From the smoke and flame a man walked up from the crater, his eyes flitting around, looking for any signs to identify where he was.
And then he collapsed to the ground in agony, his eyes flickering as if he was having a seizure. He gasped for air.
Before he was so certain of what he was there for, but now…now he had forgotten. He had forgotten who he was and what he was doing here.
Time passed…A lot of time passed…
The place was dark. The air was musty and visibility was low. It was as if the light had been banished from the building and silence hung over the place.
There was a sound and a shaft of light poured in. Voices could be heard in the distance. Someone was in the building.
And the building listened.
‘And here we have the main entrance corridor,’ said the stocky estate agent.
‘Are there no lights?’ asked the short man with brown curly hair.
‘I’m afraid not, Mr Dodds. This place doesn’t seem to like the light.’ He looked around nervously.
Another man entered through the door. He was tall, young and had short blonde hair. ‘It doesn’t look like much.’
‘Of course not, Mr Feathers, but no doubt you have plans to change all of that?’
‘I’ll be honest with you,’ said Mr Dodds, ‘we don’t want the building, we just want the land.’
‘I understand that,’ said the estate agent, ‘but I would be careful when talking about demolishing this place.’
‘And why’s that?’ asked Dodds.
‘It might not be that easy.’
Feathers laughed. ‘You don’t mean to say that the locals want this place kept?’
‘No, no Mr Feathers. Quite the opposite in fact. They can’t wait to have this place knocked down.’
‘Then why would we have any problems? It seems to me we’d be doing everyone a favour,’ said Dodds, who was becoming a little impatient with the estate agent.
‘You just won’t find it easy, that’s all.’ He shivered and then looked at his clipboard. ‘Well I think it’s safe to say that you can have the property. If you’d like to sign the forms then I’ll release it to you.’ He seemed eager for them to accept.
‘It’s pretty cheap,’ said Feathers, who had begun to wander further in the dark corridor.
‘Well that’s because no other fool would buy it,’ laughed the estate agent.
Dodds and Feathers didn’t laugh back. Dodds, because he hated jokes, and Feathers because, well… Feathers had wandered into the darkness.
‘Don’t go too far, Mike,’ said Dodds. ‘Mike? Are you there?’
There was no reply. The estate agent looked around him nervously. He had a bad feeling about this.
Then the door slammed shut behind the men, cutting off the light.
The place was in darkness and everything and everyone was silent.
Alex sat alone in the darkened living room, his computer screen casting a blue-white glow on his face. His eyes were transfixed on something on the screen. It was a website and it displayed a long text, and above that was a picture of a gloomy looking prison.
Alex’s eyes took in every bit of writing on the screen, sucking up every piece of information available to him.
‘You coming to bed yet, Alex?’
Alex didn’t notice the voice. If anything he found himself getting more and more engrossed in what he was reading.
‘Alex?’
Alex finally noticed the nagging voice behind him and pulled his eyes away from computer screen. He looked around and standing in the door was a young girl with long brown hair that fell over her shoulders. She was leaning on the door frame.
‘Are you coming to bed yet?’ asked the girl.
‘Oh, Kate. I was just reading up on some stuff,’ he said indicating the screen.
‘And I’m sure it’s fascinating, but your parents have gone away and we finally have the house to ourselves for the night.’
He still remained sitting by the computer.
‘Alex!’
‘Yes,’ he said snapping back to reality. ‘Bed? Yes. Bed. Now.’
He closed his internet browser and shut down the computer. Then, giving a last look back at the powered-down machine, he followed Kate up the stairs.
Kate snuggled up to Alex whilst he looked up at the ceiling.
‘Your parents should go away more often,’ smiled Kate as she hugged him.
‘We’re nineteen years old, Kate. I’m sure our parents have accepted that we’re adults,’ said Alex fiddling with her hair.
‘You okay?’
‘What?’ He turned to her. ‘Oh, yeah. I’m just thinking about what I read online.’
Kate sighed, and lay on her back. ‘You are on that thing too much, you know? What’s so interesting online that could drag you away from a romantic evening with me?’
‘I was reading on that ghost website. It was about a place called Sherman prison.’
‘And where’s that?’ asked Kate, with her arms folded.
‘Only about an hour away. In a town called Little Gainsborough. Apparently there were these couple of guys with an estate agent. They wanted to buy the place, but two of them disappeared and one of them came back a gibbering wreck.’
‘And what’s so important to you about it?’
‘Well it’s a perfect place for us to go and investigate,’ said Alex sitting up and resting on his elbows.
‘Alex, I already told you that I’m not keen on all that ghost hunting stuff.’
‘I know, baby, but…well, it’s something for us to go and check out.’ Alex pulled the covers up over him. ‘I’ll speak to the others about it tomorrow.’
Kate sighed, turned over and then went to sleep.
The woman snuck around the door, looking carefully around her. Unbeknownst to her, the great, green, tentacle monster was right behind her. It was only when she heard the squelching of the things sucker-pad feet that she turned around.
The monster growled and barred it’s ten-inch sharp teeth.
The woman screamed and made a run for the other side of the room.
A tentacle lashed out and grabbed the woman around the throat. It drew her in and -
The screen went blank.
‘Doctor!’ said Caroline and Danny in unison.
The Doctor was standing beside the controls on the large TV set that had been set up in the console room.
‘Yes?’ he said innocently.
‘We were watching that,’ said Caroline, a little annoyed.
‘I’m sorry, but when you told me we were going to be watching-’ he picked up the video case, ‘- “The Aliens Invade” I assumed it would be about alien abductions and alien strategy. Not a horror fest of feeble minded monsters roaming an old English house and ripping limbs for no apparent reason.’
Danny rolled his eyes. ‘It’s a film, Doctor!’
‘Yes, and I abhor mindless and senseless violence. That was utter rubbish,’ he said, removing the video and putting it back in it’s case. ‘I’ve seen all I can take of it.’
Danny shook his head and picked up the video. ‘Never mind. Caroline and I can watch it some time when you’re not here.’
Caroline sighed and then perked up a little. ‘Hey, Doctor, you know what I’d like to see?’
‘What’s that?’ he asked as he sat next to them on the sofa.
‘A good old fashioned haunted house film.’ She grinned with delight.
‘Oh, so you’re into ghosts are you?’ asked the Doctor.
‘It’s a load of rubbish,’ said Danny. ‘There’s no such thing as ghosts.’
‘I used to think like that, Danny, but I’ve seen so much in my lives that I can’t even say the words “doesn’t exist” anymore. Let’s just say that these days I have an open mind.’
‘Yeah,’ said Caroline, rounding on Danny. ‘And what about the ones in Thornsby?’
‘They weren’t ghosts,’ said Danny, laughing. ‘They were dimensionally changed beings.’
‘I love how you think you know what that means,’ laughed Caroline.
The Doctor jumped up. ‘Come on, Caroline, let’s go and look up some ghost material.’
Danny watched them go, got up and then felt his head hurt again. And somewhere he could hear a voice. So very, very faint. Calling his name.
Danny…Danny…
Alex, Kate and four other people sat around the circular dining table. There was Joanne, a slightly plump girl with an affectionate grin and her boyfriend Mark, a tall young man with gold-rimmed glasses that somehow didn’t suit him. Then there was the head of the group; a tanned young man called Tom. He’d formed the group with Alex a few months back.
‘This meeting is open,’ said Alex, who was holding a notepad and pen.
Kate rolled her eyes and Alex shot her a glare.
‘Okay, Alex,’ began Tom, ‘we don’t usually meet on Fridays. Why are we meeting here today?’
Alex bit his lip and then cleared his throat. ‘I believe I’ve found somewhere for us to go and investigate.’
‘And it couldn’t wait until Monday?’ asked Mark.
‘No,’ said Alex, looking straight at Tom, ‘it couldn’t.’
Tom sighed. ‘Okay then. Give us the details.’
‘And keep them brief,’ warned Kate.
Joanne shook her head. ‘Anyone would think we didn’t want to be in this group. C’mon guys, let’s have a bit of fun.’
‘We can have fun on the days the group meet. Friday is my pay day and I want to be out there spending my money,’ complained Tom.
‘You’ll get to spend your money,’ said Alex, trying to sooth Tom’s already growing temper.
He picked up his notepad, which had some hastily written notes on it, and then handed them a computer printout. On the printout was a black and white photo of the rather gloomy looking prison. Around the building was a high wall.
‘Where’s this?’ asked Mark.
‘This place is Sherman prison.’ He looked at his notes. ‘It was closed in 1976 due to certain disturbing circumstances.’
‘Circumstances?’ queried Mark.
‘Yeah. Apparently the place was free from state or normal law. It was able to treat prisoners how it wished, and that's why the government sent the worst of the prisoners and convicts there. Of course when the public found out about it, it was closed down immediately.’
‘I’ve never heard of Sherman prison,’ said Tom, putting the picture down.
‘Well you’ve heard of it now. Anyway the point is this: lots and lots of prisoners were killed in this place and apparently there are lots of bad vibes going on there.’
‘Still not getting excited,’ said Tom. ‘I want haunted houses, scary graveyards....you know? Not a boring old prison. I want something I can get my teeth into.’
Alex sighed. ‘They said these two guys disappeared a few weeks back. One of them escaped but he’s gone delirious.’
Tom thought for a moment, his dark eyes unreadable. ‘Where is it?’
‘A couple of hours away from us. In the middle of a forest with only a few holiday cabins surrounding the area.’
‘I’ll think about it,’ said Tom. ‘I’m going out now, and I’ll give you a call tomorrow and let you know my decision.’
With an air of coolness Tom stood up and left Alex’s living dining room.
The rest of them looked at each other.
‘Bloody ghosts,’ grumbled Kate.
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