"Hello?" I called. My voice was quieter than I'd intended and quavered a little. I closed my eyes, counted to three, and made an effort to pull myself together.
"Hi!" I tried cheerily, heading up to the front door and knocking. It shook with every knock, though I wasn't hitting it very hard, and large puffs of dust rose from the door.
Frowning, I reached down and tried the doorknob, a simple brass number that fell off in my hand when I tried to twist it.
Starting to get annoyed rather than frightened, I placed both hands on the door and pushed. Slowly it swung inwards, with a long, drawn out creak, that went on a second or two after the door was fully opened.
Switching back to being scared, I crept inside, putting one foot dramatically in front of the other like I was a Scooby-Doo character.
I stopped a few feet inside and took stock of my surroundings. The house was... weird. Something halfway between an old country manor house and a log cabin, with a wide and open entrance room, a stairway immediately to the right, and doors both ahead and on both sides, leading further into the house.
Deciding to remain silent for the time being, I crept further into the house, straight ahead into the next room, which proved to be a living room of sorts, with a large, moth-eaten couch, a few moldy pieces of furniture.
Getting serious haunted mansion vibes, I picked up speed a little, not worrying too much about the creak of the floorboards as I went, just focusing on my search for a phone.
I'd gone through four more rooms before I finally found one, located in a large kitchen which was filled with appliances at least twenty years out of date, all of them badly rusted.
"Eww," I said quietly under my breath, picking up the old rotary phone that hung from the wall. It felt greasy and the handle was cracked. There was no real hope as I held it up to my ear, and I almost dropped it in shock when I heard a clear and only slightly fuzzy dial tone coming out of it.
For maybe a full minute I just held it, listening dumbly as it buzzed. Then I recalled why I was here, to get help slash call the cops about the creeper who had been following me, and put the phone back up against my ear.
"Errm, hello?"
It continued to buzz mindlessly. It took me another few seconds before I remembered I had to actually dial a number, then another few after that figuring out how to work a phone that was long out of style, before I finally had 911 on the phone.
"Um. Hi. This is Nil. Nillium Neems? I'm sure you've heard of me."
There was a good deal more silence than you normally might have expected from an emergency line. Then, hesitantly, the voice of a young man that sounded vaguely familiar.
"The crazy girl? The one who called about the cat last week?"
I felt the first twinge of annoyance intrude upon my fear and worry.
"It was a skinny cat," I said, trying to keep my voice from being petulant, though it sounded a little bit so. "I swear the neighbor wasn't feeding it enough."
Another silence, this one went on for just a bit longer.
"We dispatched two police officers, ma'am. They found a cat, owned by Miss Robinson, that she has taken care of since it was a kitten. There was a full bowl of cat food on the porch, which it was eating from when they arrived."
"It was still skinny!" I said, annoyance verging towards anger.
911 Guy sighed heavily.
"And the week before, when you called us because there were worms in your mom's garden?"
"There were!" I all but shouted, only then remembering what I was actually calling about. I tried desperately to get a hold of myself, with only moderate success.
"Ahem. Um, so I was actually calling because I'm in a weird farm mansion thing, and there was this weird creeper guy following me. He ate a coin."
For the first time since my call, there was a silence so deep I thought I'd been disconnected. Then, finally, 911 Guy.
"Um, Ma'am, this line is for emergency calls only..."
"IT IS AN EMERGENCY!" I screamed into the phone. "There's a really weird guy and I don't know where I am and my parents aren't here!"
Maybe ten seconds of silence, and then he hung up. I kept holding the phone in shock, then finally gave up and racked it on the wall. Looked like I was on my own. Again.
"Well, I hope you have a great day too!" I muttered angrily.
Then I turned around and saw a fat red spider about two inches from my nose, dangling on a long web.
"Um, hi?" I tried.
It just dangled there, staring at me with its creepy arachnid eyeballs. Movement on the edge of my vision made me shift my gaze upwards, and I saw no less than half a dozen similar spiders scuttling towards me on the ceiling above.
I let out a small eep and headed towards the exit, scuttling in frantic little movements not unlike a spider myself. Whether there was still a creeper outside or not, it was time to leave.