CH 67

“Those who stray from the set as they please will be punished. The film crew members who tried to get out of this mansion were discovered in that state in the elevator.” Woorim propped his chin with his hand and smiled faintly. “Don’t you think that maybe… they all died in the order of people who didn’t follow the rules?”

The one who was listening to Woorim most gravely was obviously Seogeung, who just broke the camera.

“Why are you saying BS so seriously…?” Seogeung grumbled, yet he couldn’t say it with confidence. Seogeung licked his lips again.

Woorim stood up from his seat after he made Seogeung freeze in fear.

“If we’re done accusing each other, let’s move on.” Woorim looked at me. He looked like a burden had been lifted off his shoulders. “What should we do next, Haeseo?”

Everyone’s eyes were on me. This too was a question intended to give me the upper hand. I slowly suggested, “…Let’s go look for Goyeon’s stylist. Downstairs.”

She couldn’t have gone up, so it seemed clear that she went downstairs. We just needed to find her before she was put in any danger. She didn’t even have a flashlight. Even so, she couldn’t go down any further than the padlocked door.

“Plus, we need to find my flashlight.”

The corpse downstairs was no longer Goyeon Lee. No, she was with us, roaming around on top of the bodies of the staff. While people were getting ready to go downstairs, I stared at the elevator.

There was no draft around the elevator, but the chair that was leaning against the door rattled. I frowned. Scratch, scratch, scratch. The sound of scratching the corpses that I heard until just moments ago was now replaced by a different sound. Screech, screech, scree…

Someone was scratching at the elevator door.

Scritch, scritch, scritch. It was similar to the creaking noise the building made when it swayed in the wind, but this was undoubtedly the sound of Goyeon’s fingernails. Scritch, screech.

I didn’t think it was likely to happen, but if people wanted to open the elevator, I decided that I would try to stop them no matter what. For now, we were relatively safe because Goyeon came up in the elevator. However, in the worst-case scenario, we might need to abandon this floor.

* * *

It turned out that Seohang’s story wasn’t completely made-up. Raehee said that she had thought that “murder mansion” sounded somewhat familiar, and lo and behold, she had read about something similar in a book at some point. But the name she recounted sounded quite familiar to me. “Back in the day, this serial killer named Holmes built this big hotel in America. It was a maze of trapdoors and secret passages to the basement.”

“Holmes? Sherlock Holmes?” Hawoo looked perplexed.

Raehee replied, “His name was Herman, but he used an alias.” Her interests were diverse, so she had a lot of general knowledge. The one who mentioned Castletown House earlier was Raehee as well.

As we looked for Goyeon’s stylist, we listened to Raehee. “They say Holmes murdered at least 27 people there. But that was just the number that Holmes confessed to. The number of missing people who went inside was around 50 to 100 people. He operated a pharmacy and committed insurance fraud and murder to gather funds for building his house. It was big enough to call it a castle.”

“…It must have looked similar to this place then.”

“Wouldn’t it? The first floor had Holmes’ pharmacy, jewelry shop, and a restaurant, while the second and third floors were used as a hotel. Apparently, the house also had about 100 weirdly shaped rooms. There were curved hallways, blocked stairs, rigged rooms, secret passageways, and doors on the ceilings.”

As we searched the hallway decorated like an abandoned school, we looked around our surroundings subconsciously. With each flashlight pointed in a different direction, the area was well lit. Raehee pointed her light at the ceiling and muttered, “There’s no door here.”

However, that didn’t make this place better than Holmes’ Murder Castle.

“At the time, a lot of people went to spend the night because of the Chicago World’s Fair, then fell victim to the mansion. Other than tourists, Holmes killed the young women who came after seeing his classified ads for help and custodial staff. He suffocated them with toxic fumes in gas chambers and starved others to death.”

“What happened to the dead?”

“He moved the dead bodies with his elevator and hidden chutes to the basement. He dissected the bodies, created skeletons, and sold them to medical schools. He also cremated others.”

Unfortunately, we couldn’t find Goyeon’s stylist by the time we reached the end of the hallway.

In all honesty, we didn’t think that Goyeon’s stylist was on this floor. Directly downstairs was where Goyeon fell to her death, and since that hallway had ceiling lights on, Goyeon’s stylist could easily walk around.

The weight of several people on the old stairs made it creak.

“…Do you think this place is like Holmes’ Castle?” Hawoo asked, standing at the top of the stairs. The people who were already walking down stopped and turned to look back. No one could answer that question readily.

After a while, Raehee replied with a frown, “Well, I sure hope not.”

There was nobody here who didn’t know what her statement implied.

Not all of the group came downstairs to look for Goyeon’s stylist. Most likely afraid, Seogeung excused himself, saying that he was still drunk and locking his door. Seohang also did not want to go down, but he didn’t come out very often in the first place.

Seoyoon stayed behind, saying that he was worried that something would happen if we just left the two of them upstairs.

Excluding those three, the rest of us—Raehee, Hawoo, Woorim, me, and last of all, Hyehyun—went downstairs. The flashlights were equally divided between the floors—three down with us and three upstairs. We had enough flashlights, even if one broke along the way.

As I listened to Raehee, it occurred to me that it was a good thing Seohang didn’t come with us. Who would believe that there was a house built for murdering people in real life? Seohang was already scared because of a similar urban legend, so it was obvious what he would do upon hearing this.

There was nothing more terrifying than an urban legend manifesting in real life.

“…What happened here?” Since they both had flashlights, Raehee and Woorim were at the head of the group. Hyehyun and I followed behind them, and Hawoo—who also had a flashlight—brought up the rear.

Raehee, who reached downstairs first, exclaimed in an astonished voice. We understood why she sounded like that when we arrived downstairs. “All the lights are off.”

The hallway below the abandoned school was the deserted hospital hallway. It was where Goyeon fell and where Woorim found the light switch behind the mirror. It was still fresh in our memories that we turned on the hallway lights after finding the body, but the hallway upon arrival was completely dark, devoid of light.

A change in the environment instilled fear in one’s heart. We couldn’t move from where we were standing for a moment.

“Do you think it could be Goyeon’s stylist who did this?” Woorim suggested the most plausible and safest bet.

Hyehyun scoffed, “Why would she?” Aware that she didn’t have a flashlight, Hyehyun challenged the notion that she would intentionally darken the hallway.

“…Unless she’s a moron,” Hyehyun muttered after, and I decided to speak up. If I let the conversation continue, he would surely start another useless argument with Woorim.

“Let’s look for her first and open the door with our key. I want to find my flashlight quickly.” At my word, the group carefully headed forward. The objects stacked in front of the room where Goyeon fell were thankfully still in place. Woorim stood in front of the door, felt around the wall, and flicked the switch a few times, but the darkness did not disappear. It looked like the electricity was completely cut off.

Goyeon’s stylist was nowhere to be seen either. Where in the world did she go off?

“Maybe she fell in the same room as Goyeon…”

“The stuff we stacked in front of the door is still there. If she wanted to jump, she would need to move all of that aside.”

“Then, where…?”

Before us, a dead-end blocked our way. Thus, we turned our focus to the large metal door and exchanged worried glances. We couldn’t erase the thought that something bad had happened to Goyeon’s stylist. But even if that were the case, there was nothing we could do, so ultimately, we resorted to sticking the key in the lock.

Rattle.

The lock opened with a hefty sound as one might have expected from its appearance. Even though the lock was open, we still needed to remove the chains from the door. We had to stay in front of the door for longer than we had expected.