Hidalgo's House of Horrors

By Antonio Simon, Jr.

Baron Hidalgo’s country villa has sat abandoned ever since he went missing years ago. His heirs have hired you to go there and take inventory of any valuables you find. The last group that went in vanished without a trace. Just getting to the old house will prove a challenge. The local villagers are mistrusting of strangers. Murderous bandits prowl the roads at night. A daunting forest lies between you and your goal, and just what are those lights coming from the lake at night? All this, to say nothing of what you might encounter once you step through the door to Hidalgo’s House of Horrors. Enter if you dare!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Darkwater Media Group, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9781954619050

Book preview

Hidalgo’s House

of

Horrors

An Interactive

Horror Adventure Novel

Antonio Simon, Jr.

Hidalgo’s House of Horrors

Published by Darkwater Media Group, Inc.

8004 NW 154 Street #623

Miami Lakes, FL 33016

Copyright © 2021 Antonio Simon, Jr. All rights reserved. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission.

This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents contained in this book are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, and people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Darkwater Media Group, DarkwaterMediaGroup.com, the Darkwater device and other Darkwater Media Group logos and product names are trademarks of Darkwater Media Group, Inc.

www.DarkwaterMediaGroup.com

ISBN: 978-1-954619-05-0

Electronic Edition

The Adventure Begins…

The elderly man seated in your office bears all the telltale signs.

The nearly audible creak his old, dry flesh makes each time he moves. The black wool coat draped over his bony frame despite the summer heat outside your window. The gnarled fingers so white, you question whether the man has any blood in him.

There is no denying it; this man is a lawyer, and an expensive one at that. The way he hunches forward in his chair, his shoulders level to his ears, you cannot help but liken him to a vulture bent over a fresh kill.

This vulture has a name—Hernán Castrojeriz—and powerful connections to the royal family, from what rumors you have heard.

To what do I owe the pleasure, counselor? you ask.

He flashes his teeth, irked by the familiarity in your tone. I can assure you, there is no pleasure in any of this.

He reaches into his satchel and drops a large envelope on your desk. It is old and frayed from years of sitting in a filing cabinet. Painted on its front is an ancient family crest. Much of the pigment has flaked off, and what remains has faded to a dull pastel of its former color. You turn the frayed envelope over in your hands and notice that the wax seal is intact.

With the untimely passing of the late Ernesto Hidalgo, ninth baron of Ecuña, I have assumed executorship of his estate on behalf of my clients, his heirs. He pauses to dab the sweat off his bald head with a handkerchief. It is my duty to make an accounting of his property so that it may then be passed in accordance with his last will and testament.

You heft the packet of documents in one hand, judging its weight. It will take hours to read through it all. And so how might this concern me?

Far be it from me to desire fraternization with the likes of someone in... he trails off. Your profession, he adds pointedly. As it happens, I am left with little choice in the matter. My client requires someone with a particular set of skills, and you fit the bill well enough.

You smirk, holding back your ire, knowing that was as nice a compliment as you will ever get from someone like him. Do go on.

Baron Hidalgo was the liege lord of Ecuña, a farming hamlet not far from here. With his demise, these land holdings were slated to pass to his nephew, Federico, except that the crown will not permit the transfer until the inheritance taxes are paid.

Forgive me if I am being forward, but I fail to see how this concerns me. I do not run an accountancy practice, you say, directing his attention to the flintlock musket hanging above the fireplace mantel.

Point noted. Though you know as well as I that no one would think to find an accountant in a neighborhood such as the one where your enterprise has taken root.

Your anger was simmering when this man first walked in, and now it is on the verge of boiling over. Still, you bite your tongue, knowing there are other ways to exact justice. If lawyers are anything like good wines, they tend to get more expensive with age. By the looks of this one, he must be richer than a sultan. He would not so much as bat an eyelash if you quoted him double your going rates for this job, nor would he be the wiser if you did.

The old man goes into a coughing fit that rattles his frame. He cups his mouth with his handkerchief only after misting your desktop with a fine layer of spittle, then hacks something big and wet into the cloth. The handkerchief is utterly drenched. He stuffs it back into his coat pocket, looking slightly put off.

Six months ago, he begins, still clearing his throat, we sent a team of assessors to the manor to make an accounting of everything within. We have not heard from them since, and can only expect the worst.

What do you mean? you ask, crossing your arms. The life of an accountant is not an exciting one by any stretch.

His beady eyes lock on yours with razor precision. Are you daft? I mean they’re dead.

Why would anyone want to kill them?

The lawyer sighs at having to entertain your questioning. Ecuña is a remote village. The peasants do not like outsiders. With the late baron’s passing, they must think themselves free of their feudal obligations.

And they’re defending their newfound freedom with violence? you ask off-handedly.

The lawyer’s jowls quiver with outrage. Freedom? This is rebellion! My client is their rightful baron.

He would have gone on, but you wave him off with a flick of your hand. Fine. I get it. Feudal contract. Just tell me what you want me to do.

The man settles back into his chair, his face flushed and sweatier than when he first came in from the street. When he speaks, his words come slowly and in low tones, as though he were speaking to a child. My client will need the crown’s backing if he is to legitimize himself as Ecuña’s liege lord. He will not have this support until he pays the inheritance taxes. We won’t know the extent of our tax liability until someone goes to Ecuña and makes an accounting of the property within the manor house. And so you will go to Ecuña, make a list of everything you see in the house, and bring that list to me.

And try not to get killed while I’m at it.

This time, he sighs so heavily that his neck is at risk of permanently being swallowed up by his torso. Yes, I suppose.

So what’s in it for me?

Ah, yes, says the lawyer, sucking his teeth. It’s always about the money with you commoners, isn’t it?

You smile at the insult.

Baron Hidalgo and his forebears were renowned patrons of the fine arts. The manor was home to a vast collection of paintings and statuary worth a fortune, to say nothing of whatever treasures his family stored in their vaults. For your fee, I am prepared to offer you ten percent of the valuables you find in the house, subject to verification by our assessors, of course.

You try your best to look disinterested for a string of heartbeats, and then you nod and say, All right. I’m in.

Very good, the old man says, flashing the first thing resembling a smile you’ve seen from him so far. Inside the envelope you will find everything you need, along with a sum of money to get you started. I trust you will handle the matter quickly... and discretely.

Hernán rises from his seat. Without words, the message is clear enough: this meeting is over.

You walk him to door and hold it open for him, then shut it more eagerly than you might have wanted to put on.

No sooner has he left your office than you breathe a sigh of relief. You round the corner of your desk and collapse in your office chair, putting your booted feet on the desktop. The envelope sits at hand. You snatch it up and give it another once-over. Even if the crest on its front were not so faded, you still wouldn’t recognize the noble family which it represents.

Snatching your dagger out of its belt sheath, you slice open the worm-eaten envelope. No less than a ream of yellowed papers spill onto your desk. Many of them are legal documents on the letterhead of Hernán’s law firm: deeds to land, business contracts, rights-of-way, and the like. Among them you find a cheque payable to the bearer—the start-up money Hernán had promised you. The figure written on its face leaves you feeling unimpressed, but you content yourself in knowing that the real payoff will come afterward.

Among the jumble of papers you also find a set of land surveys drawn almost eighty years ago, at the decree of the royal tax assessor’s office. The first map is a bird’s-eye regional view showing where in the kingdom Ecuña is situated. If the drawing is to scale, you estimate that you can reach the settlement within three days of travel.

The next map is a survey of Ecuña itself. Beyond the farmlands at the periphery lies the village proper. A forest serves as its hunting grounds. It stretches around the side of the manor, where it gives way to a lake at the house’s rear.

The last map is an elevation diagram of the manor house itself. Short of providing the house’s footprint, it offers little by way of details.

The church bell rings the hour—it is three in the afternoon. If you intend to set out on your journey tomorrow, you had better start preparing now.

You shove the papers back into their envelope and rise from your seat, headed for the supply closet. There is hardly space within this tiny room to turn around from all the things you have stored here, but you manage to sidle in crabwise. Hanging from a nail driven into the wall is your backpack. Into it goes Hernán’s paperwork. In your other hand, you heft the brace of flintlock pistols from the shelf and deposit it and the backpack outside the storage closet. You head in one more time, for your bedroll and breastplate, which you set down beside your other supplies.

You spend the remainder of the afternoon paying a visit to a man people in town call the reptile. It is not his appearance but his business practices that earned him this nickname, though any who behold him would be justified in thinking otherwise. Greasy, hairless, and with beady eyes that constantly dart about, he resembles an albino salamander, right down to the occasional flick of his tongue.

Formerly a merchant by trade, the reptile learned there is more wealth to be made in the arbitrage of money than in the actual sale of goods. For this reason, he is universally reviled. The financial elite consider him a disgrace to their profession for offering bank services to commoners; while the common folk hate him for his usurious loan practices.

As for you, you tolerate him because you need him. No proper banker would deign to transact business with you for the simple fact that you aren’t wealthy enough. The reptile is always happy to cash your cheques, so long as his fifteen percent service fee is paid. Once the reptile has handed you your money, you head to the marketplace for provisions.

The market plazas of your native Barroco are large and well-supplied, but at this hour