The storm started just as they headed for bed and the thunder and lightning, and the wind screaming and moaning around the old house, made for a restless night. The last clap of thunder came at the same instant lightening flashed and lit up the walls on either side of the heavy blackout curtains. The concussion rattled all the doors and windows in the place and the silence that came after everything stopped shaking was deafening.
"Jeeze! That was close!" Casino said into the inky blackness.
There was no reply from any of the other three men he shared the room with.
"Oh, C'mon!" he hissed into the cloying darkness. "Nobody could sleep through that!"
Still the room was silent.
"Very funny," he grumbled as he rolled up to sit on the side of his cot.
He reached out for the flashlight he'd laid on the table next to the bed after he finished closing the place up for the night and thumbed it on. The sharp snap seemed to echo back to him but the darkness remained impenetrable.
"Lousy piece a…" he mumbled to himself. "C'mon," he ordered. "T'Hell with the Warden's regulations. Somebody hit the lights."
After several moments of nothing happening he grouched into the darkness. "Well, now don't bother disturbin' yourselves, I'll do it!"
Casino pushed up onto his feet and side stepped along his bed to get out of the little inglenook he and Goniff had created next to the fireplace with their cots. He moved cautiously into the open space at the end of the beds because they'd just rearranged a few things: pulling the table into the center of the room and shoving Actor back into a corner where his beloved bookcases could surround him. The safecracker stopped a moment to get the new layout straight in his head before he moved off towards the door and the switch to the overhead lights. A couple of confident steps later his left shin connected with something solid with a resounding crack.
"Jeeze!" Casino pulled the leg up, hopping precariously on one foot as he clamped a hand down over the lump that was already forming on the bone. "Alright! Joke's over! Somebody flip on the lights or pull those damn curtains back before I break my neck!"
The comment seemed to bounce back at him from all the surfaces in the room. The fact that the silence and the darkness continued raised goose bumps on his arms and legs. He opened his mouth to call out to his teammates again but his throat was tight and no sound came out. Sticking a hand out in front and sliding his foot carefully along the carpet he started inching his way towards his goal again. After what felt like about an hour his fingertips finally brushed the wall and he started exploring his way to the left where he knew the switch would be.
Something brushed the back of his hand causing him to jerk it back into the safety of his armpit. A lifetime of indecision later he reached a tentative hand out again and found the heavy brocade of the window curtains between his fingers. He breathed a sigh of relief. He was at the window across the room instead of at the door. He'd just gotten himself turned around in the darkness… that was all.
Brass rings sang along the rod as Casino pulled the curtain back. Instead of a sopping wet landscape outside the window he was greeted by thick fog pressing itself against the glass.
"Man! Will you look at that stuff!" and he called out and he turned to get a reaction from the others in the room.
Only there wasn't anyone in there but him.
Diffused light from the fog cast a gray pall over the chamber that washed away all trace of color. Blankets and sheets hung off the beds as if their occupants had left them in a rush, the fabric trailing away in a clawing reach for the open door. Chairs and lamps were upended, books strewn across the floor… Even the heavy oak table lay on its side, the mismatched glasses and cups they used and the brandy bottle shattered on the floor next to it. The suit of armor had toppled from its stand too and its own sword pierced its breastplate.
Casino stood, open mouthed, surveying the damage. If this was a prank it was a pretty damn elaborate one, he thought. The Limey wasn't smart enough to work something like this out…Neither was the kid. Had to be Actor! He probably slipped him some kind a Mickey too, to keep him sleepin' away while they rigged it all up.
As soon as he started working out what he was going to do to the know-it-all Italian when he got his hands on him the knocker started on the main door downstairs. The sound of the cast iron ring hitting the strike plate reverberated through the main wing. The floor seemed to vibrate under his feet. Obviously the next act in this little drama was to take place downstairs.
"Ah no," Casino, finding his voice again, called out. "I'm not fallin' for that one!" If they were going to play this game it was going to be on his terms and on his turf!
Only he didn't seem to have any choice in the matter because in the next instant he found himself standing halfway down the ornate staircase. It was freezing where he stood too, like the place was suddenly made out of ice. The glow from the room upstairs had followed him down and it showed his breath whistling out of his lungs in long ragged wisps of vapor.
The cast iron called out again. He knew he hadn't moved; he didn't think he could, but he was standing in front of the main entrance to the mansion anyway.
The knocker sound again and again. Casino flinched away from the door that seemed to bulge into the entry with each blow. Unbidden and shaking his hand reached out on its own, pulling him forward against his will, and turned the nob. The door swung open with a stomach-turning groan.
The figure on the threshold seemed to have gathered all the darkness in the world to itself. It was thin and tall, tall enough that he had to duck down to see the top of it through the doorway. There was a hood, and wisps of fabric clinging and blowing around it… And a long arm stretching out towards him with a finger curled and beckoning him out of the mansion.
Casino shook his head and cringed away into the hall. His back came hard up against the far wall… Only it wasn't the entry hall wall, it was the door, and the door was closed firmly at his back, and he was outside.
His hands curled into fists. He screwed his eyes shut and willed himself back into his bed upstairs. This was a dream, a real doosie of a dream, but just a dream. He'd talked himself out of bad dreams before. In fact he'd gloated about it to Goniff. When he realized, right in the middle of one, that he was having a bad dream he just told himself to wake up and he always woke up. He'd look around to make sure everything was okay, and then he'd go right back to sleep. No problem. And that's what he was going to do now too… In just a minute… After he'd kept his eyes closed for a few more seconds…
Casino took a deep breath and convinced one eye to open, just a crack. He was still outside. Not only was he still outside, he was outside on the grounds looking back towards the house… what was left of it. The east wing was gone altogether, the west wing just a pile of rubble. The roof of the house was tumbled in on itself, the windows shattered, the door hung drunkenly on its hinges. Great gouges, like claw marks, marred the surface of the stone that made up the façade. Strips of the lawn had been pushed up into folds revealing scars of dark clammy earth. The trees that stood around the mansion looked like they'd been blasted by an artillery barrage.
Casino called out for the others. "Warden! Goniff! Chief! Actor!" Over and over. Louder and louder until his throat was raw and his pulse was pounding in his ears. But his voice just echoed back to him. Only his own voice and his ragged breathing. Nothing moved… Only that figure that still stood nearby beckoning.
The thin fleshless hand reached out and grabbed at his shoulder. Casino frantically slapped it away. "Get off me!" he shouted in panic. But as he shouted the figure seemed to shrink down into a more human form and size. When he took a closer look it was Jenkins, one of the guards that was a regular at the estate, but his skin was pale, his eyes sunken and his lips bloodless.
"Run." Jenkins rattled out and he turned and started away from him.
Casino glanced back at the house. It was all smoking timbers and charred stone now. Ash blew in drifts across the seared lawn. Burning hulks of jeeps and staff cars littered the grounds. The fog was breaking into tatters and he caught a glimpse of something big and black swooping down out of the sky… and it was coming straight for him.
He turned and ran, following the path that Jenkins was plowing through the drifts of ash. Casino saw the guard trip over something hidden under the cinders and watched in horror as the man started to fall. It seemed his feet and legs were turning to ash too! His knees and hips and body! Any piece of Jenkins that touched the earth turned to cinders and dust and started to swirl away in the wind… And then his own foot caught and he started to fall.
Casino staggered as he tore himself free; he struggled to keep his balance but he could feel himself falling forward. The ground was coming up rapidly and just as rapidly his own flesh and bone was turning to cinders and collapsing under him. He tried to scream but his lungs and throat were already full of ash. What had been him was already shredding away on the wind.
"Casino! Wake up!"
He couldn't seem to move. He couldn't make a sound. He could hear voices but they seemed so far away.
"Why'd ya grab 'is foot like that, anyway?"
"You don't just shake a guy awake Goniff. You gotta give his spirit time to find its way back in the body, man."
Goniff and Chief faded away and Casino strained after the sound of their voices but he still couldn't move a muscle.
"Is he ill?"
"I don't think so. There's no fever anyway."
"Here, try this."
A cool damp cloth draped over his forehead and he jutted his chin out and arched his back and finally pulled his arms free of the mire that seemed to hold them immobilized by his sides. He reached up and clutched at the cloth, pulling it down to cover his eyes. There was a slight tug on the cloth and he tightened his grip, squeezing out water that ran, tear like, down the sides of his face and into his hair.
"Alright, Casino. Wake up," the Warden coaxed. "Come on. Open your eyes."
He drew the rag down a little further and pulled cool air into his lungs through the dampened cloth. Sounds were coming back now, becoming clearer. He could hear rain on the roof and wind coursing through the trees and rattling the windows. A rumbling sound of thunder off in the distance. The floor creaking as a foot found a loose board.
He took a deep breath and let one hand fall back by his side, the other still clutched at the cloth that lay at the base of his throat now. Casino raised his eyebrows high and pulled his eyelids apart and risked a looked around the room. Garrison was sitting on the side of his bed, Actor leaning in over his shoulder holding an oil lamp that guttered and sent up a wisp of soot. Goniff and Chief were peering anxiously at him from down around the foot board.
"What'r you all starin' at?" he demanded in a hoarse croak as he made an attempt at sitting up.
Garrison hooked his hand around Casino's arm and gave a pull until the safecracker was sitting on the side of his bed. He stood back, crossed his arms on his chest, and watched as the man mopped sweat off his face and neck. "Bad dream?" he asked.
"Yeah. A beaut!"
"You want to tell us about it, mate?"
"Oh, Hell no!" Casino shuddered and looked up at the men still gathered close. "I'm gonna sit here and convince myself it never happened!"
The Warden cocked a brow up and smiled, "Okay, if that's the way you want to handle it…. But I think horror films at the movie house are off limits to you for a while."
"Indeed." Actor agreed as he settled the lamp with its pool of light on the table Chief had just brought over to the safecracker's bedside.
"Alright, hit the sack you guys." Garrison said as he started for the door. "I'm going to call Rawlins and tell him to put off those physical evaluations we've got scheduled today. I don't think anyone's going to feel up to it."
"But it's two in the morning!" Actor protested. "Surely you could wait until a decent hour?"
The Lieutenant stopped in the door and considered it. "You're right. I could…" The smile he turned on them was slightly wicked. "But we're up. Why should he sleep?" He stepped out of the room, leaving the door open, and they could hear his steps as he went down the stairs to his office to make that call.
Casino snorted a laugh and felt the blood in his veins thaw out a little.
Actor settled back on his bed and turned his back to them so that his face would be in shadows and it would be easier for him to go back to sleep.
Chief wandered over to the window at the head of his cot and stepped behind the blackout curtains. A moment later he slipped out again. "Looks like the storm's breakin' up," he reported before he, too, rolled himself in his blankets and instantly went back to sleep.
Goniff chewed at a thumbnail and considered his friend and teammate. He pushed off his own cot and swung his hips over onto Casino's. They sat there side by side for a moment and he could feel a shiver run through the east coast con. "You want I should poke up the fire a bit?" he offered.
Casino's eyes shifted from Goniff to the fireplace. He looked at the drifts of ash and cinders in it and he did his best to suppress a shudder. "No," he said. "Don't bother. I'm okay."
"Well, you best wrap up in somethin' if your gonna sit up for a while," the little pick pocket recommended.
"I will." Casino promised as he ran his hand down the front of his leg in an attempt to smooth out the goose bumps. He winced as he hit a sore spot. "Say, Goniff," he called across to the cockney who'd climbed back under his own covers. "Was I up sleep walkin' around, or anything?"
"Blimey, no! You was laying there stiff as a board the whole time! Why?"
Casino probed the lump on his left shin with trembling fingers. "Oh," he said, in a voice that was a little higher than normal. "No reason."
Happy Halloween…..