Ghost Shadows

by Thomas M. Malafarina

  “Oh my God!” Jen said shaking her head, “Flashlight envy!” Then she and Crystal chuckled conspiratorially. Jen explained, “Look. I just want to make sure if some doper or pervert or ax murder is hiding somewhere in there, we have some way to get out in one piece.”

  “Oh yeah,” Chase continued, “I also have a pocket knife in case we need it.”

  “Wow!" Crystal interjected sarcastically, "We have a regular arsenal on our hands don’t we?”

  “Look,” Cameron said, “There is nothing to worry about. No one is in there and there hasn’t been anyone in there for years. The place is completely empty. There’s nothing to worry about. Plus we all have our cell phones and we can call 911 anytime if we need to.”

  “I don’t think the cops will come down to this part of town,” Chase said putting his mouth in gear before his brain, as was typical.

  “Good one, Chase!” Cameron admonished, “You are really doing a lot to help the cause.”

  Nevertheless, within a few minutes the four high school seniors were walking cautiously along a rubble strewn path inside the blackened lobby toward the back of the building.

  “Watch out to your left,” Cameron warned. “That is the empty elevator shaft I mentioned. You don’t want to fall down there.”

  When they reached the back of the building they saw a doorway with a broken wooden door hanging suspended by one hinge. Stenciled on the front of the door, faded and charred was the word “Stairs.”

  "These are probably the stairs that lead down to the basement," Cameron said. "How cool would that be to see the old subway platform? We could take some pictures with our cell phones as proof we were here."

  "Yeah," Jen said sarcastically, "and we could email them to all of our friends." She knew as well as the other three, there were no other friends. These four misfits and their missing friend Stacey were a unique group unto themselves. They often joked about their being different than everyone else and their lack of popularity at school. It never bothered them very much, until they thought about what might happen after graduation, when they each went their separate ways to start their own lives. They all swore to keep in contact but knew their close bond of friendship would eventually end and their lives would go on.

  Cameron took a cautious step onto the top landing, shining his Maglight down the steep descending stairs. At first he jumped slightly, startled when he thought he saw something ducking back into the darkness just beyond the reach of his beam.

  "Cam? Are you alright? You flinched," Crystal said.

  "Yeah," Cameron replied. "It was nothing. This place just gives me the creeps."

  "Me too," Jen said.

  "Me three," Crystal said.

  Chase looked surprised at them and said, "Well, isn't that what it’s supposed to do? It’s Halloween weekend and we are in probably the spookiest building in the city. Duh! We are supposed to be getting the creeps!"

  "Yeah. Well it is working," Cameron replied.

  They started their slow descent down the long stairway with Cameron still in the lead, being extremely vigilant to assure he had not really seen anything, other than perhaps a rat or one of the other many possible small, harmless animals that tended to live in abandoned buildings.

  When they got to the bottom of the stairway they noticed it took a sharp left turn before continuing down another long flight of stairs.

  "Holy shit!" Chase exclaimed. "How far down does this go?"

  "Chase!" Crystal admonished. "Do you kiss your mother with that filthy mouth?"

  He looked at her slyly and said, "I most certainly do and I would be happy to do the same for you sometime, sweet cheeks, but with much more enthusiasm."

  "In your dreams," Crystal replied. "In your dreams."

  As the group reached the bottom of the stairway, it again took another sharp left and led to another long set of stairs leading downward.

  "What the hell?" Crystal exclaimed. The three friends looked at her with astonishment as she corrected herself. "I mean heck. I meant what the heck."

  "Jesus, Crystal!" Jen said. "If you meant to say hell then say hell. Your stupid aura will be just as tarnished if you meant one thing and say some stupid substitute instead."

  Crystal replied, "I know . . . it's just—"

  "Wait a minute!" Chase interrupted. "What was that noise?"

  "What noise?" Cameron asked. "I didn't hear anything."

  Jen replied angrily, "Stop it, Chase! Stop being a douche bag. It's spooky enough down here without you trying to scare us. OK?"

  "Honest, Jen," Chase explained. "I'm not being a dick or anything. I really thought I heard something. But now maybe I’m not so sure."

  "Look," Cameron said, "we are two floors underground in an empty building. There are bound to be rats or mice or things like that running around down here. And you know how everything echoes in a stairway like this. Just relax, everything is OK.”

  Soon they reached the bottom of the third flight of stairs and saw another opening that led to almost total blackness, except for a slight bit of ambient lighting apparently coming from moonlight filtering in from some of the many holes in the high ceiling of the structure. The eerie light gave the area a dark gray, ominous appearance as surrounding features were hidden in black shadows. As they stepped out through the doorway, Cameron noticed the door to this passageway was still intact and appeared functional as it hung open. It was an old thick heavy metal thing, perhaps iron, that looked like it may have been installed for security purposes. They assumed it hadn’t done much good as it now hung completely open.

  Cameron continued to take the lead, followed by Jen, then Crystal, while Chase stayed in back. The boys had agreed to this arrangement before picking up the girls, figuring if they kept the girls in sight, between them, there was less chance of them accidentally getting hurt.

  As they walked several feet, they all noticed a number of things. First they heard their footfalls echoing on the concrete floor as if indicating they had entered a very large room or chamber. They also noticed the vile stench of decomposition, as if something had died as was rotting nearby.

  “Oh my God! What stinks? Where the hell are we?” Jen asked, feeling as if she would vomit.

  “I think we are in the basement on the subway platform,” Cameron said. The group continued to walk steadily forward as Cameron led the way with his flashlight scanning the area.

  Chase likewise was surveying the concrete platform, which appeared vast and empty. Suddenly his light reflected off of something just beyond the expanse of concrete to his right. No one else was looking in that direction. He raised his beam slightly to try to get a better look. To his surprise he saw a pile of tattered remnants of old filthy clothing.

  Then he was horrified to discover directly next to the pile of rags a mountain of what looked like bones—human bones. Rib cages, skulls, and the like were all piled chaotically, perhaps ten feet high. Rats crawled among the bones and Chase noticed one of the creatures in particular, poking his wiggling snout from the empty eye socket of one of the broken skulls. Chase wanted to cry out but his voice caught in his throat as his stomach retched in disgust.

  Before he could regain his composure and warn the others of what he had just seen, he felt a searing pain for just a moment as a sharp hooked and barbed arrowhead entered through the back of his neck and passed right through him creating a massive tear in the front of his throat, severing his carotid artery on exit. The last thing he saw before his eyes went black under the shroud of death was his three friends silhouetted in Cameron’s flashlight walking slowly away, oblivious to his fate.

  Someone had fastened a rope crudely to the back end of the arrow. Within a second, an unseen force from somewhere back in the darkness yanked quickly on the line, pulling Chase’s corpse backward into the blackness. The three friends heard Chase’s flashlight fall with a clang to the concrete floor and they quickly turned around as one to see what had happened. They saw nothing but blackness behind them and Cha
se’s flashlight slowly rolling about in a circular motion, its beam randomly scouring the darkness.

  “Chase!” Crystal screamed, her voice immediately filling with terror and the certain realization something very bad had happened to their friend. Cameron pointed the light back into the darkness as he hurried past the girls toward the fallen flashlight. The flashlight stopped its circular motion and lay perfectly still, shining its beam back toward the stairway door they had passed through after coming down from the main level.

  As he got closer to the flashlight he stopped in his tracks, stricken with terror at the vision which lay before him. At the spot where Chase had previously stood Cameron saw a huge sickening crimson patch of blood, with drag marks smearing backward away from him, indicating the bloody path by which Chase’s body had apparently been dragged.

  Cameron turned to the girls shining his flashlight on them and screamed, “Get the hell out of here. Get upstairs and call for help! Now!”

  Without a moment’s hesitation, Jen sprinted past Crystal heading for the open doorway illuminated by Chase’s flashlight beam. Her right hand already had her cell phone out as she quickly dialed 911. However, nothing happened. She stopped suddenly at the door to the stairs and looked down at her phone display screen only to see in frustration that she had no service. “No!” she screamed to herself. “We’re three floors underground. I have to get upstairs.” As she turned to re-enter the stairway she looked back toward her two friends just as she heard Crystal scream.

  The sight that followed was something worse than any nightmare she had ever experienced. In the light from Cameron’s quaking flashlight, still pointing at Crystal, six or ten thin naked muscular arms seemed to come from the darkness behind her, encircling her, grabbing her. Two of the hands, filthy with grime were grabbing her head, pulling it backward, their long-nailed fingers digging into her eye sockets. Jen watched helplessly as Crystal’s eyeballs popped like squashed grapes, while at the same time another set of hands, ripped her shirt from her body and gouged long bloody furrows across her exposed breasts and abdomen. As the girl was pulled back into the darkness, Jen saw another arm with long claw-like fingers reach around the girl’s neck and literally rip her throat out, as Crystal’s scream faded into a ghastly liquid-like death rattle.

  “Cameron! Come on!” Jen shouted as the boy stood apparently in shock, perhaps petrified by the horrible spectacle he had just witnessed. Then Jen saw the truth as a small red patch appeared at the front of his shirt, rapidly growing in size as his life blood drained from him. Cameron looked down at the spot as if dumfounded. Then he slowly turned to Jen and he mouthed the word “go” before collapsing face forward to the concrete.

  Jen quickly turned and started running up the stairs, taking two at a time, all the while occasionally glancing down at her phone with the hopes of finding available service, but so far she had none. Behind her she could hear wild chattering sounds, not of any language she had ever heard but nonetheless it sounded like some type of verbal communication. She also heard what sounded like hundreds of footfalls coming up the stairs behind her. She stumbled several times during her ascent but always managed to keep going out of sheer terror. She knew if she stopped her fate would be in the murderous hands of the unknown creatures pursuing her.

  It seemed like her lungs would burst from her sprint up the three flights of stairs, but at last she saw some light from the street shining through the doorway up ahead, indicating she had almost made it to the first floor. She ventured a glance at her cell phone and saw to her pleasure she once again had full service. She quickly pressed 911 and then the call button as she rounded the corner at the top of the stairway, heading for the lobby.

  When she entered the open area, Jen stopped in her tracks, unable to believe the sight before her. The lobby was full of horribly deformed not quite human looking creatures all caked with filth, and dried blood. Some were dressed in the most minimal of scraps of clothing while others were completely naked.

  Several of the pathetic creatures seemed to possess shortened almost flipper-like arms and legs, while others were missing limbs completely; and still others appeared to have more limbs than normal. They all were hunched and twisted with various horrific facial deformities, and they spoke in some strange tongue, which they seemed to understand, though she did not. And the stench coming from the things was unlike anything Jen had ever smelled before. It was as if the room was suddenly filled with dead and rotting animals.

  She heard a voice come from her cell phone saying “911 operator. What is the nature of your emergency?” Before she could lift the cell phone to answer, sharp clawed hands grabbed her from behind, dragging her backward into the stairwell as the strange chattering sounds of the hideous creatures grew louder and louder. She suddenly felt excruciating pain as the flesh was stripped from her body. She had an image of a fish being flayed as the pain grew to an unbearable agony. Then finally blessed death came to take her, and Jen could not hear another sound.

  ***

  About twenty minutes later a police cruiser pulled up alongside the building, across the street from the abandoned van in response to the 911 call. Someone had triangulated the location of the still active cell phone. Two officers exited the van and looked up and down the street trying to determine if anyone was around. Their identification tags read Rossi and Flannery; two old school career beat cops. They walked over to the van, which was unlocked, and saw it was empty. Then they heard what sounded like faint speaking coming from inside one of the buildings.

  They entered the building with their flashlights on, and could see the glowing screen in the distance by the rear of the building. They approached the phone and heard the 911 operator, keeping the line open and still trying to find someone to answer.

  Rossi bent down, picked up the phone and said, “Hello.”

  The voice on the other end of the phone said, “Hello. This is the 911 operator. Is everything all right?”

  Rossi attempted to speak again into the phone to identify himself, but his partner, Flannery could only hear a faint hissing sound coming from the man's mouth. He saw a look of utter disbelief and pain on Rossi’s face, as the man stood still, holding the phone with is mouth agape. Then a small trickle of blood spilled down his chin from the corner of his mouth. When Flannery looked down at his partner’s chest, he saw the sharp point of some sort of arrow tip jutting out, covered with blood, bits of flesh and gore. A second later his partner disappeared as if pulled off of his feet by some incredible force and propelled through the air, back into the darkness.

  Flannery lifted his left hand to press his shoulder radio as his right hand dropped to his side, pulling his gun from its holster. Before his hand could reach the button of this radio, his arm was severed above the elbow by some sort of flying disk. As his blood pumped from his body, Flannery looked straight ahead and could see what looked like hundreds of glowing red eyes emerging from the darkness. It was the last thing he would ever see.

  In the next several days, police conducted an investigation to try to determine what had happened to the missing teens as well as the two police officers. They did a thorough search of the area and brought in a forensic team, who identified the bloodstains found in the lobby as being the same blood type as those of Jen as well as officers Rossi and Flannery. They never found any bodies or evidence of what had happened to the other missing teens.

  During the search several officers had ventured down the long three-story stairway to the basement but found the huge iron door leading to the subway platform closed, apparently barred from the other side, and incapable of being opened. They agreed that no one could have gotten through the door. They accepted the futility of trying to force the door open and abandoned their search, heading for the surface.

  They were correct, of course. The door could not be opened, at least not from the stairway side. You see, the door could only be opened from the platform side and was only ever opened by the mutated former humans from below
. And they only opened the door at night—at their feeding time.

  Saw-Kill Road

  The forlorn two-lane blacktop road snaked like a writhing serpent over its short half-mile length from end to end, connecting the busy Abington Lane with the mountainous Prescott Road. Its narrow winding progression curved past the abandoned, once prosperous saw mill from which the road attained its name, “Sawmill Road.” However, its unofficial moniker was much more menacing—known to locals, especially the children as “Saw-Kill Road.”

  At the start of the twentieth century, the sawmill had been a bustling enterprise, employing a number of local men; once a large two-story clapboard building, the wood sealed to allow its weather-resistance to fight off the elements.

  Where the mill was level with the roadway two large barn-style doors opened to a dirt drive. As the land sloped downward, a stone foundation reached five feet high to support the building and provided a doorway access to a basement storage area, as well as windows for light. The ceiling of the basement area was comprised of thick wooden beams, serving also as the floor for the sawmill itself.

  Above the beautiful oak front door with its solid brass door knocker and crystal door knob was a transom which held a custom made stain glass window bearing the name “Hanson’s Mill” in honor of the former owner of the mill, Jonas Jackson Hanson, known as “J.J.” to what few friends he had, and “the cheap limy bastard” to most of his employees.

  Now, the mill stood in decay; its once beautiful wooden siding putrefying from years of exposure to the elements, fading to whitish gray, rotten and infested with insects. Rusted hinges hung loosely from disintegrating clapboards, some of them hanging by a single remaining corroded screw; a sad reminder of a time long ago when the mill’s shutters hung proudly. Now, not only were all of the shutters long gone, but most of the remaining glass panes had been either removed or shattered, leaving sharp jagged fragments in the frames, resembling hideous shark teeth. A few may have been stolen by thieves hoping to get something for the custom blown panes, but most were simply broken by local vandals, for whatever enjoyment they might gain from such thoughtless actions. Behind the broken windows awaited nothing but the blackness of the abandoned structure and whatever else might lurk inside in the darkness.