The Mansion (4 page)

‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘You got to look at this,’ John said
excitedly.

Michael moved over to him and looked into the
screen, he too gasped when he saw the light blue outline of the
body that was being caught on the camera. John began to raise the
camera and noticed another hand, then a leg, and then a head all
bathed in a light blue against the coldness of the dark blue of
their surroundings. They began moving back towards the door that
they had walked through, still looking into the camera’s monitor.
Michael pulled his radio from his belt and radioed to base camp to
see if the others were picking up anything on the night vision
camera positioned in the corner of the room.

‘That’s a negative. But we can see you moving
towards the door,’ Phoebe replied.

Tony looked at the TV monitor carefully that
showed the kitchen before radioing to Michael.

‘What are you experiencing?’

‘We are picking up what seems like bodies on
the thermal camera. They are covering the floor; it’s as if they
have been dumped on top of each other. The room is covered in
them,’ Michael responded.

Neither of the two investigators could feel
anything but the hard floor beneath their feet but, yet when they
moved the camera to where their feet were, they could see the reds
and whites of their feet standing on the light blues of the
bodies.

Another icy blast or air rushed past them,
and this time it brought a strange metallic smell with it that
engulfed the two men’s senses. Out in the darkness of the room, the
little red light on the recorder began to flash again.

‘Shit,’ Michael said, seeing the light
flash.

‘Just leave it. This is getting real weird.
Let’s get out of here; we got enough footage,’ John said. He was no
longer enjoying being in the room.

They moved to the door, and Michael pulled it
but it didn’t move. He pushed it, but again it didn’t move.

‘Stop messing around,’ John said quickly,
looking up from the screen at his partner struggling with the
door.

‘I’m not messing around. The door won’t
budge,’ he replied.

He raised his radio and called base camp,
panic making his voice wobble as he spoke.

‘Tony, we can’t get out; the door is
locked.’

Tony looked at Phoebe; her eyes were
beginning to well up, the memory of being locked in the toilet and
the face in the door flooding her mind. He looked back at the
monitor and could see nothing but the two investigators standing by
the door, John pointing the camera towards the room while Michael
faced the door and continued to pull at it.

‘I’m on my way,’ Tony said.

Michael stopped pulling and pushing the door
and turned to look into the darkness and the camera monitor. From
their position, they could see the floor covered in bodies, their
light blue outlines clear against the black and dark blue of the
room’s walls and objects. They both gasped and felt an electric
shock shoot up from their anus to their heads when pairs of bright
white dots flicked open on every one of the bodies on the thermal
camera’s screen. The bright white eyes stared up from the floor
towards the dark ceiling.

‘Oh my god,’ John said, panic clearly evident
in his voice.

Michael turned quickly and began to bang on
the door, shouting Tony’s name.

John backed into him, pushing Michael against
the door causing him to stop shouting and turn back towards his
friend and the room. They heard a click and a slight whirring sound
and then another click.

‘What was that?’ Michael asked.

‘I don’t know,’ John said, still staring at
the camera’s monitor and the bodies with white eyes.

From within the darkness, the sound of
Michael’s voice spoke. The recorder was playing back his set of
questions. The two men looked at each other and then out into the
darkness. In between the standard questions there was nothing but
silence until a low, gravelly voice broke through.

‘You are welcome to join us,’ it said.

Several other voices joined in, both male and
female, all calling at the same time.

‘Join us! Stay with us!’

More and more voices joined in, all calling
for the two men to join them.

Michael called base camp on the radio, asking
where Tony was and if they were receiving what they were
hearing.

Phoebe responded, her voice full of tears and
terror. ‘Tony should be there. I can only hear you.’

The voices continued, more and more joining
in. John pointed the thermal camera at the table where the recorder
was playing, Michael joined his partner in staring through the
monitor at the bodies that covered the floor, their white eyes
blinking in unison.

Another cold blast of air rushed around the
two investigators; the strong metallic smell that they had noticed
earlier was getting stronger. The pots and pans began to clang in
the darkness, and then the voices stopped.

For a moment, all was silent; the only sound
that the two investigators could hear was their own breathing. They
looked up from the little monitor and into the darkness, both
straining to make out the shape of the table. When they returned
their gaze to the monitor, they both screamed and jumped backwards.
The bodies that covered the floor were now standing, the white
glowing eyes trained on them. John dropped the camera and monitor,
and the sound of the heavy equipment crashing against the cold hard
tiled floor echoed around the room. Michael joined him in pounding
against the door, shouting for help and for Tony.

On the other side of the kitchen door, Tony
pulled and shoulder barged at the large wooden barrier that
separated him from his two friends. He called to them, shouting for
them to pull. The louder their screams and shouts got, the more
frantic Tony became. He was soon joined by Jeremy, who began
kicking at the middle of the door just to the left of the handle.
They were soon hitting the door with a constant rhythm.

Michael and John both began clawing at the
door handle, occasionally looking over their shoulders. It didn’t
matter that they could not see anything but blackness; their minds
had painted the picture of all the bodies standing watching them,
and they could feel the all the eyes locked on to them.

‘Where the fuck are Tony and the others,’
John shouted.

There was no answer from Michael, only a
whimper as tears began to flow from his eyes and an intense feeling
of fear took hold of him.

Tony and Jeremy heard John’s shout and
responded by hitting their fists against the door and shouting that
they were there. Michael and John heard nothing.

There was another icy blast, and John felt a
cold hand grab his shoulder, followed by another and another. Soon
he could feel the cold hands grabbing his legs, arms, and body. He
let out a loud scream and vanished into the darkness. Michael also
screamed and collapsed to the cold floor. He could hear the moans
of his partner moving away from him and the sound of his body being
dragged along the floor.

Phoebe watched with wide, tear-filled eyes as
on the monitor she saw John sliding along the floor, his arms and
legs flailing around at an invisible force. He moved past the view
of the night-vision camera that had captured his abduction.

John could feel the hands pulling him along
the floor. He kicked and punched out, but there was no resistance
to strike against. He hit his head against something solid and
realized he was being pulled past the large table. He tried to
reach out and take hold of it in an attempt to stop whatever was
pulling away from his friend and the door. His fingers momentarily
wrapped around a leg, but the invisible hands that dragged him
along were too strong, and his fingers gave up the fight. A bright
light flashed above him; a white light so powerful it stung his
eyes. He shut them tight, but the light still attacked his sight
through his eyelids.

It then went all black.

The kitchen door burst open, Tony and Jeremy
flew forward with it, and the heavy door collided with the
kneeling, sobbing body of Michael, knocking him over onto the cold,
tiled floor. The two rescuing investigators fell over Michael and
rolled across the floor. Tony was the first to get to his feet,
helping Jeremy up, the little light cast from the small light bulb
enabling him to see his two colleagues.

They both helped up Michael and began
dragging him back towards base camp, where they were met with an
empty room. Phoebe was missing.

Phoebe’s mind raced with all the visions of
what she had seen in the last few hours. The visions all fought
each other to be at the front of her mind: the face, the water, and
the sight of John sliding across the floor, kicking and swinging
wildly. Her whole body shook with fear, her chest began to get
tighter, and she fought against the rising feeling of panic and
distress.

She heard a giggle and turned from staring at
the TV monitor to look at the table and its large sculpture.
Impaled on the sharp antlers looking down at her were three
children: two girls and a boy. The clothes that they wore were the
same style as some of the people that she had seen in some of the
photos that were placed on the fireplace from the early 1900s. The
clothes were heavily stained with red where the antlers protruded
from their bodies. They giggled at Phoebe and held out their arms
towards her.

Her already fear-ravaged body and mind could
take no more. She pushed herself from the chair she was sitting in
and ran from the room, down a corridor, and through an old library,
her eyes searching for a way out. But each time she saw a window,
it was covered by the large wooden shutters that covered the
outside windows. She ran to the front door and tugged at it, but it
too didn’t move.

She heard another giggle and turned quickly
to see one of the young girls that she had seen on the sculpture
standing in front of her hugging a doll. The doll was headless and
wore a dress that matched the young girl who hugged her.

‘Please don’t leave us,’ the girl said before
disappearing, and her giggle continued to reverberate around the
hallway.

Phoebe ran back down the hallway, trying each
door she passed but finding them locked. She soon found herself
standing at the bottom of the staircase. A cold wind wrapped itself
around her, and she could feel its rotating icy fingers against her
face and her hair being pushed into her eyes. Deep in her psyche, a
battle raged. Part of her told her to go back to the dining room
and the others, while another fear-fed voice screamed at her to
head upstairs and escape her torture via the only way out: the
windows.

Tony and Jeremy dragged the shivering,
sniveling Michael over to the chairs that sat in front of the TV
monitors and dropped him on one. They then leaned on the tap and
stared at the monitors and the multiple small screens that fed back
what each of the night vision cameras were seeing. They searched
each one for any sign of Phoebe. Jeremy was the first to spot her
standing motionless at the foot of the staircase. His attention was
then caught but something flashing on one of the small screens. The
static electricity monitor that John had designed and had placed in
the middle of hallway at the top of the stairs was flashing. Tony
turned to Michael and grabbed his arms and shook him.

‘Get a grip,’ he shouted as he slapped
Michaels face. ‘We need you to help us.’

The slap woke Michael from his sniveling
blank staring into space. He looked up at Tony, his eyes wide and
blinking wildly, his face a mixture of tears and snot.

‘I need you to get in touch with Mr.
Bannister, the old man who showed us around, and tell him to come
and let us out right away. If you can’t get in touch with him, call
the police,’ Tony said to Michael.

Michael nodded as Tony handed him his mobile
phone. Michael then turned to Jeremy, and the two of them left the
room.

Phoebe heard a giggle and turned around to
see the three children standing behind her, their arms outstretched
towards her.

‘Please don’t leave us,’ all three of them
said in unison.

Phoebe turned and ran up the staircase. As
she climbed the marble steps, she heard the three voices.

‘Don’t leave us.’

‘They always leave us.’

‘She is not allowed to leave.’

Phoebe kept moving. She reached the top of
the stairs and headed down the hallway, and her attention was fixed
on each of the doors. She tried each one as she came to them, but
they didn’t open. She didn’t even notice the bright red, blue, and
green flashes of the little device that had been placed on the
floor.

She tried another door and it flew open. She
moved quickly into the dark room, shut the door, and pressed
herself against the door and stared into the darkness, her heart
pounded against her chest. Her whole body shook with fear and
adrenaline. There was a small line of light ahead of her that
separated the darkness like a crack. As her eyes became more
accustomed to the darkness around her, she could make out four
small beds. She ran her hand along the walls on either side of the
door, feeling for a light switch but couldn’t find one, she pushed
herself off the door and moved towards where the light was coming
from and found soft curtains. She fumbled with the material until
she found the opening and pulled them open. The grey light of the
clouds in the night sky and the snow that covered the ground
outside created a strange glow that bathed the room with a soft,
grey light. She stood staring out into the white gardens, and a
cold breeze woke her from her momentary trance. Then the voices
began again. This time, however, there were more of them, and they
were all asking her to play.

She looked around her and noticed the pile of
dolls and stuffed toys. Their eyes seemed to move and look at her.
She returned her attention to the window and searched its frame for
a handle or latch that would enable her to open it, but she could
find nothing.