by Mark Lukens
Well, he was going to help her now. Her soul, her essence, it was back now … he’d seen her soul on the day she’d died, that day he had followed her out to the garage. And now he was seeing her again. She was still his daughter and she needed help. He wasn’t going to let her down this time.
Warren suddenly realized that Erin wasn’t in the doorway to the basement anymore. He shined his flashlight beam right at the rectangle of darkness but she wasn’t there.
Where had she gone? He hadn’t even seen her move.
“Daddy.”
Warren took a few steps closer to the doorway. He could hear her down there in the darkness.
“Daddy … I’m down here.”
She was down in the basement, down in the darkness with whatever evil controlled this manor.
“Hold on,” Warren shouted as he ran across the kitchen to the basement door.
He stopped at the doorway and shined his light down the stairs. The light became weak as it reached the bottom of the steps, but he saw Erin down there in the gloom at the bottom step staring up at him with wide eyes. Tears slipped out of her eyes, and her mouth was crumpled in a sob.
“Help me,” she said again.
Dark tendrils seemed to solidify out of the gloom and wrap around her legs and torso like a fog, pulling on her gently, dragging her deeper into the darkness.
“No,” Warren whispered, and then he was shuffling down the steps, the beam of light bouncing around in front of him. “No, wait! Erin, hold on! Wait for me!”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
“What do you mean, they’re all empty?” Nick snapped at Billy.
“Empty,” Billy said. “Every single one of them is empty.”
“But … how can that be?” Harold said, lowering the camera down to his side. He looked dumbfounded.
“I’ll tell you how,” Nigel said. “Somebody emptied them on purpose. Somebody,” and he looked right at Nick, “wants us to poke around in the dark for the rest of this documentary.”
“You think I did this?” Nick asked.
Nigel didn’t respond, but he kept his eyes right on Nick.
“I need the generator on so the laptops can work, you ignorant fool,” Nick spat out.
“Cameras still work, don’t they?” Nigel looked to Billy for the answer.
Billy nodded reluctantly. “Batteries should still be good on all of them through the night into tomorrow morning.”
“And the batteries in the laptops should last long enough,” Nigel continued. “Just enough time until we leave the island. How convenient.”
Nick stepped right up to Nigel. “I asked you here to be a skeptic, not to accuse me of staging this at every turn.”
“I’m just trying to keep an open mind,” Nigel replied.
“No, you’ve had your mind made up since we landed here.”
“Yes, and until I see otherwise, my mind is going to stay made up.”
Shane noticed that Kristen had moved away from him in the darkness. She had walked to the edge of the porch where the waterfall of rain was pouring down.
“You alright?” he asked her.
A silence fell over the group as they all stared at Kristen.
She stood there at the edge of the patio, staring at the darkness. Beyond the patio was a sea of tall grasses and weeds waving back and forth in the wind and rain, and beyond that was the iron fence in the distance with another small field of grasses beyond it, and then the cloying jungle … like a wall of trees.
Shane took a few steps towards Kristen. “What is it?”
“Did you guys see that?” she asked.
“See what?” Shane asked. He moved up right beside her. He stared out at the weeds, fence, and trees, but it was too dark to see, and the pouring rain was making visibility even worse.
The others moved in behind them.
Nick looked at Harold and made a gesture at him to film this.
Harold raised the camcorder up to his eye and looked through the lens, but all he could see was darkness.
“What is it?” Shane asked Kristen. “What did you see out there?”
He looked at Kristen. She seemed frozen in fear for a moment, like a person who has just seen something dangerous in the woods and is standing so still, hoping that the threat won’t notice them. She barely seemed to be breathing.
Nigel sighed loudly from behind them, obviously annoyed at another spectacle to try to persuade him that all of this was real.
“I saw something moving out there in the grass,” Kristen said in a low voice, barely a whisper. “Out there past the fence.”
Shane looked behind him and saw the others crowding in—but something was bothering him about everyone behind him and he wasn’t sure what it was yet. He turned back around and stared out at the darkness again.
A bolt of lightning streaked across the night sky, turning the world into daylight for a moment. Shane stared at the fence, the grasses and shrubs, the trees beyond … but he didn’t see anything out there.
“What was moving out there?” he asked her.
She shook her head slightly, her eyes still on the darkness like she was afraid to look away, like the moment she looked away whatever was out there would shoot out of the darkness and attack. “It looked like a person,” she finally said in a whisper.
“A person?”
She nodded. “A person in the grass.”
“You getting this on film?” Nick asked Harold.
Harold nodded.
Nick looked at Billy, scowling at him. “Where’s your camera?”
Billy winced. “You had it,” he told him. “You left it back on the table.”
“No, you left it there,” Nick said. “You’re the cameraman here, our tech specialist. You should have a camera with you at all times.”
Billy seemed like he was going to argue, but he snapped his mouth shut. The anger burned in his eyes.
“I don’t see anything out there now,” Shane said. He turned around and looked at the others, and then he realized what had been bothering him for the last few seconds. Somebody was missing from their group. “Where’s Warren?” he asked.
They all looked around at each other. Even Kristen turned around and looked at the others as they shined their flashlights at each other.
Warren wasn’t with them.
“And Laura,” Shane said. “Where’s Warren and Laura?”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Warren stood in the darkness of the basement. He had only moved a few feet away from the bottom of the steps. He glanced back up at the steps that led up to the door, and the doorway looked like a dark blue rectangle set in the blackness. A flash of lightning lit up the doorway for a moment, but then darkness reigned again.
He moved deeper into the dark, not sure where Erin had gone to.
“Erin,” Warren called out. “Baby.”
No answer.
He took a few more steps deeper into the basement, shining his flashlight beam over the stacks of boxes and crates, the furniture draped with dusty white sheets, the pieces of wood and metal stacked up.
“Erin, honey … answer me.”
Only silence in the basement.
“Where are you? Just call out to me and I’ll come get you.”
He just wanted to see her again … just one more time.
Warren walked through an archway, venturing even farther into the maze-like basement. The deeper he went, the older the basement looked. It turned from somewhat modern-looking block walls and concrete floors to stone rooms and archways, lower ceilings of petrified wood beams and braces above him were covered in cobwebs. Something dripped somewhere back there in the darkness, rain seeping in from some cracks.
“Erin! It’s Daddy. Please … answer me!”
Still no answer from his daughter.
She was in that thing’s arms. Whatever haunted this place had her now. He had seen the darkness envelope her, and now it had her. He had to help her. He had to get his daughter back. He woul
dn’t fail her this time.
Warren stopped when he saw the stone wall in front of him fifteen feet away in the darkness. He played the flashlight beam over the stones. A few of them looked wet, and something black like oil (or blood) seemed to be coating a few of the stones. Was that what he’d heard dripping before?
But she was close … he could feel it.
“Erin? Erin, please answer me!”
Warren heard a shuffling sound right behind him. He turned and shined his flashlight beam right into a pale face staring back at him.
“She’s not your daughter,” the face said.
Warren took a few steps back, almost tripping, almost losing his balance in the darkness. He didn’t want to fall; he didn’t want to lose his flashlight; he didn’t want to be in this darkness down here without the light. But he regained his balance and stared at Laura as she stood there in the dark. He shined his light back at her and she seemed almost like she was in some kind of trance. Yet she looked right at him.
“Laura?” he whispered.
“We have to leave this basement right now,” Laura said. As she spoke, her breath misted up in front of her face like it had gotten suddenly cold down here in the basement.
And Warren could feel the cold now … how had he not noticed the drop in temperature before?
“It’s not safe here,” Laura said. She seemed to be coming more alive now, more like herself.
“My daughter,” Warren said as he took a step closer to Laura. “She’s … my daughter’s down here.”
“She’s not your daughter.”
“I saw her. I saw Erin down here.”
“It wants you to think that Erin’s here, but it’s not Erin. It’s just something pretending to be Erin.”
No, Warren thought. No, he couldn’t be this close to his daughter only to have her ripped away from him now.
He heard a sound from behind him, from the block wall. He turned around and saw that the black ooze was pouring down from the blocks onto the stone floor. And that growing puddle of ooze was moving right towards them.
“We have to go right now!” Laura snapped at Warren.
Warren couldn’t take his eyes off of the gigantic pool of black liquid moving towards them—it looked like a living oil slick.
He felt Laura grab his arm and she tore his attention away from the oil slick.
“It’s not safe down here,” she hissed at him.
“I can’t leave Erin down here.”
“She’s not Erin,” Laura said. “You have to believe me.”
Warren looked back at the wall. More black fluid was pouring down the blocks now, a river of the liquid; it was puddling up on the floor and forming a small lake. There were things in the liquid that looked like tiny eels squirming around.
“We have to go!” Laura said, pulling at him.
The living oil slick was almost to Warren’s feet now, and he backed up a few steps, but the lake of black liquid was growing quickly, moving faster. He didn’t know how he knew for sure, but he knew that he couldn’t let that oil slick touch him. It would grab him and envelope him like some kind of living darkness and it would pull him back into that stone wall, squeezing his body through the stones and down into the darkness forever with it.
“Now!!” Laura screamed.
Warren exploded into action and they ran through the aisles, past shelves of boxes, crates, bags, furniture. They made it back to the main room of the basement, the only light coming from their flashlight beams.
They were at the bottom of the basement steps. Warren wanted to call out to Erin one more time, give her one last chance to answer him. But then he saw the door at the top of the steps slam shut, sealing them in darkness.
“No,” Laura breathed out.
Warren could actually hear the sound of the black liquid moving towards them in the darkness, the thick sound of it sloshing along. He shined his flashlight back down at the floor and saw the river of black ooze coming towards them.
“Up the stairs,” Laura said, grabbing on to him again. “We have to get that door open!”
Warren stumbled into action, following Laura up the stairs. They got to the top and she tried to open the door, pulling at it.
“What’s wrong?” he asked her, but he already knew.
“It’s stuck,” she said.
“Let me try,” he told her.
They changed positions on the stairs. He handed her his flashlight and then he pulled on the door handle, trying to twist it open. He was reminded of trying to open the door to Room 214 only hours ago. This door handle felt as frozen as that one had. A pit of hopelessness formed inside of him. The door wasn’t going to open until this thing allowed it to be opened.
“Hurry,” Laura said. “It’s coming up the stairs.”
Warren turned back around and stared down the steps. Laura’s two flashlight beams shone down at the bottom of the steps like headlights where the oil slick was impossibly moving up the stairs, oozing its way up towards them.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Shane led the group back to the base of operations, all of them shining their flashlights around at the sleeping bags. Harold had his camcorder up to his eye, filming and using the light from the camera to help guide their way.
“Laura!” Shane called out into the darkness. “Warren!”
No answer.
“Where the hell would they go?” Nick asked.
“I don’t know, but something’s really wrong here,” Shane said. “Something very bad is in this house and we shouldn’t be running off by ourselves. This place is too dangerous.”
Kristen hurried over to her sleeping bag and grabbed the battery-powered lantern next to her bed, switching it on as she brought it over to the box of supplies. She dug out another lantern and two more packs of batteries.
“We should split up,” Nick said. “We could cover more ground that way.”
Shane sighed in frustration. “We shouldn’t split up …”
“I’ll go with Kristen and Shane,” Nick said, interrupting Shane’s words like he hadn’t even heard him. He was taking over as the leader now. “We’ll search down here.” He turned to Nigel, Harold, and Billy. “You three head upstairs, see if they went up there.”
“Alright,” Billy said.
“Give me your camera,” Nick told Billy. “You three use the camera Harold has.”
Billy handed his camera over to Nick.
“Hell with the cameras right now,” Shane snapped. “We need to hurry. They could be hurt.”
“I shouldn’t have to remind you the reason we’re here,” Nick said, already raising the camera up to his eye and filming.
Billy nudged Nigel and Harold away from Nick like he sensed a coming meltdown from the man.
“We’ll start in the kitchen,” Nick said. “Then we’ll work our way through every room down here and head up to the second floor.”
• • • • •
Nigel followed Billy and Harold as they left the dining hall and headed through the foyer. Billy was already on his way to the archway that led to the ballroom.
Nigel stopped in the middle of the foyer and looked at the tall double doors that led out to the front porch.
“What are you doing?” Billy asked. He seemed annoyed that they had stopped.
“What about out there?” Nigel asked. “We should check out there first. Maybe they went outside.”
“No,” Billy said. “It’s pouring out there. They would’ve stayed inside.”
“We should still check,” Nigel said, already marching to the front doors. He heard Billy and Harold hurrying to catch up to him. “Maybe they panicked and ran.”
Nigel got to the front doors. He grabbed the door handle and just as he was about to pull the door open Billy planted his hand on the door and shut it again.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Nigel asked Billy, glaring at him.
“Nick told us to search upstairs, not down here. If they need to check outside
, Nick will do it—this is part of their search area, not ours.”
Something was wrong here, Nigel saw that right away. Billy didn’t want them to go outside for some reason. The man’s eyes were wider than they should’ve been, his nostrils flaring slightly. Billy tried a smile, but it looked like he was struggling with it. “We should get upstairs. Go look for Warren and Laura.”
He’s lying about something, Nigel thought. Of course he is. He works for Nick, and so does Harold. They’re both in on the hoax here. Probably Dr. Savage and Laura are in on it, too. Why doesn’t he want me to go out there?
For a moment Nigel thought about pushing Billy out of the way and forcing himself outside. Or he could wait until they started walking towards the ballroom again and run back here to the doors and try to get out before Billy got to him.
But Billy was twenty years younger than he was, taller, and had at least twenty-five pounds of muscle on Nigel. He knew he would never make it to the door before Billy caught him, and he knew he wouldn’t win a fight against him. Besides, it looked like Billy had been in a fight with someone already … a pretty serious fight judging from the bruises and cuts on his face.
“We need to go,” Billy said, still trying to hold that fake smile of his.
“Okay,” Nigel said, returning Billy’s fake smile. “Fine. Let’s go check upstairs.”
“Good,” Billy said.
Nigel walked away and Billy waited by the front doors for a moment like he was afraid Nigel might make a run back towards the door. Harold was still filming everything.
Nigel walked towards the archway that led to the ballroom. There was something out there that Billy didn’t want him to see … evidence of Nick’s crew perhaps? But he couldn’t shake the feeling that something else was going on here, like this ghost hunt was just some big smokescreen for something else entirely.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
They heard the noise as soon as they were in the kitchen: the rattling of the door handle, the pounding on the basement door, the shouts of alarm coming from behind it.
