The Spook House (The Spook Series Book 1) (17 page)

“I want to make them pay,” I said coldly. The lights in Ashira’s eyes flared as she smiled. She was excited. This type of thing turned her on.

“You want revenge,” she said, breathing heavily.

“I want justice,” I said.

“Same thing,” she said, “usually.”

I didn’t argue. I clarified my statement. “I want to get them. I want to shut them down, and I want to make sure they can’t do anything like this to anybody else. I want them to go down.”

“That sounds like revenge to me,” the Devil said, delighted.

“Justice,” I corrected.

“Well,” she said with sly smile, “Whatever you call it, I think I can help you with that.”

–––––

Ashira put her marijuana cigarette back to her lips. Its orange tip burned brightly. She removed it, turned her head, and blew out a flume of smoke.

“Want another hit before we get to work?”

“Hell yeah.”

She passed it over.

I took so many puffs off of it I started to feel light-headed, like I was a balloon that might float away.

“Easy there, Big Guy,” she said. “That’s not crap. It’s the good stuff.”

“The good stuff from Hell,” I said, amused. I started giggling at my own humor.

“Look, I’ve got a plan, but you’ve got to start moving. Are you ready?”

I momentarily thought my situation. I was trapped in this “house” where I had watched my teammates (that I was in charge of) kill each other. I was covered in their blood. I was now in a nearly pitch black cavern, smoking pot, standing by the gate to Hell and talking to Satan about how I had been betrayed and drugged. Now we were planning how we were going to get out and get even.

Modern vocabulary didn’t even have a term to describe the mental state I was in. So I said, “Yeah, I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”

“Good,” Ashira said. “Let’s go.”

25

Ashira took another puff on the joint. Then she moved the rolled marijuana away from her lips and looked at it in her hand, as if admiring it. Suddenly, the whole joint burst into flames. There was no look of surprise or pain on her face. She had no expression at all, except maybe a slight smile. She looked at me casually as the paper burned away to nothing. Her fingertips were on fire, making her hand look like an eerie candelabrum in a haunted house.

“OK,” she said, “Let’s go.”

She slipped past me and started walking. I followed her cautiously. My eyes were drawn to her hips as they swayed back and forth as she walked. At some point we arrived at the creaky stairs. Ashira led the way out. Two steps up and her ass was at eye level. As if reading my mind, she said, “You know, sometime when you’re back home, we should hook up.”

When you’re back home. I liked the sound of that.

I didn’t even have the mental strength to think about that. I just said, “OK. Whatever. I’ll think about that if I ever get out.”

“Oh, you’ll get out,” she said. “Do what I say and you’ll get out. Your bosses are going to want to talk with you, and when they do, I’ll be there.”

I said cheerlessly, “Sounds good to me.”

At the top of the stairs, I could smell the blood. The bodies were all still there on the landing, in the exact same positions they were in when I left them. Somehow, that surprised me. I knew that my friends were all dead. They weren’t going anywhere. Still, I expected the bodies to be gone.

As the ultimate storyteller, my brain spun stories and showed visions of what had become of the bodies. The house itself consumed them. In another tale, the bodies now wandered the halls. Or they were dragged off by dark, nameless things or carried away by faceless men in HazMat suits.

I looked at the front door. Ashira saw me looking at it and said, “No.”

I was about to protest, and she said, “We’re not done. You want my help, right?”

I didn’t know. I looked at my dead friends and a part of me said yes, but I wasn’t sure.

Ashira stood in front of me and said, “Jacob, look at me.”

I looked at her. I looked into her eyes. There was a trace of something there that I couldn’t quite identify. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was concern.

“Jacob,” she said, “Say you leave now. What do you think is going to happen if you stagger out of that front door, doped out of your mind, carrying a machine gun?”

On a screen in my mind, I watched a movie of myself standing outside of the house in front of the porch. Red dots from laser sights swarmed over me like angry bees from Hell. Another step forward, and my body jerked and shook violently as it was torn apart by bullets.

“But, if I left without the gun …” I offered.

“Oh please,” Ashira said. “They’ll lock you up. They’ll run all sorts of tests on you and watch everything you do. When the drugs are finally out of your system, or when you no longer interest them, they’ll lock you up indefinitely. They’ll call you crazy, so nobody will believe anything you say. They’ll blame you for the deaths of your teammates. Or they might even say you killed all of these people yourself. Then they’ll just kill you and eliminate the problems posed by your survival. That would be the fastest and the easiest solution, after all.”

Unfortunately, I knew Ashira was right, so I said to her, “What do we do?”

She smiled. “We go to the library.”

“What? You’ve got to be kidding me!”

“No,” Ashira said. “I’m not.”

She started walking down the hall. I stayed were I was. As I watched her move away, she said, “Are you coming?”

After one second, I said, “Yes!” and hurried after her. I didn’t want to be left alone in here again. Ironically, I felt safer with Satan at my side.

We arrived back at the room. I listened at the door, expecting to hear something moving.

“You know,” I told Ashira, “There’s something in there, I think.”

“Oh there is,” Ashira said excitedly. “But it’s not what you think. It’s your salvation!”

“My salvation?” I said skeptically.

“Inside there is the proof that you’re not crazy. And you need that, don’t you?”

I was quiet and said, “Yes, I do.” I felt like adding, “Don’t we all?”

“Well then,” she said, “You’ll get it inside. Salvation, for your mind, body, and soul.”

“My soul?”

“Sorry,” she laughed. “I just couldn’t help throwing that in there. ‘Save your soul.’ God’s big PR plan.” She gave a lopsided smile and a look of mild amusement and disdain.

My brain was too fried to think. She could see that.

“Alright,” she said. “Sorry. Bad joke. Let’s keep it simple. If you want to get out of here and find out the secret of this place, then get in there.”

“The secret?”

“Let me make this simpler. If you want to live, get in there.”

I reach for the door handle. I wrapped my hand around it and paused.

“Don’t worry,” Ashira said. “It’s OK. I’ll be with you. I’ll protect you.”

I wasn’t so far gone that I didn’t see the irony in the Devil promising to keep me safe, but I was done thinking. I almost felt like I was sleepwalking. The experience had a dreamlike, unreal quality. I felt as if I were in darkened theater, watching the drama happen to somebody else, yet I was emotionally invested in it. I really cared about the outcome. Maybe this was the only way I could mentally survive – by disconnecting.

In a zombie-like trance, I turned the lever-like handle of the door, and pushed it open.

–––––

 There was a fresh layer of fog hovering over the floor in the room. The mist was higher now, almost up to my waist. Weird eddies and currents swirled around in it, stirred by mysterious drafts and unseen forces. Ashira stepped inside. The gloom engulfed her legs.

I said, “I don’t want to go in there.”

“Of course you don’t,” Ashira said, “but this is where you can see it.”

“See what?”

“It!” she answered, cryptically. I didn’t like the sound of that, but I gripped my gun and entered to see what “it” was.

Ashira drifted to the middle of the room. Her presence didn’t stir up the mist like mine did. When she stopped, so did I. I scanned the room. I didn’t detect any black thing in the corners or clinging to the walls or ceiling.

The mist settled as I stood still.

“Ashira, I …”

“Shhh!”

I froze and waited. After a few seconds, she said, “There!”

“Where?” I said, ready to point my gun in that direction.

“Wait for it,” she whispered. I looked in the direction she was looking.

“There!”

Something stirred the surface of the fog like an invisible shark fin cutting through water. I shouldered my gun.

My glands spewed sweat and my anus was sputtering.

“There’s something in here!” I cried. It was coming at me. I started firing blindly at the floor.

I fired a burst and waited, hoping I had hit it. The mist swirled and slowly settled back into place. My first thought was, Did I hit it? Is it dead?

But I knew that was a foolish question. Of course it wasn’t dead. Some screaming horror would pop up the moment I lowered my guard. My hands were shaking so badly I felt like invisible forces were trying to wrestle the rifle from my fingers.

Ashira, sounding disappointed but not surprised that I didn’t trust her, said, “OK, let’s try again. Here is comes. And this time, hold your fire.”

The same unseen force parted the surface of the mist. I held my fire this time. Several seconds later, I feel a slight breeze on my face.

My brain, while barely functioning, still had enough logic circuits firing to detect that I had just felt a draft.

“It’s … it’s a puff of air,” my mouth said.

Ashira sounded pleased, saying, “And?”

“And … there are no windows in here.”

“So where’s the air coming from?”

Ashira talked like a teacher encouraging a child to arrive at the answer himself instead of just giving it to him.

“Ventilation ducts?”

“Do you see any ventilation ducts in here?” I didn’t. My brain kept working.

“I don’t know. Holes in wall? A secret passage?”

Ashira smiled, now that I was getting creative. I was getting closer.

“Is that it? A secret passage?”

The fire of hope that burned within me went out hours ago, and I was surviving on the glowing coals now, trying to make the most of the warmth before that too disappeared and left me cold. But a small ember just popped, igniting a tiny flame.

Air flow might mean a secret passage, and ultimately, a way out.

Ashira gave me a hint. “What is special about this room?”

I racked my brain like an addict ransacking a room looking for something. No windows? Only one way in and out? Then I said, “The fog.”

“That’s right,” Ashira said, pleased.

“It’s like, a fog machine, or something like that,” I said.

“Or something like that,” Ashira echoed.

The blurry images in my mind finally became clearer like a photo in being developed in a darkroom. I waited for the next blast of air. It subtle, but when it came, I saw it.

“There it is!” I said triumphantly. I looked at Ashira. She was smiling. I thought I saw her give a nod of approval, but it might have just been my imagination.

I pointed my gun at the “source” of the air stream. “If there’s anybody behind the wall, you better come out now, because I’m going to light it up!”

I waited for two seconds. There was no reply.

“OK. Have it your way,” I said. I shot up the wall. The gunfire was deafening, as always, but somewhere in my volley, I heard the distinct clamor of bullets hitting metal, and I saw sparks fly off of the wall. If I had blinked I would have missed them.

I stopped firing. I went to the wall and ran my fingers over the ancient, peeling paint. My fingers found an unnaturally straight crack and followed it around. I was excited. I had found the door.

The door, however, turned out to be smaller than I thought. It was like the door to a hidden safe, not an exit.

Angry that my plans had been smashed once again by this house, I slung my rifle over my shoulder and slipped out my knife. I tapped on the hidden metal door.

I found a keyhole where I expected one to be. The door was locked. I tried to pry the door open. It held, but the metal seemed thin and shook loosely in its frame, like that of a high school locker. In other words, I wasn’t going to let this cheap, stubborn piece of crap stop me from my discovery. The burning ember glowed.

I started banging on the door with the butt of the rifle. I hacked at it with my knife. I yelled with rage. At some point, the door gave up and came loose. Then I ripped it open.

I was looking at a board of circuit breakers. There were two rows of switches for electricity to the house. The panel looked clean and modern. My eyes immediately went to four metal capsules inserted side-by-side into the board. They looked like CO2 tanks used to propel paintballs out of paintball guns.

I popped one of the objects out of the board with my knife and heard a small hiss of air that was quickly sealed off. The tube was smooth and about the same size as a roll of quarters. One end of it was rounded off. The other tapered down to a valve similar to that of a tire. The air tank itself was wrapped in a detailed label as if it were prescription medication. A skull and bones dominated the label, along with the biohazard symbol and “DOD” for Department of Defense.

“This is it,” I said, to myself as well as to Ashira. “This is where they blow it in.”

Ashira clapped slowly. I could have been annoyed, but I wasn’t.

“So now you have proof,” she said.

“Okay,” I said slowly. “Proof is good. But how does that help me now?”

Ashira smiled wickedly. “Well,” she said, “Now comes the fun part.”

–––––

Ashira laid out her plan. It was nasty. It was both disgusting and satisfying at the same time. I followed her instructions and I staggered out of the room. The hall seemed to pitch from side-to-side, as if I were on a ship on a storm-tossed sea.

“It’s not real,” I said, quoting the mantra Ashira told me to repeat until I got out of the house.

I stumbled down the hallway. It was leaning severely, as if I were on a sinking ship. I looked down it, viewing it at the dramatic, canted angle used to in every horror movie to show things were askew and that something bad was about to happen.