(EN)CLOSURE

“I cannot believe your Dad put it in his will that you had to spend one night a year here…” Tyler scorned, staring around the mansion’s grand entry hall. “That’s some Scooby Doo level shit.”

Sissy shrugged her shoulders. Her Dad had been a strange, distant character for most of her life. To put such a thing in his will didn’t seem out of character at all.

In life, he’d had two great joys: his birds, and his books.

He’d loved the classics. They had that in common at least.

But that was about it.

“Want to see the basement?” Sissy laughed.

Tyler looked uncertain.

Sissy gave him a coy wink and grabbed his hand. “There’s more to do down there than you’d think…”

Tyler grinned. The promise of sex made him so compliant.

Together, they wandered along a dimly-lit corridor, its wood-panelled walls lined with old portraits.

“Is this your Dad?” Tyler asked. “Albrecht Isambard Prometheus Vile…” he mouthed, reading the painting’s name plate. “What a mouthful!”

Passing a large, vaulted dining room, Tyler paused. Thin shafts of moonlight bathed the long, decorated table at its centre in greyish tones.

“This is so, so creepy,” Tyler sighed. “Elaine would’ve loved it.”

Elaine was Sissy’s best friend. She’d gone missing about six months ago.

Tyler and Elaine were close too.

“No doubt,” Sissy agreed.

Before long they reached a stairwell. The smell of the basement - of birdshit  - hit them both like a wall.

“Your Dad kept birds?” Tyler quizzed.

Sissy nodded.

The basement was an odd space. Rows of ornate cages lined the walls, split by a gangway that led to a single, grandiose enclosure at the end. It was very dark, except where twilight filtered in through dirty ceiling windows.

Sissy pulled Tyler into the large enclosure and pressed him against the wall passionately, near a pair of manacles. One by one, she chained his wrists.

“Kinky,” Tyler whispered.

“Remind you of anyone…?” Sissy sneered. “Maybe…Tori? Beth? What about…Elaine?”

Tyler looked confused. Then panicked.

Sissy smiled bitterly.

“You and Elaine… Eugh. It was staring me right in the face the whole time.”

Sissy pulled a knife and a torch from her pocket. She shone the torch into the corner, where a huge bird was preening itself.

“You know, I don’t really have to spend one night a year here,” Sissy chuckled. “I live here.”

She cast the beam around the enclosure. Its light scattered the shadows on the far wall, where there was another pair of manacles.

A skeleton with long blond hair hung there, limply. Elaine’s.

“Dad promised me his fortune, providing I did one thing…”

Sissy tore Tyler’s shirt open, exposing his abdomen. Then she cut him.

Tyler screamed.

The bird shuffled along its perch eagerly, beating its massive wings.

“I had to feed the birds.”

Sissy locked the enclosure behind her.

“And what better feed - for the pet eagle of a man whose middle name was Prometheus - than fresh liver…”