Devil's Island

by Mark Lukens

  Shane stood at the bottom of the steps and shined his light back up at the doorway at the top of the basement steps. He felt exposed down here, all alone in the basement and the hairs on the back of his neck bristled. He had the strange feeling that something

  (Old Lady Cranston)

  was creeping up behind him in the darkness and he was sure that he would feel the gentle stroke of an ice cold finger on the nape of his neck any second now. He fought the urge to turn around and shine his flashlight at whatever was stalking him.

  Warren stood in the doorway at the top of the basement steps, the next one ready to come down.

  “Okay,” Shane told him, trying to keep the tremors out of his voice. “Come on down. Remember, one at a time until we’re sure these stairs are stable enough.”

  They all took turns coming down the steps, but the steps seemed very strong for the age of the manor.

  “It’s so cold down here,” Kristen said as soon as they had gathered in a group near the bottom of the steps. “It’s the middle of summer outside but it’s so cold in here.”

  Nick walked over to a smaller stack of boxes piled up on top of each other. He opened the top one and peeked inside. “Old books,” he said as if someone had asked him what was inside.

  “Why is all this stuff down here?” Kristen asked.

  “Maybe the workers took everything down here,” Warren answered. “You know, before they started renovating.”

  “I don’t know,” Nick said, closing the box back up like he was quickly losing interest. “It looks like this stuff has been here for a while. Let’s keep going.”

  They ventured farther into the basement, moving into the next rooms. Billy filmed the whole time. In the third room they came to a bare block wall at the far end. The bare wall seemed out of place with all of the clutter around.

  Laura broke away from the group and walked towards the bare wall. The others started to follow, but Shane motioned for them to stay back. Billy filmed Laura as she approached the bare block wall which ran to a corner where more boxes were stacked on an old table. The whole basement seemed to be mish-mash maze of rooms, many of them partitioned off by crumbling block walls. Short hallways and archways led to even more rooms and niches. Some of the ceilings in the basement were made from curved block arches the deeper they went into it, and others were exposed floor joists from the floor above where wires and pipes ran, all of them covered with thick layers of cobwebs.

  Laura stopped at the corner where the two block walls met. These seemed like they could be exterior walls, but it was difficult to tell since there were no windows down here—this area was more like a gigantic root cellar than a basement.

  “I think this area would be a good place to set the camera up,” Laura said and then turned around to look at Shane and the others.

  Billy handed his camcorder to Kristen, locking eyes with her for a moment, like he was trying to get her attention. But she looked away. He crouched down and opened the plastic case for the last static camera and tripod.

  “This basement seems bigger than it should, doesn’t it?” Shane asked as he pulled the maps out of his pocket again. He unfolded the pages and searched through them until he found the basement map. The basement map seemed like a much cruder drawing than the other levels. “This doesn’t seem right. It doesn’t even seem like we should be underneath the manor anymore. It’s like these levels aren’t lining up quite correctly.”

  Warren peered over Shane’s shoulder, shining his flashlight beam down onto the map in his hands. “I think you’re right.” He looked back the way they had come. “It has to be … I don’t know, maybe like a hundred yards back that way. This is one big basement. Bigger than the floorplan of the house, that’s for sure.”

  Harold was right there beside them, looking over Shane’s other shoulder at the map. “I agree,” he said. “Maybe this is an older area of the basement, a dugout of some kind that was added on. Or maybe it was here before the house was built.”

  Shane looked at Nick.

  Nick shrugged. “I don’t know anything about the maps.”

  He didn’t seem to know too much about this place for wanting to come down here and investigate it, Shane thought. “But you do know about the history of this place.”

  “And we will get to that soon,” Nick promised, not hiding his annoyance.

  “So you want the camera set up right here?” Billy asked Laura.

  “It doesn’t matter where we set the camera up,” Laura said. “The negative energy is coming from everywhere down here.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  An hour later all of them gathered around the portable stove and the two folding tables with the laptops on them.

  Shane got the portable two-burner stove going. It was fueled by a small canister of propane. On one burner he heated up a pot of canned stew, and on the other burner he boiled a pot of water for coffee or tea. Nick had packed individual packets of coffee, creamer, sugar (and various sugar substitutes), and three different kinds of tea. Shane fixed a strong cup of coffee for himself—he figured he was going to need the caffeine; he had a feeling it was going to be a long night.

  They set up a few of the construction lights that had been left behind by the work crews to provide more light around their small area of operations which consisted of the tiny tables with the two laptop computers on them; one chair; the portable stove with a box of food and kitchen supplies next to it; the other boxes of flashlights, salt, other equipment; and the empty camera cases. The construction lights managed to chase the shadows back a little, but beyond the sphere of light the dining hall was nearly pitch-black.

  The talk during dinner was light but strained. There were a few sarcastic remarks about the food and drink selections, especially from Nigel who seemed to be drinking a lot of his dinner from his seemingly endless flask of liquor.

  Some of the talk turned to Nick and Kristen; there were questions about the movies they were working on, famous actors and actresses they had worked with, any Hollywood secrets they were willing to reveal.

  After everyone was finished with their bowls of stew and cups of coffee and tea, Shane and Kristen volunteered for dish duty. They gathered up the dishes in a bucket and brought them down the hallway to the outside patio. The closer they got to the door that led out to the generator, the more they heard the rumbling of the generator. There was a temporary pump from a well at the edge of the patio that the construction workers had set up and used for their water supply while here, but Shane had advised against drinking from the well or brushing their teeth in it. Harold said he would test the water tomorrow, but Shane wasn’t taking any chances with it—Nick had brought along plenty of bottled water for the next two days.

  They stepped out onto the patio and even though it was nearly dark outside, the heat and humidity were still oppressive.

  “Thanks for coming out here with me,” Kristen said. “I wouldn’t have wanted to do this by myself.”

  “No problem,” Shane told her. “I just want to fill up the gas tank on the generator before we get started.”

  Kristen set her bucket of dishes down next to Shane’s bucket and she held the flashlight for him while he filled the generator’s tank while it was still running.

  “You think it will run all night?” she asked him.

  “Probably not,” Shane said as he screwed the cap back on. “Someone will have to come out here and fill it up before we go to bed. I would keep your flashlight and maybe a battery-powered lantern next to your sleeping bag tonight just in case you need it.”

  Kristen looked sick at the idea of being inside that manor in the middle of the night, trapped inside that vast and crumbling structure, trapped in that darkness. He forced a smile on his face as he looked at her. “We’ll be fine.”

  She nodded but she didn’t return his smile.

  They walked to the end of the patio where the edge of the porch roof ended. Shane flipped a switch on the solar-powered water pump a
nd it hummed to life, water streaming out of a PVC pipe. The water was shockingly cold compared to the heat of the air. Even the wind that had kicked up and blew their hair and clothes seemed like a hot breeze.

  Kristen washed the dishes in one of the buckets with some dish soap and a sponge while Shane rinsed them in the running water and set them in the other bucket.

  “You don’t want to be here,” Shane said.

  She snorted out a bark of laughter that he found oddly endearing. She smiled and rolled her eyes a little. “Is it that obvious?”

  “Why did Nick make you come along if you didn’t want to be here?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Probably trying to make me face my fears or something.”

  Shane could understand that. He had worked hard to face his fears his whole life, which was why it was so unnerving that a lifetime of work had come unraveled so easily in only a few hours in this place.

  “Why did the construction crews leave so suddenly?” Shane asked her as he put the last of the dishes into the bucket. “What did they see here?”

  Kristen was about to answer but then she jumped to her feet, staring out at the darkness. She looked like a deer in the forest that had just spotted a predator—body frozen, eyes wide, senses alert. “What was that?” She grabbed her flashlight and shined it out towards the fence in the distance that was hidden in the dark.

  Shane stood up and shined his flashlight in the same direction, adding his light with Kristen’s but the two beams of light only penetrated the blackness so far.

  “Did you hear something?” he asked her. He strained his ears, trying to listen, but he didn’t hear anything out there.

  “I thought I saw something move out there,” she whispered.

  Since they had been out here Shane’s eyes had adjusted somewhat to the darkness; he could make out the tree line of the jungle—a dark mass against the dark blue sky that was nearly cloudless. A half-moon shined down from the night sky, bathing the world in a ghostly, milky-white light and the stars glittered coldly. But below the tree line, down in the brush and tall grasses, most of the world was still indiscernibly dark.

  “Where exactly did you see it?” Shane asked her.

  “I … I don’t know. It was … I think it was out there by the fence.”

  “I should go look.”

  Shane started to walk off of the patio into the sea of weeds and grass, but Kristen grabbed him.

  “Wait,” Kristen said. “It was nothing … probably just an animal or something.”

  “Yeah, probably,” Shane said even though he hadn’t seen much evidence of animal life around this manor. Even the flying insects and sand gnats that had plagued them down at the dock were practically non-existent up here on this plateau among these mountains. He had expected to be swarmed with mosquitos while they were out here doing the dishes but he hadn’t felt one on his skin or heard their annoying buzzing in his ears. He hadn’t even seen one rat or mouse dropping inside the manor and this place should be full of rodents. But he didn’t want to point out those observations to Kristen right now.

  “I think we should get back inside,” Kristen said.

  “You don’t want to go have a look?”

  “No. It was nothing.”

  Shane was going to argue that they were here specifically to investigate any strange things they saw, but he let it go, feeling a little guilty for not admitting to seeing a vision of Old Lady Cranston at the bottom of the basement steps a few hours ago. They were all a little spooked, he thought. Maybe it was this creepy old building or the fact that they were literally stranded here on this island for two nights—something he wasn’t okay with, and something he had already voiced his disapproval of, for whatever that was worth.

  “Okay,” Shane answered. “Let’s get back inside.”

  Kristen looked relieved at that idea. They started to walk towards the door that led back inside, but then Kristen stopped. “Can you wait out here while I … I need to …”

  Shane nodded at her, understanding what she was asking. She had a roll of toilet paper with her.

  He waited while she went to the bathroom near the wall beyond the generator, and then she waited for him while he peed off the edge of the patio stones.

  They walked back to the patio door and Shane looked back at the fence somewhere out there in that darkness before going inside. It felt like something out there was watching them … more than one thing. He felt a chill creep over his skin even in this warm, humid air. There was definitely some kind of supernatural activity going on here, he was sure of that. He hadn’t felt a sensation this strong since he’d been in the Cranston House.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  “I think it’s time we learned more about the history of this place and what happened here to the construction workers,” Shane said as soon as he and Kristen got back to the base of operations. He was tired of playing games with Nick. He wanted answers, and he wanted them now.

  “Of course,” Nick said. He nodded at Kristen. “Kristen, if you would.”

  Most of them had pulled their sleeping bags up closer to the circle of lights that stood guard around their impromptu camp in the middle of the dining hall. Harold and Nigel kept their sleeping bags out towards the outer edge, closer to the wall, deeper in the darkness. Harold seemed uninterested in the story of the Thornhill Manor, content to lie down and fall asleep. Nigel sat on his sleeping bag with his back against the wall; he watched with a focused attention. It looked to Shane like he was waiting to spot a lie.

  Shane looked at Kristen who sat cross-legged on top of her sleeping bag. She arranged the few folders she’d gotten from her laptop bag neatly in front of her in the order she was going to refer to them. Her motions were quick and efficient, and she had a determined expression on her face. She seemed much more at ease now that she had a job to do. He couldn’t help watching her. He knew she was scared, he knew she didn’t want to be here, and he couldn’t help admiring her bravery. It was like she had resigned herself to make the best of the situation now that she was here.

  “The history of the Thornhill Manor,” Kristen said as she plucked a few pages of paper from the first folder. The battery-powered light beside her provided enough light for her to see the papers. She cleared her throat a little before speaking further. “This place was supposed to be a sugarcane plantation when it was first built.”

  “I don’t see much room around here for sugarcane,” Shane said.

  “That’s true,” Kristen answered. “Very little, if any, sugar was ever produced here. Many believe there were other reasons this manor was built.” She let her words sink in for a moment, and then she continued.

  “The owners and builders of this manor were Thaddeus Thornhill and his wife Constance. The Thornhills were a very wealthy English family, and their wealth and power supposedly dated all the way back to the Crusades. In 1865, when Thaddeus was thirty-eight years old, he came into possession of this island. Rumor has it that he had somehow swindled the property away from the LaRoux family who had owned it originally for over two hundred years. There are other rumors that Thaddeus and Constance Thornhill sailed here from England and pretty much squatted on the property long enough to possess it. There are other rumors that the island was abandoned by the LaRoux family and that they didn’t care if the Thornhills took possession of it. But the darkest rumor of all is that Thaddeus Thornhill tortured one of the LaRoux family members until this island was signed over to him. There’s not much history or evidence of the transaction. Like I said, most of these tales are just rumors and conjectures. But all the research seems to show that until Thaddeus and Constance Thornhill got here, this was just a jungle island with nobody living on it. It wasn’t until they took ownership of the island that this manor was built.”

  “This building is that old?” Warren asked. “A hundred and fifty years old?” He looked a little surprised and worried.

  Shane could understand his concern with the age of this buildin
g, especially with the seismic activity they’d felt since they’d been here.

  “Yes,” Kristen said. “The Thornhill Manor is about a hundred and fifty years old.”

  Billy stood up with his camera and filmed all of them as Kristen spoke. He circled their group slowly in the darkness, moving with the silence and grace of a jungle cat as he trained the camera on each person, capturing their expressions as Kristen told her tale.

  • • • • •

  Laura felt the unblinking eye of Billy’s camera on her as she watched Kristen search through her notes again before speaking further. Laura knew Kristen was terrified of this place, but her work was helping her to distance herself from her fear for a little while, a world of work to escape into.

  “The story goes,” Kristen continued, “that the Thornhills stayed on the main island for three years while they had this house built. Reports state that the house started off as a two story, modest house, but it kept growing and growing, taking over three years to build and utilizing hundreds of workers, until it became what you see here today.”

  As Kristen spoke, Laura began to see the images in her mind. She saw a flash of a nineteenth century ship on the ocean, the wooden boat rocking violently on the waves during a storm at night. Thaddeus comforted Constance below deck, assuring her that they were doing the right thing, that all of their suffering was worth what was hidden on the island they were going to.

  Then Laura saw Thaddeus Thornhill and four dark-skinned guides. The men were cutting their way through the brush on the island, creating a gash of a trail through the cloying vegetation. Thaddeus was a tall man and his clothes seemed to hide a strong and muscular body. His facial features were both pleasing and severe at the same time. He had narrow hazel eyes set deep underneath a prominent brow. His shoulder-length hair was tied back and damp with sweat.