~
Ashley woke up. She was looking at the ceiling. She looked all around. She was still in that round room. She tried to move her hands but she couldn’t. Her wrists were tied to two metal poles which were nailed into the floor. She looked down at her legs. They were bound together and tied to another metal pole.
“Help!” She shouted out. She saw that Miss Faye was in the room. She was wearing a black cape and lighting candles. She jumped when she heard her shout and dropped a candle on the floor. She turned and looked at Ashley.
“That made me jump,” she said, she kneeled on the floor. “It’s best if you just calm down. All this stress and shouting is going to achieve nothing.” Ashley opened her mouth again to scream but before she could the woman stuffed a wad of fabric into her open mouth. Ashley tried to spit it out, but it was too big. “Be careful. I don’t want you to choke to death. Damn it! You broke one of my nails.” She stood back up and headed back to the candles she was lighting. She then turned back around and looked to Ashley who had tears running down her face. “You know what? This isn’t easy for me. Do you think I wanted my life to be like this? Because I didn’t. My parents started this. But they were weak. They didn’t make the sacrifices enough. They weren’t ambitious enough.” She picked up an old book and started looking for a certain page. “I don’t want to do it, but every time I move away and start trying to build up my own life my luck goes down. I lose money, I get dumped, or I lose friends. I lose my job. My parents started these sacrifices, and it got too much for them. So I fed them to him.” She looked up from the book and towards the bag of bodies on the floor next to the wardrobe. “He won’t stop. You’re young and have a lot of energy. He likes the young ones the best. You’ll keep me in good luck for a few more years. I don’t even want to sell the house. It was just an easy way of getting someone young and gullible here.” She paused and turned to a mirror. She picked up a pot of black powder and started to draw lines on her face like tribal marks. “I don’t know why I am telling you this anyway. In ten minutes time, you’ll be dead, and I’ll be back on a flight getting out of this hell hole of a town. I won’t come back until I need to do this again.” She turned around and faced Ashley. Ashley realized she looked just like how Ashley did in her dream. “It’s almost time…”
~
Morgan looked through the front window of the house. There was no one there. He went up to the front door. It was ajar. He pushed it open. It was dark inside. “Miss? Are you there?” He called out. There was no answer. He pushed the call button on his radio and called for backup.
“We’ll get a unit out in ten minutes. Do not go into the property. I repeat…do not go into the property.” Morgan stood outside and waited. He went onto the lawn and looked up at the crack of light coming from a window.
“Help!” He heard someone shout. It was faint, but he heard it. He ran in through the front door. He knew he couldn’t wait.
Ashley stared up at the ceiling. This was just like in her dream. The ceiling was starting to spin like it was liquid moving in a glass. She pulled her arms, but they wouldn’t move. She looked to her right hand. The metal bar looked looser than the other. She started to pull her right arm back and forth, hoping to free it. She looked up at the ceiling. The cloud was starting to form. She knew that soon a face would appear in it and this could be the end. She looked at Miss Faye. She was holding a book open and was reading out of it. She didn’t know what the language was, but she did not recognize it. She was so absorbed in reading out of the book she didn’t notice that Ashley was working hard to free one of her hands. The bar was held down by three nails, but two loosened and came out of the floorboards. She just needed to free one more, and her hand would be free. She heard a noise. It was like a roar of thunder. She looked up. The cloud had started to form into a face. The face was staring down at her with dark empty eye sockets. She started to move her hand more and more, it hurt like hell, but she ignored the pain.
“Police! Put your hands in the air!” Ashley turned to see who it was. The cop who had seen her the other night had burst into the room. He held a gun up pointing it at Miss Faye. He saw the dark cloud coming from the ceiling and momentarily lost his concentration. “What the hell is this?” He shouted. Miss Faye stopped chanting and looked at him. A look of anger crossed her face.
“How dare you interrupt my ritual,” she roared at him. He looked at her, then up to the cloud in the sky, his finger still on the trigger.
“Stop whatever this is right now!” He shouted. Ashley felt the chain come loose from the floor. Her hand was free. She quickly bought her right hand to her left and untied her left hand. She was about to sit up, but she noticed the cloud face was now only inches from her. She screamed. She looked to Miss Faye who was standing only inches from her. Ashley grabbed hold of the metal pole and hit her ankle, hard. She screamed in pain and fell to the floor, dropping her book. Her head fell close to Ashley. Ashley hit her around the head, hard. A cut formed on her head and blood started to pour out of it. Officer Morgan stood there, still staring at the cloud. It was getting closer and closer to Ashley. The face turned and looked at Miss Faye it got closer to her and made a motion as if it was sniffing her. It rejected her and turned back to Ashley. It started to open its mouth.
“Get away from her!” Morgan shouted. He shot at it, but his bullet went straight through it and hit the wooden bar over the window, smashing the glass behind it. He put his gun down and jumped over to Ashley. He grabbed hold of her legs and started to untie her. But it was too late. The face turned to him. He looked up and shielded himself with his arm, but it didn’t work. The face devoured him whole. His body drained of moisture it turned into a mummified dried shell. The cloud started to disintegrate and fade away. Until there was nothing but a ceiling again, and quiet. Morgan’s lifeless body was on the floor to her at one side, and Miss Faye’s the other.
“Police, put your hands in the air.” Two cops ran into the room and pointed their gun towards Miss Faye. One of them bent down and touched her neck. He shook his head and stood up. They looked in shock to the mummified body of their colleague. Ashley closed her eyes and waited for them to untie her.
Samuel
“He was a brave man, who gave his last breath to protect me against a woman who was trying to hurt me. He will always live on in my heart and the hearts of the others he has saved over his forty-year career. He will be my hero. I am honored to be the one to open this memorial to him.” Ashley cut the ribbon and smiled as the photographers snapped away. She stood in front of the fountain and posed. She shook the hands of the policeman and hugged the two who had saved her on the day. She smiled at the crowd on the seats below. In the first row was a plump woman with red cheeks. Ashley walked down the steps and up to her. The woman stood up and gave her a hug.
“Thank you so much for all that you have done and your kind words. I know my husband would be so proud to know that he died helping a woman as wonderful and kind as you.” The woman wrapped her arms around Ashley and gave her a big hug. Ashley said her goodbyes and walked back to her waiting car, a brand new Porsche. She got inside and switched on the air conditioner. She got her cell phone out of the glove compartment. She had over three hundred notifications in the last hour. She smiled. Her PA team would respond to anything that was needed. She chucked her phone onto the passenger seat. She checked her make-up in the rear-view mirror. She saw a boy on a bike in the reflection. He was looking at her. She turned around and looked over her shoulder out of the car, but he was gone. Sprucewood was such a strange town. She pulled up the driveway to Sprucewood Mansion and parked her car in the newly built garage. She went into the house through a side door.
“Esmerelda?” she called to her maid. She wasn’t in. Good. She kicked off her heels and headed to the kitchen. She got a bottle of wine out of the fridge and poured herself a glass. She waited until the doorbell rang.
“Miss Croft?” The man said. “I’m Samuel. I’m here for
our meeting.”
“Yes, come in,” Ashley said. “Did anyone see you drive here?”
“No, I parked a few streets down as you said. I didn’t tell my secretary where I was going,” the man said as he looked around the large hallway in awe. Ashley had got an interior designer to decorate it. The centerpiece was a giant portrait of herself. “Your place is amazing.”
“Thanks,” Ashley said as she walked into her study, Samuel followed.
“I am sure I can save you lots of money on your taxes,” the man said. “I have to say your success going from college dropout to successful lifestyle blogger and influencer in such a short time is nothing short of amazing.” He said. Ashley sat down and gestured for him to take a seat. They were at opposite sides of a large oak desk.
“I’m not a college dropout,” Ashley said. “It just wasn’t for me that’s all.”
“Of course, I’m sorry I meant no-”
“In your diary?” She interrupted.
“Excuse me?” He said. He took off his glasses and started to clean them, a nervous habit.
“Did you write down my address in your diary or your online calendar?”
“No, I am used to the requests of our more exclusive clients, and as you asked for the utmost secrecy, that is what I am giving you.” He laid his briefcase on the table and took out some papers. Ashley got up and walked over to him. “If you would like to take a look at-” He stopped talking suddenly as he felt something sharp go into his neck. He grabbed his neck and turned to Ashley to see her take a syringe away from him. He fell to the floor and passed out.
Samuel awoke to the sound of chanting. He was in a round room, lying on the floor. He realized he was chained to the floor. He looked around. The only window had a metal stutter over it, sealing the room from the outside world. He tried to scream, but there was something in his mouth stopping him. He looked over to one side of the room and saw Ashley, dressed in a black cape, her face painted with strange black markings. He looked up the ceiling. It was starting to swirl, and there was cloud forming in it. As he watched, he could see a face start to form.
The Haunting of the Regent Theatre
By Riley Amitrani
Prologue
Swinson, UK
1935
Along the Eastern shoreline of England, just down the peninsula from The Pembrokeshire Coast National Park, is the small seaside village of Swinson. Swinson is nicely situated on the jut of land offering breathtaking views of Bristol Bay where it opens up into the open water leading out to Ireland, as the Celtic and Irish Seas come together. It was not until well into the new century that Swinson was of any note, but its interest as a vacation and quick getaway spot for many Brits made it more than just another pinpoint on the UK map. Much larger and more well-marketed towns had been drawing visitors for years, but it was not until a brave entrepreneur, Milton Barkley, thought to bring an attraction to the area other than the natural beauty of the coastal region. Before Barkley launched his brainchild, The Regent Theatre, no one had ever considered that this environment might be a good fit for any type of theater at all.
London, Birmingham, and even Liverpool had become draws for such culture, but prior to the establishment of The Regent, all the coast was admired for was just that: the coast. However, Barkley took a chance and saw an opportunity to offer something that no one else in the area had thought of. Some thought him a bit daft at first, even the proprietors of the local hotels and restaurants that dotted the village. They had been well-established for as long as anyone could recall, but nearly all of them were sure Barkley was just throwing money into the winds when he announced his intentions. And indeed, it took some time for The Regent to gain traction and create a name and following. But after some time, people began to hear about the impressive and imposing structure, mostly by word of mouth, and soon seats began to fill easily for Barkley and what had once been bandied about as a foolish lark was the real reason people then came to Swinson…and often in droves.
The hoteliers and restauranteurs that had ridiculed and derided Barkley and his new business were happy to swallow their pride and admit they had been wrong. Especially when the crowds coming to The Regent needed accommodations and food. A lesser man might have rubbed their noses in his success, but Barkley was quite frankly too busy with his operation at the theatre to consider this petty retribution…even if it had been in his nature. And those that knew Milton Barkley well knew that type of behavior was simply not who he was as a person. In its heyday, The Regent Theatre was renowned for offering the best shows with the best stars of its time. Once looked down on by performers elsewhere in England, many saw where their bread was buttered, so to speak, and came calling at The Regent.
The theatre was an opulent and grand thing in its prime, with a magnificent and spacious stage, appointed with thick and luxurious red velvet curtains accented with ornate gold carved wood along its edges. Visitors often were turned away on most nights when they came not knowing how far in advance reservations were required in order to obtain even the most remote seat in the massive hall. As the 1950s broke, the theatergoers were recovering from the latest “great war to end all wars” and The Regent was happy to accommodate them. It had suffered some damage from the bombings from Germany, but miraculously its bones and base remained intact, requiring Barkley only some minor reparations…well…minor relative to most of the rest of England, anyway. As the decade exploded with hope and laughs and an eye on the future, attendees of The Regent came to see Rosalva. Rosalva was the premier diva of the day in England theatre, rising seemingly from nowhere. Her voice was like nothing anyone had ever heard before, and there was never less than a thunderous standing ovation for her following each night’s performance.
No one, it was said, ever knew where Rosalva came from, but by her stunning exotic looks and oddly unidentifiable accent as she sang, it was obvious that she was not British. Some said Italian, some Hungarian, and some even insisted she was from deeper in Eastern Europe. But it was just talk and supposition. Her real lineage was never identified, and quite frankly she wanted to keep it that way. Rosalva loved the mystery of her background to her audience and had no intention of making her background known. It was part of the draw. And Milton Barkley knew it as well, using this unknown quantity to market and pull people to his shows. With each new show, it was agreed that Rosalva’s reputation and talent and intrigue would soon make her the biggest and brightest star of the stage…even if she was not a product of the UK.
The devotees of Swinson’s newest cultural attraction was on the move upward, and it was standing room only at The Regent for all her performances, as people knew deep in their hearts that it was only time before the beautiful and alluring Rosalva moved on to dominate the world stage. They would love to have kept her to themselves, but her gracious and elegant personality would not have allowed even the most covetous or avaricious fan to have stood in her way. In the meantime, everyone lined up with the hopes of being able to say they had seen the great Rosalva sing in tiny Swinson at The Regent Theatre before she was a megastar.
However, one night as Rosalva was opening a brand new routine with music and dancing never seen anywhere on any continent—so it was said—a tragic disaster befell her, and her rising star was dimmed and then snuffed out for good. As Rosalva began the initial songs from her repertoire following the intermission on a seemingly uneventful Friday evening, there was a terrifying snap of cables from far above the stage. She looked up as the orchestra was distracted by the intruding noise, but she froze as a huge array of stage lights fell overhead and struck her down. There was pandemonium, the likes of which had not been seen at The Regent as audience members screamed in utter terror, as they witnessed their beloved Rosalva crumple in a heap under the heavy contraption.
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