The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast - Hiatus Horror #1

Episode Date: March 27, 2016

We're in-between Season 6 and 7 so to tide you over during the hiatus we're presenting a story from Season 5: Beacon House by Raymond Taylor."Beacon House" written by Raymond Taylor and read by Mike DelGaudio & Nikolle Doolin & David Cummings.Click here to pre-order Season Pass 7 Click here to learn more about Mike DelGaudio Click here to learn more about Nikolle Doolin Podcast produced by: David CummingsMusic & Sound Design by: Brandon Boone & David Cummings.Audio program ©2016 - Creative Reason Media Inc. - All Rights Reserved - No reproduction or use of this content is permitted without the express written consent of Creative Reason Media Inc.. The copyrights for each story are held by the respective authors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is a horror fiction podcast. By listening to our stories, you are choosing to be frightened and disturbed for your entertainment. You do so at your own risk. Brace yourself for the No Sleep Podcast. Welcome to the No Sleep Podcast. I'm David Cummings. Thanks for joining us. Well, we're currently in between season 6 and 7 taking a bit of a hiatus from horror at the moment,

but that doesn't mean our devoted listeners have to go hungry for horror during our hiatus. So to tide you over until the premiere of season 7 on April 10th, we'll be presenting one story each weekend of the hiatus. These stories were originally presented during season 5. On hiatus horror number one, we meet the lone survivor and perpetrator of a horrible mass killing. The killer undergoes a psychological evaluation to determine what caused his murderous rampage at his own home in the midst of a large party. As author Raymond Taylor explains, the man, a celebrated architect, pleads his defense and claims it was a mysterious source which, drove him to his crime.

Performing this tale are Mike Delgado and Nicole Doolin. So listen and learn of what dwells deep within. Beacon House. A house massacre. A crime too horrible for words. So horrible in fact that it fled the front pages as soon as the finer details began to trickle into the public sphere. Imagine how terrible a crime must be.

before the pack of vultures that dare call themselves the press in our day and age will quietly allow the sensational details of a socialite scandal to slip through their grasp. An act of mass murder so horrible that without fail, every first responder to the crime scene had either left the emergency services entirely or had been placed on leave. 38 people, one New Year's Eve celebration, one survivor, one killer. One killer who, in a dervish of blood and viscera, had stabbed and slashed and bludgeoned and burned his way through a room full of guests and catering staff. One killer found in the garden of his expensive Blue Mountains property with a steak knife,

stabbed, hammered, deep into his forehead. Self-inflicted. All the papers would dare mention was madness and carnage. Photos were hard enough to come by, but I'd heard it said that the editor of the Sydney Morning Herald had declined to furnish his front page with the one photograph of the Beacon House interior that his photographer had managed to capture. Instead, they played the human angle, a contrast to the savagery of the man who had brought so much misery into the world. Photos of the victims and their grieving families. Photos of the alleged killer lying unconscious in a hospital bed.

His face half hidden by a thick layer of bandages. Malachi Durant had once been the darling of this Sydney architectural scene. Heralded as the next Frank Lloyd Wright, praised by his contemporaries for his command of flow, space, and light. I must admit, though, as a layperson, I had little. understanding of what those terms meant in terms of architecture. I had been assigned by the state's attorney as a psychiatric expert to assess Malachi Durant's mental state before the trial.

Though the prosecutor did not believe the insanity defense Malachi's lawyers had put forward, for me, there was little doubt. Sane men did not butcher their friends and family on special occasions, and certainly not in the middle of the holiday season. The scar on Malachi Durant's forehead was minuscule in comparison to the injury. Just to the right of center and only an inch above his eyebrow. His right eye, brown, glassy and unfocused, followed lazily behind the left one, blue as he focused on my entry into my office on Wednesday morning.

From the doctor's report, I knew that in his madness he had jammed the steak knife deep into his skull and pounded it through the bone into his forehead. forebrain by bashing his head against a wall. Then, somehow, still conscious, he had wriggled the blade to and fro until his right temporal lobe was nothing more than a mess of blood and fatty tissue. I sat down opposite Malachi Durant, mass murderer. Good morning. A slight movement of his left eyelid half hidden under a curtain of limp, once curly black hair,

was all the sign Malachi gave that he had understood me. My name is Dr. Raymond Hunter and... I paused. I'd given this speech to dozens and dozens of patients, but the words felt stale in my mouth. The look in Malachi Durant's good eye demanded more than my usual fare. I dipped momentarily into honesty. I'm here to assess your mental state before your trial, Mr. Durant.

Before returning to my usual speech. I'd also like to get to know you a little better. Malachi Durant gave a faint smile, regret and sadness played across his expression as he watched me sit. I took my time, carefully considering tactics. Durant had been induced into a coma after the massacre, one that lasted for two months, about six weeks longer than it should have, according to the doctors.

And when he awoke, he just screamed for days in spite of all attempts to both citizens. and reason with him. I did not want to choose the wrong words and push him back into the darkness that he had somehow emerged from. I needed to get a feel for it, to understand its contours before I started taking any steps into unfamiliar terrain. I gave him control.

Where would you like to start? The muse lied to me. Your muse? Malachi shook his head, looked at him. out the window. A, muse, the muse of the house. She was fake. I frowned.

You didn't like the house? Malachi shook his head again, refusing to look at me. No, the house was beautiful, but it was corrupt. He swallowed hard, tears beginning to form. I paused and took a deep breath. Part of me wanted to rush onward with more questions. I could see that Malachi was fragile enough as it was. I would temper my curiosity and take small steps for his sake.

She lied to me. He turned to look at me. His right eye was twitching as he fought back the tears. How can an angel lie? He slumped forward in his chair. It was a genuine question. A plea for help from a man lost in a storm-tossed sea. I started to recognize bits and pieces of the terrain in which Malachi Durant was lost.

I nodded slowly. Malachi, I can see that you're quite upset. I want to do everything I can to help you, but I need you to talk to me. Malachi looked up at me and took a deep breath, nodding slowly. We won't open any doors you don't want to. We won't go down any path you don't want to. but I may need to ask you questions from time to time. But just remember, you decide what you want to answer.

You're in control of how you get home. I'm just here to get you there. Malachi Durant smiled at me, and so help me, God, I liked him. There was a kindness in those eyes, an innocence that belied the horrors that he had inflicted upon his fellow man. Don't want to open the wrong door. He laughed just once, bitterly. Can you tell me about your muses?

I pluralized my question, taking an educated guess. Malachi nodded, straightening up. I just thought I had a gift for understanding spaces, you know. He smiled that regretful smile again. I just call the muses because that's what creative people are. do, right? Another wave of pain broke across Malachi's face. But the house, that was more than the usual creative inspiration, you know?

It was... Doc? He shuddered. I nodded. What is it? What if you were doing something every day that filled you with joy and... And what? But if you woke up one day to discover you'd been working for a nightmare?

He looked at me, his lower jaw trembling. The angel, did she make you do something bad? Malachi shrugged. I didn't think it was bad at the time. I nodded sagely, recognition dawning. Did she ask you to hurt your friends? Malachi recoiled for me as though I had struck him, curling up into a ball on the chair opposite me. No, it was the house.

I built her a cage and she made me watch her feed. Watch her eat them from the inside. Malachi began rocking back and forth. They can't for me again. Can't use me anymore. I won't do it. I won't do it. Malachi gripped his knees tighter, holding himself while some inner tension wound him up tighter and tighter. Malachi? She! He leaped from his chair to the coffee table. He landed precariously at its edge and the table

toppled out from under him as he leaned into me face to face. I pushed him away from his sudden advance and we both fell screaming. Me calling for security and Malachi screaming over and over. wasn't me. It wasn't me. I pulled up the tab on a can of coke, my hand's still shaking, and put it to my lips. Adrenaline or not, I could have really done with something stronger in that moment. I closed my eyes, breathing deep and counting my breaths one at a time. When I reached 10, I finally felt a little more settled. I turned to the pile of reports and photographs on my desk. It was the stuff of nightmares to be sure. When I steled my as I dug through the medical examiner's reports, looking for something that tracked with Malachi's

rantings. "'Eaten them,' he had said, from the inside. I spent more time on the text of the reports than on the photographs. I may have had years of medical training behind me, but the pictures of the massacre truly were of another nature entirely. Nowhere in the reports did I read anything about bite marks specifically. But there were a handful of details that struck me as odd. One report about an older gentleman mentioned his,

Dermis and superior Vena Kava ruptured as though by sharp implement. Poccurring on surface suggests exit wound. No corresponding entry on back. Possible serrated blade would require exceptional force. I thought this part was odd enough in and of itself, but the Emmy had scrawled in later. No tool marks found on. ribs under wound sight. Not so strange I thought if the blade had been pushed in horizontally.

That wasn't the only odd note in the pile of autopsy reports. The next report related details of a fatal head injury. Wound is approximately 84 millimeters long and 3 millimeters wide. Lack of bone fragments around wound site suggests rotary cutting tool. Another note had been scrawled in between the lines. How the hell did he get them to stay still for all this carnage? And then continued, But no bone dust found around wound sight. Did he clean it? I frowned, turning to the next report.

Radius and Olna appear to have been removed with surgical precision before being stabbed into the ocular cavities of Miss Denning. See report number 17 of this case file. Single cut from elbow to wrist with transverse cut. perpendicular to first. Wounding indicates extreme precision. Tool marks on bones suggest single cut with exceptionally sharp blade. Bruising and vascular constriction suggests pre-mortem injury. As noted in Report 17, bones must have been cleaned prior to subsequent use. I thumbed through the pile to the report on Ms. Denning. Both femurs shattered by blunt

forced trauma. Bruising around fracture sites indicate pointed impact with similar radius to adult male fist. Someone had added their own footnote, this time in red pen. Impossible. Before the report continued, lack of injury to Mr. Durant's hands precludes this explanation. COD, ocular, and cranial trauma due to wounding with forearm bones of Mr. Jackson. Absence of blood and tissue on bone exterior suggests cleaning with unknown agents prior to use. I shook my head. I could understand the state's attorney's reluctance to accept insanity as a defense. Certainly Malachi Durant was crazy, but still coherent enough to perform a surgical excision

and then clean the bones in a manner that left no traces. That did not look at all like the man who had been in my office but an hour beforehand. My mouth compressed to a thin line. I began to feel like I was being played for a fool. I took the afternoon off and drove out to the Blue Mountains, the setting for Malachi's first triumph, as well as his downfall. The new wing of the Lithgow Art Gallery was two stories of gracefully curving, brushed steel and glass. But more than its gentle shape, the gallery captured the afternoon sunlight and seemed to almost hold it,

growing brighter even as the day finally gave way tonight. The air inside seemed almost to tingle, and pillars of liquid gold would slide across the floor, their slow march highlighting one exhibit after another. Somehow Durant's genius had bent even sunlight to his will, causing the march of sunbeams to move at slightly different rates. Ammiring the Durant tour, are you? I turned to the woman beside me.

She was short and solidly built. Her thick glasses catching bits and pieces of sunlight as she watched me watching the procession of sunbeams across the tiled floor. Durant Tor? I raised an eyebrow. It's part of the design of the building. She raised her arm pointing to the slanting windows at the building's corner. I took note of the name tag pinned to her lapel.

Sheila Green, curator. Between her long, almost white hair, the black clothes and crocheted shawl, and the thick silver necklace about her shoulders, she gave off the vibe of a kindly witch. I wondered if she had a cottage somewhere. I looked from Sheila to the windows and back again. How? Sheila smiled again. Different materials in each pane. some glass, some lexin, all different thicknesses,

and a few others use nitrogen or argon, trapped between layers. I nodded, high school physics rising up from the depths of my memory. Refractive indexes. Indices. Sheila corrected me, reflexively. I craned my head, staring up at the windows, marveling at the secrets hidden in their apparent uniformity. ingenious. It was a scene that stirred something that was both primal but also peaceful within me.

For just a moment, I had the sense that I was viewing a mountain from the inside, all power and force trapped in state, the potential of stone waiting to be released, exploding into sculpture. It makes you think, doesn't it? Sheila's voice was like a bucket of ice water to my reverie. but she had recognized the look on my face. Makes you feel. Do you get a lot of artists coming here for the atmosphere? Sheila nodded, casting her gaze of the collection of sculptures on the pedestals beneath the sunbeams.

More than for the exhibits, actually. She regarded me with her gaze once more. But you're not an artist? I nodded sadly, suddenly regretful of the life choices that had. had taken me out of the path of Durant's sunbeams. I suppose not. I turned to her. But looking at this, it makes me want to create something.

Sheila smiled. You're not the only one. We're actually running classes on Saturdays. She tilted her head at me, not sure what to make of the logical man, so obviously out of place here. I laughed a little nervously. No, I'm definitely not an artist. Sheila shrugged. But you can still feel it.

It? The energy of the space here. It is. I stopped cold. I was a logical man. I believed and trusted in the evidence of my senses. I was grounded and rational. I believed in Occam's razor and the logic and order of the universe.

But had I not been moved to the edge of a religious experience but a minute beforehand by the poetry and the refractive indices of various materials? Is that what it is? We see more than we really understand, but we still want to find the words for it. We use what we're familiar with, I suppose. She glanced over her shoulder at the gallery beyond. I opened my mouth, but only the sound of my breathing came out. Sheila Green was using my own material on me now. Energy and flow, just nebulous, ill-defined terms for whatever it was about the geometry

and aesthetics of the space that reacted with the human mind, like the way many people can sense a door frame that isn't quite all right angles or a picture frame on a wall that isn't quite square. Mr. Durant certainly had a genius. Sheila nodded. As the saying goes, genius and madness are two sides of the same coin. I frowned.

You think he's crazy? Sheila shook her head. No. So what was Beacon House? Her words turned dark. A mistake. I'd hardly call a massacre a mistake. Sheila shook her head.

Not the massacre, the house. How do you mean? Have you seen it? I shook my head. I haven't. Sheila turned towards the stairs. Wait here. She began walking away. What for?

I called after her. You'll see. I stared after the gallery's curator long after she had passed out of sight. Suddenly I had a sense of something behind me. It turned to see the light through the panes had been stretched and was slowly changing color. No, I was seeing floodlights angled down through the windows at the roof's edge, emulating the sunbeams that had now started to touch the gallery's far wall. The other people in the room seemed to sense something as well.

well. Man, maybe in his 30s, immediately turned for the exit, while a girl in her late teens passed through a beam at the gallery's far end and recoiled as though it had burned her. I could feel it too. The air in the room had taken a sinister turn, and even suffused with light, the room seemed to be hemorrhaging it at the same time, growing more and more dark with each passing second. I felt my heart rate rise in response to some unknown threat, and just as suddenly, the effect wore off. The lights cutting out. I turned towards the stairs, starting out after Sheila Green, curator. I was halfway down the curving staircase when she stepped out of a door marked staff only. She gave me a knowing look as she walked toward me. What was that?

I don't know, but we call it the antithelior. system because nobody wants to be in the building when it's on. Again, I found myself lost for words. Mr. Durant's genius isn't perfect, as you can see. And Beacon House? I got the sense that Sheila believed it wasn't madness. Is the other side of the coin? I nodded, turning to leave.

Thank you for the tour. I got three steps away. before Sheila's question stopped me in my tracks. Do you wonder why none of them fought him? Why one man was never overpowered by 38 others? I stopped for a moment. I'd assumed it was drugs. Did you test for that?

She'd seen through me. I may have not been with the police, but I was investigating that was true enough. Even if I had the pile of autopsy report, in my office. I had never seen anything about talk screens. But then I hadn't been looking for the information had I. I'll look into it. Flow and space. They were the keys to understanding Malachi Durant's madness. Whatever it was in the gallery that produced that unsettling feeling when the floodlights had been turned on was bound to have been present at Beacon House. Sheila, the gallery

curator had hinted as much. Malachi had a keen understanding of something visceral when it came to aesthetics, and perhaps that visceral understanding had, in the right light, pushed his genius over the edge into madness. Malachi Durant was a lot more subdued that morning, more guarded. He sat almost sideways on the couch staring at the wall. Good morning, Malachi. He did not respond, but his right eye twitched slidly. slightly in my direction. I went to the Lithgow Art Gallery yesterday. Again, Malachi was silent.

You know, the sunbeams. They call it the Durant Tour. I've never seen anything like it before. I waited. Malachi was breathing harder now. He hugged his knees to the chest. Physics. Malachi nodded.

But people never think about it enough, you know? So they look. up and it all looks the same, and they think magic. I nodded, slowly. It makes the world a little bit more fantastic. Yeah. Malachi began to uncoil a little. Tell me about the floodlights.

On the gallery? Malachi shrugged. He paused, looking at me, nerves making his right eye twitch. I was improvising. The muse said no, but I thought I could make it work. Tell me about the gallery muse, Malachi. How did it speak to you? Do you think it's important?

I nodded. I do. I need to know as much as I can about your muses. Malachi frowned. They're not mine. They just are. The feel of a place, you know? Okay, I can accept that.

Malachi leaned forward his elbows on his knees, staring into space, remembering. The original gallery building was this monstrous concrete thing that tried to look avant-garde, but it was basically a concrete box. There's definitely a logic in order to the insides, but the flow, the energy can't get around the space.

So the muse asked you to fix it. Malachi smiled at me. As best I could, it showed me how. The gallery didn't want to move the car park, but the extension had to go on the northern side. They didn't want to render the old front wall on the inside either, or cut the doorways into the old wing. But the flow of the new wing had to be able to pass through the old box.

I raised an eyebrow. Like an eddy current in a river bend. Malachi sat upright, his eyes sparkling. Exactly. You get it, right? I wrinkled my nose. Not really. I understand what you did, but I don't really understand how or why it works. Malachi shrugged. Same design wouldn't have worked in a different spot.

Even on the other side of the road. I frowned. Why? Landscape. People think of it like an art, but there's a precision in it too. The flow on the other side of the road is all different. Different buildings, different lighting. It's subtle.

But even the difference of a few meters can throw the hole of a field. fact out. You get the picture, but it's fuzzy. You make it sound like the gallery is some kind of receiver. I chuckled softly at the thought, but the sudden intensity of Malachi's stare made me stop. Now you know the truth. Beacon House? He nodded. There are actually three levels to the house. The middle calls to the upper until you are open the doorway to the lower level, and that's how she got loose. Three levels? I thought the house only had two. Did you put in a basement or something? Malachi smiled at me as though he were regarding a child.

The office next to the master bedroom. Open the door from the master onsuit into the hall, and then turn on the light in the office closet. He'll see. A sudden thought occurred to me. Malachi, did you build a secret room in Beacon House? Was there something in it? Malachi's smile didn't become any less paternal. I guess I did, and there still is. I licked my lips. What was it? Malachi sighed. You'll find out, Doc.

But we're... Are we done now? Malachi stood up. I'm hungry. I called the prosecutor and got permission to visit Beacon House. I was met at the front gate of the property by a uniformed officer in his early 40s. He shook my hand. James Fenwick.

He fished a set of keys to the house from a pocket and pressed the remote for the gate. I walked in, Officer Fenwick keeping strides with me. Have you been inside before, Doc? I shook my head. I'm supposed to be assessing Mr. Durant for trial, but he keeps shutting down, making me jump through hoops. Do you think he's crazy? Fenwick was starting to huff and puff his way up the hill,

struggling to keep pace with me. I don't know what to think. On one hand, he's emotionally unstable, deathly afraid of this place, and keeps rambling about being betrayed by angels. I looked at the large building ahead of us. The house was broad and low, with a weatherboard exterior. Warm yellow paint on the exterior evoked the memory of sunlight,

and the brilliant white trim of the house gave another sense of light to the space. And on the other? On the other hand, he took apart 38 people, with a precision that belies insanity and a bloodlust that absolutely screams psychosis. Fenwick nodded. You're lucky they've cleaned the place up. They got most of the blood, but they had to peel up the floor

to get all of Maria Edgeworth and one of the caterers. I stopped. Peel up the floor? Officer Fenwick nodded again. Burned them into it. Fuck knows how. Kind of looks like they were flash-fried,

but only on one side, and then melted into the floor, right down to the slab. He stepped onto the porch and thrust the key into the lock with a single graceful movement before twisting the key and opening the door. After you, Doc. I stepped into the house and was immediately struck by the space inside. It was the strangest house I had ever seen, let alone been inside. Ahead of me, a small three-sided vestibule opened up into a six-scent.

seven-sided room, just like the outside of the house, large enough to host a small concert. Several doorways led off to the sides, and even with the lights off, the place was bright. Up above the ceiling gave way to rooms which overlooked the internal space and soared on upwards to a domed vault dotted with round windows seemingly at random, before ending in sheets of glass at the very top. The very peak had to be four stories of. above me now. I whistled. Yep, strange place. Officer Fenwick nodded at the strange roof. Stranger still. He gestured to the full-length sliding glass doors taking up two sides of the ground floor. Why the hell nobody broke out of all the carnage? Wouldn't have taken much, even with the

double glaze. I nodded, remembering Sheila Green's question from the day before. If everyone had been drugged, why hadn't the ME done a talk screen? I passed my gaze over the floor. Vains of fine black imperfection flowed steadily through polished white marble. Despite several missing pieces, there was a clear pattern in how the pieces had been laid, and the veins in the marble spiraled outward from a central point, forming seven petals which overlapped each other. The effect was much more gaudy than the feeling of the gaites.

gallery, but no less impressive. The same color scheme from the outside repeated gave the place an outdoor feel, but one which still had managed to banish the winter chill beyond those gigantic sliding doors. I turned to Officer Fenwick to see him watching me. Is there a basement, do you know? No. Don't think you could put anything under this place, not without it fallen over. Can you show me the master bedroom? Fenwick pointed to a door in my. left. Middle door leads upstairs. Master bedroom is behind where you came up. I nodded my thanks and Officer Fenwick excused himself, pulling a pack of cigarettes from a shirt pocket as he left the house. Any problems? Give me a yell. When the door closed, I felt something strange. The history of the house,

the sense of violence disappeared almost instantly. Like the gallery, there was a sense of of warmth, and the sunlight seemed to gather even in the darkest corners of the house. The illusion only faltered for a moment as I sidestepped a patch of missing tiles. I felt the warmth of the house twist, spying a few short strands of brown hair sticking out of solid concrete, as if they had been driven in there with great force. I suppressed a shutter and opened the door, finding myself in a small den, bookshelves lined each wall and a television stood on the left-hand wall, a couch between myself and it. The staircase started in the corner immediately opposite the door and went straight up.

Reaching the top, I found myself in the single hallway which circled the entire second story. To my left, the sky was beginning to turn pink and orange with the setting of the sun, and the lights of the homes in the valley below Beacon House began to come on, declaring their existence among the trees for all to see. Outside, a balcony circled the entire house, but I declined to take a shortcut and backtrack, instead passing by all the rooms on the upper level. The house was like a hotel, one central corridor backing onto rooms. Library, a gym, guest bedrooms, one, two, three. A second staircase, a descent down which led me to a small room off the kitchen. I continued on coming at last to the office and master

en suite and Malachi Durant's bedroom. The air appear was thick and heavy with dust moats dancing in the hazy light which came in from outside. There was a window in Durant's office that overlooked the gallery floor. I flicked the light switch and rolled up the blind peering down to the floor below and I was struck by the pattern on the floor. While the obvious patterns had been enforcing the organic pattern of cracks and imperfections in the marble to flow like graceful curves like the petals of a flower, there were cuts and other pieces of the marble too which showed up in the afternoon light. Symbols and letters of unknown origin were formed by the hair-thin grounding between the tiles. Lines where the flooring did not need lines curved around the pattern of the flower petals,

and even with their missing pieces, the lettering filled me with a sense of calm and serenity like that I had felt in the gallery. I frowned at this curious faculty of Durantz as I returned to the hallway to open the door to the Master Ensuite, and in the corner of the doorframe I caught sight of something odd. Flush with the level of the wooden door and scoured clean of the white paint that covered the rest of the door

was a tiny circle of metal. I ran my finger over it. It lacked grooves of any kind, so it couldn't have been a screw. I checked the door frame and found a circle of the same material flush with the level of the first in the frame, and again in the doorway to the office. I checked the master bedroom door and found exactly the same scenario. So there was a ring of metal running at knee height around the entire upper floor. But why? Acting on a hunch, I licked my fingers and touched the two.

contacts in the bedroom doorway. Nothing. No tingle whatsoever. So if they didn't carry some kind of current, what were they for? But then I remembered the closet. I ran back to the office and opened the doorway into the office closet. The closet was a typical closet. Stirty shelves lined the back half and at the very top, just behind the light switch, nestled in the cornice above the doorway, was a small manhole, still covered. Let's see what's in your secret room, Malachi. I smiled and flipped the switch. It was as though that one light switch kept the universe in being.

I had a brief sensation of falling before a heavy shove in my chest pushed me back into the office. Light had fled and the world outside had been reduced to black nothingness. The house was cast in monochrome light into which a sickly blue-gray light, filtered through sharp angles and cracks. I stood and peered through the office window and screamed. Below the angular symbols in the floor bled the same sickly blue-gray light from which stepped figures made of nothingness.

They moved through the room standing at the edge of the marble flower, while heads made of nothingness stared at me with eyes unseen. I became aware of the sudden depth in the floor, seeing an infinite abyss falling away far below. I spied a straight, wispy form flowing upward from the depths like a sea serpent. It passed through the flower in the center of the room, rising, a hideous serpentine form made from flesh of every color,

many of them clearly inhuman. Crawling into being from the abyssal darkness far below, it flowed around the lines of force in the pattern, which now visibly crackled with power. Power turned dark by the pattern in the walls of the beacon house. I watched the writhing of its flukes, grasp, and clutch at nothingness in the air around it, climbing higher and higher on empty air, reaching for the apex of the roof. And as it turned on me, I saw that the flukes which lined its bodies were arms, human and humanoid

crudely sewn to its body and weeping hideous black fluids and more of that blue-gray light. The body flared out at the head to end in a flat face covered in scales black as night, colored by white paint which held the shape of a humanoid woman with wings of burning sunlight.

It was the only point of warmth in the entire scene around me and I clung to it even as twin soulless eyes of deepest purple on either side fixed themselves on me. And as it reared back its head, I felt the monster drawing in its breath, pulling at my soul as it moved to strike. I screamed even louder, helpless, wanting to get free but unable to move. Fearful that if I broke gaze with the heavenly angel on that hideous face, I would never find my way back to the world of light that I had known.

But at the very last second, I dove to the side as the beast lunged forward. I found myself in the office closet, the beast crashing through the window, showering me with glass. I reached up for the switch as the hideous face turned on me. I slapped the switch and was physically catapulted back to my simple little world, nearly hitting the ceiling and smashing back to the ground. Pain blossomed in my back, and I became aware of Officer Fenwick's show. shouting to me. Hunter!

Hunter! Where are you? I gassed once, twice, and then threw up. I screamed again and passed out. A hidden explosive. That's what they called it. The doctor said I was lucky to survive, given my proximity to the explosion that had torn apart the inner wall of Durant's office.

Nobody questioned the lack of explosive residue, and despite taking my recommendation to take a look at the walls of Beacon House, the police reported no other evidence of explosives within the walls. The metal circles I had seen in the doorways had been passed off as simple reinforcing bars, being made out of thread bar as they were. Everything simple, everything neat, and straightforward. I knew better, of course. Durant's Muse. I had seen Durant's Muse, just as he had, in all her terrifying glory, decorated with the flesh of her victims, growing stronger and stronger with every kill. I called the state's attorney the next day and handed in my diagnosis.

Delusional psychosis. I pointed to the ample evidence in the murder, adding in a hatchet job of my own about symbols and the pseudo-ocult nature of the house and its arrangement, as well as transcripts of my interviews with Durant. his ranting about being used as an angel and the three levels of his two-level house. The state's attorney wasn't happy with my diagnosis, but I didn't care. After what Malachi Durant had been through, he deserved to think himself insane. Maybe given enough time, he would be able to see himself in that light and forget the reality of what he had witnessed.

For me, there was no such reprieve. I have to carry the truth with me. An open door and a light switch were the only things standing between our world and hell. They tore down Beacon House the day after Malik High was declared mentally unfit. I watched it happen, and it brought me some small measure of peace, but I'm still fearful of turning on any switch anywhere. Because I have no way of knowing if the angles are just right, if the flow of light and space is perfect,

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