Within the Shadows

by Brandon Massey

  Andrew touched the vase’s flawless ceramic surface. He looked inside the vessel, lifted it and checked underneath, found nothing of interest.

  “What do you want me to do with this?”

  Small, cool fingers grasped his chin and turned his head.

  He faced the end of the hallway. The long mirror—the one he’d earlier thought he’d seen ripple like a lake—hung at the end of the hall. It reflected the image of him, holding the vase, bewildered.

  What was Sammy trying to tell him?

  The ghost applied upward pressure to his elbows, causing him to lift the vase higher.

  “You want me to throw this at the mirror,” Andrew said, and knew he was right. He didn’t know how he knew that it was the message Sammy was attempting to communicate to him. But he knew it as surely as he’d ever known anything.

  He didn’t know why Sammy wanted him to throw this thing, either, but he trusted that the child understood this house’s secrets better than he did.

  He hesitated—his mother’s old teachings about breaking other people’s property echoing in his head—then he hurled the vase at the mirror.

  The vase struck the surface and shattered on impact.

  But the mirror didn’t break, as it should have; it didn’t sustain any cracks at all.

  “Weird,” he said.

  The glass shimmered, the surface swelling and ebbing, like a wall of water.

  What was this?

  He walked forward, his shoes crunching over ceramic shards.

  “That’s not a mirror,” he whispered.

  The entire mirror wavered . . . and then faded altogether, like water-colors washing away in a rainstorm.

  It was a door.

  Chapter 61

  As the cats leaped to attack Raymond, he dropped the flashlight, startled. It clattered down the steps, leaving the dim light spilling from the room beyond the doorway as the only illumination to help him.

  Goddammit, man, hold it together.

  He didn’t drop the axe, thank God. As the felines pounced toward him in unison, one feral mass of fur, flashing teeth, and glaring green eyes, he swung the axe.

  The blade caught one of the cats in the middle, hacked it nearly in half. The animal emitted a blood-chilling screech.

  The other two cats jumped onto his face and chest. Claws tore into him.

  Losing his balance, the axe slipping out of his grasp, he tumbled down the stairs.

  He slammed to the floor on his back, his head knocking against the concrete. A sea of blackness floated in his vision, threatened to tug him under into unconsciousness.

  But terror kept him awake.

  The creatures clawed and bit furiously. Ripped into his neck and chest.

  He rolled around, trying to knock them off. Pulled at them.

  The damn things were hard to get ahold of, their lithe bodies in furious motion. He finally seized a cat’s head, went to twist it, and felt the animal’s sharp teeth gouge his fingers. He shouted in agony.

  The other feline pawed at his cheek, dangerously close to his eye.

  To hell with this. He hadn’t come this far to have his ass kicked by a bunch of cats.

  Flipping over onto his back again, he jammed his elbows into the animals’ skulls. Shrieking, they fell off him. They dispersed in the shadows, like phantoms.

  He groaned, got to his feet.

  He was slightly dizzy, and his body was a canvas of bloody scratches, but he had no time to dwell on his condition. The creatures were still alive and had some fight in them.

  The axe lay at the base of the stairs, revealed in a fall of light and shadow. He picked it up.

  On the steps above him, the cat he’d cleaved with the axe quivered, paws pedaling the air. It wasn’t dead, either.

  Didn’t anything at this house ever die?

  He heard the other two cats around him. Creeping across furniture. Angling for another attack.

  “Come on, you bastards,” he said under his breath.

  One cat leaped off a dusty sofa.

  Handling the axe like a sword, he swung the blade toward the creature and chopped it across the throat. Yowling, the cat dropped to the floor, head tethered to the body by a strand of fur and flesh.

  He felt only a quick flash of nausea. After what he’d done in the garden, he’d acquired a cast-iron stomach for this gruesome work.

  He picked up quick, stealthy movement in the shadows. The last cat.

  He pivoted, following the rustling sounds.

  “Not scared of you,” he said.

  Paws padded across cushions. Something clanged to the floor. Then, silence fell over the chamber.

  “Come on with it,” he said.

  The silence stretched on.

  He felt the creature out there, watching him. Hesitant, maybe. It had seen how he’d cut down its buddies.

  Perhaps he was giving these cats more credit than they deserved. He assumed that they were as supernaturally smart as they were resilient and vicious.

  Turning to face the cellar, he began to climb the stairs backward. When he reached the step on which the first injured cat lay, he kicked it to the floor.

  As he’d suspected, his attempt to leave drew the final cat out of hiding. It scampered toward him in a streak of gray fur and fiery eyes. Jumped at him from the bottom of the stairs as if bouncing off a trampoline.

  He slashed the animal down the middle.

  Screeching, it thumped down the staircase.

  He surveyed the cellar below him.

  The nightmarish cats writhed and whimpered, but they were far from being capable of mounting another attack soon.

  He cleaned blood from his face with the back of his hand. He ascended the stairs and stepped into the room beyond.

  Chapter 62

  As the mirror dissolved, so did the rest of the illusory furnishings in the mansion.

  The fresh, creamy paint on the walls faded to reveal tattered, patchy wallpaper. The thick carpeting in the hall transformed to scarred wooden floorboards. The overstuffed chairs, which had looked brand new, became ancient lumps with ruptured cushions. The crystal chandelier still dangled from the ceiling, but instead of sparkling, it wore a garland of cobwebs.

  He shook his head, as if clearing away cobwebs from his own eyes. This was the real Mourning Hill. Until now, he’d been wandering through a stylized fantasy version of the house, overlaid on the reality like a glossy varnish. He’d seen a glimmer of the true house a short while ago, before he’d lost consciousness in the bedroom—but this time, the images around him were solid, permanent. The truth was here to stay.

  The silence had ended, too. On the fringes of his hearing, he detected incoherent whispers. Muffled footsteps came from within rooms along the long corridor. From somewhere distant, a childlike wailing reached him.

  The tortured sounds of restless souls. Mika’s victims.

  He faced the door.

  There could be only one reason why Sammy had led him to this point. This door must lead to the attic. Where the great power within the house, Mika’s energy source, resided.

  A soft hum vibrated from behind the doorway, as if an actual motor purred inside the room.

  Mika’s warning replayed in his thoughts: Curiosity can be dangerous. For your own safety, I’ve hidden the upper chamber.

  A lie, probably. Intended to keep him under control. Just like the extravagant illusions throughout the house.

  He put his hand on the doorknob.

  A current of energy, like electricity but different, sizzled through him and blew him backward several feet. He sprawled on his back, strange heat rushing through his nerves, dizziness swimming through him.

  Slowly, he sat up. He examined his palm. A red arc burned on his skin from where he had touched the knob. It hurt like a burn, too.

  Either Mika had somehow rigged the doorknob to shock anyone who tried to turn it. Or something inside didn’t want to let him in.

  Chapter 63

  Car
rying the axe in hands crusted with dried blood, Raymond moved through the rooms on the first level of the mansion.

  Although he had last explored Mourning Hill over thirty years ago, the place was as he remembered it, as if he were wandering through a palace of his memory and not an actual physical structure. The dusty rooms were vast, museum like, full of antique furniture that looked as if it hadn’t been dusted in decades. Fat white candles burned in various areas, supplying a modicum of light.

  Then there were the paintings. In the flicker of candlelight, he studied a painting that portrayed a black woman, and a young black man who could only be his son, lying together in a meadow under a warm sun.

  Another one depicted Andrew and Mika riding a horse across the countryside. Yet another showed them sitting at a table full of fruit, feeding each other grapes.

  The painter, whomever it was, had undeniable talent. But seeing the pieces sickened Raymond nearly as much as the blood he’d spilled earlier. This woman was dangerously obsessive. Taking into account her inhuman abilities, he wasn’t sure how he was going to get Andrew away from her.

  And where were they? He hadn’t seen or heard anything to indicate that they were in here. He felt as isolated as if he were crawling through an ancient crypt.

  He left a living room area, and walked through the arched doorway, into the main hall.

  The woman exploded from a shadowy room across the corridor.

  Clothed in a bloodred kimono, she might have been a beautiful Angel of Death come to bear him away to the afterlife.

  She attacked him before he could react. She crashed into him, drove him back with the strength of an angry rhino. His shoulder smashed into the wall, chips of plaster crackling onto his head. But he kept his grip on the axe.

  Hissing, the woman bared her teeth. Curly locks of her black hair hung in her face, which had transformed from a vision of exotic beauty into an ugly mask of fury.

  She really hasn’t aged at all, he thought, in a frozen moment of terror. Sweet Jesus, she looks the same as when I met her at that party thirty-some years ago . . .

  Then he broke his paralysis, and fought back.

  He pushed her away and took a chop at her. The blade sang through the air, but she bounced to the other side of the corridor, easily eluding him.

  “You look good for your age, Raymond,” she said. “But you’re awfully slow.”

  “Where’s my son?” He struggled to catch his breath.

  “What does it matter to you? You abandoned Andrew to grow up on his own. He doesn’t need you.”

  Her words touched an emotional live wire. Yelling, he charged at her.

  He swung. She evaded the weapon’s arc and darted to the other side of the hall.

  He attacked again, swinging in a wide circle.

  She leapt out of harm’s way. The axe bit into the wall, sank deep into the plaster and got embedded there.

  He cursed, realizing the irony of his predicament. Walter’s shovel had been stuck in a tree when Raymond had shorn his arm off.

  Nevertheless, he strained to yank the axe free. Without a weapon, he was defenseless against her.

  Clucking her tongue, Mika shoved him aside. She tore the axe out of the wall with a single jerk of one hand. She twirled the weapon like a baton.

  Raising his arms protectively, he dipped into a defensive crouch, but she was way too fast for him. She rammed the axe handle into his groin.

  He grunted, doubled over.

  Want to disable a man, aim for the family jewels.

  She clubbed the back of his skull. He dropped to the hardwood floor on his face.

  Grimacing, he floated on a raft of pain.

  He’d been a fool to think that he could fight this woman, all on his own. He hadn’t had a chance in hell.

  Where was Andrew?

  Mika turned him over. Placing her slippered foot on his chest, gazing down at him, she held the axe high, like a statue of a goddess of war.

  “Why are you here?” she asked. “I find it hard to believe that you’ve come for your son.”

  “Taking him home,” he said in a brittle voice. A knob on the back of his head pulsated, dispatched couriers of pain throughout his body.

  She mashed her foot harder against his chest. He gasped.

  “So that’s true? You trespass on my property, butcher my caretaker and my cats, all in the service of some ludicrous effort to take Andrew away from me? After how long I’ve waited for him to return to me?”

  Her eyes were crazed. There would be no reasoning with her, no talking her out of her obsession. She was as insane as he’d feared she would be, and the only way to end this was to end her, permanently.

  But he was beginning to doubt that he was the one who would do it.

  Chapter 64

  As Andrew wandered the cluttered rooms on the second floor, searching for another doorway that might lead to the upper room, he heard a commotion. It came from the main hallway, downstairs.

  One of the voices sounded like his father.

  Hope sparked in him. Was this another cruel hallucination?

  He ran into the hall and peered over the railing, to the floor below.

  He couldn’t believe what he saw.

  Chapter 65

  Raymond lay spread-eagled on the floor, pinned beneath the woman’s foot. He didn’t dare move. She could lop off his head with the axe as easily as chopping through a cord of hickory wood.

  He couldn’t believe that it was going to end like this. All of the dreams he’d had the past few weeks . . . none of them had foretold that he’d die at the hands of this madwoman, that he’d be fated for an ignominious burial in an unmarked grave near this hell house.

  What about the unearthly power they believed existed in this mansion? Couldn’t it—whatever it was—inter vene to help?

  Maybe they hadn’t known what the hell they were talking about. Maybe they had misinterpreted his dreams and all the records they’d discovered. Maybe coming to this house had been a fatal mistake.

  It didn’t matter anymore. This was where he had wound up. And he was out of options.

  “I won’t enjoy this,” Mika said, and sounded genuinely sad. “You fathered the man that I love, and I’m grateful for that. But I can’t allow you to take him away from me, I simply can’t.”

  “Let me go,” he said. “I’ll leave both of you alone, won’t ever come back.”

  He was lying, merely stalling for time. If she let him get away, he’d return all right—with enough firepower to blast this place to Mars.

  “I can’t do that,” she said. “I know your thoughts—you would tell others, and return. My baby and I would never have any peace.”

  “Listen, I wouldn’t do that. Promise.”

  She smirked. “Considering how many false promises you made to Andrew when he was a child, I don’t believe that your word is worth much, Raymond.”

  He shut his mouth. Her statement cut him deeper than any blade could have.

  She raised the axe.

  Praying fervently, he closed his eyes.

  Lord, please, I’ll do anything if you stop this from happening. Don’t let me die like this, God, please. I’m sorry for everything I’ve done, I’ll do better, please, God, please, LET ME LIVE—

  “Mika, stop!”

  It was Andrew.

  Raymond’s eyes snapped open. His son rounded the newel post at the bottom of the spiral staircase.

  Thank you, Jesus.

  Then Andrew spoke words that convinced Raymond that the hell in which he found himself had just gotten a hundred degrees hotter.

  “Let me take care of him myself,” Andrew said.

  Chapter 66

  Let me take care of him myself. . . . Raymond searched for a secretive gleam in Andrew’s eyes, a wink, anything to convince him that his son was playing a joke. Surely, he had heard wrong.

  But there was no such signal. Andrew’s face was grave.

  What in God’s name was going on? Had th
is woman brainwashed him?

  Mika, too, appeared puzzled. “You want to murder your own father, Andrew?”

  “Asshole’s never done a damn thing for me,” Andrew said. He rubbed his hands on his jeans, as if preparing for hard work. “I want to pay him back. Like you paid back your father for what he did to you, Mika.”

  Raymond remembered the newspaper account of how Dr. George Mourning had murdered his wife with a shotgun, and then committed suicide. Evidently, it had been Mika’s punishment for him taking away her lover.

  Mika’s eyes shone, as she considered his son’s proposition. Slowly, she smiled.

  “Yes,” she said. “That’s how it should be. This is indeed your responsibility.”

  Andrew stepped closer. Mika offered him the axe. Andrew held it, tested its weight.

  “Please, Andrew, don’t do this,” Raymond said. “Jesus, what the hell’s wrong with you? I’m your father, I know I haven’t been great but I’ve been trying to do better! Please forgive me, son, don’t do this. Forgive me!”

  “Too late for that forgive me shit.” Andrew spread his legs like a lumberjack.

  Raymond tried to get up. Mika scowled and kicked him sharply in the ribs, knocking him back to the floor, gagging.

  Andrew lifted the axe high.

  “God, help us both,” Raymond said.

  Andrew swung the axe.

  Into Mika’s chest.

  Chapter 67

  Andrew drove the axe into Mika with such force that it shattered her breastbone and sank several inches into her chest.

  Her mouth opened, a faint croak escaping her lips. She wilted against the wall and thudded against the floor. The axe protruded like a wooden limb from her torso.

  She lay still as a department-store mannequin, glazed eyes staring at the chandelier.

  Andrew wiped his hands on his shirt.

  Perhaps it made him a bad person to admit it, but whacking her with that axe was the most pleasurable thing he’d done all day.