by Mark Lukens
Kristen didn’t say anything; she just kept filming.
“But in the dream I had last night, Mike talked to me. It was so real. It was just like the last time I had visited him. He was sitting at the same table, two nurses waiting close by. I sat at the other side of the table and I was trying to tell him that I was sorry for what had happened to him in that house. I told him that I tried to find him.”
“And that was true?” Kristen asked.
The question stung a little. “Yes, it was true,” he snapped at her without really meaning to, not sure why her question had angered him so suddenly. “That house seemed to grow bigger once we were inside of it, a maze of rooms that seemed to change. It was like all sense of direction had altered. I ran from room to room. I heard Mike screaming for help …”
“But you couldn’t find him.”
“Eventually he stopped screaming … but I still couldn’t find him. I told him all of that in the dream and then he spoke to me.”
“Did he tell you what happened to him in that house?”
“He said that Old Lady Cranston had showed him things. He said she showed him things that I’d never want to see. He kept saying that over and over again: You don’t want to see those things. And then … then he attacked me. And then I woke up this morning.”
“While you were in Ohio visiting Mike, you went back to the Cranston House, didn’t you?”
“Yes. I had done plenty of investigations by then in Louisiana and all over the South. But I always knew the one place I really wanted to go back to was the Cranston House. Maybe I was working up the nerve through the years, I don’t know.”
“So what happened when you went inside that house again?”
Shane walked slowly down the hall as he talked. Kristen followed him with the camera. She was excellent at working the camera and Shane noticed again that she seemed like a different person with the camera; she had something to do now, something to focus on rather than her own fear.
“I didn’t think the Cranston House would still be there,” Shane said. “I figured somebody would’ve finally torn that place down. Especially with what happened to Mike.”
“But the Cranston House was still there.”
He nodded. “After a little digging, I contacted the person who owned it. I got permission to go inside. I signed a stack of release forms and practically bribed the family so I could spend a night inside.”
“Did you lock yourself inside? Chain the doors shut like you did on your TV show?”
“No,” Shane answered in a low voice, a little embarrassed. He claimed on his TV show that he had no fear of spirits and ghosts, but that wasn’t true. There was still one place he feared, still one spirit he was afraid of. “I didn’t really start doing that a lot until the TV show. It was kind of … like a gimmick we used.”
No comment from Kristen.
Shane walked a little farther down the hall; the wall behind him was spiderwebbed with cracks as it led up to the door to Room 214. He stopped in front of the door. Laura had said yesterday that she could feel something from this room, and now he swore he could feel it too—an overpowering sensation of evil, like a heatwave washing over him. He touched the doorknob, turned it, opened the door slowly. It creaked open. He stared into Room 214, at the window on the far side of the room. The leaves of the trees were so thick outside the glass and the clouds had darkened the sky so much that the room was almost completely dark now.
Shane looked back at Kristen and the camera.
“What happened when you went back inside the Cranston House?” Kristen asked.
He could hear the nervousness in her voice now. He wasn’t sure if it was his tale about the Cranston House or the fact that he was standing in front of Room 214.
“I spent the night there.”
“Did you see the old lady again?”
Shane took a deep breath. “I felt some strange feelings as soon as I stepped foot inside that house. The house seemed different and familiar to me at the same time.”
He stopped talking.
“What happened?” Kristen prodded.
Shane shook his head. “I … I can’t really remember everything from that night.” And that was the truth. He had tried to remember the time he’d spent in there. Even the footage from the video he’d taken had been distorted, some of it missing like he had turned his camera off for some reason. Some of the things he’d said on tape hadn’t made a lot of sense to him when he had listened to it later. But he didn’t want to tell Kristen that … he didn’t want that to be recorded on film. He walked away from the doorway, moving slowly down the hall.
“You saw something in that house when you went back, didn’t you?” Kristen persisted. She had remained right in front of the door of Room 214, filming Shane as he walked away from her, deeper into the darkness of the hall.
Shane tried to think of an answer for her, some kind of way out of this conversation, but her sharp and shrill scream dried up the words in his throat. He whirled around and saw her jumping away from the doorway to the room, the camera slipping out of her hands and falling to the floor with a thud, glass and plastic crunching.
“What is it?” Shane yelled as he ran back to Kristen. He was beside her in a split second.
Kristen’s eyes were on the doorway to Room 214—the door was open just a crack now, a vertical line of darkness at the edge of the door. “Someone grabbed me,” she said. “There’s someone inside that room.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
“Someone’s in there,” Kristen said again. She sounded panicky, ready to run. Her eyes were still on the nearly closed door, on the crack of darkness between the door and the jamb. “Did you see her?” she asked. “Did you see the old woman?”
“An old woman grabbed you?” Shane felt his heart jump in his chest.
Kristen nodded with wide eyes.
“You’re sure of that? Absolutely sure?”
She nodded again, more vigorously this time. Her eyes were on the door like she was afraid to look away.
“You saw her?” Shane asked.
“Just her hand. She grabbed me.”
Kristen raised her arm up, inspecting it for a moment. “She was so strong … so quick. But then she just let me go.”
To get us inside there, Shane thought as he looked at the sliver of darkness beyond the doorway. That pang of fear jolted him again, but he made himself look away from the door.
“Let me see your arm,” Shane told Kristen, reaching out for her arm with one hand, his flashlight in the other.
She showed him the light scratches on the inside of her forearm, three long red lines on her pale skin.
“See?” she said, her voice shaking. Her whole body was trembling. “Someone’s in there. We need to get downstairs.”
Shane didn’t answer Kristen. He turned away from her and bent down to pick up the camera from the floor. He turned it over in his hands … it looked like it was busted-up pretty good.
“Shane,” Kristen whispered. “What are you doing? Let’s get out of here.”
Shane ignored Kristen and walked towards the door to Room 214.
“Shane!” Kristen said, backing up a step.
The walkie-talkie on Shane’s belt crackled with static and then they heard Billy’s voice: “Kristen! You okay?!”
Shane didn’t answer the walkie-talkie—he took it off of his belt and handed it to Kristen. He had the camcorder in one hand and his flashlight in his other hand, aimed at the door.
“Don’t go in there,” Kristen whispered. She backed up a few more steps towards the wall at the other side of the hallway with the walkie-talkie clutched in her hand. Billy’s voice was still squawking from the walkie-talkie, but his words sounded so far away now.
“Just wait out here,” Shane said without turning around to look at Kristen.
“Don’t leave me alone out here,” she said.
Kristen sounded like she was on the verge of tears, but Shane ignored her. He had to ent
er that room; he had to see if that old lady Kristen had seen was in there. He needed to face his fears … he needed to face Old Lady Cranston if she was in there. He pushed the door to Room 214 open all the way. The hinges creaked in the silence. The room inside was murky, the storm making it practically like night inside the room now. The tree branches shook like pom-poms outside the windows, some of the leaves scraping at the glass, rain splashing against the window and the siding.
As Shane stepped inside, a flash of lightning lit up the large room with a full second of flickering light. In that flash of light Shane saw the camera on the tripod to his right, near the corner of the room and it was aimed at …
… the hole in the wall.
But Shane blocked everything else out; he blocked out the camera, the rain pounding at the windows, the lightning and then the thunder that rumbled immediately afterwards, shaking the cluttered floor beneath his feet—that last lightning strike had been close … or was it another tremor underneath the manor?
Shane took three more steps inside the room and then the door slammed shut behind him.
But he ignored that, too.
He kept his flashlight beam aimed at the hole in the wall at the other side of the room, near the corner. It looked like the ragged hole was a little bigger now, like something had picked away at the sharp pieces of broken wood lathe, chipped away at the cracked plaster. Rats? No. There didn’t seem to be any evidence of rats inside this building … no evidence of anything living in this manor except them. There might be other things roaming in this manor, but none of those things were alive anymore.
The dead don’t stay dead there. The boat captain’s words echoed in his mind.
The black stains around the edge of the hole in the wall (which looked so much like dried blood to Shane right now in the murky room) had grown like a fungus, the wall seeming to turn black with mold a few feet away from the edge of it in every direction, even along the floor in front of it.
He lifted the camcorder up to his eye to film. The camera wasn’t working—it had definitely busted when Kristen dropped it a few minutes ago. He crouched down a little, not taking his eyes off the hole in the wall, and set the camera down on the floor.
There was something inside the hole … he could see it now, a pale thing moving around in there. But the pale thing was coming closer to the hole … coming closer to our world.
Shane kept his flashlight beam trained on the hole in the wall, but his hand and arm were shaking now, the light beam quivering. He was scared of what he was going to see, of what was hiding deep inside the darkness. But he also had an irresistible urge to move closer, to finally face this demon that had haunted his life since he was a child, this demon who had started him down this path to the supernatural—Old Lady Cranston.
He heard a voice whispering to him … a familiar voice.
The voice wasn’t coming from outside the room. He could hear Kristen jiggling the door handle and pounding on the door out in the hallway, calling to him, screaming at him to get out of the room—she sounded so far away. He wanted to turn around and run back to the door. He wanted to get out of this room, but that natural urge to flee felt buried under an even more powerful need to walk closer to the hole, to see the pale face inside that hole that was whispering to him. He almost felt like he was in a trance, being pulled gradually across the room against his will, summoned towards the pale thing that whispered and called his name.
“Shane …”
Another step closer. Shane’s shoes crunched on the small bits of plaster. The spongy floorboards creaked underneath the redistribution of his weight.
“Shane … come closer …”
At first Shane thought the whisper belonged to Old Lady Cranston, the woman he’d seen so long ago in the wingback chair with the long yellowed fingernails and sharp brown needle-like teeth.
But it wasn’t the old woman’s voice … it was Mike Lachance’s voice, his friend who’d gotten lost inside the Cranston House, his friend who he had so desperately tried to find.
Had he? Had he really tried to find Mike when they were in that house?
“Shane, you have to help me,” Mike whispered from inside the hole. His face swam into view from the darkness like a pale, bloated thing rising up from deep black waters. His eyes were round, his mouth opened wide, his skin pasty-white. But there were cuts on his face, blood-red streaks across his skin, the wounds sliced deep into his flesh.
“You have to help me, Shane. She’s got me and she won’t let me go now. She keeps cutting me, Shane. She keeps cutting me and cutting me, and she won’t stop.”
Shane took a few steps closer, his body shaking with shivers; he was trembling so hard he felt like he was convulsing. Yet he couldn’t stop moving forward. He had to help Mike.
The truth came back to him now with an explosive force, like a sudden weight being dropped down on him. He hadn’t helped Mike when they were kids … he’d gotten scared after he had seen Old Lady Cranston and he had run through the house, trying to find a way out as Mike screamed for help.
Screaming for help just like he was doing right now.
“I’m sorry, Mike,” Shane said. He could feel tears streaming down his cheeks now. “I’m so sorry … so sorry …”
“Come down here with me,” Mike whispered, his face pulling back away from the hole now, receding deeper inside, becoming just a white and red-streaked blob inside the darkness now, the definition distorted like he was underwater, just black holes now where his eyes and mouth used to be. “Come in here and help me.”
Shane took another step closer and then stopped. He saw hands reaching up through the darkness and grabbing the edges of the hole, snapping splinters of wood, crushing the plaster, crumbling it to white dust that drifted down to the floor.
Mike was pulling himself out.
Shane stood there, crying harder now. His flashlight beam was aimed at the hole in the wall. He was still holding the light out in front of him, but the flashlight felt so heavy in his hand now. He was already more than halfway across the room, so much closer to the hole even though he hadn’t remembered taking any more steps.
From far away behind him Shane heard the pounding at the door to Room 214. There were shouts at him to respond, to open the door, pleas to answer.
But Shane couldn’t respond to them right now. He had to help Mike out of that hole and get him away from Old Lady Cranston. This was finally his chance to help Mike. But Mike was helping himself now; he was already pulling himself out of the hole in the wall.
“Come on, Mike …” Shane whispered.
Yet Shane still didn’t take a step closer. He wanted to run to the hole and rip away the pieces of wood and plaster holding his friend inside; he wanted to grab Mike’s hand and drag him out of the darkness.
But then Shane realized that those weren’t Mike’s hands tearing away at the edges of the hole. Those hands were too thin, the fingers too long, the skin too old. The long yellow fingernails seemed so sharp and strong as they peeled away pieces of plaster like claws, the fingers snapping at the pieces of wood lathe like they were twigs. And then the pale face swam back into the hole again, right into the glow of Shane’s flashlight beam. A flash of lightning lit up the room, leaving no doubt that it was the old woman crawling out of the hole now, not Mike. It was Old Lady Cranston finally coming to get him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Laura stood in the kitchen, waiting by the massive brick oven. She had her flashlight on, but it was aimed down at the floor. The row of large windows over the sink let in a little of the late afternoon light, but the storm clouds had darkened the sky so much that it kept most of the vast kitchen in shadows. She closed her eyes for a moment. It felt like the darkness was swirling around her, circling her like sharks before an attack. She could feel the evil here like it was a physical thing, but she could also feel it waiting for the right time to strike.
There was something on this island that Nick Gorman wanted badly—a
secret he hadn’t told anyone about. It was the same thing that Thaddeus Thornhill and his wife had come here for all those years ago, the thing that was buried down in that hole in the ground; secrets Thaddeus had killed many times for. It was dangerous … and this secret could make people dangerous.
She opened her eyes and saw Nick approaching. As usual, he was smiling and confident, but there was a secret behind that smile. She knew he had just discussed something with Billy that he didn’t want her to hear.
“You’re not filming,” Nick said to her, a mock scolding.
“I was waiting for you.”
“Well, we should take every opportunity to film while we’re here. You never know what you might capture on film.”
“I think there’s somewhere else besides this kitchen that you want to film … somewhere else in this house you want to explore.”
Nick stared at her, but he never lost his cocky smile. “You’re good. Yes, I want to explore the basement.”
She was afraid of that, but she didn’t say anything.
“I’ll take the camera now if you don’t mind,” he told her.
Laura handed it to him. “I’m sure you’re better with it than I am.”
Nick smiled but didn’t answer her. He gave her a “ladies first” gesture, bowing slightly. Laura walked across the littered floor of the demolished kitchen and then stood in front of the door to the basement. She felt a wave of light-headedness wash over her and she almost lost her balance, but then the world swam back into focus.
Nick seemed to be hovering behind her, waiting for her to open the door.
She touched the door handle and felt that momentary jolt of evil, like static shock … a sensation that was becoming routine in this place … and then she opened the door and shined her light down the wooden steps.