by Mark Lukens
Stop it! she told herself, and she did her best to force that image from her mind. She was just creeped out about being here in this old house, trapped on this island until the boat captain came back. And she didn’t want to think about that, either. If she thought about being trapped on this island for too long she might have a full-blown panic attack. And if she had a panic attack, she might just take her sleeping bag down to that rickety pier and spend tonight and tomorrow night down there by the water, waiting for the sun to come up over the horizon, waiting to spot the captain’s boat on the water as he came back to rescue them.
What if he didn’t come back? her mind whispered.
Don’t think about that.
She followed Shane and the others up the winding steps to the second floor balcony that overlooked the ballroom. The lights from their cameras and flashlights made a safe little bubble of light that they traveled inside of, but the rest of the manor was hidden in darkness. Each step of the stairs creaked under their weight as they climbed higher and higher up into the manor.
Billy followed right behind Nick as he spoke over his shoulder to the camera, his eyes wide with excitement. “We’ve heard a creaking noise coming from somewhere upstairs and it sounded a lot like heavy footsteps so we’re on our way to investigate.”
They gathered on the balcony. Kristen found the nerve to look back down at the ballroom. She couldn’t see anything down there in the darkness and she chose not to shine her flashlight down at the room below. She turned and concentrated on Shane.
Shane’s attention was on Laura. “Which way?” he asked her.
Laura shook her head like she didn’t know which way to go at first, but then she began walking down the hall to their left. She walked right to Room 214, the same room they had found the metal clipboard and hardhat inside of earlier in the day, both items splattered with blood.
Kristen waited outside the room as the others went inside—she didn’t really want to go back in there again. She stared at the cracks in the hallway wall for a moment, and then she shined her flashlight beam up and down the hallway, the light disappearing into the gloom. She could imagine someone running out of that pure darkness right towards her.
She hurried inside the room.
Inside Room 214, Billy checked the static camera, looking through the lens without touching it.
Shane aimed his camcorder down at the hole at the bottom of the wall which was now just a black blob on the wall in the darkness.
“Camera looks okay,” Billy said as he stepped out from behind it. “I don’t know what could’ve caused the static on the footage.”
“I don’t hear any footsteps up here now,” Nigel said to Nick. “Your guys must’ve heard us coming.”
Nick ignored Nigel.
“Let’s keep looking around up here,” Shane said.
They all gathered in the hallway, and then they moved down the hall to the end of it where the narrow steps hugged the wall and led up to the third floor.
On the third floor, they checked each room one at a time, working their way down to the end where the hall ended with the door to the sunroom. They only stepped a few feet inside each room, long enough to pan around the mostly empty rooms with their cameras and flashlights.
“All the rooms look clear up here,” Nick said to the camera as Billy focused on him, bathing his face in the splash of light. “So far we haven’t seen anything strange up here, but we haven’t found the source of those noises we heard earlier.”
Moments later they walked to the end of the hall and entered the sunroom. They gathered together in the sunroom, not too far away from the static camera and the metal clipboard and white hardhat with the word BOSS stenciled on the back of it; those two items were right on the floor where they had left them.
“Nobody up here, either,” Nigel said sarcastically.
Billy panned his camera to Nigel.
“I think we can all admit now that the noises we thought were footsteps were only the creaking of this old house,” Nigel added. “Nothing more.”
“Maybe we should check the footage on the laptops again,” Nick said.
• • • • •
Ten minutes later most of them were gathered around the laptops in the dining hall that was now their base of operations. Billy sat in the chair in front of one of the computers, the glow from the screen shining on his face. Nigel and Harold chose to stretch out on their sleeping bags closer to the wall and away from the lights.
“Okay,” Billy said using the mousepad below the keyboard to rewind the footage. “This is about the time we heard the noises. I also uploaded the footage I shot with the handheld onto this other screen,” he gestured at the other laptop.
Shane and the others waited behind Billy, all of them staring over his shoulders at the small screens. Billy turned up the volume and they were all quiet as they listened to the slight hissing of static. He played the video feed from the upstairs cameras on the second and third floor. The hissing static got a little louder, and there was some interference on the screen. Then … thump, thump, thump.
“That’s it,” Nick said. “It sure sounds like footsteps.”
“I don’t know,” Kristen said. “I think Nigel might be right. It might be more like loud creaks or wood popping.”
“Thank you!” Nigel called out to them from the darkness.
“What about the video you shot when we were down here talking about the history of the Thornhill Manor?” Nick said to Billy. “Let’s look at that.”
Billy turned to the other laptop and rewound the footage, then started it. The camera was on Nick and Shane as they talked to each other. The shot was wide, getting almost everyone in the shot. Kristen sat in between Nick and Shane on her sleeping bag with her folders and reports spread out around her. The camera zoomed in a little on Nick as he spoke.
“The reports from Templeton cleared this building for the work crews,” Nick said on the screen.
“Yeah, you already told us that,” Shane said to Nick on the screen.
Laura looked up at the ceiling and Shane turned to her. “What is it?” he asked her on the screen.
Then they heard the creaking footstep from upstairs on the footage. The footsteps sounded a little more muffled on the laptop, but still plainly heard.
The footage on the laptop was a blur for a moment as Billy spun his camera around and aimed it up at the ceiling, the light from his camera shining on the chandelier, the pieces of glass twinkling like diamonds as they shook slightly from the vibrations.
“You hear that?” Nick asked on the screen in a whisper. “It sounds like footsteps, doesn’t it? Like someone’s walking around up there.”
“Stop the film,” Nick told Billy. “Rewind it a little.”
Billy did as Nick ordered.
“Look at that,” Nick said, pointing at the laptop screen. “Stop it right there on Laura. Look how she’s looking up at the ceiling even before we hear the sound.”
The screen was frozen on Laura’s face as she stared up at the ceiling.
Billy let the footage play in slow motion.
“Shane notices it,” Nick said and turned to look at Shane and then at Laura. “You knew something was about to happen, didn’t you?” Nick asked Laura with a smile.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
At three o’clock in the morning the Thornhill Manor was shrouded in darkness; the only light came from a few battery-powered lanterns that created little dots of light in the vast dining hall where everyone was asleep … and everyone was dreaming …
In her dream, Laura was on Devil’s Island a hundred and fifty years ago. There was no manor built on the island then; there was nothing but the trees and the jungle brush. She was with Thaddeus Thornhill as he made his way up through the jungle with the four islanders he had hired as his guides.
But Thaddeus didn’t really need these four men as guides; he needed them for something else … something particular. She knew that with certainty like you
knew things in dreams.
She followed the five men, but it was like she was behind them, yet up above them a little at the same time, kind of floating along behind them through the jungle foliage.
Thaddeus was leading the men, chopping through the overgrown brush with violent swings, stomping down on tall weeds, grasses, and shrubs. The sun beat down on them, its light filtering down through the canopy of branches above them. Thaddeus’ skin was shiny with sweat, his clothes soaked. Gnats buzzed unnoticed around his face and neck. He paused in a small clearing on the hillside with his back to Laura. His men rested for a moment. Thaddeus pulled something out of a leather pouch on his belt and studied it for a moment. Laura couldn’t see what he held in his hands … but it was important, she knew that.
She saw flashes of a tortured man back in Europe, a young man screaming for mercy, blubbering words in a mixture of English and French. The man’s head was trapped inside of some kind of iron contraption, metal bands pinching his flesh.
And then Laura was …
… back on Devil’s Island, watching Thaddeus shove what now looked like it may have been a folded map back down into the leather pouch.
Then it was like time skipped ahead in the dream, jumping to another point in time like it did in her visions sometimes. They were now in the huge clearing, the plateau up in the hills of the island with the ring of mountains surrounding it, the largest of them, the central peak of the island, looming in the distance. This place was a natural clearing where trees and large shrubs refused to grow, a vast plain of tall grasses and weeds that swayed back and forth in the hot winds.
Thaddeus and his men were gathered in a tight group, looking down at a large hole in the ground like the earth there had been cracked wide open. Laura could feel Thaddeus’ excitement … he had finally found it; after all this time, after all of the searching, he had finally found it.
And then there was another jolt forward in time: Thaddeus stabbed one of the men in the stomach with his machete, the blade sinking so easily into the man’s flesh, running right through him. The man stared back at him with both terror and surprise. The expression on Thaddeus’ face was stoic; just a man doing a job, just doing what needed to be done.
Thaddeus needed to stab this man. There was a very specific reason … and it had something to do with the hole in the ground … he was going to take the man down into that hole …
Laura jumped awake. It was still dark inside the manor, and the others were still asleep. The manor was silent except for a few snores from some of the men and the deep breathing of sleep from the others.
But the manor wasn’t silent for long; soon Laura heard the creaking and popping of the ancient wood inside the walls, floors, and ceilings—the creaks that sounded so much like footsteps from somewhere deep inside.
Her battery-powered lantern was beside the head of her sleeping bag and she turned it on, bathing a small area in light.
She could see the others better now. Kristen had her battery-powered lantern on beside her as she slept, but everyone else slept in the darkness; even the laptop screens had powered down through the night even though they were still on. At least the few battery-powered lanterns provided enough light for Laura to see everyone else in the room, yet the light wasn’t strong enough to penetrate the darkness all around them and drive the shadows back completely.
Nick slept silently on his side, just a thin mound in the gloom underneath his sheet.
Harold was snoring lightly—and he slept the farthest away from the group, lost in the darkness.
Shane and Warren were sleeping heavily, but neither one was snoring.
Then she looked at Nigel. He was in a deep and fitful sleep from all of the alcohol he’d consumed, but Laura could tell he was dreaming … he was having a nightmare about the Tall Man.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Nigel was young again in his dream … seven years old. He had woken up in his bedroom. He didn’t want to sleep alone in his bedroom because he was scared of the dark, but his father told him to stop being such a baby and go to bed; it was time to grow up now.
“There’s nothing in the dark that can hurt you,” Father told him with a scowl, his facial expression pinched in annoyance … an expression Nigel would adopt so many years later without realizing it.
Now young Nigel was awake in his dark bedroom and he was scared. All of the rational explanations his father had told him so many times didn’t mean anything now. He wanted so badly to turn on the lamp next to his bed, but he didn’t dare; he didn’t want his father to come into his bedroom with the belt.
“There’s nothing there,” Nigel whispered to himself. “He’s not there.”
Then Nigel heard the noise again, the same noise that must’ve woken him up. Footsteps down the hallway … heavy footsteps coming this way.
Maybe it’s Father, Nigel thought. Or Mother.
But he knew it wasn’t them. He knew who it was out there, the Tall Man … the same person he’d seen over the last few months standing in the hallway.
The Tall Man was out there right now in the hall, whispering rapidly … the whispers getting louder as they got more frantic.
Young Nigel sat up in his bed and stared at his bedroom door. He heard the footsteps approach, and then they stopped right outside his door.
The doorknob slowly turned and the door pushed in without a creak.
Nigel forgot all about his dad’s wrath now, he forgot all about being ridiculed for being a baby. Something terrible was trying to get inside his bedroom and he knew who it was because he’d seen this thing before … the Tall Man.
This was the closest that the Tall Man had come yet. He got a little closer and closer every time Nigel saw him, but this time he was going to be inside his room in a moment.
The bedroom door opened all the way and the Tall Man stood there, his head bent down so he could duck in through the doorway.
He was coming …
Nigel’s eyes popped open in the darkness and for a moment he thought he had screamed.
In the dream he had screamed.
He sat up and it took him a moment to realize where he was. But it slowly came back to him. He was on an island in the Caribbean … Devil’s Island it was called. He was here investigating some supposedly haunted house. More likely a hoax perpetuated by a clever filmmaker.
But they wouldn’t fool him.
There were two battery-powered lanterns on which illuminated their group of sleeping bodies. He looked at each of them and they all still seemed to be asleep.
The nightmare was already beginning to fade away. It was a trick he’d taught himself over the years, pushing any negative thoughts and bad memories away as soon as they entered his mind. But he remembered this nightmare much more clearly than the other ones through the last few decades. This dream had been about the Tall Man.
God, he hadn’t had a dream about the Tall Man in so many years. Damn that Laura for bringing up those memories from his subconscious. He still couldn’t figure out how she knew about his past, especially a secret like the Tall Man which he had guarded for so many years. But she was probably an actor working for Nick Gorman, and maybe they had bribed a member of his family to talk about him when he was a child, divulge some secrets, dig up any kind of dirt they could find on him.
But that was okay, he would expose this hoax of theirs and then who would be the fool?
He thought about taking a nip from his flask, but he decided against it, suddenly sleepy again. He turned over onto his side and went back to sleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Warren Savage saw his daughter in his dream. He was crying in the dream when he saw Erin, and he was crying in his sleep without realizing it.
He was back in their California home. Erin was still there, still alive. Warren’s wife hadn’t left him yet. His world hadn’t shattered apart yet.
Warren was in his office. He was busy working on a paper, absorbed in it. His wife was at work and Erin wa
s in her bedroom.
He froze at his desk … he heard a sound from the kitchen, a sly sound, a sneaky sound. Someone was out there. A sudden fear gripped him and he remained in his chair for a moment.
He didn’t know why he was so afraid. It was probably just Erin getting something to drink or eat.
But he still didn’t move. He didn’t want to see
(what)
who was out there. He was shocked to realize that tears were flowing down his face. He wiped at them, still not moving from his office chair, his hands gripping the armrests like claws.
And then he was standing at his office door with no memory of walking across the room. Everything was darker now even though it had been daytime only moments ago … it seemed like a thunderstorm had moved in quickly, black clouds blocking out the sun. He could hear the wind kicking up outside, leaves blowing around and hitting the house.
More noises came from the kitchen.
Someone was definitely out there.
It’s just Erin, he told himself. She had snuck out to a party last night and he had caught her coming home very early this morning. He had grounded her, he had yelled at her, he had said some things in anger that he wished he could take back. She was probably still pissed at him. He figured she would sleep all day after being out all night, but she must be in the kitchen right now. Who else could it be?
But he didn’t want to go to the kitchen. He was still crying … he didn’t want to go to the kitchen and see her like … like …
What was he so afraid of? This could be his chance to make up with her, apologize for his harsh words. He would explain to her that he’d just been scared last night as any parent would be if their daughter had stayed out all night. She didn’t understand, she didn’t have kids yet, she didn’t understand the love parents had for their children, the responsibility they felt, the fear they had that something bad might happen to them. And sometimes when Warren got scared, he got angry … like a lot of men did.
