Horror Thriller Box Set 1

by Amy Cross

  "Be careful," Kate said, turning and making her way up the stairs. "You never know. I might be wrong. The place might be filled with vampires and monsters. If you find any coffins festooned with garlic, you probably shouldn't try to open them. I don't want to find your bloodless corpse when I get back."

  Smiling, Mike watched as she headed up to the landing and disappeared into one of the upstairs room. Turning to look over at the archway, he realized he needed to just get on with things and not let his fears take over. His rational mind was fully aware that there was no such thing as vampires, so he simply needed to make sure that it was this part of his mind that took charge right now. He had to focus on the reality: the castle was a huge, empty building that was home to nothing more than a few bats and maybe some other vermin. Taking a deep breath, he made his way through to the next room.

  Chapter Three

  Walking through what appeared to be some kind of great hall, Mike found himself lost in a daze. Everything about this castle seemed larger than life, to the extent that he found it hard to believe that such a place truly existed. He kept expecting the building place to suddenly pop out of existence, leaving him standing on a rocky outcrop. It wasn't just that he found it hard to believe this castle could be tucked away in this corner of Bulgaria; it was that he found it hard to believe that such a building could exist anywhere in the world. It was just too grand, too dark and too melodramatic to comprehend, as if it had emerged fully-formed from some old Gothic fairytale.

  This hall, for example, was at least a hundred meters long, and the ceiling was just as high. A long table ran the length of the room, with chairs arranged on either side, and another huge chandelier hung high above, secured to the vaulted roof by a series of thick chains. Arranged around the edge of the room, a set of dark statues watched proceedings. Wandering closer, Mike saw that each of the statues was fashioned in the likeness of a man, and while some of them held swords and other weapons in their hands, others wore robes and seemed to be unarmed. It was hard not to assume that these were members of the LeCompte family, arranged after death so that they could observe the lives of their ancestors.

  "Sorry to disturb," Mike muttered as he walked along the row, briefly admiring each statue in turn. Given the nature of the castle, he couldn't help thinking that the statues might suddenly come to life. It was certainly the kind of place where such horrors might seem a little more possible, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't stop wondering if this castle might exist in some world that was entirely separate from everywhere else. Was it not possible, he thought, that the laws of nature could be a little different in this dark, undisturbed pocket of reality?

  "You must have seen some things," he whispered, staring into the face of one of the statues. "If you could talk, huh?"

  Feeling overwhelmed by all the opulence, and not really sure where to begin, he made his way through to the next room, which appeared to be some kind of large conservatory. Sofas were arranged around the edges of the room, and there was a piano in the far corner. One of the walls was decorated with a huge metal shield, which showed a range of war scenes. Just as the exterior of the castle was imposing, so too was the interior. It seemed that those who braved the road up to this place were to be given no relief once they made their way through the door. Everything about the castle seemed to have been designed to emphasize the savagery of the LeCompte family.

  Hearing a noise high above, Mike looked up and realized that there were footsteps in a room directly over the hall. Reminding himself that it was probably just Kate, he walked over to the piano and sat down. It was hard to imagine the barbaric LeComptes gathering for an evening of music, and Mike couldn't help but wonder whether the family was filled with grotesque monsters. He thought of the whole room being filled with revelers, engaging in some kind of Bacchanalian pageant, probably slaughtering peasants in the process. Shuddering at the thought of all the blood that must have been spilled in the castle, he lifted the piano's lid and looked down at the keys, before finally playing a few notes.

  As if disturbed by the noise, a solitary bat detached itself from the nearby wall and swooped low across the hall before disappearing into the next room.

  For the next few minutes, Mike sat and played a couple of simple songs, just a few compositions that he remembered from his childhood. Eventually, however, he paused as he realized how unlikely it was that the piano could remain in tune after so many years. Playing a few more notes, he was certain that the instrument was in perfect condition, which seemed hard to believe if it had been left alone for so many hundreds of years. Standing up and stepping away from the piano, he couldn't shake the feeling that perhaps Kate was wrong and that someone, at some point, had spent some time up in this place. After all, a piano couldn't keep itself in tune, and the passing years would have taken a toll on the strings even if no-one had touched the instrument.

  "Musical bats," he muttered wryly, forcing himself to stay calm. "It's the only explanation."

  Above, more footsteps moved across an upstairs room. Again, Mike told himself that it must just be Kate. There was simply no way that anyone or anything else could be living in such a desolate place.

  Chapter Four

  The floorboards creaked as Kate made her way cautiously across the dimly-lit room. She was high up in the castle, in a large stone room that was dominated by a four-poster bed over by the far wall. Far from looking abandoned, the bed seemed to have been used recently, with the sheets pulled aside and no layer of dust to be seen. Making her way slowly across the room, Kate paused for a moment by the bed and then carefully set the sheets straight until the bed was more or less tidy. Probably best not to let Mike see such a thing, she figured; he'd just get even more paranoid.

  Reaching her hand under the bed-sheets, Kate found that there was no warmth. Clearly no-one had been in the bed recently.

  Hearing a noise nearby, she turned and stared into the darkness. Her heart was racing, and for a moment she was convinced that there must be someone lurking in the shadows. She took a step forward, and finally she heard the noise again; this time, however, she realized that there was a mouse scurrying along the floor. Standing completely still, she watched as the mouse made its way to a small hole just below the bed, and moments later the creature disappeared into its own little world. Figuring that the whole castle was probably riddled with mice, rats and other infestations, Kate took one final look around the bedroom before heading back over to the door.

  Glancing up at the top corner of the nearby wall, she spotted a bat roosting in the darkness. She paused for a moment and watched the creature. It seemed to be asleep, or at least it showed no sign of being disturbed by her presence. Almost as if it felt comfortable. Still, it was nothing special; just a dumb creature, eking out an existence by feeding on scraps in someone else's abandoned home.

  Once she was out of the room, Kate found herself in a narrow, tall corridor that ran along the front of the building. Flags hung above, representing various stages of the LeCompte family's past glories. With the whole castle having fallen into a state of disrepair, the flags seemed vaguely pathetic, as if they were placed there by people who were convinced that their glory could never end. Now, in the twenty-first century, the flags seemed old and faded, and the defiance of the LeCompte family simply seemed more futile than ever. Kate smiled as she thought of the family's great men, and how distraught they would undoubtedly have become if they'd known that their name would eventually fall by the wayside of history.

  Stepping over to a nearby window, Kate looked out at the vast mountains that ran across the horizon. Those mountains had stood, unchanging, for the entire duration of the LeCompte family's history, and they'd outlasted the family's dramas. When the first LeCompte came to this land, the mountains watched over his journey, and they were still watching when the last members of the family began to die off. Kate couldn't help but wish that there was some way to speak to those mountains, to ask them what they'd seen and to beg them
to relate their story. They had undoubtedly seen a huge amount of bloodshed, and heard the screams of many men and women who had been dragged up to the castle. In fact, the calmness of the scene only served to emphasize in Kate's mind the idea that the whole region had once been in bloody thrall to the LeCompte family and their dark ways.

  No wonder, she realized, that the valley seemed so lush and fertile. So much blood must have soaked down from the castle's high vantage point, enriching the soil and nourishing new life.

  Sighing, Kate checked her watch and realized that it'd soon be time to go and find Mike. She's only brought Mike with her because she wanted some company on the trip. She'd had a hard time persuading her colleagues that a journey to Bulgaria would be necessary, but eventually she'd worn them down and made them see that the dark mystery of the LeComptes was of essential value to her broader work on European folk legends. No-one had wanted to come with her, of course, and there was no way Andrew Marlowe could be signed out of the psychiatric hospital, but Kate had been determined to have someone with her when she made the journey to the castle. She wanted someone to see her moment of glory, and although Mike was a dull man of limited imagination, he'd be as good a witness as any.

  Witnesses, she felt, were important. The castle had stood neglected for so long. Most of the world had no idea of its existence, and the locals were too scared to make anything of the place. Even now, she imagined fearful eyes staring up from the valley, terrified that some supernatural power might be unleashed from these empty, dusty corridors. It was strange to think that the LeComptes still had so much thrall over the region, despite the fact that they'd to all intents and purposes been gone for centuries. Fear could outlast men, though, and could perhaps even outlast the world itself.

  Taking a deep breath, she reminded herself that it was definitely time to leave the window. Still, she couldn't tear herself away. Not quite yet. Her eyes were constantly scanning the horizon, looking for any sign of movement.

  "Come on," she muttered under her breath. "Where are you? Come back to me."

  Chapter Five

  "Kate!" Mike called out as he returned to the entrance hall. "You around? It's time to come up with an actual plan!"

  Smiling, he turned and looked for some sign of her. Slowly, however, the smile faded from his lips as he realized she was nowhere to be seen. In fact, as he listened to the silence, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was completely alone.

  "Kate!" he shouted again, a little more loudly this time. "Come on, we had an arrangement!"

  He waited.

  "Kate!"

  No response.

  Reaching into his pocket, he grabbed his cellphone and brought up Kate's number. After a moment, however, he saw that he had no coverage out here in the wilderness.

  "Kate!" he shouted, convinced that she must be able to hear him, even if she was far off in another wing of the house. "Kate! Come on, we need to talk about what to do next!" He paused for a moment. "A little professionalism wouldn't hurt either," he muttered under his breath.

  After a few minutes, realizing that she wasn't coming, he decided to head upstairs to look for her. Making his way up the wide stone staircase, he suddenly felt completely defenseless, as if he'd been deposited in the middle of an alien world. He couldn't help but keep glancing over his shoulder, as if he was worried that there'd be someone or something following him. As hard as he tried, the specter of some kind of presence just wouldn't go away, and he was starting to wonder whether he could truly handle a night in this place.

  "Hey!" he shouted when he got to the landing. "Kate! Come on, where are you?"

  Wandering along a corridor that ran across the front of the castle, he stopped for a moment and looked out through a large window. The landscape in this part of Bulgaria was a formidable sight, reinforcing Mike's sense of loneliness and reminding him that he was truly far from home. He'd been relying on Kate to act as his guide and help him find his way around, but although she'd always seemed so reliable and dependable back home at the museum, out here in Bulgaria she seemed to be losing her way a little. It was as if something about the project was causing her to lose focus, and Mike didn't feel equipped to take charge of their work. He needed to get Kate back on track, but the first part of that task was to find her, and so far she seemed to have disappeared into the bowels of the castle.

  "This isn't funny!" he called out, his voice echoing in the vastness of the building. This was a place where armies would once have marched through high-ceiling corridors, and now Mike was wandering lost and alone.

  Wandering into a nearby room, he saw a rumpled bed that looked suspiciously as if it had been used by someone. He made his way over and placed his hand under the sheets, immediately feeling a hint of warmth, as if there had been a body occupying the bed recently. Trying not to panic, he turned and looked across the room, spotting a bat clinging to the far wall. Although he knew that there might be a perfectly rational explanation, Mike could feel the concern starting to build in the pit of his stomach. While he certainly didn't believe in vampires, he figured there was a chance that someone had been making this abandoned castle their home.

  Hurrying back to the door and out into the corridor, he realized he had to make a decision. The castle was far too large for him to search every room, and clearly he was at a disadvantage if it turned out that there was someone else hiding in the shadows. Then again, it was still possible that this whole situation was a misunderstanding, and that Kate had merely become distracted as she explored the place. There was a chance that she'd wandered into a remote part of the building, and that she'd eventually come back, muttering about being a little late, and then laughing at Mike's concern. He was worried, sure, but he figured it was still a little too early to collapse into abject panic.

  "Kate!" he called out, heading back to the stairs and making his way down to the large entrance hallway. After all, this was where they'd arranged to meet, so this was where Kate would eventually show up. In theory, anyway. There was still no sign of her, but Mike forced himself to stay calm. Checking his watch, he decided to give her one more hour, and then he'd start thinking about the possibility that she was in danger. Hoping to take his mind off his worries, he headed through to one of the nearby rooms and found himself in a long, tall space lined with hundreds of large oil paintings, each of which bore a ledger with the name of a member of the LeCompte family.

  "So this is where you've all been hiding, huh?" he muttered as he looked up at a huge painting of someone named Martin LeCompte, identified as having lived in the fifteenth century. The image itself, cracked and peeling a little, was several meters wide and at least five or six meters tall. It was a huge and impressive piece of work, and Martin LeCompte himself was an imposing figure. In the background of the image, soldiers appeared to be dying on a battlefield, and their splashes of blood were the only vibrant color in an otherwise drab and dark palette.

  Wandering along the room, admiring each painting in turn, Mike began to realize that Kate was right when she said the LeCompte family deserved further study. They appeared to have been one of the richest and most feared families in European history, up there with the likes of the House of Medici. It was hard to believe that such a powerful lineage could have been forgotten by scholars, and Mike figured that it was almost as if the LeComptes had purposefully tried to expunge their name from the history books. Either that, or terrified locals had done the job for them, although it was hard to see why the LeComptes had died off. The castle showed no sign of disrepair or damage. It was as if, one day, the last of the LeComptes had simply walked out the door and left the place to rot.

  Stopping in front of another painting, Mike stared up at the dark, furrowed brow of a gentleman by the name of Ivan LeCompte. As strange as it seemed, there was something a little familiar about the man's face, although Mike couldn't quite work out where he'd seen him before. Some of the noblest old European families enjoyed a degree of inter-breeding, of course, but this seemed li
ke a much stronger resemblance, almost as if Mike had at some point stared into this very face, or at least into the face of someone who shared the same blood. Then again, he figured, after staring at painting after painting, he was probably just getting used to the facial features of this great family.

  "Kate!" he shouted, turning to look back at the door. "Come and see this!"

  No reply.

  Sighing, he continued to make his way along the row of paintings, casually glancing at each one. He knew that the next step would be to secure funding for a team of experts to come out to the castle. The place would be taken apart with forensic care and analyzed in excruciating detail, and eventually the LeCompte family would likely become famous around the world. There would be books about them, maybe even films, and they'd become part of wider Bulgarian and maybe even European folklore. Mike felt a little humbled to realize that he was present at the start of this huge process, which would eventually change the way Bulgarian history was regarded. As he pondered these possibilities, he realized it was insane for Kate to think that there was any point in them staying and doing any work by themselves; now that they'd taken a quick look around, they needed to go and get in touch with their colleagues back in London and arrange for a proper expedition.

  Reaching the end of the room, Mike noticed that the final painting was a little different to the others, since it was the first to show the image of a woman. As soon as he looked up at the face, however, he felt his chest tighten, and it took a moment before he was able to fully understand what he was looking at. Checking the name on the plaque at the bottom of the frame, he saw that the image was of a woman named Madeleine LeCompte, but there was something horribly wrong with what he was seeing. He stared up at the face, and slowly a sense of absolute horror and dread began to creep through his entire body. Finally, filled with panic, he turned and ran.