Scene Nine

I shut the door. The hallway and second story landing on the stairs comes into focus after rubbing the crud from my eyes. Pale sunlight falls across the floor from towering windows in the hallway.

Patty greets me at the top of the steps. "Hey, Sean." The bags under her eyes tell me her smile is fake. "Sleep well?"

"I've had better," I say, yawning.

She laughs a little. "I feel ya there, buddy."

She extends an open hand down the stairs and I oblige her.

"Oh?" I ask. "What happened last night?"

An exasperated sigh pursues my descent. "Oh. It wasn't so much me as it was Jerry – er, Dr. Benson – flopping around in his sleep."

A genuine laugh. Feels good for a change. "No ghosts, then?"

"Heavens, no," she says, landing on the bottom step. "Jerry wouldn't have any of that."

"How about you?"

We stroll toward the breakfast room side by side.

Patty shrugs her narrow shoulders. "I guess I'm more open to the possibility after what I've seen around here."

The doc and Donna both study the laptop screen on the table. Bloodshot, sagging eyes. Colorless faces.

"You two have been up all night, haven't you?" Patty sounds a trifle pissed.

"We've poured over these recordings for their authenticity," he says. His voice cracks and shutters under the strain of his exhaustion.

Patty: "And, you found what?"

Doc sighs: "Nothing to refute the occurrences."

Donna: "No tampering, photo editing, nothing."

Patty scoops some scrambled eggs from the foil container onto a paper plate. "It took you two most of the night to do this?"

Wait a minute. "Patty." She turns a narrow eye toward me. "I thought that you said Doc was tossing and turning all night."

Her plate hits the floor with a slap. A waste of some perfectly good eggs. "Oh, God. Jerry."

Benson: "I don't know who you thought was in bed with you dear, but I assure that I've been down here the whole time."

Patty stumbles back into the countertop. She raises a shaking finger toward the ceiling. "Someone was in that bed next to me last night."

Doug looks up from his notes. "What else happened?"

Patty: "Nothing. It tossed and turned next to me all night."

Jake: "Were you lucid when this was going on, Mrs. B?"

Her arms cross and lock. "I wasn't dreaming. I know what I felt."

Jake's hands fly up as he leans back in his seat. "Just puttin' it out there."

Dylan fills his mug and hobbles over behind Jake at the table. "Who would want to just flop in a bed all night long? What kind of message is that supposed to be?" He takes a nip of his coffee, which also smells a little like my dad's liquor stash under our kitchen sink.

Doug: "It may have felt like tossing and turning, but the activity may have been something entirely different."

Patty: (picks up her plate) "Such as?"

Dougie tilts his sleek black locks to one side. "Dunno. Someone could have been strangled in that bed at one time."

Patty's plate hits the bottom of the black trash bag. "I've lost my appetite."

Emily strides in from the kitchen and takes up a seat next to Doug. "So, what are we getting into after breakfast, boys?"

Jake points to the notebook in his hands. "We're checkin' out the Servant's Quarters out back. You comin'?"

Em: "I'm down." She glances up to me. Smiling eyes. "Care to join me?"

I jam the last bite of my pastry into my mouth and nod.

Doug: "The train departs in ten, buckos."

The grass has been worn down into a flat green carpet among the high weeds. Far off to my right sits an old two story stable house. Farther back beyond all of this, the old orchard marches off in clean rows of decaying trees.

Jake: "This must have been some place in its heyday."

A squat single level house approaches from our left. I round the turn in the weeds behind Emily. Dew drenches the cuffs on my jeans.

Em: "A mansion, stables, and servant's quarters? What did this guy do for a living?"

"Railroads and a shipping company," I say.

Her keen gaze surveys the backyard. "Why would someone with all of that money choose this place to build a mansion?"

Damn good question. "Beats me." I trail after her up the two front steps to the dilapidated servant's house.

Jake: "Rumor has it that McAllister came way out here because he was a wanted man."

Doug scoffs. "Don't listen to him, man." He forces the half-rotten front door open with his shoulder. He brushes the dust off his denim jacket and examines its interior. "Henry was forced out of the city by a malpractice lawsuit."

Jake shuffles past Doug on his right. "Yeah, probably because he chopped the dude to pieces and boxed them up for Europe."

Em (nervous): "Shut up, Jake."

It has a stale odor about it. It's hard to describe, exactly. Like that warm lived-in smell has been sucked out.

Slow paces around the main gathering area. A layer of brown dust covers everything. I scan the inside from left to right: three small bedrooms, a large hearth and cast iron pot on an arm, and a little kitchen to the far right with a basin sink.

My stomach drops. We all look to one another for affirmation.

Doug: "You hear it?"

Jake nods, his face mashed up in terror.

Once more, a woman's soft voice hums a familiar lullaby.

Em: "I think s-she's over next to the fireplace." She shuffles around behind me and latches onto my waist. "Shit!"

Her arms pull her face into the small of my back.

Jake (gagging): "How could --?"

My eyes follow his up above the doorways of the main living area. Tiny skeletons hung in a broken row around the room. Evelyn's sleeping babies.

The woman's lullaby gets louder.

I want to look away, to run, but I can't. Some, their miniature limbs – severed and missing. Others hang on rusty meat hooks, their barbs jutting between busted white ribs.

Doug: "Sick bastard."

Jake's doubled over on the floor dry heaving.

Em: "Get me out, get me out. Please, God, get me out."

Their high-pitched cries intertwine with that of a bone saw. More little corpses with clean incisions around their skulls. The baby's tortured cries drown out all else. Dozens of them. The saw grinds through its unseen barrier and then whines to a stop. A wet pop.

"I need some fresh…" The world spins. Walls closing in.

Jake staggers out the front door and falls to the ground with a dull thud.

Doug's on the verge of a breakdown. "Why?"

Screaming. Their tormented tantrums split my mind and push the knot of nausea into my throat. Emily's hysterics chase me out the door and down the bowed steps. My left knee buckles to the ground. Burning gashes in my kneecap. I crawl into a cluster of high weeds and puke.