Short Story: Lurking From The Beyond (Prologue)

Prologue – (Sneak Peak Into The Story)

It was a foggy night and the dark around was covered in a thick mist. It circled a heavy cold sliding through in the glass doors and freezing the walls of the department cabin. Reeves put on his badge, a thick overcoat and the gun inside his jacket. The weather wasn’t a deal too a bother until it hindered his job. He’d been called not once but continually the whole week. One of the cases he’d had, the woman who had found her husband talked it to her close friend. The close friend, Regina Linton’s husband had contacted him through the firm. Reeves had been with a lot of consultants calling him up here. Now that he was done with all of those, the Linton house case was all that remained now.

It was far away into the outskirts of the Yorkshire Dales. The Linton house embedded in the heart of the green valley stretched and swanked around with a far end moorland. Reeves had to travel out there and look into the matter. The man, George Linton had sounded scared and hasty. His message on Reeves phone had been hurried and his voice was quite alarmed.

He got into his car and worked it on the high way. Reeves was thorough in his work. He was sharp and nothing but suspicious. Because suspicion was the key point to the crime. Where everything is considered and nothing is left but the carcass of the suspect running free. Reeves job was to find those and put the wrong doers behind the bars. No matter what wasn’t seen he needed to run for the chase which surely were hidden in the shadows. And he really liked to chase into the dark. That was the only reason he’d chosen the profession. He really did observe what was behind the dark exterior and facade and camouflage of each and every person concerned in the case. Because they hid behind the face mask of placid. Giving away nothing and staying inside the armour of self defense.

He reached the place around four hours after he’d left the department. The night drew into a much starless and inky black. It was around two in the morning and he saw with narrowed eyes the mist clearing away and a house coming into view. The property was quite large. The house stood in the midst of the moorland. Standing out as the Victorian monument. Reeves parked the car and observed the premises around. Everything was quite around and was more closed off and empty. The house seemed eerily silent.

He got out of the car and walked toward a grass trodden area. It crunched under his shoes as he sauntered toward the centre. There were seven floors to the house stretching vertically with numerous windows to each room.

He straightened suddenly and his eyes turned into narrowed slits. Curiosity peaked as he observed the far end corner window of the seventh floor. Only that room had a light. Yellow. Blinking. Candle light. It flickered by the glass of the widow. His gaze was arrested when a silhouette moved closer to it. The flickering blurred the shadow but it loomed there closer.

A sound of creaking disturbed his attention and his stealthy look moved toward the front porch. His eyes winced as the lights flooded the area of the steps. He blinked when a man around his mid thirties, dark haired, a little round in appearance walked hurriedly with a limp on his right leg. When he walked closer, Reeves observed his face. He was flushed and panting. His features were of an effable man. The gentility of his face told him that he would get along with any smiling person as long as he was heard, too. A giver. That Reeves observed.

“You came, Detective Austin Reeves.” He exclaimed a little over anxious croak.

Reeves shook his hand. “Just Reeves,” he said back gruffly.

The man smiled and moved back taking a deep breath in. “Reeves.” He nodded his head.

Reeves focus moved back to the window and he observed with a flicker of surprise that the silhouette wasn’t there anymore at the window but only the flickering of the candle was.

George followed his gaze and suddenly he cursed. He looked visibly anxiously frustrated. “Damn the candle,” he muttered under his breath.

Reeves brown eyes moved toward his blue ones. “What do you mean?” He asked curiously.

George looked back at him with an unreadable expression. As if he weren’t aware of such a thing and finding it hard to get it around his practical mind. Something was beyond his understanding which seemed to have shaken him to his core. Frightened him to the depths of bones. Challenging his mind into believing the impossible.

“I don’t get it anymore the candle,” he muttered, taking in a heavy breath and again looked back at the window. “The shadow and the candle,” he said in a furtively scared voice. “We have searched the place. Went through the whole of the seventh floor and also…” He gulped hard and his eyes came to catch Reeves gaze. “The seventh floor,” he whispered shakily. He pulled at his dark hair helplessly. “I don’t understand anymore. How the candle appears there and also the shadow. It’s inexplicable. We live in constant fear. My wife and kids and the servants,” he said reading a bit in anger. “Wondering what makes the floor creak. Who cries in the night. What scratches the floor. What animal grunts,” he said gulping again. His eyes turned into a haunted shade. Dark in scared helplessness. “It chills my blood each time I hear the moans into the midnight,” he concluded shivering a little.

As George spoke, Reeves listened quietly to everything and his eyes drew around covering the area in his mind as a print of the place. Seemed like someone was playing it all and scaring the people of the house. The area looked quite rich. Any burglar would break in but Reeves wondered one thing. How did the person climb up to the seventh floor. It either must be an insider’s doings or that there was something more complicated than that. Reeves did not believe in the grave to come back and haunt people. The dead were better dead. He didn’t believe in myths and fables.

This case would be interesting until he found out the plan behind such arrangement of the seventh floor. He looked up at the window and his eyes narrowed while he listened to George let out his frustration over the impossible that he couldn’t believe.

He just had to find out the visible ghost hidden behind the fear of the unseen one…

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