2 A will from stranger
1523 Words
After attending the job fair, Peter Cohen had a reality check. He knew he did his best, but after hearing the words from interviewers of different companies he applied for, he expected the worst.
Thinking about only a percent chance he’d be accepted by at least one company, he sighed and accepted his fate. “I’ll just try again.”
He’s nearly graduating college, and preparing early for a job could benefit him a lot.
Shortly, he arrived at the dorm room he shared with Josh Lee and he could hear other voices inside. There was no way Josh would be alone in there. Josh was his black-headed closest friend s***h roommate.
When Peter opened the door, he noticed two other familiar guys sitting on the floor. They lived across their room. Ray Gavinson, one with curly hair and Zack Deppe, a red-head.
Peter entered the room. “What’s all this mess?” he asked them as his eyes wandered the room. Empty cans, bottles, and empty packets of snacks littered the floor.
Josh who sat on the lower bunk bed welcomed him with a smile. “How’s the job fair?” He asked back and threw him a can of beer.
Peter threw his backpack at the upper bunker bed he occupied. “Never great. I’m not hoping that much, a lot of people came for the fair. Chance is little, as usual.”
“Don’t be discouraged, bud,” Ray gave him a small smile. Peter just nodded.
Zack gave him a pitiful look. “Luckily I already asked Ray to get me a spot on his father’s company in case I end up jobless.”
Born with a silver spoon on his mouth, Peter couldn’t keep but feel envious of Ray’s wealthy life. As a son of a company founder who had a promising future.
“I think we all agree that Ray is a lucky bastard,” Josh said which earned a laugh from the three, and Ray threw him an empty can.
Not long after, in the middle of conversing about their graduation in the upcoming few weeks, there was a soft rhythmic knock on the door.
The four of them looked at each other and it was Peter who opened the door.
Stood by the door was a blonde lady wearing formal attire with a suitcase. She introduced Emma Bently, a lawyer, and she asked if she could talk to Josh.
Zack and Ray excused themselves and went back to their own room, expecting Josh and Peter to tell them about the woman’s business with Josh. Peter was left to clean up as Josh talked with the lawyer.
“First, I’m sorry but I’m here with sad news,” Emma said as she sat on a chair across Josh.
Peter watched them and even saw Emma gave him a glance. She continued, “Your uncle, Edgar Lee, had passed three days ago during an accident, and I’m here to deliver and explain his will.”
Peter and Josh shared a glance. “A will?” Josh asked.
“Yes. Real estate, a big amount of money, and a villa were left to your possession,” Emma said.
Peter couldn’t believe what he was hearing. His friend was inheriting a lot of things from his late uncle Peter wasn’t sure Josh knew about.
After Emma’s legal discussion about the whole content of the will, Josh understood the contents of the will. He didn’t have any lawyer to represent him, but as he expected, he knew he could ask Peter for basic legal stuff. So he asked for him to check the authenticity of the will.
Peter confirmed it seemed to be legit.
After accepting the will, Emma Bently gave Josh the address to the real estate and villa he now owned and left the dorm.
Peter and Josh told Ray and Zack about the will and they encouraged Josh to look at the villa.
Later that day, around four in the afternoon, the four guys, Peter, Josh, Zack, and Ray decided to go on the villa.
Using Ray’s car, they arrived at an unfrequented mountain on a neighboring city after thirty minutes ride.
After asking around, they found the cemented trail to the villa.
Finally, the mansion of the villa came to their view. Beside the antique-looking mansion was what looked like a garden, and beside the garden was an indoor pavilion.
Ray pulled over a few meters from the entrance of the mansion.
After the discussion, they decided to look around the villa.
While Ray and Zack were roaming together, Peter and Josh individually roamed in the mansion.
Peter walked upstairs to look at the rooms on the second floor.
He couldn’t help but feel the darkness of the ambiance of the antique mansion. “Why is this mansion decorated with the old stuff?” he murmured to himself as he looked at the paintings by the wall on the staircase.
He reached the second floor and saw a hallway of rooms to his left and right.
He went to the first wooden double-door to his left. The door was taller than him, he estimated it was eight to nine feet tall. The door was filled with eccentric patterns and designs carved onto it.
He pushed one of the doors and it gradually opened to a big room.
A little nervous, he entered the room and gasped in shock when he saw a head trophy of a wolf, aligned with few more others, even on the other wall on his right.
There, he saw heads of unicorns, gnomes, dragons, and such. There were Eleven in total, the biggest one was what looked like ahead of a Loch Ness monster.
To his fascination, he stared into them. “What the heck are these?” he asked as he looked onto the next head trophies of fantasy creatures. “The details look real,” he said.
Peter didn’t know, but it was real heads from real creatures. They were Edgar Lee’s head trophy collections.
He looked around the shelves and noticed the books were full of novels about fantastical creatures. He also found a few occult books, which crept him out.
He pulled one book. “Offerings for the fairies?” he asked, reading the title of the book. He shivered in utter strange feeling and placed it back to the shelf.
He left the room and went to the next one.
Meanwhile, while Josh was staring at the paintings by the foyer, Zack and Ray found cages of different sizes inside the stable by the ranch. There were also dried liquids of green and red, as well as skeletal bones of “some animals” as Ray called it, decomposing inside the cages.
“What the hell?” Zack exclaimed.
Peter was now on another room, after looking for other bedrooms. He stumbled upon another big room, but this time it was a room filled with traps and hunting stuff.
Bear traps, a freezer of frozen chickens, meats, snacks, and a pile of dried flowers, other random stuff.
Peter was starting to think that Edgar Lee was crazy.
He moved on to the next room, which looked more like a normal library than the first room he just went to.
He skipped the room and wandered around for more.
He went on to the last room on the second floor. He found nothing there and moved on to the third floor.
The third floor only had four doors. Three large ones and the one that was a normal bedroom. Peter assumed it was where Edgar Lee slept.
The paintings that hang on the wall were weird-looking abstract art. It was the only field with dark black-tinted colors and smudged as a painting there.
Peter opened the first big door.
When he saw what was inside, he couldn’t say anything.
It was a big room with metal cubicles, like a prison. Peter went on to carefully check each of the cubicles and found nothing but skeletons that he thought belonged to animals. He found some on about three cubicles.
He checked the two more big rooms and found it was also filled with metal cubicles but had no sign that it was used before.
Peter felt weird and walked downstairs.
It was far more than he had expected. The mansion looked a little middle-century mansion, touched with a classic vibe, but he wondered what the hell Edgar Lee had been doing inside his mansion.
Based on what he saw, Peter assumed that Edgar was aside from a fantastical creature fanatic, he was also a hunter. With the bones he saw, it could be any animal.
Peter met Zack and Ray by the foyer, and they looked terrified. “What happened?” Peter asked.
“Dude, the stable on the ranch was disgusting. It was filled with skeletons of animals,” Ray said.
“Edgar is a nasty hunter,” Zack commented.
“I also saw it from the second and third floor. Edgar looked like a weird man,” Peter said.
Zack shrugged. “But, he looked like a normal animal hunter. He just handles them in a nasty way.”
“He’s also fan of fantastic creatures,” Peter added and looked around. “Where’s Josh.”
“I’m here,” Josh’s voice came from the living room.
They went there and noticed he was looking at something in his hands.
“What’s that?” Peter asked and took the paper from Josh. He thought it was some heartfelt letter from Josh’s late uncle, but came out it wasn’t. Twelve words were typewritten in the very center of the paper, and what was there made his eyebrows crease.
And it was a note from his late uncle. It said:
No matter what happens, under any circumstances, do not open the cellar.
- Writer
