A Beckoning of Shadows
Second Edition
Published by Naked Snake Press
Copyright ©2011 John Grover
Cover illustration copyright © 2011 by Donna Burgess
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Introduction
Shadows are funny things. They follow us wherever we go. They are a part of us no matter how badly we might like to deny it. They are our dark clones. They are attached to us by some intangible leash and we pull them along behind us like wayward dogs. They have every right to resent us because we dictate their every move, force them to mimic each minute gesture, and hold them in check like shackled slaves. The shadows are not our friends.
In some cultures, our shadow represents the hidden part of us that we wish to keep out of public view. Taken a step further, it could even represent the inherent evil that lives inside of us. Who's to say what the shadow does when we aren't aware? Does our shadow really stay with us while we're asleep? Can we trust our shadow? Or is it off committing some nefarious act while we dream of healthy things like family, wealth, and career?
If you're reading this book, it's quite likely that you have a certain fascination with the dark. You have a compelling interest in all things that move and lurk while the sun is sleeping. You are a member of a black cult that delights in the hidden realms and mystic rituals. You are the one John Grover is going to chill and frighten with stories of the supernatural.
Think of this as a midnight circus built by shadow performers. Each story contained within is a separate bleak attraction and Grover is the maniacal ringmaster. He is the one who beckons the shadows, and they heed his call. Are you prepared for the gruesome sights that await? I think not.
I've had the pleasure to work with John on quite a few occasions in the past, and I would have to say that he has a firm grasp of what makes a good horror story. He understands characterization, plot, setting, and all of the other devices that are needed to skillfully weave a story. But there's more to it than that. John is able to put his finger on that intangible aspect that makes a good story great and uses it to his advantage. He not only beckons shadows, but he weaves them as well. The result is what you will find in this book.
A Beckoning of Shadows is a fine collection. It's dark, brooding, suspenseful, and all the other things that a good batch of short stories should be. If you're a fan of horror fiction, you'll certainly have fun with these tales. But be warned, this book is just like a rollercoaster. If you are pregnant, have an existing heart condition, or are below 48" tall, this ride may not be for you. Take caution, and if you decide to read further and delight in the shadows John Grover has beckoned be sure to bring a flashlight and… crucifix just in case. You'll need them.
—Jason Brannon—Author of Winds of Change, The Cage, Five Days on the Banks of the Acheron, Puzzles of Flesh and The Machinery of Infinity
A Beckoning of Shadows
Under the assault of a raging thunderstorm, wind lashing with uncontrollable fury, rain battering the earth with unrelenting punishment, he made his way protected from the vengeful elements by his car.
He lit a cigarette and watched the smoke swirl around him and vanish in the gathering darkness. The storm snuffed the last rays of the setting sun as if the world was once again plunged into a primordial abyss.
It came in an instant taking him by surprise, day became night without warning, streets flooded without remorse, wind howled without restraint. Andrew smelled a charge in the air, seeping through the car vents, filling his senses with something electrical, something alive.
He passed it all off, choosing to push on and reach his destination without so much as a thought about his safety or that of anyone else foolish enough to be out in the night with him.
The road was barely a sliver before him for the darkness swallowed it whole. He was sure it was still there but how could he really be sure? The car seemed to hover over the road as it rocked side to side in the pockets of wind.
Finally light cut through the darkness as lightning joined the attacking storm, slithering through the black sky and illuminating the menacing clouds that suffocated it. The flashes of light aided Andrew in his perception of the road and he noticed that he was about to miss his turn.
He hit his brake and jerked the wheel. The car roared in protest and slid across the road but he was adept enough to keep it from exiting the route, nailing his turn without a scratch. He raced down the winding road, thick woods cropping up on both sides, freakish trees reaching for him with clawed arms.
He looked up, crushed his cigarette out and took notice of the house flickering in and out of the flashing lightning. Relief filled him as his brow relaxed and his shoulders slacked. The road became dirt as gallons of mud oozed around his car’s tires, attempting to consume them.
Andrew pulled the car into the nearly non-existent driveway and stopped. He jumped from the car, pulling two suitcases with him. He was drenched within seconds but refused to acknowledge it as he made his way onto the front porch. The ancient, weathered wood groaned beneath his steps as he searched his coat pockets for his keys.
The door creaked open and rattled as if it would fall off its hinges at any moment. Andrew listened to the raindrops as they rolled off his clothes and pattered the floor. The place looked just as he remembered it. After all this time the house remained unchanged, immovable, a fortress of defense. Nothing could find him here. Here he could become invisible, untraceable, incognito.
Memories flooded him. Even in the darkness scenes of happy, warm times unfolded before him but were dashed as the thunder rocked the house, the roof thumping and lightning illuminating the windows.
He threw himself up the old staircase to his left, stumbling along the way, bracing against the dust-covered banister with its ornate carvings. Entering the first bedroom on the second floor, he dropped the suitcases by his feet and stared at the room.
He didn’t bother to turn on the light…they were most likely out from the storm anyway but he could recall every inch of the room by memory. The dresser in the corner with the loose drawer knobs, the matching nightstands with matching lamps, curtains that hung way too long for the windows, the enormous but damn comfortable bed against the back wall.
The bed called to him, he could see it almost glowing as the lightning reached through the windows tickling its blankets and sheets. Andrew drew closer to it, peeling his coat from his drenched body, his legs heavy and cramped and his head swimming as if overloaded with medication.
He finally succumbed and discovered pure heaven once again; the bed seemed to embrace him with strong, warm arms, cradling him as he had been a long time ago. Within moments he was asleep, his journey seemingly at its end. His body craved the comfort this place provided, he was in dire need of sleep and his system finally calmed itself down as he drifted into dreamland.
He would find no solace here however.
A chill caressed his body, waking him in the dead of night. He stirred and looked up watching the shadows shimmer across the bedroom walls. The storm still raged outside and the lightning made the shadows dance and take shape…odd shapes, deformed, horrific. It was then that he heard the whisper…
“Andrew,” the shadows seem to whisper. He rubbed his eyes, still sluggish, still caught between reality and the land of sleep. He glanced around the room noticing the shadows all around him. They were different somehow, unlike anything he’d ever seen.
They were denser than the darkness, growing larger, gaining substance, seemingly alive. Shape and form, human yet not human, animal and alien, they stirred and took over the room, closing in on him and calling for him.
“Andrew… Andrew hear me and rise.”
He sat up, blinking with disbelief as a solid wall of shadow writhed and stirred, surrounded him, and cut him off from the rest of the world. The storm became a fleeting cry in the distance.
“This is a dream,” he murmured. “I’m waking up now, waking up now…” he tapped his head as he often did when frustrated or nervous.
“It is no dream,” the shadows answered. “No matter where you go there are always shadows, shadows of the past, of the present and of the future. For everything casts its dark side and you are no different. You cannot hide from what will always be with you.”
The bedcovers stripped from his body and whipped to the floor. A shiver shot through Andrew and he thought of calling out but he didn’t know why or to whom.
“What the hell—“
“There is something you must come to understand this night Andrew. Now rise.”
He sat frozen, out of some sense of defiance and his hatred of being told what to do but also out of pure fear.
The wall shifted again as the shadows gathered, gathered into a mass of unending darkness, reconfiguring until an arm sprouted from the blackness and then another. Soon legs wriggled from the mass and a head until a human form stood before him.
“Rise,” the figure said, assuming the form of one but now whispering in the voices of many, all at once in surreal unison. Indeed it felt dream-like but Andrew realized it was all too real as the shadow form stepped towards him and took his hand.
A wave of pins and needles shot down his arm and surged through his entire body. It was if he was no longer in control of his body as he found himself leaving his bed and entering the center of the room.
“Please…” Andrew whimpered, terrified now. “What do you want from me?”
“For you to understand. A shadow is a reflection of the soul of its owner. Some are maligned. Some are benevolent. All are alive in one state or another. Without your shadow you couldn’t exist, they remain a part of you forever, seeing every deed, observing every action and event for good or evil, absorbing every positive or negative energy that washes through your soul unable to escape it, unable to find peace or repentance, remaining silent. But if one is careful, if you are sensitive enough they will tell you their tale. For every one of them has a tale to tell Andrew, and it’s time you understood that.”
The figure gestured to the wall behind Andrew, slowly he turned and gazed on the silhouette of a woman clearly pronounced in the dim moonlight that now shimmered into the room. Her shadow turned slowly, allowing him to discover that she was with child…
Melissa’s Wagon
She looked at it with pride, its belly exhibiting some rust that she'd been meaning to take care of for years. The red wagon caught the shimmering sunlight in its paint as Melissa moved it to the far corner of the garage. Ah the memories attached to that wagon, years of joy and happiness, innocence and freedom.
She remembered the days of lugging bottles through the neighborhood on her way to recycle them. After filling her hands with new nickels, she would stuff her pockets with penny candy.
The wagon had been a birthday gift from her grandmother; it was the last gift she’d given to Melissa before she passed away the following summer. She treasured it. That’s why it had made the trip to the new house and found its place in the garage.
She smiled as she turned out the light, stepping into the kitchen. She slid her way into a chair at the kitchen table, feeling the baby kicking as she rested.
"A bit restless."
She looked at her belly; she couldn’t wait to pass that wagon on to her little one. The thought of it made her heart sing. She was due next month.
That was it for today; she straightened out the garage as best she could. Actually Dennis, her husband, would be upset if he caught her cleaning it. This was their first child and he was more of a wreck than she was.
The new house and garage had been in boxes for weeks and she wanted to make sure the wagon was safe and sound.
The rumbling of the garage door filled the house. Dennis was home from work. She had finished just in time.
Roused from her sleep, Melissa sat up, rubbing the sweat from her face. There were some nights that sleeping was uncomfortable, but this was different.
She stared into the inky darkness; Dennis lay soundly beside her. Something had drawn her out of her sleep; she just didn‘t know what it was. Although no murky remnants of a dream remained, Melissa tried to convince herself that’s all it was until the sobbing caught her attention.
It sent a chill straight through Melissa as it invaded her home.
There was something in the crying, something lost, lonely, she could determine now that it was a child, a girl Melissa thought as she made her way out to the living room.
Pale light poured into the room from the front window, bathing it with spectral luminescence. Melissa stared with bewilderment as the weeping drew her in further and to the window.
I’m not really here, she thought, I’m still in bed sleeping.
She stared out the window, witnessing something that disturbed her beyond comprehension.
Down the driveway a little girl walked, her blonde hair drab and knotted. Her skin was sallow, her face gaunt and her eyes were deep sunk. Her malnourished body was speckled with sores and her feet were bare. With her right hand she pulled a wagon behind her, a red wagon, its contents more of a nightmare than a dream.
In it she carried bones, all shapes and sizes, from skulls, their gaping sockets staring at Melissa, to spinal columns, rib cages and femurs. Some of them were charred, others dusted with ash and still others were cracked.
The girl’s soft weeping filled the night as light radiated around her, the same that filled Melissa’s living room.
Horrified pity washed through Melissa as she watched the girl turn onto the empty street, the wagon hitting a rock and causing some of the bones to topple out. "No..." the little girl moaned, scrambling for the spillage.
That’s my wagon. The thought flooded Melissa’s mind. She could recognize her beloved treasure with its white stripe skimming down the side, its red paint gleaming in the ghost light, the rubber handle locked in the little girl's hand.
As the girl fumbled to pick up the bones, Melissa felt the overwhelming urge to confront her, rescue her from the horrible thing she was doing.
She rushed to the front door, unlocked and threw it open, plunging herself into the night.
Reaching the driveway she found it empty. She paused, shifting her gaze about the neighborhood. She crept down the driveway, peering down the silent road, streetlights glowing with creamy glare. A faint smell of soot hung in the air.
There was nobody there; no wagon, no little girl and the crying had been replaced with the chorus of crickets, mocking her with melancholy tunes.
"Did I really see it?" she said. "I couldn’t have. It was a sleepwalking dream. I must have slept walked out of the house."
The wagon entered her thoughts again and she turned her gaze towards the garage.
Rushing back to the house, she raced through the kitchen and entered the garage. Switching on the light she found the wagon sitting dormant in the corner, exactly where she had left it.
Shaking her head, she went inside and back to bed. She would sort this all out in the morning. She was sure she would wake up and remember this as only a dream. That's what it had to be. There was no other explanation.
Melissa climbed out of the car, her arms filled with groceries. Winded, she swerved around the door and shut it. She hadn’t remembered feeling this tired in a long time. She felt the baby kick again, causing her to momentarily stop. Again a sooty smell filled her senses.
Her grocery bags plummeted to the floor, oranges and canned vegetables rolling away like scurrying field mice, as she watched her wagon roll by silently, the handle upraised as if pulled by an invisible hand.
The girl’s sobbing filled the garage, but she did not materialize.
"No..." Melissa murmured, stepping towards the wagon.
The wagon headed for the garage door and she watched in shock as the door opened.
"Stop it," her heart slammed against her chest. Rushing to the wagon, she grabbed hold of its rear. She could feel the ominous forces pulling from the other end, trying to pull free from her grip, playing a game of tug-o-war.
"This is my wagon!" Melissa called, fighting to keep her beloved memories. "What do you want from me?" She listened to the sobbing grow in intensity, joined suddenly by other sobs and cries. Many voices cried out, hundreds, thousands even, a great sadness in them, desperate and longing. They became so deafening that pain actually drilled through Melissa’s ears.
A scream rattled from the inside of her throat and over lips like a tidal wave.
The wagon handle dropped to the floor as the sobbing died.
She stared absently at the wagon and drew it close, feeling it with her hands as if to see if it was really there. An electric heat was about it. She felt the charge on her skin.
The baby stirred again.
Sleep was a ridiculous idea. Melissa tossed and turned, the baby stirring relentlessly inside of her. She lay as fully awake as she did at noon that day. She could not get the little girl out of her head.
The image of her hauling the bones burned deep. What deed in life had she been cursed to do, so much that she continued it in death?
A spirit? Could it be?
Why now? This was not an old house, about eights years old. She didn’t recall there being any children living here before. What did she want?
There had to be a way to—
The crying filled the night and she shivered.
Dennis snored beside her and heard nothing. A bomb could drop in the bedroom and Dennis would not awaken. The man slept like the dead.
As if second nature, Melissa threw the sheets aside, pulling herself from the bed. Discomfort stirred with her dread; her body aching and her face wet with perspiration.
Yet she pressed on, needing to see, to know. There had to be a way of communicating with the girl.
Through the window she watched the girl drag the wagon, enveloped by the ethereal light that cascaded over the driveway.
This time the wagon was not quite full. There were some bones within but not as many as before. The girl sat down in the driveway and reached down beside her, pulling something out of the air.
Melissa felt the scream rising but stifled it. As if from an invisible pocket, the girl pulled a human arm, its skin burnt and charred beyond recognition, some fingers missing, flesh dangling in ribbons. She placed the arm gingerly into the wagon, then reached back down beside her and yanked out a leg.
It was all that Melissa could bear. In a frenzied haze she ran out to the driveway. This time the girl remained in plain sight.
"Don’t be afraid," Melissa whispered. The girl looked at her, sadness in her face, dark circles around her brown eyes. There was no light in them, no innocence, no youth. They were wizened with tragedy. "What’s your name?"
"Rachel."
"That’s such a pretty name. Rachel, why are you doing this?"
"They make us kids do it. They make us clean up the bones and the bodies."
"Who does?"
"The adults. The ones that are still alive."
Horrified, Melissa tried to continue, trying to help the poor girl. Through quivering lips she asked: "Alive? Why honey, what's happened?"
"The big fires. Not many left. Everyone is sad, they think we'll be better if we clean up the bodies and bones." The little girl continued, as if it was all so routine, placing body part followed by bone into the wagon.
Melissa stared at the wagon and knew it was her own. She could feel it in her bones. "Where did you get your wagon?"
"Mommy gave it to me."
"Where is she?"
"She died when the big fires came. I didn't because mommy put me in the cellar when the alarms were ringing. Daddy wouldn’t come down so she went looking for him and that’s when the fire got them. I came out later, when Mrs. Davis next door came looking for me. She takes care of me, asks me to clean the bones. Lot's of people get sick and die. When they do we clean away the bodies."
Sobs escaped the girl again as she lifted her head to look up at the terrified Melissa. "I’m six years old today."
A gasp rushed out of Melissa, a sickening feeling swelling inside of her. Gripped with pure fear, Melissa eased her way back to the house, refusing to listen any longer. It could not be true, it just couldn’t. The realization hit her; this was no ghost of the past but of the future.
She felt something soaking her legs, looking down she found that her water had broken.
"Oh God no…" Melissa coughed. "Not now."
Struggling back into the house, she glanced back one last time, noticing Rachel pull the wagon to the end of the street and vanish.
"Dennis!" Melissa cried as she leaned on the edge of the doorway for support, her hands tightening on the frame. "It’s time!"
"Melissa!" Dennis bolted upright, throwing the bed sheet to the floor. "Jesus, it’s time." He leapt from the bed and rushed to her side.
Dreams...and nightmares plagued her. Her visions were filled with destruction laying waste to mankind, a holocaust of man’s own doing. The fires roared for days, wiping the world clean, lighting the skies with fury—
Then silence and darkness.
The squealing of her newborn woke her from her sleep. Dennis stood over Melissa with their new daughter. Tears of joy flowed as she reached out to hold her.
"I think we should name her Rachel." Dennis beamed. "What do you think honey, it's such a pretty name?"
Melissa said nothing as she held her little one to her body and only wondered what would be in six years.
Sugar Shack
“Over here,” Damon called. “Point the camera over here.”
Brad turned the video camera to the towering shape looming in the distance, waiting solemnly in the encompassing darkness of the woods. It was nothing more than a silhouette now, a whisper of substance and reality, a monument of decay and morbidity...harboring thick, visceral blankets of despair and human misery. He zoomed in on the structure to get a better image but it was no use. It was not ready to share its soul with them.
“There it is,” Damon said with excitement. “The Easton State Penitentiary.” He stepped before the camera to officially begin the project. He cracked his best on-air smile and stared into the lens. “We’re on the outskirts of the supposedly haunted Easton State Penitentiary. Built in 1829 it was the largest and most expensive government building ever constructed. Inmates were confined to single cells to serve out their sentences in total isolation and silence; a philosophy of the time that inmates should focus on penitence. The prison had a history for inhumane treatment of its inmates, cruel torture, violence and insanity. It was finally closed in 1971 remaining abandoned ever since. Rumors abound about its supposed haunting. No one has ever been able to spend the night. The four of us intend to prove whether or not the rumors are true and be the first team to spend the night. History is in the making.”
Damon Winters was the leader of his film group from the local university. They’d been friends since junior high and always had the dream of going into the film industry. Damon’s fascination with the supernatural dictated their final exam project: The Haunting of the Easton State Penitentiary: Hoax or Reality? He hoped this project would catch the eye of not only his professor but local TV networks as well. He and Brad were talking about starting their own reality show after college.
This choice of subject matter didn’t sit too well with Damon’s third partner and girlfriend Meg Lewton. Meg was a true believer in ghosts and spirits already and the idea of getting this close was a little unsettling, especially considering she could feel them all around her nearly everyday.
Damon pulled Meg into the camera’s view. She bowed her head, turning a few shades of pink. Her shyness was her downfall and she argued with Damon about being in front of the camera but as usual he had other ideas. “And this is our resident psychic,” he said, raising his voice. “No investigation into a haunting is complete without one.”
“I’m not a psychic Damon. I can’t predict the future or see the past. I’m an empath. I feel the emotional residue of the spirits, what’s left behind, the acts and memories still trapped on this plane.”
“I’m sorry sweetie,” he kissed her on the cheek. “And over here we have Lisa Biggs, our skeptic and control factor and our cameraman’s girlfriend.”
Lisa waved, but more to Brad than the camera. “For the record,” she giggled. “I’m only here on a dare.”
“And last but not least Brad Nolan cameraman extraordinaire.”
Brad turned the camera to catch a glimpse of his face. “Hello everyone.” A close up of his mouth grinned at the lens.
“Ok it’s time to march to the prison and set up for the night. Before we’re done we’ll prove beyond a doubt whether or not it’s truly haunted.” Damon ran his finger across his throat signaling Brad to stop shooting. “Ready guys? This is going to be the best. We’re going to the top of the class, trust me.”
“If you say so,” Meg said, still not convinced it was a good idea.
“Meggy, it’ll be alright. I promise. Are you okay?”
“I just feel a little uneasy, like we’re disturbing something better off left alone.”
“When we’re getting the attention of the networks you’ll be thanking me. Alright team, let’s keep moving.”
The group pushed through woods that sprouted all around them. Trees lashed at their faces with bony branches, hollow logs blocked paths like carcasses of extinct animals, brown-tinted weeds and grass ran ramped like mottled fur and twisted paths snaked in every direction like bloodless veins. Despite the deceased appearance the woods were alive with sights and sounds, things slithered in bushes, birds and insects rustled in trees, owls called with baleful tones announcing the onset of their night feasts.
Circles of fireflies floated in the distance like ghostly orbs, brooks bubbled reminding them of witches’ cauldrons. Moonlight dusted the horizon with pale milky brilliance but it was not enough to fend off the encroaching inky darkness that was the skin of night—flashlights were called for.
The filmmakers kept the lights in tight grips as if one moment of pure darkness would unleash the closet monster from childhood nightmares or the boogeyman from urban legends. They watched the prison grow over the horizon, the woods closing in around them like unnatural walls herding them into exactly the right place at the right time. This claustrophobic feeling, this cold January ice that caressed their faces and spines was only the beginning as the penitentiary at last revealed itself to them.
It stood like a giant, a titan of stone and granite, a predator lying in wait, Grendal’s Dam emerging from a bone littered lair. Guard towers flanked the gates, serpentine Cyclopses glaring over the vast woods like sentinels. The cellblocks branched from a rotunda area in the center in every direction. Their walls were stark white glowing like phosphorus in the night. The surrounding grounds were devoid of vegetation and appeared barren, cracked earth and dry soil looked as if it tried to swallow the foundation inch by inch.
“Would you look at that,” Damon called, a wide smile on his face. “It’s incredible. If anything ever looked haunted this place does.”
“Let’s get in there,” Brad said. “I bet the best is yet to be seen.”
“Forget that…get the outside first stupid,” Damon said. “It’s prime for the film’s opening. Better yet get us slowly walking in. It’ll look great and scare the shit outta people.”
Brad turned his camera and shoulder lamp back on and resumed shooting. Damon and Lisa headed towards the gates.
Meg froze in her steps and wavered. A dizzy feeling came over her as she attempted to keep herself from collapsing.
“Meg?” Damon called, he gestured to Brad to get her on camera.
“I’m alright…I just got dizzy.” Her breath formed frosty puffs in the air as gooseflesh rippled over her arms and legs. She felt hundreds of eyes on her and caught herself checking her back, searching the woods and then glaring up at the watchtowers. Was that movement in the glassy eyes?
Damon went to her, taking her hand. “Are you getting something? Our psychic is tuning into something as we approach the gates to the most violent prison in history.” His tone rose as he looked into the camera.
“Empath Damon empath,” Meg insisted. “No I’m just a little dizzy. That’s all. It may or may not be from the prison.” She lied, there was more to it than that but she was tired of Damon treating her like a sideshow freak. Deep sadness filled her, not her own but of hundreds of souls crying out for salvation.
“Ok,” Damon said. “Let’s keep rolling.”
He let go of her hand and headed back towards the gates. Lisa walked up to Meg and took her hand in place of Damon’s. “Are you sure you’re ok?”
“Yes.”
“I can have Brad take you back to the dorm and I’ll wait with Damon.”
“No really, this is too important to Damon. It means everything to him and I promised I’d do this for him.”
“Ok, don’t let this place get to you. It’s just a building remember that. Places don’t remember the past.”
“Sure.”
The gates yawned open like jaws, night masking the rancid throat of hell itself. The rotting earth was a poisoned tongue filled with venom. The group entered the unknown as the camera toting Brad drew up the rear, closing the gates behind them.
They stopped in the central rotunda area, hallways choked with cellblocks stretched into the nothing. Darkness bled all around them, drowning the halls, swallowing the cells and reaching for them as if somehow sentient. Brad’s camera light shined into the nearest hallway and a screech echoed through the dead silence as a pack of feral bats soared into the open air and vanished into the starlit sky.
The group jumped, the camera nearly toppling, flashlight beams quivering across the crumbling ground beneath them. Damon and Lisa giggled as Meg sighed, light sweat forming on her brow despite how cold the rotunda was. The air was colder than Meg had remembered back in the woods. Had the temperature just dropped?
Their weak light washed over walls cracked and scarred by time and deed, stained black with agony and blood, blood that was far from innocent but older than the students had been alive. Meg heard the walls whispering, souls of the angry and scorned still trapped within them. She felt the tears that equaled the spillage of blood, depression, misery and jealously wallowed for so long, without end, without time, without space, without release from an earthbound and spiritual prison. It called to her, in unison, a hundred voices as one, overpowering, overbearing, demanding to be heard until—
“Get a
few more shots of the area Brad and those cells there and we’ll set
up HQ in the administration offices.” Damon turned to the camera
once again before continuing. “This is the rotunda where all main
areas of the prison branch off to all cellblocks, 1 through 10, death
row, the isolation chambers, barber shop, and the infamous sugar
shack. It’s 10:30 pm and we’ve finally entered the prison ready
for a full night of investigations. We’ll now set up our base of
operations.” He made the slice across his throat again with his
finger and Brad turned off the camera.
“Why are those on?” Brad asked as they stepped into the security office.
The prison monitors glowed and hummed, capturing dark images of the penitentiary, empty halls, vacant cells, inside the guard towers, the rotunda and the outside grounds—all of them shadowed, distorted in some strange representation, cold black and white windows to the silence, the loneliness, the emptiness.
“I don’t know,” Damon answered. “Someone must have been here before us and left them on. Actually it’s good they’re still working incase we get separated.”
“Separated?” Meg said, disturbed. “Why would we separate? You didn’t say anything about separating Damon.”
“Don’t worry Meggy. If we get separated. Just relax, okay.”
She turned and stared into dozens of monitor screens. Her gaze shifted from one to the other until her eye caught movement in one of the far guard towers. A shape, a shadow, a form. She focused her attention on it—something darker than the night writhing, fleeting, washing over the drab walls in a splinter of oil-colored blackness. Awful feelings stirred her…rage, hate, multiplied a thousand times, pressure building in her head, soul, too much to handle. Tears filled her eyes; her palms grew sweaty.
“I saw something,” she alerted.
“What? Really?” The excitement took hold of Damon again and he rushed to Meg’s side. “Where?”
“That guard tower in the back.” She pointed at the screen.
“I don’t see anything,” Damon stretched his face to it and squinted. “Let’s get over there. Lisa drop the supplies. Brad we’re back on bud. Let’s move before we lose whatever it is.”
Meg stood staring at the screen unable to shake what she sensed.
“Meg c’mon,” Damon called. “Move before it gets away.”
The group plunged back into the darkness, swallowed by the cold, the vast emptiness and the thick blanket of rage rolling in to meet them. They raced through the rotunda and through the doors of cellblock 1, using it as a shortcut to reach the farthest tower.
Meg saw the walls ripple around them, walls that appeared to breathe, riddled with cracks—veins on pale, rancid flesh. The hall was a cavernous throat drawing them into a bubbling acid-filled stomach, a stomach demanding to be fed.
She tried to ignore it, tried to keep pace with her friends but the walls dribbled with black liquid, a cross between blood and oil as a stench caught her head on, that of rotting flesh, carrion, and excrement heavy in the air, accompanying the sudden appearance of the liquid.
Meg stopped as the others turned the corner. She reached out, fingers inches away from the putrid stuff. She looked over the cells, closed doors, bars stressing the finality, eternity, a prison in more ways than she could imagine. The liquid now dripped inside all the cells, their walls coated with it, bars slick with it, skeletal bed racks oozing, tiny, narrow windows vomiting.
“Oh God…” Meg moaned, pulling her hand back and closing her eyes.
“Meg!” Damon called. “What’s going on? C’mon I need you.”
She opened her eyes and there was no liquid. No breathing walls. “We don’t belong here,” she whispered.
“What?”
“We don’t belong here,” she raised her voice and turned to Damon. He rolled his eyes and frowned.
“Meg not now. We’ve been over this. Please c’mon…for the film.”
She looked around again and started slowly towards him. Footsteps echoed in the hall. Damon didn’t notice them.
The two left the cellblock and walked across a catwalk. Meg could see nothing beneath them, nothing but the void. They walked through another set of double doors and finally returned outside. Brad and Lisa were at the base of the guard tower illuminated by moonlight.
“Guys let’s head up and see if Meg gets anything,” Damon said.
Lisa looked up at the tower and her face drained of all color. “Um...guys I can’t go up there.”
“Why?” Brad lowered his camera.
“It’s too high. I’m afraid of heights.”
“You never told me that,” Brad said with some surprise.
“I just feel so silly about it but I’ve always been afraid of heights, ever since I got stuck on the Ferris wheel at the state fair when I was little.”
“It’s not that high,” Damon said.
“I can’t. It’s too high for me,” Lisa persisted. “I won’t do it, I won’t.”
“It’s okay, Lisa,” Brad said. “Damon she can wait for us.”
“How are we going to have a control in the project if she won’t come see it with us?”
“Dude, they’ll be other rooms. Just let her wait here.”
“Fine…whatever. Let’s just go up.”
They left Lisa behind and ascended the stairs to the inner room of the tower. Paint peeled from the walls, grit was caked into every crack and crevice. Meg noticed dried blood on the stair railings, shaped like fingers. Their light cut through the darkness as they reached the top. The room looked ransacked, old papers strewn on the floor, overturned chairs, broken and shattered spotlights. Barbed wire twisted around the outside of the room, glistening in the moonlight. Meg thought she saw more blood stained on the wire. The phone was off the hook in the room. Meg hung it back up.
Brad panned his camera around the room as Damon began to talk yet again.
“We’re in the farthest guard tower away from the rest of the main compounds. Meg saw something on the security monitors. Some sort of movement. Are you getting anything Meg?”
“No, nothing.” Meg walked slowly around the room feeling numb. Whatever was here was now gone. “I’m sorry, it could have been just shadows.”
Something’s not right here. Meg thought. There was something here seconds ago and now its suddenly gone. As if never here. There is so much misery here. They should be all around me and they’re not. Something doesn’t make sense. I can feel the despair and hopelessness here. I’ve come across more souls in my own home. So where are they in here?
Meg decided to keep her questions to herself for now.
“I don’t know why this tower would be significant anyway,” Damon said to her and Brad. “There’s nothing in the history here. It’s the Sugar Shack where the most violence occurred. That’s claimed to be the most frightening place here. I think if we want results that’s the next place we should go.”
The Sugar Shack…the last place Meg wanted to go. It was the room where the most inmate-to-inmate mutilations occurred, spent their last hours in, a place where rapes were committed time and time again thus garnering it its colorful nickname. It was the place where most of the paranormal instances were recorded. It was said one could feel the spirits of the prisoners still bound to its cold walls, passing from corner to corner, filling anyone who visited it with cold shivers.
She was convinced this was a bad idea, a terrible idea. She knew her words would fall on deaf ears. Despite the overwhelming dread she was feeling there was no way Damon would leave, despite her gift her opinion meant nothing. He lived for this stuff, and there was no time for him to start a new final project.
Disappointed, Damon directed them to leave the tower.
“Oh my God!” Lisa screamed. They rushed down in haste finding her shivering from head to toe, eyes wide as saucers.
“What is it Lisa?” Meg called as she placed her arms around her.
“Voices! I heard voices and sounds. It was just gibberish but I heard dogs barking too and someone running.”
“Where?’ Damon asked nearly unable to contain his joy, he was about to burst into a thousand pieces.
“Cellblock 3 I think,” she pointed to the row of cells across the rotunda, draped in shadow and haze.
“The guards used dogs to keep the prisoners in line.”
Arrggghhhhh…please no…no..no…arrgghhhhh.
The group jumped, screams shattering their nerves like glass, their balance sent off kilter. The disruption only scratched the surface of their fear.
“This is it!” Damon yelled. “Come on guys we’re off to catch a ghost!”
Damon led the way as they rushed through cellblock two, over rusted catwalks, through crumbling cathedral-shaped archways ensnared with moss and serpentine weeds, through ravaged offices and halls until finally reaching cellblock 3.
An owl greeted them as they entered, its call echoing through the still silence. Meg’s heart fell into her stomach, her knees buckled. She watched as her friends pressed on, across another rickety catwalk. Cell doors were both open and closed, in her mind’s eye she saw arms reaching from the bars, grasping out of desperation, some laden with sores, some gaunt and skeletal from starvation, attempting to tear into anyone who passed by them, angry, enraged, lost and abandoned.
“I knew it!” Damon called. “Down these stairs we’ll find the Sugar Shack. It used to be where they disciplined the prisoners with the iron gag and the water baths. After a reformed administration took over it became a rec room. But you just can’t hide horrible deeds like that no matter what you make the room into. That’s when all the mutilations and rapes began to occur. Some think the room drove the prisoners mad, made them more violent than ever. C’mon Brad, keep the camera rolling, we gotta check this room out.”
Meg followed behind, her boyfriend’s words dissolving into her soul. What did she ever see in him? His obsession with all this morbidity and human suffering was unnerving. She felt as if she was walking through sludge. She kept her flashlight fixed on them so she would not lose her way, snatched away by the despair and perpetual darkness.
Each metal stair clanked beneath her feet with hollow bellow until she saw it… the room Damon had been talking about all night. In what looked like blood the words SUGAR SHACK were scrawled above the double doors. She resisted walking through them, a feeling like nothing she’d felt before took hold of her…crawling inside her, tasting her, infesting her blood, her flesh, her every fiber. That room…it’s all in that room.
Meg knew she had to go, knew she had to help her friends before they were consumed by—
She pushed the doors open and found them standing in the room with awe, staring blankly at the walls. The floor was cluttered with garbage and trash, overturned chairs and tables created a bizarre obstacle course, the shells of broken TVs sat on counters, pillars and support beams were cracked and festering with rust and mold.
Meg turned to see what they were staring at. There was red blotching here and there but what took her by surprise was the writing on the walls. Scribbled in haste, drawn in dark blood, nonsensical words that held no meaning to her yet she knew what they meant…she felt it. Her flashlight lowered to the floor where the impressions of large circles lay drawn on the floor. Faded with age but recognizably black in color.
Old blood stains splattered some of the circles, blood now almost as black as the circles that marred the withered stone floor. The memories are still here. Meg felt a sick feeling crawling in the pit of her stomach. She almost lost her balance trying to keep her feet out of the circles as a scene flashed in her mind. A sacrifice. A gutting of one prisoner by many, candles burning all around them, blood pouring onto the floor as all them dipped their fingers and wrote on the walls.
“What the hell is it?” Brad asked, moving his camera slowly over the words and sentences on the wall before them.
“It’s not English,” Damon answered.
Meg smelled rotting flesh again and something even worse…worse than death, worse than rot and decay…something ancient. Something soulless. She stepped to the walls and put her hand to them, touching the writing--strange words written in a language older than the spoken tongue. “My God…Oh my dear God…it isn’t possible.” Her hands twitched, tears rolled down her cheeks and her face went pale.
“Meg what is it?” Lisa flashed her light on her, stepping towards her.
“Meg what are you feeling?” Damon motioned Brad to keep filming.
“This place isn’t haunted,” Meg whimpered unable to take her hand off the wall as if she were one with it, her flesh melding with it. “At least not by ghosts. There are no spirits left. The earthbound souls have all been…” her voice cracked as she felt the blood seep out of her nose. She was nearly overwhelmed now. All of the memories. Those poor prisoners, the guards, the souls and her friends…their fears, she could no longer contain it all. She was on overload. But she had to let them know. Had to warn them.
“There’s something worse here…much worse,” she finally said.
“Meg what are you talking…”
All the TVs in the room popped on. They turned to see flashing static blur and transform into images. A scene outside the prison appeared. Men carrying covered stretchers exited the prison gates. The voice of a female reporter resounded.
“The bodies of four university students were discovered in the Easton State Penitentiary this morning, cause of deaths are still unknown but police are still baffled as to the whereabouts of the victims’ heads. All four bodies were decapitated and their heads have not been recovered…”
“No…” Lisa said, voice weak and child-like. “We’re not dead. We’re right here. We’re not dead, we’re not.”
“Lisa it’s ok,” Brad lowered his camera and took hold of her. “We’re okay, it’s just a trick.”
“They’re coming for us next,” Meg said. “Oh my God the rage…the jealousy. They have no souls, they…the poor earthbound prisoners…fear, terror…they’re right here!” Meg let go of the wall and screamed.
All the lights went out, flashlights, the camera lamp, the TVs, plunging the room in total darkness.
Meg’s breathing grew heavy as she reached into the darkness but felt nothing. Suddenly her flashlight came back on and she found herself totally alone. All her friends were gone. She looked around the room, staring at the writing. “Damon! Brad! Lisa!”
A thud reverberated from the doors. She lifted her flashlight and saw a hulking form ease past the doors, a misshapen figure, a beast of brawn and bulk. She heard dragging feet as the shadow vanished. It was one of them. She felt them, had from the very beginning.
Meg ran to the doors and shoved them open, nothing was there but on the floor a trail of a black putrid liquid slithered up the stairs. She ran up them as fast as she could and back through the cellblock, following the thick, slimy trail until it led her back outside.
“Damon! Lisa! Brad!” she raced to the rotunda and found herself at the crossroads of the entire prison, all hallways and cellblocks before her like leering eyes and gaping mouths. “Damon!” She headed for the prison gates and threw herself into them. They wouldn’t open. She pushed again. Still nothing. She was trapped. “No!” Meg cried. “You won’t keep us here!” She headed back to the offices.
The security monitors were still on. She searched their screens frantically for signs of her friends until…the far guard tower caught her eye. She watched the screen helpless as Lisa climbed to the roof of the tower.
“Lisa!” Meg screamed. “Lisa no!” But she knew it was no use, Lisa could not hear her.
Meg saw Lisa crying as she climbed to the top, the sheer terror on her face was more than Meg could bear. Tears soaked Lisa’s face as her mouth hung agape, her arms flailed and legs quivered. The cold silence of the monitor was horrifying and as if in slow motion, Meg watched Lisa shake her head from side to side before throwing herself from the tower.
“No!” Meg cried, placing her hand on the screen to block out the death of one of her closest friends. There was silence… cold, grim silence. After the tears stopped Meg removed her hand, and now, in the doorway of the tower, stood one of them—the true haunters of the prison, flesh a pale, sickly blue, riddled with black veins, its height enormous, its body massive, bloated with earthbound spirits, soul collector, soul feeder. Black spiny tentacles writhed on its face where the mouth should be.
It looked up in the direction where Lisa stood her last ground and stretched its tentacles…a white misty form was tangled within them and in seconds it sucked the form into itself…its black eyes glinting with a flash of light.
Meg doubled over, a gnawing bite ravaging the pit of her stomach. “Lisa…oh Lisa…” She pulled herself out of the office; a new trail of black filth was beneath her. She followed it past cellblock 1 and to the prison chapel, the trail streamed through battered doors hanging off their hinges.
Flashlight still in hand, Meg burst through the chapel doors and stopped aghast at the sight of Damon sitting on the floor against the ruined altar. His throat was cut, ripped open, the wound still pumping blood. His hand held a large, jagged shard of stained glass. “Damon Oh God…Damon! What have you done?” Meg collapsed and crawled to his feet. She knew his soul was already devoured.
She pulled herself up and took him in her arms. “Why Damon? Why?” She rocked him as if he would wake from a deep sleep and nudged against something. She looked behind her, down at the base of the altar, something poked from a hole in it. She yanked it out and discovered a book with a black leather cover and singed parchment paper pages. She opened it.
“The writings in the sugar shack. This is a Necronomicon. In their madness they loosed you on this place didn’t they? They thought it was a game, a distraction to the suffering and loneliness. The bible lost its appeal and this took over. Just what you needed, you scour the earth feeding on Earthbound souls, but you need a way in don’t you Old Ones. The fools. How did you get it into their hands…a guard, a new inmate, the cleric himself? What better place than the sugar shack, a room of murder and suicide…suicide.” She looked down at Damon, tossed the book across the room and bolted from the church.
“Brad!” Meg screamed. “You can’t take us. I won’t let you!” She raced through the prison, clearing cellblocks, searching guard towers. She knew what they wanted, she knew what they were trying to do. She had to find Brad and get out this abominable place now.
Bordering on panic, she stopped in her steps and closed her eyes…she used what she’d been born with to search him out, her gift, her gift in connecting to emotions and feelings and thoughts. Brad came to her, it was not too late but he was in pain, he was filled with terror and he was in his favorite place…the kitchen.
Damon had gone over the map with her enough times she could almost locate the kitchen blindfolded. Meg followed her instincts through the infirmary, down a desolate hall and to the kitchen doors, doors sopped with black ooze and filth. Meg rushed in, finding Brad with a cleaver in his hand and raising it to his face, his skin beat red, expression twisted in anguish.
“Brad no! Stop!” Meg cried. She watched as the beasts appeared around him like a pack of ravenous wolves…waiting for him to do the deed. “It’s your fear Brad, they need you to kill yourself. They need an earthbound soul. Only a murder or suicide will keep a soul trapped on Earth. They can’t hurt you unless you kill yourself…fight them Brad!”
He stared at Meg, then at them, the hulking creatures of the Old world, ancient evil worse than any human could fathom. The cleaver shook in his hand, grazing his cheek, drawing traces of scarlet.
“Brad listen to me! You don’t want to die…you don’t want to do this. Come with me!” Meg put out her hand. “Take my hand, don’t be afraid of them, they can’t hurt you!” She could feel his despair, his sense of hopelessness and fear. He felt desperate and alone as all the other prisoners of this place had. And that’s what Brad and Meg were about to become, prisoners of this place, of their own minds, of their own fear. Prisoners just as these creatures were. Soul feeders stuck here without any souls.
He looked up at her again, wincing, grimacing. “Meg…”
“That’s it, fight them.”
Brad screamed, threw the cleaver to the floor and took Meg’s hand. The beasts roared, cursing them, lusting for more souls, never satiated. The floor cracked, the walls shook, thunder pealed through the air and a gust of wind blew Meg and Brad through the kitchen doors and into the hall.
“C’mon Brad,” Meg called, helping him to his feet. “We have to get out of here.”
They ran outside, through the grass, across the rotunda, the soul feeders were all around them, emerging from the darkness, howling with rage, stomping, tentacle mouths squirming, black eyes glaring, slime spurting from their veins.
“Don’t look at them!” Meg cried. “They can’t hurt us, just ignore them.”
He tucked his head as the two made their way to the gate, Meg put out her hand and pushed with all of her strength and the gates burst open, nearly tearing off the walls.
They stumbled to the ground, holding onto each other as they looked back on the prison and watched the gates close by themselves.
Meg noticed that Brad had his camera strapped to him the entire time. They took it up, rewound the tape a bit and pushed play.
Only static and snow played back but when Meg listened closely she swore she heard Damon’s voice say: “Cut!”
Elevator
She checked herself in the mirror one last time. Mandy loved the way she looked in her red miniskirt and her new perm. She studied her teeth carefully for lipstick smears and then sprayed a little more perfume about her before leaving the bathroom.
Around her two-bedroom meticulously clean apartment she searched for her purse. It was Saturday night and she couldn’t wait to hit the clubs, perhaps tonight was the night. Maybe she would finally meet Mister Right out there and be out of this 23rd floor apartment. Skipping up twenty-three flights of stairs was not her idea of a fun time. The elevator had broken down again last week and it took the repairmen four days to fix the damn thing. Tonight it was finally back in working order and just in time too. Mandy didn’t relish trying to get down the stairs in a miniskirt and heels.
That wasn’t the only thing that hung in the back of her mind about this building. Back in the seventies, as some of the older tenants had told her, there had been a string of murders here. Very brutal murders, some of the bodies were skinned or eviscerated. Some had every drop of blood removed, while others were dismembered. The murders were never solved. Not one piece of evidence was ever found.
The very thought of it, although giving her the creeps, kind of excited her, the story gave the building some character and whenever she told friends about it they seemed totally intrigued with the place and with her, as if she was totally cool for living in a building with a sordid past. So it made her feel special.
The place had been refurnished and given a facelift several times since then, but for all the hard work it really made no difference. A certain atmosphere hung here, the walls held secrets, the halls felt claustrophobic, and the windows were eyes to a twisted soul. You just couldn’t hide the fact that awful things happened here before.
And that damn elevator, like the diseased heart of this place, always clanked and creaked as it rolled up and down the floors endlessly. She could hear it sometimes in the middle of the night squeaking to her floor, pausing and seeming to wait there for an odd amount of time. How old was the goddamn thing any way? You’d think that with all the renovations they did here they’d get the thing in tiptop shape.