Chapter 31
Springing the Trap
As they stood there looking into the hallway a loud noise came from the other side of the house. It sounded as though someone had slid a large piece of furniture across a wooden floor.
“You hear that?” Grant asked.
“Yeah.” Tracy answered.
Jen nodded but didn’t speak.
“I think it’s starting.” Tracy noticed Mike and Emily staring off in the direction of the noise so she made her way to join them.
“He sensed Mike shift.” Emily turned back to face her.
“Must have pissed him off.” Mike said.
“I think we did.”
Mike turned back and looked at Tracy. “You can hear me?”
“Yeah.”
“What about them?” He pointed back towards Jen and Grant.
“No not yet.”
“Oh…” He paused looking in at Jen. “Told her I was ok?”
She smiled. “Of course.”
He nodded. “So I guess it’s time. Better start getting your stuff ready so we can trap this son of a bitch.” He said as he turned back towards the direction of the noise. “Keep Jen in there for a bit till we see if we can lure him this way ourselves.”
“Ok.” Tracy turned back into the room and walked to her bag.
Mike and Emily began to walk towards the sound. They slowly made their way down the hall. Mike was unsure of how things would react to him while he was like this. He started wondering if he could walk through walls and other objects. Thinking about it now he wasn’t sure he ever saw Emily walk through anything. She had always just appeared. Now is not the time, I’ll ask later. He thought to himself, trying to stay focused on the situation at hand instead of silly things like this.
Emily made her way through the doorway of the spare room across from the room with the wardrobe. “Came from this direction.” She made her way to the far wall and placed her hands against it. “Put your hands here.”
As Mike placed his hands on the wall he noticed just how solid it felt and it answered his question about walking through walls and it made him glad he didn’t actually ask it.
“Do you feel that?” She asked
“Solid.” He replied as he patted his hand against it.
“Not that.” She couldn’t help but laugh. “Don’t think about anything just feel.”
He stood there with his hands pressed against the wall and just when he was about to give up, he felt it. The wall almost felt like it was vibrating. “I feel it.” The more he concentrated on the feeling the stronger it seemed to get. “What is it?”
“Energy.” She lifted her hands from the wall and took a step back. “It’s his room it’s full of dark energy.”
He followed her lead and backed away from the wall.
“The closer you get the stronger it is. That was through a thick wall so what it’s like inside I can’t even imagine…” Her voice trailed off. “Don’t want to.”
“And that’s where Wes is?”
Emily nodded her head. “We need to get down stairs. There is only one way in and out of there.” She began to make her way back out the door and through the hall.
As they passed the room they saw that Tracy was now kneeling in the middle of the room with a small black wooden box in front of her and her book to her side. She had a few trays of different things laid out in front of her. They also saw that beside Mike’s body sat Jen with his hand in hers.
“She loves you.” Emily said as she began to descend the stairs.
“Yeah she does. She is amazing. Not sure what I’d do without her. She keeps me on track.”
“So you love her then.”
“More than anything.”
As they made their way through the large great room they saw Grant sitting at the table they had set up as home base just a few days before. He was watching the monitors as he held a walkie in one hand. They passed him without as much as a glance in their direction.
“No one but Tracy can see us.” He said as they passed him. “Tracy explained it to me. How only people who you want to see you can see you.”
“Yeah it comes with time I can do it at will but it took a while before I was able to control it.”
“It must have been rough having to relearn how to live.” He said as they came to a stop outside the open door to the hidden stairwell. “Lonely too.”
“Yes it was.” She began to stare up the stairs. “He’s still there.”
As Mike was gazing up the stairs he could feel his emotions begin to change. Up to this moment he had been feeling quite anxious about being in the situation he was in. But when he came to the hidden stairs he started to feel angry and a little cautious. “What’s going on?” He asked as the new emotions began to take over his. They felt odd though, almost like the feeling you get while you watch a scary movie. You begin to feel fear for the people on the screen knowing in your head it’s all fake and they are perfectly safe.
“This is his house it’s connected to him. As he gets angry the house gives of a similar energy and makes it easy to feel his mood. That’s how I knew he was going after Jen the other night.”
As they stood there waiting they heard the door at the top of the steps slam open. That wasn’t the most unsettling part though. As the noise of the slamming door subsided a low guttural growl began emanating from the stairwell.
“What the hell is that?” Mike asked as he took a step back.
“It’s him.” Emily said as she stood her ground.
The house thumped with each slow step he took down the stairs. The feeling of anger that Mike had started feeling earlier began to intensify. The thumps began to become louder and louder as he moved down the stairs. The growling was right behind the doorway ready to burst through at any moment.
Then nothing, the attack that Mike was expecting didn’t happen. He was expecting the dark man with the glowing red eyes to burst through at any moment but it never came. Just as he had accepted the silence and nothing happening there was a loud scream that came from upstairs on the other side of the house.
“Jen!” He yelled as he took off running through the house. He baited us. He thought as he flew through the great room. He looked towards the direction he expected to see Grant at the monitors but he wasn’t sitting there watching. He was laid out on the floor not moving, his walkie a good four feet from his body. Mike started to slow down to check on him.
“Keep going.” Emily said from behind him. “I’ll check.”
Mike sped up and was now in the front room. He began going up the steps three at a time and soon he was on the top of the stairs not being able to slow down at the sudden stop he slammed into the wall across from the top step.
Another thing he hadn’t given much thought about was pain, but he found out he could definitely feel it. As he brought himself off the wall he was reminded once again that he could feel pain as he was grabbed from behind and thrown down to the ground.
“What are you doing in my house boy?” A foul voice asked from behind him. The voice was the most unnatural thing he had ever heard. It was a low voice that had a bit of a southern twang but it wasn’t alone in speaking. Every word rang twice as if it had an echo. The echo was quieter but twice as menacing. It sounded like a growl that was manipulated into a word, much more animal than human. “What the hell are you doing in my house again?”
Mike tried to bring himself to his feet but a foot to his back slammed him back to the ground. He let out a loud groan as his face smashed against the floor. “Son of a bitch.” He tried to stand again and made it to his knees before he was grabbed by the back of the neck lifted off the ground and slammed face first into the wall.
It was clear to Mike that though he could feel pain he couldn’t bleed or break bones. As his face hit the wall he knew he should have felt his nose crush under the force but never felt the trickle of warm blood that should have come with a broken nose. The force that had been slamming hi
m here and there was now grinding his face against the wall. I have to do something. He desperately thought to himself. He did the first thing that came to mind. He raised his hands up and pressed them against the wall and with all his might he pressed. The force that was manhandling him must have been caught off guard because they flew away from the wall and he felt himself slam against the form as they hit the opposite wall. After the initial impact they fell hard to the ground.
He tried to get back to his feet but as he picked himself up he felt a hand grab him. How the hell? He thought as he braced for another incoming of pain, but it never came. The hand gently helped him up to his feet.
“Are you ok?” Emily asked as she helped steady him on his feet. “Grant is ok, just knocked out.”
“Bitch!” The horrid animal like voice said. “You good for nothing worthless little whore!”
Mike stood there as he watched him get to his feet. The image of the man, if that is what you want to call him, wasn’t what he expected. Instead of being of color and vividness like he saw Emily. The image of Warren Montgomery had managed to get worse. His body was still as black as it had been the day he first saw him but it looked as though a dark smoke was rising off of his body, as if he was a smoldering fire. His eyes were a dark blood red but flickered like tiny fires burning in side by side fireplaces.
“You son of a…” Mike lunged forward bringing his fist down square across what should be the jaw of Warren. “Bitch!” Warren slammed back down to the ground but the impact reverberated up Mike’s arm to his elbow causing him a fair amount of pain in the process. He did all he could to not show the discomfort he was feeling. “Jen!?” He yelled as he whipped himself around and made his way to the room he had left her in. Relief filled him as he saw her and Tracy huddled at the back of the mirrored enclosure.
“Mike and Emily are out there now.” Tracy said to Jen as she stood and began to walk to the front of the mirrors. “He came out of nowhere.”
“Get ready.” Mike told her. He turned to face Warren who was now sitting with his back against the wall where he fell to the ground. “How the hell did you get up here?”
Warren began to laugh. “This is my house… my creation! I can do what I please in here. I am completely unrestricted here just like I was in life.” He shot a smile at Mike. “I do what I please just like I killed that little whore of a mother of yours and just like I am going to destroy that little shit of a friend of yours! When I’m done with them the things I am going to do to that sweet little piece of ass in there.”
“Is that so?”
“Oh it very much is.” He began to laugh as he glared at Mike.
“Not anymore.” Mike slowly walked to him reaching down he grabbed him by the neck and began to raise him.
“Michael be care...” Was all Emily had gotten out before Warren had grabbed Mike’s hand tore it from his neck and slammed him against the wall.
“You little shit.” He spun him around and launched him down the stairs.
Mike slammed against the wall, he dropped four feet to the middle landing of the stairs where he crumbled to the ground on impact.
“No!” Emily and Tracy yelled together.
Jen screamed in the far room as Mike’s physical body began to shake. “Tracy what is going on?!” She threw herself on his body as tears ran down her face.
Emily lunged towards Warren but was easily thrown to the side. She collapsed as she slammed against the wall making a sickening thud.
“You should know better than this little girl.” Warren began to slowly walk towards Emily who was picking herself off the ground. “I told you if you didn’t do as I said, I’d destroy your little piss ant of a husband!” He kneeled down and grabbed a handful of her light brown hair and began to raise her up. “Didn’t I? After I kill your sweet little boy down there and his little friends I am going to make you watch as I destroy every bit of poor little Wesley.” Emily’s feet were now inches off the ground as he held her in the air by her hair.
“Please!” She managed to say through gritted teeth. She was trying to grab his arm to hold herself up but he shook her hands off everytime she could get ahold. She tried to say more but the pain was inhibiting her ability to speak.
“Please? Please?!” He yelled back in his beastly echoed voice as his lips curled into a smile. The anger behind his voice was enough to make anyone cringe. “And just what are you willing to do to save your little.” He let out a groan as his hand released Emily and he dropped down to one knee.
Mike had managed to pick himself up and make his way back up the steps. He had driven his fist as hard as he could right in the back of Warren’s neck. He raised his arm up again and with all his might slammed his fist back down against his neck. “Screw you asshole.” He wrapped his arms around Warren’s torso lifted him off the ground and began to drag him towards the opening of the mirrors. “Tracy! Be ready!” He yelled.
Warren began thrashing about trying to break free but they were too close and he had started too late. “No!” He yelled as they were on the verge of the entrance.
“Shut up you bastard!” Mike yelled and with one great effort he managed to launch himself and Warren through the entrance way of the mirrored trap.
“Jen! Now!” Tracy yelled as the two struggling men landed in front of her.
Jen pulled herself off of Mike’s body and ran to the entrance so she could slide the last mirror in place, effectively closing the trap.
Unliving Love Page 45