Chapter 2.
The house seemed to be much bigger now that she was inside. It had at least fifteen rooms on three stairs. Bailey chose to take a look at the basement and Sam was on the first floor at the moment.
An eerie feeling radiated from the building: the feeling of disuse and old memories. As Sam always had the gift to see the happenings behind the objects and places she could almost imagine those times when the house was full of life. There were even bequeathed pieces of furniture in some of the rooms. On old couch that was probably occupied by mice, a chest of drawers that might be an antiquity but one of its branches was missing. Even the curtains were up in one of the rooms.
Sam walked around slowly, peeping into every room and trying to absorb the spirit of the place. The murderer must have a special connection to this house, so it seemed important to find out why it could be so attractive.
The last room on the corridor was almost heavy-laden compared to the other ones. It was probably used as a study in the past, as there was a desk in the left corner in a surprisingly good condition. There were two chairs – one with two missing legs – and an open fire that has been used recently. Sam realized that it must have been the tramp who lit a fire here and he probably used the pieces from the chair.
She walked inside and checked the desk. In the first two drawers there was only dust. Then she opened the third one … and jumped back gasping for air and almost screamed out but kept herself from it in the last moment.
There was a dead rat in the drawer.
"Shit!" she said out loud. "It's just a rat…"
But she hated rats and this one has been clearly dead for a few days. It was smelling and looked disgusting. Its dead eyes were looking exactly at her…
Don't be silly, Samantha! She told herself and pushed back the drawer, the whole time staying as far away as possible.
The next moment the door behind her slammed with a loud bang and she jumped again. The eerie feeling came back with double force. The air in the room seemed to be choking, with a few long steps she rushed to the door.
She turned the knob but the door didn't open. The second time she pushed it a little bit as well but nothing happened. Great! I hope we will need a locksmith to open this old door… She studied the lock closer and to her surprise it wasn't rusty at all, considering the state of other parts of the house it looked rather new.
Suddenly she had a strange feeling. She knew it was stupid but she felt as if there were somebody else in the room. As if somebody was watching her from behind. She turned and her hand somehow found her way to her gun. However she was alone she was still happy that she didn't pull it out… she would have felt stupid aiming a gun at an empty room.
She shivered and saw goose bumps on her arm. It felt as if the temperature had sunk a few grades in the room. Or was it just because of her nerves?
Suddenly Detective Warren's words came to her mind: They say that the house is haunted… Stupid idea. She didn't believe in such things… but the cold ran down her spine… She quickly turned back to the door and tried it harder, in a second she was already tugging at it.
Oh, damn! She might feel stupid later but…
"Help!" she cried out. "Is somebody out there? Bailey?"
She heard running footsteps and then in a second the door opened and she came face to face with a concerned-looking John Grant who aimed his gun at her.
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John walked inside the dusky house after he said his good-bye to Grace and looked around in the room that was obviously some kind of hall.
"It's really spooky!" he whispered to himself and smiled.
Stairs went upstairs and downstairs from the hall and he could make out footprints in the dust that covered the floor. There were many of them, but the crime scene investigators used a good limited trail so that they didn't ruin the other traces as it was the routine. So he could easily see that Sam went upstairs and Bailey went to the basement.
Seeing this, he decided to look around downstairs.
The first room he looked in was a kitchen, the second maybe a living room, and then came some smaller rooms. In the first few minutes he didn't find anything interesting but then he glimpsed something on the floor.
The object looked like book, or rather some kind of album and it was strange to see something like this in a desolated house. And why didn't the crime scene investigators take it with them? He would have a few words with Detective Warren later… The book was quite heavy and when he opened it he saw that it was an album indeed.
There were photos in it like in a normal photo-album. Most of the photos were taken of the house, from different perspectives. On some of them, there were also people. On the further pages there were some clippings from newspapers of different time periods. A woman in clothes that reminded John of the 18th century, then on the next page was the picture of a young soldier in a World War II uniform. An article of a fire and an other one of a festival in the town. Then a modern photo and John almost dropped the album because it showed the boy who he talked only ten minutes ago – Brian. He wore a baseball-cup and smiled in the camera.
"Help!"
This time he really dropped the book. The voice came from upstairs and it definitely belonged to Sam. He took three stairs at once and on the way he pulled out his gun. She sounded as if she were in panic. But the murderer couldn't be in the house, could he? The area was full of cops!
He looked around on the corridor on the second floor and found that there was only one room whose door was closed so he headed for it.
John opened the door and aimed at the person inside but lowered the weapon immediately as only Sam was in there.
"What happened?" he asked.
"I… couldn't open the door. It was stuck or something…" she seemed to be out of breath.
"Oh…"
She quickly stepped out and watched as John closed the door and opened it again without any effort.
"It seems to work fine…" he said.
"But it didn't before… or maybe I was too nervous" she smiled shyly. "I found a dead rat in there."
John frowned.
"I found something more interesting. Come, it's downstairs."
They went down again and John showed the way to the room where he left the book. Then he stopped so suddenly that Sam ran into him from behind.
"What…?" she asked when she saw that John pulled out his gun again.
"I left it just here, on the floor" he said pointing at the empty space in front of them and Sam understood instantly what he meant so she pulled out her weapon as well.
The next moment they heard some moving from the hall. John went into action immediately and Sam followed him of course. They rushed out into the hall where they saw something they only rarely had the chance to see…
Bailey stood there stunned and if not scared than something very close to it.
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Sam and Bailey departed in the hall, the profiler went upstairs and Bailey made his way into the basement. He had a flashlight and he switched it on as soon as he started down the stairs. The basement was big, almost as big as the house itself and it was more than filthy. Due to Detective Warren they didn't have enough sources to search it thoroughly so just for security he freed his gun-stock. He didn't suspect the murderer to still be here but he learned a long time ago that one could never be careful enough.
He frowned when he saw a fat rat running along the wall. Where can they get enough food if nobody has lived here for years? he wondered.
The basement was even more run-down and empty than other parts of the house. And it was definitely darker here. He found this out for sure when the next moment the light of his torch went out.
"Shit…"
He thought that they just got new ones but of course with the budget of the team it wasn't a big surprise that they got rubbish.
He started to turn back to the stairs as it was no use to search the rooms with no light. Then, though he glimpsed something from the corner of his eyes. It seemed as if some dim light were coming from the end of the room he was in. He went closer and almost crashed into the wall… the light definitely came from behind the wall!
Secret rooms weren't so rare in older houses, he realized. So, he started to search the wall. Nothing. He already wanted to give up, when he felt one brick move under his touch. He pushed it harder and it fell down on the other side of the wall with a loud bang. So there was some kind of hole on the other side!
He didn't want to leave anymore instead he looked for something that he could enlarge the gap with. Soon he found a rather rusty-looking iron rod and carefully so that he wouldn't hurt himself he started to work on the bricks.
The wall must have been kept together only by fortune because unexpectedly the whole wall cracked and then without warning something heavy fell out on him, tackling him to the ground.
"Oh, hell…" he cursed involuntary when he looked in the grinning face of a human skeleton.
Then he felt nauseated when he saw that it wasn't really a clean one. There were still some sticky and slimy pieces of something on the bones.
He pushed the thing down and stood up, wiping his hands on his trousers. He stepped closer to the hole and then stopped in mid-step. The light that made him aware of the room came from a candle that was halfway burnt down.
But how is this possible?
Suddenly the darkness of the place struck him with full force. Anybody could be hiding down here…
Moving from the corner… he spun around pulling out his gun at the same time. He felt the rush of adrenaline running through his system. The fat rat – or its close relative – jogged out of the corner and froze when glimpsed the human intruder. And ran when one more brick fell to the floor and made the aforementioned human jump.
Bailey didn't feel like turning his back to the dark basement but to go out he needed to do it. So slowly, listening to every single suspicious noise he started in the direction of the stairs.
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