The Mansion

by Peter Buckley

  ‘You ok?’ he asked.

  ‘I pushed open the door and then it closed suddenly, now I can’t seem to open it,’ John replied.

  Tony stopped and watched as John struggled to open the door. He then offered to try. He placed his hand on the round door handle and turned it. When it had reached its furthest point, he pushed. The door slowly opened; he even let go of the handle and the door continued to open with a creak.

  He looked at John who looked at him in astonishment.

  ‘Are you messing with me or something?’ he said to John.

  John just stood, mouth open, shaking his head. Tony sighed and moved on to the next room.

  Michael had entered his room, its walls covered in a dark red paper. The ceiling was covered in small irregular-shaped mirrors, creating a mosaic pattern.

  The bed, a four-poster, rested against a wall. Above the headboard was a painting of several skeletons sitting at a table. A large grime-stained window let in the grey light of the outside world. He stood at it and looked out. The mansion’s gardens stretched out in front of him. A small gathering of trees stood in the center of the lawn, and he looked at them. Their leafless limbs began to sway gently. He was about to turn away and begin positioning the camera he held in his hand when out of the corner of his eye he saw a dark outline of a figure standing at the tree’s base. He stopped and refocused but saw nothing. He shook his head and began setting up the tripod and camera facing the bed, contacting Phoebe to check position and reception. When he got the all clear, he left and headed to the last room.

  Jeremy walked into a large room covered with wallpaper that depicted a carnival scene. The room itself consisted of four small beds and a large gathering of dolls and cuddly toys piled in a corner: there were teddy bears in various types of clothes, and dolls sat and stared blankly at him, some with clothes, and others sat naked; a few had limbs missing. He shivered as a cold breeze surrounded him. He never liked dolls; there was something sinister about them, especially their eyes, which seemed to follow you wherever you went. He moved from bed to bed, noticing the old faded and stained sheets. He took several pictures with his digital camera of each bed and the pile of toys, and he then began to set up the camera and tripod. A large bang made him jump back from the camera. He spun around, searching for whatever had made the noise. He radioed to the others, asking if any of them had heard the loud bang. Each in turn responded with a ‘No’ or a ‘Negative.’ He walked around the room, pushing his feet hard down into the carpet to see if there was a loose floorboard that may have returned to its normal place after he had stepped on it, but nothing felt loose. He opened the small wardrobe that rested against a wall but found it empty. It was then that he noticed the wallpaper in detail. The carnival scene he had initially noticed was a complete scene, starting by the door and depicting different rides and animal attractions all around the room until it reached the door again, only breaking where the large window separated the design. He looked closer and saw that the people depicted in the design were all headless. He then heard another loud bang that shattered the silence of the room. He turned quickly and pushed his back against the wall. This time he knew where it had emanated from.

  ‘Did you hear that one?’ he called into the radio.

  Again the others responded with ‘No.’ The door opened, and he gasped. He relaxed and sighed when he saw Michael walk in.

  ‘What’s going on in here?’ he asked Jeremy.

  Jeremy pointed to the window and explained that he had heard two loud bangs. They both slowly moved over to the window and peered out. The window overlooked the garden that Michael had seen from the room he had just set up. Unlike the room he had just been in, this window led onto a small balcony. They both looked down at the balcony floor and saw what had caused the two loud bangs. On the floor of the balcony lay two large crows.

  ‘Crazy birds have just flown into the window and killed themselves,’ Michael said.

  At that moment, another crow came out of nowhere and crashed into the window. The two investigators fell backwards, their hearts racing from the sudden jumpstart. They sat on the floor, looking at each other and then at the window.

  ‘Get set up and let’s get out of here,’ Jeremy said. Michael nodded and helped his friend quickly set up the camera, they decided to set it up so they could see the beds and window as well as the mountain of dolls and toys.

  John slowly entered the room he had been struggling to open the door too. He was greeted by a musty smell and an icy blast of air that made him shiver. Mold covered the light green wallpaper, the carpet had several dark stains on it, and the four-poster bed that stood in the center of the room had no bed covers, just an old, stained mattress. There were several gouges cut into each of the bed posts. The windows that let in the light were thick with grime, letting in very little natural light. He looked for a light switch and found one in the middle of the wall that the door belonged to. He flicked it, and the small crystal chandelier came to life, bathing the room in a strange low light. The walls danced with spots and shapes cast from the small crystals of the light fixture. He took several pictures of the room before setting up his camera. He called down to Phoebe while standing in the camera’s view and waving. Phoebe responded by telling him he was silly. He felt another icy blast of air and then the door he had struggled to open slammed shut. He stood bolt upright and looked at the door. He quickly walked over to the door and tried to open it, but again it didn’t move. He radioed to the others but was met with static. He looked around him at the room. The small light spots and glints cast onto the wall from the light began to move quicker and quicker. He looked up at the chandelier, expecting it to be swaying, but it was still. He then heard a quiet, sinister laugh. He felt a cold electric shock shoot up his spine to his head. His heart began to pound as he heard a low voice speak. He quickly grabbed his voice recorder from his pocket and pressed record.

  ‘What is your name?’ he asked.

  The voice continued to speak, but in a language he didn’t understand. There was a click as the door opened. The voice ceased at that very moment. He quickly exited and walked into Jeremy. They looked at each other, and they didn’t have to say anything; they both knew that they had just experienced more in the last few minutes than all the other investigations they had ever done.

  Tony opened the door to one of the last two remaining rooms in the corridor. He stepped in and found the room to be very dark; only a small amount of natural light illuminated the room. There was only one window in the room, which ran along the length of the skirting board of one of the walls and was no more than a foot in height. The walls of the room were painted black. Nothing else was in the room except for a large crystal chandelier that hung down from the ceiling; its point finished just inches from the wooden floor. He found a light switch that had been painted black also and pushed his finger down on it. The chandelier burst into life. The walls that were black now showed pictures of mutilated corpses. The large chandelier was in fact a form of cinema projector, projecting the pictures that were caught and stored within the crystals. He looked at each one: bodies with their chests skinless and showing the ribs, headless bodies, female bodies with their breasts removed, and several men hanging with their feet and hands tied together. He quickly set up a night vision camera and left the room, turning the light off as he left.

  He was met in the corridor by Jeremy and Michael, who were standing by the final door. John was placing his static charge detector in the middle of the corridor and turned it on. The others all entered the final room, which was the largest of all of them. The four-poster bed sat on top of a raised wooden platform in the center of the room. The walls were covered in black and white photographs and painted pictures. They separated and looked at the pictures: photographs of children sitting together in pretty dresses and shirts and trousers. There were several pictures of a family, the man standing proud behind a chair, and his wife sitting, looking pale and non-expressional. The children, all of wh
om looked to be a similar age, stood around the chair either side of him, none of them smiling.

  Other pictures showed the dining room filled with people. All sat, looking down the table towards whoever was taking the picture. The table itself was full of food: roasted pig, what looked like pheasants still feathered, and a head of a stag, its antlers adorned with ribbons. Michael looked at a painting and noticed that it was of the mansion, but in front of it were several small fires with people standing around them. He looked closer and saw that within the fires were partly painted shapes of people.

  ‘What kind of people lived here?’ he asked out loud.

  The others all turned and stared at him. They all shook their heads and shrugged their shoulders.

  Tony set up the tripod while Jeremy fixed the camera on top of it. Tony then radioed down to Phoebe to check that she was receiving a picture before sighing heavily and telling the others it was time to head back to the dining room, which had become their base camp to plan for the evening’s walk through.

  While the investigators were setting up the cameras, Phoebe had felt the temperature in the room drop. The large sculpture that rose from the table cast a strange shadow, and she was sure that she had seen the shadows move. When she looked up from the TV monitors, she could see nothing. Just as she received the message from Tony that they were heading back, she heard what sounded like a child laughing. She looked around the room but saw nothing. Then she heard it again, this time coming from above her. She looked up at the ceiling but saw nothing but the small chandeliers that filled the room with light. She looked back at the monitors and saw a figure run past the camera in the kitchen. She grabbed the radio off the table and began asking where the others were and if they were trying to scare her. She heard a buzzing and then the others walked into the room.

  ‘Did you hear that?’ she asked.

  ‘Hear what?’ John asked. She explained about the laughter and the figure moving past the camera.

  She rewound the recording but could see nothing. The others then asked her to run the footage back so they could try and explain their experiences, but nothing was found on the recordings.

  Even the brief EVP session that John had taken showed no evidence of what he had heard.

  On the way down the stairs, Tony had picked up the book that contained information about each of the rooms. He sat down at the large dining room table and began reading, filling the others in with what was written as they continued to check recordings and prepare their recording equipment ready for the night’s investigation.

  ‘The master bedroom, the one with the bed on the platform, is apparently where there has been sightings of a man and woman. They stand at the end of the bed and pull the sheets off the bed if anyone sleeps in it. It doesn’t say who they are. The children’s room is where people have heard child laughter, and some of the toys have moved. People who have tried to stay the night in the other rooms have reported they have been attacked, leaving them with scratches and bruises. Figures have been seen in most of the rooms.’

  ‘What about that weird blacked out room you told us about?’ Jeremy asked Tony.

  He looked through the pages for further information about the room and found only one small paragraph. He began to read it out.

  ‘The projector room is one of the most sinister and macabre rooms of the upper level. Its large crystal chandelier is the only one known in existence. The pictures imbedded within the crystals are believed to be of drifters and trespassers caught hiding amongst the trees of the property grounds. Who did the killing and mutilations no one knows.’

  ‘Jesus, this place is not right,’ Phoebe said.

  Tony placed the book down on the table and sighed. He’d wanted to investigate the mansion for so long and now he finally had his chance; he didn’t want to make any mistakes or miss any possible evidence of the existence of the paranormal. He was already excited after what he and the team had witnessed so far.

  ‘I’ve made sure that all the wooden outdoor window shutters have been closed and locked. All the doors to the outside are locked so there can be no interference from anyone,’ he said.

  Phoebe and Jeremy looked at him. They both had an uneasy feeling about being locked in with no escape in case things went wrong. Recently, another paranormal investigation group had been locked into an old building when it caught fire, killing the team inside.

  Tony set out the evening schedule: who was going to what room and what experiments they would undertake. John and Michael were to head to the kitchen and use a thermal camera as they conducted an electronic voice phenomenon session. At the same time, Phoebe and Jeremy would conduct EVP sessions and thermal camera sessions in the dining room.

  ‘So many have died in here we should be able to capture something with all our equipment. I will head into some of the other rooms and conduct EVP and night vision sessions,’ he said.

  There was a slight pause, and then Jeremy asked the main question that was on everyone’s mind.

  ‘When are we doing the upper floors?’

  Tony looked at the team and responded, ‘The early hours.’

  Just as he said that, an icy blast of air descended into the room. They could all feel the cold breeze move down from their heads to their feet. They all looked up at the large sculpture. The antlers that it was made out of seemed to glisten in the light.

  ‘Where’s that cold air coming from?’ John asked.

  Tony shook his head; it didn’t feel like a normal winter’s breeze; it had a strange thickness to it—it felt heavy.

  Outside it began to snow.

  ‘Right, before we get started, I need to visit the ladies room,’ Phoebe said.

  The others looked at her and rolled their eyes. Every time they were about to start an investigation, she needed to go to the toilet. She had noticed a door just off to the side of the kitchen that said ‘Toilet’ when they had had their walk through with the old man, she had not seen any other toilet or bathroom.

  ‘Did any of you notice any bathrooms upstairs?’ she asked.

  The four men looked at each other, their brows low as they concentrated on remembering whether they had seen one or not. They then all shook their heads.

  ‘So apart from the one off the kitchen—well I hope it is one—there are no other toilets or bathrooms?’ she questioned.

  4

  Phoebe made her way through the small adjoining rooms and entered the kitchen. The coldness of the room made her skin pimple. She saw the white door in the corner; the small sign plate on it reading ‘Toilet’ made her sigh with relief. She walked over to it and pulled the handle. It opened to reveal an old white porcelain toilet with a handle hanging from a long silver chain from the tank which was situated about seven feet above the toilet seat. She looked at the wall and saw the light switch, which she flicked straight away. A dull, yellowish light sprang from the bulb in the center of the ceiling. She then looked to see if there was any toilet paper, and she smiled when she noticed a full roll. She quickly stepped in and closed the door behind her. A sigh of relief escaped her as she pulled down her jeans and knickers just in time for her to begin to relieve her full bladder. Phoebe stared at the wooden door in front of her as she sat on the toilet seat. There was something strange about the grain of wood and the numerous circular knots clearly visible beneath the coat of white paint. She pulled a couple of sheets of toilet paper from the roll and wiped herself. Then she stood and pulled her knickers and jeans back up, still looking at the door as she fastened her buttons. It was then that she noticed what was so strange about the door. Rather than made up of several long panels of wood, the door seemed to be made from one piece. She ran her fingers across it and could not feel any joins only the raised areas where the knots lay.

  She slid the little bolt across that locked the door and pushed, but the door didn’t move. She tried again, but once more it didn’t move. She paused, thinking back to when she entered and whether she pulled it or pushed it. There wasn’
t enough room for the door to open inwards, and she clearly remembered pulling it shut.

  She pushed one more time, but yet again it didn’t budge. She stood back and looked around the frame of the door to see if there was some form of catch that had locked the door, but there was nothing.

  The paint on the door began to bubble as if it were liquid boiling in a pot. More and more bubbles rose and popped. She looked at the walls and noticed that they too were bubbling. She could feel her heart pounding against her chest as she began to panic. She turned and looked at the toilet and noticed the water in it was bubbling away and rising up until it began to flow over the top of the bowl, cascading to the floor and surrounding her boots. She spun around to face the door again and its bubbling surface. It was then that she saw something begin to grow from its center. The outline began to take a definite shape, and soon she could make out the nose and brow of a face, its mouth open in a strange smile. It turned left and right as it got closer to her. She backed away until she could feel the toilet seat against the back of her knees. The water that continued to flow over its lip burned into her skin. She screamed, calling out the names of the others, hoping they could hear her and get to her in time.

  Jeremy was the first to hear Phoebe’s cries for help. He didn’t move first time, not sure of what he was hearing. When he heard the second scream, he bolted from his position, shouting to the others who were deep in conversation to follow him. They ran into the kitchen and heard Phoebe’s screams full of fear and panic. They ran over to the toilet door and yanked at it. It shot open; there was no resistance. Standing on the toilet seat with her hands covering her eyes, screaming, was Phoebe. Jeremy called her name and grabbed her by the arms. She looked up from her hands and saw the others all stood in the toilet doorway, concern etched on their faces.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Jeremy asked her, his eyes wide with confusion.