The Imaginarium of Willy Holmes

“Who the hell is Willy Homles?” began my friend Alice as we trekked through some brush. The trail was overgrown, and the area was left to the wild for over 60 years. It was part of the Appalachian region that was left to rot by the people in the early 1910’s for better areas that had something to mine.

I began my explanation on who Willy was but was interrupted by a noise coming from ahead. It sounded like a scream but Alice didn’t seem bothered, “it must be bird. I heard one a mile or so ago and I was freaked out about it and when I checked it was a bird. Must be the same type. Go on with the story before we get there and find a rundown tent or something and I get disappointed.”

I looked at her with a raised eye brown and she gave me the look that said “What?” and continued her walking. The brush around us was thick but navigable and we weren’t struggling to walk but I could feel that we were the first in a very long time. I asked her how she heard about this place and she told me that her aunt spoke about it before she passed away saying that she and her friends once stumbled upon the place when they were mapping the region for the conservation society. They decided to leave it out because of what they saw there and swore to keep the location secret, which was odd because here is her niece and her friend trying to get there to make a documentary for online clout.

My was recording most of the trek while trying to talk as little as possible to keep the attention on the area around us. I knew that if we find something good then there will be thousands of other copycats looking to find something we did not find. The smell of the forest around was much more refreshing than the other places we have visited, one of them was a sewage treatment plant and I literally had to burn the clothes and bath the equipment in isopropyl alcohol to get the smell out.

I started again on the history of Williamson Holmes for Alice, “Willy or Williamson Holmes was a bargain bin version of P T Barnum, he would find country freaks and objects that no one in their right minds would want. He collected them and displayed them in his nomadic show. There weren’t many records on what people saw but from what a news article wrote sums it up. They wrote that some of the items were so disturbing that even the church got involved and had him incinerate them. After a huge loss on his displays he decided to flee to his ancestral home here. Here he still collected the same objects but did not display them to the public. He had a couple of workers who help maintain the place but when Willy died they left the place and his body where is lay. Alice’s aunt and her friends might have seen the remains of the collection and decided not to expose the world to it.

Alice grunted out a laugh saying that now it was her treasure to find and that we were going to be rich. I told her that ‘we’ also included Jonas and Natasha. She scoffed at the mention of the other names; they were supposed to with us but had to cancel last minute due to Jonas’ sister going into labour, so they had to help her. Alice was a narcissist, and she knew it, but she needed us so she tried to act like she cared. I really didn’t give a fuck as the videos we made were gaining some traction and I was seeing the rising numbers. As we got close to the supposed place, and I noticed the light dim around us. It was as if the sunlight was being dimmed out by something, I looked up and to see and could only see the cloud cover, I stopped to look around and nothing stood out and no weird feeling just the light was fading in an unusual manner.

I mentioned to Alice, but she seemed not to care, only to find the house now. I asked why it’s a house and not a tent, she looked at me for a second and told me to stop fucking around and get on. I smiled when I had something over her, her boyfriend was a single celled gym bro who still hasn’t figure out how to open a jar. He never joins us for these documentaries because his gym schedule would be interrupted, and his muscles would get flaccid like his penis. I am getting sidetracked; she was marching like she was on a mission and I followed with some caution.

She saw it and basically ran to the house, when I saw it I stopped. It was an old Victorian house that was built on a rise, there was no fence around it. The outside was rotting away and I could see it from where I stood. I followed the excited figure of Alice and kept looking around to see if there was anyone around. These places attracted a certain flavour of people that I had learned from my adventure in the Amazon forest.

As I got closer to the house the more, I could see the house, it was once painted white but age did not treat it well. Wood was rotting and falling off in places but the roof was holding, making me think that there still could be a strong structure within. I could see that the windows were boarded up and the front door was still closed, there was a sort of balcony on the first floor but could not see much of it from where I stood. I started to walk around the house to get a better picture of the place, there was a back door but it was boarded up like the windows. Must have been done when the workers decided abandon the place. It was odd and made me unsure if this was to keep us out or something in. I wanted to find some sort of warning or graffiti but the place was barren and there were no other building around the house which made this place all the more unusual for its time. There were no indications of a barn or other such buildings around made me feel uneasy, from what I researched these places had such buildings for workers but nothing here.

Alice was already trying to open the front door and was calling me to help her, I walked over to the front door and while I did so I happened to pass a window where the board looked like it was hanging on one nail and there was an opening into the house. I paused and alerted Alice to it but she ignored me, the window was on the first floor and all I could see was a dark interior and nothing more. Just as I turned to walk something moved and I paused to look again and I swear there was something or someone in there. Without much to go on I joined Alice and we both tried to push the door, it was being blocked by something and it took a lot more effort than we anticipated but finally after a few minutes we managed to push it in. The air inside rushed out and I took a few steps back from that rush while Alice covered her face cursing the dust. I turned to face the landscape that surrounded the house and finally noticed that there was a natural barrier around the house, only rough patches of grass grew around the house and the trees and bushes stopped abruptly at a point. I was now feeling the chills and I took a complete video of the surrounding scene while Alice fished out a face mask to wear entering the house. I did the same and braced myself to enter the house, Alice had already rushed in with her flashlight and I had to catch up.

“Like what the fuck, this place is empty. I thought there would still be furniture and shit like that here. Yo Dex, you got the left and I will take the right, make sure you get some good shots of this place.”

I moved to the left side of the interior which led to a room that could have been a display and common room, there were empty and broken pedestals all round. I walked about getting footage with a flashlight in hand. There were no couches or places to sit just broken furniture. A little crestfallen by this emptiness I tried to look more carefully at the surroundings and could not find anything, no even a scrap of paper. I saw the other opening to the next room which turned out to be another walkway that led to the main entrance and a door to another room. I looked at the end of the walkway and saw the boarded up window, there was nothing there and I turned to open the door. That door led to a dinner room that was also empty except for a broken chair in the corner. There was a door on the opposite side of the room that must lead to the kitchen and I decided to just open and see. I heard a noise on the other side of the door as I approached and stopped to listen, I heard it again, it was as if something was trying to move something. My heart rate rose and my mouth went dry, I wanted to turn back and look for Alice when I heard her voice on the other side of the door cursing.

Relieved and I just walked to the door and opened it slowly so as not startle her but did so anyway, “like what the fuck Dex, there is nothing here. Did you find anything on your side of the house?”

I shook my head and she swore, I decided to walk in to the kitchen and look around also. There was nothing there, the drawers were actually removed and it looked like the place was gutted by someone. Looking around in the dark both our flash beams met at a door that we presumed to be the cellar. Alice then brought the beam under her chin to give it a dramatic effect and asked if we dare. The dust in the house was light but it made the effect of her face was forming and unforming which was quite good for the video. I looked at the door and then around us, I wasn’t scared just disappointed.

“Like we have a choice, if the other rooms are anything to go by then I am willing to bet there is nothing but dead rats down there and maybe a trash panda to boot.”

“Ohh…. Looks like someone it pissed, well viewers lets see what door number 5 has on offer for the intrepid adventurers.”

I looked at Alice with a dead pan stare as she smiled triumphantly and walked to the door. I removed my beam to take a look at the kitchen one more time to hear her bump into something and curse at me, I smiled. A small victory, moving my beam over the stove I spotted something odd, there was something on the side of the stove. Moving closer I checked to see what it was, I saw a sort of hand print, it was long and made with coal dust or something and was like a hand was being dragged across the wall. Looking around some more I could not find anything more and then joined Alice who had just about opened the door, “about time you decided to help me, aren’t you supposed to be doing the lifting?”

“I am, if I had to do that then who would be holding the camera, you maybe?”

“Like hell I am holding that stick with my shaking hands. Last time I held it you and Natasha did not let me hear the end of it, not to mention Jonas laughing at every step of the footage.”

Looking down the cellar stairs I was already dreading the things waiting for us down there, Alice on the other hand was giddy with excitement and was already trudging down them before I could speak. I adjusted my camera and followed her, looking at the empty space down it would have been a lie if I said I wasn’t expecting that. Once down I shone my beam around and saw the cellar was empty, only that it wasn’t completely empty. There were remains of rodents near an open window, I tried to remember if I had seen it when I did a walk around but could not remember it. I looked at the corpses and saw most of them were old and then looked around, Alice was moving with the grace of a wrecking ball trying to find a secret door or something to latch on it but there was nothing here. The space was barren like the rooms we just checked, then asked her if she had brought us to the wrong house and she swore at me and her aunt. I then walked along the walls trying to get a better look and at the furthest wall behind the stairs I cam upon a large black spot on the wall. It was a large plain spot the shape of a door and when I ran a finger over it to see what it was, my finger came back clean. Confused I tried to dig my nail to see what material it was and Alice took notice and stood next to me and asked what it was, I answered that I no clue and she snorted and shoved me aside and tried with a pocketknife.

While she tried to pick at the paint I moved my light around to see better, the place was empty but there was a heavy air about the place and I there was no dust moving around. It was like as if the air here was completely dead, I moved around to see if I could move some dust but there was nothing. The fear of being here was beginning to creep up and I was feeling like no one was ever meant to be here, the birds and squirrels paid their prices for trespassing here, we would also pay for doing the same. Alice cursed as per usual when she found that the pain was not chipping off and was about to punch the wall when we hear someone walking above us.

I stopped and looked up as did she and we then looked at each other, I asked if that could be Jonas and replied that he would call out to us instead of just walking in. We waited a little longer after the steps stopped and tried to quietly walk up to the kitchen, Alice held out her knife as a safety measure while I braced for anything. In the kitchen we found it as we had left it, I then tried to retrace the steps of whoever it was and found nothing out of place. I asked Alice about the rooms and she replied that nothing was moved. We walked around a little more and when satisfied that no one was around we let out our collective breaths. Alice began laughing at our stupidity thinking that there was someone with us but it was cut short when the steps returned but they were from the room above us now. She was the first to run out of the house not wanting to find out who it was and I followed. In the open we ran to the trees and hid behind a tree and turned to see who that person was.

We waited for the better part of an hour before she go tired and said we need to find a place to camp, the night was coming in and I was getting tired. We set up our camp and I sat on a rock checking the camera and charging the batteries. Alice did what Alice does and cursed the whole trip and the weirdo who was prancing around stealing her ideas. I looked at the house and so there was a faint like coming from the attic window, I switched off out camp light and Alice was about shout she saw what I was pointing at. The light was faint but we could make out a figure standing at the open window, it was looking out at the forest and I felt like it was looking at us. “Who the fuck do you think that is, maybe Willy is checking up on us?”

I looked up at Alice, she was standing next to me now looking up at the window. I replied that I didn’t think so, whoever that was could be another explorer who decided to also explore the myth of Willy’s Wonderland. She then asked on why was the house called ‘A Wonderland’ using her hands to emphasize the quotes. I was wondering the same also, now that we saw that the house was empty with no evidence of its wonderland title. We sat there and ate the nutribars she carried and drank the water we carried sparingly, I looked up the figure in the window periodically to see if it had moved. For the next hour we set up the beds and prepared to get some sleep. I had one last look at the figure and it was still there and turned in, Alice was freaked out about the figure and had used her time to craft a makeshift spear to fight.

The night passed without any note but the morning was more interesting. I woke early, as per my habit, and crawled out the tent to check on the window and was surprised to find out that there was no opening, the window was boarded up and I just stood there stunned by this. Alice also crawled out to ask and when I told of the same she cursed and looked at the boarded up opening. “Like seriously, we saw the thing standing there and there was an open window. I think someone is really fucking with us now. Lets go check the rooms and that fucking attic now.”

It didn’t take long to take down the tent and everything, I checked my camera and the batteries. I was good to go and she was pumped to go check the upper levels now. Alice practically ran to the house now while I tried to keep a steady pace to make sure the footage would not come out in a vomit inducing footage of me running to catch up. I called out to her to slow down but before I could call out again she was at the door and walking in, this time I cursed and followed.

Inside was as we left it and the stairs were directly in front of the door, looked up at the landing hoping to see something but it was like the rest of the house, empty. Alice began climbing up and I followed, at the top we found ourselves at a left and right decision. She asked me which way we should go and I said left and that’s where we started, there was no door linked to the passage way but once we reached the end to the left was a door, she opened it to check inside and almost cried. The room was full of things, like broken furniture and the like. I followed her in to find a room completely full of things like chairs, tables and display stands. There were no items of interest but it was far more interesting to see that everything that should have been downstairs was tossed into this room. The air was think but there was no dust again, I ran my hands on everything but there was no dust or debris of any kind. It was like this room was hermetically sealed and we opened it after a long time. I was taking a video of the place while Alice lifting stuff here and there looking for something of interest. After a while we decided to try the next room what whose door was next to the one we entered.

Opening the door led to a large ballroom style place that had what we were looking for, a long table with glass cases that contained items like dolls and figurines. Alice’s eye lit up as she began examining each on of them, I followed her as she tried to narrate a possible story behind each. The table was a long dinner table and I could see it was built solid to hold more than just these jars. The rest of the room was empty again, there were no chairs or painting adorning the walls just this.

“This jar contains a spittoon, how that could be cursed I cannot say but a wild guess is that if I rubbed it I would release the resident redneck genie. This next item is a doll, she looks like the Annabell doll and maybe this one also has a demon hiding in there,” and on she went narrating the possible curses and possessions of the items. I was still trying to figure this place out.

How come no one has discovered or at least tried to take these objects, from what I know there are people with real fetishes that get a kick at owning such items. There were a total 21 jars containing different things inside, there was one that sat on top of a display stand that caught our interest and this one still had its plaque attached to the stand. I took a close up of the item that was a thumb, I then moved the camera to capture the plaque and read what it said.

“The thumb of Lucius Marsh. Lucius Marsh was said be a high priest of a cult that worshipped an obscure god, his people were killed by a group of soldiers led by a Christian captain, Cpt. George Sorrenson, who hung Marsh and burned his corpse.”

Alice looked at me and asked if I knew anything about this Lucius fellow and I shook my head, then asked how it could be considered as a cursed object. I told her that I had not clue, besides I did mention that this place looks more like a museum rather than an Imaginarium. She agreed and we moved to the other door to see what else this place held. The door was stuck, like there was something behind it that was stopping us from opening it. We back tracked and went through the furniture room, once inside I felt like the room had changed. The broken chair that I saw when I entered somehow had repaired itself and was sitting upright against a display stand that now had its glass panels. I mentioned this to Alice but she was too busy focused on getting to the other rooms. The door was open when we entered the display room now somehow was also locked, she swore that we had not closed it. I tried to also open but it was locked, I asked her to check on the other side of the room if there was a door and she looked at me like I was mad. Then I reminded her that I was the one carrying most of the equipment so she muttered something under her breath and tried to move stuff to check if there was a door.

She had managed to climb or crawl her way to the centre of the room when I heard a click from the door and I turned to try see if the door was unlocked, it was and I called out to Alice about this and this time she did not hold back on the curses. I opened the door and stood in the middle to make sure it did not close on us as I waited for the wrecking ball called Alice to join me. She tossed a few chairs and pushed some stands out of her way as she made her way. I looked out at the rest of the house and found to my surprise the house had changed positions. We were on the right side of the stairs now and not where we originally entered, I was confused by this and wanted to check the footage of when we first entered when Alice joined me, she looked out to the house and was also confused by this. Before I could check the camera we heard a low moan coming from a room down the passage, it was low but loud enough to be heard. I froze as did she, we both looked at each other and I was ready to run from this place but Alice hefted up her spear and said she will lead. I followed her to the door at the end of the passage and braced herself to open the door.

Turning the door knob she pushed the door in and pointed the spear point in and rushed in, I waited outside with the camera rolling and then followed after she moved deeper into the room. Inside the room were shelves of books, old books, and at the centre was a chair with the skeletal remains of, who we think to be as, Williamson Holmes. The remains were dressed in an evening gown of sorts and one hand rested on a side table containing a glass. I dared not move closer but Alice was build different and was already taking a closer look at the remains. She started narrating what she was seeing and I found it fascinating that she was able to keep her cool while talking about the skeleton in front of her. The smell in the room was odd, it was like smelling old wood and nothing more, I held the camera steady on Alice while trying to check the books on the shelves. I could not quite make out the titles of the books so I waited for her to finish her narration so I could get a better look at the books. When she completed her thing she then moved to look at the books on the far shelves while I looked at the ones on my side, they ranged from Taxidermy to law there was nothing interesting. Alice had the same on her side, Willy did not have the archaic books we expected but we still had other rooms to explore. Taking some more time to find any book what would yield some interest we found none and with that we decided to leave the room to Willy to contemplate his after life. Why the remains did not freak me out is still a mystery as Alice kept glancing at them while roaming the room, she spoke about how all the books in the library were unrelated to what we knew of the late Williamson and why anyone would leave the remains as they were rather than give them a burial.

Leaving the room Alice cursed again and this time even I followed that up with my own curses, the stairs were now directly in front of the door. This house was shifting when we were in the room and across the house were 2 more doors and to the right one door but nothing on the left.

“M C Escher would have loved this place, what is happening here?” Alice spoke as she walked to the stairs, she was visibly shaken by this and so was I. I wanted to leave at this point but Alice wanted to check the attic now. She wanted to know who was up there last night and what was the deal with this house. I could not argue with a pissed off Alice so I had to follow as she walked to the door on the left of the one we walked out of, inside it was clear to see that it belonged to Willy as there was a grandiose bed. I decided to stand at the entrance and let Alice examine the room, I did not want to enter and then have the house change positions again.

She walked about the room looking at various items and spoke about them at length but there was, again, nothing of interest. The closet yielded the same results, only old clothes and nothing more. We left the room as is and walked to the door on the right of the stairs and in there we saw the furniture piles, this we ignored now and tried the other 2 doors. The closest to us led to a guest room and the next door was the ballroom but this time it was L shaped. We could not find the entrance to the attic and the atmosphere in the house was getting more oppressive the longer we stayed. Finally tired of all this we decided to descend to the ground floor, only that the stairs changed from straight down to a spiral. I swore that they were straight a few minutes ago, Alice said that this place was ‘the’ Imaginarium as we had researched.

Whatever this place was I did not care and I wanted to leave, looking down the stairs I could see the floor moving like it was water. I spoke to Alice about it and she remarked on the same, we were either trapped in this place or we might have been infected with something that was playing with our minds now. I decided to lead and began to descend while Alice followed, the air was not moving and I could feel like something was waiting for us. I wanted to speak but found my mouth dry and my legs getting really heavy, I wanted to stop and figure this out but could not and felt compelled to continue. Alice was quiet and that was really odd, normally she would continue her banter to fill the footage with descriptions of the place we were in but here nothing. I was scared and could feel the hair on the back of my neck stand, Alice placed a hand on my shoulder causing me to jump. I almost lost grip of the camera as I looked at her. She was scared and I could see it in her eyes as she was looking up, I followed her gaze and found my self looking at man standing on the opposite side looking down at us.

He looked old, face was that of an unwrapped mummy, the skin looked completely dry and the hair was barely hanging on to the scalp. He wore the same robe as the corpse which led me to think that this was Willy looking down at us. He stood there unmoved as we continued our descent, I did not want to look up and I could feel Alice was trying to do the same. The floor at the bottom was ebbing like the tide and I was certain that if we stepped on it we would fall into the floor.

I finally reached the last step and then stopped to check the floor before me, it was like a lake of coloured water. I placed a foot on it to check and when I did the floor flashed back to normal and I looked up and the figure was gone. Alice followed me and we made our way to the front door, I wanted to leave this place and never return. When we reached the door I tried to open it but it would not budge, Alice tried also and still it would not open. We looked at each other and then back to the stairs, at the top stood the figure. I moved my camera to get a better shot of him but the thing died, I tried to fumble and put in a new battery but that too died. I put the camera away and whispered to Alice to see if we could use the windows to leave instead.

“Leaving without your punishment for trespassing? What bores,” came a voice from somewhere and I bolted for the nearest window. Alice was already next to me and we tried to wrestle the board from the window as a laugh began to fill the silence around us. It would not move at first but with continuous force it finally moved and we pulled it from where it was and looked out the window. It was already dark and we were panicking, Alice jumped out with out a thought and I was about to follow when I heard a scream from within the house and turned to see at the entrance of the room were multiple figures. I did not stop to see who they were and jumped out, I landed heavily on to the ground and was helped out by Alice. We stood there looking at the house and what we saw drained every last drop of life within us. The windows were no longer boarded and there was light coming out from everyone with figures standing behind them looking at us. We turned and ran to the forest, no need for heroics because whatever was in that house wanted to be left alone.

Once in the forest we stopped and looked back, the house was dark again and the attic was the same. We decided to keep moving until we did not have strength to because neither of us wanted to near this place. After about three hours of walking we stopped and tried to get some rest. I checked the camera for the footage, the memory card came out blank. I cursed and tried the others and there was nothing, I told Alice about it and she told me to leave. We would have not released the footage anyway. No one should come to this place.