As soon as Gabby got out of the shower, she went straight to the bed, and it didn’t even take her more than five minutes right before she had that dream. It was a little bit scary and for a moment, she thought that she wasn’t going to wake up from it.
And just like that, Gabby started drowning in the dream and finally, she woke up in the basement. It was cold and spooky, just like she could remember it. The bodies were still there buried under the concrete and for a moment, Gabby didn’t understand why she was being brought back when the case had been closed.
As stated above, Gabby was never that big on superstition. But from the look of things, it seemed as though these dreams were trying to show her something. And needless to say, she knew that she would only be a special kind of stupid to think that these dreams meant nothing.
Yes, to some extent, Gabby thought that superstition was nothing but baseless hullabaloo from people who didn’t know a damn thing about life and reality. But after what she had seen of late, she had been forced to rethink each and every single thing that she thought she knew. These happenings just didn’t make any sense at all unless you added a supernatural ring to it.
The next thing that she thought about was yanking her gun from her sides. But after feeling it, she realized that she didn’t have one on her.
“Crap!” gabby cussed right before she continued walking down.
As usual, the basement was silent. And the only thing that she could hear was nothing other than the clanking of the chains that hung right above her head. All of a sudden, it seemed as though Gabby was walking towards a particular direction while stepping over the bones.
At first, she didn’t have an idea why her dreams decided to take her to that eerie of a place. More often than not, Gabby always had dreams about the places she fantasized about visiting including Hawaii and the ilk, but not her bloody basement for crying out loud. She had been thinking of filling the place with some concrete when the investigations were over and done with and move on as though nothing ever happened down there.
But since she was already down there, she figured that maybe she should just take it like it was and continue checking the place out. If anything tangible was going to come out of it, then well and good. If this was just some stupid, good for nothing nightmare, then she was more than happy to let it all go and forget all about it when she woke up.
After making herself accustomed to this very unusual place in her dream, Gabby cleared her throat and started walking towards the concrete where they exhumed the bodies. It looked scary, and the bodies were still rotting in there. Yes, it was very scary to the point where she had a gag reflex and had to puke all over the place.
The bodies were still fresh in her dreams, and there was blood smeared all over the dirty walls. Flies were buzzing all over the bodies, and the gigantic rats were having such a blast feasting on the flesh. The place was so awful to the point that Gabby had to cup her palm over her nose to prevent the foul smell from getting on her nerves. She tried squinting her eyes with the hope that she was going to see something interesting, but the place was a little dimmer than usual.
And since she didn’t have a touch on her, there was no way she was going to see without having to move a little bit closer. And moving a little bit closer also meant that she didn’t have any other choice but walk over the dead bodies.
A rat nearby was chewing at an eyeball that it had just plucked from one of the rotting corpses and that almost made her puke once again. But this time round, she made sure that she was in a position to hold her breath for a couple of more minutes. It was just too darn disgusting, but there was nothing she was going to do about it. At that moment, all she could care about was getting back safe from her dream with something tangible.
At that moment, it seemed as though the only important thing that she needed to do was getting on top of her game and open her eyes. Thought it was still hard for Gabby to admit, she was starting to believe in superstition. And that being said, she immediately thought that she was having that dream for a reason and, therefore, decided to get on with it.
She clenched her teeth as she walked over the bones hoping that everything was going to work out fine in the end. Gabby could be here the rats scurrying away at her feet and running right back to continue nibbling on their disgusting morsel as soon as she had passed and needless to say, it did disgust her to some extent. But she kept on going, hoping to find some absolution at the end of the tunnel.
Gabby didn’t have a clue as of where she was heading, but from the look of things, it seemed as though something was leading her and she left it to control her. And just like that, she decided that it would be an incredible thing to follow it.
And just like that, she walked towards the wall – the place where Henry had been digging earlier – and at that point, she started clawing the undergrowth with her fingernails. In real life, this would have hurt like hell. But from the look of things, this wasn’t the real world and all she could do focus on taking these plants apart as though they were some enemy.
She finally managed to claw the entire undergrowth, and she stood right in front of it, checking it out. There was a queer looking door, and that made her puzzled. How on earth did they miss this in the first place?
She moved closer to the door with the intention of opening it and right before she got to the lunch and made an attempt to open it, it had already done and out came a freaking zombie with its hands stretched out!!! It was the last thing that Gabby ever expected to find, and now that it had finally happened, there was only one more thing left – she screamed at the top of her lungs.
Chapter 7:
-The second secret door-
Gabby woke up from her dream and sat bolt upright, trying her level best to control her breathing. It was the kind of thing that she had never experienced in what seemed like a very long time. And for that matter, all she needed to do at that moment was try and calm down. So she quickly closed her eyes and started breathing in and out, making sure that it was slow and relaxed.
That was what she always did when things got escalated. For some couple of moments, Gabby never quite understood the reason behind the dream. But deep down, she knew that there was something very strange about the whole thing and at that point, she remembered the secret door that she had seen in her dream.
Her very first instinct was getting out there and having to check it out, but she had to freeze for a moment or two and tried thinking if it was worth it. And at that point, Gabby didn’t know whether she was scared of the zombie or she just didn’t have the balls to get down there alone. Quite honestly, she didn’t have a clue.
All she knew was that in as much as every fiber in her body didn’t want her to go down there alone in the wee hours of the night; Gabby knew that she had an obligation. Besides, it wasn’t as though she was left with any other options since thanks to the nightmare; she didn’t have any sleep to enjoy. And that was the main problem with Gabby. Once she was interrupted from her sleep for whichever reason, it was close to impossible for her to get back to it. And just like that, she pulled off the blanket and started moving towards the door.
She wasn’t going to make the same mistakes that she did a while back in her dream. And so before leaving the room, she put on the lights and took her gun and a flashlight that were all kept on the table just below the switch and next to the door.
Before Gabby left the room, she took one very deep breath and held onto the air for a couple of moments right before slowly exhaling. It was her normal routine when she wanted to get calm. ‘the calm before the storm’ – as she always called it.
Gabby knew that if at all there was some secret door down there, then it sure had answers that were going to help a great deal especially when it came to solving this problem once and for all. And since the commander didn’t want her to go and make inquiries alone, Gabby figured that it wouldn’t hurt if she took it upon herself to check out the house for any strange clues that would lead to having th
e cold cases solved.
After about five minutes of thinking, Gabby opened the door and started heading towards the east side of the hallway. It was as quiet as a cemetery. And that was also another reason she started to consider seriously making a U-turn and heading back to her bedroom. But being the cat person that she was, curiosity got the better, and the only thing that she hoped was that it wasn’t going to get her killed.
As Gabby walked down the hallway towards the hole in the wall – not a restaurant by all means – she could feel her heart thumping out of her chest cavity. It was just too darn scary and for a moment there, she thought of calling for backup. But she had to dismiss the idea since it was a bad one.
She hadn’t found any damn thing that was tangible enough to warrant an official call to the department. And with that, she opted to move forward.
After removing the yellow tape, Gabby took another moment just to inhale and exhale as slowly as humanly possible. The last thing that she wanted to do was make a mistake and going down there without backup, probably find the door and, even if she wasn’t a fan of zombies, maybe meet with the zombie. She was sure she had it to crack open its skull and get to see its contents.
As soon as she had gone through the tunnel, the atmosphere changed almost immediately. It seemed as though she had stepped into another dimension where she had no jurisdiction. It felt like she had stepped right into the devil’s arena and had forgotten all about the Bible. And for the umpteenth time, Gabby felt as though it was about time for her to just abandon every single thing and take off.
But she also thought that she had come way too far for her to chicken out. So she forged her way forward.
Apart from the ear-splitting cold and the scary creaks from the crickets, everything else seems calm and quiet, and she made a point of going down the basement. She could spot the footprints all over the place and for a moment, she thought it would do her some good if she just made a call to the commander. Something wasn’t feeling right about her solo mission down to the basement.
Once she got down there, the first thing that Gabby had to do was to Flicker the flashlight all over the ground. She knew that she wasn’t going to find the decomposing bodies down there, but the dream was so realistic to the point that she had to confirm, you know, just to be sure. And when she made her confirmation, she sighed with relief. She didn’t want anything to do with any dead bodies or zombies at that moment.
After taking some time to calm down, the next thing that Gabby noticed was henry’s footprints, and this brought her to a screeching halt.
“Gosh, Henry. What have you been up to down here? I thought we had this conversation before?” Gabby talked to herself as she flickered the flashlight up ahead in a bid to follow the prints that the cat had left.
And to her surprise, it led her all the way to the wall that was covered by the undergrowth. For a moment, it seemed as though the things she was having in her premonition was starting to unfold and that got her scared since nothing was going to stop the zombie from shooting from the wall and attacking her.
Gabby became an amazingly talented agent because she never took any chances especially when it came to such situations when her gut was trying to speak to her. And once she got her gun out, she checked for the bullets before rolling the barrel shut. If there were a zombie right at that bloody door, then it would be nice for him to stay right back because Gabby had a gun and she wasn’t afraid to use it.
As she edged closer to the place, she realized that the wall was just the same way as she had experienced in her premonition. And for a moment, it appeared as though superstition was somewhat real. But she opted to ignore the idea as well as feeling and get to handle matters at hand.
Gabby subconsciously wrapped her hands around the guy that she was securely delved in her trousers for moments just like these. From the look of things, something had been scratching its way through the vegetation and for a moment, Gabby smiled. She already knew that Henry had been trying to help all this time and needless to say, she felt like a proud mother.
But she knew that this wasn’t the time to get distracted. In other words, it seemed as though the most exciting part of her midnight walk had yet to come and that had everything to do with the secret door that was standing right in front of her. How on earth did it even escape them in the first place?
It was interesting indeed. But then again, Gabby didn’t have the time to sit down and ask herself some dubious questions. The only thing that she needed to have done was to open the door. Every moral fiber in her body was telling her to try otherwise, but she just couldn’t make it.
It was just too darn scary and Gabby – who didn’t like getting caught off guard – took her gun and disengaged the safety pin. She then edged closer to the secret door and finally after struggling to remove the rest of the vegetation that had grown over it over the years, got a hold of the doorknob.
Gabby appeared to be a little bit reluctant especially when it came to opening the door. But she knew that in the end, this was something that she was bound to happen. She checked out the firearm that she had in her hands right before taking a deep breath and pushing the door open.
And as the door slowly creaked its way open, a sudden rush of cold air hit Gabby in the face. It smelled like death!
Chapter 8:
-The truth-
Gabby stood at the front of Martha Reese’s house with a shovel and a gun in her hands. Now everything seemed to be making a hell lot of sense than before and needless to say, she wanted to find the woman and get some straight answers from the horse’s mouth. But she hesitated for a minute or two as she brainstormed all about the possible alternatives that were available.
Gabby had been suspecting Martha Reese for quite some time now and needless to say, all she wanted to do at that moment was to get to the bottom of this. What she didn’t understand was why Martha Reese knew all about the second secret door but didn’t say a damn thing. If anything, the door was just facing her kitchen door. Therefore, there was no way she couldn’t have noticed it after all these years.
At hand, Gabby had all of the files that she needed to implicate Martha. It had all the names as well as the ages and heights of the people that the secret cult had been sacrificing. And from the look of things, they all had to deal with one Martha Reese. She always sold them the house and made them a curious little right before killing them.
Yes, Martha Reese had always been luring people in there and killing them and from the look of things, she wanted to do the same to Gabby. But then it turned out that Gabby was too smart for her good.
The best thing that Martha Reese thought of doing at that moment was to call the cops to come over and arrest Martha. But the problem was that the anger she was feeling was way too overwhelming for her just to kick back and do nothing about it. It was about time she came clean and got things done perfectly.
Martha was seated in the living room having some sweet tea and some of the leftover cookies that Gabby had made her when Gabby kicked the front door open and rushed in with her gun pointed at her. Martha Reese surprisingly remained calm and continued nibbling on her cookies as though nothing had happened.
To her, she knew that this day was going to come and, therefore, had plenty of time to prepare herself for it. Gabby moved close to her while taking all the caution in the world because, for all she knew, Martha Reese could be the dangerous killer that everyone had been fearing.
“Well, you seem rather too calm for a woman whose head is about to be blown up, don’t you think?”
“You are a cop honey; you can’t do shit.”
“What makes you say so?”
“Because you would have killed me already if you were too serious about doing it. I think you are just a scaredy-cat that wants to stop a movement that can’t stop no matter how hard you try. I have already killed enough people in my time, and I have achieved my purpose.”
“Then why did you lure me in that house? did you want me to fi
nd out what you have been up to?”
Martha Reese smiled for a moment right before she went back sipping on her mug of sweet tea. She then took the plate filled with Gabby’s very own cookies and closed her eyes and she chewed on them. Gabby knew that Martha was just trying to make her angry and probably get her to shoot her. But Gabby was rather too smart for that to happen. As a matter of fact, it was never going to happen as long as she was around.
“What did you want me to do by selling me the house I wanted?”
“For a police officer, you are really stupid. Do you know why we serial killers do what we do? It's simple. We want recognition. And I had managed to scare this piece of shit of a place, and the only thing that remained was for me to cement my legacy. And that is where you came in. Let's face it, can you ever find a house as awesome as the one you live in for ten thousand? Why didn’t it raise your eyebrows?”
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