Epilogue
EPILOGUE
E than cursed under his breath as his truck lurched over the pothole, sending scalding coffee splashing onto his hand. The early morning was still cloaked in darkness, the path to West Windsor Manor winding and treacherous, shrouded in mist that clung to the trees. He sucked the hot liquid from his thumb, grimacing at the bitter taste. This job couldn’t have come at a better time, though he wished the manor wasn’t so far from the rest of campus—isolated like some forgotten relic of a different time.
He'd been hired as the new maintenance man for West Windsor University, a stroke of luck, considering his recent circumstances. Becky, his girlfriend, was pregnant, and while her family had money, her father had made it clear that he saw Ethan as a mistake. The job was a lifeline, a chance to prove himself, to make sure he and Becky could stand on their own without relying on her disapproving parents. The pay was decent, enough to secure them a modest apartment in a safer neighborhood than before, and for that, Ethan was grateful.
As he turned onto the long, curved driveway that led to West Windsor Manor, the fog thickened, swallowing the world around him. The headlights cut through the mist, revealing glimpses of the crumbling estate ahead. The manor loomed out of the darkness like a beast rising from its slumber, its once-grand fa?ade now a decaying ruin. The roof sagged under the weight of time, the walls blackened with age, ivy clinging to its surface like veins on a corpse.
The headmaster had called late the night before, his voice clipped and cold, requesting Ethan come by first thing in the morning. A “soiree” had taken place, though Ethan read between the lines—this wasn’t just a gathering of students. It was a wild party, the kind that left chaos in its wake. The headmaster’s tone had been laced with something that made Ethan uneasy, though he couldn’t quite place what. As he shifted the truck into park, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was stepping into something far darker than a mere cleanup job.
He grabbed a handful of industrial-sized trash bags from the passenger seat, tucking them into his belt for easy reach. After slipping on his gloves, he slammed the truck door shut, the sound echoing through the fog-drenched silence. The manor stood before him like a sentinel of decay, its windows dark and lifeless.
“Time to get to work,” he muttered to himself, the words falling flat in the oppressive stillness.
Hours passed as Ethan worked his way through the manor, the silence of the early morning only broken by the crunch of debris underfoot and the occasional rustle of the wind through the broken windows. The students had left the place in ruins—smashed pumpkins littered the ground both inside and out, the orange flesh smeared across the ancient floorboards like gore. Red Solo cups lay scattered like fallen soldiers alongside empty liquor bottles and cigarette butts ground into the floor.
The bedrooms were worse. Each one was a small slice of hell, filled with the detritus of reckless youth—used condoms, drug paraphernalia, and piles of puke that reeked of stale alcohol. Ethan’s lip curled in disgust as he wiped up yet another mess, his stomach churning at the foul stench.
The manor itself seemed to groan under the weight of its decay. The roof above him creaked ominously, the walls seeming to lean inward, as though the whole place was slowly collapsing in on itself. He glanced up at the sagging ceiling with unease, his nerves on edge. Why the school bothered to maintain this crumbling relic was beyond him. They could’ve bulldozed it and built something new, something that didn’t feel like it was haunted, a stiff breeze from collapsing.
But as long as the headmaster kept paying him, Ethan would keep cleaning. He hummed along to a playlist on his phone, trying to drown out the unsettling quiet that seemed to press in on him from all sides.
That’s when he smelled it: a stench so foul, so overpowering, that it made his eyes water. He paused, gagging as the rancid odor hit him full force. It was like nothing he’d ever encountered before, a smell that seemed to crawl into his nose and settle deep in his lungs. Rot, decay, death—it was all there, wrapped up in that sickening stench.
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered, pulling his shirt up over his nose as he tried to block out the smell, but it was no use. The odor was so strong, it seemed to seep into his very skin. He had to find the source and get rid of it before he puked his guts out.
The smell led him through the back of the house, toward a set of dark wooden doors that stood ajar. Broken glass crunched under his boots as he stepped over the threshold, into what had once been a greenhouse. The air inside was thick with humidity, some glass panels shattered or missing entirely, allowing the elements to invade. Kudzu and ivy had taken over, their vines winding through the broken structure, wrapping around the rusted framework like a noose. Moss carpeted the floor, softening his steps as he moved deeper, pushing aside the trailing vines that hung like green curtains.
The greenhouse was bathed in a sickly light, the sun’s rays filtering through the cracks in the roof and casting eerie shadows on the walls. The air was thick with the smell of rot, the stench growing stronger with every step he took. Ethan’s imagination began to run wild, images of wild animals or worse lurking in the overgrown shadows. He could almost hear the soft padding of feet behind him, the rustle of leaves as something moved through the vines.
He was staring up at the tangle of plants above him, lost in thought, when his foot caught on something. He stumbled, falling hard to the ground, the breath knocked out of him as his nose cracked against the cold stone floor. Pain shot through his skull, and he groaned, clutching his bleeding nose as tears of shock and pain filled his eyes.
“Shit,” he hissed, wiping the blood away as he sat up, blinking through the pain.
His eyes settled on what had tripped him, and his breath caught in his throat.
A body lay sprawled on the floor before him, lifeless and pale, half-hidden by the moss and vines. It was a girl, no older than a teenager, her clothes still intact but smeared with dirt. Her skin was the color of porcelain, her eyes open and staring, gray and glassy like fogged glass. Around her throat was a thin cord, tight and unyielding, biting into her flesh with a cruel finality. It was tied in a neat bow, like some grotesque accessory, but the bruise beneath told the true story.
Ethan’s scream tore through the silence, reverberating off the crumbling walls as he scrambled back, his heart pounding in his chest. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the girl’s lifeless face, the empty gaze that seemed to bore into him on a silent accusation.
She would be West Windsor’s first victim that semester, a death everyone would consider senseless and horrible and “likely a one-off,” enough so that the chief of police would repeat it on air.
But she would not be the last.
Not by far.