The Gift of Illusion: A Thriller

by Richard Brown

  No one spoke a word as they descended the ladder, each step slow and steady. This wasn't the time to be careless, or claustrophobic. Isaac counted the steps as they went down. One. Two. Three. Twelve. Twenty-four. Thirty-six. At around step forty-five, he had begun to get tired and lost count.

  Though she tried to keep her thoughts positive, Virginia couldn't help but imagine that they were climbing down into the pits of hell, with a hearty heaping helping of eternal damnation waiting for them at the bottom.

  When Isaac reached the end of the line, he put the lantern down on the ground beside him and then helped Virginia down from the ladder. Simmons took a little longer to get to the bottom, but thankfully he didn't need Isaac to catch him.

  The secret passageway had dumped them from the ceiling into a hallway not much wider than the hole and with only six feet of clearance. Of the three, Isaac was the only one who couldn't stand straight up without hitting his head. For once in his life, Simmons was happy he was the shorter guy in the room. Other than them, there was nothing else in the hallway. No welcome mat, no furnishings, no pictures or paintings, and no Amy. Nothing but the cold stone of the walls and their giant shadows the light casted upon it.

  Virginia picked up the lantern. It had done a fine job thus far (much better than she had initially expected) filling the mansion with enough light to pass through safely. When the lamp was in her hands, she felt a sense of security (even if it were a false sense), as long as she could see, everything would be okay.

  Isaac looked both directions down the hall. Both ways were long tunnels of blackness with no end in sight. "Which way?"

  "I don't think it matters," Virginia replied.

  "Why do you say that?"

  "Because I have a feeling they both lead to the same place."

  The group went left and wandered down the dark passage with Isaac leading the way. Less than thirty feet later they hit a corner and continued to the right down a short set of stairs. At the bottom, the hallway grew wider and taller. Isaac could finally walk like a normal human being.

  Maybe it was just his imagination (which seemed to have kicked into full gear after he took that first step through the front double doors), but just after the hallway took a turn, Isaac could feel the temperature drop by at least ten degrees. The air, once as chilling as a hotel lobby, now felt like the inside of a morgue. And if the air hit his face from a certain direction, it almost smelled like a morgue, too. It was as though they had stumbled inside a coffin, surprised to find the scent of old, rotting death.

  The hallway continued to widen and soon was wide enough for the group to walk side by side. They could now hear a gentle clanging sound coming from just ahead, growing louder and more distinct with each step forward. Moments later, the sound was upon them, as the lamplight revealed a cluster of chains hanging from the ceiling, swaying back and forth in unison, clanging together in the cold air. Each chain was about nine or ten feet long and were made of links much heavier and sturdier than your conventional, general-purpose chain. The chains hung from long metal hooks on the ceiling, equally spaced apart from one another. A circular clamp about six inches in diameter was at the end of each chain, with a nut and bolt at the bottom to tighten and loosen the tension. Many of the clamps were stained with a dark brown substance around the inner ring, leftovers from a time when innocence bled suffering.

  Isaac lightly pushed apart the chains (careful to not smack Virginia behind him) and came to the end of the hallway. He peered into the darkness before him, waiting for Virginia and Simmons to wrestle free of the dangling chains. Simmons stopped behind Isaac just beyond the last of the swinging shackles, while Virginia stepped ahead, held the lantern out in front of her, and shined light into the dark chamber.

  The room was so cold Isaac could see his breath in the air. It puffed out of his mouth like a cloud of smoke and softly separated before floating beyond the glow of the light. The putrid smell was now constant and had grown stronger. He found the stench almost unbearable, far worse than the aroma of scalded bodies, and he had not yet forgotten that first step inside the Ackerman house, which seemed like ages ago. The sweet smell of ash he could tolerate, given enough time maybe even come to enjoy, even if the ash was human flesh and bone. But this scent made him gag and shudder from the inside out. He tried to cough but nothing more than a slippery wet grunt exited his throat. If his stomach weren’t balled up with fear, and quite likely a smidgen of self-doubt, he was certain he would vomit.

  High up on the wall to the right was an oil lamp. It was much bigger than the lantern they had found in the entranceway, but this one held no flame. Such a pity to see the lamp hanging from the wall, tall and empty, if there were ever a room in need of more light, it was this one.

  Not far from the end of the hallway, across from the second oil lamp on the right, the group came upon the first of the twelve cells.

  The cell was ten by ten, with three walls and a long set of iron bars at the front, each staff driven into the ground and ceiling six inches apart from one another. The iron was chipped in many spots and had rusted to a dozen different shades of brown and orange. Built into the center of the bars, halfway up, was a small locked metal box with an oversized keyhole.

  Of course, no one in the group noticed any of these things, as they were not able to take their eyes off the pale, transparent figure hugging the back wall. It had its back turned to them. Its long fingers scratched at the stone, up and down, up and down, like it was trying desperately to somehow dig through the wall. After a few seconds, it would stop, gather itself, and then start the process all over again.

  The group watched the horrifying display from the other side of the bars, half amazed and half frightened at what they were witnessing. Until, the figure stopped scratching and lowered its arms, bowed its head.

  Had it given up?

  Or had it felt their dazed stares from behind?

  “What is it?” Isaac asked, his eyes not shifting from the strange being. It remained still, hugging the back wall, hissing softly.

  “A prisoner,” Virginia whispered.

  Suddenly, the figure swung around and leapt to the other end of the cell. Its pale, lanky body brutally collided with the top of the iron bars, rattling them in their deep holes. The force of the collision knocked the group to the cold stone floor. The lantern flew out of Virginia’s hand, scuttled across the floor on its side, and came to a halt ten yards further up the cellblock. Luckily, the glass didn’t break and the flame didn’t die.

  The group looked up from the ground and watched the prisoner wrap its gangly hands and feet around the rusted iron. Then it shook the bars violently back and forth, back and forth. Its black, vacant sockets stared down upon them, and its toothless mouth gaped wide open, shrieking. It continued back and forth, back and forth, rattling the bars, again and again and again. The violent symphony resonated through the chamber, as did the piercing screams.

  Virginia clutched Isaac’s hand so tight he feared she might tear his fingers right off, her nails dug and pinched into his palm. Soon after the figure ceased the ruthless display, Virginia loosened her grip and slowly released her trembling hand from Isaac’s.

  Meanwhile, the prisoner clamped its mouth around one of the rusted bars and tried to gnaw through the iron with its gums while sliding down to the floor. When it reached the bottom, it sat on its knees and continued to stare at them, no longer shrieking, banging, or gnawing on the bars. The ghost had calmed instantly, and there was now sadness behind those black, deserted eyes.

  This thing that had said hello by viciously knocking them to the floor, nearly causing them to piss their pants, wasn’t something to be afraid of, but something to feel sorry for.

  Virginia stood up, hoping to not startle the ghost, and walked over to pick up the lantern in front of cell number two. Isaac and Simmons followed in much the same manner, glancing back only to see the ghost’s sad eyes still upon them. As she picked up the lamp, Virginia noticed a sheet of dark
tinted glass running across the right wall about waist high, continuing down to where the cellblock twisted to the right.

  Behind the glass is the study, she thought, and through the tinted window, he would watch over the prisoners. He would watch them suffer.

  Another pale figure was in the second cell to the left of them. Aside from its larger head and longer torso, it looked very similar to the prisoner in the first cell. This one was definitely a man, Virginia thought, or was a man. It was hunched over on all fours and crawled in a circle in the middle of the cell as though it were an animal chasing a piece of raw meat dangling in front of its face. In circles it went, crawling fast, its mouth open, begging, never letting up.

  The figure in the third cell was leaning over in the far right corner. It had its legs stretched in front of it, knees slightly bent. Its head was down, its arms out to its side, while its entire upper body jolted forward like it intended to vomit all over its chest, stomach, and groin.

  In the fourth and final cell before the chamber turned to the right, a figure sat Indian style in the center. It had its right hand clamped around its left wrist, holding its left arm up to its mouth. Its jaw bit down, opened, bit down, opened, gradually chewing off the arm. It stopped and glanced up at the passing group, holding part of the white, transparent flesh out as an offering. Then bit down, opened, bit down, opened.

  The group turned the corner and came to a wooden door on the right. The black spying window stopped at the door and continued on the other side. Isaac hurried over to open the door, but right as his hand touched the tip of the knob, Virginia tugged on his coat from behind.

  “Isaac.” She pointed across the hall at the fifth and sixth cells. “Look.”

  Two of the figures had found a way to connect with each other across the cells. One stood on the top right of the fifth, the other on the top left of the sixth. They each had an arm hanging between the last set of bars, six inches apart, reaching out toward the other one. They held hands outside of the bars, in the stone space between the two cells, crying and whispering to one another. In life these two could have been young lovers, or perhaps, long time husband and wife. Their last moments were spent here, dying underground in this prison, unable to see each other, but by chance (or perhaps not) were locked in neighboring cells, and were still able to touch.

  Virginia held her hand up to her face and brushed a few tears away from her eyes. The warm tears felt good in the bitter chamber, although she wished them gone. She had to keep herself under control, not let her emotions get the best of her, for Isaac’s sake and the sake of his daughter, Amy, who was still missing. But the constant struggle grew harder, especially now, seeing the spirits long for each other, holding hands.

  Isaac walked further down the chamber, leaving Virginia and Simmons in front of the door to the study. He drifted beyond the glow of the lamplight, but it didn’t matter anymore. There was nothing to be afraid of down here, nothing that wished hurt upon him. He stopped in front of the eighth cell, the last of the middle row, and tiptoed closer to the iron bars. The ghost inside noticed Isaac coming toward the cell and turned its head away like it was scared to look at him, fearing he would punish it. So it sat, hunched over in the back of the cell. Quiet. Motionless.

  Isaac stopped six inches away from the bars, clutched the iron above his head, and leaned in closer. “Come here.”

  The ghost looked back for a moment allowing Isaac to see the eyes again, those sad eyes. It was the same look the prisoner from the first cell gave after it had calmed, while their backs laid against the cold stone floor. But this time Isaac truly saw the agony behind the eyes. He felt the soul of the spirit. “I won’t hurt you.”

  The ghost looked over a few more times, still turning its head back to the wall, then at last held the stare longer and began crawling toward the bars. When it arrived at the barred door, it picked its hands off the floor and wrapped them around the bars a couple of feet below Isaac’s. Again it hunched over, its legs folded at the knees beneath it, quivering as it peered up at Isaac.

  The sadness now poured out of the black sockets like ice melting upon him. Isaac wanted to smile, wanted to do something to try and ease the spirits fear, but smiling would probably make it more afraid, and that’s not what either of them wanted.

  “Please,” said Isaac, still looking into the sad, fear filled eyes. He couldn’t believe what he was doing. He couldn’t believe he was actually talking to a ghost. The words rolled from his mouth slow and gentle. “Tell me what to do?”

  The ghost remained motionless at Isaac’s feet, still peering up at him, afraid. Is this what the illusionist enjoyed seeing? Isaac wondered. Is that the look he craved? The ghost picked its legs up from beneath it and began to stand up. Even when it stood, its back remained arched, and its eyes remained on Isaac. The ghost’s pale hands slid up the bars and came to a stop into Isaac’s hands, flowing seamlessly, caressing. The hands were icy cold to the touch, yet, somewhere inside Isaac could feel a fever beneath the surface wanting to pierce through.

  The ghost opened its mouth, its wide, black mouth, leaned in closer, until their faces were almost touching, and finally answered. Its voice sounded like it had been carried through a long tunnel.

  It only spoke two words, but they were enough. It was all Isaac needed to hear.

  “Help me!” It had cried.

  9

  The lamp lit up the small study effortlessly, flickering light off the walls in every direction. The first thing they noticed upon entering the room was how full and packed the study was, which, for once, made perfect sense, as the dark chamber was one of the few places the investigators of old never found, or had the guts to explore. About two times as much stuff filled the room than it could comfortably hold, much of it clustered against a back wall piled with large wooden crates lying under a shroud of thick, gray dust.

  A long, mahogany desk rested on each of the front corners of the room, both identical in size and shape, partially filling the front and side walls. Under each desk was a matching chair with faded black cushions on the seats. These desks would have made for an ideal viewing area of all twelve cells in the chamber, with the dark tinted glass perfectly at eye level when sitting. The desks contained no shelves or drawers, but lying on top were a few scattered sheets of paper, diagrams, pens, inkbottles, and dozens of melted candles.

  The center of the room was the only area fit for moving about, not more than eight feet in diameter. In this circle, the group stood, each of their eyes focusing on something different.

  Simmons turned to the wooden crates at the back of the room. There were twelve crates (like the cells) all together, stacked like a pyramid. He tried to see what, if anything, was inside the crates. He wanted to pick one up and move it to the floor but feared he might accidentally drop it. The last thing he wanted was for a family of severed heads to break free of the wooden planks and tumble across the study.

  Virginia set the lamp down on the desk at the corner of the right wall, sat down, and found a bookshelf less than a foot high and no more than two feet long nestled far underneath, well out of sight. She would not have even seen the shelf had she not sat down in the padded black cushioned chair. She got up, walked past the door to the matching desk on the other side, and looked beneath. Another bookshelf lay under the second desk, and like the first, it was well hidden.

  Black notebooks lined the bookshelves, each one roughly one hundred pages long. Written on the spine of each book was a date. Virginia randomly pulled one of the notebooks out and flipped through the pages. The black books appeared to be part journal, part case study, as some of the pages had subject numbers for a heading, then a brief, scribbled paragraph underneath.

  Such as—

  Subject: 017

  This morning, it fed for the eighth day. I was again delighted to see him frugal, and not wasteful as so many of the others. He couldn’t shovel it in fast enough. It is remarkable how long an animal can live off its own feces; given it
has the proper encouragement. After his meal, he caressed his genitals, mounting an erection. He spent the rest of the evening licking the cell floor.

  And—

  Subject: 041

  Today, I realized that after only three days in Cell 8, it has accepted its fate. The weeping has passed, as has the illusion of escape. Now it just lies balled in the corner of the cell, its bony hands clinching its hair. From this spot it has not moved, has not looked up. The death has been arranged, and will take place at dusk tomorrow night. It is heartbreaking to see the oldest female of the fourth group pass, I had much left to study, but it's time.

  Isaac wanted to tell Virginia and Simmons about his encounter with the prisoner in cell number eight. How it had spoken to him. How its icy pale hands had touched his. But most of all, he wanted to tell them how sorry he was for bringing them into this. It was his battle to fight, not theirs, and even if they insisted, he should have come here without them. He should have come here alone.

  But he didn’t say any of it. Maybe he couldn’t find the right words, or maybe somewhere deep inside he knew they needed to be here, by his side. They were as much a part of this as him.

  He wasn’t paying attention to Simmons fiddling with the crates or Virginia reading through the notebooks, he had his mind on something else. He looked all around the room, up, down, left, right, but couldn’t find it. He searched the walls, behind the desks, and even the small cracks between the crates Simmons contemplated lifting, yet, still—nothing.