Right in front of me is a narrow door built into the wall. It opens to a set of steps leading down into a sub-basement, possibly a storm cellar designed to be out of the way. At the bottom of the steps is another door. But I immediately recognize that this door is not original to the rest of the house. It's newer, added to the end of the steps to create a separation between the entry and what lies beyond.
My hand hesitates on the doorknob for only a few breaths before I push it open. The smell knocks me back onto the steps, and I sag against them, trying to catch my breath, trying to wrap my head around what I saw in the brief instant I stood in the sub-basement.
In that instant, I know what happened to all the missing people.
Chapter Thirty-Two
My hands grip the step on either side of me, squeezing hard enough to make my knuckles ache. I'm shaking as I draw in a breath, trying to ignore the thick smell that comes along with the air. It forces itself heavily into my lungs and stings at the back of my throat. My stomach turns, rolling until I think I'll be sick, but I force it down. I have to stay in control. This is why I'm here. It's why I was sent. I have to know the truth.
Holding my phone tightly, I stand and open the door again. I take measured, cautious steps into the room. I need to be careful, aware of my surroundings, so I don't possibly damage or contaminate anything. Almost as soon as I'm all the way in the room, the door behind me automatically swings shut. The sound of it clicking into place hits me in the center of the chest, and I throw myself against it, desperately grasping the knob on this side. It doesn't move. Unlocked on the outside, this door is designed to lock anyone who steps past it inside the room.
I wonder if that's what happened to any of the missing people who are no longer missing.
In a structure this old, I don't think I can hope for a simple light switch beside the door to give me any light. Instead, I shine the flashlight of my phone up above my head and sweep it back and forth. The light catches a variety of strange objects before it finally finds what I was looking for. The beaded metal strand hangs just low enough for me to catch it with the tips of my fingers if I stand as high on my toes as I can possibly reach. Even at my height, it was designed to be turned on by someone taller.
Pulling the chain doesn't just turn on the single bulb overhead. It also activates several strands of Christmas lights, a lamp, and a vintage Lite Brite game set up on a table several paces away from me. The room is larger than I would have anticipated, and the light creates a brighter pool in the middle before melting out to shadows at the edges and corners.
And all around me, the light illuminates the bodies.
I've walked into scenes of corpses many times. I've reported to mass burials, bodies hidden away in walls, and those long dead strewn across fields, streets, and floors. But I've never experienced anything like this. The bodies aren't just lying on the floor or on tables. They haven't been stored here. They've been posed.
All around the room, more than a dozen bodies have been taxidermized and manipulated into poses creating vignettes of everyday life.
In one corner, four sit and stand around a Christmas tree. A middle-aged man has his hand rested against the branches of the tree as if setting an ornament into place, while a woman sits on a chair at his side, poised as if ready to hand him the next decoration. A young man and woman are on a shaggy rug wrapping a gift.
Several feet away, another version of the family sits around a dining room table, frozen around a meal. Fighting to control my revulsion, I walk up to the table and touch the loaf of bread sitting among platters of food. The wood is hard and cold beneath my touch.
I'm suddenly aware of the weight of my phone still in my hand. I turn off the flashlight and try to dial for help. There's nothing. I put in Eric's number, but it still won't connect. I have no service down here. Fear starts to sink into my mind, taking over my thoughts. I'm locked down in this hidden basement room with corpses crafted into some mind-boggling playland. Without phone service. Without anything to save me.
I have to stay calm. I turn on the camera on my phone and start taking pictures of everything I see, starting with the vision of Christmas. Forcing my emotions down and pulling the trained agent up to the surface, I block out the grisly reality of what is around me and break it down into its elements, turning it into evidence and exhibits. This lets me step up close to each of the bodies and take pictures of their faces, their hands, the wire contraptions supporting them in their chosen positions. Some of the bodies are far older than others and are starting to degrade despite the efforts at preserving them. Their features are warped, and their hair replaced by wigs.
But I can still recognize them. As I move from the Christmas scene to the dinner, the images of the missing people I've stared at for weeks flash through my head. I see them smiling in life, living moments that belonged to them, and superimpose those images onto the cold, taut faces forced into these false realities.
From the dinner scene, I move to an older man and young man playing a board game. From there, an older woman and younger woman holding teacups as they lean toward each other as if in conversation. I take picture after picture, needing to record every inch of this place. It's the last of the scenes, the smallest and simplest, that is the most horrifying to me. In this vignette, a young woman who looks very different from the others sits in a rocking chair, cradling a wrapped baby in her arms. My hand shakes as I reach for the edge of the blanket. I don't want to see what's beneath it. It's horrific enough to see what he was capable of with the adults strewn around this room. To think he could kill an innocent baby just for the sake of using it as a prop creates a visceral reaction inside me.
But I have to be able to photograph it. I need to record the proof and get it to someone else, so no matter what happens to me or to this room, someone else will know.
In one movement, I pull the corner of the blanket away from the baby's head. A shock of bright blonde hair tied with a pink bow sits above wide, vibrant blue eyes. The breath I didn't even realize I was holding gushes out of me. It's a doll. The woman is cradling a doll.
As the initial shock and horror of the discovery fades, and my mind clears, I start noticing odd features of some of the bodies. They don't look exactly right, as if parts of them are not proportioned correctly or are positioned oddly.
When I've gotten all the way around the room and taken pictures of every one of the bodies, I attach them to an email to send to Eric.
Without service, it doesn't send. I let out an exasperated sound.
The smell of the room and the feeling of the cold air on my skin is getting into my mind again. It twists my thoughts and steals my control. Time keeps slipping by. I try the door again. Tugging and twisting at the doorknob is useless. It's securely locked. I try several hard kicks to the area around the lock. I try slamming my shoulder into the center of the door. None of it works. It’s solid and thick. It doesn't yield to me after several attempts, and finally, I step back, rubbing my throbbing shoulder as I look around the room for another option.
There has to be a way to get out of here. This can't just be a sealed cube of stone.
There are no windows. I'm far underground, beneath even the basement of the house. I look for another door, a vent, anything that might offer a way to either get out of the room or alert someone I'm here.