annotated floorplan - simple floorplan
Lennox checked that the chest harness supporting his GoPro was secure over his lightweight thermal jacket. He’d learned on earlier scouting trips that he couldn’t move the gates, so he’d have to leave his van by the side of the road-like driveway that led up to the gates: not his preferred option on Hallowe’en night, but with any luck it was far enough from anywhere that there would be little motivation for anyone bent on vandalism to come out this way. He’d dealt with the problem before of being unable to bring his van, though, and the solution was a folding wagon, canvas on a metal frame, that could hold his gear and save him from having to run back and forth or carry a ridiculous amount. It wouldn’t have been a complete nightmare of rain and cold tonight, since the drifting clouds overhead didn’t look like they were planning to do much of anything, but it was still inconvenient and wasted time.
He turned on the small camera on his wrist, and angled it towards himself.
“Happy Hallowe’en, folks! I promised you an overnight investigation for tonight, and that’s what we’re here for! This is known as the Mallory Estate. It was built in the late eighteen hundreds, but other records are rather thin. It’s been considered legally abandoned since at least the nineteen-thirties, although the taxes are still being paid out of a trust fund. Ownership is, to say the least, ambiguous, but it looks like that’s always been the case, at least as far as paper trails. Local folklore says the place was built by a guy called Richard Mallory. But it’s not at all clear whether he inherited the money or married into it or made it big somehow. There are lots of stories in the area about deaths in the house, and even more stories about ghost sightings. Apparently, people who go into this house on Hallowe’en are never seen again. I’ve been told that every year, at least one person vanishes, and it’s so regular that on November first, the local police come by to look for cars or anything else left to tell them who it was this year. So if anyone finds this footage and I’ve disappeared, at least you’ll know what’s happened to me, right?” He laughed. He’d been in other houses with similar warnings, and had yet to even see anything that couldn’t be readily explained.
There were no ghosts in these old houses, but people kept believing that there were. He had a loyal following who were willing to contribute enough to give him a full-time job, exploring and debunking so-called haunted houses and similar locations.
“I already have two cameras set up outside, focused on the front door of the house but they cover almost the entire space inside this metal fence around the... well, it’s not really a yard, it’s basically just a huge driveway once you’re through the gates.”
He turned the camera on his wagon. “All the usual gear’s packed up. Cameras to set up so we can monitor likely hotspots, complete with the tripods, three specialized ones and a bunch of GoPros, and extra batteries in case we need them. Can never have too many cameras, even if it means more footage for me and my awesome volunteers to look through afterwards. Water, food, and first-aid and safety gear, because I’m not suicidal or masochistic and nights are long and chilly at this time of year, plus abandoned buildings aren’t necessarily the safest structures in the world. Just for the record, I made every possible good-faith effort to track down the legal owner and get permission to do this investigation, and came up empty-handed. I do not condone trespassing, so if you’re doing your own investigations, make sure you get permission. I’m doing this anyway as a calculated risk, since no one’s been able to sort out the ownership question for coming up on a century and it’s looking pretty likely that as long as I’m not vandalizing anything, no one will bother complaining. Just in case, if you do own the house, or know who does, please contact me and let me know, okay? I’d really prefer to have that sorted out.”
It was more risky than he was letting on. If he got a reputation for breaking into abandoned buildings without permission, it could damage his deliberately-cultivated image as someone who played absolutely by the rules. He’d gotten a bit cocky, though, certain that he could find the owner in time, and then Hallowe’en was here and he still hadn’t, and there wasn’t enough time to pick a different site for this show.
He just hoped, fervently, that there’d be a way into the house. He didn’t want to cause any damage, but what were the odds that the front door was unlocked? More probable was a broken or unfastened window, or maybe he’d be lucky enough to find a back door.
“So, let’s get going, shall we? I want to get as many cameras set up as possible while there’s still at least some light, and that isn’t going to last long.”
Getting through the gates with the wagon was a bit of a tight squeeze, but he managed to wiggle it through. There were larger wagons available, but he’d chosen this one because it would generally fit through any space wide enough for him.
The marble front steps were a nuisance, since he had to more or less lift the wagon up them, but the contents were more bulky than heavy.
The front door was locked.
He left the wagon there and strolled along the front of the building. There was a smaller door at the end of the porch, but it was locked as well. As he passed a large window in the front wall, he peeked in through the damaged stained glass image of autumn leaves, anything from soft gold to warm brown to flaming maple scarlet with a few oak-green ones, shining his flashlight through, and caught a glimpse of furniture covered in white sheets.
This could be a problem. He was unwilling to stoop to vandalism. Was he going to have to circle the building in search of a way in? He went to the other end, passing a window decorated with roses and vines, but there was no smaller door there.
This was not a good sign. Time was ticking, he was running out of daylight rapidly—he’d seen the sun dropping on his way in with the wagon, and if it wasn’t touching the horizon yet, it would be any minute now. He mulled over options on his way back to the wagon.
Had that key been there before, dark metal on a dark ribbon, lying on a white stone table? He should have seen it, shouldn’t he? It was incredibly obvious.
Of course it had been. It was there now, and no one else had approached. He would have noticed that, for sure.
“Well, the door is locked, but a key lying right here looks awfully inviting. If one of my regulars set that up without telling me, then thank you, but tell me who you are, eh?” The key fit, and it worked. He unlocked the door, and tucked the key into one leg pocket of his heavy cargo pants.
The wagon fit through the door easily, but he stepped immediately into gloom. Fortunately, one of the most basic bits of equipment was a high-quality flashlight. He turned slowly, letting the beam play across the entrance hall.
“Wow. Well, I don’t think there’s likely to be any trouble getting around with the wagon now we’re inside. I wish I’d been able to find a floor plan of this house so I could make a plan of the best locations to set up cameras, but I couldn’t, so we’re going to have to just improvise. There’s a lot of space in here and there’s no way I have enough cameras to cover every hall and door and place of interest, but if I’m careful and think this through, it should be possible to get most of it.”
He went straight ahead. In the vast space before the back wall and its windows, he switched on the little blinking LEDs he’d attached to his wagon, so he could always find it in the dark—it wasn’t that dark yet, but he had no desire to be caught by surprise—and left it there while he scouted around the central part of the ground floor. Might as well take advantage of the remaining ambient light.
He returned to take one camera and a tripod out of the wagon and began to set it up just inside the windows, in front of the largest bird cage he’d ever seen.
“Okay, so, I think a preliminary setup is going to involve one night-vision camera right here against the back wall, facing the front doors, since that’ll also catch the stairs up at either side and if I use a wide-angle one it’ll also catch the nearer doors to the dining room and the music room.” He fastened the camera to the top of the tripod, and turned it on, adjusting it to get the field of view he wanted. “I’m going to add a couple of GoPros mid-way for extra coverage of the stairs and the ends of the main hall that runs in either direction, because this is obviously the key intersection of the entire building.” He said it while already unpacking them, and set them up on two small sheet-draped tables dragged into position. The light was pretty much gone, and he did it largely by flashlight. Not entirely a bad thing, since he could use the flashlight to line up the shot. “Then one at each end of that main hall pointing inwards, and one of those will be one of my remaining night-vision cameras. That will cover the central part of the lower floor, as near as I can currently determine, the high-priority parts that would have been high-traffic and all, and then I can get on with exploring and do some other testing. I haven’t heard a single sound except the ones I’ve made since I got in here, so I’m not sure there will even be much in this one that we need to analyze to debunk, but I’ll give it my best shot.”
“Who are you talking to?” a female voice asked from behind him, the tone deeply puzzled. “Oh! Are you making a recording to show other people? Like on television?” Her tone changed to delight. “Do I just stand in front of this thing? Goodness, cameras have gotten so very small! Hello, everyone! I hope you have a lovely Hallowe’en!”
