't explore."
"Agreed," I said, because something about those dark upper floors was giving me serious creeps. Like something's watching us from up there, I thought. Waiting to see what we'll do.
We followed what seemed to be a main hallway, passing closed doors and more sheet-covered furniture. The walls were covered in paintings that our lights couldn't illuminate properly, but I caught glimpses of faces in ornate frames—old faces, stern faces, faces that seemed to follow our movement with oil-painted eyes.
One painting made me stop. It was larger than the others, showing a man in old-fashioned clothes—maybe Victorian era?—standing in front of this very mansion. The nameplate at the bottom read "Enoch" in tarnished brass letters.
Enoch, I thought. Is that the owner? The builder?
"Guys," Levi's voice was barely a whisper behind us. "Maybe we should—"
"Holy shit," Zara interrupted, her light hitting something that made all of us stop dead.
We'd turned a corner and suddenly everything was different. Instead of darkness and dust sheets, we were looking at a room that was fully lit with warm, golden light. Not electric light—the kind that came from oil lamps and candles, casting dancing shadows across walls lined with rich wallpaper.
And the room wasn't empty.
It looked like it had been transported from a century ago. There was a gramophone in one corner, its brass horn gleaming in the lamplight, and I could hear it now—the music I'd thought I'd imagined earlier, a scratchy jazz melody from the 1920s. Shelves lined the walls, filled with vinyl records in pristine condition. The furniture was all dark wood and deep leather, arranged around a fireplace where actual flames were crackling and popping. A tea service was laid out on a side table, the pot actually steaming.
"What the fuck," Diego breathed, echoing what we were all thinking.
"The lights are on," Priya said stupidly, but honestly, it was so surreal that stating the obvious felt necessary. "Someone's definitely living here."
That's when we noticed the woman.
She was sitting in a high-backed armchair near the fireplace, and I have no idea how we missed her at first. Maybe our eyes needed time to adjust to the light, or maybe she'd been sitting so still that she blended into the shadows.
She looked young—maybe mid-twenties—and beautiful in an old-fashioned way, like she'd stepped out of a vintage photograph. Her clothes were a bizarre mix of different eras: she wore what looked like a Victorian-style dress with delicate lace at the collar, but paired with a 1920s beaded necklace, and her hair was done up in victory rolls from the 1940s. Like she'd raided a costume shop that specialized in vintage fashion and couldn't decide on just one decade.
But it was her smile that made my skin crawl. Too perfect. Too white. Too wide.
"Oh!" she said, standing up gracefully when she noticed us. Her voice had a strange accent I couldn't place, like she was speaking English with different accents. "Visitors! How wonderful!"
We all kind of froze, not sure what to say. Here we were, seven soaking wet college kids who'd basically broken into her house, and she was acting delighted to see us. Not surprised. Not annoyed. Delighted.
"We're so sorry," Kai started, slipping into his polite mode. He always did this—became the spokesperson when we needed to talk to adults or authority figures. "We got caught in the storm and the door was open, we didn't mean to intrude—"
"Nonsense!" she waved a hand dismissively. Her movements were fluid. "You poor dears, you must be absolutely frozen. Let me make you some tea to warm you up. I've just put on a fresh pot."
Before any of us could respond, she'd glided over to the side table where the elaborate tea service was set up. Everything looked antique and expensive—delicate porcelain cups with hand-painted flowers, a silver teapot that was already steaming, tiny spoons that probably cost more than my textbooks.
"Really, we don't want to impose," Amara said, but the woman was already pouring tea into cups with practiced ease.
"It's no trouble at all," the woman said, her back to us as she worked. "I so rarely have company. Especially such young, vibrant company. So full of life."
I could see Levil out of the corner of my eye taking a couple of steps back, like he was mirroring what I was thinking.
'We need to leave', I thought desperately. 'Right now. We need to leave right now.'
But I didn't move. None of us did. We just stood there, frozen, as she turned around with a delicate cup and saucer in her hands, that too-perfect smile still plastered on her face.
"Here," she said, her eyes fixing on Kai. "You look like you could use this most of all. You've been working so hard, leading your little group through the storm."
Kai hesitated for just a second, then stepped forward. Because that's what Kai did—he was polite, he was responsible, he followed social rules even when everything in your gut told you to run.
"Thank you," he said, reaching for the cup. "That's very kind of—"
The woman smiled at him. A perfectly normal, grandmother-like smile.
Then her mouth kept opening.
And opening.
Her jaw unhinged like a snake's, impossibly wide, revealing rows of teeth that definitely weren't human—sharp, curved things that looked designed for tearing flesh, layer after layer of them spiraling back into a throat that seemed to go on forever.
'Move!' my brain screamed. 'MOVE!'
But I couldn't. I was frozen, watching in horror as time seemed to slow down.
The teacup fell from Kai's hand, shattering on the marble floor in an explosion of porcelain and tea.
The woman lunged forward with inhuman speed.
And buried those impossible teeth in Kai's throat.
Blood sprayed across the room in an arterial arc, painting the antique furniture and our horrified faces in hot, red streams. I could hear the wet, tearing sound of flesh ripping, the crack of bone, Kai's attempt to scream cutting off into a wet gurgle.
The woman's teeth sawed through his neck like it was made of butter, muscles and tendons snapping like rubber bands, until—
Kai's head separated from his body.
It hit the floor with a wet thump, rolling slightly, his eyes still wide with shock and terror, his mouth still trying to form words. His body stood for another second, blood fountaining from the stump of his neck, before it crumpled to the floor like a puppet with cut strings.
The woman straightened up, Kai's severed head hanging from her mouth for just a moment before she tilted her head back and swallowed it whole, her throat distending grotesquely to accommodate it.
She turned to look at the rest of us, blood dripping from her too-wide smile, pieces of flesh caught between her impossible teeth.
"Mmm," she said, her voice perfectly cheerful, perfectly normal. "I hadn't even realized how hungry I was until I got another taste of human blood. It's been so very long."
And that's when the real nightmare began.