I moved to my first real job since graduating from business college just last spring.
Hiking the region it was in my first week I heard of the haunted mansion and stroies of lost souls who went there. This would interest about anyone, and it captured my imagination.
A three mile hike from my apartment had me standing outside the iron fence that surrounded the main house and its associated other buildings. My field glasses gave another view of the 4000 plus acres that lay in waste, it being once a thriving farm.
The main house was for the most part looking like some broken down mansion, windows broken and shingles missing on its massive roof. All the buildings looked pretty bad off, with the exception of one large, white painted barn, it set far to the rear of all the other buildings.
I sighed thinking of what grand times this old house knew when it was owned and cared for by the owners.
It was a passing thought to enter through the main gate and tour the mansion, but caution prevailed and I began to walk the perimeter.
Soon the mansion and its buildings stood far in the distance but that large white barn set just a couple hundred yards from the western boundry and fence.
I stood by the fence eyeing the barn, wondering why this one looked especially neat and well kept. A lingering thought of jumping the fence and inspect the barn had me doing just that. As I walked toward it there was many small piles of animal droppings, (Manure) but thus far I had not seen any animals on the property.
Standing near the low side of this massive structure I heard the most horrid sound, it seemed as if an animal's cry. Cry, it was as if the animal was being tortured, the screaming coming in high pitched squeals.
A hedgerow presented itself as a good place to duck down and wait, wondering what I had walked into.
The cries got louder, then from the other side I saw this hugh donkey come running away from the barn. It was hugh, the biggest donkey I had ever seen. The damn thing stood six feet high at the back, his head looked like a donkey but the size of a draft horse.
Braying and screaming, he was having a royal fit. Kicking up his hind legs with wild and frantic moves, he was an animal filled with fear.
I remained there on the far side of the hedge, watching the donkey draft animal run and kick as he headed for the distant acres beyond.
My imagination was running as wild as that strange animal. The sound of his braying turned to a faint din of odd noise, just as from a lower door stepped out another animal from this barn.
Sauntering along in slow and easy movement came this full grown, mature Texas Longhorn bull. A spotty brown over white hair covered his body. He had brown head and also the same colors on his lower legs as well. His horns proturded out the skull a good two feet either side his head. I watched it coming closer, closer, and then walked right past me as I stood by the cover of that hedge.
The bull might have gored me, or charged, but instead turned its huge head, giving me a soft moo, and walked on out into the pasture.
Then, from inside the barn was the sound of some kid yelling his head off about Ryan and Angela. I listened closely, hearing to his yelling, a deep toned voice responding.
A quick turn to check on the bull saw him standing tail held high, doing his duty and looking my way.
Remembering my years as a boy scout I headed for the barn, the same door the bull walked out of, and was planning to see inside.
Once in, the bellowing deep toned voice boomed out, echoing inside the barn like a man speaking over a loudspeaker.
At first there was two rows of cars, as one might see in a museum.
The air was fresh and cooled, as if airconditioned.
A quick look around had the dust free car museum stop and for a third of the lower floor area it was but stock pens and a dirt floor.
"You a colt mule once having touched your brothers changing cock will now be cursed. Cursed are you Jeffery, your body shall become the organ of the next male animal you touch. Then for the rest of your life you will be allowed to realize where and of what you exist. I think of you and others as cocks, the vile thing that is plunged into a female's vulva, and from there you will find your only real purpose for living. Go now, leave your big brother to eating hay and mating as an animal, you are soon to find your own destiny, and I shall remain here and await the next fool to come along." said the big booming voice.
Hearing this, it being as if a perverted sort of curse, I pressed open the stain glass doors of the car museum.
Dull yellow lighting greeted me, the cars looked in perfect condition, the floor made of black tiles, but beyond was this area filled of bright light.
"Cursed are you too!" yelled this kids voice and then above me I heard him run from the barn.
Now feeling a bit scared I moved from car to car, wondering what the bright light was all about?
That booming voice made a sniffing sound, then a deep throated laugh.
"Hello, please do come into the light and let Father Time see your face!" boomed the voice beyond another stained glass set of doors.
I was discovered, yet even for what I had seen so far I was to become surprised, horrified, and filled with personal terror.
Slowly I opened the stain glass doors as the bright white light beamed in and surrounded me.
Squinting from the sudden brightness I stood in the doorway, shading my eyes with a hand, the sight before me was right out of the "B" movies.
The floor all gray and shined to glassy brillance, beyond this a deep moat flowed around a black rock, and standing on eight claw like legs was this monster.
Tapping its claws on the rock, the Crab creature body had above it the chest, shoulders, arms, neck and head of a strange looking man.
He or it smiled at me, montioning me to step closer to the edge of his moat.
"Bright light isn't it, this is where I reside, captured, and kept like some freak in a side-show. Come closer, see the lever, give it a pull and lower the bridge, then I can talk with you." said this creature, monster, partly a man.
Looking to the level I began to reach for it with the idea of freeing the creature.
Then from inside my head came this little voice, it suggesting the creature was where he was for a reason.
My reaching hand dropped to my side and I turned again to face the creature. His happy grin changed to a frown that made my blood run cold.
"Pull the lever!" he said again this time it sounded more and order than a request.
I looked up at him as he leaned over at his waist and peered down at me.
"I believe we should remain as we are for now, indeed someone thought to keep you a captive, they had a reason!" my words exactly as I said them.
A stream of foul cursing and sexual words flowed out the creatures mouth. His breath smelled of rotten eggs, like the sulfur we burned in first year chemistry.
Seemingly angered by my lack of faith in him his claw like legs reached out over the moat, eager to grab me and make me his captive.
"Pray tell, who or just what on earth are you?" I asked, trying to sound polite.
He stood now still, as if thinking, planning he was, scheming how he might destroy me as I later found out he had done to others.
"I, I AM ZEPAR, A DEMON SUPREME, THE FATHER OF TIME, CAPTURED BY A MAN OF SCIENCE, PLACED HERE ON THIS ACURSED ROCK, SURROUNDED BY A MOAT FILLED FULL OF HOLY WATER, I AM WILLING TO GRANT YOUR MOST PERVERTED WISH, IF JUST YOU LOWER THE BRIDGE." he booming his voice, shook the barn to its foundations.
Seeing as hearing this I took four steps backwards, standing just in the doorway to his jail cell and room.
A look over my shoulder to the inkling wonder of a Texas Longhorn bull walking so easily from out the barn, and now a demon, locked up, it was straight out of the Twilight zone.