“In this house Mary Colbert took in the homeless and the helpless,” Morton addressed the camera. “She welcomed the troubled with open arms. She opened her heart and her home after the death of her husband. Many viewed her as a modern day Florence Nightingale; a selfless woman of means using her wealth to help those less fortunate.”
Morton edged his way slowly into the hallway and paused with one hand perched on the banister.
“Tight on his face,” Sheila directed Terry, and watched on the monitor as the camera pulled in close.
“Mary operated a soup kitchen out of her home,” Morton continued. “She had the upstairs converted into bedroom wards to house the needy. She provided food and shelter, showers and God’s wisdom to those that she welcomed through her door. But no-one really knew just what depths lurked in the recesses of her black heart. She…”
“What the hell is that?” Terry suddenly interrupted Morton mid-flow, Terry’s voice had never been heard before on camera, and his fear of Morton was suddenly superseded.
Sheila and Derek watched to where Terry’s camera was now pointing over Morton’s shoulder at the wall. Long dark red streaks were suddenly running down the peeling wallpaper in thick treacle trails.
“Is that blood?” Terry stammered.
“Ladies and gentlemen, the voice you have just heard is that of my cameraman Terry Jarvis, a brave man who is on this journey with us,” Morton pronounced magnanimously. He turned to face where Terry was staring with a terrified fixated look on his face. “A psychical manifestation of the evil that still permeates this house,” Morton spoke loudly to show the TV audience that he was still in control and reassure them. “This house still bleeds with the blood of its victims.”
Terry’s hands trembled and the camera wobbled.
“Terry, the camera, you’ve got to hold it steady,” Sheila whispered helpfully into Terry’s earpiece.
“Are you kidding me?” Terry snapped, “The freaking house is bleeding through the walls!”
“It can’t hurt you Terry, it’s just like pictures in a book, that’s all,” Sheila said kindly. “Remember what we’re doing here and what’s at stake. If this doesn’t work we’re all out on our asses come Monday morning.”
Terry weighed up his terror of the spirit world against his terror of having to tell his wife that he was unemployed. It wasn’t much of a contest. “OK, OK I’m good,” he said with a low whisper and more courage than he felt. But if Morton was holding up, he was damned if he was going to be the first one to run screaming like a little girl. He zoomed into the wall and caught the glinting slick blood trails as they slid a slug’s pace down towards the floor.
“I feel bad for Terry,” Derek said to Sheila in the truck away from Morton and Terry’s ears. “He’s the only one now who doesn’t know that it’s all fake.”
“I know,” Sheila replied unhappily, “but Morton said that it was crucial for Terry’s reactions to be real. He has to act for the audience at home. He has to be their eyes and ears.”
“Still feels like a shitty thing to do to the man.”
Sheila could only shrug in agreement; her relationship with Morton was complicated at best. She had fallen for his roguish charms and had dreamt of being the woman to bring about his hidden depths, but after months of digging she had yet to find any.
On the monitor Morton was examining the wall closely.
“Ladies and gentlemen, this is some kind of actual residue,” Morton said in a low tone as he touched the wall and held his fingers up to the camera. “Perhaps this house has absorbed more than anyone’s fair share of blood and pain. Perhaps Mary Colbert’s spirit is now forever entwined in these bricks and mortar. Who knows just what else we may find as we…”
A door off to the side that led into the large open lounge area suddenly swung hard shut and the camera jumped as Terry did. He span around to face the door, which began opening and slamming over and over again. The wood splintered under the force of the blows and the noise echoed throughout the house.
Morton paused, momentarily confused. He was sure that he hadn’t rigged that particular door. Surely it was the kitchen door that should be banging next. He ran through the sequence in his head,
fog, front door, screams, blood walls, then kitchen door, wasn’t it?
He had been pretty wasted by the time they had begun rigging the doors; perhaps he had done the lounge instead of the kitchen after all. There was a timer in the cellar that should set off an audio effect, if that… His thoughts were interrupted as the rising banshee wails crept up from the cellar and continued up Terry’s spine, judging by the look on his face, Morton mused.
“Can you hear that in the studio?” Morton asked aloud.
Sheila and Derek looked at other in the small smelly truck, “Studio?” Derek asked with a smirk, “Is that what we are?”
“Apparently,” Sheila laughed.
“I must inform the viewers watching from the safety of their living rooms at home that one of our producers has just been taken ill with a suspected heart attack,” Morton said seriously down the lens.
Sheila and Derek looked at other and laughed aloud at Morton’s ridiculousness.
The banging door subsided and the wails faded from beneath their feet.
“It appears that we have awoken something in this house ladies and gentlemen, something dark and evil. Something that was asleep in the cellar before we came, but now sounds awake and hungry. We’ll be right back after these messages. Join us after the break as we venture down into the scene of the crime,” Morton teased.
Derek slapped the monitor as the images rolled with distortion.
“Hey Morton, we’re getting some feedback on the broadcast,” Sheila said after they were clear into the commercial break. “Something keeps screwing with the feed.”
“That’s kind of to be expected don’t you think?” Morton said looking at Terry, not wanting the cameraman to become aware of the scam. “There’s a lot of equipment around here.”
He looked over at Terry whose face was a picture of pure distress. This was going even better than he could have hoped for. The effects of the shaky low quality camera work could only add to the sense of realism.
“Morty!” Sheila droned in his ear before correcting herself, “Sorry, Morton.”
“What!” Morton snapped.
“Derek just got off the phone with the network; they are loving the show. The net’s buzzing and the ratings are going up and up as word spreads. They say, unofficially of course, to take it as dark as you can. That’s what’s driving the ratings.”
Morton allowed himself a momentary slap on the back; he knew that this was going to work. This was going to be his ticket back to the top.
“Uh, Morton?” Terry said distantly.
“What?”
“The camera’s acting up,” Terry said as he began banging the side of the camera.
“Stop hitting it with your ape like paw, that’s hardly going to help, you idiot,” Morton barked, “It’s just a little interference.”
“From what?”
“Never you mind. Just get ready to go again, we’re back in five-four-three…”
Terry aimed the camera and figured that it was up to the truck to get the technical side of the night right. He had his own problems to cope with, such as his testicles currently shirking to the size of walnuts.
Morton looked down the lens as they went back live. “Mary Colbert was a pillar of her community, and when she hadn’t been heard from for around a week, friends and neighbors feared the worst.” Morton walked through the hallway and into the open lounge, pretending to skirt nervously around the door that had been slamming against its frame only minutes before.
Derek and Sheila watched the monitor from the truck. The pictures were grainy and green under the night vision effect.
“Most of her old circle were always aghast at her plans to open such a mansion to the homeless,” Morton continued as he passed into the lounge.
The room was blackened with the soot that he had brought. The wallpaper and thick carpeting were saturated and stank of decay. The room was large and filled with antique furniture covered in white sheets. An imposing fireplace dominated the space with glinting brass and a cavernous mouth. Picture frames hung on the walls at carefully tilted angles, showing creepy images of bulbous following eyes that Morton had collected.
“They feared for her safety whilst she was surrounded by the desperate. They could imagine that only the worst of the worst would darken her door, thieves and degenerates, molesters and murderers. When the alarm was raised the police raced to the scene. Many officers were expecting to find the worst possible discovery. How wrong they were, but also how right.”
“Jesus!” Derek said with a hand over the mic on his headset looking at Sheila, “Did he write this crap himself?”
Sheila could only shrug with a tight smile; some of the dialogue had been hers.
Morton stood in front of the fireplace allowing the gothic scene to frame him beautifully. He sucked in his rather overly expanded midriff as the camera pulled out to reveal his full figure.
“When the police affected entry to the house they found the body of Mary Colbert sitting neatly in the kitchen on a chair, hands folded across her chest in a serene pose. But the stench of death hung thickly in the air, causing experienced officers to shrink away from the house in terror.”
Derek looked at Sheila in the OB truck. “Where is he getting this information from? Are we going to have to deal with a whole bunch of pissed off cops in the morning?”
Sheila rolled her eyes; she had discussed boundaries with Morton, who had apparently abandoned the concept.
“Grown men, veteran hardened detectives,” Morton continued, “ran vomiting from the gristly scene in this very house, under our very feet.”
A glass flew across the kitchen and smashed violently into the wall, sending shards of jagged edges spilling onto the linoleum floor, and Morton jumped for the first time. He definitely hadn’t rigged that one.
Terry seemed a little less scared by the latest outburst. After magically pounding doors and bleeding walls, the glass seemed a little trivial.
Derek stared at the monitor, they were rolling live and Morton was standing motionless and more importantly, silent. “Morton,” he hissed over the headset, “MORTON!” He tried louder and was pleased to see a response.
“Something has just happened here ladies and gentlemen. Some kind of event has happened in the kitchen,” Morton said a little shakily.
“Dammit Morton, stop hyping a bloody glass breaking, we need to go bigger not smaller,” Sheila said annoyed into the earpiece.
In the house Morton stood unsure. Suddenly below them a wailing scream emanated from the bowels of hell and his own bowels turned to jelly.
“Hey that was good,” Derek said to Sheila impressed. “That one sounded much more realistic than the others. Why didn’t he use that effect to begin with?”
Sheila leaned into the monitor, wondering just how Morton had managed to lower the temperature in the house to such an extent that she could now see his breath.
Morton now stood transfixed; what had started out as a simple scam to fool viewers and create a saving effect to his career had suddenly taken an unexpected twist. The cellar below them became a hive of noise and activity. He had placed several sound effects and rigged a large bookcase filled with breakables to tip over, but now the whole cellar seemed to be moving. Furniture was throwing itself like lemmings into the walls and smashing with echoing screams.
“Ladies and gentlemen…” he cleared his throat quickly, “Ladies and gentlemen,” he tried again in a stronger voice, “What you can hear are the real sounds of a paranormal event being beamed to you live. This is unprecedented television, this is something that will go down in the annals of time,” he spoke confidently, but his mind was racing. “After the break we will return for our final part and our entry into the pit where Mary Colbert slaughtered her prey. We will see you in a few minutes, if you have the stomach.”
“Damn Morton that was good,” Derek said impressed, momentarily forgetting his loathing for the man.
“Do me a favor Derek,” Morton replied.
“Sure, what is it?”
“Shut your bloody mouth and let a professional think for a minute, you disgusting fat pig,” the insult flowed naturally as Morton was only half listening.
“Morton, that’s not very nice,” Sheila said sticking up for her colleague in a rare act of defiance.
“If I want your opinion you talentless slut, then I’ll bloody well give it to you,” Morton snapped.
Derek and Sheila both gestured obscenely and angrily towards the monitor in the truck.
“That was a bit rough wasn’t it?” Terry ventured, his question was cut off at the knees with one of Morton’s most withering stares.
Morton stood rock still; the noise in the basement had abated for the time being, as though whatever was down there had a flair for the dramatic and didn’t want to waste A-material during a commercial break. He weighed up his options; he had rigged a house to scare a few viewers, but now something really was going on. Sheila knew all about the scam and the dozy cow had no doubt let Derek into the plan.
“Derek, what’s the latest from the network?” he asked as though he hadn’t just verbally insulted the man.
“Ratings through the roof and three commissioning editors have already been on the phone looking to set up meetings,” Derek answered in a neutral voice, “but you’ve got to pick it up. Get down into that cellar, that’s where everyone wants you to go.”
Morton made a choice; he was going down into the cellar.
His courage lasted about the ten feet it took to reach the cellar door. Just as they came back from the commercial break and Terry waved him in, all hell broke loose below them. Morton had been down into the cellar when setting up his effects, and he could remember a lot of the furniture down there. There was a huge solid oak dresser that must have taken several large and determined men to drag it down the narrow stairs. Most of the pieces were large and heavy and Morton was fully intending to get them appraised once this charade was over with. Now, however, he could hear the weighty oak furniture being tossed around like leaves on the wind. He grimaced as the sound of wood splintering and breaking under tremendous force drifted up to torment his ears. Suddenly a cackling female laugh that stank of evil intent and insane notions filled the air. The sound quite simply forced any bravery from his bones and sent it screaming for the hills.