TWENTY-THREE
In the house itself, John Keeler tucked the walkie-talkie into the side pocket of his baggy combat trousers and took the IPad out from under his arm and tapped the screen.
He was rewarded with a shot looking down on himself standing in the middle if the large downstairs room from one of the cameras mounted in the top right hand corner of the set.
He waved to himself and then selected another camera in the room which was low down by the door. He nodded with satisfaction that meant all the cameras in here were fine.
He was about to flick the IPad to standby when he caught a glimpse of what looked like an out of focus figure on the screen just over his left shoulder. He froze and let his hand holding the IPad drop as if not looking at the image and what it had captured behind him might somehow not make it so.
But he had seen something, hadn’t he? Perhaps it was a misplaced shadow on the wall or some stain he had not noticed before. He closed his eyes and held his breath and waited for whatever it was to make a sound, shift slightly anything to make its presence flesh.
“Fuck it,” Keeler spun around gripped with a sudden cold fear. But was confronted with nothing more than the blank back wall of the room. No twisted creature, no ghost. Nothing but a large patch of fake (at least he assumed it was fake) greenish black looking mildew.
“Christ,” Keeler cursed under his breath and gave a slight shake of the head. It wasn’t unusual to get spooked when you were working in the house. Everybody did at one time or another. But this just felt different somehow.
Keeler slowly approached the stain on the wall. And as he drew closer he could see it was almost pitch black with no hint of green as he had first thought. He tried to think back to the last time he was in the house. Just after the last show when they were stripping down the lights and cameras. Had the stain been there then? No he didn’t think so, but he reasoned it may have been added by the set dressers after the last show to add (as if needed!) a more sinister look to the room.
Something heavy shifted in the room above which made Keeler start. Followed by loud banging and muffled voices.
“Christ, get a grip!” he told himself. There were three, no four others upstairs he remembered working on the lights and cameras up there.
That was when he felt something lightly touch his back. He spun around, he was still alone, of course he was alone. Full blown panic was now threatening to overwhelm Keeler as he got an image of that twisted fuck Minx in his mind’s eyes, crawling around the walls in here, hiding in shadows. Maybe even watching him.
Again he told himself to keep it together, he was alone in here, but still the feeling grew. Minx wasn’t even in the country yet as far as Keeler knew. Davis would wait until only a couple of hours before the show before he wheeled it out. Keeler looked over to one of the boarded up windows and was relieved to see bright sunlight outside. But the feeling didn’t last long.
That creature had been in this very room, perhaps squatting right where he was now standing. Its residual sickening presence hung heavy in the air around him almost like a physical manifestation of evil and hate.
He had a horrible thought; just what exactly did anyone really know about that thing? About what real power it did or didn’t have?
A cold paranoia gripped Keeler now and he looked around the room again. What if it didn’t even need to be physically present to cause its mischief?
He glanced up at the camera in the top corner of the room and another horrible thought hit him, it was illogical, he knew, but still it felt all too real all of a sudden.
What if this was the show? What if that bastard Davis had changed the format from wannabe exorcists to hapless crew members?
Again banging and clattering from upstairs. He looked up at the ceiling. A dark stain was growing close to where the fake light fitting was fixed to the plaster board.
He tried to think rationally, someone had spilt something in the room above. Probably knocked over a can of touch up paint. Paint that was now dripping through the cracks in the plaster, dripping right at his feet.
Keeler looked down to where the drops of dark liquid had landed by his boots. He instinctively scuffed it with the toe of his boot and froze.
If it was paint, then it was red paint.
Someone, something was scurrying around upstairs in hurried faltering steps.
Welcome to demon time.
“Oh, Christ,” Keeler uttered in horror.
It was in the house, right upstairs in the very room above him. Mister Minx was in the house.
“Oh, Christ, oh Christ!”
He frantically looked around for a weapon, anything but all he had was the useless IPad still clutched in his sweat soaked hands.
The door was close, then it was just a short sprint along the hallway and out into the warm summer air.
Keeler listened, more banging and shuffling upstairs but it now sounded to have gone through into another of the upstairs rooms. Perhaps onto the landing, perhaps waiting for him at the top of the stairs, ready to leap down on him when he was only feet from safety.
More blood, for surely that’s what it was hit the bare boards at his feet.
That monster must have taken the others so quickly they didn’t even have time to cry out. No time to scream, only time to bleed.
“No,” he tried to clear his head, this was lunacy. He half knew it was all in his head, but the fog of fear clouded his better judgement.
Fear, deep and primal taking a hold of him. Squeezing out the last drop of rationality from his brain.
“Christ, Christ.” Keeler willed his leaden feet to move towards the slightly ajar door which led out into the hallway.
He thought of Max and the others upstairs and got grotesque flashes of their gory ends. Slashed faces, eviscerated bodies.
He had to get out of here before he was next. He had to get out and get that mother fucker Davis, and Miller who was probably even now moving the remote camera in for a close up of his terror stricken face.
He looked at the camera by the door. “Fuck you,” he said but not too loudly lest he drew the attention of that unholy creature upstairs.
Keeler shuffled over to the door as if wading through knee high water and as he reached it he gingerly peered out into the long hallway. The front door was thankfully open at the end but it seemed to him as if even the bright Spanish sunlight feared to shine over the threshold of this house of horrors.
He opened the door which fair screamed on its hinges, that was a deliberate gag his fear addled brain remembered dully. No need for lame sound effects when you could rig the hinges to grate against one other like that every time the door moved even an inch. Keeler had always thought that had been a nice touch from the set construction team, until now. Now he hated it.
He edged out into the hallway and was a split second from running screaming towards the door when he heard something step onto the top of the stairs (creaky of course) and then take another two steps down.
Keeler froze as his already near catatonic brain over-loaded with fear. Minx was coming down the stairs now, slowly step by creaking step. Down to where Keeler was frozen to the spot.
He was vaguely aware that he was sobbing now and cursed himself for giving Davis and the show exactly what they wanted. Probably in a glorious close up.
Step by step closer and closer, Keeler couldn’t help but look towards the bottom of the rickety stairs were Minx would appear at any moment. That twisted hateful thing was going to kill him live on the internet.
“God, help me,” he sobbed and remembered to his shame just how unmoved he had been watching those very same words uttered by what was it? Four priests now? He seemed to remember scoffing at them for clinging to their pathetic faith even as Minx drove them from the house in disgrace.
But still, as the snot and tears ran down his face, he uttered them again just the same as a twisted shadow reached the bottom of the stairs.
Max Cramer, Keeler’s assistant appeared at the bottom of the stairs and staggered into the hallway. He was covered in blood and his face was battered and bruised. Cramer looked genuinely surprised to see Keeler standing there.
He stood for a full ten seconds staring at Keeler with a dazed look on his face before his blank expression finally melted into one of recognition. He smiled and Keeler could see that half his teeth had been knocked out.
“Max,” Keeler said.
Cramer nodded and moved falteringly over to where Keeler was still rooted to the spot.
“Max,” Keeler uttered again. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
Cramer stopped just in front of him. “Hello boss,” he lisped through broken teeth.
“We’ve...”
“Hell of a day,” Cramer interrupted and raised his right arm.
John Keeler hadn’t noticed the bloody claw hammer in his colleagues hand until he brought it down hard onto his forehead. Then there was nothing. He was dead after the third blow, but still Max Cramer continued to pound his skull to a bloody pulp counting each hit as he did so. He lost count at twenty.