by Mark Lukens
Curtis nodded. Rob was right. He just needed to relax and focus on his job. He opened the door to Room 214 and entered the nearly-bare room. There were a few scraps of wood next to one wall but there was nothing else in the room except loose plaster all over the floor.
He looked up at the peeling ceiling and then at the stained walls. There was no closet in this room and there was only the one window that looked out onto a solid green wall of leaves from the trees.
His boots thumped on the floor as he took a few more steps to the center of the room. There was another slight groaning sound from somewhere deep inside the walls as the structure continued to settle. It wasn’t as loud as before, but it was still worrisome. This building was a hundred and fifty years old and it had been sitting vacant in the heat and humidity of this island most of those years. Curtis could imagine termites and dry rot weakening the lumber over the years, but the inspections had come back okay—he had read the reports himself before coming to the island.
Something was wrong with this place—Curtis was sure of that now. He felt funny here, but he couldn’t exactly describe the feeling. He felt jittery, nervous … like he was on the verge of panic, like all of his nerve-endings were screaming at him to run.
He surveyed the room quickly. The walls definitely needed re-plastering and the wood floors needed to be sanded and stained. The only major damage in the room was a large hole in the wall, near the far corner and right down at the floor. The hole was about two and a half to three feet in diameter, Curtis guessed. It would’ve almost looked like a gigantic mouse hole from a cartoon except for the cracked plaster and broken wood lathe around the edge of it that looked like jagged teeth.
There was something odd about that hole in the wall.
Curtis ventured closer for a better look, and when he got close enough he saw that there wasn’t any structural wood beyond the lathe and plaster that he could see. No bottom plates or wood studs. Had all of the wood behind the plaster rotted away?
He got right up next to the hole and squatted down in front of it. He pulled out his small flashlight, turned it on, and shined it into the darkness.
And then the flashlight slipped out of his fingers as the strength drained out of his body.
Oh God no …. There was something coming …
Curtis screamed.
The door to Room 214 slammed shut.
• • • • •
In Room 213, Rob jotted down notes on the paper attached to his clipboard.
“Loose plaster,” he said to himself as he wrote the words down. “Noted.”
He heard Curtis’ screams from across the hall.
“Oh God, help meeee!!!”
Rob dropped his clipboard and ran out into the hall. The door to Room 214 was closed.
“Hold on, Curtis!” Rob screamed as he jiggled the door handle—but the door wouldn’t budge, it was like it was welded shut.
Rob beat on the door. “Curtis! Answer me!!”
All he heard from behind the door was a crashing sound like something (or somebody) was being thrown around the room. And then he heard more of Curtis’ screams, no words this time—only screams.
Rob grabbed the walkie-talkie from his belt with a trembling hand, nearly dropping it. He pressed the button on the side and yelled into it. “John! You need to come quick! Something happened to Curtis!”
A hiss of static blared from the walkie-talkie, and then John’s voice: “Shit. I’m coming.”
• • • • •
John ran down the hall; he was fast for a man his age. He was afraid something like this was going to happen, especially with someone as nervous and clumsy as Curtis. Images ran through his mind of Curtis falling through a rotted section of the floor.
As he ran past the stairs that led down to the ballroom, he swore he saw some kind of movement down there out of the corner of his eye, something in the shadows, something very large but quick for its size.
But he didn’t stop, and he didn’t look down there—he needed to help Curtis.
He got to Room 214. Rob was still pounding on the door and jiggling the door handle.
“What happened?” John asked, not even out-of-breath from his run.
“I don’t know,” Rob answered. “I was in the room across the hall and heard Curtis screaming. I came across the hall, but I can’t get the door open. Curtis won’t answer me, and I don’t hear anything in there anymore.”
John pushed Rob out of the way and tried the door handle. He twisted it, putting all of his gorilla-grip strength into it, but the handle wouldn’t turn—it was like it was frozen solid.
John gave up twisting the door handle. He pounded on the door. “Curtis! Are you hurt?”
No answer from inside the room. The whole house was eerily quiet.
“He was screaming,” Rob blubbered. “He was screaming for help, and then I heard something crashing around in there.”
John backed up a few steps and looked at Rob. “I’m going to kick the door in.”
Rob moved out of the way.
John slammed his size twelve work boot into the door and he heard the satisfactory sound of the wood splintering, but the door still hadn’t broken free. He was about to kick again, but then the door opened slowly, the hinges creaking.
Curtis was curled up on the floor just inside the room, his face a roadmap of deep scratches. He scrambled up to his hands and knees. His eyes were so wide and insane, and it was like he wasn’t even seeing them … he just wanted to get out.
John grabbed Curtis by his armpits and pulled him all the way out into the hall like he weighed as much as a child.
“What the hell happened in there?” Rob screamed at Curtis.
No answer from Curtis.
Rob took a few steps towards the open door, about to enter the room. But then he stopped cold as he stared at what waited inside the room.
John looked past Rob into the room; he saw the same thing Rob was staring at. It couldn’t be real. Nothing like that could be possible.
The door to Room 214 slammed shut.
“We gotta go!” John screamed at Rob. “Help me with Curtis.”
Rob finally moved into action. He helped Curtis up from the hallway floor, grabbing one of his arms, getting him on his feet. Curtis was mumbling the whole time about something being inside the walls. The blood from the lacerations on his face was mixed in with his sweat, all of it dribbling down and staining the front of his shirt. His fingers were ruined, bent and cut, smeared with blood like he had been fighting that thing inside that room.
Something slammed into the hallway wall from the inside, pushing the plaster out. There was a small hole there now with cracks radiating out from it—and a glob of dark blood oozed out of the hole, dripping down the wall.
“Let’s go!!” John yelled.
Rob and John each grabbed a side of Curtis and ushered him down the hall. He was trying to walk on unsteady legs, but they wanted him to move faster and they were dragging his feet across the floor.
As they ran down the hall, something pounded on the walls from the inside, pushing the plaster out, following them down the hall, keeping up with them as they ran.
They got to the stairs and shuffled down the steps as quickly as they could while still holding on to Curtis. They nearly tumbled once, but they kept their balance at the last moment.
They got down to the first floor and then ran across the ballroom, their work boots thundering on the parquet floorboards, their hardhats and clipboards long forgotten now, left upstairs.
Once again, John thought he saw quick flashes of movement in the shadows out of the corner of his eye, but he wouldn’t let himself look, he wouldn’t let whatever was moving around in the darkness distract him from his one and only mission right now—escaping this place. And he really didn’t want to see what was lurking in those shadows after what he had seen in that room up there. He wasn’t sure if his mind could handle anything else right now.
When they ran thr
ough the archway into the foyer, the front doors slammed shut.
John didn’t waste a second, he let Curtis go and bent down in one smooth movement and picked up a two-by-four wood stud. After four long strides towards the tall window to the left of the doors, the twin of the window on the other side, he threw the piece of lumber like a spear and smashed the glass of the window. He didn’t even slow down, he dove right through the jagged hole in the glass and landed on the wooden floorboards of the wide front porch in a shoulder roll like a stuntman in the movies, and then he popped back up to his feet. He turned back to the window, waiting for Rob and Curtis.
But they hadn’t followed him through the window.
• • • • •
Rob had stopped because Curtis had stopped walking. Curtis had turned around, watching the archway to the ballroom.
Rob could hear something rushing down the stairs in the ballroom, making loud crashing noises. It was moving fast and it was big.
“Curtis, come on! We gotta go!”
Curtis was frozen with fear.
Rob grabbed Curtis and pulled him towards the busted-out window. Rob couldn’t face what he had seen up there again, he was afraid his mind might snap like Curtis’ had. He was afraid if he saw that thing again his mind might never come back, he might never move again.
“It wants us,” Curtis whispered to Rob. “It wants us to stay here.”
Rob dragged Curtis through the foyer towards the window. Curtis seemed to snap out of his delirium and moved on his own as Rob held on to him.
“Come on!” Rob yelled at him. “We need to get out the window!”
Rob pushed Curtis forward and he tumbled out of the window like a ragdoll, catching his pants leg on a jagged piece of glass, shredding the cloth of his pants and tearing at his skin. But he rolled out of the way on the floorboards.
Rob was about to jump through the shattered window, but he heard something stomping through the house. It sounded so loud, it sounded so close. He was sure he was about to feel something grab him from behind and drag him back into the darkness of the manor.
No, don’t let it get me! Rob’s mind screamed as he launched himself through the broken window, missing the sharp teeth of glass sticking up at the edges. He landed on the floorboards and felt a painful snap in his right shoulder, a bone popping out of place. He screamed as he writhed on the floorboards, holding his arm that had gone instantly weak. It tingled with pain all the way down to his fingertips.
John didn’t care. He yanked Rob up by his injured arm in one quick movement that popped Rob’s shoulder back into place.
“The gates are closing!” John yelled at Rob.
Rob could already hear the squeal of the heavy iron gates as they swung slowly shut in the stifling hot air. He helped Curtis to his feet and they shuffled down the porch steps, and then ran across the weed-covered stone path. They passed the leaning fountain with its black murky water where something swam and splashed around inside—they looked like little oily eel-like creatures.
The gates were almost closed, but John ducked through and held one of the gates open for as long as he could so Curtis could slip through. Then Rob tried to squeeze through.
Rob’s mind screamed with panic as he struggled to squirm his way through the closing gates—he couldn’t have escaped that house just to be stuck here at the gates. He pushed his body through with one final shove, afraid for a moment he was going to be crushed between the iron gates … but then he was free.
Curtis was staring at something in the knee-high weeds and grass only a few feet away. And then Rob saw it too—something was moving around underneath the grass, disrupting the dark and wet soil, trying to claw its way out.
Oh God … no …
John grabbed his machete from the trunk of a small tree where he had left it and ran for the trail that led back down the mountain to the dock. Rob helped Curtis up and they followed John into the brush.
The vines and branches slapped at their arms and faces as they ran—it was almost like the vines and branches were alive, trying to coil around their arms and legs, trying to hold them, trying to keep them here on this island. John struck at the vines with his machete, hacking off lengths of vines and branches as the juices spit out at them with a sickly-sweet smell. In the deeper brush of the jungle Rob heard something crashing through the foliage, keeping pace with them as they ran.
After twenty minutes of running down the mountain trail, they made it to the rickety boat dock that stuck out from the tropical plant life into the sea. Curtis ran down the floorboards of the pier and collapsed into the boat, lying down in a fetal position, crying.
“The line!” John yelled as he jumped down into the boat behind the wheel, already pulling the keys out of his pocket.
Rob untied the rope that was wrapped around a cleat and then he hopped down onto a vinyl bench seat as John pulled the bumpers in and then jammed the key into the ignition and twisted it. The boat’s powerful motor roared to life. John slammed the shifter forward and the boat took a sharp turn, almost colliding with the jungle coastline. But he got the boat under control in time and turned them back out towards the sea. They raced away from Devil’s Island, their boat bouncing on top of the cresting waves that rolled endlessly towards the island’s coast.
Rob glanced down at Curtis who was curled up on the floor of the boat, the cuts and scratches on his face dripping blood, his eyes wet with tears. And then he looked back at Devil’s Island as they sped away—he could see the top of the tiled roof of the Thornhill Manor above the trees at the top of the hill … just a splash of orange among the sea of green.
CHAPTER ONE
New York City—Mr. Templeton’s office
Mr. Templeton stood at one of the plate-glass windows that looked down on New York City thirty stories below. An ominous ceiling of iron-gray clouds hung over the city. He held his cordless phone up to his ear. He did not like what he was hearing.
“Okay,” Mr. Templeton said and pressed a button on the phone to disconnect the call. He felt like throwing the phone across his five thousand square foot office. But he didn’t. He didn’t lose his temper. He never allowed himself to do that.
Mr. Templeton was a tall and slender man, bordering on painfully thin. He had a full head of silver hair. He was a strong man, a controlled and disciplined man, and he would see this problem through somehow. He would find a solution. He always did.
Matthew Spivey entered Mr. Templeton’s office through the oversized double doors. He didn’t make a sound as he closed the doors. Spivey was the physical opposite of Templeton—short, pale, soft and pudgy, almost completely bald.
Mr. Templeton walked back to his massive and immaculate desk; it was a century old behemoth rescued from a London office before a demolition. He set his cordless phone back in the cradle, a deliberately gentle movement, a willful defiance to the fury that raged inside of him.
“Only one major injury, the other two had some minor cuts and bruises,” Mr. Templeton said to Spivey, repeating what he’d been told on the phone.
“I’ve got their statements right here,” Spivey said. He opened a file in his hands, pretending to scan it, but he had already committed the entire report to memory in case his boss wanted to hear the details. “Their accounts are … a little far-fetched.”
Mr. Templeton stared at Spivey. “I sent John Langston down there … he’s the furthest thing from far-fetched.”
“Yes, sir,” Spivey answered and swallowed hard. “I’ve already begun working with the two of them about the story of the accident that Curtis Sheffler suffered, making sure we’re all on the same page. Insurance payments are already being set up for Mr. Sheffler’s family and I’ve found a replacement for him on the Atlanta project.”
Mr. Templeton nodded. That was all good. Spivey was good—that’s why he was paid so well.
“Where do we proceed from here?” Spivey asked after a long silence. He held the file in front of him, clutched in both hands. He st
ood like a sentry waiting for his orders.
Just then Mr. Templeton’s secretary’s voice blared from the intercom on his desk. “Mr. Templeton, there’s someone here to see you.”
He jabbed the button on the intercom. “I thought I told you no appointments.”
“Yes, Mr. Templeton. He doesn’t have an appointment.”
“Then why are we having this conversation?”
“Uh … it’s Nick Gorman.”
Mr. Templeton didn’t answer. He was about to tell his secretary to send Mr. Gorman in, but the heavy double doors of his office swished open silently and Nick Gorman entered the office, leaving the doors wide open behind him.
The secretary appeared in the doorway. She gave Mr. Templeton an apologetic look. He nodded at her, letting her know that it was okay. Her face flooded with relief as she pulled the doors closed.
Fifty-seven year old Nick Gorman walked across the vast space towards Mr. Templeton with the energy and boldness that he was known for. He was fit for a man his age. His mane of dyed brown hair was combed back with gel and he was clean-shaven. He wore a suit coat over a crisp white shirt, but no tie. His coat was unbuttoned, the top three buttons of his shirt undone revealing hairless bronzed skin from too many trips to the tanning bed.
Mr. Templeton stepped out from behind his desk and extended a hand in greeting.
Nick grasped Mr. Templeton’s hand and gave it a firm shake. “I’m Nick Gorman.”
“Yes, I know who you are, Mr. Gorman.” Mr. Templeton had heard of Nick Gorman—who hadn’t? He was one of the most famous film producers and investors in Hollywood, practically a living legend. He’d started out as a director over thirty years ago, and after a string of early box-office hits, he got into producing. He started his own micro studio, teaming up with two other heavyweight producers, but he eventually bought them both out. It seemed like everything Nick Gorman touched turned to gold, until a few recent box-office bombs crashed his highflying studio back down to reality. But Mr. Gorman wasn’t hurting at all. Maybe he didn’t have quite as many billions as Mr. Templeton did, but he wasn’t too far away from cracking the Forbes list.
