Manchester House (12 page)

Wells left his car, disappointed. He expected some kind of protest. Some kind of action from Lex. The house was as quiet as a tomb. He silently ordered police officers out of their cars and had them all follow him. They all approached the mansion’s front door.

With several police officers behind him, Wells knocked on the front door loudly. There was no answer.

The door of the mansion was kicked open and both Wells and several police officers rushed in. Wells spearheaded the invasion, holding up a warrant.

“Police!” Wells shouted. “We do have a warrant.”

They were greeted by the house’s silence. The police officers put away their guns as Wells shouted for Lex. All spread out looking for their suspect.

“Mr. Lex?” Wells shouted. “This is the Atchison Police. You are wanted for questioning in the murder of Leslie Dean.” He paused, trying to listen for movement. Nothing. “Mr. Lex?”

Wells silently motioned two officers to follow him. They all headed toward the kitchen.

“Smells like something’s on the stove, sir,” one of the officers commented.

Wells gave the man a hard look.

Wells entered the kitchen, after being directed there by the police officer. They were both guided to the room’s stove where they spotted a boiling pot of soup. There was a sweet smell invading the whole room. One officer, upset, rushed out of the room vomiting.

“This is not good,” Wells stated, annoyed.

“Sir?” an officer said, motioning Wells toward the stove and a boiling pot of soup.

Wells saw the pot. The meal had only just begun to boil, giving him the impression that it had been placed on the stove minutes before. Turning off the fire under the soup, Wells and the police officer noticed an abnormal amount of smoke coming up from the oven.

Wells’ stomach began to tighten.

“Open it up,” Wells said, motioning the police officer toward the oven’s door.

Wells focused his attention on the oven as the police officer opened it. A burnt corpse was seen balled up inside. As an arm flopped outward, startling all, Wells could see it was what was left of Lex’s body. Both Wells and the police officer backed away in disgust. A police photographer rushed in, taking pictures.

“Dear sweet Jesus,” Wells whispered.

Between the photographer’s flashbulbs, Wells got a good look at the burnt corpse. It was Gilbert Lex. He was a skeleton of a man and was covered with cuts, burns, and the remnants of a horrible beating. In short, he appeared to Wells to be in the same condition he had found Leslie Dean in. As Wells closed in on Lex to get a better look between the flashbulbs, he noticed Lex’s eyes-they were looking up at him.

Lex, though dead, seemed aware; but this was totally impossible. Nerves and the cold air hitting the hot skin caused Lex’s face to form a sneer or smile of some kind.

Wells noticed Lex’s eyes: they were tinted blood red, and instead of a normal pupil Wells saw a spiral-like pattern running through the eyes. They were almost alien-looking and seemed to give all in the room an uneasy feeling.

The sight was getting to Wells. His breakfast decided that it wanted to come up for some air. Embarrassed, the detective left the kitchen.

Wells’ attention was drawn toward the basement door. A noise. A movement?

Wells saw the basement door and focused his attention on the doorknob. It slowly turned, then stopped. As Wells approached the door, he heard the slight giggle of a little girl.

Teresa’s hands stopped at the basement door. She soon awoke from her trance.

:That is all that I’m giving to you, little child.:

“Professor?” Teresa said, her voice trembling. She was exhausted.

Teresa put her hand on the doorknob and started to turn it.

:Do not venture further! I warn you.:

Holzer had been walking behind Sinclair the whole time, for almost an hour, while Teresa was in her trance. She had led them through various rooms of the mansion, telling and re-telling the story behind Gilbert Lex’s bizarre death. Of how he was spared a lengthy trial by becoming one of the hundreds of victims of Manchester House. In Teresa’s trance, she had stopped at the basement door. Sinclair had filmed everything.

“Got it, Doc,” Sinclair whispered.

Holzer patted the man on the shoulder with satisfaction. Upon hearing Teresa call for him, he left Sinclair’s side, motioning the man to continue with his filming.

The house, it seemed, had turned incredibly dark. The team’s only source of light were the bright lights Sinclair had attached to his camera.

“Yes, Teresa, what is it?” Holzer asked, gingerly approaching the young woman.

Teresa’s hands seemed to move closer to the door. The paint chips and water-damaged lines of the thing seemed to beckon to her, causing her to proceed cautiously. However, in her excitement to find out more from the house, her common sense kept her from actually touching the surface of the door. Her instincts told her not to cross that particular line.

“The kitchen is an important focal point, sir. But the basement seems to be the intelligence guiding the force.” Teresa started to breathe rather heavily, as if suddenly stopping from a long run. “I sense thousands of souls here, guys. Souls desperately wanting to go away from the bonds of this world but cannot.” She paused, horrified. “Something is holding them all here, at bay, fighting. A ghostly war. A war for control.”

“What’s holding them here, Teresa?” Miranda asked, gently pulling Teresa away from the door. “Here, come back to us. That’s it. I think that you have had enough for a while.”

“What is keeping the spirits all here, Teresa?” Holzer repeated. He tried to ignore the stern look he was getting from Miranda.

“I don’t know.” Her eyes looked up at Holzer’s. They were pleading-haunted.

Holzer carefully headed toward the basement door, keeping in mind the powerful statements Teresa had just made. Reaching for the door, the professor noticed that it was locked.

“It was open, Professor.” Teresa’s voice contained a hint of warning in it that bothered the professor.

Holzer turned to Sinclair, annoyed. “Is there a key to this door, Sinclair?”

“You got me, Doc. I’m just the guy with the camera.”

Hearing all of this, and concerned more about Teresa’s mental well being, Miranda let out a tired moan. This caused both men to give her a concerned look.

“What?” Sinclair asked, looking away from his camera.

“Can’t the two of you see that what we need here is a little diplomacy to open the damn thing?” Miranda had become extremely impatient with her team members.

“Huh?” Sinclair asked, lost.

“Break it in!” Miranda shouted.

Miranda took the camera away from Sinclair, forcing the cameraman to approach the door. Spitting into his hands, Sinclair prepared to use brute force to open the tiny basement door. Holzer, observing this, did all he could to keep from smiling.

Sinclair, reaching for the door, started to pull on it wildly. His failure caused Miranda and Teresa to laugh out loud. Sinclair took it all with a grain of salt-a grain big enough to choke a goat, but still he took it with controlled grace.

“A guy just can’t get a break, can he?” Sinclair said, looking straight into Miranda’s eyes.

Walking away from the door, Sinclair cursed under his breath. The door started to open on its own accord. The house was soon permeated with a foul odor which seemed to come from the darkness below.

:Do you not like what you are finding?:

The team shook the feeling of being watched.

Still laughing at Sinclair’s folly with the door, Miranda reacted towards the foul smell. Cupping her hands over her mouth, she started to become ill-vomiting.

“Are you okay, Miranda?” Holzer asked, patting her on the back.

Miranda coughed out the last of her vomit, wiping away the mess from her lips. “God, how I hate that feeling. I’m okay. I don’t know what came over me just now. I’m fine, thank you.”

“Smells like six-month-old dead dog or something,” Sinclair said. He turned his attention toward Miranda. “You sure you’re okay?”

Miranda looked up, smiling. “I’m fine.”

All focused their attention on the open basement door.

* * *

It awoke.

Deep inside the basement, it walked past and through several sheets of plastic tarps. The tarps appeared to be dripping with blood. It heard a scream of some kind, coming from an unknown animal. Perhaps the miserable cry of a long-forgotten prey? Shadows and movement were playing havoc with its senses-too many souls to keep track of.

It looked up toward the basement’s staircase, frightened.

There was something coming into the basement.

:Nooooooooo!:

The Shape took her form once again.

* * *

The camera buzzed once more to life and Holzer took his place at the lead position.

“Ready when you are, Doc.”

Now behind his camera, Sinclair started to document the team members’ descent into the basement. Sinclair focused his attention on Holzer, who was waving both his EMR detector and Negative Ion device, looking for what science was too damn blind to see. Sinclair was not yet a believer like the rest of the team, but one thing was certain: a camera only recorded what it saw-what they were seeing was incredible.

“Is that camera secure and protected?” Holzer asked, looking over his shoulder.

“Just as you have specified, Doc,” Sinclair reassured. “No problem.”

Sinclair could see that their surroundings were getting darker. The only light seemed to be coming from the digital camera. Sinclair could hear the sounds of rustling plastic.

“What is it with this place and plastic?” Sinclair asked.

“I really do not know,” Holzer said, looking around at the cameraman. “I at first thought it was just for the maintenance of the house as a whole. But upon hearing the statements from Mrs. Gonzalez, and by what we all have witnessed, I’m starting to believe differently.”

“It is quite a manifestation, if I do say so myself,” Miranda agreed. “In some cultures, it is considered proper that a curtain exists between our world and the world of the dead. Professor, perhaps that is what the sheets of plastic represent. A barrier between our world and the spirit world.”

“Perhaps,” Holzer agreed. “But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. We are progressing nicely here and I do not want our investigation ruined by speculations. Not until we have the facts to back them up, that is. For now we will assume that the plastic sheets are just that-plastic.”

“Sounds good to me, Doc.” Sinclair paused. “But what about the dripping water?”

Holzer looked up at the camera, puzzled.

“There are no holes in the roof,” Sinclair explained. “So where is all this damn water coming from?”

Sinclair focused his camera on Teresa.

“It’s not water,” the psychic said, shaking her head.

All the team members continued their trek down the basement. No one seemed to notice that they were traveling dangerously far, and quite longer than the reported foundation depth mentioned in the City Hall records regarding Manchester House’s original blueprints.

Unknown to the team, they were now in Her world.

:Welcome, brave souls! Beware!:

* * *

Holzer had been taking in all the comments made by his team members, but being the leader he had to make sure what was recorded on camera was not from his own influence or direction. So it was up to Holzer to play devil’s advocate in respect to the scientific eyes that would review all of this later. In truth, he theorized about the plastic tarps just moments before Miranda Wingate had suggested it. That is what he liked about his team - they all thought like him in regards to the world of the paranormal. Well, all except Sinclair.

Hearing the sounds of rustling plastic, Holzer caused all in the group to stop. The sheer magnitude of rustling sounds made it appear as if they were standing in the middle of an active hive of some kind.

Holzer, for the first time since he had started to investigate the unknown, was terrified. “Sinclair, flash the camera lights around so that we can get our bearings here,” the professor said, doing his best to hide his urge to run back up the stairs. Back into the coolness and safety of the real world.

“Sure thing, Doc.”

Sinclair started to wave the camera around, making sure to pay particular attention to Holzer’s body language.

As the lights from the camera cut through the darkness in the basement, the team members could see hundreds of plastic tarps hanging in the tiny room. As they ventured toward the center of the room, they could all see that the tarps were becoming denser-bloodier. Sinclair, with his camera, could barely make out movement in the center, but could not seem to make out what it was.

All the team started to feel an uncomfortable popping sensation in their ears.

“What the hell is all this?” Miranda asked, rubbing her temples.

Holzer was speechless. He looked down at his EMR recorder. The device was letting out a high-pitched steady whine.

“It feels as if we have entered an environment that is at least three atmospheres too strong,” Holzer stated, looking about. His eyes peered through his glasses, not really being able to see anything. “That could explain what we are feeling in our ears right now. Theoretically, that is.”

“Yeah?” Sinclair said, turning the lights on his camera up to full power. “Theoretically, I’m shitting my pants here, Doc.”

Holzer returned his attention to his EMR device.

Holzer saw that the EMR detector was spiking dangerously high. Most phenomena involving EMR never went above fifteen ergs. Holzer saw the device spike to one thousand four hundred fifty seven ergs. Overwhelmed, the tiny device literally exploded in his hand. Horrified, the professor dropped his detector.

The team froze, looking at the burnt-out device smoldering on the basement floor.

“Professor!” Teresa asked, her voice trembling. “What’s going on here? Has this ever happened before?”

Silence.

Sinclair shifted the weight of the camera from one shoulder to the other.

Taking off his glasses, Holzer really didn’t know how to react. He just stared blankly at his burnt hand.