The Basement Room

Collisnport. The investigation into the grotesque sacrificial murders at the Cranshaw House has led Chief St. Clair to an unusual discovery. It would appear that Natasha Snow purchased an old abandoned farmhouse, with a rather unsavory reputation. Why would an Adult Entertainer, who was only leasing the home she had been living in, decide to buy such a decrepit piece of property? And based on the horrors in the Cranshaw House, what unimaginable acts could have been perpetrated at just such a secluded location as the old farmhouse. And so, St. Clair has decided to widen her investigation and now leads a group to examine the notorious rustic site.

Cue Music, Opening Scene: [www.youtube.com]

The brilliant flash of the strobe of the blue and clear white lights atop the two Collinsport Police cars suddenly disturbs the winter woodland landscape. The winding back road has had absolutely no traffic since the first falling flakes and so the headlights are greeted with pristine whiteness. St. Clair brakes; and turns the wheel hard to handle the slide as she rights the car racing much too fast along the serpentine back road.

Behind her another Collinsport police car follows.

“Are you sure these MIB’s are going to be alright with you gone?” Rhyaad asks bracing himself against the turn.

St. Clair suppresses a grin, “MBI. Mr. de’Annar.”

“Yes, them.”

“Oh, I am sure those boys will be fine.” She turns hard, brakes, and snatches the automatic shift into neutral to slide along a tight curve.

Meili in the back wants to close his eyes – why did they ever get into this car with her.

As they had proceeded up the steep incline of the slick drive toward Rhyaad’s black GTO, St. Clair had suddenly turned from a conversation with Officer Bishop, and followed them out of the Cranshaw House. As she hurried over to her car she called up the drive to them. She stood with the drivers door open, waving them back down the hill, telling them to come and get into her car.

As she had watched them depart the living room, walk out the foyer and down the front steps, she had begun to have second thoughts about letting them go alone to the farmhouse.

And so she and Office Mills raced now through the snowy winter night.

She slips the patrol car back into gear.

“Do you know where you are going?” Meili asks from the back seat through the metal mesh.

“I won’t think this is even on GPS.” Rhyaad says.

St. Clair answers by accelerating.

The road is a twisting snake through the woods, which suddenly turns into a series of sharp curves almost looping back on itself, before finding a straight stretch through a narrow cut in the woodlands. A large field appears. In the moonlight the landscape is a brilliant white. Almost Melvillian.

The dark silhouette of an abandoned two-story structure becomes visible through a break in the trees.

Both cars pull to s sliding halt in the snow. Lights flashing.

Officer Mills steps out and places her hand on her revolver, ”Chief.”

St. Clair closes her car door and stands removing her wool gloves to free her hands. “Be careful, Mills,” she says as she reaches back into her coat behind her to removed her 9mm.

The house looks much better with it’s draping of fresh snow, as large sections of it have fallen to neglect and rot.

Officer Mills nods, “It looks like something out of medieval Russia. Everything made from clapboard wood. EVERYTHING . . . “

“This was the scene of a murder, suicide – Wilbur Hawthorne. One night he killed his wife and two daughters. Took an axe to them, and then a shotgun in the middle of the night.”

“Oh Gods.” Rhyaad says as he stands looking at the house lit in the headlights of the two cars, ”Evil seeks evil.”

“Sounds like a fortune cookie.” Officer Mills says.

Meili pushes his sunglasses down on the bridge of his nose as his sharp eyes takes note of a slight shimmer just before the front door.

He steps beside Rhyaad, “You saw that?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, great. Another monster waiting for us.” Meili groans.

“Probably. Hells, why not two monsters?” Rhyaad whispers back.

St. Clair, her boots crunching in the drift of perhaps 4-inches of snow, moves past the missing gate in the rusted iron fence draped in white. She marches toward the front door, Officer Mills following. Their breaths escaping in white plumes.

Rhyaad moves soundlessly past Mills and over to St. Clair quickly, and reaches out to touch her elbow, “That shimmer . . . It’s a ward.”

Meili coming up behind, “We’ve seen it before.”

“What?” Officer Mills asks.

St, Clair turns on her high-beam flashlight and shines it over the front of the house, “So, Mr. de’Annar, you think you can get through this ward?”

Rhyaad nods, “Yes I can. But he’ll know it.”

“Who will know it?” Officer Mills asks, shinning her own flashlight.

St. Clair slips the safety off her Glock.

“Assuming he’s in there, that is . . . ”

“F**k him – do it.” St. Clair tells him.

“This time, I’m not playing runner.” Meili asserts and reaches into his jacket to remove a set of long daggers. “If there’s a fight to be had, I’m in.”

Officer Mills frowns at the sight of the concealed weapons.

Rhyaad removes an odd bracelet from his pocket, a golden puma wrapped around a copper branch. He speaks to it, and the peridot eyes in the cat’s face begin to glow as he slips it on. He nods to St. Clair and approaches the barrier.

Officer Mills steps up to Chief St. Clair, shining her light on Rhyaad, “Are you sure about Mr. Spock, sir?”

“Let’s be on the safe side.” She tells her.

Rhyaad drew the claymore, and then muttered aloud again and stepped through the barrier, the puma’s eyes flashing brightly as he crosses it.

Officer Mills looked at the sword – Star Trek and now Dungeons & Dragons, who were these two guys?

The shimmer warps around Rhyaad and then lets him pass through.

Once he is on the other side it begins to fade.

Rhyaad approaches the door carefully and listens.

“This is all much too familiar . . . Watch my six, I have yours.” Meili whispers as they approached.

Officer Mills found herself nodding as she steps forward – the old spooky house and the two crazies where beginning to make her a bit skittish.

Rhyaad does not hear anything. There is nothing but silence from the house. The wooden creak of an old cold tree in the yard behind them.

Not hearing a sound, Rhyyad tried the doorknob.

“It is locked.” He announces in a whisper. “Do we smash or pick?”

“Step aside, dear. Give the devil his due . . . ” Meili says.

Rhyaad nods. “Picking is your department.”

The blond grins, puts one of his daggers back in the coat, and moves over to kneel before the door. He pushes his sunglasses up on his head, “Best to save the loud stuff for the fight . . . Now, then.” He mutters, and then reaches up to the back of his hair for a hairpin and a paper clip. The blond quietly bent the pin and slowly began to insert the tools into the lock. A simple, standard pin lock that would take a scant few seconds to quietly manipulate and open.

Officer Mills holding her gun at the ready watched the skilled fingers working the picklocks – she looked up to the Chief with an arched brow.

Rhyaad looks at St. Clair, “What do you think?”

“I’m thinking I hope it’s not C-4.”

They all hear the sound of the lock as it clicks.

Rhyaad smiles at the use of the hairpin.

The blond grins, then reaches out to slowly twist the knob open and replace the tools in his hair. “After you, then.” He spoke smugly and rose, removed his dagger, and motioned for the others.

“Moi? Why ME?” Rhyyad whispers, “I had to kill the last da**able beast of Blair’s.”

“But it could be Blair this time,” Meili offers.

Rhyaad sets his shoulders and then quietly opens the door and peers in.

“Don’t worry old dear I have your six.” Meili rolls his eyes and follows.

The door opens into darkness.

The house seems completely deserted.

Seeing the entrance clear, Rhyaad steps in – worried now about C-4 and a wired floorboard. His boots made not a sound on the wooden floor.

As they enter, St. Clair and Officer Mill’s high-beam flashlights washing over the filthy foyer, a deserted parlor, the hallway leading back into the house past the staircase ascending to the second floor.

Rhyyad checks slowly all around the ground floor, but the whole place just seems empty. “Let’s try upstairs”, he whispers over to Meili”.

“Alright, you have point.” The blond nods and follows behind the male.

The moment he tried to ascent the stairs, they instead flipped open and downwards, propelling him into a hidden basement.

“Rhyaad!” Meili yells into the dark opening,

St, Clair rushes to shine her flashlight down into the opening, a set of very warped and possibly rotten steps. She saw footsteps scuffed in the dust on the old wooden boards.

“You okay, Mr. de’Annar?” She asks concerned.

Rhyaad looks around and in the pitch black can see a small door, “Okay, there’s a room down here.”

He opens the door and finds the basement room lit with candles.

Across the room on a small bare cot there lies a figure of a woman.

Rhyaad steps back out and looks up to St. Clair, “I found someone – or another body.”

“Oh, piss . . . We just hit the jackpot.” Meili grimaces.

St. Clair, Mills and Meili cautiously descend the steps.

Rhyaad returns to the basemen room and he peers around the candlelit room. He holds his sword at the ready, not certain what would happen next, but ready now for just about anything.

The room contained many things. A chair, toilet, ‘fridge, piles of some white material, but the most interest was the body of a woman on the cot.

He crept towards her.

“Rhyaad . . . is that . . . her?” Meili whispers, quietly following behind him.

The woman sits up suddenly, shielding her eyes from St. Clair and Officer Mills’ flashlights, “Oh, please help me, get me out of here! Before they come back!”

Meili was a bit startled in place, shocked by from the woman’s sudden exclamation and appearance.

The woman looked in bad shape, her legs covered with scars. Her face looked as if she had taken a few punches.

Rhyaad approaches her slowly, “Miss Snow!” He says, and then nods emphatically. “We know what Blair intends to do to you. We came to rescue you.”

“Oh thank you! We must hurry – before they come back.”

Rhyaad places a comforting hand on her shoulder, “We’ll take you someplace safe. Where they won’t get you. Blair, or Pickman.”

Cue Music end of Episode