LeRoux Manor

by Liz Butcher

  Camille dared to take another look and gave her friend a small smile through the glass, her heart still pounding.

  “I think we need to get your parents,” Jayne said from the doorway.

  Camille nodded, giving her reflection a final glance before turning and leaving it behind her.

  They huddled together as they moved along the corridor and around to the staircase, focusing their torches on the stairs. Once they reached the bottom landing, the five frightened teenagers hurried into the sitting room, where the light was still on without any hint of having lost power. Her parents were in the exact same positions as when she’d last seen them, only they’d fallen asleep—her mother’s head resting in her father’s lap, the book forgotten and on the floor. Her father leaned back against the lounge; his mouth slightly open while his show kept playing on his tablet.

  “Mum?” Camille approached them, leaving her friends hovering at the room’s entrance.

  “Dad?” She raised her voice and frowned when neither of them answered. Even shaking her mother by the shoulder didn’t wake her. Her father didn’t respond to it, either. A wave of fear washed over her, and she placed her fingers on her mother’s neck, then quickly her father’s. Tears of relief stung her eyes.

  “Are they okay?” Grace asked.

  Camille nodded. “I think they’re still just sleeping, but... I don’t know why they won’t wake up.”

  “Hey! Mr and Mrs LeRoux!” Jonathan yelled, stepping toward them and clapping his hands.

  “Jonathan!” Grace waved him back toward her.

  “What? We want them to wake up, don’t we?”

  Camille shook her parents again while Jonathan drummed up quite the racket, but still, nothing happened. “This is madness,” Camille muttered. A sob escaped her.

  “Hey, we’ll be okay.” Jonathan draped his arm over her shoulders and led her back to the others. “I’m sure we’ll be laughing about this crazy night in the morning.”

  “Yeah, we just have to get through the night,” Lachlan added, but he didn’t sound convinced. “Storms do weird things. We just have to wait it out.”

  “Where?” Jayne asked.

  “This is going to sound crazy, but I think we should see the rest of the night out in the kitchen.”

  “I don’t think that sounds any crazier than anything else that’s happened tonight,” Jonathan said. “Plus, the kitchen means, you know, food and stuff.” Grace gave him a playful nudge.

  “The kitchen? Probably not the most comfortable room in this place,” Jayne said.

  “No, it’s not,” Camille conceded. “But I think it’s the only room where I haven’t had any sort of strange experience.”

  “That’s good enough for me.” Grace nodded. “But we still need to go back to your room first.”

  “What? Why?” Jayne stared back and forth between them; her eyes wide.

  “All our things are up there. All the research, the laptop. At the very least, we should bring those cushions down in case we can manage to get any sleep.”

  “Good luck with that...” Jayne muttered.

  “Grace is right, though,” Camille added. “We could probably push the single mattress from the boy’s room down the stairs too. But I’ll need a hand. The sooner we get up there and back, the better.”

  “I can’t walk past that wall again...” Jayne whimpered.

  “Jonathan and I will come,” Grace announced. “Lachlan, you can stay here with Jayne.” She grabbed her boyfriend’s hand and pulled him from the room. It took all Camille’s willpower not to look at Lachlan before she left too.

  Camille scowled in the darkness and flashed her torch across the floor. Once they’d made it to her room, she closed the door firmly behind them, walked to her bedside table, and grabbed her phone and its charger. In the middle of the room, Jonathan packed their research into the box while Grace gathered cushions from the bed. Camille grabbed the laptop and placed it in the box, then grabbed her share of the cushions. Then the trio hurried back downstairs, keeping their eyes trained on the floor in front of them.

  When they entered the kitchen, Camille paused at the sight of Lachlan and Jayne sitting on the stools at the island, Jayne’s head resting on his shoulder. Without a word, Camille dumped the cushions in the corner before going to the bench on the other side of the island. She kept her back toward Lachlan as she plugged in her phone.

  “While you two are just sitting there doing nothing...” Jonathan joked and heaved the box up onto the island.

  “You know, Jayne, I could really use a distraction—and your expertise,” Lachlan said, gently shrugging so Jayne would list her head. Then he reached into the box and pulled out the laptop. “Will you help me upload this new footage to the blog?” “Do you really feel like listening to music right now?”

  “Not really. But I also don’t want to sit around waiting to hear any more creepy scratching sounds, either.”

  “Fair call.” Jonathan sat at the island, gesturing for Grace to join him, but she shook her head. Her crossed arms mirrored Camille’s tense stance.

  “Okay. If we’re going to stay, the only way I can stay sane is if we try to work out what the hell’s going on instead of just waiting for the next scary episode,” Grace said.

  Camille nodded, half listening to the thunder rolling away. “Agreed.”

  “Things are obviously escalating,” Lachlan said, not taking his eyes from the laptop screen as Jayne typed furiously away. “I mean, they haven’t been this bad before now, right? Or have you been down-playing how mental this place actually is?”

  “No, this is definitely the worst,” Camille replied. “I don’t know if it’s the storm, or having you guys here, or both. Or maybe it has nothing to do with either of those. Maybe this is all because we might be getting close to some kind of truth that someone... or something ... doesn’t want us to know about.”

  “Maybe.” Jonathan sighed. “I mean, things have gotten worse since you found about Caroline and the adoption.”

  “Yeah, but that was a dream.” Camille started pacing.

  “The letter wasn’t. Someone must have left it for you,” Lachlan said.

  “So, which one is it, then? Someone wants me to find out about this place. Or they don’t?”

  Lachlan shrugged, still focused on the laptop.

  “What if it’s both?” Grace asked, pacing now too.

  Camille paused. “How do you mean?”

  “Well, what if it’s more than one... person? Or whatever. Like, one’s trying to help you uncover the truth for whatever reason, and someone else is trying to prevent it.”

  Camille frowned and resumed her pacing. She stopped in front of the window in the kitchen’s back door and sighed. “I’m not sure I like the idea of there being more than one... thing trying to get through to me. But it does kind of make sense.”

  A flash of lightning lit up the grounds, and Camille unfolded her arms, pressing her hands against the glass instead. “Hey, guys. Come here.”

  “What?” Lachlan asked, sliding off the stool. Camille waived them over, focusing only on the grounds through the window.

  Grace reached her first and peered out into the darkness. “Is that...”

  Camille nodded. “The McAllister’s.”

  “What are they doing walking around in this?” Jayne exclaimed. “Are they crazy? They don’t even have an umbrella or anything.”

  “Curiouser and curiouser...” Camille whispered.

  “Where do you think they’re going?” Lachlan peered over Camille’s shoulder as Jayne and Jonathan joined them.

  “Looks like they’re headed for the woods.” Camille rubbed her forehead and the small headache kicking in. But she kept watching with her friends until the McAllister’s made it to the forest and disappeared beyond the trees.

  “Can this night get any weirder?” Jonathan asked.

  “Don’t jinx—”

  Lightning flashed, and the music stopped playing, leaving them
all in a sudden, eerie silence.

  “Please tell me that was just your phone running out of battery...” Jayne whispered.

  Camille glanced at her phone still connected to its charger, then turned back toward her friends. No one said a word. Then voices spilled from her phone and shattered the silence. Camille hurried toward the bench and yanked her phone from the charger. The music app was gone, and the video Lachlan had captured earlier on his phone now played on hers. She held the phone up to show them.

  “What?” Lachlan crossed the room toward her for a closer look. “How is that even possible? It’s not done uploading to the site yet.”

  “I have no idea, but nothing surprises me now.” She tried to turn it off, to turn it down, but the video kept playing. Camille dropped her phone onto the bench and put a hand to her pounding forehead again. Her other head went absently to her stomach as she tried to calm the flurry of nervous fear gripping her.

  A child’s muffled laughter came from the phone. Everyone jerked their heads toward it.

  “That’s not from the video,” Grace said softly.

  “She’s back...” Jonathan whispered.

  “I don’t think she ever left,” Camille muttered. She felt like she was going to be sick as she slowly picked up the phone, turning it over so they could all see. The laughter continued, and the camera moved as if someone held it while running. All they could see was a wooden floor, but nothing to confirm which room. Camille pushed past her friends and ran out of the kitchen, Lachlan hot on her heels.

  “Wait!” Jayne called. “Wasn’t the point of staying in the kitchen to avoid any more run-ins with the house?” When Grace and Jonathan left after Camille and Lachlan, Jayne called rolled her eyes and reluctantly followed.

  Camille took the stairs two at a time, the child’s laughter playfully taunting her as she and her friends reached the top landing and ran to her bedroom. They burst inside, skidding to a stop when they found the room empty. The thump of feet pounding across the attic floor above them made the laughing child sound like she weighed a tonne. Then the footsteps changed direction, ran toward the far wall, and stopped above the wardrobe. Camille’s heart pounded as heavily as those thumping feet above her; she wondered if her friends could hear it too.

  Then something pounded furiously inside the wardrobe, as though someone had been locked inside and was now desperate to get out. Jayne yelped. Camille jumped when Lachlan grabbed her arm. “What the hell is that?” he whispered.

  Her paralysing fear made it impossible to answer him.

  Lachlan took a deep breath, released her, and swiftly approached the wardrobe with his phone ready for recording. Camille wanted to tell him to stop, to stay back, but with each bang against the old wood, her terror grew. He yanked open one side wardrobe door with his free hand to reveal absolutely nothing there, and the wardrobe fell silent. Once he’d slowly pried open the second door, Lachlan turned back around to shrug at the rest of them, looking both disappointed and entirely relieved.

  “I can’t take much more of this.” Jayne whimpered. Grace put a comforting arm around her and shot Camille a questioning glance.

  Camille swallowed. “I don’t know what to say...”

  “You don’t have to say anything,” Lachlan told her. “We know this isn’t your fault. You’re not the one doing this. Honestly, I think we all did this together when we started digging into the house.”

  “Well, that’s easy, then,” Jayne said, tightly hugging herself. “Let’s just promise not to dig any deeper. Then everything can go back to normal, and I won’t have to go to therapy for the rest of my life.”

  “I don’t think I can do that,” Lachlan said, and Camille turned to him in surprise. “Given everything that’s happened tonight, I think we’ve come way too far to give up now.”

  “Look, man, I get that this is personal for you,” Jonathan said. “Of course you want to find out what happened to your uncle. But dude, seriously, you can’t really want to see this shit get worse.”

  “Of course I don’t want to see things get worse. But I do want answers. Something’s obviously working really hard to make sure we don’t get them.”

  “Exactly,” Jayne added. “Which is why we should quit while we’re ahead. Maybe then Camille’s parents will miraculously wake up, and we can get out of here.”

  “Camille?” Grace asked gently. “What do you think?”

  Camille looked at each of them in turn, focusing on Lachlan; he seemed to be pleading with her to back him up. “I want answers. But I think we need to rethink how we go about getting them.”

  “What we’re doing obviously isn’t getting us anywhere,” Jayne muttered.

  Camille had to force away the image of her reflection in the broken mirror before continuing. “Exactly. I don’t want to wait until it does. Obviously, trying to do all this in the middle of the night during a massive thunderstorm isn’t working out for us.”

  “So, what should we do, then?” Jonathan asked.

  Camille stared out at the storm beyond her window. “I think we pack up our research for now. I’m starting to think it’s really not safe to be looking through any of it here. I know it sounds crazy, but just hear me out. I have a...” She clenched her eyes shut for a moment, trying to match the words with the sensation. “I have a feeling the house is watching us. Like it’ll know that we’re looking into it if we try to put the pieces together here.”

  “Yeah, that does sound crazy,” Lachlan muttered. “But I have the exact same feeling.”

  “So maybe if we make a bit of a show of putting everything away,” Jayne added, “you think it’ll stop?”

  Camille nodded. “Exactly.”

  “Well you don’t have to tell me twice.” Jayne uncrossed her arms, moved toward the door, then seemed to have second thoughts about entering the hallway on her own.

  “Looks like we’re heading back to the kitchen,” Jonathan said. “I, for one, vote not to come back to Camille’s room again for the rest of the night.” He grabbed Grace’s hand and stepped around Jayne, leading the way back into the hall.

  Once they’d all returned to the kitchen, Lachlan closed the laptop and put it back in the box with the research. He lifted the box off the bench and turned toward Camille. “Where do you want it?”

  “Uh...” She scanned the kitchen for the best place and pointed at the dumb waiter across the room. “In there.”

  “Oh, cool,” Grace exclaimed. “I’ve never seen one of these for real before.”

  Camille slid the door up to reveal a surprisingly large cavity behind it. With a grunt, Jonathan heaved the box up onto the ledge and closed the door. “There. Out of sight, out of mind, right?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” Grace retorted. “But out of sight’s a start. Now let’s see if it makes any difference.”

  A digital chime sounded, and they all looked around for the source. Camille pulled her phone from her pocket, and the chime only grew louder.

  “Is that an alarm?”

  “Yeah, sounds like it. But I didn’t set it.”

  “What time is it?” Lachlan asked.

  “Three in the morning.” Camille turned off the alarm and set her phone on the bench.

  “Well that’s not half creepy.” Jonathan scoffed, climbing onto a stool and pulling Grace against him.

  Camille walked to the back door again and with a sigh peered through the glass. The storm had all but passed, but the sky still lit up periodically with the lightning in the distance.

  “Maybe we should try to get some sleep,” Jayne said, her suggestion falling on deaf ears when Camille caught movement outside again. “Hey, come look at this.” Jayne groaned, but they all gathered around one more time. Out of the woods came the McAllister’s again, side by side, moving purposefully back toward the house.

  “What do you think they were doing in there?” Grace asked.

  “I have no idea...” Camille admitted.

  “I bet we could find out,�
�� Lachlan suggested.

  “I thought we weren’t doing any more snooping in the house?” Jayne snapped.

  Lachlan raised his hands in defence. “Technically, it’s not in the house, is it? And no one said you have to come.” Jayne looked quickly away from him, blinking at the floor.

  Camille was really starting to feel sorry for the girl, but that wasn’t the most important issue right now. “We don’t have to worry about that tonight. It looks like the storm’s finally over too. On its way out.”

  “And nothing weird has happened since we packed everything up,” Jonathan said. “I mean, except for the alarm you didn’t set.”

  “Maybe the house, or whatever’s behind all this creepiness, has actually had enough with us for one night,” Grace suggested with a tight, hopeful smile.

  “Maybe.” Camille still watched the McAllister’s.

  “Well, if that’s what’s happening, I’m relieved,” Jonathan said. “If we put the two mattresses side by side, that should be big enough for the three of you girls to sleep. Jonathan and I can make do with the cushions.”

  Camille stared out her window as her friends dragged the mattresses together. The McAllister’s were almost at the house now. Miss McAllister stopped and looked straight up at the kitchen door. Camille jumped back, hoping she hadn’t been seen. She headed toward the mattresses, figuring she just wouldn’t mention it to the others. Then she lay on the edge, not wanting to take up too much room; she didn’t plan to actually sleep.

  But as soon as her head hit the pillow, a wave of exhaustion crashed over her, and her body longed for rest. She turned her head to look at Lachlan lying atop a configuration of pillows, and he was already staring back at her. Then she closed her eyes and fell instantly to sleep.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  C

  AMILLE WOKE UP with a start and scanned the room, feeling a little disorientated. Everyone was still fast asleep, and the faint light coming through the back-door window told her it was still really early; she obviously hadn’t slept for very long. Despite that, she felt strangely rested—more than she had in days—as if she’d just a full eight hours.