The Mansion (3 page)

Other pictures showed the dining room filled
with people. All sat, looking down the table towards whoever was
taking the picture. The table itself was full of food: roasted pig,
what looked like pheasants still feathered, and a head of a stag,
its antlers adorned with ribbons. Michael looked at a painting and
noticed that it was of the mansion, but in front of it were several
small fires with people standing around them. He looked closer and
saw that within the fires were partly painted shapes of people.

‘What kind of people lived here?’ he asked
out loud.

The others all turned and stared at him. They
all shook their heads and shrugged their shoulders.

Tony set up the tripod while Jeremy fixed the
camera on top of it. Tony then radioed down to Phoebe to check that
she was receiving a picture before sighing heavily and telling the
others it was time to head back to the dining room, which had
become their base camp to plan for the evening’s walk through.

While the investigators were setting up the
cameras, Phoebe had felt the temperature in the room drop. The
large sculpture that rose from the table cast a strange shadow, and
she was sure that she had seen the shadows move. When she looked up
from the TV monitors, she could see nothing. Just as she received
the message from Tony that they were heading back, she heard what
sounded like a child laughing. She looked around the room but saw
nothing. Then she heard it again, this time coming from above her.
She looked up at the ceiling but saw nothing but the small
chandeliers that filled the room with light. She looked back at the
monitors and saw a figure run past the camera in the kitchen. She
grabbed the radio off the table and began asking where the others
were and if they were trying to scare her. She heard a buzzing and
then the others walked into the room.

‘Did you hear that?’ she asked.

‘Hear what?’ John asked. She explained about
the laughter and the figure moving past the camera.

She rewound the recording but could see
nothing. The others then asked her to run the footage back so they
could try and explain their experiences, but nothing was found on
the recordings.

Even the brief EVP session that John had
taken showed no evidence of what he had heard.

On the way down the stairs, Tony had picked
up the book that contained information about each of the rooms. He
sat down at the large dining room table and began reading, filling
the others in with what was written as they continued to check
recordings and prepare their recording equipment ready for the
night’s investigation.

‘The master bedroom, the one with the bed on
the platform, is apparently where there has been sightings of a man
and woman. They stand at the end of the bed and pull the sheets off
the bed if anyone sleeps in it. It doesn’t say who they are. The
children’s room is where people have heard child laughter, and some
of the toys have moved. People who have tried to stay the night in
the other rooms have reported they have been attacked, leaving them
with scratches and bruises. Figures have been seen in most of the
rooms.’

‘What about that weird blacked out room you
told us about?’ Jeremy asked Tony.

He looked through the pages for further
information about the room and found only one small paragraph. He
began to read it out.

‘The projector room is one of the most
sinister and macabre rooms of the upper level. Its large crystal
chandelier is the only one known in existence. The pictures
imbedded within the crystals are believed to be of drifters and
trespassers caught hiding amongst the trees of the property
grounds. Who did the killing and mutilations no one knows.’

‘Jesus, this place is not right,’ Phoebe
said.

Tony placed the book down on the table and
sighed. He’d wanted to investigate the mansion for so long and now
he finally had his chance; he didn’t want to make any mistakes or
miss any possible evidence of the existence of the paranormal. He
was already excited after what he and the team had witnessed so
far.

‘I’ve made sure that all the wooden outdoor
window shutters have been closed and locked. All the doors to the
outside are locked so there can be no interference from anyone,’ he
said.

Phoebe and Jeremy looked at him. They both
had an uneasy feeling about being locked in with no escape in case
things went wrong. Recently, another paranormal investigation group
had been locked into an old building when it caught fire, killing
the team inside.

Tony set out the evening schedule: who was
going to what room and what experiments they would undertake. John
and Michael were to head to the kitchen and use a thermal camera as
they conducted an electronic voice phenomenon session. At the same
time, Phoebe and Jeremy would conduct EVP sessions and thermal
camera sessions in the dining room.

‘So many have died in here we should be able
to capture something with all our equipment. I will head into some
of the other rooms and conduct EVP and night vision sessions,’ he
said.

There was a slight pause, and then Jeremy
asked the main question that was on everyone’s mind.

‘When are we doing the upper floors?’

Tony looked at the team and responded, ‘The
early hours.’

Just as he said that, an icy blast of air
descended into the room. They could all feel the cold breeze move
down from their heads to their feet. They all looked up at the
large sculpture. The antlers that it was made out of seemed to
glisten in the light.

‘Where’s that cold air coming from?’ John
asked.

Tony shook his head; it didn’t feel like a
normal winter’s breeze; it had a strange thickness to it—it felt
heavy.

Outside it began to snow.

‘Right, before we get started, I need to
visit the ladies room,’ Phoebe said.

The others looked at her and rolled their
eyes. Every time they were about to start an investigation, she
needed to go to the toilet. She had noticed a door just off to the
side of the kitchen that said ‘Toilet’ when they had had their walk
through with the old man, she had not seen any other toilet or
bathroom.

‘Did any of you notice any bathrooms
upstairs?’ she asked.

The four men looked at each other, their
brows low as they concentrated on remembering whether they had seen
one or not. They then all shook their heads.

‘So apart from the one off the kitchen—well I
hope it is one—there are no other toilets or bathrooms?’ she
questioned.

Phoebe made her way through the small
adjoining rooms and entered the kitchen. The coldness of the room
made her skin pimple. She saw the white door in the corner; the
small sign plate on it reading ‘Toilet’ made her sigh with relief.
She walked over to it and pulled the handle. It opened to reveal an
old white porcelain toilet with a handle hanging from a long silver
chain from the tank which was situated about seven feet above the
toilet seat. She looked at the wall and saw the light switch, which
she flicked straight away. A dull, yellowish light sprang from the
bulb in the center of the ceiling. She then looked to see if there
was any toilet paper, and she smiled when she noticed a full roll.
She quickly stepped in and closed the door behind her. A sigh of
relief escaped her as she pulled down her jeans and knickers just
in time for her to begin to relieve her full bladder. Phoebe stared
at the wooden door in front of her as she sat on the toilet seat.
There was something strange about the grain of wood and the
numerous circular knots clearly visible beneath the coat of white
paint. She pulled a couple of sheets of toilet paper from the roll
and wiped herself. Then she stood and pulled her knickers and jeans
back up, still looking at the door as she fastened her buttons. It
was then that she noticed what was so strange about the door.
Rather than made up of several long panels of wood, the door seemed
to be made from one piece. She ran her fingers across it and could
not feel any joins only the raised areas where the knots lay.

She slid the little bolt across that locked
the door and pushed, but the door didn’t move. She tried again, but
once more it didn’t move. She paused, thinking back to when she
entered and whether she pulled it or pushed it. There wasn’t enough
room for the door to open inwards, and she clearly remembered
pulling it shut.

She pushed one more time, but yet again it
didn’t budge. She stood back and looked around the frame of the
door to see if there was some form of catch that had locked the
door, but there was nothing.

The paint on the door began to bubble as if
it were liquid boiling in a pot. More and more bubbles rose and
popped. She looked at the walls and noticed that they too were
bubbling. She could feel her heart pounding against her chest as
she began to panic. She turned and looked at the toilet and noticed
the water in it was bubbling away and rising up until it began to
flow over the top of the bowl, cascading to the floor and
surrounding her boots. She spun around to face the door again and
its bubbling surface. It was then that she saw something begin to
grow from its center. The outline began to take a definite shape,
and soon she could make out the nose and brow of a face, its mouth
open in a strange smile. It turned left and right as it got closer
to her. She backed away until she could feel the toilet seat
against the back of her knees. The water that continued to flow
over its lip burned into her skin. She screamed, calling out the
names of the others, hoping they could hear her and get to her in
time.

Jeremy was the first to hear Phoebe’s cries
for help. He didn’t move first time, not sure of what he was
hearing. When he heard the second scream, he bolted from his
position, shouting to the others who were deep in conversation to
follow him. They ran into the kitchen and heard Phoebe’s screams
full of fear and panic. They ran over to the toilet door and yanked
at it. It shot open; there was no resistance. Standing on the
toilet seat with her hands covering her eyes, screaming, was
Phoebe. Jeremy called her name and grabbed her by the arms. She
looked up from her hands and saw the others all stood in the toilet
doorway, concern etched on their faces.

‘What’s wrong?’ Jeremy asked her, his eyes
wide with confusion.

‘It wouldn’t let me go, I couldn’t open the
door. The water wouldn’t stop; it was burning me,’ she said in
panic-stricken gasps.

‘What wouldn’t and what water?’ Tony
asked.

She looked down at the toilet and the floor.
There was no sign of the hot boiling water that had begun to burn
her feet and legs as she tried to get away from the face pushing
through the door.

She stepped down from the toilet seat and
explained what had happened, tears flowing down her face. Jeremy
put his arm around her and helped her back to the dining room. The
others looked at the toilet, trying the door to see if it had
somehow locked itself.

They returned to the dining room, where
Phoebe was sipping on a small cup of tea, poured from Jeremy’s
thermos flask.

‘Phoebe, we need you to explain everything
that happened again, in detail. We need to record everything that
has happened,’ Tony said, placing a Dictaphone in front of her and
pressing the record button.

She looked at him, and then the small
recorder, sighed, and began telling her story once more. The others
listened carefully, their mouths slowly opening when she recalled
the face appearing from the bubbling door.

Once she had finished, Tony then began
telling his experiences whilst in the bedrooms, and he encouraged
the others to share their experiences. Each one spoke in turn into
the recorder, and as they did, each one began to realize that the
investigation they were about to undertake would be a very
memorable one, one like none they had ever done before.

After they had eaten the food that they had
stored away in cooler bags, they began their investigation.

John and Michael headed to the kitchen. The
thermal camera held by John leading the way, they both stared at
the little monitor that showed what was ahead of them. They opened
the door to the kitchen and stepped in. The screen went a blank and
then began showing the outlines of all the tables, chairs, and
other kitchen implements in different shades of blue.

‘Man it’s cold in here,’ Michael said.

John moved the camera around, sweeping the
kitchen. ‘Mike, can you walk in front to show a comparison?’ he
asked.

Michael stepped out in front of the camera
and began walking over to the large table that sat in the center of
the room, a large rack of pots and pans hung over it. In the center
sat a rack full of knives. The moment he walked into frame the
screen showed his body’s outline in reds, greens, and whites where
his body was hottest.

Michael took out his recorder, pressed the
record button, and placed it on the table. He then began asking the
normal set of questions that he had used in each of the previous
investigations.

‘Is there anyone here with us at the moment?’
He paused before asking the next question. ‘If there is someone
here, can you make yourself known to us by making a noise?’ he
paused again.

They both felt a cold blast of air rush past
them, and the pots and pans hanging above the table swayed and
clashed gently against each other, making gentle clanging
noises.

‘Is there anyone here with us at the moment?’
John asked.

A little red light on the recorder began
flashing against the darkness of the room, catching the two
investigators’ attention. The recorder stopped flashing just as
another icy blast of air rocked the pots and pans again.

John panned the thermal camera around the
room. Apart from the heat from Michael, everything showed up in the
cold blue color. He lowered the camera and looked ahead of him
towards Michael, but something in the screen caught his attention—a
different color. He raised the screen back up to his eye so he
could focus on what the camera was pointing at and saw a light blue
outline of a hand. His gasp alerted Michael, who looked through the
darkness towards the face of his friend that was slightly lit by
the cameras detachable screen.