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“Lake…”
My eyes burst open and focus on the orange glow of the fireplace dancing on the tall plaster ceiling. What was that?
I sit up.
Master is out cold. I was dreaming. He’d be barking otherwise.
“Lake, please…” a deep voice rumbles to my right.
“Who’s there?” I hug my blanket to my chest. There’s nothing except a wall of old books I’ve yet to sort through.
“Let us out, Lake. We are so hungry. So cold.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“Your grandmother took us from our families. We are prisoners upstairs.”
My heart races so fast, I think I’m going to pass out. “If you’re upstairs, then how can I hear you?”
“We broke one of the old water pipes,” he says.
Is this really happening? Because I do know most of the house’s pipes are rotten. The water to the bathrooms upstairs was shut off decades ago to prevent leaks.
So could he be speaking to me through a pipe? It would explain how I heard voices in the foyer and near the kitchen earlier.
“Please, Lake,” he continues. “She was crazy. She tortured us. And her manservant only feeds us enough to keep us alive. Please help us.”
Oh, Jesus. Grandma Rain wasn’t right in the head when she left this world, but I can’t understand why she’d kidnap people and lock them up.
“Bard is part of this, too?” I ask.
“Yes. Bring water. We are dying. Please hurry before he catches you.”
Shit. Shit! With my shaking hand, I grab my phone from the spot on the floor next to me where I left it set with an alarm. I call for help.
“911. What’s your emergency?”
“Hi. It’s me, Lake Norfolk. Send an ambulance. And the sheriff.”
“Lake? It’s Franny. What’s going on?”
Franny is one of my ex-coworkers.
“I’m—I’m not sure. There’s a man trapped in the house somewhere. I can hear him screaming for help.” I want to say that my grandma lost her mind and maybe Bard was helping her keep prisoners, but something stops me. I was taught to keep family business private. If I tell her what the man in the wall just said, the entire community will know by morning. I want the chance to find out the truth first.
“Is he a worker?” she asks, probably aware that we’ve recently had repairs done on the place, but unaware that everything’s on hold until spring.
“I’m not sure. I decided to call you guys first before going to look for him. I’m downstairs in the parlor, and he’s…” upstairs in the master.
“Okay. Hang on.” There’s a long pause. “The fire chief says there’s no one to respond.”
“What?”
“The town’s emergency services spent all evening at your house after already working an eight-hour shift. You know we can’t call them in again. All we have left is a deputy and one paramedic, but they’re busy with a two-car wreck on Old Rebel Road.” The road where all the stupid teenagers go to race.
Fuck! “Okay. Thanks, Franny.”
“If you find the trapped man, and you’re unable to get him to the hospital on your own, call me back. I can call Oil City or Titusville.”
It would take them forty minutes to an hour to get here. “Thanks, Franny. I’ll assess the situation first and call you back if I need anything.”
“Good luck, Lake. And I’m sorry about your grandma. I know you two were close. Jim shouldn’t have said those horrible things about her.”
See. That’s the problem with living in a small community; everyone knows my business. “Thanks, Franny. I appreciate it. Call you soon.”
I hang up and take one blanket, wrapping it tightly around my shoulders. I grab my flashlight, which I left next to my phone for trips to the bathroom to conserve my battery. No power cord. It burned up with everything else.
“Master, get up. You’re coming with me.” I nudge the lump of fur with my foot. He opens his eyes, lifts his head, and then gives me a look.
“Come on, boy. Come with me.”
He lays his head down again. He’s either not alarmed, or he’s uninterested in moving. “You lazy furhole.”
I head out of the room, take the hallway to the foyer, and go up the dilapidated marble staircase. The wind is howling tonight, whistling against the windows of the house, creating haunting background music.
My hands are shaking, the backs of my knees feel weak, and my heart won’t stop pounding. I told myself earlier that I was brave and smart and wouldn’t buy into the stories brewing in my head about what’s behind that door, but as I walk down the long second-floor hallway, listening to the floorboards squeak beneath my bare feet, I can’t shut it off. The fear.
If there’s really a person inside that room, a person Grandma and Bard have kept prisoner, I’m going to lose it.
Five feet from the master bedroom door, I stop next to the sledgehammer I dropped earlier. “Hello? Are you still there?”
