Nightmare Abbey Read online

  “So we won't encounter Lucifer ourselves, unless we believe in him?” asked Marvin.

  “Personal demons,” said Brie, suddenly. It was her first contribution to the discussion.

  Non-sequitur, thought Denny. Let's get back on track.

  “Was Blaisdell the first person to summon up dark forces, Ted?”

  “By no means,” replied Gould, clearly relishing the opportunity to lecture some more. “From ancient times, Malpas was known as a troubled place. The Abbey was supposedly built on the site of a pagan temple – some standing stones were apparently torn down by the monks. However, it's still rumored locally that a kind of altar was kept in a secret room by the monks.”

  “Devil worshipping monks!” exclaimed Denny. “I saw that movie!”

  “Possibly,” Gould said, laughing. “Opinions vary as to what the altar was for, though. Some did indeed say it was for raising demons, devils, evil forces. But one writer claimed the monks used the hidden chamber as a 'place of trial by ordeal'. A monk accused of impurity was locked in there, and if he survived, he was deemed good. But a black-hearted individual would invariably be driven mad, or killed, or whisked away.”

  “And ever since then, Malpas Abbey has been a troubled place?” Denny put in.

  Gould nodded.

  “The house has been occupied without incident – or reported incident – for decades at a time. But inevitably, sooner or later, something happens. Some disturbance occurs, and the residents move out. Sometimes it's just glimpses of what may be generally classed as ghosts. Sometimes – well, it's a lot more drastic than that.”

  After half an hour, Matt decided that they had enough material, and they moved on to filming the team settling into their rooms.

  “We all need to get our heads down, people, get some sleep,” said Denny as they trooped up the grand staircase. “Because we're going to stay up tonight, looking for – well, whatever haunts this place.”

  She had hoped for an enthusiastic response, maybe even a whoop from Brie. Instead, Brie said nothing and Marvin muttered something about 'getting it over with'.

  “The team seems kind of subdued,” Denny told the camera, moving close to Frankie's microphone so she could speak quietly. “Maybe that message – whoever or whatever wrote it – knocked them off-kilter. But let's hope they're back to their usual selves by sundown!”

  ***

  Brie sat on the huge, four-poster bed and stared at the pattern on the worn carpet.

  Gotta keep busy, she told herself. Don't think about it.

  She stood up, walked mechanically into the antiquated bathroom, turned on the hot tap in the sink. There was a rumbling from somewhere below, and a gout of brownish water shot out, swirled down the plughole. Brie waited for the water to clear, which it did eventually, then washed her face. She did not feel like tackling the shower.

  Brie dried her face, looked at her reflection in the speckled mirror. She saw a reasonably attractive woman, maybe a little heavy-set, jowly, but with a kind face.

  A good person, she thought. Caring. Wife and mother. Church-goer. Supporter of worthy causes.

  “I didn't let her die,” she said. “I was young, I didn't know. I never told her to–”

  A shadow flickered behind her, cutting off the light from the bedroom. Brie spun around, heart racing, wondering if the intruder might be Frankie.

  She wouldn't sneak around, she told herself. She doesn't like me much, but she wouldn't act like that.

  Brie emerged tentatively from the bathroom, looked behind the door, then checked under the bed. There was nobody else in the room. Her alarm subsided, then she jumped as a fast moving shadow shot across the floor. It was a bird flying past the window. Brie laughed in relief, went to look out at the grounds of Malpas Abbey. Black shapes hopped on the ill-kempt lawn. She could just make out the cawing of crows.

  Or maybe ravens. Aren't they birds of ill-omen?

  Brie shook her head, trying to dislodge the dark thoughts that had surged up when she had seen the writing gouged into the wall. She drew the curtains not quite closed, letting some of the September light spill into the dark-paneled room. Then she walked back to the bed, said a short prayer, took off her shoes, and curled up on top of the covers.

  Sleep, she told herself. Got a job to do. People relying on me. The Lord will not forsake me if I am sincere and humble.

  The plumbing began to rumble again, louder this time, and did not let up. She guessed someone had decided to try their shower. She got up and opened a secret pocket in her flight bag. She took two powerful tranquilizers from a small packet, replaced the rest of her stash, and sealed the pouch. Then she climbed onto the bed and drew the four-posters curtains around her. It was oddly comforting.

  Like being out camping with the boys, she told herself. Good memories. Positive thinking.

  When she lay down again the familiar effects of the prescription meds kicked in. The rumbling gradually dwindled as sleep claimed Brie.

  ***

  “You big jerk!” Denny snapped. “How did you do it? Did you cover it up, with a sheet of paper or something? Then pull it off just before we arrived?”

  “What are you talking about? And for Christ's sake, not so loud!”

  Matt was defensive but angry, holding up his hands in front her. Denny had slapped him a couple times before, during their brief relationship. They were supposedly over the breakup, but every now and again, the bitterness would surge up. Now they were in his bedroom having a fight. It was too familiar, something Denny had experienced far too often.

  “That dumb message!” she hissed, jabbing a finger into his chest. “I'm supposed to believe it just appeared?”

  Matt held up his hands in a helpless gesture.

  “You think I'd be that dumb?” he asked. “With so much riding on this?”

  “I know you can be that dumb!” she almost shouted. “What about Akron, that creepy doll we so conveniently found in a tire factory that was pretty much the most boring place on earth?”

  “Oh, come on, I just moved it into plain sight!” he protested. “I never faked anything, just did some stage dressing.”

  “That wall was not stage dressing, it was just fraud!” she said, struggling to control her anger.

  “I didn't do it! Jesus!” Matt shouted. He was pacing up and down, now, and Denny recognized his martyred air.

  “Okay,” she said, trying to stifle her doubts. “If you didn't, who did? Gould?”

  “I don't see how he could have done it,” Matt said, and stopped pacing. “I was with him the whole time since he drove us here. And that wall was blank when he showed me the blocked doorway.”

  They looked at one another.

  “So it's a genuine mystery?” she asked. “There's nobody else here who could have done it?”

  Matt shook his head.

  “Some caretaker comes in every morning, but he wasn't here when we arrived. I suppose–”

  “What?” she asked, as he Matt paused for thought.

  “Somebody could be hiding,” he pointed out. “It's a big house, none of us knows it, whereas Gould might have set something up.”

  Denny turned that idea over in her mind.

  “Let's see if anything else happens,” she decided. “I'm sorry I unloaded on you like that. Maybe I'm more tired than I thought.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Let's get some shuteye.”

  He padded the bed. Denny smiled wearily.

  “Yeah, we both sleep a lot better alone,” she said, adding from the doorway.

  ***

  “You let me die.”

  Brie sat upright, confused by the unfamiliar surroundings, disturbed by the dream that was already fading. It took her a few seconds to recall where she was. When she did remember, she sighed. She checked her watch and found she had only slept for two hours. The sun was lower, though, and its autumn light was streaming through a gap in the curtains. She got up to draw them fully closed.

  “You let me die.”<
br />
  This time she could not dismiss the words as part of some half-remembered nightmare. The voice, though low pitched and whispering, was disturbingly familiar. It was a girl's voice, that of a teenager on the brink of maturity. Brie felt sure that it was the voice of her own conscience.

  She never did grow up. Never got the chance.

  Unwelcome memories swarmed in her head. Facts Brie had not considered for years suddenly demanded her attention. Guilt began to take possession of her, a corrosive and all-embracing guilt that she could do nothing to assuage.

  “I was too young,” she said as she drew the curtains closed. “I didn't know what I was doing.”

  Brie remembered her awkward sixteen-year-old self, raised in a tight rural community, dominated by the pastor of her church. Brother Charles had declared Brie to be especially blessed, someone who could commune with angels, a child gifted with prophecy. From her childish talk of auras and spirits, he had woven a small-town cult, with Brie as the figurehead. And then things had gotten too serious, too soon, and her parents had taken her away, burned that bridge behind them.

  “I know who you really are.”

  The simple statement sounded like a threat of the direct kind. And this time Brie could not convince herself that the voice was in her head. The room was still not totally dark, since the old curtains were threadbare and still admitted a wan light. In the colorless radiance, Brie saw the faded drapes around the four-poster bed move, just a touch. But still far more than could be explained by a rogue breeze in the old house.

  “Who am I?” she asked, surprised by her own courage. “I'm not that naive kid any more. I've tried to make amends.”

  “But I'm still a naive kid. I had no choice.”

  The figure that emerged from the curtained four-poster was almost, but not quite, Marybeth Carson. Of course it couldn't be. Marybeth had died from a rare kind of leukemia nearly twenty years ago. Died not quite a year after her friend and neighbor Brie had told Marybeth to fear nothing, that God would cure her, that all she had to do was put her trust in Brother Charles. Everyone in their little town knew that the pastor channeled the healing power of the Lord. Everybody in town said so, gave examples, spoke of miracles. But it turned out that Brother Charles had had his limitations, and the doctors had been right all along.

  “I believed in him,” Brie whimpered. “Everybody did. I just went along with the rest.”

  The apparition slowly, painfully, disentangled itself from the bed's draperies and stood upright. Even in the poor light Brie could see that Marybeth was naked, painfully thin, and terribly sick. The wasted body was hairless as the girl's skull, and Brie recalled the doses of chemotherapy and radiation that had been too late.

  Someone looking that bad could not really stand, she told herself. This is an apparition sent by the Devil, a trick to make me despair. To make me lose my faith.

  Brie began to recite the Lord's Prayer, rushing through the familiar words as the Marybeth-thing advanced on her. As it grew closer, the revolting creature began to lose much of its semblance of humanity. Great tumors began to erupt from the parchment-like skin, until the entity was a walking cancer, a horrific mass of diseased tissue creeping toward her on spindly, malformed legs.

  It reached out for her, and Brie stumbled back until she felt the window sill in the small of her back. Reaching for her with bony arms, the being's bloated face seemed to smile. Tears streamed from tiny black eyes while the huge mouth drooled.

  “I've been lonely, Brie. You were so nice when you visited me, read the Good Book to me, prayed with me. I just want to give you a great big hug.”

  ***

  Ted Gould made his way out of the kitchen door and into what had been a Victorian herb garden. He looked around making sure nobody was overlooking him from one of the house's back windows. All of the guests had been carefully allocated rooms at the front, south facing. When he was satisfied, he took out his phone and called Benson to report on the new development.

  “Is there any chance the Americans are faking a phenomenon?” Benson asked at once.

  “I don't see how,” Gould replied patiently. “I was watching the producer the whole time. None of the others had the opportunity, let alone the time. So it seems that there has already been a response.”

  “In broad daylight?” Benson still sounded skeptical.

  “There are a few examples,” Gould pointed out. “If conditions are dark enough. Remember, we don't know if they're strictly nocturnal, or simply taking advantage of the fact that we are visually-oriented beings.”

  A pause, then Benson asked what he planned to do next.

  “Go through with the plan, as outlined,” Gould replied. “What else is there? This response supports my hypothesis that at least one of them can trigger a PD event. That means we will at least gather some data, perhaps more.”

  Another pause, then Benson spoke emphatically.

  “Very well, Gould, you are free to use your own judgment. But keep me informed. And if there is any serious risk to the team, I will insist on extraction. Do you understand?”

  Gould ran his left hand over the pale scars on his right wrist.

  “I understand, sir.”

  ***

  The scream cut through the gloomy interior of the house and set Denny racing along the landing. She almost collided with Frankie, who was emerging from her own bedroom, camera at the ready as usual.

  “I'm assuming that was Brie,” Denny said.

  “Could have been Marvin,” Frankie shot back, with a wry grin.

  A second later, they almost collided with Brie, who was running barefoot towards the staircase. For a moment, Denny wondered if this was part of some conspiracy involving the wall graffiti. But then Brie collapsed against the wall sobbing, and Frankie stopped filming. It took them a while to get Brie to explain what had happened, by which time, Matt, Marvin, and Jim had arrived.

  “Something in your room?” asked Denny, not quite sure what Brie was saying.

  “I've tried to make amends!” Brie babbled. “I never hurt anyone, just tell them good things, help them feel better about themselves!”

  She's in a hell of a state, Denny thought. God, I hope she doesn't have to bail on us.

  “What did you see?” Matt asked.

  “You mean you don't know?” Denny asked him.

  “I've no time for your BS!” Matt replied, striding off along the passage. He stopped at Brie's door, looking back at the rest of them, then went inside. Jim got up and started to follow, but Matt emerged from the room after just a few moments.

  “Nobody in there,” he said. “She must have had a nightmare.”

  “It was real!” the psychic protested. “I saw her. She was – God, she was dying, still dying after all these years.”

  “Must have been a bloody realistic nightmare,” commented Jim, crouching down by Brie. “Hey, let me help you downstairs? We can have a nice cup of coffee in the kitchen.”

  Brie stared at him as she blew her nose on a tissue, then nodded.

  “I'd like that,” she said in a small voice.

  “Hey,” said Denny, feeling she had not been sufficiently sympathetic, “we can swap rooms if you'd rather not go back in there?”

  “Thanks,” Brie replied, sniffling.

  As Jim and Frankie helped Brie to her feet, Denny caught Matt's eye. He made a motion with his hands.

  Pill-popping, Denny thought. She's still on that prescription garbage. I guess he found her stash. Again. God, this could be a mess.

  Brie might have caught the expression on Denny's face. She looked the young woman in the eye and said simply, “I know what I saw. And it knows what you really are.”

  Frankie, Jim, and Matt led Brie downstairs while Denny stood watching them go with Marvin. Marvin, who had looked on saying nothing while the drama unfolded, solemnly tapped the side of his head with a forefinger.

  “These upbeat religious types – they're often unstable,” he remarked, and set off back
to his room.

  ***

  “So, Ted, tell us a little about the Romola Foundation.”

  After the incident, Denny had given up on getting some sleep for now. Jim and Matt were keeping the still-shaken Brie, company in the kitchen. So Denny asked Gould to give some background on the case. Before they began, she explained that the footage might not be used, but would probably furnish a few useful clips. Now they were standing outside Malpas Abbey, in what Frankie pronounced perfect daylight.

  “The Foundation was set up by Sir Algernon Romola,” explained Gould, “a very wealthy gentleman whose beloved wife died in childbirth. Spiritualism was very much in vogue at the time, and Romola – perhaps understandably – seized upon the notion that he could speak to his wife again.”

  “And how did that pan out?” Denny asked.

  “Sadly, Romola was a very intelligent skeptic, and quickly realized that a lot of spiritualist mediums were simply frauds. Long before Houdini, Romola began exposing common tricks – usually some basic conjuring that was only possible because séances were held in pitch darkness.”

  “So he became disillusioned pretty quickly?” Denny put in.

  “Yes,” said Gould, “but there were just a few instances where Romola, for all his perspicacity, could not find any evidence of fraud. Things moved, presences were felt, and in some cases, actual injuries were inflicted, allegedly by poltergeist activity. Romola was fascinated but also frustrated by these few instances of genuine paranormal events.”

  “So he set up a charitable foundation to settle the question?” she asked.

  “Indeed,” Gould replied, “and over one hundred and fifty years later, we are still grappling with the paranormal.”

  Not bad, thought Denny, but a bit ordinary. It needs a personal touch.

  “And how did you become involved with the foundation, Ted? Were you always interested in the paranormal?”