by S. T. Boston
“Just taking some time out,” Mike answered. He wasn’t going to give Reid a single thing, but a good reporter knew when they’d stumbled on something and in that respect they weren’t too far removed from cops. A good reporter had a nose for a story, just as a good cop had a nose for when someone was feeding them bullshit.
“What’s in the flight cases?” he asked with interest. “Is it full of the stuff you use on the show?” None of them answered so he went with, “How about the three of you’s just pose for a quick shot for me by the cars, we can put the equipment in front of you and we will get the building in behind, it’ll look fab.”
“How about you go fuck yourself,” Tara said with a grin.
“Can I quote you on that?” Reid said confidently.
“Only if you want me to jam that Nikon up your ass so far you can taste it,” Tara came back with.
Scotty stepped forward, he outsized Reid by a good sixty pounds and six inches or more in height and his mere presence caused the cocky reporter to take a step back. “This is private property,” Scotty said. “I suggest you leave before I escort you off. Don’t come back, either. There is nothing for you here.”
“I’d beg to differ on that,” Reid said, but he was now walking back as he spoke and not sounding quite so sure of himself. "Old creepy building that two kids have gone missing from and that no one can explain."
"This is real life," Mike said firmly. "Not an episode of Scooby-Doo! It's just a coincidence we booked the place for the week after the Harrison family.”
“I’m not so sure,” Reid added. “You’s are up to something here, I can tell.”
“Which paper are you with?” Mike asked.
“Freelance,” Reid replied.
“A mercenary then,” said Mike. “Selling your misery to the highest bidder.”
“It’s a dog-eat-dog business,” Reid said sarcastically. He backed off a good ten yards as Scotty and Mike both closed in on him. He raised the camera and managed to get a quick shot in before ducking out of the way as Scotty grabbed for it.
“Leave it,” Mike said in a low voice so that Reid couldn't overhear. “If we go wrestling that camera off him, he’ll have the police back down here in a shot. And Samuels will use the first excuse he can to get us out of this place, believe me. What good will it be if one of us is locked up back in Plymouth on an assault complaint?”
“But if those pictures make the press Samuels will shit the bed on us,” Scotty protested.
“I’ll handle Samuels if I have to,” Mike reassured. “We can’t help it if some leach of a jurno took it upon himself to come snooping and got lucky. Let’s focus on the task in hand.” They watched Reid snap off two more shots from further down the drive, he waved a mocking hand to them before he reached the road. Mike hadn’t seen his car on the way in, he’d likely parked some way off and walked back so as not to be seen.
“Task in hand,” Mike said again seeing that Scotty was about as eager to go after Reid as an unruly dog is to break its leash and make a dash for the ocean. “We need to start trying to unravel this thing, and to be honest I don’t have a clue where to start.”
Chapter 39
Eight CCTV cameras in all had been set up throughout The Old Chapel. Scotty had made the lounge the technical base and against the stone of the left external wall he’d set up one of their portable trestle tables. Sat upon it were two four channel CCTV digital video recorders and into them were plugged two twenty-inch LCD monitors feeding back images from the eight cameras. Four of those were costly full spectrum cameras, they’d been specially adapted in the USA at a price of a thousand dollars apiece. The four cameras had gone through a bespoke modification process to enable them to see light across the full spectrum, including that which cannot be detected by the human eye. Next to the portable FLIR thermal imaging cameras, they'd been the biggest outlay by the TV company, and it was only a matter of time before they came knocking the door for it all back.
Scotty checked his watch against the time displayed on the CCTV systems’ two clocks, it was five minutes to seven. It had taken a full two hours post unloading to safely install the cameras and run all the wires back to the lounge, or what Scotty was now referring to as ‘The Bridge.’ Mike stood with him and surveyed the live-view images from around the building. Channel one’s camera was on a clamp, secured to the top of the balustrade in the lounge, overlooking the lobby area. The wide-angle lens from this elevated position took in the whole lobby from wall to wall in a bird’s eye view. The cameras on channels two and three were in the lobby, one facing down each corridor. Channel four’s camera was in the kitchen area, five’s was in the master bedroom on the ground floor, what was known by the brass plaque on the door as The Altar Room. Camera six was covering the upper corridor behind the lounge and a camera had been placed in the two upper bedrooms, the ones where Henry and Ellie Harrison had been staying.
“There’s still a good few rooms we’ve not managed to cover,” Scotty commented with frustration as he double and triple checked the system’s settings. “Another two banks of four cameras and I reckon I’d be able to get the place so well covered you’d see a fly crack a fart.”
“We’ll work with what we’ve got,” Mike replied. “Ready for a walk around and some base reading tests?”
Scotty fixed one of the team’s four GoPro cameras to a head rig and strapped it on. Mike always thought that the head-mounted rig looked a bit ridiculous. As they were not going lights out on this one it did, however, provide them with full HD recording in sixty frames per second, and when attached to the body it allowed the hands to be kept free do other things, so the fact it looked dumb was outweighed by the practicality of it. Once secure he turned his attention to a large 120-watt floor speaker. It was the kind that you would often find in a gym class, used to play the music for Zumba, or Spinning. This one had a single laptop plugged into it, and into the laptop was plugged a Sonic Ear Amplifier. The resulting product was then recorded onto the laptop’s hard drive straight through the Adobe Audition program and then the amplified audio was pumped out of the speaker. The idea was to catch and record the crying that so many guests seem to have experienced. With the amplification, they'd also be able to hear someone talking on the other side of the building. The hope was to see if below that crying there was more, things that the human ear couldn't pick up.
From a silver flight case laid open on the coffee table Mike took a K2 and passed its more accurate distance cousin, the MEL meter, to Tara. Both would measure any electromagnetic field disruptions; the added bonus was the MEL displayed the ambient temperature and was accurate to 0.1 of a degree. The funny truth of the matter was no one really knew, nor had fully proven that any of this kit worked, but then the investigation of the paranormal was never going to be an exact science. From a case by its side, Scotty placed six motion sensors into a canvas bag, zipped it shit, and hauled the strap over his shoulder. The motion sensors were small boxes of white plastic that were tremor activated. Once in place, they acted like mini seismographs and issued a high-pitched beep tone that lasted twenty seconds if activated.
Mike held the K2 and they moved around the lounge, looking for any disturbances in the electromagnetic field. Disruptions could occur quite naturally due to wiring or burglar alarms, Wifi and alike. Certain people who were susceptible to such interference often experienced feelings of nausea and dread, it was theorised that it could even cause some to see things in their peripheral vision, thus people susceptible people living in homes rich with EMF often reported them as haunted.
The lounge was clear, just as he suspected it would be. The building was old, but the inside was new and that meant the wiring would be, too. This would lessen the chance of it being what some in the field called ‘a fear cage.’ A fear cage was a boxed area of high EMF interference caused by old wiring or similar. The only place that caused the green baseline light to climb toward the red was next to the bank of CCTV recorders and monitors, but that was
to be expected.
From here they went room to room covering the whole building. In each room, Mike examined the windows and their locks. He opened the ones on the first floor, the more modern double-glazed kind added during the renovations, and hung dangerously out to see if they'd been altered in any way so as to allow access when locked from the inside. None had. Scotty placed a motion sensor on the sill and then tested it by tapping his hand lightly on the wood about eight inches from the device. The tap made it beep loudly in protest.
“I hate those fucking things,” Tara said seriously. “If they start going off tonight, I might just shit myself.”
“We’ve never had one set off by anything before,” Mike reminded her.
“We’ve never stayed in here before,” she argued, and he realised that it was pointless trying to come back on that one.
“Let’s keep at it, it’s a big place and I want us ready to start tonight’s investigation from the lounge by ten,” he said going back out into the corridor.
From the bedroom that had been Ellie Harrison’s they went down the stairs at the rear of the mezzanine level and into the Altar Room. Here the same readings were done, the same checks on the windows carried out. From there it was the Kitchen, Mike unlocked the door, had Tara lock him out and deadbolt it while he tried to get in. He then did the same from inside, trying to get out without removing the deadbolts or unlocking the door. Of course, all attempts were futile, as they should have been and went no way toward explaining just how the Harrison kids had managed it. After they checked the kitchen, adjoining diner and games room they were back at the entrance lobby. From the lobby they all went outside and walked the perimeter of the building, double checking all the windows on the ground floor, looking for any way that someone or something might gain both entry and exit to the building when locked down. Again, there was nothing.
By the time they’d established that there appeared to be no feasible way the Harrison kids could have gotten out, and done base reading tests in every room, it was almost nine thirty PM. The sun had all but set and the sky was a deepening blue that merged to full black in the west. They were all stood by Scotty’s T4 looking at The Old Chapel as the light faded. The bell tower was silhouetted now against that bruise of a sky and as they stared at its ominous blacken outline, a murder of crows swooped past.
"Look, birds?" Scotty said, sounding relieved.
“Crows,” Tara commented flatly. “It was thought by the ancient Celts that the crow escorted the sun to hell as it set on its nocturnal path and as such were an omen for evil.”
“How do you know this shit?” Scotty asked.
“I read,” she replied matter-of-factly, watching the birds as they wheeled across the bruising sky. “There are mixed opinions on whether they are an animal of good or bad. I’ve always thought the latter and seeing them here, in this place - I’d be inclined to stick with my original opinion. And don’t forget that June Rodgers believed it was a Crow that came to Jennett Device when she was in Lancaster Goal. Only it wasn’t a crow, it was the physical embodiment of that demon.”
“Yeah,” Scotty replied in a voice that was no more than a whisper, “I remember.”
They watched the small flock until it became invisible against the deepening black of the western sky, then headed back inside where Mike locked and deadbolted the door.
“We have this place locked down just as it was when those kids went,” he said, hanging the keys on the hook under the printed card. “We’ll grab a quick brew and have an hour to chill out, sit quietly and see what comes through on that audio rig up you have done. Then do another room to room walkthrough.”
“Sounds good,” Scotty agreed as they made their way through to the kitchen. “What’s up?” he asked seeing a look of frustration on Mike’s face.
“We don’t have much time, is all,” Mike replied. “We have been in here eight hours and so far, we still have no fucking clue how this thing happened. And another thing, I know none of us has a single psychic bone in our bodies, but you do get a feel for a place, am I right?”
“I think you can, yeah,” Tara agreed. She had the kettle in her hand and was now filling it from the large faucet. “It gave me a feeling of being watched when we first arrived but now, now - I think that could have been more psychosomatic than anything.”
“And what do you feel in here, now you’re settled and had a walk around?" Mike asked. "Take away what you know about the reports, forget it all and just imagine that you were here with no prior knowledge."
“It feels normal,” Scotty replied, confirming what Mike felt.
“Flat,” Tara agreed. “No different to my lounge at home, or any other room for that matter. We could be anywhere.”
“Exactly,” Mike said. He paced across the kitchen with a stern look on his face. “Is it ‘cos we have gotten too close,” he called to no one. “Is that it, maybe you’re scared now, ‘cos you know we know. You tried to put us off coming here, didn’t you, you piece of shit and now we are here you’re hiding like a fucking coward!”
"I'm not sure provoking it is a good idea," Tara said, grinning at his outburst.
"If it stays this way until Friday what are we going to do?" Mike asked them both. He felt helpless and at that point, he knew that in part he'd been fooling himself that this one would be an easy case to crack once he could fully get his hands on it. Because two people couldn’t go missing the way the Harrison kids had without there being a rational explanation as to how it happened. There had to be one, of that he was sure. Despite everything he’d learned about the place in the last five days, and all that had happened to him he still didn’t believe they’d done a Houdini and magically vanished.
“We’ll figure it out,” Tara said reassuringly. She clicked the kettle on and then turned to Mike placing a hand on his shoulder. “I have a feeling this might just be the calm before the storm.”
Chapter 40
Mike wasn’t asleep, but he wasn’t fully awake either. He was in that halfway there stage, the stage where the things you hear with the more conscious part of your brain can weave the outside world into your dreams as they cross into the side that's drifting toward the land of Nod. At first, his mind thought the tinny tune was his alarm, but his semi-conscious brain couldn’t reason why he’d have one set. He stirred uncomfortably in the recliner, unbeknownst to him it was the very same recliner in which Rob Harrison had slept on that fateful Friday night, almost a week ago now. As he shifted, his brain formed the words of the song
Half - a - pound – of - tuppenny - rice,
Half a pound of treacle,
That’s - the - way – the - money - goes
Mike snapped fully awake, “Pop goes the weasel,” he mouthed, completing the tune. The sound hadn’t been coming from his phone, it had been coming from the audio rig that Scotty had set up.
Half - a – pound - of – tuppenny - rice
The ditty began again, and he rubbed the sleep from his eyes and stared at the speaker. The room was dimly lit from the glow of the two LCD screens, their light now seeming ethereal and foreboding.
Half - a - pound - of - treacle
The metallic music-box sound came slowly, drawn out and not at the right tempo, as if it were being stretched out painfully. The speed at which it now played made that harmless child’s rhyme seem terribly sinister.
Mike checked his watch.
That’s – the - way – the - money - goes
It was a little after half two in the morning. They’d spent the three hours after the initial walk around going back through the building, over and over getting absolutely nothing, before in the end returning to the lounge where they’d turned the main lights down and finally succumbed to sleep.
Pop-goes-the-weasel.
An eerie silence followed, there was nothing to hear now other than the ‘hissssss’ of static from the speaker. Mike waited, his hackles up, both wanting and not wanting the tune to begin again. His body felt tense and
he realised that he had almost every muscle clenched. His stomach was tight, and his hands gripped the armrests of his chair so tightly that his knuckles were white. He looked to Tara who was laid out on the sofa, her face wore a troubled frown and he wondered if in the depths of her sleep she heard it, too. Scotty was in a regular chair to his side; his head had lulled to the right and his eyelids flickering in sleep. Mike let out a long breath that had been unconsciously held in his chest for the past few seconds, and as he did he allowed his muscles to relax.
Half - a – pound – of – tuppenny - rice
His brain filled in the words, it was an automatic reaction that he seemed unable to stop, as before the tune was slow, drawn out, coming almost one tortured note at a time. He jumped out of the recliner and shook Scotty awake, the movement and the creaking of the chair causing Tara to wake at the same time.
“What time is it?” she asked in a sleepy voice.
“Shhh,” Mike prompted. “Listen!” he pointed at the speaker.
Half - a – pound – of - treacle
Scotty was up now, his sleep cast away as if it were no more than a cloak that he could dispel. He went directly to his tech setup and looked at the laptop screen. The music had caused spikes in the real-time audio graph and he looked with interest back at the first few verses that he’d missed, “How long has it been playing?”
That’s – the - way – the – money - goes
“Not sure,” Mike answered in a voice that was a little more than a whisper. “Not long, I don’t sleep that deeply.” He joined Scotty at the bank of CCTV screens. “Where the hell is it coming from?” he asked.