The East Wing

Elias needed a weapon. His service revolver was in his room, packed in the duffel bag.

He moved quickly through the corridors. The house seemed to be watching him. The eyes of the portraits followed him. The weeping angels in the hallway seemed to have moved closer to the doors.

He tried to go back to the main hall, but a locked gate barred the way. He was forced into the service corridor leading to the East Wing.

The East Wing was the servants' quarters. It smelled of rot and cold cabbage. The wallpaper was peeling in strips like dead skin.

As he walked, he passed rooms with open doors. Inside, the staff sat on cots. They weren't sleeping. They were staring at the wall, rocking back and forth.

One of them, an old man, looked up as Elias passed. He pointed a bony finger at Elias’s chest. He tapped his own sewn lips, then made a motion of pouring something down his throat.

* Don't drink.*

"Too late," Elias rasped, his voice sounding metallic.

He reached the end of the hall. A massive pair of oak doors blocked the way to the main house. He pushed them open.

He wasn't in the main house. He was in a gallery.

But it wasn't paintings. It was statues.

Dozens of them. Life-sized. Made of solid, gleaming gold.

They were exquisite in their detail. He saw men in Victorian suits. Women in flapper dresses. A soldier in a WWII uniform.

They were all posed in attitudes of terror. Hands raised to shield faces. Mouths open in silent screams.

Elias walked up to the soldier. He looked closely at the eyes.

They weren't carved. They were real human eyes, encased in amber and set into the gold face. They stared at Elias with a preserved, eternal horror.

"Arthur said he wouldn't become statuary," Elias whispered.

These weren't statues. They were the previous guests. The previous lawyers. The previous Seekers.

"Beautiful, aren't they?"

Sebastian stepped out from behind a golden rendering of a woman in a ballgown. He was holding a gun.