by Amy Cross
At that moment, I hear the metal banging sound again, except this time it seems a lot closer, as if it's actually inside this building. It's almost more insistent: whereas before it was just a single bang, this time it's a series of three short, fast bangs. To be honest, it sounds exactly like someone trying to attract attention, but I know there's no way there could be another person here in Devil's Briar. My first instinct is to go and get Bill, but then I imagine how he'd laugh at me when we finally find whatever caused the noise. The worst thing it could be is maybe a bird trapped somewhere, or an old boiler that's somehow managed to stay in service all these years. Taking a deep breath, I tell myself the same thing over and over again: there's no such thing as ghosts.
I walk through to the corridor behind the main room. As with everywhere else in Devil's Briar, the place is filled with dust. It's dark, but not too dark, and my eyes soon get accustomed to the low level of light as I walk slowly past a series of closed and locked doors. It's completely irrational of me to be scared, of course, but I still can't shake the feeling that something about this place isn't right. Then again, I guess that's just how the human mind works, filling in the gaps in our knowledge and fostering superstitions. Just because we haven't seen any wild animals in Devil's Briar, there still might be some, and I'm pretty certain that I'm going to find a bird that's managed to get itself trapped in some kind of small space.
As I reach the end of the corridor, I hear the banging sound again. It seems to be coming from the back of the building, and I walk cautiously toward a door that opens out into the yard. On the wall, there's a large photograph of a family: a man and a woman stare out at me, and there's a little girl standing next to them. A small plaque at the bottom of the frame identifies the people in the image as D. Haynes, L. Haynes and G. Haynes. As I look into their eyes, I find myself wondering what could have happened to them. Did they leave Devil's Briar and build a new life far away, or did they stay here and... Looking over at the stairs that lead up to the next level, I can't help but imagine the bodies of these three people up there in one of the rooms. For a moment, I feel absolutely certain that if I went upstairs, I'd find human remains.
Stepping out into the small yard, I see that there's an outhouse with an open door. Just as I'm about to walk over to it, I hear the banging sound again: three sharp thumps, as if something is hitting metal, and this time there can be no doubt: the sound is coming from inside the outhouse. Again, my first instinct is to go and get Bill, but I calm my nerves and remind myself that I'm not some scared little girl who has to go running off to find her husband. It would be so much more satisfying to find the cause of the noise, and then go triumphantly back to Bill and tell him what I discovered.
With my pulse racing, I walk toward the outhouse and step through the dark door.
Chapter Five
1925.
"All your files are now in alphabetical order," Victoria says, pushing the cabinet closed before turning to me with a smile. She seems rather pleased with herself, as well she might: in her ten years working as my assistant, Adelaide was never able to get things so well organized. As well as being extremely beautiful and exceedingly pleasant, Victoria is clearly a very bright and capable young lady; she will make a good wife indeed. Glancing at my watch, I see that it'll soon be two o'clock. When Mr. Paternoster arrives, I shall broach the subject of a possible engagement. I fail to see how he can refuse. After all, I am an upstanding member of the local community and it would be a great honor for Victoria to become my wife.
"You've done very well," I say. "In fact, you've done so well, I'm struggling to think of another task to occupy your time this afternoon."
"Is there any sign of that spider?" she asks.
"No," I reply, "but perhaps it would be prudent of you to check. Just in case."
Smiling pleasantly, she hurries over to the other side of the room. I should get on with my paperwork, but I can't take my eyes off her stunning form. The way her dress clings to her body is absolutely wonderful, and forces me to consider the prospect of our wedding night. I can honestly say that although I have been an admirer of the female form all my life, I have never before been so stirred.
"If you want to fuck her," Lawrence Evans' voice says suddenly, "then go over there and fuck her."
I turn, half expecting to find Evans himself standing behind me, but there's no-one there. My heart starts to race. The man is dead, so it's simply not possible that he could be speaking to me, yet that cursed voice sounds as clear as if he were standing right next to my desk. Perhaps I'm feeling a sense of guilt over his death, yet there is no reason why this should be the case; the man was a scoundrel, and I was fully justified in killing him.
"I bet she'd love it," Evans continues. "Just go over, life up her skirt, pull down her panties, gently part her legs and dip your -"
"Stop it!" I say firmly.
Victoria turns, shocked by my outburst. "I'm sorry," she says after a moment. "I thought..." She pauses, clearly confused. While Evans' voice is loud and clear in my ear, she cannot hear him.
"Not you," I reply. "I..." I look down at my papers. Sweat is pouring from my brow. "I'm so terribly sorry," I tell her. "I'm afraid I was reading a letter from a man of the town, and his stupidity is so great that I exclaimed aloud my frustration at his..." I take a deep breath. "My words were not aimed at you."
"Nice cover story," Evans says, laughing. "You're not as dumb as you look, old man. Then again, no-one could be as dumb as you look."
"I see," Victoria replies. "You clearly get very involved in your work."
"I went to her room last night," Evans says. "I saw her slipping off her clothes. I saw her pert little nipples and her hairy bush. And then I watched her sit on the bed with her legs apart, and she started to -"
"Perhaps you had better leave," I say to Victoria, feeling a rising sense of panic. "I mean, you've already done so much, and I don't want to tire you out on your first day." I pause, seeing that she's puzzled by the sudden change in my behavior. "You've done exceptionally well," I reassure her, "and I very much look forward to seeing you bright and early tomorrow morning. I'm sure I'll be able to find lots for you to do."
"Fill her asshole with razor blades," Evans sneers.
"Should I not wait for my uncle to arrive?" she asks. "I'm sure you'll need me here, if only to make tea, and..." She smiles nervously. "Well, I feel my uncle would find it rather strange if he were to arrive and find that I have already left."
I open my mouth to tell her to leave, but the words won't come. In little more than twenty-four hours, I've gone from meeting Victoria for the first time to finding it almost impossible to contemplate life without her. "Perhaps you should busy yourself in the waiting room," I say finally, deciding it would be prudent to at least get her out of the room for a while. "Let me know when your uncle arrives."
"Of course," she says, smiling as she leaves the room.
"What an obedient young lady," Lawrence Evans says. "For a twenty-two-year-old, she certainly has a businesslike manner. I wonder if she's as obedient in the bedroom. Does it surprise you that I watched her masturbate last night? Does it surprise you that such a delicate young lady would feel the need to pleasure herself?"
"Where are you?" I say quietly, keen to ensure that Victoria can't hear me talking from the next room.
"That's a good question, isn't it?" He laughs. "Maybe I'm everywhere at once, like God. Maybe I'm really here. Maybe, after you blew my fucking head apart, my spirit wasn't ready to leave Devil's Briar. Maybe I've gone back to where I came from. Or maybe I'm just a part of your fevered imagination. Either way, fat man, you're screwed. How do you get rid of someone if there's no body to push away and no face to blow off with a gun?"
I take a deep breath. "What do you want?"
"I want my cock in Victoria's pussy, but I figure that'll be tricky now I'm dead. Or am I just an expression of your own darker fantasies? There's only one way to find out. Go through right now and fuck h
er. If you're lucky, that'll get rid of me. You'll never hear my voice again, because your own demons will be vanquished." He pauses. "What are you waiting for? You're the fucking Mayor. No-one's going to believe that you'd force yourself on such a lovely young lady. You have power. Go and fuck her right now."
I stare straight ahead, determined to resist the taunts of this jester. Lawrence Evans is dead and I'm not a man who believes in ghosts, so this voice must be in my head, in which case I should be able to force him into silence. I'm hardly the kind of man to succumb to personal demons in this manner. Then again, perhaps he's right and I should just go and take Victoria right now. If it would make the voice go away, it might be worth the pain. However, she's such a beautiful and innocent young lady, I dread to think of her being treated in such a rough way. Though I want to bed her, I aim to do so with her consent, on our wedding night, rather than by force. I couldn't bear to make her cry, or to cause her harm.
"Bite her nipples off," Evans says.
I say nothing, preferring to wait in dignified silence until the voice departs.
"What are you waiting for?" Evans asks. "Are you scared she'll laugh when she sees that little walnut of a cock you've got tucked between your legs?"
"I shall ignore you," I say firmly. "You're just a figment of my imagination, and as such I shall pay you no attention and you will cease to torment me."
"Nice try," he replies. "Maybe I should've tried ignoring you when you blew my head off. Do you think that would have worked? Do you think -" He pauses. "Something's about to happen," he says suddenly. "You're going to be needed, fat man. There's an emergency bubbling up."
"What do you mean?" I ask. At that moment, I hear a piercing scream from outside. Grabbing my walking cane, I struggle over to the window and see a handful of people running across the town square, heading toward a nearby street. Seconds later, the scream rings out again, and I hear the door to my office open behind me.
"Sir?" Victoria says, looking shocked. "I think... I think something's happening outside."
"Come with me," I say, hurrying as fast as I can. Once we're out in the square, it becomes apparent that the source of the commotion is a little further away, in one of the nearby yards. Although my knee is bad, I'm able to hobble along until I find a small crowd gathered outside the pharmacy. "What's going on?" I ask, as the crowd parts to let me reach the door. "Someone tell me what in the world is happening here!"
"Thank God you're here, Sir," says a voice next to me. "It's little Gilly!"
I turn to Victoria. "My dear, you had perhaps better wait out here." Opening the door, I shuffle into the pharmacy and find it to be empty, though I can hear people talking and sobbing through in the back room. I hurry along the corridor, past the family portrait, and into the small yard at the rear of the building, where I am confronted with the most horrible scene of human suffering.
"Mayor Caster!" shouts Lilith Haynes, running toward me with tears rolling down her cheeks. She throws her arms around me and buries her face in my chest, while I - uncertain as to what has happened - stand and wait for someone to explain the situation. Over in the corner of the yard, David Haynes is sitting with his head in his hands. It is as if some great tragedy has struck the household, and young Gilly is conspicuous by her absence.
"Where is the child?" I ask.
No-one says anything. Lilith continues to weep, and David doesn't look over at me.
"You must tell me what has happened!" I insist. Pulling Lilith away from my shoulder, I hold her tight by the arms and give her a gentle shake. "Lilith, you must gather your senses, woman! Tell me what has happened!"
"I killed her," David says, looking over at me.
Pushing Lilith aside, I hurry over to where David is sitting. His face is pale and his gaze is blank.
"What do you mean?" I ask. "Who did you kill? Gilly? Is it Gilly? Speak, man. I must know what has transpired."
"She's... Gilly..." He seems to be in a state of shock.
"What..." I pause. "Where is she?"
He looks toward the little outhouse. "I was preparing a new formula," he says, his voice frail. "Lilith had taken Gilly to play hide and seek, to get her out of my way. They were supposed to be playing in the house. I never thought Gilly would come out here. The new formula required a concentrated batch of boiling oil, so I cooked everything up and decided to mix it in one of the old drums." He stares at me. "I poured the mixture in, and..." He pauses. "Her screams were like... I never knew that Gilly had come back to the yard, you see? She must have been hiding in the drum. She screamed, and banged on the side, but it was too late. There was nothing I could do. I couldn't stop the oil in time."
I turn back to see Lilith collapsed on the floor, weeping violently and gulping back air. It's typical of a woman to fall apart at a time like this. "Where is the girl now?" I ask, realizing that the life of one of our youngest residents has been snuffed out.
"She's still in there," David says. "I couldn't bring myself to... I couldn't..." A tear rolls down his cheek. "She was our only child, Albert. She's all we had. What are we..." He pauses, clearly in shock. "The way she banged on the side of the drum, screaming to be let out as the oil..." His voice falters, and it's clear that the man is suffering a great deal of anguish.
"It's not your fault," I say firmly. "The child's mother should have educated her better on the dangers of playing in such a dangerous working environment, but do not be too harsh on her. It was simply a foolish mistake." Turning, I walk over to the outhouse and step inside. It's dark, and the room is filled with a noxious smell. As the pharmacist in Devil's Briar, David Haynes is continually mixing up new concoctions to ease the ailments of our citizens. Facing me, on the other side of the room, I see the large metal drum that he was using today. Bolted halfway up the wall, it has a thick pipe leading directly into the top. A set of steps sits next to the drum, to allow an operator to access the equipment. It's a highly technical device, but it must have looked like the perfect hiding place for a little girl playing an innocent game.
"Look inside," Lawrence Evans whispers in my ear.
I stare at the drum. The thought of that poor child, and her screams as the boiling oil engulfed her.
"What's wrong with you?" Evans continues. "I'll cut you a deal, fat man. I'll hold back on the comments about Victoria Paternoster if you go and take a look in that drum."
I shake my head. The thought of seeing the horror inside the drum is too much for me to contemplate.
"Look inside," Evans insists. "Isn't it worth it? For the sake of Victoria's honor, surely you want me to stop saying such nasty things about her. Look in the drum, old man, and I won't tell you how I saw her slip her finger inside herself when she was alone in her room last night, and how she -"
"Alright," I say. "Enough."
Taking a deep breath, I tell myself that this voice is all in my head, that Lawrence Evans has by no means returned from the dead to taunt me. Nevertheless, I would do anything to shut these words away. I'm terribly pained every time Evans' voice - real or imagined - utters some foul word with respect to Victoria. Stepping slowly toward the drum, I tell myself that I must look and see if there is any hope for the child, even though I know she must surely be dead.
"Dear Lord," I say quietly under my breath as I climb the steps to the top of the drum. With my bad knee, the ascent is troublesome and not without its dangers. Eventually I get to the top and, reaching out, I start to loosen the lid. I take a moment to prepare myself for what I might be about to see, and then I remove the lid and look down into the nightmare.
My heart skips a beat as I see the terrible mess that has become of poor Gilly. It is worse than I could ever have imagined. The boiling oil has not only killed her, it has also putrefied her flesh to the point that much of it appears to have slopped off to form a pale, sickly mess that floats on the surface of the yellow liquid. The parts of her body that were not completely covered in oil have retained most of their flesh, save for a few spots whe
re dull gray bones are showing like parts of some kind of chicken broth. The boiling oil has become a kind of fleshy soup, and yet miraculously Gilly's face appears to have mostly been spared. From looking at her closed eyes alone, one could almost think the poor little angel is asleep. Carefully closing the lid, I pause to consider the horror I have just witnessed, but at the same time I feel a startling sense of relief because - for the first time in many hours - my head is clear and I do not hear Lawrence Evans' voice in my ears.
Chapter Six
Today.
As my eyes get accustomed to the dark, I find that the inside of the outhouse is mostly bare. The only exceptions are a dilapidated old table and - at the far end - some kind of metal drum attached to the wall. The drum is the only thing in here that could have caused the banging noise, and it's certainly possible that some type of animal could become trapped inside. I can feel my pulse racing, but at the same time I know that I need to ignore my basic physiological reaction and focus on an intellectual approach. There's no such thing as ghosts, so the cause of the banging sound must be either something mechanical or an animal; these are the only two logical possibilities, and there's no reason to be scared of either.
Getting closer to the drum, I notice that there are significant signs of corrosion. It's clear that this outhouse was used by the owners of the pharmacy to mix together some of their chemicals, and I suppose the drum must have served some purpose in this process. There's a long pipe running in from the yard, its end hanging loose; I assume that chemicals were pumped through the pipe and into the drum, which has a large lid on the top. Reaching a set of steps along the side, I look up at the drum and listen out for any sign of life in there. There's nothing, though, which means the noise probably wasn't caused by an animal. Perhaps the metal sides of the drum have been contracting and expanding due to some kind of temperature change, although I'm not sure why -
