“I don’t know what’s going on,” Mike admitted. “The door is unlocked, I’m sure of it, but it still won’t open.”
Angela huffed. “Don’t act like you’re surprised.”
Mike sighed and chose to ignore her. He’d stopped defending himself a little while ago when it became clear that Angela wasn’t going to change her mind about him. Tim didn’t blame the bloke for not wanting to waste his breath, but he still had Angela’s back before he would have Mike’s.
“Do you think we should try the phones again?” Tim asked. “We really need to get a hold of the police.”
“Try them,” said Mike. “Be my guest.”
“No,” said Angela. “Nobody is splitting up. We’ll go together. Where is the nearest phone?”
“In the antechamber,” Mike said. “Follow me.”
Mike took them over to a small side room with a couch. The phone was fixed to the wall. Mike went to pick up the receiver.
“No,” said Angela. “Let me.” She snatched the receiver from the wall and placed it to her ear. From the way she slammed the handset back down Tim knew that the lines were still dead.
Tim felt himself panic. He was feeling more and more cut off from the world; trapped. He felt like the cowering mess crouching in the corner again. “So what’s the plan?” He heard the anxiety in his own voice and took some deep breaths, then reaffirmed himself. “I mean, we can’t just stand around here all night.”
“Well, I’m not going to go to bed,” said Angela. “I think we all need to group together somewhere and wait for Frank and whatever help he brings. We need to keep Sammie and Jessica safe with us as well.”
Tim blanched at that. “For all we know, Sammie is the danger.”
Angela shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. I was getting through to him earlier. He’s just a scared little boy.”
“What about Chamuel?” Tim asked.
“Who?” Mike asked, looking deeply confused.
Angela looked at him and explained. “Chamuel is the name of the presence apparently inside of Sammie. And to answer your question, Tim: I don’t know. I don’t know if Chamuel is a split-personality or if we’re really dealing with something evil here, but Sammie said that the thing inside of him wants him dead. I don’t think we should leave him alone.”
Tim let out a long, whistling sigh. He wished the tiredness would leave the inside of his eyelids. It made him feel sluggish. “Okay,” he finally said. “Let’s go hole up in the kid’s room. Maybe we can all watch South Park when the power comes back on.”
But when they entered Sammie’s room, the boy wasn’t there.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
“We need to find him,” Angela said. “Right now.”
Tim looked around Sammie’s room and wondered where he could have gotten to. A candle burned by the window, illuminating the boy’s drawing desk. Even from several feet away, Tim could see the drawings arranged on top of its cluttered surface. He moved closer.
There was one drawing in the centre of the desk that was perched on top of all the others – it seemed to take pride of place. Tim picked it up and examined it.
Holy shitballs!
The picture should have chilled Tim to his core, but he felt numb inside – it was a serene moment of frozen emotion that probably came right before a full-blown breakdown. It was the calm before the storm of mental anguish and manic fear.
The old hag’s charcoal eyes leapt right off the sketch, as if they were alive. The figure clutched a crudely-drawn severed head in her hand and Tim knew that it belonged to his brother. In fact the contorted features of the disembodied face shared all the right features.
How does Sammie know? It’s impossible.
Tim crumpled the drawing and threw it on the floor. He fought the urge to flee, glumly reminding himself that there was no way out anyway. His bladder wanted to void itself and his stomach felt sick. Yet, mixed in with his urge to flee was also the beginning of an urge to fight. Anger had started to flower in the pit of Tim’s stomach and he found a tiny sliver of extra resolve that he never knew he had. Perhaps he’d finally had enough of being messed with.
Angela stepped up beside Tim and placed a hand on his shoulder. “What was the drawing of?”
“Something only I could know about.”
“Yeah, I got one of those too. Remember when Sammie first met me?”
Tim remembered how freaked out Angela had been when receiving her own drawing. “How do you think he does it?” he asked her. “How can he see things from our pasts that only we know about?”
“I don’t think it is Sammie. I think that whatever possessed Charles Crippley that day in Jersey is the same entity that is inside Sammie - Chamuel. That’s how he knows.”
Tim wondered if this Chamuel was the same malevolent spirit that had crushed his brother’s skull. “Do you have any theories about who Chamuel is yet? Why don’t you think he’s responsible for killing Graham?”
“I’m not sure who Chamuel is, but I’m working on it. I still think the name is familiar, but I just can’t place my finger on it. I still can’t figure out why my attempts to exorcise the demon were such a failure. I think I need to try again. As for Graham, I just don’t see how a ten-year old boy could have done that to him. There’s something else at play here that we’re not yet seeing. But the only thing we need to worry about right now is finding Sammie.”
“Maybe he went up to see his mother,” Mike chimed in from behind them. “We should go check on her, anyway.”
It was a reasonable suggestion so Tim didn’t argue about it; neither, surprisingly, did Angela. They all headed back out of Sammie’s room and into the hallway, then took the stairs all the way up to the fourth floor. Angela carried a candle that had been on a nearby windowsill.
Jessica’s door was open. Light from her own bedside candle flooded weak light out into the hallway and highlighted the red carpet in its spotlight. Tim saw that Jessica was still sleeping in her bed; he also saw that Sammie was nowhere to be seen.
Mike stated the obvious. “Sammie’s not here.”
“Then we keep looking,” said Angela.
Tim wasn’t so sure. “Do you think it’s safe to leave Jessica alone?”
“I’ll stay with her,” Mike offered.
Angela shook her head. “No way. We stick together.”
“Fine. Then we either stay here or we carry on searching.”
“Let’s just search the rest of this floor,” said Tim. “If we don’t find Sammie we’ll come back and wake Jessica up.”
Everyone agreed.
The first room they came to after leaving Jessica’s penthouse was a large office with an antique desk. On top of the desk was a computer. Somehow, it was still switched on – the only thing in the house that still had power.
“How is there still electricity in here?” Angela asked.
“There’s not,” Mike answered. “That was Joseph Raymeady’s personal computer. He used it for his work at Black Remedy. It’s installed with a backup power supply to protect against the constant power cuts at the house. The battery charges off the house’s supply when it’s on and kicks in if the electricity is cut off. It’ll run out eventually.”
“Mind if I take a look,” Tim asked. He didn’t know what he expected to find but he couldn’t see how it could hurt either. There might even be a way to contact the police.
“Go ahead,” said Mike. “I don’t think Joseph’s in a position to complain.”
Tim sat himself down in the high-backed leather chair and stared at the flat-screen monitor. The Black Remedy Corporation logo bounced around the screen, skipping from corner to corner. Tim shoved the mouse and the desktop appeared. It was neatly organised with just a few folders and a recycle bin icon. Tim also noticed that the email manager was blinking on the bottom taskbar. There was an unread email. Tim clicked on it.
The email application flashed up on screen. A message appeared with the subject line: WORK UNDERTAK
EN, JOSEPH RAYMEADY. Tim read the email that followed:
Dear Frank Senz,
I trust that you will keep our communication confidential as it is of a sensitive nature. You are correct that, prior to his death, Mr Raymeady was rather unsettled. He believed the company he owned was working against him from within and that his life was in danger.
When Joseph’s father died and his controlling interest of Black Remedy passed on to him, Joseph began involving himself in all aspects of the company. He quickly became aware that great portions of Black Remedy’s funds were unaccounted for or secretly diverted. When he sought to investigate these discrepancies, the other members of the board were not forthcoming. In fact they were actively hostile.
That is when my services were sought.
Through a series of investigations, which unfortunately I cannot go into, I was able to find evidence that Black Remedy Corporation was involved in acts of corporate espionage, government bribery and extortion, arms dealing, insider trading, and attempting to buy-off the Monopolies Commission. Even more bizarre, the company had spent several million in undisclosed capital acquiring the deeds to several religious buildings, only to close them down and destroy them. The Acquisitions Board also purchased a group of historically significant artefacts which were unearthed at the Golgotha site in Jerusalem (where Jesus was allegedly crucified). I can’t imagine what the purposes of such acquisitions are, but the company certainly seems to have religious interests.
Furthermore, there was also a list of large payments made to several unnamed persons, leading me to believe that Black Remedy has a personnel of freelance employees to perform tasks that are ‘off the books’ so to speak. It was upon learning this that Joseph became most anxious. He held the opinion that the company employed hitmen and mercenaries to ‘take care’ of certain problems. He believed this even more when my investigations discovered the untimely deaths of several of the company’s adversaries (such as the French politician, Frank Gerome, who sought to shed light on Black Remedy’s exploitation of the current African AIDS epidemic by purposely limiting the production of life- saving medication in order to inflate prices. He was found face down in his own swimming pool). Joseph feared that his meddling in the company’s affairs, and the eradication of several immoral, yet profitable, operations, would lead to an attempt on his life.
Frank, as I’m sure you already know, Joseph became overly cautious in the months before his death and he started working mostly from home. The fact that he has now passed away even despite his caution, suggests to me that there was someone within his own household working against him (one of these ‘off the books’ employees I uncovered). From several previous conversations I held with Joseph, it is clear that you were one of the few men he trusted, which is why I have chosen to break protocol by divulging the nature of my work for your late boss.
But there is one other reason that I have opted to share information with you, Frank, and that is because I believe that Joseph’s son, Samuel, is in danger. After Joseph’s mysterious death, I conducted a further investigation for my own peace of mind. It became very clear to me, once I hacked into the confidential files of several key board members, that Black Remedy Corporation has an unhealthy interest in the future heir of the company. The Raymeady family own 51% of the company, but if Sammie (and Jessica) were to die then the company would become 100% controlled by the Black family and its shareholders. I believe that Samuel’s death is the number one priority to certain members of Black Remedy right now. As a man that Joseph trusted, I hope that you can keep them safe. Don’t trust anybody.
My prayers are with you.
Yours,
George Farley.
Tim lifted his head from the computer screen and stared at Angela. “There’s an email addressed to Frank. He must have been looking for answers as much as we are.”
“What does the email say?” Mike asked, moving closer.
Tim clicked delete and sent the email to the recycling bin. With what was said about there being someone in the household working against the Raymeady family, he felt it better that Mike didn’t read the email for himself. George Farley seemed to be suggesting that Joseph was murdered by someone close to him. It could have been Mike.
“It’s from an investigation service,” Tim explained. “It said that Black Remedy Corporation was involved in a lot of bad stuff, and that Joseph’s attempts to clean up the company were not being met well by the other board members. Seems like they may have wanted him out of the way.”
Angela nodded. “From what I’ve heard about that company, I’m not surprised. They’re like Evil Inc.”
“Did it say anything else?” Mike asked. He seemed unduly curious.
“Not really,” Tim lied. “It was just a follow-up email really. I think Frank was dealing with it.”
Mike came toward him. “Let me take a look.”
“Sorry, I think I deleted it.”
“What? You had no right to delete anything on this computer.”
“Was an accident. We should maybe try to use the computer to contact the police. What do you think?”
Mike pushed Tim. “Move aside.” He began clicking the mouse and Tim knew it would not take the man long to retrieve the email from the bin.
Tim was standing behind Mike when he noticed a presence in the room and the sound of clumsy footsteps.
“Who’s there?” Tim asked, straining to see across the dark office.
There was no reply from the stranger, but after a few more clumsy steps, the person was revealed to be Jessica. She stood at the back of the room like a ghostly apparition.
“Jessica,” Angela said, once she noticed the woman standing there. “Are you feeling better?”
“Sssssoul.” Jessica spoke in a disembodied lisp – it was the voice of somebody else. “The sssssoul is broken. It cannot be ssssaved. The child isss ascending. Ssssamuel mussst die.”
Jessica fell to her knees and vomited. The noise it made was like thick custard hitting a fan. When she was done, she looked up at them with tear-soaked eyes and spoke from a crusty mouth. “W-what is happening to me?”
Tim stood in shock while Angela gathered the woman off the ground. “Jessica, are you okay? Can you see again?”
Jessica stumbled but Angela caught her before she fell back to the floor. “I-I…Yes, I can see fine, but I feel…I feel…”
“Let’s get you somewhere comfortable,” Mike said. He left the computer and walked over to her.
“What’s happened to the power?”
Tim answered her. “It went off several hours ago. We’ve been waiting for it to come back on.”
“W-who’s looking after Sammie?”
“We don’t know where he is,” Angela admitted.
Jessica straightened up. “What? It’s the middle of the night. Why isn’t he in bed? What have you people been doing? Mike, take me to Sammie’s room. I need to find him.”
“Of course,” said Mike.
“No!” said Angela. “We need to stay together.”
Jessica seemed to strengthen. “I give the orders around here, Miss Murs. You do not tell me what to do, especially when it concerns my son. I suggest that you both retire to your rooms. We’ll continue this in the morning and then we can discuss why my son was allowed to go missing.”
Angela went to argue, but Tim put a hand on her shoulder. He whispered to her, “Just leave it. I don’t think she even knows that she’s been unconscious all night. You won’t make her understand what’s been happening until she’s regained her senses.”
“But we’re in danger,” Angela whispered back. “We can’t leave this house and Jessica herself just said to us that Sammie needs to die – although she sounded more like a snake when she said it.”
“I think we should just do as she says. You and me can stay in one of the bedrooms and wait it out till morning.”
Angela nodded. “Okay. In the meantime, perhaps we can try and put some of this together – maybe come
up with some answers.”
“Yeah,” said Tim. “I suppose stranger things have happened.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Tim had been invited by Angela to hole up in her bedroom for the rest of the night and it seemed like as safe a place as any. It was now 4AM and Tim felt nauseous for lack of sleep, but he didn’t expect to get any shut-eye yet. He picked an antique wing chair in the corner and slumped himself down in it, trying to get comfy. No way was he going to close his eyes though.
The room’s bed was unmade and Angela’s suitcase lay open on the floor beside it. Angela noticed him staring at it and seemed embarrassed. “Housekeeping isn’t my strong point,” she told him.
Tim chuckled. “Mine either. I live in a van.”
Angela lay down on the bed and propped herself up with pillows. A candle on the bedside table lit her face. “We never had a chance to discuss what happened in your van. I mean, with the Ouija board and everything.”
“I know,” said Tim. “I’ve done séances before, so I wasn’t surprised it worked, but I don’t have a clue about the answers we got. Usually the spirits just natter about their family or hidden heirlooms.”
“It was all a little bit doom and gloom, wasn’t it? Blood…Death…Hell will take you.”
“It didn’t feel like a threat, though, you know?” said Tim. “Seemed more like a warning.”
Angela nodded and rubbed at her eyes. “And it said, “We’re here,” just as Sammie turned up. It was almost like the Ouija board was acting like a beacon for him to find us.”
“For who to find us? Chamuel or Sammie? Who’s in control of that kid?”
“I spoke to Sammie just before Graham’s body was found. He seemed scared, just like a kid should be. He said that Chamuel wanted to change him; to make him do things he didn’t want to.”
Tim rubbed at his chin. He could feel bristles of ginger stubble coming through. “Did Sammie say what?”
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