Devil's Island

by Mark Lukens

  Nigel mumbled into his gag.

  Billy patted Nigel on his head and went back to retrieve his flashlight from the floor.

  “Sweet dreams,” Billy said as he walked to the door and closed it behind him, leaving Nigel alone in the dark.

  • • • • •

  Billy walked down the hall to Warren who lay on his side exactly where he had left him, right near the top of the stairs. He crouched down beside him. “You guys stay cool for a few hours, long enough until Nick’s done with what he’s looking for, and then I’ll be back up here for you.”

  The physicist stared up at him like he didn’t believe a word he was saying. And Billy thought that maybe what he was saying wasn’t true. Maybe Nick had other plans for these guys. He didn’t know. He just knew that he would do whatever Nick told him to.

  “Sorry I don’t have an extra lantern for you,” Billy told Warren. “But you’ll still get enough light from Kristen’s lantern downstairs.”

  Warren still didn’t say anything; he just continued glaring at Billy with a quiet murderous rage.

  Billy actually felt a tingle of unease from the man’s deadpan stare. He rose and walked away from Warren, then shuffled down the stairs, letting his flashlight beam light his way. He felt bad about what he was doing, but Nick told him to do it and right now he had no choice but to follow Nick’s orders. Nick was going to pay the rest of the money that he owed to Jimmy Izzo so he didn’t end up dead in a ditch somewhere or tied to a chair in someone’s basement with a drain underneath it.

  Billy felt Kristen’s eyes on him as he walked past her. He thought she might say something to him as he walked by, maybe plead or beg again, one last-ditch effort to appeal to him—but she didn’t. He still loved Kristen in a way even though their relationship had never blossomed … he always had loved her. She just didn’t feel the same way about him.

  She stared at him with cold hatred in her eyes, much like Warren’s expression had been a few moments ago. Billy thought about apologizing to her again, trying to explain his side of things and the jam he was in with Jimmy, but he didn’t—he just kept on walking.

  He met Nick, Laura, and Shane in the dining hall. Shane was right where he was before, tied up on the floor, sitting up. Nick had his gun stuck down in the waistband of his pants, the handle sticking up over his shirt. Laura stood several feet away from him with her bound hands in front of her. No bindings for Laura’s legs—she had some walking to do.

  “This way,” Nick said to Laura, gesturing at the other end of the dining hall, at the door that led to the kitchen. She didn’t look surprised about their destination.

  Billy followed Nick and Laura into the kitchen. He left one battery-powered lamp lit for Shane and he carried another lantern with them to the basement door. They all gathered at the door.

  “This place is evil,” Laura said. She looked at the closed door to the basement, the edge of it splintered from the pry bar Shane had used, the door handle gone now, rolled away into the darkness somewhere. She looked at Nick. “The evil of this place is affecting you … affecting your judgement … affecting your soul.”

  “There might be evil here,” Nick said. “But there’s also something wonderful … something you’re going to find for me if you want your friends to stay safe.”

  “You think it’s wonderful,” Laura said. “You don’t think it’s bad, but that’s what it wants you to think.”

  Nick didn’t respond. He pulled the broken basement door open all the way and now it was a mouth to the pitch-black basement, the stairwell a throat down to a monster. He took a small flashlight out of his pocket and turned it on. “You go down first,” he said to Laura. “Then you.” He looked at Billy. “I’ll be right behind both of you.”

  Billy nodded and followed Laura down the basement steps with Nick a few steps behind him.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  Nigel lay on his side in Room 214. The darkness was nearly impenetrable unless a flash of lightning lit up the room for a moment. In that moment of light he saw the empty room around him: the camera set on the tripod in the corner, the window with the tree branches right outside of it, the scattered debris and dust on the floor, the closed door, and of course the hole in the wall.

  He breathed heavily into the gag tied around his mouth. At least the handkerchief tasted clean. He couldn’t wait to get his hands on Billy after this was all over. But what he really couldn’t wait for was to have that conversation with his lawyers. He was going to make Nick Gorman pay for this. Nigel really didn’t need the money, but taking it from Nick would feel so good … along with ruining his reputation.

  Nigel tried to move his wrists but they were tied too tightly together. He flexed his fingers to make sure he still had circulation in them. For a moment the thought of losing blood to his fingers frightened him. How long could a person go without circulation? How long before nerve damage started?

  A scratching noise interrupted his thoughts.

  He writhed on the floor, turning over to where the sound was coming from in the darkness; it was coming from the hole in the wall.

  Rats? They hadn’t seen any evidence of rats here at the manor so far. He hadn’t seen evidence of any animals now that he thought about it. But that didn’t mean that there weren’t hordes of rats in the walls; he was sure this island was crawling with them.

  He could imagine a rat crawling out of the hole … a scout sent out to investigate the tied up piece of meat in the middle of the floor. And then soon an army of rats would come gushing out of the hole, a wave of them running towards him, gnawing at him, dull teeth tearing at his flesh, claws digging into his skin, the filthy little creatures crawling all over him while he was helpless to fight them off.

  Stop it! he told himself.

  Another flash of lightning lit up the room and he stared right at the hole in the wall. No rats or any other kind of movement in the hole that he could see.

  Calm down, he told himself. He would’ve whispered it to himself if that son-of-a-bitch hadn’t gagged him. But he needed to soothe himself somehow. He could feel the panic wanting to build up inside of him and he had to push it away. He really needed a drink. The buzz of courage was beginning to wear off now.

  The wood creaked around him and the wind howled outside. The rain splashed against the windows, the branches beating at the glass. He tried to tune out all of those sounds, listening for the sound that he’d heard before, that sly sound from deep inside the hole.

  A scratching sound …

  Then he heard a whisper from down inside the hole. The voice was so low he tried to convince himself that he had imagined it.

  It’s in your mind … you’re letting all of this get to you. You’re letting your imagination overwhelm you. You’re letting it win.

  Then he heard the whisper again … no closer, but it was louder. It sounded like a child’s voice. “The Tall Man is coming for you.”

  • • • • •

  Warren tried for five minutes to wriggle out of the strip of cloth binding his wrists together, even managing to build up a film of sweat on his wrists, but the cloth was tied too tightly. He needed someone else to loosen the knots.

  He rolled over onto his side and looked down the dark hall … as much of it as he could see anyway. There was no way he could get down that hall, open the door, and then get inside the room for Nigel to help him.

  The stairs. The light was shining from the bottom of them. He couldn’t see Kristen in the light from his position on the floor, but he could hear her heavy breathing.

  “You okay?” he called down to her.

  More heavy breathing, and then: “Yeah. I … I hear something down here. Like something moving around in the dark. In the ballroom.”

  She was already beginning to freak out and it had only been ten minutes since Billy had left them here. How long were Nick and Billy going to keep them like this? Hours? The rest of the night? But then the real question surfaced in his mind. Were Billy and Ni
ck going to kill them? Say that they had died from accidents here?

  He couldn’t be sure if Nick and Billy were going to kill them or not, but he didn’t want to wait around and find out. He needed to get free and then get Laura, Nigel, and Shane free. He didn’t have anything to cut the cloth with and there was nothing on the floor he could use.

  And that only seemed to leave him one possibility—one that he didn’t like very well: he needed to go down the stairs and get to Kristen so they could untie each other’s bonds.

  Warren stared at the light coming from the bottom of the stairs, seeing his actions in his mind. He could roll down the stairs. They were wide enough for his body to fit long ways, as long as he could roll straight all the way down and not get jammed up halfway down.

  What if he knocked himself out rolling down the steps? Or worse, broke his neck.

  He ran some probability statistics in his mind. He thought the idea of paralysis was pretty low. But, however, there was a much higher chance of knocking himself out. And let’s not forget breaking some bones along the way, most likely a collarbone or elbow. Even if he knocked himself out, Kristen could untie him, but then she would have to wait until he was conscious again to untie her.

  Yes, it was dangerous, but the need for them to be free far outweighed the dangers right now. He would just have to roll himself down as slowly and as controlled as possible.

  Warren couldn’t wait any longer. He was about to maneuver himself into position at the top of the stairs and begin his roll. But then he heard a noise from down the hall. He writhed around to get a better look. He still couldn’t see anything—he could barely make out the door to Room 214 where Billy had stowed Nigel away—but he could definitely hear something from farther down the hall.

  Footsteps.

  Somebody was down that hall, someone large and heavy if the footsteps were any indication.

  But everyone else was downstairs.

  Except Harold.

  Was it Harold down the hall?

  “Harold!” Warren called out. “Is that you?”

  No answer.

  Maybe Harold was okay. Maybe Harold could untie the cloth around his wrists for him.

  “Harold! I need help!”

  The shape and size of the person seemed too big to be Harold … too tall. Impossibly tall. Warren could make out the outline of the person (man … had to be a man) as he approached. Then a flash of lightning lit up the hall just enough from the open doors of the rooms for Warren to see the man clearly—and it definitely wasn’t Harold. The man in the hall was thin and at least seven feet tall. The stovepipe hat he wore only made him seem taller. He walked slowly down the hall towards Warren, each footstep a thundering stomp.

  Warren wriggled away as best he could, getting closer to the edge of the steps, lining his body up for a roll down those stairs—his decision made for him now.

  It’s not real. That man’s not real, just like Erin wasn’t real.

  But then Warren remembered the door handle coming alive in his hand, turning into a thick pink snake that had wrapped around his wrist, pinning him to the door. That had been real for a moment—the marks on his wrist proved that. But then it wasn’t real.

  Warren watched the tall man, but the man had stopped approaching; he had stopped in front of the door to Room 214. And suddenly Warren realized that the tall man hadn’t been coming for him, he’d been approaching Room 214 the whole time … he’d been coming for Nigel. Maybe this was Nigel’s personal demon manifested by this house to haunt him.

  Just like Erin was for him? Was that what Erin was? His personal demon?

  Yes, she was.

  Tears blurred Warren’s vision and his insides twisted with ache and loss. He felt like crying out, sobbing, and he wished to God he could wipe his eyes. He had cried so much over the last year and a half, he had wished so many times that he could go back and change things, listen to his daughter, see the signs of her depression and the pain she’d been going through.

  His only consolation was that when she had walked to the door that led out to the garage, when he had seen her spirit in the kitchen that day, she had looked happy. She had told him that she loved him, and she told him goodbye. She looked so peaceful then. That was Erin’s true spirit, not whatever ghost this place was conjuring up, some kind of dark doppelganger, a cheap imitation of his daughter.

  No, Laura was right. This place, and whatever was in it, was pure evil.

  And now that pure evil stood right outside of Room 214.

  Would that tall man hurt Nigel? Would he kill him?

  Warren wondered what would’ve happened if Shane hadn’t gotten the basement door open in time and that wave of black blood (and whatever slippery creatures squirmed around inside of it) had reached them … would it have overtaken him and Laura? Would it have dragged them back down into the basement? Would it have killed them?

  He didn’t have the luxury of waiting around to find out; he couldn’t lie here, bound and helpless, and watch the tall man enter Room 214 where Nigel lay like a goat tied up for slaughter.

  It was time.

  Warren rolled over, down onto the first step … and then he started rolling faster and faster down the stairs.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  Nick, Laura, and Billy gathered at the bottom of the basement steps. Nick had his gun tucked back into the waistband of his pants and he held the lantern now, taking it from Billy.

  They walked through the aisles of boxes, crates, and furniture … venturing deeper into the basement.

  “Shit,” Billy said. He stopped when he saw the camera they had set up on the tripod in front of the bare wall near the corner yesterday. It was lying down in front of the wall in pieces. He hurried over to the camera.

  Laura could tell that the camera was demolished. She watched Billy crouch down beside the smashed pieces and sift through them.

  Nick nudged Laura forward. “Keep going,” he grumbled. “We need to find the doorway.”

  Laura walked forward into the darkness, the lantern Nick held only illuminated so much around them and it felt to Laura like she was driving down the darkest backroads she’d ever been on where the headlights only pushed the darkness back so far.

  But she felt something else besides the crushing evil that seemed to come from everywhere in this manor … she felt something pulling at her from deep in this basement, from those ancient rooms, those first rooms built in this manor before the rest was even constructed above them. Her mind slipped back for a moment to Thaddeus Thornhill’s first day here on this island, when this manor hadn’t even been built yet, when this was only a hole in the ground, natural caverns below that led down to the secret he had dared to hope was still here.

  And then he had found it.

  Then the walls had gone up later, a secret doorway built to the tunnels below.

  “You can feel it, can’t you?” Nick asked from behind her. He nudged her forward a little harder this time, constantly pushing her forward, growing impatient.

  “I want to make sure my friends are going to be okay,” she told him.

  “Your friends? You really think they are your friends? They came here for the same selfish reasons you did. Whether it was for money or fame or a resurging career … they were all selfish reasons.”

  Nick’s words bit at her a little. Yes, she had come here for the money, but the money was going to help her aunt. But she wasn’t going to argue about this with Nick and try to justify her actions to him. It would only be a waste of time.

  A sudden feeling of fear and evil struck her, squeezing the breath from her. She stopped.

  Nick must’ve sensed her unease. “What is it?”

  She turned around and looked at Nick, then past him. “Where’s Billy?”

  Nick looked around at the darkness all around him like he’d just realized that Billy wasn’t with them. He shrugged like he’d misplaced something insignificant and then looked back at Laura.

  “Something happe
ned to him,” Laura said. “It got him.”

  Nick just sighed like this conversation wasn’t worth wasting time on. “Get going. Find the doorway before that thing gets your friends upstairs.”

  “And your niece,” Laura reminded him.

  • • • • •

  Billy sifted through the pieces of the camera on the floor. The camera was on its side, broken loose from the tripod. But the camera hadn’t just fallen over, it had been pulverized purposely. But maybe he could still salvage the film from it.

  “Billy,” a male voice snapped at him from the darkness.

  He jumped to his feet, turning around and aiming his flashlight beam into the blackness. He didn’t see anyone standing there.

  “Over here,” the male voice said.

  Billy panned his light beam to the right, then back to the left. Still no one there.

  It hadn’t been Nick’s voice—he was sure of that—but the person’s voice sounded familiar. One of the guys he had tied up? Maybe one of them had gotten loose and followed them down here. No, he didn’t think so.

  “Billy,” the person whispered, and he sounded closer now even though Billy still couldn’t spot the person in the beam of light from his flashlight.

  “Who are you?” Billy asked.

  “You know who I am.”

  Billy felt his stomach sinking, his muscles turning to jelly, his balls crawling. A shiver ran across his skin. He could feel his heart hammering inside his chest, a painful staccato beat. Something was very wrong here. He felt strange, a little light-headed and detached from reality, like this was all a strange dream. His senses were screaming at him that something was wrong. He had believed, or at least he had convinced himself that he believed, that this was all some extravagant hoax by Nick, but now, at the deepest level, he realized that all of this was real. He felt like a person suddenly confronted with the impossible just when it was too late.

  He needed to run, yet he was hesitating. Some part of his mind, the rational part, still wanted to prove to himself that what he was seeing and hearing wasn’t real, that the other unruly and untrustworthy part of his mind—his imagination—was sabotaging him.