by Jack Kilborn
“These readings are mind-blowing.” Pang was still staring at his laptop screen. “The electromagnetic field around Aabir surged like I was scanning a high tension power line. I wish I’d had my remote thermometer on. Did anyone notice a temperature change?”
No one answered.
“Okay okay okay.” Belgium cleared his throat. “Besides the painting in the hallway with all of us in it, and what happened in the examination room, has anyone else witnessed anything unusual since arriving at Butler House?”
Sara spoke up. “In my room. A rocking chair. It was rocking by itself.”
“Was there any explanation for it?” Belgium asked, obviously concerned.
“No. No window open. I wasn’t anywhere near it. And when I say it was rocking, I don’t mean a little bit. It seemed like someone was in it.”
Belgium shivered. “Anyone else?”
“There was a cold spot in my room,” Pang said. “Ten degrees cooler. Celsius, bro. But it went away before I could record it, so I don’t have any proof.”
“Tom?”
Tom shook his head.
“Mal?”
“What? No.”
Deb mouthed something.
“What, hon?” Mal asked, putting his arm around her.
“Painting in our room.” Deb’s voice was scratchy, but audible. “Fell off the wall.”
“Aabir,” Belgium pressed, “have you noticed anything?”
Aabir remained quiet.
“Cornelius? Moni? Have you had had had any… um… encounters, since you’re arrival?”
“Naw,” Moni said.
“Neither have I,” said the Brit.
“You told me you saw an orb,” Pang countered.
Wellington shrugged. “I saw a flash of light in the hallway, while I was walking to the loo. You called it an orb, Mr. Pang, not I.”
“What’s an orb?” Belgium asked.
“Ghost lights,” Pang said. “Also known as orbs, ignis fatuus, will-o’-the-wisp. One pervading theory is that hauntings are residual energy that lingers after a traumatic event. Another is that the energy leaks into our dimension from another one. Like in quantum theory, where a particle can be in more than one place at the same time. In this case, our world, and the afterlife.”
“I thought you were a skeptic, Mr. Pang.”
“I am, Mr. Wellington. But skepticism requires me to be aware of the hypothesis I try to debunk.”
“There are reasonable, scientific explanations for everything that has happened so far,” Wellington said.
“A ghost assaulted my wife, Mr. Wellington,” Mal said, his chin out and his voice clipped.
“It could have been a man who said he was a ghost,” Wellington said. “Or, perhaps, Mrs. Dieter might be mistaken in her account.”
Mal stood up, his fist clenched. “Are you saying she’s lying?”
“I’m not saying anything, Mr. Dieter. Only that I don’t know. I haven’t met anyone here before today, so I can’t voice for anyone’s honesty. But even if I trusted your wife was speaking what she believes to be the truth, couldn’t her account of the events be colored by her past traumas?”
“So now she’s not a liar. Now she’s insane.”
“I’m simply calling attention to the obvious. We have ample proof of liars in our society, as well as ample proof of mental dysfunction. But we don’t have any proof of spirits. So if I’m being asked to dwell on what is more likely—either supernatural activity, or lies, hoaxes, and hallucinations—I think Occam’s Razor bears me out. The simplest explanation is usually the correct one.”
“Let’s all of us take it down a notch,” Tom said. Dr. Madison was attaching a sticky pad to his neck, and the conducting gel was cold. “But I think that anyone who wants to leave Butler House, should do so.”
Moni snorted. “And give up a million bucks? You’re on crack.”
“Dr. Belgium?” Tom met his eyes. “Do you and Sara want to leave?”
They exchanged a look. “I believe we’re staying.”
“Mal and Deb?”
Mal faced his wife. “We should go, hon. We don’t need this.”
Deb shook her head.
“Deb…”
“I’m done running away,” she rasped. “Go if you want. I’m staying.”
Deb crossed her arms. Mal pursed his lips, and then he walked away, to the other side of the great room.
“Cornelius?” Tom asked.
He folded his arms across his vest. “Naturally, I’m staying. I don’t believe we have anything to fear here, except our own overactive imaginations.”
“That leaves you, Aabir. Do you want to stay, or go?”
The psychic’s lips moved, but no sound came out.
“Can you speak up?”
“Paper,” she whispered.
“Paper? Dr. Madison, can you give Aabir your clip board?”
“Certainly.” The doctor placed it in front of the psychic, and put a black marker on top.
Her face still devoid of expression, Aabir began to write. Frank moved in for a closer look.
I IS JASPER
The words were in block letters, almost childish in their scrawl. They also took up most of the page, so Dr. Madison flipped to the next one.
I WORKS THE FIELDS AT BUTLER HOUSE
“What’s she doing?” Moni asked.
“Psychography,” Pang said. “Also known as automatic writing. She’s channeling a spirit and writing what it’s telling her. Sounds like it’s the ghost of Ol’ Jasper, the slave that Colton Butler sewed two extra arms on. Shit, my EMF meter is going berserk!”
Tom remembered the Butler House website. The picture of the scarred, old slave with the extra arm.
THEY HURTS JASPER BAD
Dr. Madison flipped to a fresh page.
NOW JASPER GON’ HURT DEM BACK
Frank realized he was holding the armchair of the loveseat so tightly his knuckles were white.
I... IS...
Aabir’s eyes rolled up into the back of her head.
HERE
Aabir screamed, and collapsed onto the floor.
Then the lights went out.
The great room was very dark with the chandeliers out, but enough dusk was peeking in through the cracks in the shudders that Tom could still make out some shadows. A moment later, Pang’s camcorder light went on. Tom followed suit, digging his tactical flashlight out of his pack.
“Cornelius, you’re near the front doors.” Tom pointed the beam in his direction. “Try the light switch there.”
Wellington found the wall panel and flipped the switch, to no effect.
“Nothing. Might be the circuit breaker. Or the generator.”
Tom waved the light across the group, taking a head count. He saw Deb and Mal, Moni, Frank and Sara, Pang, Aabir—”
“What’s that sound?” Frank asked.
Everyone went quiet. Tom was acutely aware of how silent true silence actually was. Living in Chicago, silence was an anomaly. There were always sounds. Traffic, heat or air conditioning, birds, constant human noise from talking, yelling, playing music.
But this house was completely devoid of noise. The only thing Tom could liken it to was when he put on his ear muffs on the shooting range. Silence had its own sound; the steady, inaudible hum of consciousness, which made you realize how alone you really were in the universe.
And then, like a slap to the face, he heard it.
Something dragging across the wooden floor.
Like a claw. Or a—
“Machete,” Tom whispered.
A machete like Ol’ Jasper was supposed to carry.
Tom twisted his flashlight to widen the beam, and then did a slow pan across the great room, trying to locate the sound.
He saw empty chairs, the fireplace, an old piano, a wall, a hallway, a table, another hallway, another wall…
“I think it’s near me,” Wellington said in a metered tone.
Tom turned the beam on the author.
> A few meters away from him was—
“Sweet Jesus Christ,” Moni whispered.
It was a black man, muscular, shirtless, shuffling across the floor in a slow, steady gate, dragging a rusty-looking machete behind him.
At first, Tom thought it was Roy.
But Roy doesn’t have four arms.
The two extra appendages sprouted from his back like angel wings, and hung, limply, over his shoulders.
“Well,” Cornelius Wellington said, “I certainly do commend the make-up artist. That’s quite a special effect. And the pure black eyes are a nice touch.”
Ol’ Jasper kept walking toward him.
Tom drew his Sig. “I’m a police officer. Drop your weapon and put your hands up.”
“All four of his hands?” Wellington asked. Tom detected the bravado, but it seemed forced.
Ol’ Jasper didn’t stop.
“Halt right now, or I will shoot.” Tom aimed his 9mm at the man’s center mass, supporting his gun hand with the flashlight.
Wellington tried to smile, but it looked more like a wince. “Oh, let him come, Detective. I’ll pull off one of those phony arms, and we’ll expose this for the farce it is.”
Ol’ Jasper got within two meters.
“Last warning.” Tom placed his finger in the trigger guard, and cocked the Sig with his thumb. “I will shoot you.”
Ol’ Jasper stopped an arm’s length away from Wellington.
Then he slowly raised the machete.
“Oh my.” Wellington giggled, but it sounded forced. “I’m so scared.”
“Get away from him, Wellington.”
“This is only a joke, Detective. I refuse to play along.”
“Drop the weapon, now!” Tom ordered.
Ol’ Jasper didn’t drop it.
Time seemed to slow down. Tom had enough time to think it through, make a gut decision, reverse the decision, then go with what his gut told him to do.
He squeezed the trigger twice, a double tap to the black man’s chest.
He felt the gun buck in his hands.
He heard the shots.
He smelled the gunpowder.
He knew he’d hit the target, dead on.
But Ol’ Jasper didn’t even flinch.
Instead, he swung the machette with vicious force, connecting with the side of Wellington’s neck.
Wellington went down like one of those buildings being demoed, collapsing in a heap right where he stood, his head flopping to the side as if on a hinge, a bright spray of arterial blood painting the front doors.
Chaos ensued.
Tom tuned out all the screaming from the others, tuned out the spectacle of Wellington’s dying body flopping and twitching on the floor like a landed fish, and emptied his magazine into Ol’ Jasper.
At least ten shots hit home.
Ol’ Jasper stood there, unaffected.
Then he looked at Tom—
—smiled wide—
—and roaches came out of his mouth.
It was the scariest thing Tom had ever seen in his life.
He ejected the empty magazine, fished out a new one, and loaded it as he backed away. Tom’s hands had begun to shake, and the beam flitted over Ol’ Jasper, catching him sporadically, until Tom somehow lost him in the darkness.
“Everyone!” Tom yelled. “Follow me! Let’s go!”
Tom hurried to the nearest hallway, alternating between lighting the way for people and trying to find Ol’ Jasper. Pang with his camcorder brought up the rear.
“Keep moving!” Tom said, covering the rear and walking sideways. He followed the group down a left turn, and into a large room.
“Dr. Belgium?” he called, keeping his gun on the doorway. Not that shooting had helped, but Tom didn’t have a better plan.
“Yes yes yes!”
“My fanny pack. I have some glow sticks. Pass them around.”
He pointed the flashlight at his pack, and Belgium fished out a handful. Tom listened for the sound of a machete scraping the floor, but all he heard was cellophane wrappers being opened. Soon the room was bathed in soft, multicolored neon light. Greens and blues and pinks.
Tom took a quick look around, discovered they were in a massive library.
“Pang, Frank, get that desk, move it over here to block the door. Mal, you got your gun?”
“Left it in my room.”
Shit. “Okay, do a head count.”
Tom peeked his head down the hall. Still no Jasper.
“Everyone say your name,” Mal said.
A bunch of people began talking at once.
“Okay, everyone shut up. Let’s try this again. I’m here, Deb is here, Tom, Frank, and Pang are here. Moni?”
“Yeah. Here. I’m here.”
“Sara?”
“Yes.”
“Dr. Madison?”
No one answered.
“Dr. Madison, are you here?”
No answer.
“Did anyone see where he went?”
Sara, bathed in pink light, said, “I think he ran down the other hallway.”
“How about Aabir?” Mal asked. “Aabir, are you here?”
“She was passed out on the table,” Pang said.
Tom ground his teeth.
Shit. One dead, and two missing.
How quickly things all went to hell.
“Tom, move over.”
Tom stepped aside, then helped Frank and Pang slide the heavy desk in front of the door.
“Are there any other doors in this room?”
General murmuring, and lights crisscrossing the space.
“I think that’s the only one,” Mal said.
Having only one entry point was a good thing. Easier to guard.
Having only one escape route was bad.
“Are there windows in this room?” Tom asked. “We need to find one, get out of here, and find the cars.”
More scrambling around.
“Got a window!” Deb croaked. Her voice was getting stronger.
People rushed over.
“Bars,” Moni said. “Thick ass metal bars.”
Mal grunted. “They’re set in concrete.”
“Okay.” Tom wasn’t sure on what to do next. He knew the right thing to do was go and look for Dr. Madison and Aabir. But he didn’t want to leave everyone alone.
Bullshit. Be honest. It isn’t about them. It’s about you. You’re afraid to go back out there.
“Everyone look around. Find something you can use as a weapon.”
“A weapon?” Pang giggled. “Why? Your gun didn’t do much good with Ol’ Jasper.”
“Did you miss, Tom?” Sara asked.
“I don’t think so.”
“You shot a whole shitload of times,” Moni said. “You sure you didn’t panic and miss?”
“I’m sure,” Tom said, but as soon as the words passed his lips he questioned them. He’d been less than five meters away, and had emptied an entire fourteen round magazine. He should have been able to hit that target with his eyes closed.
But could he have been so afraid he missed?
“Did you see those extra arms?” Pang’s voice had an edge to it.
Tom ignored him. “Does everyone have something to defend themselves with?”
Grunts and grumbling.
“If not, find something fast. I’m…” Tom swallowed. “I’m going to go look for Madison and Aabir.”
“Bad idea, Tommy boy,” Moni said. “I saw that movie. As soon as the people split up, they start dying.”
“They’ve already started dying,” Pang said. “Did you see what happened to Wellington? His head was practically cut off!”
Tom swallowed again. “I have to go check. When I come back, I’ll knock three times. Frank? Pang? Move the desk and put it back when I leave.”
“I’m going with you,” Moni said, stepping up next to him.
Tom shook his head. “You’re staying here.”
“I’m staying with
the guy holding the gun. And you promised you wouldn’t leave me.”
Shit.
“Okay. You stay close, move when I tell you to. Got it?”
“Yeah.”
“Pang, Frank, move the desk.”
They shoved it back, Tom took a deep breath, held it, and opened the door, expecting Ol’ Jasper to be standing right there.
But the doorway, and the hall, were clear.
Tom stepped out, Moni close enough to be his shadow. Behind them the door slammed shut, and Tom heard the scraping of the desk along the floor.
They began to make their way back toward the great room. Slowly. Cautiously. Tom waving the gun and flashlight in front of him in a steady, sweeping motion. Left to right to left to right.
“My nana believed in spirits,” Moni whispered. “She told me some people were so wicked, the devil kicked them out of hell because he was afraid of them.”
“Shh.”
“I thought ghosts went through walls and shit. How could one hold a machete?”
“Be quiet.”
The floorboards creaked under Tom’s foot, and he winced at the sound.
“Why should I be quiet? Can ghosts hear us? Do they even have senses like we do? Maybe they can zone in on our life force or something like that.”
Tom stopped. “And maybe,” he whispered, “there are no such things as ghosts, and you’re going to give away our position.”
“Doesn’t your flashlight and my pink glow stick give away our position, too?”
She had a point. Tom resumed creeping down the hall. He was coming to the left turn, a right angle corner he couldn’t see around. He paused again, unsure of how to proceed.
“I wish I had a cross or a rosary or something,” Moni said.
“That’s for vampires.”
“Did you hear about that vampire outbreak in Colorado? At some hospital? I read it in a tabloid. They said crosses didn’t work.”
“Can you please stop talking?”
“Do you believe in bigfoot?”
“Christ, Moni, can you please—”
That’s when Tom smelled something.
BBQ?
He sniffed the air, trying to pinpoint where it was coming from.
Moni grabbed Tom’s shoulder, startling him.
“Didn’t that doctor guy talk about a ghost that smelled like burnt meat?”
Tom remembered. Sturgis Butler. A serial killer from the 1800s who killed prostitutes in satanic rituals. According to that website, he was caught and burned alive, laughing as he died.