Ghost Shadows (20 page)

“Chase!” Crystal screamed, her voice immediately filling with terror and the certain realization something very bad had happened to their friend. Cameron pointed the light back into the darkness as he hurried past the girls toward the fallen flashlight. The flashlight stopped its circular motion and lay perfectly still, shining its beam back toward the stairway door they had passed through after coming down from the
main level
.
 

As he got closer to the flashlight he stopped in his tracks, stricken with terror at the vision which lay before him. At the spot where Chase had previously stood Cameron saw a huge sickening crimson patch of blood, with drag marks smearing backward away from him, indicating the bloody path by which Chase's body had apparently been dragged.

Cameron turned to the girls shining his flashlight on them and screamed, “Get the hell out of here. Get upstairs and call for help! Now!”

Without a moment's hesitation, Jen sprinted past Crystal heading for the open doorway illuminated by Chase
'
s flashlight beam. Her right hand already had her cell phone out as she quickly dialed 911. However, nothing happened. She stopped suddenly at the door to the stairs and looked down at her phone
display screen only to see in frustration
that
she had no service. “No
!
”
s
he screamed to herself. “We're three floors underground. I have to get upstairs.” As she turned to re-enter the stairway she looked back toward her two friends just as she heard Crystal scream.
 

The sight
that
followed was something worse than any nightmare she had ever experienced. In the light from Cameron's quaking flashlight, still pointing at Crystal, six or ten thin naked muscular arms seemed to come from the darkness behind her, encircling her, grabbing her. Two of the hands, filthy with grime were grabbing her head, pulling it backward, their long-nailed fingers digging into her eye sockets. Jen watched helplessly as Crystal's eyeballs popped like squashed grapes, while at the same time another set of hands, ripped her shirt from her body and gouged long bloody furrows across her exposed breasts and abdomen. As the girl was pulled back into the darkness, Jen saw another arm with long claw-like fingers reach around the girl's neck and literally rip her throat out, as Crystal's scream faded into a ghastly liquid-like death rattle.
 

“Cameron! Come on!” Jen shouted as the boy stood apparently in shock, perhaps petrified by the horrible spectacle he had just witnessed. The
n
Jen saw the truth as a small red patch appeared at the front of his shirt, rapidly growing in size as his life blood drained from him. Cameron looked down at the spot as if dumfounded. Then he slowly turned to Jen and he mouthed the word “go” before collapsing face forward to the concrete.
 

Jen quickly turned and started running up the stairs, taking two at a time, all the while occasional
ly
glancing down at her phone with the hopes of finding available service, but so far she had none. Behind her she could hear wild chattering sounds, not of any language she had ever heard but nonetheless it sounded like some type of verbal communication. She also heard what sounded like hundreds of footfalls coming up the stairs behind her. She stumbled several times during her ascent but always managed to keep going out of sheer terror. She knew if she stopped he
r
fate would be in the murderous hands of the unknown creatures pursuing her.
 

 

It seemed like her lungs would burst from her sprint up the three flights of stairs, but at last she saw some light from the street shining through the doorway up ahead, indicating she had almost made it to the first floor. She ventured a glance at her cell phone and saw to her pleasure she once again had full service. She quickly pressed 911 and then the call button as she rounded the corner at the top of the stairway, heading for the lobby.

When she entered the open area, Jen stopped in her tracks, unable to believe the sight before her. The lobby was full of horribly deformed not quite human looking creatures all caked with filth, and dried blood. Some were dressed in the most minimal of scraps of clothing while others were completely naked.

Several of the pathetic creatures seemed to possess shortened almost flipper-like arms and legs, while others were missing limbs completely; and still others appeared to have more limbs than normal. They all were hunched and twisted with various horrific facial deformities, and they
spoke
in some strange tongue, which they seemed to understand, though she did not. And the stench coming from the things was unlike anything Jen had ever smelled before. It was as if the room was suddenly filled with dead and rotting animals.
 

She heard a voice come from her cell phone saying “911
o
perator. What is the nature of your emergency?” Before she could lift the cell phone to answer, sharp clawed hands grabbed her from behind, dragging her backward into the stairwell as the strange chattering sounds of the hideous creatures grew louder and louder. She suddenly felt excruciating pain as the flesh was stripped from her body. She had an image of a fish being flayed as the pain grew to an unbearable agony. Then finally blessed death came to take her, and Jen could not hear another sound.
 

***

About twenty minutes later a police cruiser pulled up alongside the building, across the street from the abandoned van in response to the 911 call. Someone had triangulated the location of the still active cell phone. Two officers exited the van and looked up and down the street trying to determine if anyone was around. Their identification tags read Rossi and Flannery; two old school career beat cops. They walked over to the van, which was unlocked
,
and saw it was empty. Then they heard what sounded like faint speaking coming from inside one of the buildings.
 

They entered the building with their flashlights on, and could see the glowing screen in the distance by the rear of the building. They approached the phone and heard the 911 operator, keeping the line open and still trying to find someone to answer.

Rossi bent down, picked up the phone and said, “Hello.”

The voice on the other end of the phone said, “Hello. This is the 911 operator. Is everything al
l
right?”
 

Rossi attempted to speak again into the phone to identify himself, but his partner, Flannery could only hear a faint hissing sound coming from the man's mouth. He saw a look of utter disbelief and pain on Rossi's face, as the man stood still, holding the phone with is mouth agape. Then a small trickle of blood spilled down his chin from the corner of his mouth. When Flannery looked down at his partner's chest, he saw the sharp point of some sort of arrow tip jutting out, covered with blood, bits of flesh and gore. A second later his partner disappeared as if pulled off of his feet by some incredible force and propelled through the air, back into the darkness.

Flannery lifted his left hand to press his shoulder radio as his right hand dropped to his side, pulling his gun from its holster. Before his hand could reach the button of this radio, his arm was severed above the elbow by some sort of
 f
lying disk. As his blood pumped from his body, Flannery looked straight ahead and could see what looked like hundreds of glowing red eyes emerging from the darkness. It was
the last thing he would ever see.
 

In the next several days, police conducted an investigation to try to determine what had happened to the missing teens as well as the two police officers. They did a thorough search of the area and brought in a forensic team
,
who identified the bloodstains found in the lobby as being the same blood type as those of Jen as well as officers Rossi and Flannery. They never found any bodies or evidence of what had happened to the other missing teens.
 

During the search several officers had ventured down the long three-story stairway to the basement but found the huge iron door leading to the subway platform closed, apparently barred from the other side, and incapable of being open
ed
. They agreed
that
no one could have gotten through the door. They accepted the futility of trying to force the door open and abandoned their search, heading for the surface.
 

They were correct, of course. The door could not be open
ed
, at least not from the stairway side. You see, the door could only be open
ed
from the platform side and was only ever opened by the mutated former humans from below. And they only opened the door at night—at their feeding time.
 

 

 

Saw-Kill Road

 

 

The forlorn two-lane blacktop road snaked like a writhing serpent over its short half-mile length from end to end, connecting the busy Abington Lane with the mountainous Prescott Road. Its narrow winding
progression  
curved past the abandoned, once prosperous saw mill from which the road attained its name, “Sawmill Road
.
” However, its unofficial moniker was much more menacing—known to locals, especially the children as “Saw-Kill Road
.
”
 

At the start of the twentieth century, the sawmill had been a bustling enterprise, employing a number of local men; once a large two-story clapboard building, the wood sealed to allow its weather-resistance to fight off the elements.

Where the mill was level with the roadway two large barn-style doors opened to a dirt drive
.
 
 As the land sloped downward, a stone foundation reached five feet high to support the building and provided a doorway access to a basement storage area, as well as windows for light. The ceiling of the basement area was comprised of thick wooden beams, serving also as the floor for the sawmill itself.
 

Above the
beautiful oak
front door with its solid brass
 
 door knocker and crystal door knob was a transom which held a custom made stain glass window bearing the name “Hanson's Mill” in honor of the former owner of the mill, Jonas Jackson Hanson, known as “J.J.” to what few friends he had, and “the cheap limy bastard” to most of his employees.
 

Now, the mill stood in decay
;
its once beautiful wooden siding putrefying from years of exposure to the elements, fading to whitish gray, rotten and infested with insects. Rusted hinges hung loosely from disintegrating clapboards, some of them hanging by a single remaining corroded screw; a sad reminder of a time long ago when the mill's shutters hung proudly. Now, not only were all of the shutters long gone, but most of the remaining glass panes
had been either removed or shattered, leaving sharp jagged fragments in the frames, resembling hideous shark teeth. A few may have been stolen by thieves hoping to get something for the custom blown panes, but most were simply broken by local vandals, for whatever enjoyment they might gain from such thoughtless actions. Behind the broken windows awaited nothing but the blackness of the abandoned structure and whatever else might lurk inside in the darkness.
 

The once magnificent front door had likewise long since been stolen, allowing an opening for a variety of woodland creatures to wander into the mill to take up residence. Perhaps the missing door was currently being used as someone's front door in a mansion in another state or another country, or maybe it had simply been burned for firewood. Its fate remained a mystery as did much about the mill. Where the stain
ed
glass transom once proudly displayed the mill owner's name, nothing remained but an empty pitted wooden frame covered in spider webs
,
teaming with insects, many of which would no doubt eventually end up cocooned in gossamer awaiting digestion by the families of spiders.
 

At one time, a large double-sided fireplace was located in the middle of the mill providing heat for the workers in the winter. It led to an enormous chimney stretching high above the center of the roofline, making for breathtaking spectacle as it spewed its smoke into the icy sky during the coldest, most frigid months. Now the chimney was all but gone above the roofline, its mortar disintegrated by years of exposure to the elements, its bricks having fallen to the ground below; many plummeting through the roof itself, making large gaping holes in the rotting cedar shake shingles.

Through the center of the chimney, large branches grew skyward from an oak tree
that
had taken root a few years after the mill had been shut down. Branches likewise protruded through the broken windows looking as if the tree and its massive limbs might be the only thing keeping the mill standing; which could very well have been true.
 

The locals called it “Saw-Kill” because of the mill's tragic history, or perhaps more accurately, the tragic history of the mill's owner, J. J. Hanson. The tale of Jonas J. Hanson had been a sad one when told with historic accuracy. However, through the years the tale had grown and evolved, each time being told with the addition of more fantastic and even impossible elements, until it had become the stuff of legend. It was no longer simply a tragic tale but one of terror and mystery.  

Jonas
had been the only child of a British father and a German mother who had immigrated to the United States toward the end of the nineteenth century. Shortly after his arrival, Jonas's father, William, built the mill and
began
growing his business. Jonas was born in 1880
,
and by the turn of the century the mill had become a very prosperous business. Jonas took over ownership and operation of the mill in 1905, at the age of twenty-five when his father died suddenly.
A
heart attack had truly been the cause of his father's untimely death
,
but through the years a number of rumors and stories came into being suggesting that perhaps young Jonas had actually murdered his father to get control of the mill. It didn't seem to matter that the stories were complete fabrications
;
many people believed them to be true.