The Punchline of Regret
The car crested the final hill, gravel crunching like brittle bones beneath the tires. A sharp bend revealed the manor below, and then—silence. No engine hum, no birdsong. Just the looming presence of Grayfall Manor, sprawled at the edge of the woods like a forgotten memory waiting to be remembered.
It had been waiting.
The manor was larger than any of them recalled from the drunken photos Eden once posted, her captions full of bile about an estranged grandfather and a childhood spent dodging shadows. It loomed now like a scab on the landscape, a monstrous relic of Victorian decay. Ivy strangled the walls in clumps, curling over cracked stone and slumping gargoyles. Time and weather had worn the estate to something skeletal and grim. The sky above churned with slate-colored clouds, brooding and heavy, as though heaven itself had no intention of intervening.
No one spoke.
The wrought iron gates groaned open as they approached—rusty teeth parting for familiar prey. Not swung, not nudged—groaned, like something waking.
"Did… did anyone else see that?" Lena asked softly, eyes wide.
Vivian, perched in the backseat with a cigarette already lit, muttered, "Of course. Dramatic entrances were Eden's specialty."
They parked just outside the gates, wary of getting too close, like the car itself might get swallowed whole. Theo stepped out first, pulling his coat tight against a sudden chill that bit through his layers. He scanned the estate through the lens of his handheld recorder, already documenting.
"She called this place 'the house that eats the punchline,'" he said, mostly to himself.
Darren raised an eyebrow. "What the hell does that mean?"
"She said it while she was still touring," Theo explained. "Told me her family learned to laugh like knives. Her grandfather used to host dinners where jokes had winners and losers. If you bombed? You didn't eat."
Marc let out a low whistle. "That explains a lot."
Vivian snorted. "Explains her whole damage."
Lena stepped closer to the gate, fingertips brushing the iron. "It feels wrong here. Not haunted. Just… warped. Like a joke with no punchline, just tension."
Theo nodded. "She never came back here after she left. Said the place wasn't haunted—it was the haunting."
They stood in silence, facing the manor as if standing before a grave that hadn't been dug yet. The windows were either broken or boarded shut, like blind eyes trying to forget what they'd seen. A single shutter banged rhythmically in the wind. Nearby, a dead bird hung suspended in a spider's web, wings frozen mid-flight.
"I hate this," Darren muttered, shifting his stance. "Feels like a set for The Haunting of Eden Gray."
"It's just wood and stone," Vivian said, though her hands trembled as she lit another clove. "Rotting. Like everything else she left behind."
Marc caught the tremor. "Then why are your hands shaking?"
Vivian's glare could've melted glass, but she didn't answer.
Theo stepped forward. The gravel hissed beneath his boots. The porch steps groaned under his weight, their wood soft with rot and age. He paused at the massive front door, placing a hand on the handle.
It was warm.
Then, with a soft click, it opened inward—on its own.
"Of course," Theo muttered. "Eden never believed in knocking."
Lena hesitated on the porch. "We're really doing this?"
"We could still leave," Darren offered, glancing over his shoulder.
"No," Theo said. He was already inside.
The entryway swallowed them whole.
The temperature dropped instantly. Their breath fogged before them. The scent of mildew, rotting paper, and something metallic—iron or blood—hung thick in the air. The foyer was
preserved in ruin, a mausoleum pretending to be a home. Dust coated every surface, muting the colors like ash. Portraits lined the walls—faces with eyes too wide, smiles too rehearsed. Many had been defaced with slashes of black paint.
A chandelier hung overhead, cracked and crooked, its crystals dulled and shattered. Beneath it, a moth-eaten rug stretched across the floor like a tongue waiting to taste.
Vivian exhaled a stream of smoke. "Classy."
Then from deeper in the house: a radio crackled to life.
"Why did the ghost stay at the party?" it rasped. "Because she had unfinished… punchlines."
The voice—Eden's—warped, rewound, and played again. And again.
"…unfinished… punchlines…"
Marc flinched. "Jesus Christ."
Theo followed the sound, drawn to it like a moth to flame. They passed through a grand hall with wallpaper peeling like dead skin. The windows were painted black from the inside. Lightbulbs flickered even though the power had been cut years ago.
The radio sat on a broken piano in what had once been a music room. Its speaker buzzed, Eden's voice skipping and hissing.
Theo reached for the dial—but the moment his fingers grazed the edge, the radio went silent.
Then, above them, floorboards creaked.
They froze.
"…That was footsteps," Darren said, voice thin.
Lena looked up. "I thought this place was abandoned."
Theo's mouth opened, then closed. He shook his head. "We need to find her. The body, I mean."
Marc looked around. "This place looks like it hasn't been lived in since disco died."
Vivian's voice was tight. "Then why do I feel like someone's watching us?"
They turned in unison toward the grand staircase. At the top, a shadow moved.
A figure.
Then gone.
Theo took a breath and climbed.
The second floor felt worse—like the house twisted just enough to unsettle. Hallways bent in ways they shouldn't. Picture frames changed depending on where you stood—smiles turning to screams, eyes following your every move.
They found the room at the end of the hall. The door stood ajar. Inside, the air was colder than anywhere else in the house.
Eden lay on a four-poster bed, dressed in the same red sequin jacket she wore in her infamous final set. Black slacks. No shoes. Her mouth was stretched into a crooked grin. Her eyes were open. Glassy. Staring.
Lena gasped, hand over her mouth.
Marc turned away.
Theo approached slowly. "There's no blood," he murmured. "No visible injuries."
"She's smiling," Vivian whispered.
"She always smiled when she lied," Darren said.
"She's not lying now," Lena replied.
Outside, thunder cracked. The windows shuddered.
Then, from the far corner of the room, the radio turned on again.
"...unfinished... punchlines..."
The door slammed shut.
Grayfall Manor had claimed its audience.
And the show was just beginning.