Mansion of Fingers

It was a dark and stormy night towards the end of fall, I was making my way out of town to a mansion upon a hill overlooking the ocean. It was a gloomy, treacherous looking place; one that brought no pleasure to visit. Even though I did not want to stay there, is was going to be my home for the next few months or so; for the winter was closing upon us and it snowed heavily on top of the hill. The owner of the mansion was none other than Mr. Salad Fingers whom I had been friends with for quite some time as a child. I remember some weeks ago, I had received a letter from him saying he was not doing too well and wanted me to come visit in November, because he was quitting his job. As boys we were inseparable, always causing mischief and having good times. As I was looking at the building I noticed it was very antique and had a lot of cracks and mold. One crack was so large and long  it could be called a fissure, as it went down all the way to the icy depths below the large house. A servant, named  Marjory Stewart-Baxter of the mansion, came to meet me at the door and told me to go down to the corridor on the left to meet another servant. The servant, named Mr. Jeremy Fisher, lead me through a series of long confusing passages to his masters room. He opened the door and urged me to come forth in the presence of his master. The smell of depression lingered in the room. He was sitting in the dark with his hand on his forehead. -Last I saw him he looked well, but that was not the case here,- he looked much, much older. He had wrinkled skin with a very pale tone as if he hadn’t been in the sun for years, he had very dark circles under his eyes suggesting he hadn’t slept in weeks, his fingers were bony and long, and he hunched over his desk sulking about something. I slowly walked over to him and put my hand on his shoulder, and to not scare him I quietly said,” It's me, I am here my friend.” After that he abruptly got up and gave me a hug and said,” It has been too long; come with me.” As he took me on a tour of the mansion I noticed he did not look well at all, he looked sickly and nervous and he was always sweating. At the end of the tour he decided it was time to talk about why I was there. He started,” It is a disease that runs in the family. I have tried to find a cure for it but, it has proven a difficult task, seeing that even the doctors don't know what it is.” He told me he suffered from his senses being significantly stronger than other peoples. Every nail that dropped he could hear it, every smell, he could smell better than anyone else, good or bad, very faint light hurt his eyes, and he could taste the most disgusting of things that found some way into his mouth. I asked how that could be such a bad thing and he said it was one of the worst things a man can endure. The more I talked to him the more I found out and I was able to find out why he was acting this way. The center of his problem was that his brother Hubert-Cumberdale Fingers, his lone companion for many years in his house, had been feeling the same way and they were the last of the Fingers race. As we talked I saw Hubert cross the hallway and I looked at him with dread. Salad said it was a very weird occurrence to see him out of his bedroom because he stays up there all day every day. The sickness that Hubert had, long troubled all the doctors that had seen him. Over the next several weeks I spent time trying to cheer up my friend. We painted and read together. Sometimes I listened to him playing the guitar. As we became closer and closer, it was easier to cheer him up but, I realized that it is not easy at all to cheer up someone whos been sitting in darkness for so many years. Over the weeks I waited and waited and waited until he had perfected his guitar playing and learned spanish and french. I also watched his paintings, as they had gotten more elaborate. One night he informed me that his brother was dead and he wanted to bring his corpse to a vault beneath the mansion. I did not want to say no, so I helped him bring it to the vault. The vault that we brung the body to was very deep down and happened to have the previous use of a dungeon. We opened up the coffin so we could see the deceased one last time and when we were done we left the lid slightly ajar and locked up the door to the vault, then headed to the surface of the mansion. In the next few days his behavior changed. He was always pacing around the room frantically and his hands shook a lot. His condition started affecting me too; I started feeling uncomfortable and had a strange feeling in my stomach. Eight days had passed since Hubert had passed and I went to bed late that night. No sleep came near me and everything around me felt gloomier and I was awake a lot, trying to figure out why I was so nervous all the time. Salad Fingers came into my room not more than five minutes later and told me he had been hearing scratching and screaming for nights.The night was windy and the storm blew open a nearby window. It was a horrible storm crashing against the cliff below the house. To pass the night we read together and played guitar like normal. All the sounds in the story had been lining up with the sounds in real life and it was getting really creepy.As the sounds got more loud I realized they were not sounds coming from outside. Completely unnerved I leaped to my feet. He frightenedly and suddenly said, I put him in the coffin thinking he was dead but he wasn't and I said nothing! I heard everything, he screams, her movements, but I said nothing!” He told me that his brother knows that he was aware that he was alive and he knew Hubert would come for him. It was true, I saw him at the doorway and said to Salad,” Run there he is!” But it was too late, Hubert tackled Salad and they fell on top of me. At the same time a bolt of lightning struck the support of the house, and it crumbled into the ocean killing Hubert, Salad Fingers and I thus ending the family of the Fingers.