And then Darrow led him to the elevator and pulled the handle. The elevator descended into the darkness, screeching the entire way.
Aaaaabeee. Aaaaabeee.
A flicker of recognition worked its way through Abby’s mind. Someone was trying to talk to her.
Aaaaabeee. Itsss meee. Breeeendaaa.
Who? The name sounded familiar, but she couldn’t quite place it, it sat just on the outskirts of her recollection.
Breeeendaaa.
And then it came back to her like a tidal wave crashing on the beach.
Brenda!
Brenda, her long lost friend was speaking to her, but how? Why now? And then something Brenda had said earlier registered with her. “But tonight he smells funny, and it’s always easier for me to see what he’s thinking when he smells like that.”
The drug! Whatever Jack had injected into her had opened the door to her subconscious, that’s why Brenda could speak to her.
Brenda is that you?
“Yes!”
Where are you?
“Down in the basement.”
Come up here.
“I can’t.”
Why?
“DEMON!” The little girl’s thought screeched through her head. “He’s got some kind of a hold on me. I’m trapped.”
I’ve got to help you!
“No! There’s no time. There’s a policeman here.”
What?!
“A policeman. Hurry Abby, now’s your chance, you’ve got to get out of here!”
I Can’t. Can’t move. I’m drugged.
“You’ve got to try! Try Abby, make some noise, anything!”
And then Abby saw the vase, the vase of flowers that Jack had brought her setting at the edge of the nightstand. If she could just manage to knock it off, then maybe…
Okay, I’ll try.
And with agonizing effort she felt her hand begin to move.
The elevator door opened into darkness. Darrow led the detective out and down the blackened corridor.
“Sorry about the lighting, haven’t had a chance to get it all fixed yet, money issues you know.”
“Yeah well I can understand that.”
“This used to be a funeral parlor you know.”
“You don’t say.”
Connelly was trying to keep up with the small talk and trying vainly to search for clues in the darkened corridor at the same time. It was near impossible to see anything and he had to concentrate not to bump into the walls as they twisted and turned themselves into a labyrinth. Solid concrete. Not good.
“Yup, a lot of people died in this here house.” Darrow spoke with an edge in his voice.
“You mean they were embalmed here? They were already dead before they got here.”
“Yeah, that’s what I meant. Embalming room’s just around the corner, pretty eerie stuff, but it makes for great party conversation.”
“I bet it does.”
“Right through here.”
Darrow motioned to the open door. Connelly stepped through the doorframe and Darrow flipped the light on behind them. As the detective’s eyes adjusted to the light he had to keep himself from shaking. He was not prepared for this. Darrow had turned the embalming room into what looked like a personal torture chamber. Devices of all shapes and sizes lined the walls. The embalming table had been modified into some kind of basin, with raised walls and a drain plug cut through the bottom of the sheet metal. What kind of sick fuck would?
“Pretty creepy stuff huh?” Darrow’s voice interrupted his thought.
“I’ll say.”
“Yup, that’s how I found it. Seems the old mortician was some kind of weirdo. Still it is pretty interesting. But if you think this is cool wait until I show you the room back over here.” He pointed to the boiler room. It was dark save for a soft red glow emanating from the doorframe. To Connelly it looked like some kind of disturbed darkroom where a pedophile might develop pictures. More disturbing still was the smell. A gut-wrenching stench that permeated the air, like rotted flesh and burnt hair; it assaulted his nostrils and made him want to gag. Darrow pointed again to the boiler room.
“After you.”
Upstairs Abby strained to raise her arm high enough to reach the nightstand. It was an agonizing endeavor, her arm felt like it was covered in concrete and that every nerve in her body had been crushed and damaged, making it impossible for her hands to obey her whim.
“Hurry Abby!”
I’m trying!
“Try harder Abby, Please!”
Finally her hand reached the nightstand, her fingers curling gently on the edge supporting the weight of her arm as her shoulder muscles gave out. She couldn’t feel the table beneath her fingers, she could only look to confirm that she had indeed grabbed hold of the nightstand.
“Come on Abby, you can do it! Just a little further!” Brenda’s voice was wrought with fear and desperation.
Abby watched as her fingers moved closer to the vase a millimeter at a time. At last she saw her fingers make contact with the vase and it begin to inch towards the edge.
Darrow was still pointing to the door, waiting for the detective to enter when the vase crashed to the floor upstairs.
“What the hell was that?” Connelly asked.
“Fucking cat. Should have drowned the damn thing years ago. It’s always knocking things over.”
Connelly nodded and then stepped into the darkness of the boiler room, Darrow followed and closed the door silently behind him.
“Light switch is over on the far wall, if you don’t mind flipping it on for me.” Darrow said as he moved quietly to the pick axe that was leaning up against the corner.
Connelly moved to the back of the room, searching for the light, blind as a bat. Darrow was used to the darkness, at home in it, and he could see the form of the detective moving in the nearly absent light.
“What kind of cat did you say you had?”
“Uh Siamese.”
Just before Darrow reached the corner of the room, the small radio transmitter that Connelly had buried deep inside his ear crackled so loudly he nearly jumped out of his skin. Did he hear that? Wooding’s voice was inundated with static, and it was difficult to understand exactly what he was saying but the message was clear enough. Get the hell out of Dodge. Connelly knew what happened, they had lost radio contact while he was in the basement and they were beginning to panic. God damn, he was getting close to something big, he could sense it, and they were pulling him out.
“That’s all right. I think I’ve seen enough.”
He had no other choice, if he lingered they might think something had gone wrong and come busting in looking for him, putting the entire operation in jeopardy. Darrow would secure a lawyer and he would insist on a search warrant for which they didn’t have enough evidence, and he knew it. They were up shit creek.
Connelly’s abrupt change in interest caught Darrow off guard, another second and he would have split the pig’s head in two, lucky son of a bitch.
“But you just got here.”
“Just remembered, promised the wife I’d be home early today. Nephew’s birthday or something like that. I can never keep ‘em straight. You know how it is.”
“Yeah, I guess I do.”
Connelly was trying to keep his voice level, but the dramatic shift in interest and enthusiasm was difficult to pull off. “Well, thanks for the hospitality. I’ll be in touch.”
The detective turned to leave causing Darrow to scurry from the corner and back to the door. He caught sight of Connelly’s backside as he disappeared back into the light of the embalming room. With a disgruntled sigh he followed after. The ride back up the elevator was wrought with silence, Darrow fuming inside, and the detective on pins and needles. It clanged to a stop and Darrow slid open the brass gate. The pair walked to the front door where they exchanged handshakes and counterfeit pleasantries.
“So did you get what you wanted?” Darrow quipped.
“Excuse
me?”
“Signatures and all,” he nodded to Connelly’s brief case. “You get everything you needed?”
“Oh, yeah. Got it all. I’ll be in touch.” Connelly beamed a wide smile, which Darrow returned in kind.
I bet you will, you son of a bitch.
FORTY-FIVE
It was rumored that in the final days before his death that John C. McGinty had gone stark raving mad. I can assure you that nothing is further from the truth. In fact, John McGinty may well have been the only man closely associated with the tomb of the Bedouin that had any grasp at all on reality, a shred of sanity so to speak. And it was this awareness that led ultimately to his demise.
Talcott had sent word that they were ready to proceed with the excavation, or to put it in laymen’s terms, he was ready to open the sarcophagus. McGinty washed his face, combed his hair, and put on his best and only suit. He did not bother to leave a note or wake his daughter to tell her goodbye, there was nothing he could say to her that would make it any easier. Instead he pulled the covers up around her neck, placed a kiss gently on her forehead, and locked the door to their modest two-bedroom home for the last time.
It was the seventh of April and the Spring weather had yet to warm the crisp air. The warm breath from his lungs vaporized in front of him with each exhalation forming miniscule ice crystals on the ends of his eyelashes. McGinty walked the mile and a half distance to Talcott Manor slowly and deliberately, taking the time to enjoy the fresh air, peer up at the starry sky, and listen to the wondrous sounds of nature all around him. Good God, in all his years here on earth he could never remember having taken the time to enjoy small pleasures, and now ironically, as he walked his proverbial last mile, he had finally been able to see the beauty in life. It wasn’t buried under the desert sand, or hidden in mountain caves, or evident in the ruins of long dead cultures. Life, like time, could only be enjoyed in the present, for the past eviscerated into memory and memory faded into the forgotten.
As he began down the dirt road that led to Talcott manor he was filled with great sadness for what had once been a vibrant woodland teeming with birds and squirrels was now quiet and dormant. Even the stars in the sky sat occluded behind a wall of cloud and only the stark moonlight penetrated the wispy canopy with strands of rogue light.
McGinty climbed the steps leading up to the portico and rapped briskly on the double doors. Anders, Talcott’s loyal servant greeted him with a nod.
“Talcott is in the basement sir. He’s sent the elevator back up and it is waiting for you.”
McGinty returned the nod without uttering a word and proceeded to the elevator where he pulled the lever and descended into darkness. He made his way swiftly through the darkened corridors to the boiler room and manipulated the secret lever. He silently watched as the stonewalls parted like the biblical Red Sea, emitting a ghastly sound as stone ground against the concrete foundation.
He found Talcott exactly where he knew he would be. His long-time friend and business partner stood at the foot of the sarcophagus, his eyes glazed over in the eerie translucent light filtering from the chandelier high above. McGinty fell in beside him saying nothing. Talcott did not turn to acknowledge him, instead keeping his gaze focused on the marble top of the ancient coffin. When he spoke his voice wavered with excitement.
“John, so good of you to come at this late hour.”
“Your messenger awakened me, what other choice did I have?”
Talcott’s bellowing laughter reverberated around the chamber in a raucous echo. “Ah, my good man life is full of choices, but you have always chosen the ones not for the feint of heart. Tonight my friend we make history, the first westerners to ever gaze upon the creature fabled in the lore of the Bedouin.”
“And after all these years of searching could it not wait until morning?”
“John you amuse me. You know the lore of the Bedouin better than anyone, only at three AM, the soul’s midnight, can the tomb of the Bedouin be opened. Of course you know I don’t believe it that nonsense, but it does add to the effect, don’t you think?”
McGinty nodded. “You’ve always had a flair for the dramatic.”
Talcott harrumphed in his usual manner. “That I suppose is true, but only in an attempt to heighten suspense, for what is life without the excitement of the unknown?”
For just a moment McGinty thought of telling his friend of the simple pleasures in life that he had until now overlooked. He wanted to tell him that it was not necessary to leave your mark on history, business, or science to have led a full and productive life, but he knew his remarks would fall on deaf ears or illicit a condescending remark, so he remained quiet and let Talcott’s rhetorical question go unanswered. But most of all he didn’t tell his friend that he already knew what awaited them beneath the marble slab. That unfortunately, Talcott would have to discover for himself.
Talcott glanced at his watch, the hour had just struck three, he handed a crowbar to McGinty and readied his own.
“Very well, shall we? I’m anxious to see what lies beneath.”
McGinty’s anxiousness did not stem from the unknown. He already knew what awaited them. The two men jabbed the flat ends of the steel underneath the marble top and leaned down on their crowbars, leveraging their weight against the stone slab. The seal that had held fast for so many years gave way with a puff of dust. Talcott placed his thigh against the nearest corner and slid the slab into a diagonal position. With one final heave the slab slid off and crashed to the floor.
Talcott peered into the casket with awestruck eyes. McGinty’s fears were confirmed, for the creature that lay within appeared just as it always had in his dreams, except for the face, which was a far more horrific image than his own subconscious could have conjured.
“Good God in heaven,” Talcott whispered, his breath alive in the suddenly chill air, “have you ever seen anything so beautiful in all your life?”
McGinty had a far more ominous place in mind, and from where this creature was spawned there was no beauty.
“Do you realize what we have uncovered John? I mean, my, my goodness, we’ll be famous, rich beyond our wildest dreams. All of our expectations, our hard work, it’s all bearing fruit John. Can you see it? Do you see what I see?”
The devil himself.
“Indeed I do.” His voice was flat, monotonous.
“We’ll be spoken about in legend and lore along with our story told in the great tomes of history. Our fame will be beyond boundaries!”
“And our infamy our blight in hell.”
McGinty’s words rocked Talcott to the core and for a moment he almost felt a twinge of fear burrowing its way through the excitement, and then it was gone.
“John, why do you speak of such things?”
McGinty didn’t answer, he chose instead to turn and walk from the chamber. His footprints embedded themselves into the residual dust of the newly constructed room. Talcott watched him go, not understanding what McGinty knew all too well, that they alone brought forth the most unspeakable evil to ever set foot upon the earth.
On his way out McGinty took one of the winding forest trails that surrounded the mansion, stopping at an old weathered pine tree. The tree was enormous, rising into the night sky, its top melded into the darkness above. He estimated that the tree to be centuries old. Oh the history it had bore silent witness to, and tonight it would see more. Yes, the tree would do nicely. Rain had begun to fall as lightening flashed and thunder bellowed throughout the valley. To some it would seem that a cold autumn storm had blown in from nowhere, another great mystery of nature, but McGinty knew that the eye of the storm hailed from the basement of Talcott Manor. He climbed up nearly thirty feet above the ground to the first sturdy branch, and retrieving the rope from his pocket fastened one end to the branch and the other around his neck.
John McGinty fell you might say, rather than jumped to his death. His body twitched only once before the rope fractured his neck and left his corpse to dangle
and sway amid the storm. The storm he had created.
FORTY-SIX
“Wha- ki- -- cat d-- you -ay yo--ad?”
“U- Si-ese.”
Connelly’s radio transmitter was crackling with static. Detective Wooding struggled to pick up the conversation, keeping one side of his headset pressed firmly to his ear and the other free so that he could converse with Peterson. The elder detective sat in the control center of the van staring intently at his counterpart. The lines of concern on his face were growing longer with each passing moment.
“What the fuck’s going on in there?”
Wooding held his hand up denoting silence as he tried to listen even more intently, if that were possible. The sides of his headset were cutting into the skin around his ears.
“Fuck if I know, I can’t hear shit down in that basement, it’s as if the walls are made of eight foot thick concrete.”
There was a loud noise coming through, barely audible in the crackling static. Wooding couldn’t recognize it. It sounded to him like a voice, no several voices, male and female droning together.
Fi—ish –im. –il him.
“Damn it Wooding. If I got a man in trouble down there I want to know about it!” Lines of concern were evident in his voice.
Now the static was the only thing audible, it came through in buzzing waves with a monotonous undertone that was humming persistently in Wooding’s ear.
“I don’t know. I can’t hear anything. I think the radio went out.”
“You think it did, or it did, which one?”
The blank stare on Wooding’s face told Peterson that he didn’t have a clue in hell. “You want me to break silence.”
“No not yet. Give me the headset.”
Peterson placed both earphones on his head and listened carefully. The only thing audible other than the static was the beating of his heart.
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