It was a dark and stormy night when I arrived at Creek Mansion. The rain came down heavy on the car windscreen, the wipers sliced sights upward of the house I was to stay in that night. The billion dollar home stuffed with the latest technology was built on top of a hill overlooking the Yorkshire dales, isolated from the hustle and bustle of metropolitan life. Yet as I got out of the car and walked through the rain, I couldn't help but miss certain amenities living in a city offered. Strange things happened in the countryside. Things not reported on mainstream news, things that bore no witness. I took an envelope out of my pocket and ripped the top open. A plastic key-card lay in the cleft of the paper, I took it out and examined the design on the card. Every large electronics company had a secret division working on experimental prototypes, theoretical products that the public wouldn't necessarily yet want but was worth preparing for. The house I entered was part of one such programme, the Home of the Future. And I was to stay one night there.
The lights came on as I entered the front door, giving me my first glimpse inside. A sweeping marble staircase ran along one wall, drawing the eye to the elaborate plaster covings all around the ceiling, lit in a thousand reflections cast from a chandelier. Several corridors went off in various directions, the dark wooden floors leading off into the shadows. I removed my coat and placed it on a hat-stand by the door.
"Hello?" I called out. "Is there anyone there?"
There was no response. I walked across the huge Persian rug and through a hallway in front of me. I notice small black orbs in the ceiling. Cameras watched me. I pick the door nearest to me and turn the handle.
"Hello?" I say. Each wall switches on, bathing everything in a soft glow. A window unfolds and gives me a view of outside along with a large clock. Small projectors are stood at the foot of each of the huge, white walls. The only furniture in the room is a large red leather chair, a side-table and a bottle of red wine. A rotating circle appears on one wall dotted with symbols. I look away but find that the circle follows me. As if it is shining out of my eyes. A lot of the icons are similar to the ones I had on my phone, although there were just as many I didn't recognise. The minimalist designs were hard to decode, somewhere between hieroglyphics and Hangul. I reached out towards one.
~Welcome.~
"Hello. Can you hear me?"
~Yes.~
"Who are you?"
~i am the house computer.~ flashed the text. That made sense, in the future even computers would live in houses.
"I'm staying here tonight. Where can I put my bags?" I said, looking back towards the door. The lights had gone off outside.
~in your room.~
"And where is that?" With this, a 3D map appeared on one wall, showing a flashing red dot in a room upstairs.
The house was entirely silent as I made my way up the stairs and along the first floor mezzanine. A door at the end of the hallway was open. Things were moving. The walls seemed to bleed light across my vision like jets of ectoplasm, causing me to blink and jerk my head at the disturbance. I entered the room I was staying in, looking out of the window. Tree branches whipped backward and forward in the wind like waves of insect legs. I took out my dictaphone to call myself in the future. "I have arrived at the home of the future. There's a sort of crackling noise. It also doesn't smell of anything." I note.
I began to pace the corridors of the house, bursting my way into the various empty rooms lit by energy saving lightbulbs. The whole house appeared dim and almost sepia toned, the colours dripping in on themselves as I made my way round the maze like structure around me before arriving back at the main foyer. I was alone, yet knew that the internet of things made this a veritable wasps nest of wi-fi activity. The walls were thinking. I was inside a computer, an electric brain. I saw a silhouette in the darkness, which gave me pause. I watched at it dissolved in a cascade of entopic cells. Was my mind rotting or had I just seen a ghost? And in so seeing a ghost proving to myself that there was an afterlife, in which case I should spend as much time as possible with the ghosts in order to see what they're like? Why is it they spook people? Can't we work together in a metempsychotic utopia? I went back into the room with the chair and poured myself a glass of red wine.
"Computer...have you ever seen a ghost?" I ask.
~No.~
"Show me videos of actual ghosts on youtube, please." Against one corner several squares were clustered, each showing a silent video of ghost sightings. I raised my arm in the arm and selected several of the videos before flicking them out across the walls.
"Maximise." I said, pointing at one clip and throwing it to the centre of my view. It was of an empty room at night. Using a mixture of sign language and hand miming I paused the video, unrolled it like a piece of film and cut out a specific section towards the end in which a mysterious figure appears beneath the duvet. I mime using a magnifying glass.
"Where are you?" I scanned each frame individually before stopping. I could see an evil face peeking out from the side of the bed nearest the wall. Proof of paranormal activity.
"Computer, e-mail this to all of the newspapers with the title; Proof of ghouls. FAO Editor." I said, drinking the fortified wine. And so this went on for several hours, the wine bottle becoming emptier, my clothing being shed gradually so that I emerged from the cotton cocoon into full nudity. If I should be attacked by any being, actual or imaginary, it was best to be like Beowulf.
After a time I decided to go into the kitchen to make myself a midnight snack of booze.
"Kitchen, do we have any fruits?" I ask. The fridge lights up to show a video of the inside of the fridge. It is empty.
~Would you like me to order some food?~ came a voice.
"Sure. Order me a variety of fruit please." I say. A phone sprouts small wheels and drives itself towards me, flips itself over and shows the number for a local fruit delivery guy. Twelve pieces of fruit for ten hard earned bitcoins, what could go wrong? I picked up the phone and began to dial when a strange goo began to pour out of the receiver.
"That's strange." I remarked to myself. A sinister giggle happened behind me, causing me to turn. Nothing there. When I looked back at the phone in my hand I could see it had turned into a humanoid figure made out of an orange. I began to peel but dropped it when it began to bleed. The orange-man began to crawl away from me but I took the piece of peel and ripped it back, revealing an inner skeleton and nervous system made from pith.
"Kitchen, what's that supposed to be?" I said, picking up the orange-man.
~I tried to print you an orange using nearby matter.~
"What's this then?"
~50% man, 50% orange.~ came the metallic response.
"Where did you find the orange?" I asked. No sooner had I said it an orange bumped against my foot. It must have rolled across the floor towards me from beneath one of the cupboards. I knelt down on the cold floor and peered in the shadows.
"Do you have any grapes?" I asked. I could see for a moment the grinning face of a corpse, it opened its eyes and slime began to pour out. I reached under the cabinet for it and yanked it out by the neck, it had the consistency of wet cobwebs.
"Beware...beware..." it murmured, voice sounding as though it was gargling soup. I'd seen a few ghosts in my time, but never any ones that gave me fruit.
"What's the big deal? Where did you get that orange from?" I asked, laying the dead thing by the sink and washing some of the mud off it in the sink.
"Don't...don't go into the cellar..." it whispered.
"Why?"
"You'll die..." it whispered. I laughed at it, picking it up again and putting it in the fridge.
"I think you need to chill out ghost. What if I'm already dead? I should get to the bottom of this mystery."
I walked down the hall, knocking on the wall as I went. I'd found it, a hollow sound. There was a door that had been boarded up, probably when the computer systems had been integrated into the house. After looking around for a bit I found a knife and began to stab at the wall.
~What are you doing?~ said the computer from the observation room.
"Looking for ghosts or something."
~You shouldn't go down there.~
"Yes." I said. I kept stabbing and slashing at the wall until I'd made a hole big enough for my arm, I reached in and began to tear the panels back.
~Stop.~
"What will you do if I don't?" I said. There was no response. Suddenly all the lights went off. I could tell the air conditioning was a bit cold.
~I'll undo all your reviews on Netflix.~ said the computer.
"Do it. I keep a paper version anyway. Analogue, baby." I said, turning around and smiling over my shoulder at one of the ceiling cameras. With a final push I managed to make a hole just big enough for my body to fit through. The steps leading down to the cellar were cold against my feet. If I put my hand out in front of me I couldn't see anything.
"Hello? Is there anybody down here?" I shouted. After fumbling my way through the darkness for a while I finally found a lightswitch and flicked it on. Blinking in the abject brightness momentarily I then saw something that made me stop. My eyes were afixed to it.
"Oh..." I said quietly. My hand went back to the light switch and turned it off and I began to walk back upstairs, the hair on my neck standing up. I sat back in the silent observation room eating an orange. I hadn't blinked for hours, simply staring off into the distance. The thing in the cellar had etched itself onto my very soul. A horror.
