Sam: A Novel Of Suspense (20 page)

Mike
clamped a hand on her shoulder and gave it a friendly squeeze.  “I don’t think
anybody does.”

“What
the hell happened to him, Mike? I swear this whole house is fucked up.”

Mike
shook his head and looked down at his shoes.  When he looked back up again he
was chewing at his bottom lip.  “Damned if I know what happened to him.  From
what I can tell, he bled to death from a gash in his genitals, just beneath his
scrotum.  There’s a broken whisky glass in the hot tub and a near-empty bottle
on the floor.  I think he had some sort of freak accident.”

Angela
shook her head.  “Bullshit!  He was murdered. No man accidentally severs his
genital artery or whatever it is you’re suggesting made him bleed to death. 
This was murder, anyone can see that. Just look how he’s been positioned.”

Mike
frowned.  “What do you mean?”

“He’s
been shaped into an inverted cross.  His feet are submerged in water like a
reverse baptism.  The slicing of the genitals in and of itself could be
construed as an act against God – it’s a condemnation of procreation and the
spreading of the Lord’s creation.”

Mike
huffed at her.  “What are you?  Perry Mason’s sister?  The psychological forensics
is all very good, but if you’re suggesting that Graham was murdered, then who
the hell is responsible?”

Angela
ran the possibilities through her mind.  “Tim has been with me all night, Miss
Raymeady is asleep, and Frank is gone, which just leaves Sammie – a ten year
old boy – and
you.”

Mike
laughed, but was obviously insulted.  “You think I killed Graham?  That’s rich! 
I’ve worked with the guy for a whole year.  It’s you and Tim who are the new
faces around here.”

“I
had nothing to do with it and neither did Angela.” Tim joined them in the hallway. 
His face was pale, but he seemed in control of himself.  “But Graham was definitely
murdered, and I can prove it.”

“How?”
Mike asked.

Tim
held his arm out between them. He opened up his palm to display two long
slivers of metal.  “Iron nails,” he explained.  “I found them embedded into
Graham’s feet.  The tub water was mixed with blood so they were used on him
while he was alive. He hung there bleeding.  There’s no way he did this
himself.  He’s been crucified.”

“Fuck
this shit,” said Angela.  “I’m going to the police.  Someone in this house is a
goddamn psychopath.  That same person is probably behind Joseph Raymeady’s
death, too, and everything else that has been happening.”  Angela sighed and
scooped her hair back behind her ears.  “I’m sorry, Mike.  I like you, I do,
but you seem like the most likely candidate for this.  I’m not staying around
you or this house anymore.  Tim, will you drive me to the nearest police
station, please?”

“With
pleasure,” he said.  “I was already out of this madhouse
before
someone
sliced Graham’s ball bag like a joint of ham.”

Angela
hurried down the corridor, making sure that Tim was following her.  She hoped
he would be okay leaving his equipment to collect later.  She didn’t want to be
kept at the house any longer than she had to.

They
took the staircase, two steps at a time, and quickly made it down to the foyer. 
Mike was right behind them, shouting his protests and insisting they shouldn’t
leave.  “You’re needed here,” he kept saying.

Angela
ignored Mike’s pleas and headed straight for the front door.  She placed her
hands on the door handle and pushed.

The
door did not budge.

Angela
fumbled with the deadbolt.  She tried to open the door again.

It
still wouldn’t budge.

She
spun around and faced the foyer, focused her glare on Mike.  “Open this door
now.”

Mike
stopped his pursuit of her and stood still on the marble floor.  “It isn’t
locked,” he said. “Just turn the deadbolt.”

“I
just did,” said Angela.  “It won’t open.”

Tim
stepped up to the door.  “Let me have a look,” he said, and began fiddling with
the locks and pulling at the door.  After a few attempts, he gave up with an
apprehensive look on his angular face.  “It’s stuck.”

“What
are you trying to pull?”  Angela demanded of Mike.

“Nothing. 
I haven’t touched the goddamn door.”

Angela
examined Mike’s expression.  The guy seemed to be telling the truth, but there
was obviously something else going on, too; something he wasn’t telling her.  A
brief glint in his eyes spoke of something more than pure ignorance.

“Come
on, Tim,” Angela said.  “We’ll try the door in the piano lounge.”

Panic
spurred Angela to race across the marble floor so quickly that she almost
slipped.  Tim grabbed a hold of her arm just in time to steady her. Together
they entered the lounge.

The
French doors leading to the gardens were set behind the piano. As they passed through
the room Angela smelt the metallic tang of blood again.  It was still a mystery
where it had come from and how it had soaked the piano.  Graham was dead, but he
had bled to death two floors above here.

Tim
rattled the handles on both French doors.  They did not open.  “These are
locked too,” he explained dejectedly.  “Looks like someone doesn’t want us to
leave.”

Angela
grabbed a chair away from the nearest table.  She shot a quick glance at Mike
and said, “Send me the bill!”  Then she threw the chair in the direction of the
French doors and watched as it tumbled through the air.  It hit the glass panes
with a resounding clatter.

The
chair broke into a dozen pieces, fell to the floor.  The glass panes of the
French doors were still worryingly intact. 

Angela
looked around the room, frowning with consternation.  She headed behind the bar
and rifled through the various shelves.  The most suitable thing she could find
was a heavy crystal decanter.  She hoisted it under her arm and took it back
over to the French doors.  Tim was still standing there, jaw agape, and she
told him to take a step back.  Then, with all of her might, she hurled the
decanter.

It
bounced off the glass panes and came apart on the floor, just like the chair
had.  The French doors remained intact.

Tim
ran spindly fingers through his hair and blew air into his cheeks before
letting it out in a blustery sigh.  “What the hell, man?”

Angela
picked up another chair and this time swung it like a bat towards one of the
room’s windows.  Again the chair broke before the glass did.  “This is
impossible,” she said, looking around frantically for a solution and feeling
more and more like a trapped rat.  Her heart raced.

“We’re
trapped here,” said Tim.  “Stuck in a box with a crazy-ass, ball-slicing maniac
on the loose.”

“Let’s
just calm down,” said Mike, moving up beside them.  “It’s time to take a breath
and stop panicking.”

Angela
glared at him.  When she’d met Mike she’d had a good feeling about him, but now
she felt distrustful of him – his demeanour had changed somehow since Frank had
left.  “If you’re behind this, Mike,” she said, “I’ll leave you in worse shape
than Graham, I swear it.”

Mike
laughed.  “Some spirit you’ve got there, sweetheart, but, once again, I’m
telling you I had nothing to do with any of this.”

“Then
who did?” Tim asked.  “Who would want to keep us in this house so bad?”

Mike
shrugged.  “I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Tim
didn’t like this at all.  He was locked inside a house with no power, no light,
and no way out.  Once upon a time he’d been in a similar situation, which had
not ended well.

When
Tim and his brother, Steve, agreed to stay the night at the vacant Grey Gardens
Hotel, both of them had expected to find some rational explanation for the five
deaths which had occurred during the previous six months ( always after
midnight). In a previous investigation of a similar hotel, Tim and his brother
had found a slow gas leak in the kitchen. It had been making the staff
light-headed and accident prone, which had led to rumours of the place being
cursed.  Of course that wasn’t the case, but Tim and his brother spun the
owners a tall tale all the same.  Tim fixed the broken gas main while his
brother performed a dramatic séance.  After “speaking” to a malevolent spirit
called Lloyd who didn’t actually exist, Tim and his brother had declared the
building “cleansed”. 

The
pay had been decent and the owners were happy.  It was on to the next job, and
despite the worrying number of deaths, Tim expected to play the exact same
simple prank at the Grey Gardens.

But
things hadn’t gone as planned.

With
no one in the building other than Tim and Steve, there was no need to perform a
fake séance – they could just tell the owner that they’d done one anyway. 
Instead, they drank heavily and made good use of the hotel’s amenities.  It
seemed like a good gig.

The
first warning sign was when they were sipping from a bottle of the hotel’s best
champagne in the bridal suite’s hot tub.  Very gradually, to the point that
they hadn’t even noticed it at first, the water began to heat up.  The
thermostat was already set to a cosy 40-degrees-C, but when Tim began sweating
and glanced at it again, it was over 50.  By the time he and Steve leapt out of
the tub, the thermostat was reading 68C.  They looked like lobsters.

But
they didn’t learn their lesson.  They carried on drinking, while playing on the
pool tables in the downstairs bar.  Steve was twice the player Tim was, his
extra five years on Earth having been spent hustling various pubs and clubs. 
Tim still enjoyed the game, though, despite losing constantly.  It was time
with his big brother.

When
the eight-ball left a long streak of blood behind it on the baize, they thought
it odd, but still they did not let it bother them.  They were obscenely drunk
and the supernatural was a job to them, not a reality.  They ignored what they
were seeing.

Tim
wished he could go back in time and shake some sense into him and his brother.

Once
the evening got late, Steve and Tim retired to one of the twin rooms.  Their
drinking had slowed down until both of them were feeling drowsy.  Tim plopped
down on one of the beds and closed his eyes, while his brother took a bath. It
was a peaceful ending to a wild night.

Tim
must have fallen asleep at some point, because when he checked his watch it was
almost 3AM.  It was then that he realised Steve was still in the bathroom.

The
lights were off, but sounds of trickling water crept out from the en suite. Tim
dragged himself off the bed. He moaned in agony; it felt like an elephant was
running loose inside his head.  His mouth was as dry as an overfilled ashtray.

Tim’s
bare feet took him across the room.  The sounds of water from the en suite grew
louder.  “Hey, Steve,” Tim shouted out.  “You fall asleep in there?”

The
bathroom’s door was ajar and Tim pushed it open all the way.  He strained his
eyes to see through the darkness, and though it seemed impossible, there was a
glow in the room which slowly brought everything into view. 

What
Tim saw then changed his life forever. 

The
monsters he invented to scam money off of innocent people were real.  There was
one standing before him right now.

And
it had Steve.

Standing
in the room’s bath tub was an old lady.  Her ancient face was a withered mess
of flaking skin and her black, sunken eyes seemed to drip crude oil.  Kneeling
in the bath tub at the old hag’s feet was Steve.  He was half conscious and
shaking with hypothermia. A pair of talon-like hands wrapped his skull, held
him in place.  The old woman’s crooked, brown teeth formed a smile as Tim stood
in the doorway.

“S-Steve?”

The
old hag hissed at him.  Her voice sounded like an oven full of burning snakes. 
She yanked Steve up by his skull, lifted him in the air, offered him to Tim
like a weightless ragdoll.  “Taaaaakkkke hiiim.  Iffff yooou daarre…”

Tim
looked at his brother’s dangling legs, and saw the pleading fear in his eyes. 
Steve was trapped inside some impotent hell, but he was still aware; he knew
what was happening.  He could see his brother, Tim, standing there and doing
nothing to help him.

The
old hag cackled, started to squeeze Steve’s skull.  Tim still did nothing.  Blood
began to run down Steve’s temples from where the bony fingers were piercing his
skull.  His eyes began to bulge.  Tim still did nothing. 

Tim
couldn’t move.  His heart was a clenched stone-fist inside his chest, his knees
were stiff and useless. His entire body felt like an inanimate statue.

Tim
did nothing as he watched his brother die.

The
old hag released her grip on Steve’s misshapen skull and he tumbled to the
floor like a string-less puppet.  Then she turned her malevolent gaze on Tim
and opened up a mouth full of rotten fangs.

Finally
Tim’s legs obeyed him. He bolted out of the room, already guilty that he only
managed to move once his own life was in danger.  His brother’s peril had not
been enough to make him act.