The Last Hour of Arthur Oggleharrow By Marshall Cunningham
“Five, four, three—” “You’re not helping.” “I never said I was.” “Mm.” DING!
DING!
DING! The entirety of Damwell Hall quaked from the central clock’s roar. 3 AM arrived. One hour remained. ~*~
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Lord Oggleharrow shook his head as a nasty, blood-laced cough ripped through his throat. Little red flecks stained the beige carpet of the dining room. He didn’t bother to clean them. Instead, his pale green eyes stared at the maroon marks. His eyebrows, the only hair left sticking to his sun-spotted head, had always been akin to two skinned skunks slapped across his face. Their furrowing at the sight of the blood made his wrinkles ripple like a lake post-oil spill, opaque cheeks stretched hard against sharpened bone and chapped lips frowned like a vulture who’d robbed a family of three of their prized puppies instead of four. The apparition sighed across the table from him. She glowed a faint, hollow green, but still kept the features that she’d had in the minutes before her own death: twisted nose, frazzled gray hair, discolored eyes (one purple, one hazel), and warts up and down from her forehead to her bare, disgruntled, two-toe-missing feet. “It’s not as scary as you think it’ll be.” Lady Kensdale tried to reply to the brutish outburst with some comfort, sliding away her ticking pocket watch as she did. She was, afterall, the closest living owner. The other ghosts didn’t care so much about Arthur now. He’d been running the manor for far longer than any of them ever had. They wanted him dead. They wanted him to be with them. Then they could enjoy him–maybe with a little less of his pompous arrogance, too.
