by S. T. Boston
“On this floor,” Scotty said turning his attention to the two screens and squinting at the images. “I can tell by the clarity.” He rubbed his eyes and switched from four channel view to one, then began to cycle between the cameras, each now filling the full twenty inches of the screen. Each room came back in the brightly lit black and white of infrared.
Pop-goes-the-weasel!
The last bit came faster, more sped up and now too quickly for the real tempo of the song.
“There,” Scotty said, jabbing a finger at the screen. “In the second bedroom on this floor. What the fuck is that?”
Half - a -- pound - of – tuppenny - rice
“That’s a kids jack-in-the-box!” Tara said her voice shaking and laced with dread. She was up and now with them at the monitors. She was right, too. In the middle on the floor, in the room that had belonged to Henry Harrison was a small box that looked as if it were decorated in three or four shades of grey in the IR light. If viewed with the lights on Mike knew those greys would have been reds, greens, and yellows. An array of primary colours designed to engage the child playing with it. "I hate those fucking things," she said and shivered.
Half - a - pound - of - treacle
"That wasn't there when we did the walkthroughs earlier, was it?” Scotty asked.
“No,” Mike said firmly.
“Where the fuck did it come from then?”
“There was a chest of toys in the hall outside, well more an ottoman kinda thing. I had a look inside, there were a few toys and games in there, nothing great, probably charity shop buys,” Mike answered.
That’s – the – way – the – money - goes
Mike leaned closer to the screen, not quite believing what he was seeing, the handle on the side of the toy was turning. The crank only just visible in the IR footage, but it was definitely moving of its own fruition, and now he understood why the tempo was off, why it kept changing. Whatever was turning it would wind it slowly for one line.
Pop-goes-the-weasel
Then as before the last line came quickly, and the handle span with speed, “Let's get in there," he said standing up and crossing the lounge to the door that led into the hall. He clicked the light on, and then light in the hall as well. The eerie tune began another impossible cycle, he could now hear the ditty coming from the bedroom and not just from the speaker.
“I don’t like this,” Tara said. Her voice wavered, and he could hear the fear in it.
Mike took hold of her by the shoulders and looked her in the eyes, “We will be fine,” he said, knowing no such thing. “It tried playing possum, that didn’t shake us, now it wants to scare us. As long as we stick together, we will be fine.” She seemed to let his words sink in then nodded slowly and he knew she was with him. Scotty brushed past them, he had a GoPro on a selfie stick clasped tightly in his right hand, the record light was on and he had a look of both fear and excitement in his eyes.
“The door’s shut,” Scotty said as they reached it.
“I know,” Mike answered. “We left it open.”
Half - a – pound - of - treacle
Mike gripped the brass handle, it was cold to the touch and as the verse played out, he paused, aware of just how hard his heart was hammering in his chest.
That’s -- the -- way -- the -- money -- goes
He threw the door open and in one fluid movement reached around the jamb and flicked on the light. As he’d seen on the CCTV image the box stood in the centre of the room, impossibly there and the explanation as to how or why it had come to be, reachable by no rational reasoning. The air inside the room was frigid, not breath-in-the-air-cold, but chilled and they all felt it rush out as the warmer air of the hall swept in. None of them moved. They waited. Waited for the final part of the tune to play out.
Pop-goes-the-weasel
The box has its audience now and as the handle spun quickly and it hit the last note the Jack jumped from the trap. In any normal situation, Mike felt sure the Jack would have looked fine, however, when brought forth from its box by the unseen hand of whatever had been working the crank, it looked insidious. Its hair was bright blue and the red painted smile on its lips seemed to grin mockingly at them. As it sprang, and they all jumped a shrill scream of delight and terror echoed up from somewhere on the ground floor. Somewhere else in the building something, likely a door, slammed with enough force to shake it out of the frame. The shock wave set off all six of the tremor detectors and they beeped loudly in a shrill and unnerving chorus from their various places around the building.
"Fuck this shit," Tara said and stumbled back out of the doorway shaking her head. She backed off until she met the stone of the external wall. Her face was pale and washed in disbelief, the disbelief of having seen something that her mind couldn’t comprehend.
Mike gripped her hand, her eyes were as wide as saucers, “Trying to scare us,” he reiterated. “We are all here and we are all fine.” And then the crying began.
It started low, and at first, they all had to strain to hear it. “It’s on the ground floor,” Tara said, her nerve seemingly restored by Mike’s touch and reassurance. Scotty led the way back to the lounge, his GoPro recording the whole episode. They reached the speaker of the audio rig where the sound was amplified.
“I told you this rig was a good experiment,” he grinned. If Scotty was scared, he wasn’t showing it. He looked alive and as if he were relishing it all, every moment. “It’s all recorded too, Mike. The whole thing!”
“This is what the Reeds heard,” Mike said as he adjusted the volume. It was no more than a grizzle, the way his now-dead daughter would mither when Claire left her to try and nap in her cot. "Can you see where it's coming from?" Mike asked as Scotty flicked quickly between the cameras. Mike recalled how he’d been unable to accept that what Sue, Tom and the other guests had heard had been no more than foxes, now he knew he’d been wrong. Not only did the surrounding woods seem to be lacking all forms of wildlife save for the occasional murder of crows, but the sound now echoing up from the ground floor and through the speaker was undoubtably that of an infant.
“All clear,” Scotty said, not taking his eyes from the screen. “Wherever it’s coming from it’s either in one of the rooms we don’t have covered or,” he paused as if getting to grips with what he had to say. “Or - it’s coming from nowhere and everywhere at the same time.”
Mike reached down and switched the speaker off, “Let’s just listen a second,” he said in a hushed voice. Without the benefit of the amplified ambient sound, it was harder to hear. It was there though, and it didn't take long to build in volume until it had gone from a grizzle to full wails of terror that were hard to listen to. For the briefest of moments, he wondered if there might just be an audio rig hidden somewhere, maybe a few of them secreted around the building and playing on timers. Maybe, just maybe this was all part of some elaborate scam, just as Sleaford had been. Then how do you explain that Jack? How do you explain the missing kids and all the other shit that’s happened since you started digging into this place? His mind questioned, and he couldn’t so he threw the thought aside just as quickly as it had formed.
“If that crying is a residual energy,” Tara said, “then they must have tortured those poor babies before they, they,” and she couldn’t finish the sentence, but they all knew what she wanted to say. The ghastly sound seemed to move around them, one moment it emanated up in waves from below them, somewhere on the ground floor, then next it flooded down the corridor on the mezzanine level. Even though the speaker was off the audio continued to both record and register on the computer, the audio graph on the Adobe Audition program peaked and spiked the way a person’s heart might when in atrial fibrillation and viewed on an electrocardiograph.
“Let’s check the ground floor,” Mike suggested, moving away from the table. “Whatever happens we stay together.” Both Tara and Scotty nodded in understanding and they hurried down the stairs into the entrance lobby. Mike checked the
front door. It was locked and just as he’d left it. Outside darkness pressed heavily against the two stained glass windows and no moonlight shone through.
Mike reached the first light switch and clicked it on, the light didn’t abate the crying and now it seemed to be coming from the kitchen, just at the end of the central corridor that ran the length of the building. Mike led the way, beckoning the other two to follow. He reached the corridor and flicked that light on, too. It didn’t help the fear that was running through him in the slightest, and halfway to the kitchen the cries reached a crescendo, they were made not of just one voice now, but many, a choir of screams reliving some horrific act over and over and as they grew the lights brightened to the point that all three of them had to shield their eyes.
“I think it’s building to a peak,” Mike said, almost having to shout over the noise. It was everywhere, those screams were not just audible they were somehow in his head as well, and he felt that if he had to suffer them much longer, they might drive him to insanity. Mike felt Tara grabbing his arm and he looked back at her as she pulled at him to head for the door, and for one terrible moment he heard something dark and subliminal hidden in those screams, something that wanted him to place his hands around her neck and squeeze, squeeze and squeeze until the bitch’s eyes bulge and she chokes on her tongue, and –
Mike tore himself away from her and put his hands over his ears trying to shut that voice out. He knew she was right, he – they all had to get out of here before they did go mad. Mike started backing up, the light in the corridor was so pure now, such a brilliant white that it burned at his retinas and when he thought he could endure no more, when the voices started to whisper their poison once again inside his head, there was the passing of something, like the releasing of pressure. There was a sudden pop that made his ears go, the crying stopped abruptly, and the lights went out.
For a few seconds, all Mike could hear was ringing, his ears full of momentary tinnitus. He felt disorientated and in the darkness, he grabbed at Tara with his other hand. "The fuse box," he managed to say, not able to see her face. "I think it tripped the fuse box."
“Scotty,” Tara called but there was no reply. Mike’s head swam, and he had to rest against the wall. “He had hold of me,” Tara said frantically. “He was right fucking here, and he had hold of me.”
“Scott,” Mike said, his voice sounding calmer than he felt. “You there, if you’re there get hold of Tara and stay with us, the fuse box is in the kitchen." The darkness was thick, like being in the underground shaft of some long-ago abandoned coal mine with no torch, and from that darkness, Scotty gave no reply. He felt Tara drop to her hands and knees, she was searching the floor frantically in case he’d collapsed. In less than twenty seconds they’d felt their way all the way back along the central corridor to the entrance hall.
“Scott Hampton,” she said, her voice was high and shrill and that of a person on the verge of totally losing their shit. "If you're fucking me about, I'm going to rip you a new arsehole." But he didn't reply.
Scotty was gone.
Chapter 41
Ellie felt hands lifting her to legs that didn’t feel strong enough to take her weight.
“You need to try and stand,” a female voice said to her, and in the dim orange glow of her cell, the light provided as before from the burning lamps outside, she looked to see who’d spoken. It was the blonde woman whom she’d met at the barbeque, how long ago that was now she had no idea, it felt like an age and for the moment her name escaped her. Ellie could remember it began with an S, maybe Sasha, Simone or possibly Sarah.
Her blonde hair was perfectly straight and dropped to her lower back, it looked like golden honey in the fiery glow of the oil lamps. She wore a long black robe that ended just an inch from the floor and hid her feet from view. Ellie looked questioningly into her grey eyes and saw nothing. No remorse, no regret, and no emotion, just a blankness that chilled her.
“We will need to bathe before you before the big day tomorrow,” another female voice said, and Ellie knew who the other person in the room was, the one who had hold of her left arm. It was Lucinda Horner. Ellie ran a dry tongue over cracked lips and looked at her. Lucinda wore an identical robe, her red hair flowed down over her shoulders. "You stink quite terribly child," she added, her face creasing in disgust as she spoke.
Ellie felt herself being marched toward the door, on the floor of her cell lay four or five water bottles, the meagre amount they’d let her have now expended, and a couple of empty sandwich packs, the kind you get with a meal deal at places like Tesco Express or Co-op. After she'd been visited by Seth Horner, again how long ago that was now she had no concept of, they'd delivered her small amounts of food and drink. She never saw who brought them to her, the door was opened just a crack, letting just enough light in, and just for long enough to enable her to find them, before she was left to the darkness again. The food and water had been just enough to keep her functioning, and painful hunger still stabbed her belly and her mouth felt parched.
“Wh-what, wh-where a-are you t-aking m-m-me?” she managed to ask through her confusion. Her voice was cracked and scratchy and the light in the passageway hurt her eyes more fiercely than it had when Seth had taken her to see her brother.
“Not far,” the blonde woman said curtly.
“I realised this afternoon,” Lucinda said, “how little you know of what you are here for, and what has happened since we took you. Do you even know how long you’ve been here?”
“Please,” Ellie croaked. “Let me see my brother.” Her legs were working now, and it felt good to be moving, although to where and to what she did not know, but right at that point she had almost reached such deep despair that she didn't care.
“Your brother is still fine,” the blonde woman reassured flatly. “He is just as he was when you last saw him.”
“That was just over two days ago Ellie,” Lucinda said as they reached a solid looking wooden door, like the one to Henry’s cell, only this was almost twice as wide, and taller by a good foot. Lucinda paused outside of it. “It’s the very early hours of Thursday the 26thth of July, you have been with us almost six days. As far as the world outside is concerned both you and Henry are dead.” Then with what seemed like a hint of mocking she added, “Would you believe that your mother and father were arrested on suspicion of killing you both? Your poor mother has taken it quite badly, she’s in a mental hospital in Plymouth, or so the news is saying. Your faces have been all over the national news for days, you’re both quite famous. Isn’t that what every girl of your age wants these days, Ellie – to be famous?”
Ellie felt tears welling in her eyes and she tried to force them back, the thought of what her parents must have gone through now adding to her despair. “W-why?” she sobbed.
Lucinda pushed the door open, it swung inwards on old creaking hinges, “Your brother has a special purpose here, Ellie.”
“A great destiny,” the blonde woman said with marked enthusiasm as they led her through the door. “One that you must help him to fulfil.”
The room was rectangular, yet it sank a good ten feet from the point where they stood, making a circular auditorium within the rectangle. Large black tapestries hung from the stone-lined walls, each one at least fifteen feet from top to bottom and upon them were symbols and signs the likes of which Ellie had never seen. One symbol printed inside a large circle of golden guild was an inverted triangle, the tip pointed towards the earth whilst an infinity loop ran through its centre. On another in deep red was an inverted pentagram, again inside a large circle. The centre of the pentagram, however, was not decorated with the image of Beelzebub in goat form as was a common feature for the inverted pentagram, it was empty. Instead at each of its points were strange hieroglyphical symbols. The tapestries were many, hung side by side with only a foot of stone visible between each one, and in the gap between each, a large oil lamp was fixed into the stone, a flame burning brightly inside. The tapestries
and oil lamps lined the entire room and above her, Ellie saw the roof was held in place by thick beams that reached toward its apex. The design of the roof and the layout of the beams was almost a carbon copy to that of The Old Chapel, and Ellie began to wonder if somehow this wasn't the same building, just in another time and place.
From the centre of the roof hung a massive black painted iron candle chandelier, not the reproduction electric kind, this was authentic and looked hundreds of years old and Ellie knew for sure that she’d seen this roof before, just as she’d seen what was in the centre of the room; two stone altars, each large enough to hold a human body. In her dream she’d lain on one as she’d somehow jumped through time, living the last moments of each sacrificial girl, always being dragged away to the next before the dagger bit flesh.
Surrounding the twin altars were the rows of curved benches, each row elevated slightly higher than the last, creating the auditorium, they reached up around ten feet to where they now stood. In front of her, stone steps cut through the benches and down to the altars, another set of identical steps lay dead opposite on the other side of the room, and a third to her left and a fourth to the right. They cut the circular seating into four equal wedges.
“I’ve s-seen this p-place,” she stammered. “B-but I th-thought it b-burned. I thought,”
“That’s right,” Lucinda said cutting her off. “Seth said you had the sight, that you knew.” She looked at Ellie with interest before pushing her into a high-backed seat. Ellie felt her arms being tied to the sides of the chair, she wanted to fight it, but she was too tired, the lack of food and water had left her with little energy. “The Chapel was never truly destroyed, Ellie, as you can see it is still very much here. Just as it has been since Minister Device founded it all those years ago.” Ellie felt her head being strapped to the back of the chair; the material used to bind her felt velvety yet the ferocity with which Lucinda tied her forced her skull painfully against the timber frame back of the chair. “You know,” Lucinda said, dropping down to meet Ellie’s eyes with her own cold green ones. She brushed Ellie’s dirty, greasy hair off her face as she spoke “It’s a shame, you would have matured into quite the delectable creature. if things had been different then you’d have made a wonderful addition to our community, our coven.”