We are almost at the end. The next post will be the last of this story, which has taken far longer to tell than I planned. Thank you to everyone who is still following along. If you’re here for the first time, this all started here. The previous part (Part 6) is here. The final part (Part 8) is here.
-—–
The crickets sang a symphony in the darkness. We huddled together between the trees on the Manor side of the wall. I slowed my breathing, but my heart refused to be anything but a jackhammer inside my chest.
She was gone now. The dark haired girl called Ally. She had worked some magic of the mind and my friends and the trees and the Manor wall and the dark night sky had melted away. I managed to break free, but I didn’t fully understand quite how, like a child performing a complex task for the first time. I did not know if I could repeat the escape. I hoped I wouldn’t have to. At the end I saw her, not the façade she presented in the forest, but the flesh and bone Ally, and she was on the move. There could only be one destination, Windhaven Manor. And that’s where we, The Séance Club, planned to go.
Parker panted next to me. “What was that?”
Juliet looked over my shoulder and to the wall. “It was her?”
“Yes.”
“What does she want?”
“To keep the dead from telling their secrets. We don’t have long if we want to stop her.”
What scant light there was from the moon disappeared under the treetops. We felt our way forward, afraid the lights on our phones would give us away on this side of the wall.
The cold night air numbed my face and fingertips, but what lay ahead was colder still. It was like there was an open door letting in an icy cold breeze somewhere. The footsteps of Parker, Beth and Juliet crunched and slid behind. I paused at the sound of more footsteps up ahead, but these sounded hollow. The faint glow of a figure, a girl robed in white, shining with a dull luminescence. She weaved her way through the trees, face pointed towards the Manor. And then another, and another. The girls from the dungeon, they were here in the forest with us. The Manor drew them near, shining like a beacon.
The trees thinned and the Manor rose up in the darkness, an imposing cube pocked with rectangles of light from the windows. Any further and they could spot us traversing across the lawn in the open.
It was here that we came to the edge of the bubble that extended into the sky and curved to form a gigantic dome over the Manor. Inside it would dull whatever sixth sense I possessed. The murdered girls from Hugo’s dungeon came up to the edge of the dome and stopped.
“What is it?” Beth said.
“The girls from the dungeon are here. There’s a barrier and they can’t pass it.”
“What do we do?”
I shrugged.
Someone approached from our left. I was the only one who turned to face him. It was Leon. The man we found hanged from the rafter. I last saw him disappearing into the forest after the noose around his neck broke in my hands.
“I thought that was you,” he said.
“What are you doing back here?”
“I had to come back. I don’t know why.”
He motioned towards the girls, sliding between the trees at the perimeter of the barrier installed to protect Windhaven Manor from the dead. “That’s them isn’t it?”
I nodded. “I found them in a dungeon on the other side of the wall.”
He watched them stony faced. For him they had been rumours, muffled screams on cold and quiet nights. Jane Laughlin’s appearance through the trap door in the stable confirmed all his worst fears. Terrified and bloodied, she put a face to all those cries for help. Now he had more faces to add.
He let out a long and deep sigh. “I had a family to feed. The pay check bought my silence. It is no excuse. I failed them.”
“I think a lot of people failed them.”
We looked up at the house through the overhanging branches.
I said, “Some of those involved are inside that house. We have evidence in there that could bring them down. But we need to get it first.”
My eyes scanned the garden surrounding the Manor. Manicured lawns illuminated by the light spilling from the windows. If anyone were watching, they would see us immediately.
“There is another way inside,” he said.
“What other way?”
He pointed to the far side of the lawn. In the dull light cast by the upper floor windows, a low-height stone wall ran in a straight line perpendicular to the house before disappearing in the gloom.
“There is a service entrance,” he said. “We used it to haul barrels of beer and whiskey into the cellar below the kitchen. It’s undercover most of the way. They built the lawn over the top to hide it. You will have about ten paces between the tree line and the entrance, no more. At night you can’t see the entrance from the house.”
I searched the darkness at the edge of the light from the windows.
“I don’t see it.”
“It is there, trust me. But it will be locked.”
“Where is the key?”
“I don’t have a key, but there is a set of bolt cutters in the stables.”
I turned to Beth, Juliet and Parker, they watched me intensely. I explained the plan. Parker volunteered to run to the stables and fetch the bolt cutters. I had offered to do that part myself until Parker rightly drew attention to my clumsy fall on the first run to the stables.
After the darkness swallowed Parker, Leon held up an arm and pointed the way.
“Walk in this direction. You won’t miss it, even in the dark.”
I opened my mouth to say a thankyou that never came. An intense darkness invaded my mind and my heart lurched into my throat. Ally. She was close. We were running out of time.
Leon forced a smile. “You have to hurry. Good luck.”
Beth and Juliet and I scrambled around in the darkness searching for the entrance. We kicked around in the wet grass. I rolled up my sleeves and searched until my fingers burned from the cold.
“Are you sure it’s here?” Beth whispered.
I jogged forwards and on the fourth step stubbed my toe against something hard. My knees came down on a heavy timber door laying horizontal to the ground. It was overgrown with grass and weeds.
“Over here.”
We heard Parker come back and Juliet guided him with a hushed voice. I felt around on the door and found the handle and a thick padlock. Parker handed me the bolt cutters and I squeezed until the blades cut the metal with a ping. We breathed together in the silence waiting for shouting or any sign of alarm from the house. Nothing. Maybe our luck was turning.
Parker leaned in and pulled open the door. Damp and stale air wafted up from underground.
“Let’s go.”
I looked out behind to the edge of the bubble and Leon was gone. I peered into the black of the woods. I had an unshakeable feeling someone was watching. Not the man from the stable, or the girls from the dungeon, but someone else. I took a step away from the open door and squinted. A pterodactyl thrashed its wings inside my stomach.
Parker’s hissed up from below. “Are you coming? Do you want them to see us?”
We huddled close together on the other side of the door. Beth found a light switch and a series of globes mounted to the top of the wall flicked on. Brick walls enclosed each side barely shoulder width apart and above a mottled grey concrete roof, chipped and cracked with age, low enough to reach up and touch.
At the far end stood a thin door that opened into a basement stacked with old timber barrels. Shelves lined the walls, dust gathering in grooves that once held bottles of wine. A timber staircase led up to the ground floor.
“Where is the laptop?” I asked.
Parker touched his chin. “In the library. I finished setting up the cameras and put it on a shelf.”
“We need to get it and bring it back here.”
“Easier said than done.”
“I’ll come with you.”
The door opened into the kitchen. Parker slid the door open a crack. The kitchen was dark and quiet. He opened it the rest of the way. We tip-toed across the tiled floor and to the rear of the grand staircase. The lights were on in the gallery, but it was empty and quiet. We flitted across the open space and cut in through the library door.
From outside came the sound of metal scraping against concrete. Parker went for the shelf and the laptop and I went for the window. Outside, the spotlights illuminated the charred carcasses of the cars burned by the goons from the black van.
Another man was there with the goons now. I strained to see his face. He turned and caught the light. Police Chief Crown, dressed in black, a hood pulled over his head. He struggled with something big and heavy. He half-dragged and half-rolled the object into the light. A large, empty oil drum. Crown lifted a black bag and tipped it upside down above the barrel and poured in the contents. Reams of paper, individual sheets missing the barrel and fluttering to the ground. Other objects too, I could not make them out. They clattered and clanged against the thin metal wall of the drum.
When three bags worth were in the drum Crown disappeared and came back with a small plastic container. He opened the lid and gave it a sniff before pouring liquid into the drum. Petrol. He was going to burn the evidence. Crown stood over the barrel and pulled something small and shiny from his pocket. He held it up in the light. The gold necklace that hung around Jane Laughlin’s neck on the day they murdered her. He held the necklace over the barrel and hesitated and then stuffed it back in his jacket pocket. Crown lit a match and dropped it in the barrel, his face bright in the burst of light.
Headlights pierced the darkness, and then the drone of an engine. The black van. It rolled all the way to the front door and stopped beside the barrel. The passenger side door opened and Ponytail exited and approached Crown. They nodded at each other.
The side door slid open and Beanie pulled a bound figure from the back. Harvey. The three men hauled Harvey inside.
We held our breath as they thudded down the hallway towards the gallery and the staircase leading up to the second floor.
“We have to get out of here,” Parker hissed.
About to answer, I dropped to my knees. In the pit of my stomach something clawed and wrenched. I pushed my palm to the pain. I turned back to the window. It was her, Ally. She was so close now. Somehow I knew it. A second set of headlights shone dully through the curtains.
“It’s her,” I said.
Parker didn’t stop to ask who and pulled me to the door. “Let’s go.”
Heavy footsteps ascended the stairs and softened and then a door slammed shut. We peeked around the corner and, seeing the staircase empty, hurried back to the kitchen and descended into the cellar.
Parker filled in Beth and Juliet between panting breaths. He sat on the bottom step and worked frantically at the laptop, tapping on the casing as he logged back in. When the screen flashed to life, we saw the feed from the camera looking up the driveway.
A black BMW parked behind the black van and a small figure emerged. Ally. She strode confidently to the door.
Parker toggled through the other feeds. The dining room empty. The staircase empty.
Parker had positioned a camera upstairs looking back at the bedrooms at the front of the house. The door of the bedroom I slept in was ajar and the light was on.
“Harvey is in there,” I said, verbalising my thoughts. “We have to go up and get him.”
Parker’s head dropped. “We came in here to get the laptop and the evidence and we have it. We have them on camera. Burning our cars. Burning evidence. Dragging Harvey upstairs.”
“And what about Harvey? We can’t leave him behind. He bought us time while I was in with Jane, he made it possible for us to escape.”
“They’ll go to jail,” Parker pleaded. “We act fast. We go now and run and find the nearest police station and show them this. They’ll come.”
“And if we’re too late? We need to get Harvey back. We need evidence that links these guys to what happened in that house on the other side of the wall. If we fail, the worst of their crimes will go unpunished. Unknown. Forever buried in the silence of death. We’ve come too far to baulk at the final hurdle.”
Beth took a deep breath. “Sam is right. We are the only ones who can make this right. We’re all in.”
Juliet nodded in agreement. “We’re all in.”
Parker sighed. “You know I’m with you.”
Crown and Ponytail and Beanie strode towards the gallery and disappeared from view. Parker toggled to the camera facing the stairs. The three men met Ally at the base and after ten seconds of discussion they headed for the front door.
I turned to the three of them. “Now is our chance. I am going up there and getting Harvey out. ”
Parker toggled to the outside camera. Beanie and Ponytail took out shovels from the back of the van and disappeared off the screen. Crown followed.
Juliet leaned towards the screen. “What are they doing?”
Parker shrugged. “Digging a hole for Harvey?”
That didn’t make sense. Why take him upstairs?
Juliet bowed her head. “There’s something below the oak tree in the garden. I felt it.”
I jumped in. “Jane’s body. They’re going to dig it up and remove it. Scorched earth. Leave nothing behind. That’s how we link them to Jane’s death.”
Parker turned up his palms. “Except I don’t have cameras out there.”
“We’ll go,” Beth said. “We’ll go and record it. You have the hand held camera in your bag in the dining room right?”
Parker nodded.
“We’ll do it from the window. We’ll stay out of sight. And if they see us then we’ll come back down here.”
Parker sighed. “Well it’s a plan at least. What do you want me to do?”
I tapped him on the back. “Stay here. Be our eyes and ears. We’ll keep our phones close by. Text us the play by play.”
Parker put his hand to his forehead and made a salute. As we climbed the stairs he called out. “Don’t dawdle. I will leave you behind if I have to.”
We parted ways at the base of the staircase in the gallery. Juliet and Beth crept to the front of the house and the library with its enormous windows looking out over the corner of the house. I climbed the stairs.
Carefully, I put each foot down on the narrow strip of carpet running down the centre of the hallway. Ahead the door to my room was closed, a thin strip of light at the base. I stopped and listened. Windhaven Manor was silent.
I reached the bedroom door and turned the handle inch by inch until the latch clicked.
Harvey was strapped to the chair that stood by the mirror, leaning forward, his head lolling. A strip of fabric gagged his mouth, pulled so tight it forced his mouth open. Dark blue and purple welts rose above each eye socket. Spots of blood covered his shirt, wet and fresh.
He pulled at his restraints when he saw me, but they did not give. I went to him and untied the gag on his mouth.
“You have to get out of here,” he said.
“I came here to get you.”
“They will come back.”
“Then we have to be fast.”
I went to work on the ropes tying his hands together. The knots were thick and I struggled to make headway. Harvey pulled and twisted, but the ropes held fast.
“This is taking too long. I need a knife, or scissors.” My toiletries bag sat atop the sink in the bathroom and inside were a pair of nail scissors. They weren’t big, but they would be more effective than my fingers. “Wait here.”
“Where do you think I’m going?”
I rifled through my bag and found the scissors and shoved them in my pocket. I checked my phone. A message from Juliet. We can’t see. Heading outside to get a better look.
I typed a message in response. Stay inside. Don’t let them see you. Before I could hit send, the phone vibrated and broke my thoughts. A message from Parker flashed up on the screen. Someone is heading for the stairs. Crown and someone else.
I texted Parker, Who?
Parker responded, I don’t know. Someone new.
The final image I saw of Ally in the car flashed into my mind. There had been a man in the backseat of the car with her.
I went to the railing and peered over. Soft footfalls and the shoulder of someone wearing black. My heart leaped into my mouth. I looked ahead to the room that held Harvey. I had to somehow get Harvey loose before they came. Together we might have a chance.
I ran to the bedroom and closed the door behind and locked it.
“Someone is coming,” I whispered.
I pulled the scissors from my pocket and started hacking at the ropes. The tiny blades were ineffective against the thick rope. The door handle rattled and a fist pounded three times. They were here. It was too late. The door splintered beside the handle and then broke free of the frame with a second kick. Vincent Crown lowered a leg ending in a big black boot and pushed the door all the way open. Crown stepped into the room followed by a tall man with thick black hair. He wore a black suit. The man from the BMW.
I dropped the scissors into Harvey’s palm and raised my hands.
“Crown,” Harvey said.
Crown scoffed. “I told you years ago to drop the investigation into the disappearance of those girls. You should have taken the hint.”
“It was you. All along the man I was hunting was you. Did you kill her too?”
He smirked. “You got a little too close. But we took care of it. Buried everything where no one could find it. Until this lot came along.”
He nodded his head towards me.
The man in the suit spoke in a quiet, even voice. “Bind him.”
Crown dropped a black sports bag on the floor and pulled out a length of thick rope. He threw it at my feet and smiled cruelly. “On your knees.”
I stood as a statue, my limbs failing to comply with the request. Crown sighed and grabbed my arm with a pair of thick hands and twisted until my shoulder almost popped. He forced me to the floor with the swift movements of a man trained in the art. He grunted as he put me back to back with Harvey and lashed my arms to the same chair that held him.
The man in the suit took a step towards us and reached into his jacket pocket. “Good.” He pulled out a pistol and pressed it to Crown’s temple and pulled the trigger. The crack took my breath away and I blinked away the stray blood that sprayed over my face. The smell of it almost made me vomit. Crown’s lifeless body pitched and slumped to the floor, his eyes wide open.
The man in the suit kneeled before me. “Sam, if what Ally has told me is true, you are a remarkable talent. Our organisation is always on the lookout for capable new employees and I would like to extend a formal offer. You can choose to come with us, or you can die here with the rest of this Séance Club.”
I looked to the door. The man smiled and gave a quick shake of the head.
“No one is coming. We have your friends. We were watching as you watched. You got in because we let you in. Each step of the way we have been one step ahead.”
My voice broke. “No. You’re wrong. This isn’t over.”
I kicked my leg and let my phone fall from my pocket. It clattered to the floor. The screen illuminated with new notifications. I saw only the latest one, from Parker. They found me too. They’re on to us.
I pictured him, hiding in the corner of the cellar as footsteps thundered down the stairs. Scrambling into some dark corner, a temporary respite that would not last. The lights flick on and he is exposed.
I pictured Beth and Juliet creeping towards the old oak tree in the garden to get a view of the men digging up Jane, creeping closer and closer. When the lights blind them, they put up their hands and drop the camera.
Were they already dead? No, I would feel it, wouldn’t I? Suddenly I was unsure.
“Sam?” It was the man in the suit. “Join us Sam. I have worked with people like you my entire life. I know your pain. I know the loneliness, the isolation. They don’t. They tell you they do, they could never understand. Come with us. We will open our arms and for the first time in your life you will have a family.”
I shut my eyes and turned from the hideous smile of the man in the suit. He chuckled in my ear and released his hand from my shoulder.
An explosion of sound burst through my head. A sudden vibration radiated out from my chest, as if I were imitating the growl of a lion, and yet I made no noise. I coughed and heaved, my body rejecting something vile. I knew this feeling. I had felt it in the dilapidated house beyond the wall when they shot Kyle Schwarz. Someone, somewhere close, had just been murdered. They were dead. My friends were dead. In my mind’s eye I heard them shouting in anguish.
The man in the suit lay a cold hand on my shoulder. “You feel it don’t you. I can teach you to control it. I can teach you to rid it from your mind.” He exploded his fingers and mouthed a ‘poof’. “Just like I taught her.”
My whole body shook. I let out a muffled scream. In my mind I cried out for Juliet and Parker and Beth and shut my eyes tight at the thought of their demise. Darkness and ugliness invaded my head.
I opened my eyes and there he stood. The spectre of Vincent Crown. At first bewildered, and then clenching his fists in rage. He peered down at his lifeless body. Blood leaking from a small circle on his forehead.
Crown lashed out at the man who stood over me, the one who split his brain with a bullet. Crown’s anger flowed through my veins, a river of hate. I turned away, but there was no escaping it.
“It is so strong in you. I see it. I sense it. What Crown has become is a demon you can slay, you have the tools, you only need a teacher. Come with us Sam.”
Heavy footfalls turned his gaze away from me. Ponytail and Beanie. He barked at them.
“Take Crown. They cannot find his remains here with the rest of them.”
The spectre of Crown seethed as they dragged his lifeless body from the room.
The man in the suit turned back to me. “Last chance Sam. This house and everyone in it will soon burn. Though it would pain me to destroy a creature of your talent, I will do as I must.”
Somewhere deep down a survival instinct cried out. It told me to go with him and save myself. I had seen one house burn tonight. I did not need to imagine what it looked like for a fire to consume everything in its path. The man smiled at me. He read the doubt on my face. I pushed it down.
Fingers brushed against my wrist and then gripped hard. Harvey. The implication tensed my muscles and I fought to prevent my face giving it away. The only way he could reach my arm is if he freed himself of the ropes binding his wrists. It was all the encouragement I needed.
“I’m not coming with you.” My voice shook. I forced a smile.
He nodded and blew a little air out his nose. “So be it.” He stood and strolled out the room and shut the door behind him.
Harvey sprang into action the moment the door closed. He let the ropes that had bound his wrists fall to the ground, frayed where he had hacked at them with the nail scissors. Tiny cuts on his wrists dripped blood to the floor. He went to work on the ropes binding his legs.
“Where are the others?” he said.
“I don’t know. Parker was hiding in the cellar below the kitchen. Beth and Juliet went outside to film the men digging up Jane.”
Jane. I had failed her. By now her remains were in the black van. They would drive her off the property and dump her somewhere, forever unmarked. And her spirit lay bound on a bed below the house she fled to in hope of salvation, only to find pain and death.
The sharp crack of glass smashing broke into my thoughts. Harvey kicked away the ropes and went to the window.
“They’re lighting it up. We have to get out.”
Harvey pushed and pulled at the ropes shackling me to the chair. The faint smell of smoke wafted in under the crack in the closed door. Windhaven Manor was alight.
The ropes loosened and I squeezed free. We flung open the door and waved away thick black smoke rising up the grand staircase, filling the gallery. An orange glow reflected in the tiles on the ground floor. Muffled screams fought with the crackle of fire consuming wood. The two goons Ponytail and Beanie dragged two bodies across the floor and towards the kitchen. Beth and Juliet. They kicked and screamed at their captors. They were still alive.
I moved towards the top of the stairs and Harvey grabbed my arm. “Wait until they leave.”
Ponytail and Beanie tramped back across the gallery floor and back towards the front door, shielding their faces from the growing heat. When they were gone we hustled down the staircase. We had to get to the others before the fire spread. We turned towards the kitchen and took a couple of hurried steps before coming to a dead halt. Ally blocked our path, the glow of the fire flickering across her face.