Blood Blade

Chapter 6

It was a cold day. Rain threatened to fall from gray clouds that rolled across a harsh autumn sky. A single, navy blue van moved along a dirt road and pulled off onto a trail that wasn’t much more than a set of crooked ruts in rocky soil. As soon as the van was far enough along the road for the driver to spot the collapsed remains of the old mansion, he sped up, the wheels spinning faster, kicking up a gritty mix of dust, gravel, and dead leaves. On the back of the van was the lettering MEG BRANCH 25.

Steve sat in the passenger seat and was tall enough for the top of his balding head to scrape the roof. His rounded face had yet to display anything less than a smile as he told more than enough jokes to fill the drive from Madison. “That’s the place,” he said. “Park anywhere you like.”

The driver was in his mid-thirties, but had enough youthful energy in his eyes to make him look at least five years younger. His dark brown hair was buzzed close to the scalp and his face was clean-shaven. Finding a parking spot wasn’t difficult, and the driver pulled to a stop just off the faded old road that led the rest of the way to the mansion. “You say this place is haunted?” he asked.

Steve nodded. “I sure do, Jarvis,” he replied, using the driver’s name in a way that seemed well-intentioned but obviously didn’t set well with the driver. “I could tell you plenty of stories from several other people, or I could tell you a few of my own.”

Jarvis leaned over the steering wheel to get a better look at the rubble in front of him. No matter how much squinting or straining he did, he could still only see the sagging remains of a three-story mansion. The roof was full of gaping holes. One half of the building had fallen down altogether. Even the fence surrounding the place was rusted and broken in several spots. “What’s anyone even doing out here?” Jarvis asked. “The place looks pretty run-down.”

“Oh, it is. The property is still held by the original family, and they’ve been thinking about restoring the entire mansion. It’s a big undertaking, so a lot of consultants have been coming and going to get a look for themselves. Some members of the family just want the land cleared off and sold, so it’s become sort of a tug-of-war.”

Nodding as he removed the keys from the ignition and pushed his door open, Jarvis said, “Okay, let’s have a look around.”

“Don’t you want to take any equipment with you?”

“This is just a walk-through,” Jarvis said. “Our closest tech crew is in Minneapolis. I’m going out to Milwaukee on other business, so I thought I’d take a look at the place rather than stick you at the back of a six month waiting period.”

“Oh. All right. Do you still want to hear the stories?”

“Just tell me about your own personal experiences,” Jarvis replied.

That was enough to get Steve going. He excitedly recounted stories ranging from feeling like he was being watched when poking around in dirty old rooms to sightings of glowing orbs in hallways. He capped it off by describing a shadowy figure lurking in a particular section of the house. When he tried to get a closer look, he heard screams coming from the basement.

For a seasoned member of the Midwestern Ectological Group, it was all pretty standard stuff. Jarvis nodded and reacted accordingly when Steve got worked up about something, but he didn’t share the other man’s enthusiasm. All too often, old run-down houses were thought to be haunted when they were simply old and run-down. Rotting beams creaked. Animals nested in basements and attics. Old pipes moaned under proper weather conditions. For those reasons, all MEG branches sent scouts to potential sites rather than waste the time and money it took to dispatch an entire team and its equipment for a full investigation. In fact, Jarvis had some business in Milwaukee, so he was forced to take the job that would normally be handed off to one of the MEG rookies. So far, he was confident that he wouldn’t be there too long.

“All right,” he said as he got to the front of the mansion, “show me the spots with the most activity.”

That brightened Steve’s face and he immediately launched into another story about screams and other sounds that came from under the floor. By the time he was through with the basics of that story, both men had their hard hats on and were walking through the sturdy, imposing front doorway.

As he listened, Jarvis examined the old mansion with the help of a flashlight that could have easily doubled for a nightstick. It looked as if a few cleaning crews had been there recently to gather up the rubble that had fallen when the main staircase collapsed. Dirt was thick upon the tiled floor, and broken furniture lay strewn along almost every wall. The upper portion of the staircase was propped up by wooden supports that were too squared and clean to be anything more than a month or two old. Most of the flooring at the top of the staircase was gone, leaving a wide balcony overhead instead of a proper second level.

“You said a family lived here?” Jarvis asked. “Did anyone die here?”

“Plenty of people died here,” Steve replied with a quick nod. “Sometime in the late 1880s this whole property was turned into an asylum by a man named Jonah Lancroft. Depending on which of Lancroft’s decedents you ask, he was anything from a misguided, poorly trained doctor to an overpaid prison warden. Other members of the family say he was a philanthropist who tried to run a reformatory for the surrounding communities. You can guess which sides want the place knocked down and which want it restored.”

“Which side of the fence do you land on?”

“Oh, I’d love to see this place restored! I’m the one who thought about getting it officially declared as haunted, so there’d be some reason to keep it from being demolished. There’s already been plenty of interest from some of the Lancroft family in coming back here to see if they might recognize something of Jonah Lancroft himself.”

Jarvis nodded and immediately regretted asking the question. From this point on he couldn’t allow himself to believe any of Steve’s stories. “So you heard scraping sounds?”

“Yep. They came from the floor.”

“You’re sure there’s not just some animals scraping under the floor?”

“The sounds come from the places where workers have heard the screaming.”

“And you’re sure there’s no animals? I mean, there were a lot of farmhouses and woods around here,” Jarvis explained. “It could be damn near anything.”

Rather than put any more of his own claims to the test, Steve nodded and said, “That’s why we called MEG. There are plenty of animals around here, but they don’t seem to come too close to the place. In fact, we haven’t seen so much as a squirrel for weeks. We called you guys because nobody else will check up on all the other claims.”

“Like the voices, huh?”

“Exactly.”

Jarvis swung the flashlight toward the back of the foyer. Sunlight streamed through the holes in the roof, contrasting with thick patches of shadow. There was more than enough dust in the air to turn the light into a gritty fog. Because of all the years of construction work Jarvis had done before he could work full-time at MEG, it was easy enough for him to guess that the upper half of the mansion was a long way from being close to code.

“Most of the voices and scraping came from the back of the house and the structure that used to be there,” Steve said. “Should I show you?”

“Sounds good.”

“What if you hear anything? Shouldn’t you bring some of your equipment?”

Although their appearances on cable TV had done wonders for getting exposure and some funding for MEG, it also made people like Steve expect a whole lot from scouting trips like this one. Just to put those expectations to rest and keep on good terms with potential clients, all scouts carried the bare minimum wherever they went. Jarvis took a handheld digital camera and audio recorder from his inner jacket pockets and showed them to Steve. That was enough to make Steve nod anxiously and hurry toward the back of the house.

“Only a few rooms on the upper floor were actually used by the Lancroft family,” Steve said as he slipped into a voice that would have been perfectly at home on a tour bus. “The ground level was for staff and visitors, while the basement levels were used to house the more docile patients. The main points of interest are in the old East Wing.”

Ducking beneath some half-assembled scaffolding, Jarvis said, “This place doesn’t look like much of a reformatory.”

“There weren’t a lot of patients, really. Not by our standards. Maybe only a couple dozen or so were here at any given time, and they probably never saw this house after they were initially brought here. After that,” Steve said as he made it to the end of the cramped hallway, “they spent their time in the East Wing.”

Once out of the hallway, Jarvis was led into what had once been a kitchen. Cracked counters were blanketed in layers of dust and nailed to walls or merely propped up where they’d once been. An iron stove, a table, and a few chairs were still in recognizable shape, but the rest of the room was completely trashed. A few sections of new drywall had been stacked nearby, but weren’t nearly enough to fix the gaping section of wall that had crumbled off the back of the mansion. The hole was covered in the same plastic that sectioned off many other rooms of the house, and it flapped with every passing breeze. The tattered bottom edge of the plastic scraped against a floor that could very well have been on the wrong end of a bombing run.

Jarvis stepped forward and made sure it was all right to walk through one of the many rips in the plastic sheet that formed the back wall. Once he got a nod from Steve, he walked through the plastic and into the backyard. To be fair, it was more of a back field. “What’ve you got back here?” Jarvis asked. “Four, five acres?”

“Three and a half, actually,” Steve replied. “But the East Wing only took up one.”

However bad the mansion looked, the East Wing looked worse. At least the mansion still had the general shape of a building. All that remained of the East Wing was several large piles of rubble that formed a barn-sized heap. Some sections of the heap were so covered by dirt and overgrowth that they looked as if they’d been reclaimed by the nearby hills.

“I’ve heard scraping and voices from over there,” Steve said as he pointed toward the heap. “Since there’s supposed to be at least two levels of basement under all that, the surveyors told us to stay away until they were certain there wasn’t going to be a cave-in. That was enough for me to keep from getting any closer than this.”

“That and the scraping, huh?” Jarvis asked with a smirk.

For once, Steve didn’t return a smile. “That’s right,” he said with a single nod.

There was enough loose dirt to give the air a gritty texture that caught in Jarvis’s nose and formed a crunchy layer between his teeth. “Where did you hear those sounds?” he asked.

“I was walking around the rubble, looking for anything that could be salvaged. According to the records we found, the East Wing was demolished somewhere between 1910 and 1915. It was a very modern scientific facility for its time, but all the equipment was said to have been left behind. Some of the rooms had ceilings that opened up to let in the sunlight. Those rooms were supposedly buried and a few patients were left down there when the structure fell. Ever since then, there’s always been stories of ghosts.”

“I’ll bet. Can I get a closer look?”

“We should stick to the perimeter. The surveying crew started in on this spot a few months ago, but we haven’t gotten any results. There’s a lot to dig up.”

Jarvis nodded as he continued walking forward. “I was a contractor for thirteen years before taking this job, so I know my way around messes like this one.”

Even though Steve didn’t seem comfortable with Jarvis continuing to walk onto the rubble, he wasn’t about to rush forward to stop him.

After all the dark corners Jarvis had looked into, the feeling of being near something truly supernatural was unmistakable. It wasn’t anything as simple as a chill or hairs standing up on the back of his neck. It was something deeper and more primal. Perhaps it was the same thing that made deer snap their heads up as danger approached or that caused every cricket within earshot to stop their chirping at the same exact instant.

Like most people who lived or worked so close to such things, Steve had also gotten familiar with that sensation. “Creepy, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. What’s that hole over there?”

Steve kept his hands clasped casually behind him and leaned forward. Making a face, he shrugged and replied, “Don’t know. I haven’t stepped foot out here since the surveyors told us to stay away.”

“And how long ago was that?”

“A month or so. Too bad you couldn’t get here sooner. We could’ve crawled all over there if you’d arrived before the surveyors came. They must be on vacation or waiting for supplies, because I haven’t heard from them for a while.”

“Sorry about the delay,” Jarvis said. “We get a lot of different calls.” He kept walking toward the hole, which was a black pit just big enough for a refrigerator to be lowered through it. The entrance to the pit was tucked at the bottom of one of the slopes made up of cracked bricks and powdery mortar. Everything from beams to copper pipes stuck up from the debris, making the East Wing look as if it had been crushed beneath the heel of God rather than knocked over by mere mortals. “Is it all right if I get a look inside?”

Steve winced. “It may not be safe and we may be liable for any accidents. Speaking of which, I really should have you sign something just so—”

“I think I hear something.”

“Really?”

Jarvis scrambled to climb the closest pile of rubble before his guide could expand upon the legal ramifications of doing so. Although the footing was shaky here and there, he felt a solid base under his boots. Before he got to the edge of the pit, Jarvis hunkered down and steadied himself with one hand while using his other to aim the flashlight into the hole.

“What do you hear?” Steve asked. “Is it voices?”

When he leaned far enough for his front foot to slide, Jarvis crouched down to regain his balance. The motion loosened some of the rocks as well as a clump of dirt from the edge of the pit, which dropped down into the darkness to make an echoing clatter. The sound also triggered a few restless, snorting breaths.

“Are you all right?” Steve shouted.

Jarvis swung his hand back toward the other man, which was enough to quiet Steve down. He then aimed his flashlight toward a spot at the bottom of the pit where he’d heard those noises. The first thing to catch the glare of his flashlight was the reflective tape on the edge of a bright yellow vest. Next, Jarvis’s eyes were drawn to a series of quick flicking motions coming from one section of the hole. Laying there, curled up on its side, was a twisted abomination of a living thing.

Although it wore the shredded waistband and one leg of a pair of jeans, along with a few shreds of an oversized sweater, the thing inside those clothes was far from human. In worse light and through a dense fog, it might have been mistaken for a large hound or wolf. Most of its body was covered in skin that looked like a coagulation of fluid that had sprouted irregular patches of coarse hair. One of its knees had the reversed bend of an animal’s hind leg, while the other was still human enough to keep its work boot in place. The longer Jarvis shined his light onto its face, the more the thing twitched and snorted its way out of a fretful sleep.

Jarvis hoped to avert a disaster by moving the light away from the thing, but only managed to find two more of them laying on a thick bed of leaves and garbage a few yards from the first one. One of those things looked partially human, but the other was gnarled beyond recognition. That one was larger than the other two, and lay without any shreds of clothing on its body. Lighter hairs sprouted to form a tangled shell over a bony frame. Its muscles looked as if they’d been tied into knots beneath its flesh, and at least three of the ribs pressing against its leathery flesh were clearly broken. The longer Jarvis looked at the things down in that pit, the more he wanted to figure out what the hell they were. And then, not long after he noticed the dark glistening puddles on the pit’s floor, the scent of blood hit his nose.

Suddenly, the fretful breathing from the pit caught in the back of a gnarled throat. Dirt scraped against rock as one of the things shifted in the darkness.

Jarvis could feel those things’ eyes pivoting toward him without needing to see them. Natural reflex got him rolling away from the edge of the pit before one of the things caught sight of him looking down at them. The moment his back hit the pile of rubble, he froze. The sound he’d made echoed through his ears like an explosion, but it quickly faded; only followed by more shifting and a choking snore.

Doing his best to collect himself, Jarvis got to his feet and hurried away from the pit as quickly and quietly as he could.

“Find anything?” Steve asked anxiously.

“No, I just slipped a little. There’s…a hole. That hole over there. See it? Stay away from there. In fact, don’t let anyone near it.”

“Is it about to collapse?”

Relieved to have such a good excuse handed to him, Jarvis nodded and said, “Yep. It’s pretty dangerous.”

“What about your investigation? Will you be coming back with a team?”

Now that he couldn’t smell the blood and couldn’t see those twisted, half-animal wretches, Jarvis was able to think a lot clearer. “Yeah. I’ll be coming back with a team, but I need you to do me a favor.”

“What?” Steve asked as his eyes lit up with anticipation.

“It’s very important that this site isn’t disturbed any further. Spirits get agitated when their homes are messed with, and if there’s any activity, we want to be here to record it.” Sensing the gears turning within the other man’s head, he added, “When they’re agitated, they just might disperse, so we may only get one chance at recording some real good activity.”

Steve kept nodding passionately. “All right. The renovations are already on hold, but I’ll leave a note for the caretakers to take some time off. Just let me know when you’re coming back.”

“Will do. Are there any records or plans for this place, because I’d sure like to see them.”

“They’re in my office. I’ll be right back.” With that, Steve jogged back toward the remains of the mansion and headed for the quarter of the structure that had actually been rebuilt enough to stand on its own.

Once Steve was safely out of sight, Jarvis reached for his phone and flipped it open. The expensive piece of equipment snagged a few bars of signal strength right away and made its connection as soon as he hit the speed dial button.

“MEG Branch 25,” droned the voice at the other end of the connection.

“Hey Will, it’s Jarvis. I’m at the Lancroft Reformatory. Look up Prophet’s number, will ya?”

“Why don’t you have it? Aren’t you supposed to be meeting him soon?”

“He’s one of those guys. You know the ones.”

“Oh. Give me a minute.” The sound of fingers clacking against a keyboard drifted through the phone as Will asked, “You find anything at Lancroft?”

“Yeah. It’s something Prophet might know what to do with. There’s not enough time to explain it to you right now and I wish I could forget I’d even seen it.”

“One of those cases, huh? Sweet.”