Beware the Manor House
Title: Beware the Manor House (2/?)
Rating: PG to R
Pairing: Dom/Billy, others implied
Warnings: AU, angst, horror, ghosts, implied murder, violence, scary imagery, etc. This is sort of, but not really, a death fic. Suffice it to say, major characters are no longer living and as such, are in fact dead. But in the spirit of whodunnit and AU, it really doesn’t matter much. M’kay? Just trust me.
Summary: Everybody has a hobby. Some people have an obsession.
Billy urged the van up the gravel drive through the manor grounds. It was long overgrown and ill-kept, but one could see that at some point the straight growths of hedgerows had been tended, gardens full of weeds had once been perfectly geometrical and filled with color, and the wrought iron had not been rusting through and collapsing under its own weight.
The dark shape of Mr. Holm stood by his sleek black sedan in the circular drive before the house, standing with the back of his long coat to the wind and smoking a cigarette. The afternoon was crisp and foggy, the grey of the overcast sky only blending with the grey of the unkempt wintry landscape, paint that had chipped and worn to dull neutrality as the rest of the grounds fading into the fog. It had the creepy air of being a smudge of a world in the middle of a vacuum of space.
Billy pulled his thin windbreaker closer around himself and stepped out of the van, greeting the man with a nod and a handshake. Mr. Holm tucked his cold hand back in his coat pocket and looked Billy over intensely, almost piteously.
"So you're a… paranormal investigator, are you?"
"I'm a plumber, sir," Billy shrugged. "But if I can help you sort out your problem here, I will."
"You believe in this sort of thing?"
Billy met the man's eyes levelly. "No one believes until they've experienced something. Most don't want to, even afterwards. And the other eighty percent have a plumbing problem and an active imagination," He smiled, "I can fix that as well."
"I bloody well hope so, the money I put down on this place." Mr. Holm finished his black-papered fag, crushed it between the gravel and the toe of his shoe, and pulled a set of keys out of his pocket. "Those are the keys to the front door, kitchen, and the coach house. I don't care whether you stay here or at a hotel. I don't think there's much in the cupboards, though."
Billy accepted the keys uncertainly. "Erm… Normally, sir, I'd just have you show me round, and I'll spend a night or two…"
But Mr. Holm had withdrawn his wallet, and was now counting out several large notes, which he pushed into Billy's gesturing hand. "That's two thousand pounds. Should cover whatever food you want, petrol, lodging in town. If you can be rid of that thing in two weeks, I'll give you another four."
Billy blinked several times at the cash in his chilly fingers. "Four… thousand?"
"Six thousand total, yes." The old man nodded and began to turn back to his car. "You have my number, Mr. Boyd."
"Erm, sir?" Billy called back, "Aren't you going to show me round the place?"
Mr. Holm gawked at him, at the house and back incredulously. "I'm not going in there."
As he settled into the back seat of the car, the front window slid down, and the driver’s gnarled hand gestured him to come closer, and closer still, until Billy leaned his head nearly into the window.
“Don’t go in the coach house,” the elderly man wheezed. His voice was an old Yorkshire burr, rheumy and wet.
Billy looked at the old building set away from the house, before a fierce grip to his jacket yanked him back, and the man’s sickly breath wafted across his face. His eyes had a quality to them Billy had never seen, a complete and utter terror behind a plea. “Don’t go in there.”
With that he was let go, stumbling back and gasping the crisp, damp air, and the sedan spun its wheels on the gravel in its haste to get away, leaving behind a very confused plumber with a wad of cash in his fist.
This wasn't how it was properly done, after all. Typically, Billy would set up for a night or two, sweep the house, run the cameras, try for some electronic voice recordings. He'd do a bit of research, and present his findings. Most often, there was nothing but some faulty electrics, the house creaking on its foundation or air in the pipes, cobwebs, reflections from cars casting weird shadows, or if he was really lucky, the spirit of a dead relative just trying to come through and say hello.
He looked up at the decaying house, it's old stonework covered in moss and ivy, the windows dark. He wondered how often this property had changed hands and how long it had lain dormant. Because of a ghost? With property like this in such demand outside of a city like Milton Keynes and its surrounding burbs, it seemed odd that it would simply sit without a historical society attempting to restore it, turn it into an inn, or failing all that, avoid being bulldozed altogether to make way for a new row of housing.
The front door lock was sticky, and he had to fuss with it for some minutes before it swung open to a long hall with a staircase leading to the upper floor, and many rooms beyond.
The place was spacious and well appointed to Billy’s eye, but modest compared to many of the old estates that dotted England's countryside. It seemed much more of a large country house than a mansion. Mr. Holm must have had the electric company out, as the first light switch he found worked, an early twentieth century addition by the look of the old push button style switches. To his left he found an archway leading to a parlor, with wing back chairs and a settee arranged around a fireplace. To the right was a study filled to brimming with old books and walnut trappings, a music room that housed more chairs and a dusty grand piano, a spacious dining room, and beyond that the kitchens which looked to have been updated with mid-century appliances. Some rooms looked at least partially cleaned, but others were filled with dust and cobwebs. It wasn't uncommon for hauntings to start up heavily when their surroundings had been disturbed, especially if the house had sat destitute for years before. If this was a haunting at all.
As he rounded the quarter turn of the staircase to the upper level, his skepticism on that point took a swift hairpin turn. The air pressed against him as though gravity had increased, and felt several degrees warmer. Heat rises he remembered, as he walked forward along the landing.
Several things happened at once. As he hit the switch to light the upper hall, a tremendous electric sizzle and pop issued from the dim ceiling lamp above. A door down the hall slammed hard enough to shake the walls, dust falling in sheets to the carpet. Footsteps moved toward him, fast, heavy and intent. He saw, just before he gasped, the smoky image of a horrible face in the rising dust, teeth and cold darkness of eye sockets directly in front of his own before it vanished as if imagined. He felt a force against his chest, ears ringing with an odd electric hum that grew sinisterly louder. The lamp threw sparks and Billy wildly feared the house would set afire right on top of him.
Then as suddenly as it began, it all stopped. The air rushed back into the space with a sound like an exhaled breath, and the overhead light slowly settled and brightened to a tame, normal light. Billy breathed slowly, willing his adrenaline to pass. His eyes searched the hall for some sign of trick or movement, but saw nothing but peeling wallpaper and dark doorframes. His breath hung in the air, cold enough to have dropped by twenty degrees or more in the space of a minute.
"All right, then," he murmured to himself. He'd foolishly not brought any of his equipment in, no way to have recorded this. Truthfully, Billy had never had an immediate personal experience quite so strong before and he left him unnerved. Not afraid, just merely surprised.
The second door on the right of the hall squeaked on its hinges. It opened inward, so he could not see if it was manipulated by a draft or a tricky hand. "All right, then," he repeated, and purposely walked towards it.
He'd very nearly reached the frame of the door when it slammed shut as hard as before, a whoosh of air and dust hitting him full in the face. Again, the light above his head shuddered and the voltaic hum rose to a nerve-wracking level.
"Get out."
Billy spun at the low sound of the voice, and as he did, an unseen force hit him hard enough to knock the wind from his lungs and send him sprawling forward on the dusty carpet.
He coughed hard and hauled himself halfway up to his knees, looking around for the source of the assault, and with no warning, pain ripped through his back like a fire.
"Fuck!" he cried, watching the light slowly work itself back once again. He tried to clutch at the pain, catch it and see it, but it was no use. There was no one there.
"Get out, is it?" he repeated back sarcastically. "Why is it always get out with you lot?" He eyed the walls accusingly as he picked himself up and went back down the stairs unheeded, to the mirror he'd seen above the mantelpiece in the parlor. Yanking his jumper and t-shirt off over his head to the chill, stale air of the house, he turned to look at his reflection over his shoulder.
Over the wings of his shoulder blades, eight scratches had been drawn, four to a side like a symmetrical brand, the skin broken just enough to rise and burn as angry red welts standing out from his pale, sunless skin. Scratches from human fingernails, only there was no other human here but him.
"Jesus," he muttered at the sting as he twisted this way and that to see. It was not fear that rose in him now, but anger. He'd never been physically attacked by any spirit before.
From the corner of his eye, he thought he saw a shadow move in the parlor's arching doorway in the mirror, but when he spun around to confront it, it had gone.
Billy huffed bitterly, pulling his clothes back on, wincing at the friction of cloth on the welts.
“Think you'll be rid of me that easily, eh?" He called out loudly to the house at large. "First mistake, friend. I'm not afeart of you."
He could feel the prickle of being watched, every hair standing up on his neck and arms, but nothing happened to acknowledge his words.
Outside, he collected several camera cases and extension cords from his van. A slam issued from the house as he gathered up his gear, and not surprisingly, he found the front door had not only been shut when he'd left it ajar, it had deadbolted itself once again as well.
"Good try, mate," he chuckled, "Bully for you I have the keys."
Another short fight with the lock and he dropped the lot on the parlor rug. The twilight outside was falling quickly, and he clicked on the lights in the entry to find an outlet.
The light promptly switched off as soon as he stepped away from it.
Billy sighed, returned and switched it back on. "Don't, yeah? I've a torch anyhow. And batteries. And I know how it works. You'll need energy to draw from if you want to keep fighting with me, won't you?"
He stepped away from the switch and watched it. It flicked off, the cracked rubber button depressing right before his eyes, and back on before he could move.
Billy smiled. "That's better, isn't it? We have an agreement, then."
He got to work setting up a camera in the parlor and another aimed down the main hall. After a moment, he took the third in hand and began climbing the stairs. On cue, the heaviness pressed against him and the same door in the upstairs hall slammed.
As he continued his assent, the door opened and slammed three more times, hard enough that he could feel the shudder through the walls and see more dust fall from the crown molding on the ceiling. The light began its telltale hum. He stopped on the top step, leaned casually against the wall to watch.
Eventually the onslaught stopped, and Billy smirked. "You're really quite taken with yourself, aren't you? All this effort and it’s not scaring me one bit. You’re going to wear yourself out."
He heard an all too human sounding hiss and the footsteps again, this time slower as they approached. The lamp continued to flicker.
"Look, mate, I get it," he rolled his eyes theatrically, trying to sound as put off as possible, "It's your house. You're well and truly fucked off that people are in here. Now, I'm not going to go down this hall and into your rooms, not yet. I'm just going to set up my camera here at the top of the stairs, so I can see what you're up to when I'm away. You can play all you want for this little machine here, show me all the scary tricks you know, and I'll see, all right?"
The thickness withdrew slightly, and Billy climbed the rest of the way to set the camera as promised, on the floor beside the baseboard pointing with a view down the hall. All the while, he could feel his actions closely scrutinized.
"Thing is, friend,” He spoke as he went back down the stairs, “You're as curious about me as I am of you. Am I right? How long has it been since anyone spoke to you directly, acknowledged you're really here?"
With a whoosh like a breeze, something small and heavy flew off the small sideboard in front of him, clattering against the dingy marble of the foyer at his feet. He stooped to pick it up, identifying it as a brass candlesnuffer. Turning its cold surface in his hands for a moment, he set it back where it had come from. "Aye," he murmured quietly. "I'll bet it's been an awfully long time."
He straightened and zipped his jacket as he backed to the front door. "I'm going now, but I'll come back. Understand? Tomorrow, I'll be coming back. You'll be here, I'm sure. We'll have a chat, you and I, maybe like gentlemen next time."
CHAPTER THREE
Rating: PG to R
Pairing: Dom/Billy, others implied
Warnings: AU, angst, horror, ghosts, implied murder, violence, scary imagery, etc. This is sort of, but not really, a death fic. Suffice it to say, major characters are no longer living and as such, are in fact dead. But in the spirit of whodunnit and AU, it really doesn’t matter much. M’kay? Just trust me.
Summary: Everybody has a hobby. Some people have an obsession.
Billy urged the van up the gravel drive through the manor grounds. It was long overgrown and ill-kept, but one could see that at some point the straight growths of hedgerows had been tended, gardens full of weeds had once been perfectly geometrical and filled with color, and the wrought iron had not been rusting through and collapsing under its own weight.
The dark shape of Mr. Holm stood by his sleek black sedan in the circular drive before the house, standing with the back of his long coat to the wind and smoking a cigarette. The afternoon was crisp and foggy, the grey of the overcast sky only blending with the grey of the unkempt wintry landscape, paint that had chipped and worn to dull neutrality as the rest of the grounds fading into the fog. It had the creepy air of being a smudge of a world in the middle of a vacuum of space.
Billy pulled his thin windbreaker closer around himself and stepped out of the van, greeting the man with a nod and a handshake. Mr. Holm tucked his cold hand back in his coat pocket and looked Billy over intensely, almost piteously.
"So you're a… paranormal investigator, are you?"
"I'm a plumber, sir," Billy shrugged. "But if I can help you sort out your problem here, I will."
"You believe in this sort of thing?"
Billy met the man's eyes levelly. "No one believes until they've experienced something. Most don't want to, even afterwards. And the other eighty percent have a plumbing problem and an active imagination," He smiled, "I can fix that as well."
"I bloody well hope so, the money I put down on this place." Mr. Holm finished his black-papered fag, crushed it between the gravel and the toe of his shoe, and pulled a set of keys out of his pocket. "Those are the keys to the front door, kitchen, and the coach house. I don't care whether you stay here or at a hotel. I don't think there's much in the cupboards, though."
Billy accepted the keys uncertainly. "Erm… Normally, sir, I'd just have you show me round, and I'll spend a night or two…"
But Mr. Holm had withdrawn his wallet, and was now counting out several large notes, which he pushed into Billy's gesturing hand. "That's two thousand pounds. Should cover whatever food you want, petrol, lodging in town. If you can be rid of that thing in two weeks, I'll give you another four."
Billy blinked several times at the cash in his chilly fingers. "Four… thousand?"
"Six thousand total, yes." The old man nodded and began to turn back to his car. "You have my number, Mr. Boyd."
"Erm, sir?" Billy called back, "Aren't you going to show me round the place?"
Mr. Holm gawked at him, at the house and back incredulously. "I'm not going in there."
As he settled into the back seat of the car, the front window slid down, and the driver’s gnarled hand gestured him to come closer, and closer still, until Billy leaned his head nearly into the window.
“Don’t go in the coach house,” the elderly man wheezed. His voice was an old Yorkshire burr, rheumy and wet.
Billy looked at the old building set away from the house, before a fierce grip to his jacket yanked him back, and the man’s sickly breath wafted across his face. His eyes had a quality to them Billy had never seen, a complete and utter terror behind a plea. “Don’t go in there.”
With that he was let go, stumbling back and gasping the crisp, damp air, and the sedan spun its wheels on the gravel in its haste to get away, leaving behind a very confused plumber with a wad of cash in his fist.
This wasn't how it was properly done, after all. Typically, Billy would set up for a night or two, sweep the house, run the cameras, try for some electronic voice recordings. He'd do a bit of research, and present his findings. Most often, there was nothing but some faulty electrics, the house creaking on its foundation or air in the pipes, cobwebs, reflections from cars casting weird shadows, or if he was really lucky, the spirit of a dead relative just trying to come through and say hello.
He looked up at the decaying house, it's old stonework covered in moss and ivy, the windows dark. He wondered how often this property had changed hands and how long it had lain dormant. Because of a ghost? With property like this in such demand outside of a city like Milton Keynes and its surrounding burbs, it seemed odd that it would simply sit without a historical society attempting to restore it, turn it into an inn, or failing all that, avoid being bulldozed altogether to make way for a new row of housing.
The front door lock was sticky, and he had to fuss with it for some minutes before it swung open to a long hall with a staircase leading to the upper floor, and many rooms beyond.
The place was spacious and well appointed to Billy’s eye, but modest compared to many of the old estates that dotted England's countryside. It seemed much more of a large country house than a mansion. Mr. Holm must have had the electric company out, as the first light switch he found worked, an early twentieth century addition by the look of the old push button style switches. To his left he found an archway leading to a parlor, with wing back chairs and a settee arranged around a fireplace. To the right was a study filled to brimming with old books and walnut trappings, a music room that housed more chairs and a dusty grand piano, a spacious dining room, and beyond that the kitchens which looked to have been updated with mid-century appliances. Some rooms looked at least partially cleaned, but others were filled with dust and cobwebs. It wasn't uncommon for hauntings to start up heavily when their surroundings had been disturbed, especially if the house had sat destitute for years before. If this was a haunting at all.
As he rounded the quarter turn of the staircase to the upper level, his skepticism on that point took a swift hairpin turn. The air pressed against him as though gravity had increased, and felt several degrees warmer. Heat rises he remembered, as he walked forward along the landing.
Several things happened at once. As he hit the switch to light the upper hall, a tremendous electric sizzle and pop issued from the dim ceiling lamp above. A door down the hall slammed hard enough to shake the walls, dust falling in sheets to the carpet. Footsteps moved toward him, fast, heavy and intent. He saw, just before he gasped, the smoky image of a horrible face in the rising dust, teeth and cold darkness of eye sockets directly in front of his own before it vanished as if imagined. He felt a force against his chest, ears ringing with an odd electric hum that grew sinisterly louder. The lamp threw sparks and Billy wildly feared the house would set afire right on top of him.
Then as suddenly as it began, it all stopped. The air rushed back into the space with a sound like an exhaled breath, and the overhead light slowly settled and brightened to a tame, normal light. Billy breathed slowly, willing his adrenaline to pass. His eyes searched the hall for some sign of trick or movement, but saw nothing but peeling wallpaper and dark doorframes. His breath hung in the air, cold enough to have dropped by twenty degrees or more in the space of a minute.
"All right, then," he murmured to himself. He'd foolishly not brought any of his equipment in, no way to have recorded this. Truthfully, Billy had never had an immediate personal experience quite so strong before and he left him unnerved. Not afraid, just merely surprised.
The second door on the right of the hall squeaked on its hinges. It opened inward, so he could not see if it was manipulated by a draft or a tricky hand. "All right, then," he repeated, and purposely walked towards it.
He'd very nearly reached the frame of the door when it slammed shut as hard as before, a whoosh of air and dust hitting him full in the face. Again, the light above his head shuddered and the voltaic hum rose to a nerve-wracking level.
"Get out."
Billy spun at the low sound of the voice, and as he did, an unseen force hit him hard enough to knock the wind from his lungs and send him sprawling forward on the dusty carpet.
He coughed hard and hauled himself halfway up to his knees, looking around for the source of the assault, and with no warning, pain ripped through his back like a fire.
"Fuck!" he cried, watching the light slowly work itself back once again. He tried to clutch at the pain, catch it and see it, but it was no use. There was no one there.
"Get out, is it?" he repeated back sarcastically. "Why is it always get out with you lot?" He eyed the walls accusingly as he picked himself up and went back down the stairs unheeded, to the mirror he'd seen above the mantelpiece in the parlor. Yanking his jumper and t-shirt off over his head to the chill, stale air of the house, he turned to look at his reflection over his shoulder.
Over the wings of his shoulder blades, eight scratches had been drawn, four to a side like a symmetrical brand, the skin broken just enough to rise and burn as angry red welts standing out from his pale, sunless skin. Scratches from human fingernails, only there was no other human here but him.
"Jesus," he muttered at the sting as he twisted this way and that to see. It was not fear that rose in him now, but anger. He'd never been physically attacked by any spirit before.
From the corner of his eye, he thought he saw a shadow move in the parlor's arching doorway in the mirror, but when he spun around to confront it, it had gone.
Billy huffed bitterly, pulling his clothes back on, wincing at the friction of cloth on the welts.
“Think you'll be rid of me that easily, eh?" He called out loudly to the house at large. "First mistake, friend. I'm not afeart of you."
He could feel the prickle of being watched, every hair standing up on his neck and arms, but nothing happened to acknowledge his words.
Outside, he collected several camera cases and extension cords from his van. A slam issued from the house as he gathered up his gear, and not surprisingly, he found the front door had not only been shut when he'd left it ajar, it had deadbolted itself once again as well.
"Good try, mate," he chuckled, "Bully for you I have the keys."
Another short fight with the lock and he dropped the lot on the parlor rug. The twilight outside was falling quickly, and he clicked on the lights in the entry to find an outlet.
The light promptly switched off as soon as he stepped away from it.
Billy sighed, returned and switched it back on. "Don't, yeah? I've a torch anyhow. And batteries. And I know how it works. You'll need energy to draw from if you want to keep fighting with me, won't you?"
He stepped away from the switch and watched it. It flicked off, the cracked rubber button depressing right before his eyes, and back on before he could move.
Billy smiled. "That's better, isn't it? We have an agreement, then."
He got to work setting up a camera in the parlor and another aimed down the main hall. After a moment, he took the third in hand and began climbing the stairs. On cue, the heaviness pressed against him and the same door in the upstairs hall slammed.
As he continued his assent, the door opened and slammed three more times, hard enough that he could feel the shudder through the walls and see more dust fall from the crown molding on the ceiling. The light began its telltale hum. He stopped on the top step, leaned casually against the wall to watch.
Eventually the onslaught stopped, and Billy smirked. "You're really quite taken with yourself, aren't you? All this effort and it’s not scaring me one bit. You’re going to wear yourself out."
He heard an all too human sounding hiss and the footsteps again, this time slower as they approached. The lamp continued to flicker.
"Look, mate, I get it," he rolled his eyes theatrically, trying to sound as put off as possible, "It's your house. You're well and truly fucked off that people are in here. Now, I'm not going to go down this hall and into your rooms, not yet. I'm just going to set up my camera here at the top of the stairs, so I can see what you're up to when I'm away. You can play all you want for this little machine here, show me all the scary tricks you know, and I'll see, all right?"
The thickness withdrew slightly, and Billy climbed the rest of the way to set the camera as promised, on the floor beside the baseboard pointing with a view down the hall. All the while, he could feel his actions closely scrutinized.
"Thing is, friend,” He spoke as he went back down the stairs, “You're as curious about me as I am of you. Am I right? How long has it been since anyone spoke to you directly, acknowledged you're really here?"
With a whoosh like a breeze, something small and heavy flew off the small sideboard in front of him, clattering against the dingy marble of the foyer at his feet. He stooped to pick it up, identifying it as a brass candlesnuffer. Turning its cold surface in his hands for a moment, he set it back where it had come from. "Aye," he murmured quietly. "I'll bet it's been an awfully long time."
He straightened and zipped his jacket as he backed to the front door. "I'm going now, but I'll come back. Understand? Tomorrow, I'll be coming back. You'll be here, I'm sure. We'll have a chat, you and I, maybe like gentlemen next time."
CHAPTER THREE