by Mark Lukens
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
CHAPTER FIFTY
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
CHAPTER SIXTY
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT
EPILOGUE
AUTHOR’S NOTE:
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
DEVIL’S ISLAND
BY
MARK LUKENS
Devil’s Island—copyright © 2013—Mark Lukens
All Rights Reserved
No part of this book may be reprinted without written permission from the author.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (or in any other form), business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
As always, I dedicate this book to my wife, son, and my family. Your support is invaluable to me!
Other Books by the Author:
ANCIENT ENEMY – www.amazon.com/dp/B00FD4SP8M
DESCENDANTS OF MAGIC – www.amazon.com/dp/B00FWYYYYC
THE SUMMONING – www.amazon.com/dp/B00HNEOHKU
NIGHT TERRORS – www.amazon.com/dp/B00M66IU3U
GHOST TOWN: A NOVELLA – www.amazon.com/dp/B00LEZRF7G
SIGHTINGS – www.amazon.com/dp/B00VAI31KW
THE EXORCIST’S APPRENTICE – www.amazon.com/dp/B00YYF1E5C
WHAT LIES BELOW – www.amazon.com/dp/B0143LADEY
A DARK COLLECTION: 12 SCARY STORIES – www.amazon.com/dp/B00JENAGLC
THE DARWIN EFFECT – www.amazon.com/dp/B01G4A8ZYC
DARKWIND: ANCIENT ENEMY 2 – www.amazon.com/dp/B01K42JBGW
PROLOGUE
Caribbean Sea—Devil’s Island
“Why did the last work crew leave?” Curtis asked John as he caught up to him.
John didn’t answer for a moment as he hacked his way through the overgrown jungle trail that led up to the Thornhill Manor. Curtis backed up a few feet away from John, away from the swing of his blade.
“Why would they just leave like that?” Curtis asked again.
“There were some accidents,” John answered as he cut at the brush in their way.
“What kind of accidents?” Curtis asked.
“You’ll see.”
Curtis fell back a few more steps. He could tell that John wasn’t going to say any more on the subject, and he wasn’t going to press him. Curtis carried a duffel bag with supplies inside that they would need for their seven hour stay on Devil’s Island: metal clipboards, paper, pens, digital cameras, various handheld tools, flashlights, energy bars, a first-aid kit, and three battery-powered walkie-talkies. Rob carried a cooler full of bottles of water and Gatorade.
They had made the twelve mile journey to the island by boat, and Curtis was still feeling a little queasy from the bunny-hopping jaunt across the Caribbean waves. They had tied the boat next to a rickety pier that ran a hundred feet out into the water, and then they began their trek up this trail that wound its way to the top of the hill where the Thornhill Manor waited for them. The Manor was abandoned, empty now for nearly seventy years. But the locals that Curtis had spoken to before getting on the boat told him that just because people didn’t live on this island didn’t mean that it was uninhabited; they told him that there was something on this island, something very bad. Curtis had passed the stories off as locals trying to scare an outsider and figured they were all having a good laugh about it right now. But now that he was here on the island, their warnings seemed somehow plausible. There was a feeling of dread here, like a pressure on his chest. Of course the relentless humidity and the altitude of the hill they were climbing might also have something to do with the pressure on his chest.
The day was already hot, the muggy air stifling—Curtis felt like he was trying to breathe through a wet towel. The world around them was silent except for the sea breeze rustling through the leaves and a few seagulls screeching from somewhere up in the endless blue sky above the canopy of the trees. Curtis lifted his hardhat up and wiped at the sweat on his forehead.
“You doing okay?” Rob asked Curtis.
Curtis nodded even though he still felt sick to his stomach. They were only going to stay on Devil’s Island long enough to document things and see where Templeton Enterprises stood with this renovation project at the moment—a seven hour stay at the most. Two work crews had come to renovate the Thornhill Manor over the last few months and both of those crews had abandoned the project abruptly without getting much work done. He couldn’t wait for this little trip to be over with. He wasn’t happy that Mr. Templeton had pulled him away from a project in Atlanta, but when Mr. Templeton personally requested you, well, then you packed your bags or you could start looking for a new employer.
But talk about shit jobs—this was definitely one of them.
Rob walked beside Curtis with that ever-present smile plastered on his face.
At least somebody is having a good time here, Curtis thought.
Rob was in his late twenties, a lean and fit man; this little hike through the jungle up the side of a mountain was not a problem for him. He was a personal friend of Mr. Templeton’s son and he had actually volunteered for this trip, probably thinking it was some kind of adventure.
Curtis watched John in front of him. John hacked at the brush that had already started growing back over the trail that the previous construction crews had carved out of this jungle. John was fifty-five years old, but his body was hardened and somehow preserved by decades of construction work. He had blue eyes the color of the Caribbean Sea that this island sat in the middle of and those eyes were set deep in his tanned and wrinkled face. His
steel-gray hair was buzzed military short and he could practically crush a man’s bones with a handshake. He wore a thick black vest with multiple pockets over his T-shirt despite the heat and he wore a white hardhat with the word BOSS stenciled on the back of it in big black letters. He seemed more than fit enough for this hike. He seemed able to do anything he wanted.
Curtis felt out-of-place here as he struggled to keep up with these two men, struggling to catch his breath with each step higher up the mountain.
• • • • •
Twenty minutes later they emerged from the stifling jungle and saw the Thornhill Manor. It was ancient and massive, three stories of cracked stucco walls that were crisscrossed with vines. Shutters barely hung on next to broken and cracked windows. The windows were so dark they looked like they had been painted black. On the second and third floors there were a few questionable balconies with iron railings around them.
The whole building, and the weedy lawn all around it, was surrounded by a seven foot tall iron fence with spikes on top—the fence looked like something out of an old-fashioned horror movie.
John led Rob and Curtis up the wider trail through the brush to the gates in the fence that were decorated with fancy scrolled ironwork. He pushed one of the gate doors open and it screeched out a protest into the thick air.
They walked down a pathway of paver stones that were nearly invisible under the overgrown weeds and grasses. In the middle of the stone walkway, halfway to the entrance of the Thornhill Manor, was a cracked and tilted stone fountain that was now brownish-green with mildew stains; it looked like it had once been the centerpiece of this walkway. The tiers of the fountain were filled with black water. As they walked past the fountain, Curtis swore he saw slimy things squirming around in the black muck.
An elaborate front porch ran the length of the front of the manor, the roof supported by massive Doric columns that were white a long time ago but now were greenish-gray with mold and mildew. The structure looked like the front of a decayed southern plantation home—like it had been ripped right out from under the cottonwoods and oaks of a sprawling lawn in Mississippi and then dropped down here in the middle of a jungle.
John stopped at the steps that led up to the wide front porch and he stared at the giant double doors; most of the red paint on the doors had peeled away a long time ago. He pulled out a pouch of tobacco from one of the pockets of his vest and stuffed a plug into his mouth. His eyes were on the front doors the whole time as he chewed his tobacco for a moment, almost like he was really thinking about this, like some gut instinct was nagging at him to reconsider entering the manor now that he stood so close to the mouth of it.
Curtis hoped John might be reconsidering this whole thing. “Is this place safe?” he asked.
John glanced back at Curtis and Rob who stood shoulder to shoulder a few steps behind him. He spit a stream of brown tobacco juice down onto a bunch of weeds as high as his knees and the brownish saliva hung in strands on the leaves. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and turned back to the steps. “Let’s see what we got inside,” John said over his shoulder as he climbed the steps, his worn-out work boots thudding on the wood floorboards.
Curtis and Rob glanced at each other. Rob smiled, shrugged, and fell in step behind John.
John pushed through the double doors of the Thornhill Manor. Both doors were molded from solid wood and decorated with intricate scrolls and designs. All of the finishes were overdone in Curtis’ opinion.
They entered a gigantic gloomy foyer. The ceiling, twenty-five feet above them, was decorated with ornate crown molding. This massive foyer was obviously the area where the workers had kept a lot of their materials. A stack of drywall was leaned against one wall. Piles of raw lumber were stacked against another wall. There were lines of PVC pipe, rolls of electrical wire, and a wood pallet that held bags of mortar and stucco.
In a corner there was a collection of various construction tools hastily piled together: saws and other power tools, jackhammers, tool belts, shovels, picks, hand tools, and hardhats. Power cords still lay snaked out across the hardwood floors. It was almost like the workers had abandoned their tools and ran for their lives from this place.
“Why did they leave all of their stuff behind?” Curtis asked.
He didn’t get an answer from John.
“I understand if they wanted to leave,” Curtis continued. “But who would leave all of their tools here?”
“They took some of the equipment with them,” John said. “The generators, the cement mixer, the welding machines …”
“But not everything,” Curtis said. “Look at all of this stuff.”
Rob set his cooler down near the open front doors and took out a bottle of water. He opened it and drank half of it down. The heat and humidity seemed to shimmer in the air just beyond the doorway, but inside the Thornhill Manor the air seemed drier and cooler. It was just … different. After Rob screwed the cap back on his water, he walked over to an easel that held a poster board with an illustration on it of what the Thornhill Manor would look like after renovations were done: The Oceanview Resort.
The foyer, which could’ve fit a small house inside of it, had archways leading off to different rooms. One archway straight ahead of them at the far end of the room led to another cavernous and murky room. Another archway to their right led to a different room.
Something on the floor caught Curtis’ eye—a small dark stain. And then another small dark stain. Lots of them. There were some larger stains among the little drops everywhere.
“Is that blood?” Curtis asked.
John stepped up beside Curtis and stared down at the dark spots on the wood floor. He spit out a stream of tobacco juice, adding his own dark stains. He wiped at his mouth and the gray stubble on his jaw.
“What the hell happened here?” Curtis asked.
“Come on,” John said, ignoring Curtis’ question. “We got work to do.”
John opened up the duffel bag that Curtis had dropped down on the floor. He handed each of them a metal clipboard, a flashlight, and a digital camera.
“There’s a map of this place inside the clipboards,” John told them.
Curtis opened up a metal clipboard and saw the computer printout of a map on top of a stack of papers inside. The map consisted of four pages stapled together, one page for each floor of the Thornhill Manor; the bottom page was the basement beneath them.
“We’ll start upstairs,” John told them and then led them into the next room to the right; it was a massive room called “The Ballroom” according to the diagram of the manor that Curtis peeked at inside his clipboard.
The ballroom seemed to go on forever. A row of tall windows looked out onto the front porch, but many of them were boarded up with sheets of plywood. To the left, in the distance, was a twin set of wide stairs that rose up into the air and met each other at the second floor balcony. Each end of the balcony led to a hall that disappeared into the gloom of the second floor.
They climbed the closest set of stairs to the second floor. The wood creaked under their work boots, but the steps felt solid enough.
At the top of the stairs, they stood next to the railing of the balcony and looked down at the vast ballroom below them. Curtis could almost see nineteenth century people twirling around on the parquet floors, women in elaborate dresses and long white gloves, men in dark suits and slicked-back hair.
They followed John down the hall to the left and John stopped in front of a closed door on the right-hand side of the hall. The door had a number on it: 204. There were more doors to more rooms farther down the hall, disappearing into the darkness. All of the doors were closed.
“You two start here,” John told them. “Write down the room number and description on the paper with your name and the date on top. Use the cameras to take a few pictures of each room and take notes. You guys start with these rooms down this hall, and I’ll start with those rooms down that hall over there.” He pointed at the hall
that began at the other side of the balcony. “Each of us to a room. That way we’ll get this done a lot faster.”
Curtis was all for getting this job done faster. This place gave him the creeps, and the stories he’d heard in the bar last night from the locals back on the main island sure weren’t helping. He couldn’t help feeling that John and Rob were as nervous as he was about being here no matter how much they tried to pretend they weren’t.
“Document everything,” John told them. “Note any work that’s already been started, and note any work that still needs to be done. If a room needs to be gutted, note that. Mr. Templeton wants an accurate record of where we stand with this renovation.”
Rob and Curtis nodded.
“Okay,” John said and handed them each a walkie-talkie. “No chit chat on these, use them only if you need to.”
They nodded.
“Let’s get to work. And we’re all going to be careful here. No accidents.”
Just then a tremor shook the whole manor for a few seconds. Wood creaked and moaned, making loud shifting and popping noises behind the walls, ceilings, and floors.
“What the hell’s that?” Curtis asked as he looked up at the ceiling, expecting to see cracks opening up along the plaster. He stood with his legs apart and bent at the knees like he was ready for the floor to collapse at any moment. “You sure this place is safe?”
John ignored Curtis’ concern. “The sooner we get started, the sooner we go back home,” John said and then walked away with his clipboard tucked under one arm, his flashlight, walkie-talkie, and digital camera tucked into the pockets of his black vest.
Curtis and Rob walked down the hall a little ways and stopped in front of the next two closed doors across the hall from each other. On the right side was Room 214 and right across from it was Room 213.
Rob nudged Curtis and whispered at him, mimicking John. “If there’s bubble gum on the wall, note that.”
Curtis couldn’t help barking out a nervous laugh, but then he glanced down the hall to make sure John was well out of earshot.
“Relax,” Rob said with his constant smile, and then he clapped Curtis on the shoulder. “We’ll be done with this before you know it.”
