To finish off Halloween Eve in our 2026 Halloween Flash Fiction event, Eric R Asher returns with another of his signature (brilliant but oh, so creepy) seasonal stories.

The House of Broken Keys
Eric R. Asher
2026

There was, so the family says, a time when the doors in the aging St. Louis mansion were not so hard to open. The caretaker, Mildred, liked to say that was before the home grew hungry. Hank probably should have hung up at that point, but his company, Things Stuck in Pipes, built its reputation on taking the weird jobs no one else wanted to do.

He sighed and worked his way around the cylinder of one of those locked doors Mildred had mentioned. While he was certainly more comfortable fixing issues with the plumbing, he’d once lived a different life where lock picking was a valued skill.

Of course, this was hardly lock picking. He could see the key broken off in the heavy wood door, so he only needed to worry about two pins. With those out of the way, a simple twist delivered a satisfying click.

Hank’s gaze snapped up when a shadow moved in his periphery. He frowned at the twilight darkness framing the open window at the opposite end of the hallway.

“Mildred?” He waited before raising his voice. “Mildred! Which door did you want opened?”

“Oh, that is the best one,” a quiet voice whispered in his ear.

Hank yelped and gracelessly fell sideways, looking up at the bright smile on the wrinkled face of Mildred. “You move like a ghost,” he muttered.

“Not yet.” She let out a vibrant laugh. “Though you’re not the first guest to tell me that.”

Hank slid his lock picks into a pocket on his overalls and stood up, grabbing the long pipe wrench leaning against the doorframe. While he didn’t expect to need the nearly fifty-pound tool, he’d had his fair share of dealing with ancient plumbing. It never hurt to have a little extra iron at hand.

He cocked his head to the side. “Which room has the leak again?”

She slowly raised a finger and pointed down the hall. “Far end on the left, dear. But I do have another locked door on the right if you wouldn’t mind fixing that first.”

“Not a problem. Let me get this broken key out.” Hank stepped around to the back of the door. The rear knob was already loose. “Mildred, has someone else been working on this?” He glanced up and frowned, sticking his head into the hall, but finding no sign of the housekeeper.

Hank sighed and went back to work, prying the knob off before lifting the plate underneath. It came away easily, which told him someone had likely worked on it in the not so distant past. Those old plates could be stubborn when they’d been painted over twenty or thirty times.

Soon enough, the broken key clattered to the stained hardwood floor. Hank scooped it up and set it on a narrow marble table along the wall. He passed old paintings and dusty tapestries as he angled for the next door. A St. Louis flag hung nearby, but something was off about it. The fleur-de-lis had two extra flares that somehow made the entire thing feel wrong. Closer inspection revealed wide embroidery stitches that had likely been done by hand.

Something creaked behind him. He turned, half expecting to find Mildred, but no one was there. “Old houses. I love old houses.” Hank sighed and got to work on the next door to the right. This key was different. An ancient lock held the shaft of a broken skeleton key.

He frowned and switched from lock picks to a pair of flat pliers he’d used to extract more than one broken key over the years. It moved with a click and slid out easily. The door opened with a turn of the heavy knob. Inside waited a dusty guest room that looked like it hadn’t been touched in half a century. Heavy knit blankets shrouded the bed, and dark curtains kept most of the light out.

Footprints appeared in the dust beside the bed. Hank blinked and narrowed his eyes. Another footprint formed closer to him, and he jumped back as a trail headed right for the door. Hank raised the heavy pipe wrench and angled it across his chest.

Steps crushed the area rug in the hall as they left the room, and a chill ran down Hank’s spine. Then nothing. No more footsteps, no more sound.

“Ghosts,” he muttered. “Wonderful. Mildred! You didn’t tell me this place was haunted.” He turned to the last door as Mildred called back.

“It’s two-hundred years old, dear. Of course it’s haunted.”

Hank grumbled to himself and moved to the last door. Apparently, this one also concealed the leak he was there to address. Why anyone would install a water heater behind a locked door was beyond him, but he also wasn’t an architect or engineer.

Another skeleton key slid out of the door, and he walked to the far end of the hall to put the broken metal all in one place. Hank took a deep breath when he got back to the door, twisted the heavy knob, and pushed it open.

An ancient Edison bulb glowed in the corner, slowly dimming and brightening as it cast light on one of the worst plumbing designs he’d ever seen. An industrial-sized water heater stood inside. A massive thing that had to be almost as old as the house.

Sigils and runes stood in sharp relief, etched into the iron frame and webwork of pipes coming off of it. It was certainly an odd sight outside of the magic shops he sometimes serviced, but St. Louis had quite a storied occult history. Studying the chaos of that room, Hank realized in short order that the plumbing repair was going to take the rest of the day. He walked closer, the pipes rattling as someone turned the water on in the house.

As much a mess as the room was, it turned out someone had labeled every pipe. That would save Hank hours, if not more, and make this a far easier fix. He still had some transition fittings in the truck from the last job he’d had downtown. If he was being honest, he’d rather be working in a haunted house than down in the caves beneath the city again.

“Shutting the water off!” Hank called. He twisted the shut-off valve for the lower bathroom. It moved like it was brand new and hadn’t been sitting in the dark for over a century.

Hank followed the pipe and found the weeping seal in short order. Happy to have his oversized pipe wrench, he got to work, pulling the system apart after draining what he could. Another trip to the van, and he thought he’d have everything he needed.

He almost screamed when Mildred spoke again.

“How’s the work?”

He glanced back at the door. “Not bad. I have the transition fittings in and just need to weld the new copper in. I checked the other cast-iron pipes, and they’re in good condition. Do you want to take a look?”

Mildred gave a slow shake of her head. “Oh no, the water has enough iron in it for my tastes. I don’t need to be closer to it.”

“Ok?” Hank raised an eyebrow and lit his torch.

“We know who you are.”

He glanced back, but Mildred was gone. There was no sign of who had spoken. Hank focused on the weld, not wanting to have to come back for another leak. A whisper came again as he finished.

“We know what you’ve done.”

“Who’s there?” Hank’s previous encounters with ghosts often ended when he started speaking to them. He didn’t know why, but he could swear some would hang around longer if they sensed fear.

“We are many.”

“We will find you.”

Eyes flashed behind the network of pipes, and Hank leapt to his feet. Shadows churned, nearly blacking out the light from the Edison bulb. And then they were gone. Only silence and the quiet rattle of the pipes as water filled the tank once more.

“They spoke to you.” Mildred peered up at Hank. “Unusual.”

He didn’t startle at her voice this time. “You heard them too?”

“Oh, of course. They don’t like being trapped in this realm, you know?”

Hank glanced back into the room before grabbing his gear and pulling the door closed. “What are you?”

Mildred smiled.

Suspicion rose in Hank’s mind. A caretaker she may be, but she was something more. “Can you pass me my wrench?” He inclined his head toward the massive tool leaning against the wall.

“No.”

“Too heavy?”

Mildred’s lips twitched. “No.”

“Too much iron?”

“You’re a sharp lad, Hank. Send me an invoice when you can. To this address, even if I am no longer here.”

With that cryptic note, Hank left. He sent the invoice out a few weeks later, replaying the events of the day in his head. Another week, and the envelope was returned to him as undeliverable. Hank frowned and opened it. Inside waited three gold coins. If it had been 1826, it might have been a fair payment. As it was, Hank recognized the capped bust and the impeccable condition. It was worth far more than its weight in gold.

He drove by the house later that day. Or what was left of it. The ancient mansion looked rotten now. Dilapidated and condemned in the span of a month. That was, of course, impossible. Impossible for all but a few he’d encountered over the years. Mildred may not have been a ghost, but Hank knew what she was. Mildred was Fae. And no ghost he’d ever met was more terrifying than the fair folk.