by steve higgs
I glanced at Gina. She was rummaging in her handbag ‘That’s not what the invite says at all,’ she stated.
‘Yeah,’ agreed everyone single one of the witches. ‘The invitation was to attend a birthday party dinner and help you live through the weekend because a monster is going to drag you to hell.’
‘Here it is.’ Gina held the invitation aloft triumphantly and brought it across for everyone to crowd around. I breathed a sigh of relief because I couldn’t remember what it said. When Tempest and Jane had read it, I had glanced over his shoulder, but the detail hadn’t been important at the time.
Dr Parrish stared at it, his lips moving as he read it and again the colour drained from his face. ‘What is this?’ he asked. ‘This isn’t what I wrote.’ He was shaking his head and brought both hands up to cup his face. ‘Someone switched the invitations.’
The dwarf finally put down his axe. ‘Who would do that?’
‘Oh no.’ The latest comment came from Frank. He looked utterly crestfallen. ‘You mean none of it was real?’ His eyes were on his supposed partner for the night, Dr Lyndon Parrish. Dr Parrish had no answer though. Frank hung his head and shook it sorrowfully. ‘Tempest is going to have a field day with this.’
The room was clearly divided into those who were in on the secret and those who were invited here. So far I had Lord Hale, Dr Parrish and the dwarf pegged and suspected Crouch, the paranormal detective grabbed first had to be in on the ruse, and likewise Lady Emily Pinkerton. So, now I really wanted to know what happened to Tempest.
‘Hold on, hold on, hold, on.’ Patience was getting upset. Her hands were balled on her hips and she had a scowl that could melt an iceberg. ‘You mean to tell me that I have been starving all evening, terrified half out of my wits and walking around with damp panties because the bats scared me so much a little bit of pee came out, all because you tricked us into going through an escape room we knew nothing about?’
‘That’s not exactly the case,’ protested Dr Parrish.
Big Ben showed him a fist. ‘What is the case? Start talking or I unleash Mr Left and Mr Right.’ He brought his other fist up to join the first, convincing Dr Parrish to back away.
‘I told you,’ he continued to protest as he tried to hide behind the dwarf. ‘You were supposed to know exactly what this weekend was. Lord Hale has spent a fortune developing the house to make it the ultimate escape room combined with a murder mystery.’
‘We are aiming at the very top end of the market,’ added Lord Hale. ‘This will be where rock stars and footballers come for the weekend, enjoying a full immersion experience. It has been the work of many years to get the house ready. You were expected to tell us whether it was realistic or not. Too scary, not scary enough. We hired professional actors, spent a fortune on special effects, and are all set up to receive guests the week before Christmas, so this was a final run through to make sure everything worked as planned.’
I folded my arms to stop me waving them around angrily or succumbing to my base desire to thump someone. ‘I think it’s time we returned to the main house, don’t you? Perhaps then, we can discuss how we came to know nothing about all this, and you can tell me where Tempest is.’
He took a step back to get to the bookcase where the object had fallen. ‘Of course,’ he replied. ‘It’s not far from here. I shall have the caterers provide drinks and food. Don’t worry about Tempest though, I got a message from Anne,’ he paused. ‘Sorry, you know her as Lady Emily, but she’s another actor hired to take on the role of the vampire among the dinner guests. She said he hit his head and she was taking him to the control room to get it looked at. He’ll meet us upstairs most likely.’
‘Hi, I’m Ronald,’ said the dwarf. ‘I’m an actor too.’ He was smiling now, cheerful and excited about the role he was playing. ‘Actually,’ he went on, ‘you might know me from a few television roles.’
‘I knew I recognised you,’ bragged Patience.
‘He was R2D2?’ asked Big Ben.
The dwarf scowled at him. ‘I was in…’
‘Happy Tunes Time,’ provided Patience. ‘I watched you all the time as a kid.’
While Ronald talked about what other shows he had done, Dr Parrish crossed the room, reached into the bookcase and pulled a lever. With an audible click and a shifting of dust, it slid into the ceiling.
As it lifted, it revealed the object that hit the ceiling and fell down. Two of the witches screamed and jumped back, but everyone in the room got a shock as we saw the mangled body of Caratacus Soulful the wizard.
Big Problem. Saturday, December 10th 2301hrs
Lord Hale took a step forward, but I caught his arm. ‘We have actual police with us and that’s a dead body.’
‘You think he’s dead?’ he gasped. I looked back down at the body and back up at Lord Hale’s face. The wizard’s head was on backwards, his neck rotated through one hundred and eighty degrees. I had no doubt at all that he was very dead indeed. Everyone else was peering at the body, but no one was going near it, the dinner guests forming a semi-circle around the entrance to the new passage. I crouched down to check his pulse, finding, as expected, that life had long since departed our fake wizard. ‘What was his name?’ I asked.
Dr Parrish answered, ‘Kevin McHugh. He was a street magician we picked up in London a few months back. Since then he has been perfecting the role. His job was to lead us from the dining room and then give the suggestion of demonic powers at work when he was sucked into the mirror. The special effects work brilliantly in my opinion.’
‘Well, they convinced me,’ said Frank, still looking despondent that we were not all going to meet our doom as the monster promised.
From his jacket pocket, Dr Parrish pulled a small two-way radio. He switched it on, checked the light on top and started talking into it. ‘Dave? Dave are you there? This is Lyndon. We’re in the library. There’s been an accident. Can you turn all the power and lights on, please? Over.’
No answer came back. Beside me Patience was grumbling, ‘They had light down here the whole time but didn’t turn it on. This place is getting a one-star review, make no mistake.’
Dr Parrish tried again. ‘Hello, Dave?’ Nothing. ‘Hello, anyone in the control room, this is the main party in the library we need assistance. Over.’
Finally, the radio crackled at the other end and we heard a rasping breath. When the voice spoke, it was the same voice of the monster we heard in the dining room. ‘You will all perish here this night.’
The person at the other end released the send switch and was gone. ‘Hello?’ called Dr Parrish. ‘Hello?’
‘Here, let me try,’ insisted Lord Hale, taking the radio from Dr Parrish’s hand and doing the exact same thing with the exact same results.
I was beginning to get a bad feeling in my stomach. There was nothing we could do for Kevin McHugh. We didn’t even have a blanket or a sheet to cover him with, but we couldn’t stay here, and we shouldn’t move him.
I stepped over the body, straddling it with my legs and beckoning for the dinner guests to start down the passageway. ‘We have to move on.’ My comment was aimed at Dr Parrish and Lord Hale who were now bickering about whether Dr Parrish was using the radio right or had put the right batteries in it.
‘It must have the right batteries in,’ protested Dr Parrish. ‘Otherwise it wouldn’t work at all. Those idiots in the control room are just playing a trick on us. When I get hold of them…’
‘It’s not much of a trick,’ Tempest’s dad pointed out. ‘Someone is already dead.’ He paused in front of Lord Hale. ‘Am I safe to assume you know the way out of here?’
‘Of course…’
‘And there’ll be no more surprises?’ Michael Michaels wasn’t as imposing as his son, but he had been in the forces for many years, so despite his advancing years, he was quite able to stare a man down.
Lord Hale made sure there was no humour in his voice when he said, ‘I shall take you directly back to the accom
modation area of the house.’
‘Jolly good,’ replied Tempest’s mother. ‘You might want to call ahead and make sure the gin is chilled.’
A shout echoed back down the passage, drawing my attention as the last of the dinner guests filed out of the room. Ronald had elected to lead us, using one of the lamps from the library to light the way. ‘It’s Brian,’ he announced, looking back toward Lord Hale and Dr Parrish. ‘He came to find us.’
As he turned around again and held up the light, what emerged from the darkness of the passageway was the monster; all spindly arms and giant body. Its eyes glowed orange still and it was just as terrifying to look at now as it had been earlier.
‘Brian,’ Ronald started to say, ‘any idea what’s going on in the control room?’ I think he had more to say, probably intending to tell Brian we had just found Kevin, but Brian jabbed out with one of his spindly arms and skewered Ronald where he stood.
Ronald said, ‘Ack,’ flailed his arms a bit and dropped the lamp. We all watched it in mute horror, too stunned to react until the lamp smashed and their end of the corridor was plunged into darkness again.
Big Ben was the first to react, yelling like an enraged bear as he charged forward, casting fresh light with his phone as he went. I was hot on his heels with Frank and Tempest’s dad, but when we got to Ronald’s body, the monster was already gone. Disappeared back down the corridor or through another hidden door. No sooner had I questioned where he might have gone, than the clang of a door echoed back along the dark corridor.
Yet again I shoved myself into Lord Hale’s face, unable to keep the anger down any longer. ‘What the hell is going on?’ I demanded. ‘That man is dead, and we just watched him get killed by your supposed monster. Who is inside the suit?’
‘I… I… I don’t know what’s happening,’ he stammered, completely caught off balance by the turn of events. ‘I told them we were coming out now. You heard us call the control room.’
‘Who is inside the suit?’ I demanded again.
‘Brian Carruthers. It should be Brian Carruthers. We hired him from…’ I cut him off with an angry sneer and snatched the radio from his hand.
Jabbing the send switch with my thumb, I growled into the mouthpiece, ‘Whoever is in this house that can hear me. You picked on the wrong group of people. I want my boyfriend back and as of right now, I don’t care who you are. You have one chance to turn the power back on and run away.’ I waited three seconds. ‘Too late. Now I’m coming for you. You can hide in the dark, but I’m going to find you.’
I slapped the radio back into Lord Hale’s hand.
Patience said, ‘Damn, girl. That was scary. I’m gonna remember never to sleep with any of your boyfriends.’
‘What’s our move?’ asked Big Ben. He had been kneeling over Ronald, but he was clearly dead which gave us two dead actors less than thirty yards apart.
I shone my phone’s torch down the passageway. ‘Can we get out that way?’
Dr Parrish and Lord Hale pushed around me in the narrow corridor. ‘Yes, this is the way out. It leads to the elevator,’ announced Dr Parrish, trying to be in charge again. I wasn’t going to oppose him; I needed his knowledge to find the fastest way out. After that, I was going to track down whoever was behind the murders and find Tempest.
Big Ben went with them, leaving me to wait for the other guests to catch up. They were spread out along the corridor, many of them, Tempest’s mum especially, not wanting to step over, or even get near to, the bodies. There was little choice if we wanted to get out.
However, no sooner had I helped Mary to step over the fallen dwarf, Ronald, and his growing pool of blood, than the sound of expletives echoed back along the passageway: Big Ben was upset about something. An angry rattling noise reached our ears followed by more interesting expletives and then the sound of footsteps coming back in our direction. Big Ben emerged from the gloom, deliberately not using his torch because it would blind us as he approached.
‘The door is locked and probably barred from the other side,’ he announced in a grumbling, angry voice before any of us could ask. ‘We are not getting out that way.’
‘But,’ stammered Patience, ‘but, I thought that was the only way out? That’s what the old man said.’
‘That’s right,’ Dr Parrish nodded. ‘We designed it as a route with very few extra ways out. The secret doors and escape passages, like the one Anne led Tempest into, are all operated by the people in the control room but have switches in the passageway as well. Anne did her bit on cue and was supposed to escape through the hidden door to reappear later. When Tempest hit his head, she took him to get some first aid assistance. In hindsight, we could all have got out through that door, but now we are cut off from it.’
‘So we’re trapped here?’ asked a witch, clearly disturbed by the idea and fighting her rising terror. ‘How far underground are we?’
It was a good question, but I had a better one. ‘What’s above the library?’
Escape. Saturday, December 10th 2312hrs
I pushed those behind me back into the library. We had all stopped in the tight passageway between the two bodies but with no hope of escape that way, there was no point in staying there any longer.
There were more lamps in the octagonal room, so we lit those, matches from one of the witches coming in handy. ‘Brian’s body fell from somewhere. We all heard it, right? So, what’s above the ceiling?’ I pointed up as I asked the question. Lord Hale wasn’t much help in providing an answer, but I think he genuinely didn’t know. He was fiddling with his phone and looked agitated that no answer was coming back. The same thing with the radio as he continually attempted to raise the control room or anyone else and got no response.
Big Ben looked up at the ceiling, glanced around the room and shucked his dinner jacket. ‘I’ll get on it. I need something to climb on.’
‘How about this?’ asked Professor Pope, tapping a huge wooden chest with his foot.
I hadn’t noticed it before. ‘What’s in it?’
He lifted the lid. ‘Nothing. It’s just a big chest.’
Big Ben sniggered. ‘I think the table is a better bet. That ceiling is pretty high.’ As he started dragging the table across the room with Tempest’s dad, Frank and others helping, I started to mentally note what I knew. It got confusing though, so I grabbed a book. ‘Anyone got a pen?’
‘Um, here, love,’ said Mary, rummaging around in her handbag. She couldn’t find it so started taking things out and dumping them on the table Big Ben had climbed onto. Out came a crumpled pack of indigestion tablets, a ball of wool with two knitting needles through it and a half-finished baby jumper.
‘Who’s that for?’ asked Patience, grinning at me in the lamp light. I cut my eyes at her.
In response Mary continued rummaging but said, ‘I’m not getting any younger.’ She left it at that thankfully; now was not the time for a conversation about babies with my boyfriend’s mother. I already knew her stance on the subject and wondered how many pairs of knitted booties she had already made in the few weeks Tempest and I had been dating. ‘Here it is,’ she announced, pulling an old Bic biro from the bottom of the bag. ‘Michael likes to do sudoku but is always losing his pens.’
With the pen in hand and Patience holding a phone for me to see, I started jotting bullet points:
Someone doctored the invitations so we wouldn’t know this was a trial run of an escape room.
Tempest is missing and would have returned by now if he were able. The moment he found out it was fake he would have gone nuts.
There’s no answer in the control room, so either all or some of the staff are up to something. What happened to the staff that are not involved if there are any?
Two people are dead. There may be more so there is a killer loose. Is that all this is, and if so, what is motivating it?
What likely motivations are there?
‘Lord Hale,’ I called. He was helping Big Ben and most of the others to
stack books under the table’s feet to make it higher.
‘Yes, my dear?’
‘How many staff are working here? It is obviously not the four that Travis claimed.’
‘Goodness no. I, ah, I’m not sure actually. Dr Parrish?’
‘Yes?’ Dr Parrish was also chipping in, helping to carry more books to the table.
‘Dr Parrish, how many staff are working here?’
‘That depends,’ he replied, cryptic as usual and not very helpful.
‘What does it depend on?’ I asked sweetly, hoping he would understand I might stab him with the biro if I didn’t get a straight answer.
‘Time of day and why you want the information.’ Before I could rise from my chair to shout in his face, he kept talking. ‘There are forty-three in total if you include everyone on payroll. The caterers will have gone home by now though, less the house cook who lives on site. Brian, Kevin, Ronald, and Anne plus myself and of course Derek.’
‘Who is Derek?’ I asked.
‘That’s the chap who played Mortimer Crouch. He’s not really an actor. He runs the control room with Dave, but we needed someone who would be grabbed by the monster right at the start before we got on with all the real special effects. He then runs back to the control room. It was cheaper than hiring another actor just for that quick stint.’
‘Please continue,’ I prompted, trying to steer him back onto the topic at hand.
‘Yes. Yes, sorry. Where was I? Oh, yes; six of us make up the in-role team as dinner guests plus Dave in the control room. So, in the house right now should be,’ he had to use his hands to count. ‘So, that’s ten?’ he asked Lord Hale for confirmation.
