Chasing Mary - Chapter Two

Rob steered the 4 X 4 through the narrow alleyway at the side of the Red Lion Hotel and parked outside the stable block, which still sat painfully in his memory from the week before when they had made their first eventful visit.
"Are you all right?" Allison asked.
"Yes. Why shouldn't I be?"
"No reason. You just seem a bit quiet, that's all."
There was a definite chill in the air and the sky was more overcast than before which made the area outside darker and void of the dense shadows that added an eerie uneasiness.
Rob fixed his gaze on the stable door.
"Are we going in there tonight?" he asked, his voice broken with obvious reluctance.
"No." Allison replied. "I think we'll concentrate on the hotel and see what we pick up in there."

"Ok. You're the boss."
"We can go back in the stable again later, if you like."
"No ... no, we need to cover the rooms in the hotel. I'll start taking the equipment inside."
"Hello you two." Nigel greeted from behind the bar. "I'm surprised you came back, after what happened last week."
"It'll take more than that to put us off," Rob announced bravely.
Allison smiled. It was more a gesture to hide her own apprehension and not one to ridicule Rob's attempt at mock courage.

"It looks busier in here tonight," Allison said, casting a glance around the bar area and the assembled regulars all eagerly downing their preferred beverages and exchanging the usual tickle-tackle, no doubt sharing a few jokes about ghost busters, and things that go bump in the night. All part and parcel of the reception Rob and Allison had learned to expect when investigating functioning public houses.
"Watch out for the headless horseman in room six," one regular shouted with a roar of laughter, which seemed to set off a chain reaction of chuckles from everyone else in the room.

"We'll start upstairs, if that's all right." Allison said, raising her voice above the noise.
"No, problem," Nigel replied, in the same fashion. "We've set room five up as a base room for you like you suggested on the phone."
"Thank you, that'll be fine."
"There's everything you need in there. Coffee, sugar, milk, kettle and a few biscuits."
"Thank you. That's very kind of you."
"If you want anything stronger than coffee you'll have to provide your own spirits," called the resident comedian from the back of the room again.
Once more the room filled with hysterical laughter.

The fire door separating the bar area and the hotel stairwell served well to deaden the noise. After closing it behind them, almost complete silence followed.
Burdened with the heavy cases of equipment the two of them made a slow ascent of the stairs, pausing for a moment on the first landing.
"Did you hear that?" Allison said, in a loud whisper.
"Did I hear what?"
"Shhh! I'm sure I heard a woman's voice."
"It might be somebody in one of the rooms." Rob suggested.
"I doubt it. Nigel said all the rooms were empty. Besides, it came from the staircase, there's another set of fire doors at the top."
Allison placed her two cases at her feet and listened. "There! Did you hear her that time?"
"No!"

"Is there anyone there? Is there anyone on the stairs with us?"
Instinctively Rob placed the two cases he was carrying by his feet and removed one of the EVP recorders from inside.
Immediately Allison appeared to become strangely preoccupied. She stood, fixed to the spot, transfixed in concentration. "She's with us! I can feel her." Allison announced, without moving her fixed stare from the thick, blue carpet that covered the landing.
"Who is?"
"Elizabeth! Come towards me sweetheart." Allison called, her voice noticeably broken with emotion. "Tell me who you're so afraid of."

Experience from past investigations had taught Rob to keep quiet when Allison picked up on 'something'. Fighting his raging curiosity he stood silently and watched.
"That's it sweetheart. Come forward. We're not here to hurt you," Allison called out reassuringly. "We only want to help you."
Suddenly the area around them turned icy cold and the air seemed to become still, feeling almost solid.
"She's here, Rob. I can feel her right here in front of me." At that moment a tear welled in Allison's eye. A sudden sadness washed over her. "No one can harm you sweetheart."
"Rob checked the EVP recorder in his hand, comforted by the red glow of the battery indicator. During similar events in the past, it was not unusual for electronic equipment to die suddenly from a discharged battery.

"Can you smell her perfume, Rob?"
"Yes. I can. It smells of lavender."
"No. Elizabeth. Stay with us. She can't get to you here!" Allison called out, her voice desperate and tinged with sudden panic.
"Are you all right?" Rob gasped.
"She's gone!" Allison wiped the tear from her cheek and turned towards Rob. "She's hiding from Mary and the Master. The poor little mite is terrified, Rob. She said Mary is coming, take care!"
"Who the hell are Mary and the Master?" Rob asked.
"I'm not sure. But this is not good!"

Passing clumsily through the last set of fire doors, they emerged onto the corner of a long 'L-shaped' corridor which extended off to the left and straight ahead. The room on their immediate right was the only room illuminated. The open door was emblazoned with a large number five.
"This place gives me the creeps!" Rob announced.
"Oh stop moaning. It's supposed to do." Allison replied, quickly. "There'd be no point being here if it didn't. Would there?"
Nigel had been very generous with the refreshments he had provided.
Allison sipped her coffee. Rob attacked the accompanying biscuits, giving special attention to the ginger nuts.

"Are you going to fill your face with those biscuits, all night or are we going to get started?" Allison asked.
"Do I have a choice?"
"Let's start by taking some base readings in room four."
"Room four?"
"Yes room four. Something tells me that room is very active. According to Nigel, several of his guests have felt uncomfortable in there and have even asked to be moved after spending their first night in their."

"I'm not surprised," Rob smirked. "This place is not exactly five stars. Is it?"
By the time Rob had consumed the last ginger nut, Allison was already out in the hall, looking back at him with her usual irritated, narrow-eyed glare. "Are you coming? Or what?"
Looking more than a little apprehensive, Rob stood in the hall outside the infamous room four. His hand firmly gripped the door handle.
"What are you waiting for?" Allison urged.
"Why don't we start with room one first. Then work our way through them in order?"
"Just get in there!"
Fearing Allison's inflamed temper slightly more than whatever might be waiting to greet him behind the door, Rob pressed down slowly on the handle.

Inch by inch the door opened, yielding to Rob's hesitant pressure.
Finally the door swung back to its fullest extent, buffering against the bed located immediately behind it. "Oh, man ... its freezing in here!"
"Check the temperature," Allison ordered.
"Fourteen-point-four!"
"There's someone in here." Allison pushed past and stood, stone-like in the center of the room. "I can feel the presence of a young girl."
"Is it Elizabeth again?"
"No. I don't think it is." Allison replied, hesitantly.
"Who is it then?"
"Shush!"

"The temperature is dropping!" Rob announced. He watched the red digits of the thermometer display declining at a rapid rate. "Ten-point-two."
"There's more than one!"
"Eight-point eight!"
"They're frightened, Rob."

"Frightened of what?" Instinctively, Rob glanced round the room. Only semi darkness surrounded them. The street light outside the single window cast long eerie shadows across the floor, and the glare from the occasional passing car flashed along the walls.
"Is there anyone present who would like to communicate with us?" Allison called out.
"Seven-point six." Once again Rob diverted his attention from the descending temperature and placed an EVP recorder on top of the nearby bedside cabinet.
"Come towards us." Allison invited her voice calm and welcoming. At first her invitation seemed to without response. "Come forward. We don't mean you any harm."
"Geez! Three-point one ... two point four!"

"That's right. Use our energy. We only want to help you."
Almost instantly the atmosphere transformed into one of over-powering oppression. The air began feeling thick and still, almost solid. The semi-darkness dimmed as the dense shadows stretched around them like a black fist holding them captive.
There was no more need to announce the descending temperature. Thin white clouds of moist, wispy breath confirmed that the coldness had now descended below freezing.
"This is not good!" Allison said. A rare tinge of concern showed clear in her voice.
After fumbling with a growing urgency, Rob pulled an EMF meter from his pocket.
"What's the reading?"

Before Rob could answer, the door slammed shut with a resounding 'BANG!'
"What the...?" Allison screamed. Her instinctive leap propelled her to Rob's side.
"This doesn't feel like a young girl in here with us, to me." He said, checking around the room with a fixed and nervous stare.
The EMF meter announced its extreme electromagnetic detection with an ear piercing alarm.
"It's off the scale!" Rob called out.

Realizing that Allison had stopped calling out, Rob turned in her direction.
"Whoa! Allison! Are you all right? What the hell is happening?"
Rob's stomach tensed in solid spasm. Panic tore with a razor-like grip at his raging nerves. Whatever the cause, its grip was unbreakable. He was frozen rigid, immobile and solid, robbed of his ability to move. "Allison!" He screamed helplessly.
Allison was oblivious to his panic. The cause had taken her with devastating effect. Her face was no longer that of Allison Parker. In the darkness, the face of an ashen faced woman with deep-cut features starred back into the room.
"Allison! ... Allison! ... Fight it"

She gave no response. The evil face turned slowly stiff and menacing in its movement.
Desperate panic, angry fear, and with all the strength he could muster proved incapable of breaking Rob free of whatever force gripped him. "Leave her alone!" he yelled furiously.
When the evil face had turned its course and the black empty eye sockets were held in Rob's horror-stricken gaze with agonizing hypnotic effect, her black parched lips fell into a corpse-like gape as if to utter their discarnate words.

"Allison ... Listen to my voice. Come back to me ... Come back to me love!" Rob's desperate pleas fell on deaf ears. "Look for the light Allison. Go towards the white light!"
The face continued to stare. The empty sockets, black holes of impenetrable blackness yet they held an unseen force that captured everything helplessly in their unbreakable grip. Lifeless, straw-like straggles of limp, wispy white hair poked in mattered clumps from a boney scalp.
Unable to speak, Rob could only stand a silent and helpless witness when the dead lips parted and uttered the evil message;

"Be gone! Fools!" The head screamed. A rancid smell of decaying flesh gushed in accompaniment from the black void of a mouth. Blackened stumps of rotting teeth, shuck from force of the stench-filled breath. "Be gone. Lest I take thee, body and soul."
Raging voices screamed out in Rob's head. They screamed their objections, in echoing pleas, yet his mouth remained clamped by frozen muscles. His stomach churned. It felt like a seething volcano, preparing to spew out its boiling and seething vomit.
"The souls you hear around you are the souls that I keep. Yours shall join them and become my feast. Be gone pathetic mortals and pester me no more!"

With a merciful swiftness the oppression began to ease. The darkness lightened, giving way to the welcoming amber glow of the street light outside the window.
The evil features that had shrouded Allison in a mask of death, vanished with such haste she knew nothing of its presence. Only the sight of Rob, stood chalk white, from horror caused her concern.
"Rob?"
He gave no reply.
"Rob? What's wrong?"
"You don't remember. Do you?"

"Remember what?" she asked, completely astounded at Rob's ashen appearance.
Fighting the painful tingling, as his bodies senses returned to normal. Rob stuttered an incredulous recall of what had just happened.
"That's good. Is it?" Allison responded, in emotionless tones.
"No! That's not good. That's it! We're out of here."
"Don't be stupid Rob. You're over-reacting. Just like you always do."

He rubbed his eyes, and tried to shake away the remaining stiffness in his aching limbs. "No. Allison. This time, you do as I say. Whatever is in this place is too strong for us to handle."
"I'm not leaving, Rob." Allison responded in her usual defiant manner. "We've only just got here, for God's sake.
"I don't care. Get the equipment packed away. We're going."
Reluctantly, Allison agreed but not before vowing to return with the rest of the team for support.