"Bump in the Night" Part 4
Scene 4: Realism Descends
Johnny Calloway was done with this madness. He stupidly comes out to this decrepit old house thinking he’ll earn some scratch and the place has turned into a madhouse. First their oddball host gets his brains bashed in and every bone in his body broken and then that psycho Kendra caused that kid to split his head open. Two bodies in the first hour, and they thought that he had something to do with it!
He’d fled the library first chance he got. While the rest of the lunatics argued and fought and babbled nonsense about secret passageways Johnny had lurched away down the corridor. The adrenaline that had shot through his system had all but sobered him up, lifting the fog that had insulated him against the madness of the creaking mansion. His muscles were beginning to stiffen, his head ached and his stomach lurched with every step.
Eventually to pushed his way through a door and found himself in the kitchen. Johnny desperately started shoving bottles off shelves looking for something to slake his thirst. Bottles of olive oil and vinegar smashed on the floor. Finally it was there…a thick, ornate looking bottle of cooking sherry. It was JD, but it would get him through the night.
As Johnny tried to unscrew the cap his shaking hands betrayed him and the bottles slipped from his grasp. He dropped to his knees to grab it but it rolled out of his reach, coming to rest at the feet of another person. This intruder calmly picked the bottle up and weighed it in their gloved hand. Johnny tilted his neck upwards to see their face just in time to see the bottle come swinging back down towards him.
Johnny died shortly after the impact, blood and grey matter spilling from his skull and mixing with the savory odours around swilling around the kitchen.
Instructions: Well, that blood thirsting murderer escaped your vote and struck again. Looks like it's time for another vote! Change of rules though...now you vote must be made in this very thread! Have fun!
FYI: Here's who is left...
Psycho-Pirate-99 as Nathan Grey, Psychiatrist
TJLunsford as Patrick Irving, Freelance Journalist
goNADSgo69 as Beau Wyndell, coffee shop employee
Rebellion_Reborn as Johnny Calloway, SFX Artist
OldKingClancy as Adam McAllister, Journalism Student
Anakin as Kendra Lowe, aspiring Actress
Speederice as Professor Speed R. Geist, Paranormal Investigator
The Bodygaurd as Oliver Flynn, Therapist
and G-Funk as W.G. Funkhauser, Billionaire
Angry
Adam hears the glass smashing also, he follows Patrick downstairs to the source of the noise. Johhny was dead. Adam felt a pang of guilt, if he hadn't chased him he might still be alive. Crap, if Johnny was downstairs and Kendra was upstairs that must mean she wasn't the killer after all. But, Adam watched Patrick follow bloody footprints to a wall, another passage. Adam ran back upstairs to the library but Kendra was gone. That bitch, she was the killer and she was using these secret passages to get around.
The Professor looked down at his watch while waiting for Patrick to regain consciousness. Where was Adam? He began to worry about leaving the young man alone with Kendra. Looking back to Patrick, the Professor checked his vitals quickly - everything looked good - and quickly left the room. There were still so many variables, people unaccounted for in the mansion, the Professor's mind began to work as he walked down the hallway. Suddenly, he felt a hand grab him by the arm and push him into a dark corridor, closing the door and sealing him in the secret passage. The Professor squinted to see the figure but in the sudden change of light, he couldn't make out any features. He heard a muffled crash followed by a thud from the end of the dark hall and raced down to the other side to see what had happened. Professor Geist found himself standing behind a solid wall with no door knobs or handles, only a single pull-chain dangled above him. He grabbed the chain, the wall slid open revealing the kitchen, and the Professor's eyes darted from Patrick to Johnny's dead form. His face drained of color. "Oh..oh no! What happened?! You're awake!" He looked down and followed the trail of bloody footsteps leading from the body to the wall in front of him. Someone had stuffed him into that same secret passage on purpose! "Did you? A-a-are you trying to make me look like the killer?"
The passageway opened pushing Patrick backwards. He looked up to see the Professor's silhouette from the now opened passageway. "How did you get in there?" Patrick asked. The Professor stood there stammering. Patrick had to know, "Let me see the bottom of your shoes." The Professor lifted up one of his shoes. Sure enough...it was covered in blood.
The Professor turned behind him, trying to keep the passageway open in case he needed to escape the room. It didn't sound like Patrick was trying to blackmail him at all. But he still wasn't sure if he could trust Patrick, finding the man alone in the room with another dead body. "S-s-someone pushed me in there...outside the room where you were resting." He lifted up his battered shoes to show the clean soles beneath. "I didn't see anyone in there, but it was pitch black." He looked over Patrick's shoulder to Johnny's body. "How did you get here so fast? D-did you see what happened to him?"
It doesn't matter how I got here. Adam was right behind me. I want to know how you came out of the same passageway as the killer and didn't see anything. Seems pretty suspicious to me...and where's Kendra been?
Around." Adam answered the question as he walked in the room. "She's gone, I'm betting she's the one who pushed you in professor. Apart from you professor she was the only one in the study and the only one who could kill Johnny and implicate you. We already know she's try to frame Johnny before so only she's got a reason to tie up a loose end. I want us all to find that bitch, she's got some questions to answer.
The Professor's eyes grew wide. "N-n-no I'm telling you. There was no one else in the passage as far as I could see. And these footprints lead me to believe that this was a setup to make someone else take the blame." The Professor was relieved to see Adam come into the room. "We need to find everyone, I haven't seen Gray or that other fella with the biscuits in his pockets since this whole ordeal started! But Kendra is the priority." He looked back to Patrick. "Mr. Irving, I-I understand you being suspicious of me, just as I was suspicious walking in on you above Johnny's body. But before I was stuffed in this walkway, I was watching over you...trying to make sure whoever attacked you earlier didn't finish the job." Professor Geist looked back at Adam with a look of determination. The young man seemed bolstered with confidence in the last few hours, he just needed someone to believe in him. "Let's go find her."
"Wait, before we find the others, I want to check out this passageway. Does anybody have a flashlight?" When nobody responds, Patrick does his best to light the passageway with his cellphone. "There doesn't appear to be any footsteps. The blood just disappears at the doorway." Patrick continues searching the floor until he comes upon a pair of loafers. The light from his phone scans upward until the face of Oliver Flynn is illuminated. He smiles at Patrick. Patrick steps back in fear. "It was you, wasn't it? You're the one who has been killing everyone.
Do you see anything Patrick." Adam called through the dark passage. "HELP ME." The fake cries of Kendra came from afar. Adam turned to the Professor. "Stay here and wait for Patrick. I'm going after Kendra.
She was in a dark, damp room. Was she back in the basement? Darkness all around. Then a snatch of light as a door opened and closed and the sound of the lock snapping into place. She tried to move. She was bound to a chair. The last thing she could remember was Adam leaving her and then...what? Had someone knocked her out? She couldn't remember.
Kendra was working the binds around her wrist, she cried out and they began to bleed right away. She was tied down to the chair with razor wire. One wrong move and she'd sever a vain and it would be game over. She gritted her teeth together and let out one final scream which came out more like a howl of anger than one of fear or terror. She was done being the victim. Whoever was stalking them was about to have the tabels turned. She'd kill this son of a bitch even if it came at the cost of her own life. She could remember the smell of aftershave Adam had on ...the scent was in the air mixed in with the damp. Oh God. Adam was the killer. She figured if she did manage to escape the night alive the event would make for some good material when she was on the Letterman show.
Adam approached the basement door. This was definately where Kendra's voice was coming from. Sneaky bitch, hiding in the dark where she could surprise him form behind. Adam took a heavy metal candlestick off a nearby table and slowly went inside.
"Kendra? You in here. We just want to talk to you, we found Johnny's body and we have a few questions." His grip on the candlestick tighten as the room got darker.
Kendra's eye's narrowed when she saw him step into the room. She smiled. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction of fear. "You can drop the act. If your gonna kill me then do it. Just don't monolgue some whole tale about how your innocent. I know it's you. Well, what are you waiting for?" she screamed.
What was she talking about. As Adam's eyes adjusted to the dark he saw Kendra tied to a chair. Did that mean she wasn't the killer, or that she had help? If she was the killer Adam could kill her now and end it all, if she wasn't then he would've killed an innocent and fellow victim. Either way no-one would know, the heavy candle stick felt lighter at the thought. Adam deiced to get soem info first. "Why did you make Johnny hit you?" He asked her.
"I'm a mehtod actress. If I'm playing the damsel in distress I go all out. Meryl Streep ain't got shit on me. I figured you guys would wanna help me and protect me if I looked messed up. Look. Either help me out or kill me. Just please. Shut up. " she stared into him, dareing him to either carry out his attack or to help her.
The whole thing was an act. That bitch, Adam's hands gripped tighter around the candlestick. He really felt like he was going to kill her. "I'm going to leave you here for now, at least like this I know where you are. Once we gather everyone up I'll come back for you." Adam turned and left the room before she could object. How could he tell the Professor they might have been wrong?
The Professor nodded, telling Adam to stay safe before he left to find Kendra. He didn't like the idea of sending the young man to face her alone, but he admired his bravery - responding to her distress call in spite of their suspicions. When he saw Oliver Flynn illuminated in the passageway, the Professor felt a chill down his spine. Had the man been lurking behind him the entire time, waiting to kill the old man? Or was he stuffed in there too? He stood next to Patrick to help if Oliver started to attack. "How long have you been in there?! Where have you been all this time?"
-"I'd like to know that myself, Mr. Flynn", Nathan demanded as he entered the room. "I've been keeping track of everyone's whereabouts so far, and you're the only one I haven't been able to keep up with."
Adam had seen Grey go into the room, if his ears were right he had heard Flynn was in the room as well. This now meant that everyone except him and Kendra were in that room and regardless of whether or not Kendra was the killer, someone there had tied her up. Adam stayed hidden behind the door listening the conversation, waiting for one of them to slip up and mention Kendra's wherabouts which only he and whoever tied her up knew. Adam was terrified, eavesdropping the first time was fine but now one of those men was a murderer or at the least an accessory. If the worst came to it, he still had the candlestick in his hands.
Patrick, still feeling woozy, stumbles to his feet and works his way to the bathroom to clean up the blood from his head. As he passed the kitchen he heard what sounded like glass breaking, followed by quick footsteps. He staggers into the kitchen to see Johnny lying dead on the floor with blood squirting from an open wound on the top of his head. He noticed a path of bloody footsteps leading away from the body and ending at the wall at the other end of the room. "Another passageway..." Johnny muttered to himself. But how to open it?