The Spook House (The Spook Series Book 1) (10 page)

The room was pitch black. The lights mounted on our guns barely penetrated the darkness. There were no windows. The room was some type of huge library with bookcases on the walls. There were two overstuffed chairs and a large couch in the middle of the room. The room was so big that we had to move deeper into the middle of it than I had wanted to.

“What the …? Check out the floor!” Paco said.

There were tendrils of mist creeping along it. They swirled about our boots as we moved.

“Is that fog?” Paco asked. “How the fuck could there be fog in here?”

“Fog machine, or some trick,” I said. That sounded better than I thought it would. I was being rational and cool-headed, the way a leader should.

A cold breeze chilled the skin on my face. The fog parted and stirred as if something had passed through it.

“Did you feel that?” I said.

“Yes!” said Paco. “Where the fuck is the draft coming from? There are no windows in here!”

I scanned the walls. The light from the flashlight under my gun created a small pool of light in a sea of blackness. I watched what came into view in the pool – ancient books in bookcases, cracked walls, and … something else. I found myself looking more at the darkness than what was in the weak spotlight. In the surrounding blackness, there seemed to me something even blacker. I moved the light to catch it, but the shadow darted out the way as fast as I could flick the flashlight. It was close to the edge of the small illuminated area, but always stayed just out of range. Its exact size and shape were impossible to make out.

“Do you see that!?” I said.

“See what?” Paco said.

“That!” I moved zipped the light around, determined to catch thing, but it always scuttled away.

“I say it’s clear, Holmes.”

“Agreed. We’re done here.”

We left quickly and closed the heavy doors. The moment the doors clicked together, I felt the relief flow through me like a hit of some sweet drug. As soon as the doors shut, I heard noises inside the room. Something was crawling or running on the walls. I heard books falling off of shelves.

“Fuck!” we both said at the same time.

“It’s the doors,” Paco sputtered. “The vibrations knocked those books over. It’s just these big ass doors!”

“Uh, yeah,” I said. We’d go with that.

Then we heard pans rattling in the kitchen. Paco and I looked at each other. He was waiting for me to say something. My “fight or flight” reaction was on a hair-trigger. It barely tipped the scale to the “fight” side.

“I want to catch the bastard who’s doing this,” I said. I gripped my machine gun and headed to the kitchen. Paco did the same, partially to follow my example, and partially, I suspected, not to be left alone.

We got to the kitchen. I pushed through the cowboy doors. I swept the room with my light. My eyes were immediately drawn to movement. The hanging pans suspended over the kitchen island were moving slightly, as if there had been a small earthquake, or as if something had brushed by them. I fixed my light on the rack. Its slightly swinging motions created shadows that raced around the walls.

I tilted my light down. The table was still in the same place. So was the chopping block. The giant cleaver was gone.

I flashed my light around the tabletop and then the floor like a helicopter at night searching with a spotlight. The fugitive knife hadn’t fallen over. It was gone.

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t need to.

“Alright. Time to go,” I said. Paco left through the cowboy doors as I backed out of the room. Once out, I turned quickly and looked down the moonlit hall. No lingerie model ghost woman. Paco and I moved to a strategically safer position away from the open doorway to the kitchen but not too close to the library.

“You know,” I exhaled, “I think I’ve seen enough. Let’s get the teams back together.”

“Fucking A,” Paco said. I took that as a yes.

Have you ever had one of those moments when you’re about to call someone, and the phone rings, and it’s that person calling you? I was about to call the A Team when Dubois came on the comm.

 “Can somebody hear me? Anybody?”

Dubois’ voice sounded strange. It was like it was echoing as if he were talking in a confined space like a closest.

“Abrams here.”

“Abrams? Thank God. You gotta help me, Bro. There’s no door. There’s no fucking door.”

“Dubois, where are you? What are you talking about?”

“I entered a room through a door. Now there’s no fucking door! You hear me? There’s no fucking door!”

Paco and I looked at each other. Yes, we were both hearing this.

“Dubois, where’s Kaz?”

“I don’t know man. I thought he was behind me. Now it’s just me in here, and THERE’S NO FUCKING DOOR!”

“Alright. Alright! Dubois, be cool.”

“Be cool? BE COOL!?,” he shouted, panting.

“Cool,” I said calmly, as if it were a magic word.

“Cool,” Dubois repeated. I could hear him taking deep breaths – in though the nose, out the mouth.”

“Dubois, we’re coming to get you. It’s OK. You’re cool.”

“Cool,” he repeated.

“That’s right,” I said, “Cool.”

I clicked off. Paco and I started running towards the front of the house. I was about to call the C Team when the phenomenon happened again. They were calling me.

The situation there was worse than with Dubois. I heard machine gun fire in house. It was coming through the earpiece too.

“C Team! Report!” I yelled.

I heard Boudreaux shout, “Take that motherfucker!” followed by machine gun fire.

Paco and I ran by the big doors to the library. Something heavy thumped loudly on the other side as we passed. The doors shook.

“I didn’t see that,” I said.

“Me neither,” said Paco.

 I wasn’t worried about it. I was too hopped up on adrenaline. Besides, the door shaking could have been caused by all of the running and the noise. At least, that’s what I told myself.

Comm lines were open. There was a break in the gunfire. I heard Barnes, the guy who hardly said anything, yelling, “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

Stillman was shouting, “It’s not a house! It’s not a house!”

More yelling and more gunfire. The yelling turned into screaming. There were few more bursts of gunfire. Then I heard sounds I can only describe as horrible. Crunching sounds. Wet, tearing sounds. Oozing, messy sounds. Then the line went dead.

Paco and I looked at each other. His face was ghostlike and pale, a reflection of fear that I’m sure mirrored my own.

There was movement at the balcony that overlooked the foyer. Footsteps and a shadow rushed down the stairs. Paco and I shouldered our weapons, ready to blow away the dark figure coming towards us.

“Whoa! It’s me! It’s me!”

“Fuck! Dubois!”

Dubois stood in front of us, shaking, with his hands up. Paco and I lowered our guns.

“Where is your weapon?” I demanded. If we had shot him, it would have been his own damn fault for running around in the dark without a light.

“It’s … It’s upstairs.”

“Where are you going without it?” I said harshly.

“I was running for the front door,” he said between gasping breaths.

“What about that ‘no door’ shit?”

“I got out,” Dubois said. “I got out. I got out.”

He was repeating himself, as if he didn’t believe he’d escaped and even now was trying to convince himself that it had really happened.

I looked at Dubois suspiciously. He was losing it. Then I had a crazy idea. Maybe the real Dubois was holed up in the wall somewhere and that we were looking at some type of double.

“Where’s Kaz?” I said again.

He looked at me as if he didn’t know what I was talking about, then said, “Fuck. I don’t know. I lost him when I got trapped in the room.”

I shouted into the comm.

“Kaz! Report!”

There was no answer.

“KAZ!”

Dubois looked at me and said, “We have to get him.”

There was a stricken look of panic on his face. I could tell he felt responsible for losing his partner. I know. I was responsible for splitting us into teams.

“Of course we are,” I said. I didn’t even have to think about it.

“What’s going on in here?” Dubois asked, as if I would know. “What happened to C Team?”

I had no answer. But, as a leader, or in any position in the military, I have learned that “I don’t know” is not an acceptable answer.

I didn’t say what I really thought (The house ate them!), so instead I said, “There may be booby traps down there, or something.”

“Like what?” Dubois said.

How the fuck should I know? I thought about all of the gunfire and the screaming and answered, “Like real terrorists. Or this could all be part of the test.”

Paco said, “This is so not part of the test. I don’t even think there is a test. We need to get out of here.”

He was right, of course. I glanced at the front door behind me. It was right there. Maybe we should cut our losses. I’d already written off the basement team.

But I didn’t. I said, “We have a new mission. We get Kaz and we get out of here. Anybody got a problem with that?”

Nobody did.

“Alright. Let’s go get him.”

16

We hurried up the stairs. At the top was a small sitting area. The balustrade became a fence bordering the drop-off overlooking the foyer below. There were windows in front of us. They were unblocked, so the hazy moonlight filtered in. The light was welcome, but the glass was still so dirty we couldn’t see out. Dark corridors awaited on either side of us. The one to the left had a some type of light on the floor. We cautiously approached it. Dubois looked like he was going to say something, but didn’t.

As we approached the light, I started thinking of those science channel shows again. I felt like a fish at the bottom of the ocean where it’s so deep the sunlight doesn’t even penetrate. We approached the tiny light, which I fully expected to be a bioluminescent lure dangling front of a something resembling a monstrous angler fish, complete with giant jaws full of hook-like fangs and opaque, dead-looking eyes.

“It’s my gun!” Dubois said. He stepped forward and bent down to reach it. I had a vision of a bomb exploding underneath it, killing or maiming us all. Insurgents in Iraq often bait things they know somebody will pick up with IEDs (Improvised Explosive Devices). I said, “Don’t!” but the gun was already in his hands. Dubois stood up and smiled. I exhaled in relief. We were lucky, cheating death yet again.

Dubois felt better now that he had his gun back, but his happiness was short-lived. His smile dropped and he said, “Uh, the room is down that way, so I suggest we turn back and check the other hall. Kaz probably went that way.”

Nobody argued with him. We turned back and returned to the area at the top of the stairs. It seemed darker for some reason. Maybe a cloud had covered the moon. But it was more than that. Even our flashlights seemed to be getting dimmer. It was as if we were being swallowed by darkness.

“Abe, are you OK, Bro? You don’t look so …”

The whole house seemed to slant to one side. I stumbled as the floor suddenly sloped downwards.

This is it, I thought. The house is done playing with its food. The floor’s dropping out and we’re going right into its gullet.

My body started tingling and I realized I was free falling.

I fell off the balcony, I thought with sad resignation. I am so screwed.

I expected to hit the floor, but after several seconds passed, I realized I should have crashed already. Darkness engulfed me, and I couldn’t see or hear anything. I continued to fall as if I’d been swallowed by a deep black pit. My only hope was to pass out, and with the dregs of my luck, I did.

–––––

I slowly realized I was lying face down. My first thought was, Where am I?

I inhaled. I smelled the damp night air. The scent of grass and mud filled my nose. Something wet brushed against my cheek. I sat up, startled.

“Where am I?” I asked myself again. This time, the question was more urgent. I was definitely outside. It was dark, but I could smell the scent of trees and moisture in the air. The wind rustled the leaves around me. My eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness.

“I’m outside,” my brain said, “I passed out, and they dragged me outside.”

Who were “they”? I had to think about it.

The guys, of course, was the answer. I had to think hard to remember their names. I had the distinct feeling that I hadn’t completely woken up.

I was still in my fatigues. That helped anchor me to reality. I still had everything – my helmet, my gear, and my gun. I took a swig of water from my canteen.

So where the hell was I? Where was the house? And more importantly, where were the guys? And where were the people who were supposed to be watching over all of this?

The smell of the night air was oddly familiar. The scent of the trees was unmistakable. They were Eucalyptus trees. I was not inside the dead volcano anymore. I had a really bad feeling about all of this.

I could see yellowish lights beyond the trees. They were much dimmer than the white lights that had been fixed on the house. Still in soldier-mode, I snuck from tree-to-tree, moving toward the edge of the grove to get a better look. The lights were not attached to watch towers or to a high security fence. They were street lamps. At the edge of the grove was a deserted paved road, and across the street were dark, sleeping residential houses. The houses were large, well-maintained properties in what looked like an expensive neighborhood.

I knew exactly where I was. The bad feeling got worse.

I instinctively snuck back into the shelter of the grove. I wasn’t just in any grove. I was in the grove – the one outside of Judge Tubb’s house. I was in the same place where, years ago, I hid and lay in wait to kill the judge.

I now knew where I was, but the question was when I was. I checked my watch. It was 5:30 AM. The bad feeling officially turned to dread. I didn’t even have to check the time. I knew when it was. This was the morning I almost killed Tubb. I knew it. The cars on the street were all exactly the same. The sky was the same. The fog. I know. That night, I had studied everything with a single-minded intensity.