by Jason Hawes
“This is Casemate 11. It’s a new find. I discovered the door in the ground a few months ago. I was mowing the grass, and I saw it.”
“What was this place used for?” Jason asked.
“A casemate is a room used to store guns and ammunition. Soldiers used them as places where they would fire on the enemy. But this one was used a little differently. When a prisoner got in trouble in the dungeon, they sent him down here. This was a solitary confinement area. It’s quite a bit larger than just a single cell, though. There are a few different areas down there.”
The TAPS group leaned over to get a look into the cavern. Loose dirt tumbled down the sides of the hole. Lyssa got a quick chill down her neck. She could imagine how awful it was to be a prisoner trapped inside. Like being buried alive.
“Actually, the casemate is one of the reasons I called you all in,” Victor continued. “It’s safe to go down there—the roof won’t fall on your head or anything like that. But before we let tourists go in, we need to know if we’re going to have other problems.”
“What kind of other problems?” Lyssa asked.
“It’s like a maze down there. Lots of twists and turns. You basically have to walk single file. If something was down there—something frightening—there’d be no getting away from it.”
Victor leaned over and gently closed the wooden door.
“I’ve got one more place to show you, and then you’re on your own.”
He led them back across the field to a yellow building. It had a large balcony hanging over a porch. The team stood silently on the stone walkway in front of the porch steps.
“This was the officer’s quarters,” Victor said. “The fort’s commander lived in there. But some people believe that someone else lives here now. The wife of Sergeant Pratt. It’s a very sad story. Back in the 1800s, when the sergeant and his wife, Elizabeth, lived here, medicine wasn’t what it is today. They had a little daughter who died, right up in that bedroom.”
Victor raised his hand, pointing to a window next to the balcony.
“Elizabeth Pratt was so heartbroken that she cried for a week,” he went on. “Everybody could hear her—from the prisoners in the dungeon to the soldiers in the mess hall. She wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t sleep. She just cried and cried for her poor daughter. After that, she couldn’t take the pain anymore. She hanged herself right from that balcony.”
“That’s the saddest thing I ever heard!” Lyssa gasped.
“Some say that Elizabeth Pratt is still there. That her spirit has not left the room. Some tourists who passed by this building say they saw her in the window. Sometimes, near nightfall, they say they can hear her, weeping for her daughter.”
In the Fort Mifflin dungeon, it got dark very quickly. Mike and Mark stood next to each other in the prison, underneath one of the few lightbulbs in the room. The bulbs threw a dim orangey light onto the floor. Mark leaned against the arched door frame. In front of him were rows of the original cots that the prisoners had slept on. Each cot had a thin green blanket on top.
“This is so cool!” Mark said, his voice echoing through the large room. “This place has so much history. If only these walls could talk.”
“I’d like it better if the walls stayed quiet,” Mike said. “This place is spooky enough already.”
The air in the dungeon was still. The place was dead silent. A prickly feeling ran along Mark’s spine. Mark shook it off. Then he let out a forced cough. He just needed to make a noise to break the quiet. Cold air stung his lungs as he breathed in.
“It’s freezing tonight,” he said. He looked down the long hall to the fireplace. “I wish there was a fire going in that thing right now.”
Grant’s voice came over the walkie-talkie. “Time to go dark.” Mark was about to flick the switch off when his brother grabbed his arm.
“Wait a second,” Mike said. He looked strangely at his brother, inspecting his face.
“What’s wrong?” Mark asked.
“Are you shivering?”
“No. I brought gloves and a scarf. I’m fine.”
Mike let go of Mark’s arm.
“Do you hear that?” Mike whispered.
“Hear what?”
“That chattering sound. It sounds just like someone shivering. It’s coming from somewhere in the middle of the room. Maybe it’s just the windows rattling.”
“Mike, there are no windows. This is a prison.”
“What could make that sound, then? Don’t you hear it?”
Mark felt a tingling in his hands. Yes, he could hear it now. It sounded just like teeth chattering. He glanced around, looking for a possible source of the sound. He found nothing that might make a rattle.
“I’m going to turn off the lights now,” he said in a hushed tone. “Maybe the infrared camera will show us where the noise is coming from.”
Mark turned off the switch. Inky darkness surrounded him. For a split second he couldn’t see a thing. He reached out and touched his brother’s arm.
“It stopped,” Mike said. “The noise stopped.”
Side by side, they made their way in between the rows of beds. A tiny beam of moonlight slipped in through the door behind them. This was the only light in the room. It cast a shadow in front of the brothers as they made their way down the hall.
In the dark, the details of the room were invisible. But when they looked on the IR camera’s screen, they could see more. Everything in the room showed up as cool blue images. It was so cold in the room, Mark’s hair felt stiff in his scalp. He looked at his brother. The blue light from the screen lit up Mike’s face, making it look frozen in ice.
Suddenly Mike stopped. “Mark, look at this.”
Mike pointed to the image on the screen of the bed in front of them. The bed was a deep navy blue, like the rest of the room.
Except for one spot. There was a small patch of green on the bed. The green area was on top of the blanket in the shape of an upside-down V, the wide part facing them.
“Mike, what’s that green triangle on the screen? Why is that spot warmer than the rest of the bed?”
“I’m not sure.”
Mark took a closer look.
“The green lines almost look like the imprint of legs. See? Like someone was sitting here and then got up,” he said.
The shivering noise, Mark remembered just then. Mike said it came from the middle of the room—right where they were now standing.
“Yeah, I see that. If someone was sitting here, their thighs could have left some heat on the blanket,” Mike said. “Who was in here tonight before us?”
“No one. It’s just been us for the past hour. And it’s so cold in here, even if someone was sitting on the bed before, all the heat would be gone by now.”
“But if no one else was here…”
Mark’s throat closed up as he swallowed. He stared at the screen. The camera was telling him there was someone sitting on the bed in front of him. But that was impossible. The only other person in the room was standing right next to him.
But when Mark looked up, there was no one on the bed. He walked over to touch the spot. He felt the smallest amount of warmth coming off the thin blanket.
“What can you see on the screen now?” he asked his brother.
“Your hand is red hot. The green part is still there too, below your hand.”
Mark moved his fingers around. All he felt was the rough blanket. He took a step forward. The sound of his footstep bounced off the walls of the empty room.
“Is anybody here-eer-eer-eer? ” his voice echoed. “Anyone?” His own words answered a moment later, saying back “anyone, anyone, anyone…”
Mark slowly turned his head from side to side, checking over the motionless room. Each bed looked exactly the same as the others.
“Mark!” Mike’s voice was a harsh whisper.
On the camera screen a glowing yellow figure appeared at the end of the hall. It was the size and shape of a man. The glowing figure stood
very still in front of the fireplace. It looked like a person trying to get warm.
Mark looked down the hall. He couldn’t see the end of the room clearly. It was too dark. Everything blended together after a few feet. He got dizzy looking out into the darkness. “Hey!” he yelled. “You! By the fireplace!”
No answer.
“He’s not moving,” Mike whispered.
“Hello?”
After his echo died, there was silence again.
“It’s still there, Mark….”
“Let’s go—fast.”
Gulping in chilly air, the twins ran to the other end of the dungeon. They stopped a few paces from the fireplace. Mike aimed the IR camera.
“There’s nothing here!” he said. “The figure was right there a second ago!”
Grant opened the heavy door to the officer’s quarters and walked inside. Jason was right behind him. They went over to the staircase, taking in the layout of the foyer. The first floor felt pretty normal. But that wasn’t where Sergeant Pratt’s wife had hanged herself.
At the bottom of the stairs they stopped.
“After you,” Grant said.
Jason went ahead. Grant followed, carefully climbing the stairs. The wooden steps creaked under his feet.
“I can’t stop thinking about Elizabeth Pratt,” Jason said as he climbed the stairs. “That poor woman.”
“I know,” Grant said. “The story really stuck with me too. And based on what Victor said about hearing her at night, I think Elizabeth Pratt might be stuck here. She could be so attached to this place that her spirit just never left.”
At the top of the stairs, Grant got the audio recorder ready. He took a moment and looked around. The glass used in the windows was old, like in a church. It wasn’t completely flat, and it made the outside world look wavy and broken.
Grant stepped into the hall. His knees wobbled. Suddenly it felt as if the floor dropped beneath him, and he tumbled forward. He reached out for the wall to steady himself.
“Whoa! I almost fell over.”
“Watch your step,” Jason said. “Be careful—this floor isn’t level. It’s so old, it slants. It’s like you’re walking in a fun house.”
Grant took a breath. The air was musty. It had that old-book smell. He took a cautious step forward and walked ahead of Jason to Elizabeth Pratt’s bedroom.
He peered into the room from the doorway. There was a chair in the corner and a four-poster bed against the wall. The rest of the room was bare. The curtains to the balcony were open. He could see straight out through the windowed doors onto the balcony. There was something hypnotic about what he was looking at. He couldn’t take his gaze away from the balcony.
Then he realized: he was looking at the last thing Elizabeth Pratt saw before she died.
Grant stepped into the room. He could sense Jason’s presence behind him, but there was something else. Almost as if there were whispers too quiet for him to hear.
He turned on the audio recorder and spoke aloud. “Elizabeth? My name is Grant. Don’t be afraid of us. We just want to know more about you.”
He took a step closer to the balcony.
“Are you here tonight, Elizabeth?”
Looking straight ahead, he could make out his own reflection in the balcony doors. It was distorted from the old glass. His face seemed pinched in and wavy. Slowly, he moved closer to the balcony.
“We know your daughter was very sick. You never had a chance to say good-bye.” Grant was concentrating hard. All he saw was the window in front of him, his reflection shimmering in the glass. The rest of the room faded from his vision.
“Elizabeth, are you here? Maybe if you show yourself, you’ll feel less alone….”
Grant’s voice trailed off. His mind went blank. Staring past his reflection, he looked out into the night. He felt a terrible sadness. As if he had lost someone…
Then something grabbed his arm and yanked him backward. He snapped his head around, feeling pressure on his arm—and saw Jason gripping his sleeve. Jason’s eyes were wide.
“What’s wrong? Why’d you pull my sleeve?”
“Grant, did you hear that? Listen.”
They both waited, completely silent.
Grant paid close attention to the sounds in the room. He could hear Jason’s camera running and the grandfather clock ticking very softly downstairs. The hooting of an owl in a tree. Even the familiar sound of a mouse crawling in the wall.
Then he heard something else. At first he thought it was just a floorboard squeaking. Or an insect buzzing. The sound was high pitched and only lasted a second. Then it came back stronger. A shiver ran down his body. It was a voice, a child’s voice.
“mommy! mommy!”
Grant’s head whipped around.
“Hello? Is anybody there?”
No response.
“Elizabeth?”
After a few minutes of silence, Grant turned off the audio recorder. He looked at Jason.
“What was that?”
“It sounded like a little girl,” Jason said. “It sounded like she was saying ‘mommy.’ ”
Grant nodded. “That’s exactly what I heard.”
“Maybe it’s not Elizabeth Pratt haunting this room,” Jason said. “Maybe it’s her daughter.”
The group met up at the Central Command Center. Lyssa was sitting behind the monitors next to Jen. They’d been watching the camera footage and listening in on the audio all night.
“I know staying at Command Center is important,” Lyssa said. “But it’s nowhere near as exciting as gathering evidence.”
Grant and Jason walked in just in time to hear Lyssa confess: “I never thought I’d be saying this. But I kind of miss being in the middle of things.”
“There’s still one more place we need to check out,” Grant said. “You two up for it?”
Jen turned to Lyssa. She looked excited.
“You’d switch with us?” Lyssa asked Grant.
Grant smiled at her. “Casemate 11 is all yours. We’ve had enough action for one night.”
The door to Casemate 11 was open wide. Like a coffin, Lyssa thought. Broken cobwebs lined the opening. Lyssa smelled the frozen grass, felt it crunch under her boots. She shone her flashlight down, lighting up the dirt floor ten feet below. She watched as Jen stepped onto the rickety ladder.
“Do you want me to go with you?” she asked Jen. “It’s tight, but I think we can both fit. You don’t have to go alone.”
“No. The space is too small. I’ll go first with the audio recorder. Then you go down with the video. If we go in together, we might mess up each other’s evidence.”
Jen started to make her way down the ladder. Lyssa watched her image get fainter and fainter until she was gone completely. In her mind she saw prisoners being forced down the hole. She could imagine their fear, knowing they might never come out.
“If you need anything, just yell. I’m not sure the walkie-talkies will work,” Lyssa shouted down the hole.
“Okay,” Jen shouted back.
Lyssa crouched by the door. Her mind went back to the prisoners. She could see the terror on their faces as the door clanged shut above them, blocking out all the light. How they lived stooped over, picking off the slimy bugs that crawled over their skin. They must have whispered to each other, planning ways to escape. But there was no way to escape. They were trapped in the dank blackness of the casemate.
Lyssa could hear Jen down below shuffling her feet. She could even make out a bit of Jen’s voice talking into the recorder.
Then Jen’s voice stopped. A few minutes went by.
“Jen, you all right?” Lyssa called down.
She aimed her flashlight down into Casemate 11. She could see Jen’s footprints leading into the tunnel. None leading back.
“Jen?”
Then Lyssa heard a scream from deep down in the hole.
“Ahhhhhhhhh! LET GO OF ME!”
The scream echoed, and then Lyssa heard the s
ound of footsteps. Fast footsteps. She leaned over and saw the top of Jen’s head as she struggled to climb the ladder and get out.
Finally, Lyssa reached down and grabbed Jen, and she scrambled out of the hole. Jen threw her arms around Lyssa and caught her breath.
“What happened?” Lyssa could feel Jen’s chest heaving in and out.
“I was down there… It was so dark. I was asking questions. And then I felt something. A tickle on my neck. Something was tickling me. It raced all over my neck and onto my face. Then it started to scratch my face!”
“What was it?”
“I don’t know, Lyssa. I don’t want to know. It’s so dark down there, even with the flashlight.”
Suddenly Lyssa felt a small prickle on her face. It moved down to her chin, down to her throat. It felt like fingertips touching her. She jumped back. Frantically she grabbed at her neck.
Crunch.
She opened her hand. A crushed fat spider sat in the middle of her palm. “Yuck!”
Jen smiled and let out a sigh of relief. “That thing must’ve crawled off of me onto you,” she said. “Didn’t it feel exactly like a hand?”
Lyssa laughed. “Yeah, totally. I’ve never been this happy to see a dead bug in my life.”
She wiped off the spider on the side of the door. She put new batteries in her flashlight and turned it on.
“I guess it’s my turn,” she said.
She put her foot on the ladder. The rung flexed beneath her weight. Step by step, she went lower and lower into the ground until she reached the floor.
She hopped off the ladder and hunched over. In one hand she held her flashlight. In the other she held the video recorder.
Slowly she made her way into the tunnel. Victor was right. It was like a maze. There were sharp turns every dozen feet that led to larger areas.
Lyssa didn’t know what to look for. So she just kept walking straight ahead, very slowly, stopping at every curve, every cell. She didn’t want to miss anything by going too quickly. After a few minutes in Casemate 11, her flashlight started to flicker.
That’s strange, she thought. I just put in brand-new batteries.
She knocked its side, hoping the beam would return to full strength. She saw the floor in front of her dimming.