Shadows Fall

by Denise A. Agnew

  Wind slid its fingers through her hair, a breeze with a bony, icy touch. She shivered, glad for her parka, thick sweater and flannel-lined jeans. Discomfort increased as she walked toward the place. Deep within she knew this building held wounds. An asylum always would. And those scars talked to her. They edged into her consciousness, demanding she pay attention. A whisper here. An insane thought there. The building spoke from every brick, stone, and window. She stopped and looked up at those windows, expecting to see a hundred faces peering out at her and asking for help. Instead windows stared dark and vacant, or they were lit within by a cheery glow. She took a deep breath and shoved away her sensitivities. She’d shielded herself with white light before coming here. It wouldn’t stop her from seeing ghosts or hearing them if they wanted to come into her space, but at least their emotions shouldn’t take hold.

  As she approached the front of the building, the single occupant left in the van stared out at her. It was a monster. The person—man or woman—wore a horrific mask. Wild, dark hair hung in greasy strands around a cadaverous face. Sunken flame-red eyes glowed at her, commanding compliance and attention. A hawkish nose, thin lips and narrow face completed the disturbing package. She couldn’t look away, and as she passed in front of the vehicle and the mask followed her movements, every hair went up on her body. Unease crept over her skin like a thousand insects. She shivered and tore her gaze from those flame-filled eyes. Maybe this nutty driver was a part of the attraction?

  She flexed her hand around her keys and kept walking. Her wrist ached and she still wore the bandage, but she could do some damage if she must. Just as she reached the huge glass double doors, the van’s engine roared and the driver sped off. Gravel went every which way and peppered the steps.

  “Douche bag,” she whispered under her breath, and opened the door.

  A choir of witchy cackles and assorted ghostly noises filled the massive two-story rotunda foyer. A chandelier hung from the ceiling, all twinkling crystal and dazzling light. Twelve people, including three smirking teenage girls, stood in a line purchasing tickets at a table. Since the teens were at the end of the line, she guessed they must be the kids that had piled out of the van. They stared at her like she’d grown a horn in the middle of her forehead.

  Used to the vagaries of teenagers, Melissa didn’t give any ground. She stared back until the girls started to look uncomfortable. They turned and faced forward. Melissa smiled. It didn’t take long for everyone to buy tickets, and the grandmotherly lady at the ticket table told each visitor to head down the wing to the left if they wanted the regular tour. If they made it through the entire event, they would receive a free adventure in the basement.

  “Which is at the very back of the asylum—” The white-haired lady laughed nervously. “Um ... I mean Tranquil View.” She smiled at Melissa and lowered her voice. “They don’t like us to call it asylum.”

  Melissa returned the lady’s grin. “I imagine not. But for tonight we can pretend it’s still an asylum, right?”

  Linda Hawthorne, as her nametag identified her, fiddled with a pencil on her table. “Oh, it’s certainly that.”

  A maniacal giggle came from somewhere in the rotunda. Melissa looked around. “Nice soundtrack.”

  Linda frowned, her round green eyes startled. “Um ... that isn’t on the sound track.”

  Melissa laughed, sure the lady was pulling her chain. “Of course. Down to the left you said?”

  “Yes.” Linda continued to look around the rotunda as if she expected someone to jump out at her. “Through the black curtains.” A piercing shriek echoed around the rotunda.

  Linda’s good humor returned. “I think that was from a guest of the haunted house tour.”

  “Teenagers.”

  Linda chuckled. “Probably.”

  Melissa headed for the black curtains, anticipating something truly cheesy. When she stepped through, the light diminished down to an eerie half-light. Large windows from the street were covered in curtains, effectively blocking the outside world. Down the right side she’d expected apartments, but instead saw broken tiled walls and white doors all in a line. Some stood ajar. Up ahead, the three figures moved slowly, their thin bodies misshapen by semi-darkness and shambling walks. She squinted into the darkness.

  The figures disappeared. She blinked rapidly, assuming the lack of light played tricks on her. Melissa took a step forward, simultaneously intrigued and repulsed. The figures lurched and staggered, drunk and grotesque. A soft rattling noise to her right caught her attention, and she braced for a monster attack. Wasn’t that what happened in a haunted house attraction? She stepped into the doorway of the dark room, ready for whatever the actors wanted to throw at her. She thought she saw a shape move in the darkness, but nothing happened. She waited and waited and finally edged out of the doorway. Interesting. Feeling braver than ever, she passed by each of the dark doorways and assumed the worst. Someone, somehow, would pop out at her and scream boo. She heard a sound behind her and whirled. Several more shapes moved in the darkness, their bodies illuminated by the dim light, then shadowed. A second later, the first barely-there light in the hallway, then a second blinked out. Two more lights to go in the hallway, and who knew if they’d been rigged to extinguish. She walked faster, feeling like a sheep being herded toward slaughter. Behind her a horrified scream echoed, and Melissa jumped clean out of her skin. She whirled and laughed, certain a patron had been zapped by a masked ghoul. She moved faster, urged by the surprises that happened behind her. Ahead she heard laughing as people ahead of her obviously enjoyed being scared spitless.

  A light flickered on in the next doorway. Curiosity overcame her, and she stepped into the half open door. Silence hovered around the edges, pushing away the horror movie soundtrack from the rotunda.

  As she touched the door, the peeling white paint felt rough. Cold air traveled over her skin. She snatched her hand back. With grim determination, she stepped inside. No ghosts lurked here. She didn’t feel anything in the nook and crannies, no sense of apparitions lurking. Debris crunched under her feet. Florescent lights overhead flickered, their harshness throwing a glow over the litter strewn across the floor. A devil’s face, drawn in blood red, stared with evil satisfaction from one wall directly across from Melissa. Cold air blew from behind, lifting her hair. She turned, startled. No one was there. Signs of an insane asylum lay before her. One of those awful cold water bath set ups was attached to one wall. Broken pipes showed where three other baths probably were attached at one time. Discomfort rolled through her stomach—a nausea that accompanied an icy feeling around her. Disturbed, she left the room in a rush.

  Angry with herself for feeling anything short of curiosity, she moved to the next room. Several more to go. Each was the same, the litter of a previous time left for all to see and lament. When she reached the last room, she pushed open the creaking door and was greeted by candle light rather than florescence. Not much was in the room, but what was had been designed to scare with a subtlety she admired. Lying against a wall was a coffin-sized cage. She’d seen these in a book once—patients requiring restraint were sometimes stacked three high in these contraptions. Inside was a cluster of blankets and clothing. She approached slowly.

  The rags transformed and leapt from the cage with a snarl. She gasped in shock, fell back, and tripped. The figure charged. She scrambled to her feet, finding speed she didn’t know she possessed. She couldn’t scream, could barely suck in one breath as she launched into the hallway straight into the arms of another ghoul. This one was tall, strong, his clothes the ragged remnants of a zombie. His face dripped with blood, his sharp teeth a rotting jail for the rest of his mouth. She would have bounced off the zombie, but his grip tightened on her upper arms and didn’t let go. Before she could tell the reanimated corpse to release her, he reached into his mouth and removed the false teeth. He seemed familiar—

  “Roarke.” Her recognition came out in a rasp, her throat choked with fright and embarrassmen
t. It wasn’t the undead or a zombie or a monster, but a disheveled Roarke in torn Oxford shirt and ripped jeans splotched in red. She blinked, almost as stunned by the sight of his muscled chest as she was his monster get-up.

  He smiled, but gripped her shoulders to steady her. “Hey you all right?”

  “Your fellow zombie scared the crap out of me.”

  Puzzlement crossed his face. “What?”

  “This guy.” She turned in his grip to point out the creature that had chased her out of the room. No one was there. The bogeyman couldn’t have gotten past them. She would have seen him.

  “There’s no one in here.” He walked to the door and peered inside the room.

  She followed him and saw the evidence. No one lurked in the cage or the rest of the room. There wasn’t an additional exit the monster could have slipped through.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “There was a guy here in that cage.”

  He looked at her, once more holding her shoulders. “What happened?”

  Now that Roarke was here, even dressed as a hideous zombie, she felt almost in control. She described the experience, feeling as dumb as a post. As they stood on the threshold, two people came through the black curtains.

  Roarke waved them down. “Come on down. Start in the middle.”

  The two elderly women, who appeared as if they might be ready for a coffin themselves, smiled at Roarke and Melissa as they passed by. Roarke returned their amused look, but as soon as they headed into a room, he pivoted back to Melissa. His gaze held a serious light. Roarke would think she’d lost her mind. She wondered if she had.

  “I didn’t imagine that,” she said. She hated the words as soon as they came out of her mouth. She’d seen someone—a ghost perhaps. In any case, she didn’t imagine paranormal activity. This man wouldn’t believe her, though.

  For a second his face reflected affirmation. “This place is set up to be scary.”

  She wanted him to believe her, as fruity as her assertion sounded. She slipped away enough to remove his touch. “Is there another exit from that room I don’t know about?”

  He shook his head. “Not to my knowledge. And I helped set up these rooms. You said you’d never been to one of these attractions, right?”

  More screams echoed down the hallways. She was uncomfortable but no longer scared. Simply mad at herself for getting so worked up over a haunted house attraction. “No, I’ve never been to one.”

  “There you go. It’s a haunted house and it did its job and scared the crap out of you. Just what it’s supposed to do.”

  “You’re trying to make me feel better.”

  He grinned, the most gorgeous zombie she’d ever seen. He started to smile more when he was around her and she liked it. “Hell, even I get freaked by this place a little bit.”

  Surprise filled her. “A big, bad Marine?”

  “Yep.”

  “You’re lying. Nothing scares you. I can tell.”

  He placed his hands on his hips. “You have no idea, Melissa.”

  Now that her panic had disappeared, she noted his chest again. Primal attraction awakened. The untucked Oxford shirt was open halfway down and showed hard pectoral muscles sprinkled with dark hair. Only one word properly described a chest like that. Yum. The sight of gorgeous male flesh made her feel better, even if she knew she’d seen something otherworldly. A smile eased to her lips, although one part of her brain refused to be satisfied with his explanation for why she’d seen someone or something jumping out of that cage.

  “I saw something, Roarke. I didn’t imagine it.”

  He shook his head and smiled again. “Maybe one of the volunteers knows of a way to slip in and out of this room that I don’t know about. Come on.” He put his arm around her shoulder. “I’ll take you through our scariest attraction of all.”

  “I haven’t seen the rest of this one.”

  “I know. I thought you’d like to see where I work. If this part of the attraction is scaring you, I’d better take you through this one myself.”

  She settled under his arm, liking how strong he was and the security it gave her. Disconcerted by what she’d experienced, and her continued strong physical reaction to him, she allowed him to lead her back into the rotunda.

  When Linda saw her with Roarke, she said, “Well, you know our Roarke. Isn’t he the greatest zombie?”

  “Yes.” What else could Melissa say? “Even with the teeth.”

  He laughed. “I’m taking her down to the dungeon.”

  “Already?” Linda asked.

  “Yeah, I want to show her where I live.” His ironic tone of voice made Melissa smile as he led her toward the back of the building. After they left the rotunda, he said, “If you want to see the rest of the haunted house after this, I’ll take you through.”

  His protectiveness had the opposite effect he probably intended. “I’m not a wimp. I can handle this.”

  “Of course.” The skepticism in his voice rankled, but she didn’t reply, and before long he brought her to an open door with a big sign above it with blood-red lettering.

  “Dungeon of doom?” she asked.

  “Blame Jana Peterson. She thought it was a good name.”

  “Humph. Is she here? Playing Queen of the Zombies?”

  He laughed and removed his arm from around Melissa. “Guess she just orders people around. She doesn’t actually attend events like this.”

  “I can’t stand that woman.” She glanced at him, and although his expression was amused, a wary look covered his face. “Sorry. I’m not usually so catty.” She drew in a deep breath and started toward the dungeon doorway. “Okay, let’s get this show on the road.”

  Melissa headed down the stairs first, determined to show she hadn’t turned into a chicken shit. She needed to prove to it to herself more than she needed to prove it to him. The fact she wanted to prove it to him irked her, too. She wasn’t used to caring that much what men thought of her. She’d made certain of that a long time ago.

  The stairs creaked as she descended. She chuckled. “This all you’ve got, O’Bannion? Creaky stairs.”

  “Nope. Keep going.”

  When she reached the bottom of the steps, she realized that Roarke had stopped part of the way down. She glanced around at him. Discomfort filled his face, as if he’d seen a ghost himself. “Roarke?”

  He broke from whatever disturbance had stopped him and came down the last few steps. Lights along the corridor barely illuminated, which gave a spooky ambiance to the place. Several voices murmured at the end of the corridor, as if other patrons had gathered at the end of the room. She stepped forward and took in the cell doors on either side of the hallway. She heard rustling. Probably more monsters ready to pop out at hapless patrons. An ickiness touched this area—a deeper, more ugly heaviness than anything upstairs. Maybe he could feel it and didn’t understand what it was.

  “Evil!” A teenaged girl’s voice said from the end of the corridor. “The devil is here in Tranquil View and has contaminated Simple!”

  “What the—” Roarke’s voice started.

  Ghouls and other ghastly creatures exited the cells next to Melissa, their horrible appearance unsurprising. Instead of jumping out at her, their eyes expressed surprise as they peered down the dim hallway. A greenish glow came on from that end.

  “What is it?” A woman with an ax in her head asked as she stood next to Melissa. She wore a tight, red-stained nurse’s uniform and a bra that pushed her boobs upward. Six creatures, not including Roarke, stood around Melissa. Granted their supernatural selves existed only because of makeup, but Roarke was the one thing that made her feel safe. He still stood behind her, and his heat and presence gave her stability.

  “What a crock,” a teenage boy’s voice came out of the crowd at the end of the hall. “Jilly, quit freakin’ us out.”

  “There’s an evil presence down here. We have to get out before it infects us.” The girl’s voice came again, this time filled with extr
aordinary fear. “The whole building is infected.”

  “It’s just a green light,” a woman’s voice added to the mix. “It isn’t really haunted in here.”

  Lights flickered and went out, plunging the entire basement into pitch black.

  Chapter 6

  Melissa gasped in surprise. Two of the creatures near her made similar noises, but women at the end of the hallway screamed.

  “Melissa,” Roarke’s voice came from behind her and his hand clasped her shoulders. “Easy.”

  Glad for his support, she waited while the screaming died down.

  “Just a prank,” another male voice said, this one from a zombie somewhere to her right.

  “No,” the girl named Jilly cried out. “It’s the demon.”

  “Everyone take it easy.” Roarke’s strong voice came from the darkness. “It’s a power outage. Don’t panic.” A flashlight came on. Roarke stepped around everyone as he panned the flashlight around to see what was happening at the end of the hallway.

  Before anyone else could respond, a rush of footsteps started at the end of the hallway, and a teen girl broke through a small crowd of people. Chaos erupted as people did exactly what Roarke had asked them not to.

  “Jilly!” Someone called out to the teen, but the girl didn’t pay any attention as she rushed by Melissa and Roarke.

  As the ghouls around her chattered, Roarke ran up the stairs after the girl and Melissa followed. The frightened teen girl dashed by Linda in the rotunda. Jilly ran outside like the devil nipped at her heels. The girl started down the driveway between the two parking lots. Melissa spotted the van that had dropped off the three rude teenaged girls. The leering face peered out of the windshield.