December 17, 2020
"So what ya reckon did it, detective? The killin, of course," The sheriff asked, spitting a wad of tobacco on the ground.
Andrews looked to the large locked cellar doors. The wood was rotting, one of the handles was falling off, and it looked as if it was going to fall off its hinges. Despite all that, it looked impenetrable, meant to keep people away who had no business behind it. The rest of the basement looked similar to the rest of the house. Dusty furniture, cobwebs, and rats that were scurrying around the manor but, with a little work, it could return to what beauty it may have had before.
One thing was for sure, the Matthews must have harbored a lot of wealth. Pool tables, ping pong tables, and even chess tables sat in one large room, a fully stocked library sat in the room beside it, and a whole movie theater sat in another room. That wasn't even including the magnificent bathroom, huge closet, and weight room. To top it all off, the living room had a little bar in the corner, a TV that was maybe half the size of their movie theater screen, a marble fireplace, and the copious amounts of furniture. That was all in the basement, Andrews couldn't even imagine what the family had upstairs.
What he couldn't quite figure out, however, was how it all looked like it had been sitting there for months without being touched. It was only a few days ago that people were still living in it. Did they just decided not to use the house?
The cellar door stuck out like a sore thumb, as compared to the rest of the basement. What looked like an abandoned rich person's home looked more eerie with the addition of the door. It didn't match the aesthetic, it was misplaced, and, of course, was creepy.
"I reckon it's one of the two men who disappeared, if not both," Andrews replied.
The sheriff nodded his head while Andrews examined the lock that kept the doors together. It was heavier than most locks he was use to. Even the lock cutters would struggle to break through them.
"I know you ain't from around here detective but people don't normally do things like this to each other," The sheriff said.
Andrews looked to him. Sheriff Wayne Sharpe was his name. He was much older than Andrew's age, being that he was probably in his sixties. Where there use to be dark brown hair, Sharpe's mustache and head was an ashy white. Growing up in the northern forest of Idaho apparently made him the superstitious type, as it did with every person that lived there longer than a decade.
"Do you see cases like this often up here, sheriff?" Andrews asked, pressing the bolt cutters to the lock.
"Well, eh, not this particular case." Sharpe responded. "But we have seen cases similar to it."
Andrews squeezed the cutters, feeling the lock resist its pinch.
"Well, sheriff..." He squeezed harder on the cutters, the lock still resisting his force. "I've had many cases similar to this."
The cutters slipped and fell to the ground as Andrews sighed, feeling the blood rushing through his face. "Dammit," He muttered.
He looked back to the sheriff, whose lip was protruding past his nose. "There's a lot of sick fucks out there sheriff. I've seen a woman stab out her boyfriend's eyes because he was looking at another women; a guy shoot his neighbor because they were making too much noise at night; and I've seen the worst of humanity who enjoy just generally torturing other people and animals. Sure, from appearance, this is different from what I've seen cut off and stitched together, but it's all the same. One, if not both, of those men did this and mutilated those people. I don't know why they did it but I assure you, Sheriff, this isn't the work of some faceless guys running around the forest murdering people."
Both men stared at each other, the sheriff obviously conflicted in his beliefs.
"I'm not trying to tell you change your beliefs that some mannequins are running around the forest trying to spook people," Andrews said with a slight chuckle. "But what I am saying is that those people upstairs were killed by a person... a real life person."
Andrews turned back to the lock. "Now give me a hand with this. These cutters are awful."
The sheriff grabbed one side of the handle while Andrews grabbed the other. They pushed in at the same time, feeling it wedge its way into the lock. They squeezed as hard as they could before feeling the lock snap, sending both men forward about to lose their balance.
"That lock was a tough son of a bitch," Andrews said.
"It's the house," The sheriff replied. "It doesn't want us goin in there."
Again, Andrews looked to the sheriff who was every so slightly trembling. He was truly afraid of the house. Sure it was abandoned, dusty, and had the looks of your typical haunted house but it was just a house, just like any other house, except for being drastically much better looking.
"Come on sheriff, you said it yourself. These tunnels haven't been opened in years and nobody has the keys. I'm sure we'll find nothing but a few rats," Andrews winked at him before mumbling, "And maybe a few corpses."
They drilled a hook into the wall and attached a red wire to it. Andrews put the spool of red wire on the side of his belt, turned on his flashlight, and opened up the large wooden doors. A gust of air hit the two of them, a gust that felt like it had been their for centuries. He threw a rock into the tunnel, hearing it echo far into its depths.
"I don't know if this is such a good idea, detective," The sheriff said. "I 'ear that old Matthews set traps up in these tunnels."
Superstitious and conspiracy theorist? What is up with these people?
"Well I guess we better watch our step," Andrews said, hearing his laugh echo through the tunnel.
He heard the sheriff sigh behind him and they walked deeper and deeper into the cave. He drew his pistol, ready for anything that wanted to surprise him.
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Birke sat outside, listening to the sheriff's deputies engage in conversation about the bodies strung up on the wall. It was absolutely repulsive. Andrews may have grown accustomed to such scenes but Birke still felt repulsion in his stomach every time. How could people do this?
Leaning against his car, he kept his head turned away from the deputies so he didn't have to breathe in their smoke. It was the only other thing at this house that disgusted him.
One of the deputies walked up to him.
"Don't smoke?" He asked.
Birke waved the smoke that was blowing towards him, showing obvious irritation. "No. Don't much like the smell of it either."62Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡl4XU8mmdXB
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"Sorry 'bout that," The deputy said. He dropped his cigarette into the grass and stomped on it. Birke gave a half smile and nodded his head.
"So, you from Couer d'Alene?" The deputy asked.
Birke shook his head. "Seattle."
"What are you doing so far out here? There must be plenty of detectives here in Idaho?"
"We're on a special case assignment."
"Oh? What kind of special case?"
"We're trying to figure out what happened to Jacob Matthews. Apparently the last detectives that went looking for him didn't so such a good job so his widow contacted us, pleading for us to find him. At least, what might be left of him."
The deputy laughed. "I don't mean to ruffle your feathers there detective but nobody going to be finding that rich boy. There's probably nothing left of him."
Birke gave him a curious look. "And what makes you so sure of that?"
The deputy leaned in closer to Birke, seemingly trying to keep the conversation quiet. "It's them faceless figures that walk these woods. They kidnapped Mr. Matthews, probably ate him or something."
Detective Andrews was right. The people around these forests were superstitious. "Listen, I don't mean to ruffle your feathers but there's no such thing as Faceless. Jacob Matthews got everyone to believe that Faceless were kidnapping people in the middle of the night and do God knows what to them. It's a myth, a lie. There's no Faceless, there's no mannequins stealing away people in the middle of the night. It's was all just apart of a tourist attraction so that more people would want to go to his hotels. Nobody has ever recorded one. Hell, nobody has ever seen one."
The deputy laughed. "You city boys think you know everything, don't you? Well I tell you what. The Faceless are real. I bet you that they are watching us right now, seeing what we're doing, seeing if any of us are going to wander off into their trees so they can snatch us."
Birke looked around to the surrounding forests, seeing nothing but the black outline of trees against the moon's reflection. "So why don't they come snatch us up right now? If they're so clever, so magical, why don't they just come and pluck us away?"
The deputy pointed his head towards the house. Birke followed his head and stared at the house, feeling its sinister presence looking back at him. Sure it was menacing but it was just a house, at least that's what Andrews told him the entire ride there.
"So, what? They don't like haunted houses now? They scared of some ghosts?" Birke sneered.
"They don't go on Indian burial grounds," The deputy replied.
Birke laughed, almost unable to contain himself. "You all sure do make a good story, I'll give you that. So I've got to worry about creepy white mannequins running around, or... wait... floating around in the woods, snatching me up to... what? Make me Santa's elf? And then we have this house, which you all presume to be haunted, that the Faceless can't trespass on because it's on an Indian burial ground. Which one is it going to be? Haunted forest or haunted house?"
"You can mock us, detective, but we ain't liars. This house is haunted and those forests are lurking with Faceless. Just because you don't believe it don't make it true."
"I apologize. I just simply don't believe that Jacob Matthews went insane because he was living in a haunted house and then got snatched up by some guys without a face. He had a mental problem, that his family never got him help for, and then he ran off, probably dying in the forest from dehydration or something."
"Well we ain't ever found his body detective. The sheriff had us scour these woods for him and never saw nothin."
"And from the sounds of it, didn't find any Faceless either," Birke said.
The deputy glared at Birke, having nothing else to argue.
"I mean no offense deputy, I just simply don't believe in all these folktales. I don't know what happened to Mr. Matthews - whether he's dead or he just ran away, I don't know. What I do know is that we have a killer on the loose and we need to find him and put that sick son of a bitch away. Andrews and I are going to pick up where the last detectives left off and see if we can't figure out what happened to Matthews, see if we can't bring the family some closure."
The deputy nodded his head before walking away. Birke leaned against his car again, noticing movement from the window on the third floor. There was a little girl standing in the window, barely visible from where Birke was standing.
"What the hell? Why is there a girl in the house?" Birke yelled. He sprinted up the stairs, through the entrance, and up one of the large stairwells on the right.
"Detective!" A voice behind him yelled. "There's no one up there!"
Birke saw her though. There was a little girl with long brown hair standing in front of the window, looking down at him. Maybe she knew something that could help in their investigation. How did the deputies not see her when they scanned the house? It didn't matter, maybe she snuck in through the back entrance past the officers.
He continued to run down a long hallway that led to a smaller staircase that would lead up to the third floor. He opened the hatch that would take him to the large room that encompassed the third floor. Three decently large circular windows were placed in the middle of each wall. It wasn't small enough to be an attic but it also didn't seem big enough to be classified as a third floor. Toys, books, decorations, and various other belongings littered the floor. However, there wasn't anyone up there. The little girl was gone.
From behind him, Birke heard a man breathing. He noticed it was the deputy standing behind him.
"Where did she go?" Birke asked.
He was fast. There was no way that she could have escaped the third floor without him seeing her coming down the stairs. She couldn't have been that fast.
"I told you, detective..." The deputy paused to catch his breath. "There's no one up here."
Birke paused and looked around the room once more. "But I saw someone up here."
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His mouth was beginning to taste a lot like dust. The further they carried on, the smaller the tunnels seemed to get, barely being big enough to get through without crawling.
"I think we ought to turn back now, detective. I don't think we'll find anything in here and it's not worth giving myself the back pain over," Sheriff Sharpe said.
Andrews laughed. "You ought to have more fun, sheriff. Isn't it exciting, getting to see where Matthews dug to?"
The sheriff scowled at Andrews. He obviously wasn't having a good time. "I don't much see these tunnels as exciting, detective. I see them as a possible cave in waiting to happen. Or worse."
"Or worse?" Andrews asked curiously.
"Yes, angry spirits and the like."
"Ahh," Andrews said. "Ghost and black cats and the such. I see where you're getting at now, sheriff."
They continued further into the tunnel, hearing nothing but the echo of their voices and footsteps. Yet, despite seeing and hearing nothing, Andrews couldn't get over the feeling that he was being watched. Not by the sheriff, no, it felt like something else was watching him.
"So, sheriff, did I ever tell you about one of my other supernatural cases?" Andrews asked.
The sheriff sighed. "No, detective, I don't believe I've had the pleasure."
Andrews laughed - the sheriff had to have hated him by now. "Alright so here it goes, it's a good one. So over in Seattle, I get this case. So basically, this woman calls in, saying a ghost was haunting her home, making strange noises, shaking her house, and what not. Well we get there, set up a few cameras and wait for some ghostly action." Andrews paused, chuckling to himself. "Me and Birke sit there, hearing noises go off on the camera. We thought, 'holy shit, there's a ghost in her house!' Well some time passes by and we see this girl walk right by the camera, butt ass naked. Right behind her comes another person... the woman's son. They grab some milk out of the fridge and pour each other a glass. We told the woman that if she ever wanted to see the ghost haunting the house, she only needed to walk into the basement at night." Andrews stopped once more, allowing his laugh to die down. "It was pretty haunting if I must say so myself. Don't you agree, sheriff?"
Andrews turned around. The sheriff was gone. "Sharpe?" He said, his voice echoing down the tunnel. He looked down to the wire that was attached to his belt - it was nearly all drawn out. Perhaps the sheriff had already turned back.
"Sharpe?" Andrews said louder this time. Still, nothing. He looked back in front of him, his flashlight flickering on and off. He shook it quickly, while hitting it several times. It shone through the tunnels once more, still showing nothing.
Well, if there was going to be a ghost. This would have been a great time for it.
He didn't know where the sheriff had disappeared to and didn't much care. Some company would have been nice but Andrews wasn't scared of the dark. "I'm down here!" A voice yelled further down the tunnel.
"What the hell," Andrews muttered.
"Oh god, thank god you found me. I never thought I would see anyone again," The voice said.
Andrews put his finger closer to his pistol's trigger. "Mr. Matthews? Is that you?" He asked.
The tunnels went silent momentarily as the wire attached to Andrew's hip drew closer to its full length. "Mr. Matthews?" Andrew asked once more.
The voice said nothing but, rather, began sobbing in its place. The tunnel was filled with the cries of the voice but it sounded distorted, as compared to Andrew's or Sharpe's voice.
"Thank god you found me," The voice said once more. "I never thought I would see anyone again."
The whole situation felt off, something wasn't right. It sounded almost like a repeat of the last time the voice said it. Andrews slowly backed away. "Listen, whoever you are, I'm going to go get some more line so I can come in further and bring you out, okay? Just hang tight."
The sobbing stopped and the tunnels once more grew silent. This time it was an eerie silence, it was killing Andrews. "Mr. Matthews? Are you still there?"
Still, silence. Andrews started taking bigger strides back before he heard a deafening scream pierce his ears.
"God, what the fuck was that?" Andrews said.
A hand grasped onto Andrews shoulders and he turned around, nearly pulling the trigger. It was Sheriff Sharpe. "Jesus Christ, Sharpe, you scared the hell out of me. Where the fuck did you go?"
The sheriff ignored his question and nervously looked behind him. "We need to get the fuck out of here."
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