‘It wouldn’t let me go, I couldn’t open the door. The water wouldn’t stop; it was burning me,’ she said in panic-stricken gasps.
‘What wouldn’t and what water?’ Tony asked.
She looked down at the toilet and the floor. There was no sign of the hot boiling water that had begun to burn her feet and legs as she tried to get away from the face pushing through the door.
She stepped down from the toilet seat and explained what had happened, tears flowing down her face. Jeremy put his arm around her and helped her back to the dining room. The others looked at the toilet, trying the door to see if it had somehow locked itself.
They returned to the dining room, where Phoebe was sipping on a small cup of tea, poured from Jeremy’s thermos flask.
‘Phoebe, we need you to explain everything that happened again, in detail. We need to record everything that has happened,’ Tony said, placing a Dictaphone in front of her and pressing the record button.
She looked at him, and then the small recorder, sighed, and began telling her story once more. The others listened carefully, their mouths slowly opening when she recalled the face appearing from the bubbling door.
Once she had finished, Tony then began telling his experiences whilst in the bedrooms, and he encouraged the others to share their experiences. Each one spoke in turn into the recorder, and as they did, each one began to realize that the investigation they were about to undertake would be a very memorable one, one like none they had ever done before.
5
After they had eaten the food that they had stored away in cooler bags, they began their investigation.
John and Michael headed to the kitchen. The thermal camera held by John leading the way, they both stared at the little monitor that showed what was ahead of them. They opened the door to the kitchen and stepped in. The screen went a blank and then began showing the outlines of all the tables, chairs, and other kitchen implements in different shades of blue.
‘Man it’s cold in here,’ Michael said.
John moved the camera around, sweeping the kitchen. ‘Mike, can you walk in front to show a comparison?’ he asked.
Michael stepped out in front of the camera and began walking over to the large table that sat in the center of the room, a large rack of pots and pans hung over it. In the center sat a rack full of knives. The moment he walked into frame the screen showed his body’s outline in reds, greens, and whites where his body was hottest.
Michael took out his recorder, pressed the record button, and placed it on the table. He then began asking the normal set of questions that he had used in each of the previous investigations.
‘Is there anyone here with us at the moment?’ He paused before asking the next question. ‘If there is someone here, can you make yourself known to us by making a noise?’ he paused again.
They both felt a cold blast of air rush past them, and the pots and pans hanging above the table swayed and clashed gently against each other, making gentle clanging noises.
‘Is there anyone here with us at the moment?’ John asked.
A little red light on the recorder began flashing against the darkness of the room, catching the two investigators’ attention. The recorder stopped flashing just as another icy blast of air rocked the pots and pans again.
John panned the thermal camera around the room. Apart from the heat from Michael, everything showed up in the cold blue color. He lowered the camera and looked ahead of him towards Michael, but something in the screen caught his attention—a different color. He raised the screen back up to his eye so he could focus on what the camera was pointing at and saw a light blue outline of a hand. His gasp alerted Michael, who looked through the darkness towards the face of his friend that was slightly lit by the cameras detachable screen.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
‘You got to look at this,’ John said excitedly.
Michael moved over to him and looked into the screen, he too gasped when he saw the light blue outline of the body that was being caught on the camera. John began to raise the camera and noticed another hand, then a leg, and then a head all bathed in a light blue against the coldness of the dark blue of their surroundings. They began moving back towards the door that they had walked through, still looking into the camera’s monitor. Michael pulled his radio from his belt and radioed to base camp to see if the others were picking up anything on the night vision camera positioned in the corner of the room.
‘That’s a negative. But we can see you moving towards the door,’ Phoebe replied.
Tony looked at the TV monitor carefully that showed the kitchen before radioing to Michael.
‘What are you experiencing?’
‘We are picking up what seems like bodies on the thermal camera. They are covering the floor; it’s as if they have been dumped on top of each other. The room is covered in them,’ Michael responded.
Neither of the two investigators could feel anything but the hard floor beneath their feet but, yet when they moved the camera to where their feet were, they could see the reds and whites of their feet standing on the light blues of the bodies.
Another icy blast or air rushed past them, and this time it brought a strange metallic smell with it that engulfed the two men’s senses. Out in the darkness of the room, the little red light on the recorder began to flash again.
‘Shit,’ Michael said, seeing the light flash.
‘Just leave it. This is getting real weird. Let’s get out of here; we got enough footage,’ John said. He was no longer enjoying being in the room.
They moved to the door, and Michael pulled it but it didn’t move. He pushed it, but again it didn’t move.
‘Stop messing around,’ John said quickly, looking up from the screen at his partner struggling with the door.
‘I’m not messing around. The door won’t budge,’ he replied.
He raised his radio and called base camp, panic making his voice wobble as he spoke.
‘Tony, we can’t get out; the door is locked.’
Tony looked at Phoebe; her eyes were beginning to well up, the memory of being locked in the toilet and the face in the door flooding her mind. He looked back at the monitor and could see nothing but the two investigators standing by the door, John pointing the camera towards the room while Michael faced the door and continued to pull at it.
‘I’m on my way,’ Tony said.
Michael stopped pulling and pushing the door and turned to look into the darkness and the camera monitor. From their position, they could see the floor covered in bodies, their light blue outlines clear against the black and dark blue of the room’s walls and objects. They both gasped and felt an electric shock shoot up from their anus to their heads when pairs of bright white dots flicked open on every one of the bodies on the thermal camera’s screen. The bright white eyes stared up from the floor towards the dark ceiling.
‘Oh my god,’ John said, panic clearly evident in his voice.
Michael turned quickly and began to bang on the door, shouting Tony’s name.
John backed into him, pushing Michael against the door causing him to stop shouting and turn back towards his friend and the room. They heard a click and a slight whirring sound and then another click.
‘What was that?’ Michael asked.
‘I don’t know,’ John said, still staring at the camera’s monitor and the bodies with white eyes.
From within the darkness, the sound of Michael’s voice spoke. The recorder was playing back his set of questions. The two men looked at each other and then out into the darkness. In between the standard questions there was nothing but silence until a low, gravelly voice broke through.
‘You are welcome to join us,’ it said.
Several other voices joined in, both male and female, all calling at the same time.
‘Join us! Stay with us!’
More and more voices joined in, all calling for the two men to join them.
Michael called base camp on the
radio, asking where Tony was and if they were receiving what they were hearing.
Phoebe responded, her voice full of tears and terror. ‘Tony should be there. I can only hear you.’
The voices continued, more and more joining in. John pointed the thermal camera at the table where the recorder was playing, Michael joined his partner in staring through the monitor at the bodies that covered the floor, their white eyes blinking in unison.
Another cold blast of air rushed around the two investigators; the strong metallic smell that they had noticed earlier was getting stronger. The pots and pans began to clang in the darkness, and then the voices stopped.
For a moment, all was silent; the only sound that the two investigators could hear was their own breathing. They looked up from the little monitor and into the darkness, both straining to make out the shape of the table. When they returned their gaze to the monitor, they both screamed and jumped backwards. The bodies that covered the floor were now standing, the white glowing eyes trained on them. John dropped the camera and monitor, and the sound of the heavy equipment crashing against the cold hard tiled floor echoed around the room. Michael joined him in pounding against the door, shouting for help and for Tony.
On the other side of the kitchen door, Tony pulled and shoulder barged at the large wooden barrier that separated him from his two friends. He called to them, shouting for them to pull. The louder their screams and shouts got, the more frantic Tony became. He was soon joined by Jeremy, who began kicking at the middle of the door just to the left of the handle. They were soon hitting the door with a constant rhythm.
Michael and John both began clawing at the door handle, occasionally looking over their shoulders. It didn’t matter that they could not see anything but blackness; their minds had painted the picture of all the bodies standing watching them, and they could feel the all the eyes locked on to them.
‘Where the fuck are Tony and the others,’ John shouted.
There was no answer from Michael, only a whimper as tears began to flow from his eyes and an intense feeling of fear took hold of him.
Tony and Jeremy heard John’s shout and responded by hitting their fists against the door and shouting that they were there. Michael and John heard nothing.
There was another icy blast, and John felt a cold hand grab his shoulder, followed by another and another. Soon he could feel the cold hands grabbing his legs, arms, and body. He let out a loud scream and vanished into the darkness. Michael also screamed and collapsed to the cold floor. He could hear the moans of his partner moving away from him and the sound of his body being dragged along the floor.
Phoebe watched with wide, tear-filled eyes as on the monitor she saw John sliding along the floor, his arms and legs flailing around at an invisible force. He moved past the view of the night-vision camera that had captured his abduction.
John could feel the hands pulling him along the floor. He kicked and punched out, but there was no resistance to strike against. He hit his head against something solid and realized he was being pulled past the large table. He tried to reach out and take hold of it in an attempt to stop whatever was pulling away from his friend and the door. His fingers momentarily wrapped around a leg, but the invisible hands that dragged him along were too strong, and his fingers gave up the fight. A bright light flashed above him; a white light so powerful it stung his eyes. He shut them tight, but the light still attacked his sight through his eyelids.
It then went all black.
The kitchen door burst open, Tony and Jeremy flew forward with it, and the heavy door collided with the kneeling, sobbing body of Michael, knocking him over onto the cold, tiled floor. The two rescuing investigators fell over Michael and rolled across the floor. Tony was the first to get to his feet, helping Jeremy up, the little light cast from the small light bulb enabling him to see his two colleagues.
They both helped up Michael and began dragging him back towards base camp, where they were met with an empty room. Phoebe was missing.
Phoebe’s mind raced with all the visions of what she had seen in the last few hours. The visions all fought each other to be at the front of her mind: the face, the water, and the sight of John sliding across the floor, kicking and swinging wildly. Her whole body shook with fear, her chest began to get tighter, and she fought against the rising feeling of panic and distress.
She heard a giggle and turned from staring at the TV monitor to look at the table and its large sculpture. Impaled on the sharp antlers looking down at her were three children: two girls and a boy. The clothes that they wore were the same style as some of the people that she had seen in some of the photos that were placed on the fireplace from the early 1900s. The clothes were heavily stained with red where the antlers protruded from their bodies. They giggled at Phoebe and held out their arms towards her.
Her already fear-ravaged body and mind could take no more. She pushed herself from the chair she was sitting in and ran from the room, down a corridor, and through an old library, her eyes searching for a way out. But each time she saw a window, it was covered by the large wooden shutters that covered the outside windows. She ran to the front door and tugged at it, but it too didn’t move.
She heard another giggle and turned quickly to see one of the young girls that she had seen on the sculpture standing in front of her hugging a doll. The doll was headless and wore a dress that matched the young girl who hugged her.
‘Please don’t leave us,’ the girl said before disappearing, and her giggle continued to reverberate around the hallway.
Phoebe ran back down the hallway, trying each door she passed but finding them locked. She soon found herself standing at the bottom of the staircase. A cold wind wrapped itself around her, and she could feel its rotating icy fingers against her face and her hair being pushed into her eyes. Deep in her psyche, a battle raged. Part of her told her to go back to the dining room and the others, while another fear-fed voice screamed at her to head upstairs and escape her torture via the only way out: the windows.
Tony and Jeremy dragged the shivering, sniveling Michael over to the chairs that sat in front of the TV monitors and dropped him on one. They then leaned on the tap and stared at the monitors and the multiple small screens that fed back what each of the night vision cameras were seeing. They searched each one for any sign of Phoebe. Jeremy was the first to spot her standing motionless at the foot of the staircase. His attention was then caught but something flashing on one of the small screens. The static electricity monitor that John had designed and had placed in the middle of hallway at the top of the stairs was flashing. Tony turned to Michael and grabbed his arms and shook him.
‘Get a grip,’ he shouted as he slapped Michaels face. ‘We need you to help us.’
The slap woke Michael from his sniveling blank staring into space. He looked up at Tony, his eyes wide and blinking wildly, his face a mixture of tears and snot.
‘I need you to get in touch with Mr. Bannister, the old man who showed us around, and tell him to come and let us out right away. If you can’t get in touch with him, call the police,’ Tony said to Michael.
Michael nodded as Tony handed him his mobile phone. Michael then turned to Jeremy, and the two of them left the room.
Phoebe heard a giggle and turned around to see the three children standing behind her, their arms outstretched towards her.
‘Please don’t leave us,’ all three of them said in unison.
Phoebe turned and ran up the staircase. As she climbed the marble steps, she heard the three voices.
‘Don’t leave us.’
‘They always leave us.’
‘She is not allowed to leave.’
Phoebe kept moving. She reached the top of the stairs and headed down the hallway, and her attention was fixed on each of the doors. She tried each one as she came to them, but they didn’t open. She didn’t even notice the bright red, blue, and green flashes of the little device that had been placed on the floor.
She tried a
nother door and it flew open. She moved quickly into the dark room, shut the door, and pressed herself against the door and stared into the darkness, her heart pounded against her chest. Her whole body shook with fear and adrenaline. There was a small line of light ahead of her that separated the darkness like a crack. As her eyes became more accustomed to the darkness around her, she could make out four small beds. She ran her hand along the walls on either side of the door, feeling for a light switch but couldn’t find one, she pushed herself off the door and moved towards where the light was coming from and found soft curtains. She fumbled with the material until she found the opening and pulled them open. The grey light of the clouds in the night sky and the snow that covered the ground outside created a strange glow that bathed the room with a soft, grey light. She stood staring out into the white gardens, and a cold breeze woke her from her momentary trance. Then the voices began again. This time, however, there were more of them, and they were all asking her to play.
She looked around her and noticed the pile of dolls and stuffed toys. Their eyes seemed to move and look at her. She returned her attention to the window and searched its frame for a handle or latch that would enable her to open it, but she could find nothing.
***
Michael searched the phone’s previous calls until he found the name Bannister next to a number. He pressed the screen, put it to his ear, and waited while it rang. When he heard the ring stop and someone breathe on the other end, Michael quickly began telling Mr. Bannister that they needed help and the door unlocked. He then waited for a response.
The heavy breathing on the other end continued for a few seconds and then a low gravelly voice spoke: ‘Come join us. Be our guest.’
Michael moved the phone away from his ear and looked at it; it then burst into flames. He automatically dropped the phone to the floor and stood up from the chair he had been sitting on. The moment the phone hit the floor, the flames disappeared.
He looked at the monitors and scoured them to see where his partners were. He finally saw them running down the hallway upstairs; the small detector continued to flash wildly as they went from door to door. He then heard a thud—and then another and another. It sounded like someone was jumping up and down in the room above him. He stared at the ceiling as more and more heavy banging sounds erupted. He then heard a voice—a voice that called out to him—a voice he knew well. It was the voice of his friend John.
The Mansion Page 3