The Spook House (The Spook Series Book 1) (9 page)

“I thought I … oh, never mind,” he said, clearly embarrassed.

I was annoyed, but then I realized how we were all standing around in a cluster. If a real enemy had been around, all he had to do was lob a grenade at us and he’d take everyone out all at once.

I had to split us up. I know. I didn’t like the idea either. It reminded me of every horror movie where the cast members get separated and then get killed off one by one. But that wasn’t going to happen here. We would form teams. Besides, we could have bigger problems if we stuck together. We were using live rounds. If somebody started shooting, we would be our own worse enemy. With all of us in the same room, we would constantly be in each other’s line of fire.

And Kaz. The kid was jumpy. We were only a few minutes in and he was already spooked and brought our progress to a complete halt.

I decided to send him off in another team with Dubois. Dubois was cool. He was always cool, even under pressure. They would be a good team.

“Alright, listen up,” I said. “We’re going to re-start from the entry way.”

We moved a few meters back to where we started from. I made my announcement.

“We’re going to split into teams.” There was a murmur of disapproval.

“Fuck that.”

“Hell no.”

“You’re crazy, man.”

I was prepared for that. I said, “Look, I know this sucks and it feels safer to stay in one big group, but it’s not. We’re going to split up into teams. We’ll get it done faster, and the sooner we’re done, the sooner we can meet up again and get the hell out of here.”

There was no dissent this time. Apparently, the guys were waiting to hear who they would be teamed up with before bitching about it.

“Dubois and Kaz: You two do upstairs.”

Kaz winced, but Dubois said nothing.

“Barnes, Stillman, and Boudreaux: You guys do the downstairs.”

Stillman said, “The basement? You’ve got to be fucking shitting me! There’s no way I’m going down to the fucking basement!”

“That might be easier than the rest of the house,” I said. “It might be one big fucking room.”

Stillman was starting to open his mouth to say something, but I kept talking to cut him off. My authority was already on the line. I didn’t want this to become a debate.

“Look,” I said. “Check it, then come back and wait for us by the front door. And what the hell? You’ve got three guys on your team! Three big guys! The rest of us have two and we’re not complaining.”

Kaz looked terrified, so I said, “Isn’t that right? Kaz?”

He jumped a little when I called his name, but he recovered nicely. “Sir! Yes, Sir!”

“Good.”

I turned and looked at Stillman. I had effectively shamed him. Kaz was brave in his two-man team. Stillman couldn’t protest, or he’d look scared in his group of three. He saw the situation, and said, “Aw, Fuck. Alright. Let’s just get it done.”

“You heard the man,” I said confidently, enjoying my brief victory in leadership. “Let’s get it done!”

–––––

Each team took one lantern. I informed them that I wanted comm lines on “Standby,” but not open. Some leaders like to leave the lines open. They like to hear everything going on in an op at all times. Personally, I hate missions like that. It’s hard to concentrate on your task when you can hear everything everyone else is doing. I didn’t want that here. Everyone was jumpy enough as it was.

Besides, in “Standby Mode,” all we had to do was push a button and we were connected to everybody. It was like being a cop with a radio. We could call for backup whenever we needed.

The teams split up. Dubois and Kaz slowly ascended the creaking stairs. Barnes, Stillman, and Boudreaux headed toward the door to the stairway leading to the basement. With a heightened sense of hearing (I guess fear will do that), I could hear Stillman muttering something like, “This is bullshit” and “fucking basement.”

Paco and I looked at each other, both of us seeking some reassurance that I was doing the right thing.

Paco looked at me, awaiting instruction. I couldn’t tell if he approved or not.

“Alright,” I said, “Back to the parlor. Let’s start from there.”

14

Paco and I re-entered the small front room we had just come from. Since I’d already been there, I felt a little more at ease. We did a quick scan. Something seemed wrong, but I couldn’t quite place it. I decided it was nothing and called, “Clear!”

I expected Paco to echo that. He didn’t.

“What?” I said to him, slightly annoyed. I didn’t want to get hung up on the first room, because we had a lot more ahead of us.

“The window,” he said. “There was a window there!” He was shining his light on a blank wall. There was nothing there now but old, stained plaster.

“I don’t know,” I said doubtfully.

“No! I’m telling you, man! There was a window there five minutes ago! I remember looking at it. But now it’s gone!”

I shone my light on the wall. I didn’t see any change in color or signs of a seam. “I don’t know,” I said. “Just looks like a wall to me.”

“THERE WAS A FUCKING WINDOW THERE!”

As a leader, it is paramount to stay calm and assert control over the entire situation. If the leader freaks out, the troops lose confidence. Then the situation breaks down and becomes a free-for-all. I was glad I had closed the comm lines.

“Look,” I said, “There were more lights and shadows in here when the other guys were here. It must have been a trick of light.”

Paco was breathing faster. I almost expected him to protest, but he took a few deep breaths and said, “OK, OK. Are you sure, Holmes?”

“Yes,” I said. “I’m sure.”

I kind of liked it when Paco called me “Holmes.” I though it was funny to think of a white guy like me from the Midwest having a cool “gangsta-style” nickname.

Paco took a deep breath, and said, “OK, then. I’m cool. Let’s go.”

“Right,” I said. We left the room. I felt a massive amount of relief when we did. I couldn’t let my teammate see panic I felt. My heart felt like an insane bird banging around inside of a birdcage. That’s because as soon as Paco said it, I noticed it too. There had been a “fucking window” there.

–––––

The bad feeling I had going into this house was getting worse. Involuntarily, I had a flashback to some documentary I watched on carnivorous plants. One plant lured insects in with a scent. It actually had some transparent parts like windows. The narrator, with his impressive baritone voice said, “The insect enters the well-lit chamber. It soon finds that it can’t get out.”

We see the bug panicking inside. The voice says, “It has nowhere to go except deeper into the plant, where it is slowly digested.”

I still remember the view of the inside of the plant. It was a tiny tunnel with translucent pink and white walls. It was sunny and light, but got darker at the far end, where it receded into a black hole. The camera actually moved toward it, showing the bug’s point of view. For some reason, that totally creeped me out. That’s how I felt now: “totally creeped out.” I hoped it wasn’t too obvious.

The next room was a long, narrow dining room. An appropriately long table with high-backed chairs occupied it. There were two large windows – boarded up, of course. The room looked OK. I was pleased by how fast the sweep went.

I checked in with the other teams. “A Team” was upstairs. “A Team! You copy!”

“Sir! Yes, Sir!” said Dubois. I was strangely relieved to hear his voice.

“Report.” I ordered. Then, oddly, I added, “Everything OK?”

“So far.”

“Good. Keep going. Meet us back at the landing when you’re done.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Abrams out.”

That went well. I called Basement Team C.

“C Team! Copy?”

Boudreaux answered, “C Team. Copy.”

“Status?”

“Doing it,” Boudreaux said.

Stillman’s voice jumped in, “You know what’s down here, Abrams? Fucked-up shit! There’s some fucked-up shit down here!”

I could tell he was still pissed off for being sent down there. I said, “Boudreaux, what’s he talking about?”

“Uh, noises … and shit.”

“Pop-ups?”

“Negative.”

“OK,” I said. “Just get it done and get back upstairs. I think we’re about 30 percent done.”

“Affirmative.”

“Abrams out.”

I didn’t know if we were 30 percent done, but it sounded encouraging.

Paco and I advanced to the next room. There was no door, but rather a large arched opening. The room was a massive kitchen, shaped like an octagon. The ceiling was two stories high, and the huge joists supporting the room met in the middle of the ceiling like a giant spider web. There were ancient-looking iron stoves along the walls, as well as counters. In the middle of the room was a large wooden island. A metal grid with all manner of pots and pans hanging from it was suspended by chains from the ceiling. On the table beneath it was a chopping block with the biggest meat cleaver I’d ever seen. It was so big it was almost a joke, like a prop for Halloween. But there was nothing funny about it. The angle at which it stuck out of the block made it look like the blade of a medieval executioner.

Paco and I scanned the room nervously.

“Clear,” I said hesitantly.

“Clear,” Paco agreed hastily. We left the kitchen by a door back out to the hall, passing through those funny half-doors that swing like the ones you see on the entrance of the saloon in every Western.

We exited into the hall. Straight ahead, it continued on to the rest of the house. At the far end was a window, mercifully uncovered by boards. Twilight dimness, along with light from the spotlights outside, illuminated the glass. The blue gloom reflected on the hardwood floor like moonlight on the surface of a cold, lonely lake at night.

The hallway on the right, leading back to the foyer, opened up to a larger room about half way down. I didn’t like the idea of having to go back the way we came, but there was a set of double-doors we had passed in the hall outside the kitchen. We were checking the rooms on the perimeter of the house, but those doors led to an interior room or closet. We needed to check it to finish with this part of the house.

Paco had the same idea. He led the way back and half-way down the hall he stopped. He was looking at something framed on the wall.

That left me alone at the corner. I was looking down the hall at the moonlit room at the far end. That’s when I saw it.

A figure stepped into view at the edge of that room. It was completely black. I swear, I would have shit my pants if there had been anything in me. I completely froze. I was about to yell when it stepped into the open. It was the silhouette of a woman. She was gorgeous.

Some women are like that. A lot of people, in the distance, kind of look like blobs. I mean, you can’t tell if they’re men or women. But other women have bodies that are so good that their body shapes just scream, “Female!” They’re so feminine that they cannot be mistaken for men. You can tell they’re hot even from a mile away.

That’s what this woman was like. I could tell she almost naked, except for the thin wisp of see-through lingerie that couldn’t even be called clothing. She was perfectly framed in the moonlit rectangle of that far window. She played with her long hair, looking like a woman in a commercial who looks beautiful after using a certain hair care product. I even thought I could briefly make out her face in profile. She had a small nose and large lips, so though she was little more than a black shape, her shape was ravishing.

I may as well have not been there. She didn’t see me, or ignored me. Then, with a flip of her hair, she turned and walked back from where she came from.

As soon has she had disappeared from sight, I snapped my gun to my shoulder and swept my light down the hall.

“What is it?”

I shouted and jumped. Paco was standing next to me.

“Whoa!” he said. “It’s me. What’s going on?”

I looked around and after a moment, I said, “Nothing.”

I checked the comm lines. I was relieved and secretly surprised when everyone checked in.

I know I saw what I saw, but I wasn’t going to give the house the satisfaction. I had seen this movie before. The sexy woman appears and lures the man away. He starts thinking with his dick and all logic and reason go out the window. It’s a trick to separate him from the group.

But that’s where the house got it wrong. I wasn’t going to follow the woman in dark. You see, years ago, Ashira, the Devil herself, or the Devil’s feminine side, or whatever, came to me and offered me sex. Sometimes I say, “She came to me in a dream,” because that makes more sense, but the truth is she came to me and I refused her. If I could resist the hottest temptress in the universe, I could resist the ghost girl in the haunted house.

Yeah, right, I thought to myself. Fuck you, House.

I knew I’d seen … something. That meant that the military, the house itself, or my eyes were playing tricks on me. I was certain of one thing. My team and I had to finish what we were doing, regroup and get out of there. Fast.

15

“OK, we do the room with the double doors next. After that, we go down there,” I said, referring to the moonlit hall and living area where the girl had been. “We do this and we’re half done.”

“Thank God,” Paco said.

“Yeah.”

We backtracked down the hallway and stopped in front of the double doors to the inner room. The doors were tall and heavy, and opened slowly. Inside was blackness. It was an interior room.

“Dios mío,” Paco said. “Can’t we just check it from here?”

I wanted to say, “Sounds good to me,” but the image of men at the base laughing at us as we refused to go in flashed through my head. I wanted us to at least enter the room so we could say that we did. We could argue about how quickly we left later. But at least Command couldn’t say I refused to step foot inside.

“Ten seconds,” I said. “We go in, check the four corners, and we’re out. Ten seconds.”

Paco was about to protest, but I said, “Count of three,” and counted. “One, two, THREE!” We burst in the doors and entered at the same time.