by Mark Lukens
“Billy …” the thing whispered from the darkness. Now the voice didn’t sound familiar at all, it didn’t even sound human.
And it wasn’t human. It was a thing—Billy could see that now. It was a black shadow standing in the darkness only ten feet away in the form of a man … but it was changing into something else, lowering to the ground and growing wider at the same time, flattening down to an oil slick on the floor.
Billy turned to run. He wanted to scream but his mouth was too dry, his throat locked in constriction. His muscles burned with adrenaline, yet he couldn’t seem to move fast enough. The oil slick thing was on him in seconds. He felt it drape down over top of him, knocking him down to the floor. The thing felt like a wet, rotten blanket smothering him. The slick thing conformed to his head and face like a thick piece of plastic wrap, the mucus-like substance pouring into his nostrils, his ears, his mouth. It was sliding into his brain, oozing down his throat, his body immobilized.
This is real … this thing is real …
His last thoughts were of Kristen, Shane, Warren, and Nigel—all of them tied up and helpless when these things crept out of the dark for them.
• • • • •
Laura found the doorway. It was a literal doorway that opened up in a far wall of stacked stone.
But this was more than just a physical doorway … this was also a spiritual doorway that led down into a netherworld of evil and darkness.
She looked at Nick as she stood in front of the stone wall. This was her last chance to convince him that something horrible waited for them down in those tunnels and caverns—something worse than death.
But Nick wasn’t going to listen. She could already see that.
“Nick,” she said, trying anyway. “I know you believe something wonderful is down there, something that will help you, but I’ve seen it and you have to believe me … it’s not good. It’s very bad.”
“This is it?” he asked. “This is where the doorway is?” He had his gun in his hand again and the lantern in his other hand.
Laura saw the determination in Nick’s eyes, the focus. He was an animal of singular focus now. She figured this was how he had acquired his wealth and power, his unwillingness to give up. And he wasn’t going to let some warnings from her dissuade him.
She looked back at the stones in the wall and she saw an oddly-shaped stone. It seemed so obvious to her, but she knew most others would never see it like she could see it. They weren’t meant to see it. She couldn’t explain how she knew things, how she could find things, how she could see them in her mind, but she could.
With a trembling hand she touched the stone near the corner of the wall and it turned easily underneath her fingers, twisting to the side. There was a loud grating sound, like blocks scraping on blocks, and then a whole section of the wall seemed to come forward from the rest of it, and then all of the stones collapsed down onto the floor in a heap. A cloud of dust rose up from the pile of rubble. A tunnel lay beyond the opening and only blackness beyond it.
She looked back at Nick, afraid he might shoot her now that he didn’t really need her anymore. But he handed the lantern to her. “Hold this in your hands.”
She managed to hold the lantern in her bound hands by the wire handle as he pulled his flashlight out of his pocket.
“You go in first,” he told her. “I’ll be right behind you.”
The lantern put out a lot of light, but it only penetrated so far down the black tunnel beyond the doorway. She saw that the smooth stone floor descended down into the depths.
She stepped inside the doorway, followed by Nick.
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
Nigel heard the footsteps outside the closed door of Room 214. The whispered childlike voices coming from the hole in the wall had stopped now that something waited outside the door, their warnings given.
It was the Tall Man, the voices had said. He was right outside the door, standing there, just waiting to enter.
Nigel was suddenly a child again—he saw himself at his bedroom door at night, peeking out into the hallway to see the Tall Man standing at the end of it. He saw himself closing his door and running back to his bed, covering up with his blanket, his eyes wide in the darkness as he stared at the door, as he watched the door handle slowly turn. It wasn’t like the Tall Man was trying to be quiet, but more like he was trying to draw things out, stretch out the horror, prolong the fear, perhaps savoring the dark pleasures that were going to come soon.
But it had never gotten that far when Nigel was a child. Even when the Tall Man entered his bedroom, Nigel screamed for his mom and dad, knowing he would get the belt for waking them up in the middle of the night with his silly nightmares.
The Tall Man didn’t visit every night … actually there would be quite a while between visits, sometimes three to four months. But the Tall Man always came back as long as they lived in that house. And Nigel never let him get close to his bed. He would take a beating from his father any day rather than suffer the unimaginable torments that the Tall Man had waiting for him.
By the time Nigel was eleven years old he had done some research at the public library, his rational mind fighting to take control by that age. He wanted to get to the root of this mystery. Obviously he was seeing some kind of ghost or spirit left behind in their old house, a spirit trapped there somehow.
He looked up the history of their house (with the librarian’s help) and found a photo of a tall and painfully thin man who used to own the property in the late eighteen hundreds. The man wasn’t wearing the stovepipe hat in the photo, but he wore the black suit and tie. He sat stiffly in a sturdy and ornately designed chair, staring straight at the camera. His piercing dark eyes seemed to stare right from the past at Nigel. The man’s jet-black hair was slicked down and parted at the side. His flesh was sickly pale, his face gaunt, his hands large—they reminded Nigel of giant white spiders.
Nigel had almost abandoned his research right then, unable to look at the photo any longer, but he made himself dig further, and he discovered the history of the house they lived in.
The Tall Man was named Rudolph Boone and he had lived in this house until he was arrested by the police. The neighbors had complained of odd behavior from Mister Boone and they had smelled a rotten stench coming from his house, the smell of death and decay. Finally, the police investigated. They found a tin can of organs in Mr. Boone’s trash bin … and that gave them reason for a warrant. When the police searched his home, they found a pile of bones and two partially decomposed bodies strapped down to wood tables in his basement. It was a big story at the time. Mr. Boone was tried and he admitted to his crimes, never expressing regret or remorse over them. He was sentenced to be executed, but he vowed in court to come back from the dead. He was hanged eight months later.
And then when Nigel was just a baby, his father and mother had bought the Boone house, even with its bloody history, because it was cheap. As soon as Nigel was old enough to sleep in his own room he began seeing the Tall Man roaming the halls. The man wore the same black suit that Nigel would see him later wearing in the photograph. And Nigel was certain that the man hidden some sharp instruments somewhere down inside that suit: knives, saws, pliers—the same instruments he had used to torture his victims, the same ones he had used to cut them up.
How could Nigel have forgotten about the Tall Man all these years? How could he have stored all of those memories away, crammed them into some lockbox inside his mind that had stayed shut?
By the time Nigel was twelve years old they had moved out of the house and the nightmares of the Tall Man had stopped. Over the years Nigel had rationalized that he had seen a figment of his imagination. After seeing the photograph when he was eleven years old, he simply superimposed that image onto the black shape he’d been seeing. He knew the power of one’s imagination—he had even written about the power of it in his first book. Many people who report ghost or UFO or other supernatural sightings aren’t doing it as a hoax or a
prank, they honestly believe what they saw even though it wasn’t real.
But now Nigel realized that he had been lying to himself all these years. He had subconsciously (or maybe it had been intentional) mixed up the timeline, pretending that he had seen the photos first before he ever saw the Tall Man. But that wasn’t true … it was the other way around. And now he remembered everything. When Laura had asked him about the Tall Man when they’d been on the boat together, everything had come rushing back, the truth revealed in his mind.
Tears welled up in Nigel’s eyes—he was a fraud, a liar. He had lied to everyone all these years about his experiences with the supernatural, and he had lied to himself. He had seen a ghost as a child, he had seen it many times, and here at the Thornhill Manor, he was seeing it again.
The door handle slowly turned. Nigel tried to wriggle farther away from the door, but he didn’t want to get too close to the hole in the wall because now he realized that there were other things in this manor … there were far worse things than the Tall Man.
Nigel screamed into his gag. He thrashed as panic fully bloomed inside of him.
The door opened and the nightmare from his childhood was revealed as another flash of lightning lit up the room for a moment.
• • • • •
Kristen heard the thumping sound on the stairs. For a moment her heart stopped in her chest. She imagined terrible apparitions rumbling down the stairs, coming to get her.
She didn’t want to look, but she had to see. She wriggled around so she could face the stairs.
A body was rolling down the steps towards her. It looked like Warren.
Kristen rolled out of the way, kicking the battery-powered lantern and knocking it over (Oh God, please, don’t let the light go out). The shadows danced and stretched as the lantern fell over onto its side and rolled away. But at least it didn’t break.
Warren’s body landed down at the bottom of the steps. And then it was still.
Everything was quiet for a moment and all Kristen could hear was her own quick breaths, her heartbeat thudding in her ears, her blood rushing in a quick rhythmic beat.
Kristen lay still for another moment as crazy thoughts raced through her mind. Warren had been killed and someone had pushed his body down the stairs.
Had Billy pushed him down the stairs?
No, Billy was probably already with Nick and Laura down in the basement, looking for whatever her uncle had come here to find. She realized now that something was wrong with Nick’s mind. He’d always been a little eccentric, a little unorthodox—you really couldn’t be a truly great filmmaker (or maybe any kind of artist) without having a wild streak, without a selfish obsession; it came with the territory. And Nick had his share of quirks, but he had never intentionally hurt anyone as far as she had known. He’d always been selfish, demanding, egotistical, but these last few months, ever since his cancer diagnosis, he had changed. He had become more restless, searching for something—and now he had found it here. She never would’ve worried about her uncle hurting her or anyone else, but now she was truly scared of him. She never would’ve imagined him leaving her tied up in this house that frightened her so badly. She never would’ve imagined him keeping her and the others in this house against their will by chaining the gates shut. But he had changed, and this house, and the evil that was here inside of it, was changing him even more.
Warren still hadn’t moved.
“Warren,” she whispered. She rolled over closer to him and then she froze for a moment, listening and watching him. He didn’t seem to be injured or bleeding anywhere, not that she could see in the glow of the lantern. And he was breathing—she could hear his breaths, even see the slight rise and fall of his chest.
She lifted her bound feet and kicked at him gently, her muscles straining—this was quite a workout.
He grunted, twitched, moved a little.
She kicked him again. Harder this time. “Warren!”
He snapped awake, trying to sit up, but then he seemed to realize that his hands and feet were bound. He mumbled something to himself that she couldn’t make out.
“Warren, wake up. Are you okay? What happened?”
He didn’t answer her. He seemed to be more concerned with coming to his senses rather than answering her rapid-fire questions.
“Nigel,” Warren said and then cleared his throat.
“Are you okay? Did someone push you down the stairs?”
He shook his head no and seemed to be clearing his mind a little. “I rolled down. Had to get down here to you so you can untie my hands.” A pause while he took an assessment. “Nothing broken or sprained.”
Kristen was already wriggling towards him, getting into position with her back to him.
“Nigel,” Warren barked. “There’s someone up there with Nigel.”
Kristen froze. Her eyes darted to the steps that disappeared up into the darkness. “Who?”
Warren shook his head like he was dismissing it—they had more important matters to attend to. “Quick, roll over here and untie my hands.”
Kristen was already in position and Warren rolled over with his back to her. It took her a moment to wriggle up close to him and find his bound hands with hers, but then she found them and started picking at his knots with her nearly numb fingers.
A door slammed upstairs.
She froze.
“Keep going!” Warren told her. “I think I feel the cloth loosening.”
“Who’s up there with Nigel?” she asked as she worked at the knots. “Harold?”
“No, it’s not Harold. It’s something bad.”
Kristen thought of the zombie-like things she’d seen outside the iron fence.
“Kristen, focus!” Warren snapped at her. “Do you want me to try to untie you instead?”
“No,” Kristen answered, already pulling at the knots again. They were so tight, but one of them was beginning to give way.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Nigel watched as the door to Room 214 opened slowly. The Tall Man was taking his time. And why not? Where was Nigel going to go now? Who was he going to call for help with the rag tied around his mouth? His parents weren’t going to rush into his bedroom and rescue him this time, his father with his leather belt coiled up in one fist and a scowl of rage on his face. No, Nigel was alone and helpless now, and it was like the Tall Man knew that, like he had waited patiently all these years for this moment.
Another flash of lightning revealed the Tall Man silhouetted in the doorway, already inside the room in front of the doorway. He didn’t have his hat on and he was still taller than the top of the doorway. His impossibly large hands hung down by his sides, almost to his knees. After the lightning was gone and the room was plunged back into darkness, the image of the Tall Man’s silhouette was superimposed on Nigel’s mind, the etching of a madman who had the tools of his trade hidden somewhere inside his black suit … sharp things … destructive things.
The door slammed shut. The Tall Man was inside the room with him now.
Nigel was crying and moaning into his gag. He had stopped writhing and thrashing, he had stopped moving towards the other side of the room, towards the hole in the wall that seemed like it had gotten much bigger since the last time he had seen it.
Footsteps in the darkness now … slow and steady.
The Tall Man was coming. After all these years he was going to make it all the way to Nigel and he was going to get him this time. He had waited so long, but what was time to this thing anyhow?
Another footstep.
Nigel sobbed into the rag. He felt like he was seven years old again, helpless and scared under the covers of his bed. This was it. This was the end. This thing was going to touch him, then tear him apart, devour him, or take him to whatever hell it roamed.
He wasn’t ready, but he couldn’t fight back now.
The Tall Man was right beside him now. He could sense him in the darkness; he could hear the swish of his clothing as the fabric
shifted against his pale body. Nigel inhaled big gulps of air through his nose and picked up the scent of wet decay coming from the thing beside him.
A cold dead finger brushed against his cheek.
He jerked, screaming into his gag. He thrashed again like a fish out of water, the panic full-blown in him again. There was no dignity in his dying spasms now; no one would know how he had died, no one would know what had really happened to him.
Nigel felt the Tall Man’s hands on his shoulders now, grabbing at his shirt, the man’s fists bunching up in the fabric, pulling the shirt tight.
Ghosts can’t hurt you. They can’t touch you. It was a mantra he used to repeat over and over in his bedroom when he was a child. He hadn’t thought of it all these years until now.
But now he knew it wasn’t true—ghosts could touch. They could hurt you.
Nigel felt himself sliding across the floor, being dragged by the Tall Man towards the hole in the wall.
• • • • •
“I’ve got it,” Kristen said as she felt the knot pull free.
And then Warren did the rest, pulling his wrists apart from the strip of cloth. He sat up like a piston and worked on Kristen’s bonds. He had her untied in a few seconds and then they each untied their own ankles.
“Go get Shane untied,” Warren told Kristen. “Bring him back here. He’ll know what to do about that … that thing upstairs.”
“What is it?”
“Ghost. Demon. I don’t know. But we need Shane.”
“What about you? What are you going to do?”
Warren got to his feet. He winced and she figured he might have some injuries from his roll down the steps, injuries that he wasn’t telling her about, but nothing that he was going to let stop him. “I’m going back up there.”
“You said we need Shane.”
“We do,” he answered.
Warren was about to bound up the stairs.
