Find Me : Novella

by E. J. Bennett

  The basement was dark, but I could still see where he went. He walked into the small basement and then turned left. He reached a thick side door that was so dark and out of the way one would have a hard time finding it if they did not it was there. I had always thought that the basement looked smaller than it should have been, considering the space under the house. I walked behind my father in law, sticking to the shadows. He unlocked it and opened the door.

  The inside of the room was larger than I thought it would be. The walls were filled with shelves. There were random jars with all kinds of liquids and things in them. I cringed at the dim light. I could not see what was in the jars, I was too far away as well.

  I saw what looked like an operating table with straps. An old, dirty man was strapped to it. He was almost naked, only wearing rags that one could assume were clothes at one point in time. I was wondering why he was fidgeting and then I saw that he was trying to scream, but his mouth was tied with a rag.

  I practically tried to meld with the wall next to me as I watched my father in law went to a shelf and filled a needle with something from a small jar. He loomed back towards the man. I could see his face. He looked the happiest I have ever seen him look. He was always so bland and uninviting. My father in law then started muttering as he cleaned the man's inner elbow, and after that injected the substance in the man. I cringed as the man struggled against the bonds holding him down, trying with all his might to rip his arm away from my father in law. I never could imagine this was happening under my very nose. How long have I been living in this house? I wanted to go inside and rip the needle away from him. Maybe hit him in the head, and free the man. But I was weak and alone. No one knew that I was here so I was at a disadvantage. I did not know what to do so I just ran. I do not even know if my presence was known. It might have been.

  I wanted to free the man today. I decided that it would be easier to do it during the day, and I could call my husband for back up. He would not want a person like that to live here even if he wanted to leave so badly I could feel his body practically shouting it. I went to the basement and found the door. But when I tugged on the door handle I found it was locked. I searched around but did not find any key. Then I heard someone coming down the stairs and ran. I did not want anyone knowing I was here. I ran to the other corner and stood there until the person picked up what they needed to and left. Then I went to my room. I needed to find a way to get in there.

  February 15th

  I have been following my father in law to the basement almost every night now. He does not seem to see me, even though I needed to hide a few times. I wound up waiting in the basement a few times, and seeing him unlock the door then put the key in his pocket.

  Every few days there is a different person strapped to that table, groaning as my father in law injects various things in them and grinned as he watched the reactions.

  Most of the people seemed to be homeless, picked up from the side of the road. I do not know what to do. I just stand there and watch him torture them while shaking. I cannot even make myself move during it. My husband does not believe me when I tell him. I think he believes I am going crazy or even that my sickness is making me see things. My mother in law seems to not care what her husband is doing. I think she does not even hear me when I speak to her.

  I cannot find the key. I have tried to search his room, but he does not leave it often. If I could, I could unlock the door and show them what he is doing. Lock him up somewhere. I need to do something. I would never forgive myself if I said nothing.

  February 20th

  I have spent the entire day pacing. Mary is gone. She has just vanished. I have been searching all over but I cannot find her. It is him, it must be. Why else would she be missing?

  He had been yelling at her more these days. I think he thinks that she is the one that had been following him down to the basement. And if he thought her testimony would be taken seriously, he might have been tempted to kill her. I need to find her. I need to save her. I cannot just let her be tortured like the others.

  I think he keeps the key on himself at all times. I have started searching his room a bit by bit and I have not found it. That monster must be stopped before he does the same thing to that tiny little innocent girl.

  February 21st

  They do not believe me. My father in law was out the entire day and I had time to go and search his room. I went through the whole room, turned over everything in there and did not find the key.

  No one believes me without the key. My ramblings have started being ignored. My husband is not even willing to go to the basement with me. And if I do not find the key, Mary might die all alone in that room. I even tried to break the door down, but my mother in law stopped me. They think it is because I am sick.

  February 22nd

  I will never be the same, or have a decent night's sleep. At least my father in law will not hurt anyone ever again. This night, I snuck into his room and covered his face with his own pillow. I held it down until all life had seeped out of that horrid man. He had tried to stop me, tried to remove the pillow from his face, tried to scratch me, but his weak hands could not do anything to me. I was wearing a large cotton shirt so I did not leave any traces.

  All that was left after that was the empty shell. A shell could not hurt anyone anymore. Even if I do not find Mary, at least he's gone. But I will keep looking. I will keep looking until the rest of my days.

  I closed the diary and put it as far away from me as possible. I know what I must do but the panic in my throat is keeping me stuck to the bed.

  It took a long time for me to start moving. It was late at night now and all I could do is shower and then go to my bed. I knew what I needed to do. I need to find Mary. In order to find Mary I need to find the key.

  Even though my mind was convinced that I should go to the house as soon as possible, my body was not listening to me. I fell asleep like a rock and didn't wake up until very late in the day. It took me a long time to gather the courage I needed to go there.

  Chapter 10

  As I drove down the road all I could think was that I was driving to a crime scene. I was suddenly glad that the only ghost that seemed to be attached to the house was that of Mary. I could not imagine what it would be like if I had to face the murderer. As the road unfolded in front of me, I could see two trucks were parked in front of the house. They did not look like Adrian's. The contractors must have been here already. I parked the car. A man was standing next to one of the trucks, writing in a notebook. He wore overalls and had a dumpy but strong look about him.

  "Hello, did my father call you?" I asked, offering a handshake.

  The man turned when I spoke and his wrinkled face beamed with a polite smile. "Oh, you are Mia Bourne right? Yes, your father told us you would be here. I looked around the house and I must say, it is looking like it just might be best to tear it down and start over. I worry that there might be some structural problems. We will need to rewire the whole house anyway, it is a wonder it has not failed so far..."

  I was not listening to him anymore. I could see some faint light coming from inside the house though the windows, and my eyes were following it. Soon enough there was a huge crash and I saw several men tumble out of the house, running for their life.

  "What happened?" The man who was talking to me, obviously their boss, stared them down, bewildered.

  "That house is crazy!" One of the men, a short, younger one, with a high voice, yelled. He was bent over, hands on knees, heaving. I could see a frying pan flying across the living room through the open door.

  "The fireplace set itself on fire and the pans were moving." Another added. "I got hit in the knee with an ashtray."

  Their boss frowned, staring at them. "Is this a joke? I do not have time for jokes."

  "Do I look like I am laughing?" A third man exclaimed. He was nursing a bruise on the side of his face.

  "Then you inhaled something you should not have, because pans do
not fly on their own. And neither do ashtrays."Their boss insisted.

  I ignored the rest of the conversation, the house was calling me. It felt like there was a string going through my legs and someone was dragging me across the yard and into the house. If I didn't obey it might have just flown me to the house itself.

  Inside it was deadly quiet. The fireplace was off and the stuff seemed to have settled down. Mary might have known I was on the right track. I could hear my own footsteps as I walked across the room and down the stairs, towards the basement. In there it was dark, but as soon as I thought about going to find a light, a flashlight hovered over to me and dropped in my outstretched hand. I thanked whatever ghost this was and then searched for the door I had read about in the diary.

  The walls were damp and smelled of mold. I caught myself thinking that if the lights were not working I would have not wanted to go inside, But there also was another scent underneath it all, that I could not figure it out. It was not very familiar.

  I followed my mother's footsteps and soon enough I ran into a door. I put my hand on the door handle and pushed. The door groaned but did not open. I pulled. The door did the same thing. I needed to find the key. Despite all the mould the door was not weak enough for me to break it.

  The hand I was holding the flashlight with turned away from the basement door and pointed towards the stairs. I was scared, and there were goose bumps all over my arms and shivers all the way down to my toes, but I went up. I convinced myself that Mary knew I wanted to help, so she would not lead me to my death now.

  I thought about where the key could be. Grandma moved freely all through this house, so if she did not find it when she was frantically searching for Mary, I was wondering how I would in the time it took the contractors to get back in. I hoped they were scared enough to stay out there for at least another fifteen minutes.

  Then I saw where I was heading to. There was one room no one went in ever. I walked up the stairs to the floor and opened my grandpa's room. I had refused to stay in there a long time when I and Adrian were cleaning things, because the thought of that stale room filled with death made me sick. There was not a lot in it either way. But now I walked in without stopping. No monster was going to prevent me from keeping my word. I had prolonged this long enough.

  I did not know where to start. But I did not need to know. The bed groaned and a small key slipped out of the thin pillow on the bed and floated towards me. I snatched it out of the air. The irony of my mother frantically looking for the key when the key had been in the pillow she used to kill grandpa did not escape me. I would have smirked if the thought of murder did not raise bile in my throat.

  I practically ran down to the basement. I could hear the contractors were opening the door and I wanted to be down there when they did. If I was not, they might not even check down here, and then Mary would not be found and she would still be alone in the darkness. I pushed the key in the lock and turned, then pushed the door open.

  The weird smell grew stronger here. The whole room had an ominous halogen lighting. There were shelves filled with weird liquids all around the walls. Some of them held small body part like eyes or ears. It made me shudder. A small corner where a pair of shackles were chained to the wall. The ease with which I could imagine his victims chained up there frightened me. And in the middle of the room, what looked like the table with straps my mom saw. It was an old operating table, like the kind one would see in an encyclopedia. I wondered how my grandpa got his hands on one. Or was he doing this a lot longer than I had assumed?

  I was walking towards said operating table when I tripped on something. I felt around down there and found out it was a lever. The operating table shuddered as the floorboards in front of it slid back. The smell that had been subtle so far now hit me straight in the face. I could not deny what I was smelling anymore. I peered into the hole and saw a pile of black bags, some flies hovering over them, attracted by the rancid smell.

  "What the hell is that?" I heard a male voice behind me. I turned and the main contractor was standing behind me, shielding his nostrils form the smell with his inner elbow.

  "We need to call the police." I managed to choke out. "There are dead bodies in here."

  I could feel the bile rising up in my throat so I ran outside as fast as I could. The contractor followed me. I leaned on the side of one of the trucks and took big gulping breaths. My hand was searching for the phone. I needed to call the cops and then I needed to call Adrian. I needed someone near me that I knew. I would need the support when the cops question me. I was not going to be able to tell them the real story about what happened anyway. Luckily I memorized the local sheriff's office number.

  "Sheriff's office what is your emergency?" A chipper lady answered the phone.

  "Hello, this is Ameila Bourne. I am at the Burns family house and I just found some..." the words got stuck in my throat. What do I say? Do I say black bags? Will they even believe me? I better say it as bluntly as I can. "...What looks like dead bodies in the basement. Can you send someone over here?"

  There was silence. Then the lady's voice came back but this time it was a lot less chipper. "I will send someone right away. Stay there."

  "Of course"

  As soon as I said goodbye and terminated the call, I called Adrian.

  "Adrian, you need to get over to the house right away. I think I found Mary's body." I was surprised that my voice was still steady enough to speak.

  "What?" Adrian seemed to be driving to somewhere according to the sounds I was hearing. "I'll be right there. Did you call the police?"

  "Yes, first thing. But the contractors are also here and I do not know what to do."

  "I will be there in a few minutes."

  Sure enough I saw Adrian's van coming up the road ten minutes after that. He came out of it and then immediately ran to me. I did not know why until he gave me a hand and made me sit down. I must have looked like death. He sat next to me, and I leaned on him. I did not care about what he would think. I felt like I was going to faint any minute.

  "Your dad called, said the contractors will be here today and asked me to help out. I was already on the way over here when you called, so I just sped up. I came as fast as I could. What happened?"

  "I found them." My voice was barely above a whisper.

  "Oh, good. Wait, them?" Adrian frowned, and then put a hand around me. "Hey, you, do you have some water in there?" He called for one of the contractors. They were busy whispering among themselves.

  "Uh, yeah sure." Some footsteps later and Adrian was urging me to drink. I obliged and felt better. Now all that was needed was to stay here and wait for the cops. I could tell Adrian everything later.

  I stood next to Adrian as the police carried out what I now knew to be body bags from the basement. Some of them were so misshapen that I cringed as they were wheeled past. It reminded me why I liked lawyers. They were a part of the system that put monsters like my grandfather away.

  One of the bags looked like it had something smaller in it. My eyes got stuck to it. I could not look away. And then I saw Mary. Her skin was unusually pale and her smiling lips were a shade of blue I would ascribe to someone that had suffocated. She was wearing a frilly white dress. Mary skipped across the yard towards me. I flinched when she walked through a police officer that had stepped back a little.

  She came to me and waved. "Thank you for finding me. I can go now and be in peace." Mary then walked down to the small body bag and followed it out, skipping down the street and walking into the car that was carrying the body.

  "Are you okay, Miss?" A small voice reached me. I wheeled back and I was faced with a police officer. He was looking at me with a face filled with sympathy. I realized how this looked to him. A girl walks around the house and stumbles on to something so gruesome. And that girl now was following a body bag with her eyes.

  "I have something for you." I reached in my bag and pulled out my diary. I wanted to give these souls a piece of mind
. I wanted everything out in the open. "This is how I knew that room was there. I didn't know if it was real so I wanted to check. I did not know what I would find, if anything." I handed the diary over.

  "Oh, alright. Thank you." The police officer took the diary. I squinted, trying to imagine his reaction to reading everything.

  "The house will be off limits until we clean everything out of it. Then you can get in there and do whatever you want with the house. Can you come in to the station tomorrow and talk to the officer in charge?"

  "Of course." I nodded. I was glad he said tomorrow. I could not have talked about anything right now. I wanted to sink in a bed and fall asleep.

  Adrian led me away from the police officer. "Do you want me to call your dad and explain everything? Then I can either take you to the bed and breakfast or we can go somewhere and eat."

  "Thanks. I will be fine, we can go eat." I did not want to be alone. And I definitely did not want to explain to my dad what happened. I sat in the car and observed Adrian talking to my dad on the phone. I could see the exact moment my dad screamed "What!" into the phone, because Adrian pulled the phone as far away from his ear as he could.

  I was wondering how dad would react to the fact his wife was a murderer and his father a monster. Would this even be able to be proven? I was wondering if this was even my problem anymore.

  The house was cleared for entry almost a week later. I have not had any nightmares during that time, and the lack of fear had caused me to sleep so deeply I missed my alarm three days in a row. I still felt uneasy about going back to the house. That mansion had been home to so much pain I wished it would go away.

  Dad's horror was palatable even through the phone. I called him right after I had my interview at the station. I kept everything supernatural out of the conversation, only saying I had found the diary while cleaning and wanted to know if it was true. When the strict officer asked me why I didn't call them right away after I found the diary, looked at him straight in the eyes and asked if he would have believed me if I showed him the diary of a bedridden woman.