by Jack Kilborn
“Yes yes yes, in fact it does.”
Belgium inadvertently flashed back to the last time the Secret Service came calling, which is how he wound up at Samhain. Two men in black suits, with the proposition of a lifetime.
“We have a proposition for you,” the same agent said.
“No, thank you. I’m quite done done done with government work. Have a good night.”
Belgium moved to close the door, but the Fed stuck his foot in it.
“We’re well aware of your role in Project Samhain, Doctor. And how it turned out.”
Belgium again thought back to how that particular part of his life came to a close. About the evil loose in the world, which was partly his fault. He braced himself for the bad news.
Instead, he was surprised by bad news of a completely different kind.
“Instead of being a researcher, your government would like you to volunteer to be a test subject,” the agent said. “On a topic you know intimately well.”
“Molecular biology?”
“Fear,” said the other one.
Belgium wasn’t sure, but when the man spoke he flashed teeth that looked…
Well, they looked pointy.
“You’re invited to spend the weekend taking part in a unique experiment. You’ll be closely monitored to see how you react to fear. As you might guess, you have more experience in this area than most.”
That’s the understatement of the century, Belgium thought.
“For one day of your time, you’ll be given one million dollars. Plus your old job back at Biologen.”
Belgium raised an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”
He’d been justifiably fired from Biologen years ago, due to negligence. Since then, they’d merged with the pharmaceutical company DruTech and had become the premiere biotech firm in the world.
“A million, and a job as head of the molecular biology department.”
Head of the department? That meant pure research, the thing in life Frank loved more than anything else.
He allowed himself a few seconds of fantasy. His own lab. Access to the best equipment. The most competent staff in the world. And no more grading ridiculous papers about plants’ reactions to household chemicals.
Then reality kicked in again, reinforced with some well-earned skepticism.
“So this has nothing to do do do with Samhain?”
“No.”
“Have you,” he chose his words carefully, “spoken with anyone else?”
“Several people. But no one you know.”
Which meant his friends from Samhain, Sun and Andy, hadn’t been approached.
But working for the government again? Could he possibly trust that?
The answer came swiftly and with finality.
Absolutely fucking not.
“It’s a tempting offer, gentlemen, but but but I’m going to decline.”
The lead agent stared deep into Belgium, his eyes emotionless. “If you don’t accept this offer, you’ll be executed for treason.”
“Treason?” Belgium squeaked. “I’ve never breathed a word of what happened, to anyone.”
“You know exactly what you did,” the agent said. “You know what you’re responsible for.”
The Fed spoke the truth. And Belgium had waited years for the evil he’d unleashed upon the world to appear again. He spent hours every week monitoring the world news, looking for evidence.
But so far, the evil had remained dormant. Belgium had even begun to hope it had disappeared completely.
“Your choice is to submit to the experiment and get a large cash settlement, along with your dream job. Or be taken to a secret prison and executed without a trial. And that threat extends to your associates.”
“Andrew and Sunshine Dennison,” the other said, giving Belgium another quick glimpse of his sharp teeth.
“I understand they’re expecting a child. Do you want to be responsible for destroying their family?”
Belgium did not want them to die. Nor did he want to die. Death was one of many, many things Frank feared.
“Then apparently I don’t don’t don’t have a choice. Where is this experiment supposed to take place?”
“Have you heard of Butler House?”
Belgium had. And as the blood drained from his face, he seriously wondered if being executed for treason was the better option.
Chicago, Illinois
Tom
“You think my partner was murdered, and it is somehow connected with this game show thing?”
The Feebies looked at each other.
“We’ve been investigating a man named Dr. Emil Forenzi. He may be involved in the disappearance of over a dozen ex-military personnel. From what we’ve been able to find out, he’s doing some sort of scientific research on the physical characteristics of fear.”
“He’s the one who sent the invitations?”
“We believe so.”
“And you think he may have killed Roy?”
“We’re not sure.”
“You guys don’t know much, do you?”
“Detective Mankowski, we believe Dr. Forenzi may in fact be funded by the US military. So certain avenues have been closed to us.”
Tom could understand that. The army, much like the government, tended to keep hush-hush about things above your pay grade. “Do you have any actual evidence?”
“Just circumstantial. We’ve been trying to get a man on the inside of Forenzi’s operation, but security is tight. However, we do know he has been inviting people to participate in his experiments. People who have undergone a particularly frightening experiences. We’ve done a background check on you and your partner, and you both certainly qualify.”
No shit, Tom thought.
“We’d really like to know what’s going on, Detective.”
“And you want me to find out.”
“We’ve gotten permission from your boss, Captain Bains, to work with you on this.”
That seemed odd to Tom, as Bains didn’t like working with the Feebies. And justifiably so. They were territorial, smug, and often looked down on city cops. But Bains also had an almost paternal sense of responsibility toward his men. If Roy was missing, the captain would want him found.
“And you can’t do this yourselves because…?” Tom asked.
“We weren’t invited. You were. You could poke around, talk to Forenzi, try to get some evidence. We’ve tried to interview him, but he lawyered up. And we’ve found obtaining a warrant to be challenging. He apparently has friends in high places.”
“Where is Forenzi?”
They exchanged another glance. “He’s set up his laboratory in the Butler House.”
“The Butler House?”
“You’ve heard of it?”
Next to the house made famous in the Amityville Horror, Butler House was probably the most famous paranormal site in America. Tom even remembered streaming a low budget Netflix movie about it. Located in South Carolina, an insane doctor—the brother of a plantation owner—built a laboratory-slash-dungeon underneath the estate, where he performed horrible experiments on the slaves they owned. Tom watched ten minutes before turning it off. Even though it was poorly acted, and the special effects were shoddy, the ghosts in the movie were hideously deformed and reminded Tom of a real night he spent in the real basement of a real mansion, and he didn’t need to be reminded of that.
“Supposed to be haunted,” Tom said.
“Forenzi is apparently convinced it actually is haunted. And he believes the fear of the supernatural induces the purest terror response in his volunteers.”
“Have you talked to any of these volunteers?”
“No. We’ve tried to track down those we know of, but they’ve… disappeared.”
Tom almost laughed at that. Almost. It was ridiculous enough to be the punchline for a campfire ghost story. But neither Feebie looked amused.
“How many people are we talking about here?” he asked.
“Two o
r three dozen.”
“Including the missing military men?”
“In addition to them.”
“So you’re saying there have been… how many?… maybe fifty people who have disappeared in Butler House since Forenzi moved in?”
“That number might be low.”
“And no one has done anything?”
“We’re trying to do something, Detective. Which is why we’re at your apartment at three in the morning.”
Tom rubbed his eyes. “I need to think about this. Do you have a number I can reach you at?”
One of the agents produced a card and held it out.
“We really would like to see that invitation,” he said, pinching the card so Tom couldn’t take it.
“When I find it, I’ll show it to you.”
The Fed released the card. Special Agent John Smith. Go figure.
“We’ve heard that Forenzi is conducting another experiment this weekend. Our informant says guests are being picked right now.”
“Who is this informant?”
Neither agent answered. Obviously the Bureau had their need-to-know info just like the military did.
“Goodnight, gentlemen,” Tom said. “You can find your way out.”
They left without so much as a nod. As soon as the door closed, Tom went to his cell phone and called Roy.
It went straight to voice mail.
“Roy, it’s Tom. Call me back as soon as you get this.”
It was too early in the morning to call Gladys, Roy’s ex-wife, so instead Tom went into the bedroom and found the FedExed invitation. He snapped on a pair of vinyl gloves he kept in his drawer, and pulled the invite out of the blue and orange cardboard mailer. It was a standard 8.5" x 11" sheet of paper, off white and a heavy stock. The writing on it appeared to be calligraphy.
Survive the night in a haunted house and receive $1,000,000.
Call 843-555-2918 to confirm.
Invitation 3345
Tom turned the paper over, finding nothing, then looked for a nonexistent water mark. Next, he sniffed it, and it smelled like paper. Finally he took out a magnifying glass and studied the script. It was inkjet, not handwritten.
It said nothing about this being a gameshow or a reality show, but those were the possibilities he and Roy had brought up during the fifteen seconds they’d discussed it. But this seemed more likely to be a joke, hoax, or scam.
And yet the Feebies were extremely interested in this invitation, and they didn’t think this was a put on.
Tom switched on his computer monitor, saw he was still on the Skype program he used to talk to Joan. She was offline. He frowned, then Googled Dr. Emil Forenzi, spelling it like it sounded.
He found him on the Linkedin social network. Born in Brazil fifty-six years ago, his father Italian and mother a native. Moved to the US when he was a child. Full scholarship to Brown. Doctorate at MIT. Then he went to work for the DoD, and apparently still did. Specialties included a bunch of technical and science skills that Tom had to scroll down to read completely.
So why does a genius scientist believe in something as ridiculous as the supernatural?
Tom squelched the thought. If he described some of the very real things that had happened to him, the majority of the world would think they were ridiculous as well. Trying to keep his mind open, he searched for Butler House on Google and found a website dedicated to it.
Tom settled back in his desk chair and began to read.
Building History
Butler House was built in 1837 by wealthy landowner Jebediah James Butler on a cotton plantation in Solidarity, South Carolina, fifty miles outside of Charleston. Boasting more than one hundred and fifty rooms in the neoclassical antebellum style, it was home to Jebediah, his wife Annabelle, and his younger brother, Colton, until their deaths in 1851.
Construction began in 1835 and faced many setbacks, including a severe storm, a fire, and the deaths of three workers. One died when a pallet of bricks crushed him. Another was scalded to death by hot tar. A third fell into the concrete foundation when it was being poured, and drown there. A generally accepted rumor is his body wasn’t discovered until the concrete had cured, and it was unable to be removed, so Butler indicated more concrete be poured on top of him.
Many point to this lack of a proper burial as the beginning of the rumors that the property was haunted. Others contend that the source of the problems was the land itself. In the late 1700s it was a thriving village of Cusabo Native Americans numbering over two hundred. The village was burned, its people massacred, by white settlers desiring the fertile land.
During the lengthy and troublesome construction, Annabelle had been heard to say, “Maybe the Lord doesn’t want us building this house.”
The slow completion time is also attributed to the architectural demands Butler made. He hired three different architects, each to design a different part of the building, so no one but Butler knew the exact layout. This was especially important because the manor was outfitted with many secret rooms and passageways, false walls, staircases that lead nowhere, a labyrinthine basement with several kilometers worth of tunnels, and a torture chamber.
Slavery
At its peak in 1841, the plantation boasted dozens of slaves, the majority working several hundred acres of cotton and tobacco. Butler was known to openly boast that he was breeding his own workforce, and many of the slaves born on the property were fathered by Butler or his brother. On several recorded occasions, if a child born on the property was too light skinned, Butler would feed it alive to the passel of hogs he kept on the property.
Butler soon became one of the largest slave buyers in the South, which caused one of his contemporaries to remark, “[Butler] has purchased so damned many he could farm the entire state.” But at any given time, Butler never seemed to have more than fifty slaves working for him, even though records have shown he had bought more than four hundred.
Known to be unusually cruel masters, the Butler brothers seemed to have delighted in inflicting punishment on their slaves, for slights real or imagined. They made full use of the house’s torture chamber, where slaves were skinned, boiled, crucified, scourged, whipped, mutilated, and burned.
Colton Butler, a self-professed physician who demanded to be addressed as “Doctor” even though he held no known medical degree, conducted many surgical experiments on slaves, without anesthesia, with the apparent goal of joining them together.
“I believe I have the ability and necessary determination,” Butler wrote, “to fuse the parts of two Negroes together into a single being. Consider a slave with four strong arms, which would double his work output, or with six breasts to suckle young…”
Rebellion
The Butlers hired ten armed men to guard them and their property, and they were known to be as cruel as their employers. Daily beatings, corporal punishments, and public executions (even though the killing of slaves was against the slave code) were commonplace. A one-eyed man named Jonathan “Blackjack” Reedy, worked as taskmaster in the fields, and once said, “Spilled blood is good for the soil, makes the cotton stronger.”
On October 31, 1847, near the end of the annual cotton harvest, Blackjack was whipping a young boy whose only infraction was said to have been stopping for a moment to wipe the sweat from his brow. This appeared to have been the final straw for the mistreated slaves, and they revolted, beating Blackjack so severely the only way the authorities could identify his corpse was by his black leather eyepatch.
The rebellion spread throughout the fields, the guards either being surprised or running out of ammunition, and after the last was killed the angry slaves converged on Butler House.
Jebediah Butler, and his wife Annabelle, were hung naked by their ankles from the rafters in Butler House’s great room and beaten to death with whips and scourges. Colton was chased into the bowels of the basement, and dragged to the torture chamber where he was placed upon the rack and stretched until his arms and legs were brok
en in several places each. Then he was set ablaze.
The majority of the slaves escaped to nearby states, some making their way to the North and freedom.
Aftermath
The deaths of the Butlers was headline news for weeks after the incident, and bounties were put on the runaway slaves’ heads. But there weren’t many takers. There were rumors of a “slave curse” which claimed any who tried to capture the Butler slaves would meet the same fate as the Butler family.
The house, and plantation, went unoccupied for five years, until a man claiming to be a distant cousin of the Butlers, Sturgis Butler, petitioned the court for ownership and moved in during the summer of 1852.
Sturgis tried, unsuccessfully, to hire workers to fix up the house, which had fallen into disrepair and still bore the damage incurred during the rebellion. But laborers always quit in terror after a few days, claiming to have witnessed strange ghostly figures, or disembodied screams.
Sturgis resorted to repairing the house on his own, but he didn’t try to recapture the farm, and the land soon became a dense marsh.
Though Sturgis never married, he entertained a wide variety of women at Butler House, many of them prostitutes. At least a dozen were never heard of again.
Civil War Years
When the War Between the States broke out in 1861, Butler House was commandeered by the Confederate Army as a garrison. Between 1861 and 1865, at least six soldiers committed suicide on the grounds, and sixteen more were remanded to a local insane asylum, ranting about supernatural phenomenon. While under psychiatric care, four killed themselves, eight died of unexplained causes, and one man plucked out his own eyes with a fork.
Sturgis, exempt from the draft because he worked as a druggist, remained at the house during its occupation by troops, though he kept to himself in a closed off wing of the basement. Rumors abounded of him being “in league with the devil” and a proponent of “black magick.” Milledge Luke Bonham, governor of South Carolina and Brigadier General in the army, said of Sturgis, “There is something dark and twisted about that man. He is certainly no Christian.”
Reconstruction Years
During the four decades after the war ended, little was heard from Sturgis Butler. Prostitutes from the county continued to disappear, and the locals paid little mind to it. But in in 1902, Mia Lockwood, the only child of Southern poultry magnate Earl Lockwood, vanished the night before her debutante ball in Charleston.