MANCHESTER HOUSE

by Donald Allen Kirch

  The Shape was aware, but found the emotions&moot.

  The ceiling of the kitchen started to break open, and a tentacle-like creature dropped from the ceiling's wound, dangling down dangerously close to Burt Helms.

  "What?" Helms asked, fear in his voice.

  "Do not trouble so&" the Shape whispered. Her gaze became as sweet as honey. Trusting and provocative.

  Helms never felt the tentacle attach itself to the base of his head.

  Helms started to have strange ideas and strange notions that were beyond his normal state of mind. He became empowered to say and do all the things that needed to be said. He was no longer afraid.

  Picking up a roll of duct tape, Helms started to slowly seal up the kitchen. The rustling of plastic echoed within the entire kitchen. The Shape watched, giggling like a schoolgirl aware of an evil secret. Helms found himself laughing as well.

  Outside, the party continued.

  * * *

  Sharon Helms said her farewells to her last guest, closing the door behind her.

  She had started to feel a twinge of regret for the way she had treated her husband, especially after one of her guests mentioned the fact that she had been way too cruel for such a simplistic mistake.

  "Burt?" she said. "Where in the hell are you?"

  A clanking noise was heard coming from the kitchen. Was her husband cleaning up?

  Sharon headed toward the kitchen feeling guilty. Perhaps, if he were really good, Sharon would allow her husband to have her tonight.

  Sharon Helms entered her kitchen for the last time.

  * * *

  Holding a butcher knife, Burt Helms waited. This was it! After so many years of cruelty, he was now in control.

  Burt Helms had changed.

  His eyes, blood red, had a spiral pattern which seemed to have replaced his pupils. If one were to look at him, they would have gotten the impression that he hadn't eaten any food in weeks-his face was hollowed out and pale from lack of nourishment.

  Burt Helms had taken on a zombie-like appearance.

  "Burt?" Sharon asked, noticing that the kitchen lights were off. "Are you in here, dear?"

  Helms giggled. He moved an iron skillet, making a noise.

  "Come to bed, dear." Sharon's voice turned soft, playful. "Time to make up."

  Helms smiled, showing a row of sharp fang-like teeth. His mouth dripped with saliva, wanting to rip, tear, and sink into soft flesh, devouring all. His hunger grew; his eyes watching and his heart beating, the mad husband waited.

  He loved every minute of it.

  :Did I not promise you great power? Did I not promise you revenge?:

  Sharon entered the kitchen.

  The kitchen door suddenly slammed shut.

  The kitchen filled with the sound of rustling plastic, growls, and the sounds of a knife ripping through flesh. Through it all, Burt Helms only heard the rumbling of his own laughter and the screams of his wife. Her pleas were like musical notes to his demented ears. Each time he plunged his knife into her ribcage, he was pleased to hear the greedy bitch eke out his name. God! He felt so empowered.

  At the base of the kitchen door, a thick pool of blood started to form.

  The Shape looked down at Sharon, grinning from ear to ear.

  It was the last thing Sharon Helms ever saw.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Manchester House had become aware of the fact that the people inside of her were not leaving, were not frightened, and would not budge until they had conquered. It was strange to assume that a house could have a soul, but Manchester House did. The energy of the ground, the spirits, and other powers had seeped into her boards, her plaster, and her bricks-it was alive.

  The Shape stood in the middle of the basement, realizing that the house was communicating with her. It had been a long time since she had been talked to.

  :They need to leave.:

  The Shape shook her head in agreement.

  There was only one thing left to do.

  * * *

  The foundation of the house shook with great energy. Certain aspects of the house started to change form, structure, and solidity. The room filled with the sounds of thousands of lost souls, all ready to attack.

  Shadows played against the walls as one by one the dead seeped through the bricks and natural stone of the basement, waiting.

  The Shape started to chant, moving from side to side.

  Paint started to bubble off the bricks of the basement's walls. Like tissue paper, the walls started to tear open, showing all the dead inside the room the soft purple swirl of clouds that Night had introduced the SOURCE team to.

  * * *

  It had taken quite a long time for Ingrid Night to fall asleep. In his dreams he had visions of his mother pleading for him to free her from the fiery clutches of a crematorium oven. Of Nazis beating him, calling him a Jew bastard. And of the divine pleasure he had felt when he killed and castrated his Nazi father. All these images lived in his dream world. However, another invaded his thoughts. Another seemed to be in control.

  The Shape.

  Night blinked his eyes open in horror. Darting up out of his fold-away bunk, he startled both Miranda and Holzer, who was now awake and appeared to be all better from his Ouija planchette encounter. The hardened black tar-like substance was still visible on his shoulder, but the redness around the wound was gone. By all appearances, Holzer appeared cured.

  "Ingrid," Holzer asked cautiously, sipping a cup of tea. "What's wrong?"

  Night's face was covered with sweat. Blinking his eyes open wide, he glared around the room, trying to come fully awake. His gaze finally came to rest on Holzer.

  "Jonathon," Night stated, wiping the sweat off his face, "we are in danger here."

  "So you have said," Holzer academically agreed.

  "No! Hear me out!" Night warned, his voice near panic. "The spells I have used, believing that I have done my best to keep the beasts at bay, were all a lie. They did nothing to stop this evil."

  Holzer gave what his friend had told him some thought. For the first time the professor seemed lost, worried, and totally frightened.

  "Then what have we been doing here?" Holzer finally asked.

  Before anyone could answer, Teresa darted up from her sleep, causing Sinclair to awaken as well. Night turned, studying the psychic. Her features matched his in the level of horror that was growing in her eyes. Night recognized her as a gifted seer. Teresa had shared the same dreams he had about the house, about the deaths it wanted to inflict on each of them, and of the Shape.

  "Look at your psychic, my friend," Night explained. "She knows the truth as well."

  Teresa was crying for some unknown reason, clinging to Sinclair's torso the way a child would during the darkest of nights, hoping for both safety and strength. Sinclair, looking on, could just gently hold the young woman.

  "What's going on here, Doc?" the cameraman meekly asked.

  Holzer and Night made eye contact yet again. Only this time, the academic mentality was no longer in control in Holzer's eyes. He had turned into the frightened twelve year old boy who, when staying at his grandfather's house, had come face to face with a ghost. Holzer's world was changed forever in that instant-it made him who he was. Only now Holzer was more terrified and he couldn't figure out why.

  "Ingrid?"

  Night held up a hand, silencing the professor. He closed his eyes, "feeling" his way about the house. He cursed himself for not doing it sooner. Night finished his psychic probing with an ironic, hateful laugh.

  "What?" Holzer asked. The professor rose from his sickbed, putting his shirt and jacket back on. No tie, however. Holzer absolutely hated ties.

  Night looked up at his friend, tired and very much feeling like a fool.

  "We have been played with, my friend."

  "In what fashion, may I ask?" Miranda asked, joining the little group.

  Night looked at the beautiful British woman and marveled at the way she was trying to cont
rol her own fears. "You have had some nightmares, I wager?"

  Miranda looked at Night, surprised. "How did you know?"

  Night silently motioned the woman to study the looks on her friend's faces. Miranda was amazed at what she saw.

  "Ingrid, can we get back to the subject at hand, please," Holzer insisted, now fully dressed.

  "What's the matter?" Miranda asked.

  "Ingrid now believes that the house is using us for some reason," Holzer explained.

  Night shook his head sadly. "The evil wants to enter our world."

  "Impossible," Teresa stated, breaking free of Sinclair. "Studies have shown that the spirits must maintain their own environment. They cannot do that in our world."

  "I believe that this house has absorbed enough energy and bad luck that it has become a separate entity," Night said. "Our laws of science no longer seem to apply."

  "What do we do now?" Holzer asked.

  Night looked long and hard at his friend. "If we keep going the way we are right now, we are doing nothing more than helping the beast achieve its goal."

  All gathered around the team's lantern.

  Serious talk was now greatly needed.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  "Now we are in serious shit!" Night grumbled, lighting another lantern for the sun was going down on the SOURCE team again. "Make no mistake: if we fail, we will never leave this house."

  All team members were awake and ready to hear Ingrid Night as he tried to explain the evil and rather intelligent force they were facing. He marveled to them of the symbols that he had seen painted on the walls, of former shamans who had failed. He tried to prepare them for the hell they would all soon be facing.

  "All the paranormal mumbo-jumbo we have been witness to so far was just bait on the spider's web," Night explained. He looked at Holzer. "Remember the hauntings at Sterling Castle? This is child's play next to that horror we faced together."

  Holzer gave the notion a hard and nervous gulp. "I'm finding this all very hard to accept, Ingrid."

  "I know."

  The group heard a scuffling noise nearby and saw Lars standing by the main staircase, holding Night's crossbow weapon. He had several flasks of the blessed oil needed to fire the device and was silently looking up the stairs, expecting trouble.

  "Lars!" Night yelled.

  At first the deaf man did nothing. Then, as if sensing that his name had been uttered, he turned to face his master. The young man blinked his eyes, which appeared rather large and bug-like in his thick glasses, and waved his assurance of all their safety.

  "Keep watch," Night continued, "and give them hell!"

  Both Night and Lars exchanged a very American notion of "thumbs up."

  "Ingrid," Holzer said, deep in thought. "Is this a compiled haunting we are witness to?"

  "Ahh!" Night said, rather proud and satisfied with his young friend. "You know!"

  The room turned electric. Both Miranda and Teresa were charged with excitement. Only Sinclair looked on like an unknowing student.

  "What's a compiled haunting?" Sinclair asked, honestly interested.

  All eyes turned to the cameraman in shock.

  Only Night seemed to enjoy the question.

  "Don't you know anything?" Miranda said, giving the cameraman a hard look.

  Sinclair raised his hands in defense. "Hey! Shoot me."

  "Don't tempt me."

  "Kids!" Holzer said, breaking up the fight. He turned his attentions back toward Night. "Could you please explain the phenomena so that all are made aware, Ingrid."

  Night nodded his head in compliance. "A compiled haunting, for Mr. Sinclair's sake, is where there are more spirits, demons, and whatnot using a focal point, in this case Manchester House, as a means of communicating. It is called a compiled haunting because generally there are more ghosts than there are grains of sand on a beach."

  "And this is difficult because?" Sinclair asked, scared, not really wanting to hear the answer.

  "It is difficult, Mr. Sinclair, because no one potion, charm, or weapon can calm this beast," Night explained, his face a controlled sneer. "In fact this beast, unlike most hauntings, doesn't even need to use Manchester House-it just is here to be here."

  Teresa held up her hand. "Mr. Night?"

  "Yes, child?"

  Teresa paused. She never really liked being called "child" even when she was one. "I have probed this house in the same manner that you have."

  "Yes? I know."

  "Then, Mr. Night, you know that there is more to this house than ghosts."

  There was a long pause before Night responded.

  "Yes."

  "Were you going to share that, Ingrid?" Holzer asked, surprised. "It's not like you to hold back."

  "I wasn't sure," Night explained, quite embarrassed. "And I was not sure of your psychic's abilities when I first arrived."

  "Then please, Mr. Night," Teresa insisted, "explain what we both know."

  "The haunting," Night said, "being powered by the strong emotions of those who have lived here, have forced the ghosts to unite, creating and evolving into an independent intelligence-a force remembering this world but never a part of it. It now wishes to change that small fact."

  Holzer raised his hand.

  Night nodded, allowing the professor to speak.

  "Now comes the sixty-four dollar question: How do we study and in the end defeat the damn thing?"

  Night started to speak, then paused. A look of confusion marked his features, and by habit he looked toward Lars. Lars, who had been guarding the main entrance and staircase area expecting trouble, shrugged his shoulders. The deaf man had been following what everyone had been saying by reading their lips. Night returned the look of bewilderment to his faithful servant.

  "This is new to me, Jonathon," Night explained. "I'm afraid we'll just have to wing it."

  Sinclair let out a tired, scared moan.

  "I don't believe this," the cameraman said, rising and pacing the floor. "I feel like I'm in a deleted chapter of Kill Bill or something. I had a great job! I was supposed to go to Iraq and film the first openings of the new governmental buildings, but no, I had to play ghost buster!"

  Night responded with a laugh, controlling his volume. "Things change, Mr. Sinclair. Always remember that. Things change."

  * * *

  If the SOURCE team were in the basement, their reactions would have been different. The Shape had been busy conjuring up the most powerful of the spells she had learned in the time that she had died and been buried in the basement of the house, wrapped in a tarp.

  The basement had grown in size. Much larger than before, it was preparing for the battle that the tall man in black was discussing upstairs. This would be it. This would be the final showdown.

  "Let us go!" a voice called out, pleading to the Shape. Pleading for mercy where there was indeed none to give. She was as much a victim as they were.

  Curious, however, she opened one blood-filled eye, looking toward the unfortunate soul who dared to bother her in her work for the Master. The Master, being the house, what mortals had referred to as Manchester House.

  "Please!"

  The voice was coming from a man in a military uniform--what modern people would call a Union soldier's uniform. This man was standing in a pool of tar, wrestling with the black ooze as it attacked his heels, keeping him a prisoner where he stood. Maggots swam in what were left of his eyes and, truth be known, even the Shape was repelled by this sight. With each scream of his mouth, the Union soldier's intestines came out of his body, dripping with bile and filth. Truly he was an appalling phantom.

  "You have been here a long time," the Shape insisted, smiling.

  "Yes!" the Soldier pleaded. "Save me!"

  The Shape could not but laugh as she saw the man's stomach vomit out of his mouth, returning inside him as fast as it had appeared. What did this fool think that she could do?

  "Very well." The Shape laughed contemptuously. "I will help."


  The Shape opened both eyes, focusing them on the unfortunate soldier.

  "No!" the soldier pleaded.

  Before other spirits around the Union soldier could react and before the soldier himself could try to evade the Shape's stare, four demon-like creatures appeared and severed the spirit's limbs from his body and proceeded to eat from his torso. What made the scene more horrible than the obvious was the fact that no matter how many pieces the Union soldier was torn into, he would not die. His screams became more horrid - his pleas even more pitiful.

  The Shape only smiled, returning to her chanting.

  There was a war to consider.

  :Do not take hold of my power like that again!:

  The Shape started to feel her neck contract. Although a spirit, she, like mortals, needed to breathe. Gasping for air, she noticed that her own neck was becoming smaller and smaller.

  "I understand," the Shape pleaded.

  The Master, or Manchester House, allowed her to breathe freely again. The Shape fell to her knees coughing. At her feet was what was left of the Union soldier's face-half eaten. His one blue eye glared up at her in helplessness. He would have screamed, pleaded, and cried if he had a mouth to do it with. However, he only looked up at her, a rat nibbling on his eyebrow, while color returned to the Shape's face.

  "I will&obey."

  :That is good.:

  Manchester House shuddered again with great satisfaction. All was ready.

  * * *

  Ingrid Night slapped his hands together, rising.

  Holzer seemed to know that whatever needed to be said, planned, or anticipated had already passed. It was now time to pray that Night knew what he was about to do.

  "Jonathon, prepare your people," Night ordered.

  "What can we do, Ingrid?" Holzer asked, holding out his hands in a confused gesture.

  "Well, for one thing, I would hope that you do your job, my friend."

  "My&job?" Holzer's face had turned tired. This case was having a great effect on his features. He almost looked five years older in Night's eyes. Holzer could see this as Night turned his gaze toward him, and the surprise in the man's eyes did not set well with the college professor.