1734 Worthington Drive

Detective Marcus Fletcher was alone in the office. He was splayed out over his chair, its hard, worn out edge cutting against his lower back as his shoulders pushed against the backrest, the rusty screws keeping the seat in one rickety piece struggling not to give in. He'd been in that perfectly balanced position for several minutes now, his sleep-deprived mind delving in and out of the case. Finally, the chair swivelled half an inch, giving out a little squeak, and he was thrust back into the present.

He lifted himself into a less perilous position, sitting as straight as the chair would allow him to, and looked up at the wall above the door. He blinked a couple of times, but saw only the blurry outline of a circle, and had to resort to rubbing his eyes with his clammy hands. His eyes were now stinging, but the circle was once again a fully-fledged clock. Two thirty-seven in the morning.

He sighed. He'd done it again.

His sigh was met with a thick silence that dampened the few noises that did occur at this time of the night. The old wooden beams that had held the building up together for so many years produced the occasional creak or groan as they stretched out in the summer heat, while the distant whirr of a ceiling fan somewhere in the building provided something akin to white noise, the kind you didn't realise was there until it stopped. The homicide department's open plan office only had one ceiling fan, hanging over the centre of the room, but it hadn't been on in several weeks. Not at this time of the year. The air was too humid, too thick. All the blades could do was stir the heat around like a wooden spoon stirring through a pot of melted cheese.

The desks in the room all faced the only door, the one below the clock. Fletcher's was in the second row, not too far off from the inert fan, and several desks away from the closest window. Not that it mattered that much, anyway – most of them had been stuck shut for years, and the ones that did slide open only did so halfway. The paper-thin glass panes were no real protection against the freezing temperatures the city was plunged into in the winter months, while the stale gusts of air that did occasionally bumble their way into the building these days barely provided any respite from the searing heat.

In an attempt to combat it, Marcus had rolled his shirt sleeves almost all the way up to his shoulders, his calves showing below his pulled-up trousers, but his arms and legs were still covered in sweat, and the dark patches growing out his shirt's armpits were threatening to meet somewhere in the middle. Ordinarily, he would have gone home hours ago, but his apartment was even hotter than this. Plus, he couldn't get the case out of his head.

He bent forward and opened the middle drawer of his desk, producing three identical-looking manila folders. Each one had a sticker on the front with a case number, an interview number and two names. The case number was the same on all three, as was the name listed under Interviewer: Marcus Fletcher. He dropped them onto the desk, resting his elbow next to them to prop up his head as he used his other hand to go through the files.

The first one was for the taller of the three kids, who, despite his height, was actually the youngest of the three at sixteen years of age. He began to read the transcript and the scene began to play once again in his head.

As soon as Marcus had entered the interview room he'd recognised the smell of weed in the air. That, combined with the kid's grimy dreadlocks and baggy clothes, had led him to make assumptions before he'd even sat down. Assumptions which hadn't been far off the mark.

“Hello, Mr. Trent. I'm-”

“Whoa, dude, Mr. Trent is my dad. I'm Blake.”

Marcus paused for a couple of seconds, looking at his interviewee smiling back at him. “Very well, Blake. I'm Detective Marcus Fletcher. I'm here to talk to you about what transpired this evening at 1734 Worthington Drive. You were at the scene when it all happened, is that correct?”

Blake's smile was still on his lips, his eyes now open wider in a spell of curiosity. “Man, you talk like those cops in the movies, it's so weird. The events that transpired. Do you talk like that at home too?”

“Please, Mr. Trent. Blake. Let's stick to the facts. Were you at 1734 Worthington Drive this evening?”

“Yeah, yeah, I was there.” He chuckled, not showing any awareness of the seriousness of what they were discussing. “I mean, I wasn't inside the Kelvin Haunt, but I was walking just past it when all that stuff happened.”

“I'm sorry, the Kelvin Haunt?”

“Yeah, that's what people call it, on account of the Kelvin family.”

The Kelvin Haunt. One of the other kids had called it that too. Marcus laid the first folder to the left and opened the second one. Adam Voigt. He'd liked this kid. Much easier to talk to than the other two, much more approachable. The teenage Marcus probably wouldn't have spoken to him even if they'd sat next to each other in class, but the angst and rebellion he'd had back then had mellowed over the years, and all that remained of that teenage airhead was the occasional dumping of a glass bottle in the regular trash instead of the recycling bin – more out of laziness than outright rebellion, really.

When Marcus had walked into the room, Adam Voigt had been sitting up straight, his arms resting on the table with his fingers interlaced. A couple of beads of sweat were starting to form just below where his crew cut ended, but, other than that, he looked so neat you could have been forgiven for believing him to be some kind of ultra-realistic mannequin. If he hadn't known in advance that he was only seventeen, Marcus would have taken him for an off-duty member of the military.

“Hello, Mr. Voigt. I'm Detective Marcus Fletcher.”

“Hello, Detective Fletcher.” He nodded his head slightly as he said this.

“Please, Marcus is fine. Now,” he continued, looking down at his notes, “we have brought you in to talk about the incident that occurred this evening at 1734 Worthington Drive. You were there, were you not?”

“Yes, sir, I was. I was out for my usual 10-mile run, when I ran past the Kelvin Haunt.”

“You're talking about 1734 Worthington Drive, is that correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That's the second time I hear it called that. Where did that name come from?”

“It's on account of the Kelvin family, sir.” Fletcher looked at him with a raised eyebrow, so he continued. “The Kelvin family lived there fifteen years ago, sir, until the two kids were found dead in the attic. Hanged. The father disappeared, sir. Some say he was the one who hanged them. The mother had to be taken into a psychiatric hospital, sir. Nobody has lived there since, but you can still hear the children some nights, sir, dragging themselves around the empty home, moaning and wailing.”

Marcus snorted, smiling complicitly at the kid. “Some local legend made up during some boy scouting camping trip, no doubt, eh Mr. Voigt?”

“No sir. It's true.” Marcus frowned at him in surprise. “This evening was not the first time I'd run past the house. I often take that route and some evenings I've heard the haunting noises. Once I even dared looked up at one of the attic windows and saw one of the kid's ghosts.”

And there it was. Ghosts. As if he didn't have enough on his plate, Adam Voigt claimed he'd seen some dead child's ghost through a window. Unfortunately, it wasn't the only one who had mentioned ghosts during the interviews.

He pushed the second folder to the right, leaving the last one in the middle. This kid had been the weirdest of the three, and not because of his physical appearance. Marcus had come across stranger hairdos in his years on the job, and plenty of people nowadays had taken to dressing mostly in dark, elaborate clothes, closer to the nineteenth century than to today's garments. This kid, though. Marcus had not interviewed many people like him.

“Hello, Mr. Bell. I'm-”

“Detective Marcus Fletcher. I know.”

“Ah, they've already briefed you.”

“No, the spirits told me.”

“I'm sorry, the what now?”

“The spirits. They've been speaking to me ever since I entered the building. Did you know this was once a factory? Quite a few people died here operating the machines, many of whom are still with us.”

“I, uh... I see. Well, we did bring you in to talk, but not about our ghosts.”

“Spirits, please. Ghosts is a demeaning word.”

“Right, sorry. Spirits. We're not here to talk about spirits. We're here about the events that transpired this evening at 1734 Worthington Drive. You were outside said house at six thirty-two p.m., is that right?”

“Yes, I was.”

“Could you elaborate on what happened?”

“Look, man, it was totally whacky. Like I said, I was outside the Kelvin Haunt. I was dragging out the last few drags from my, uh... my cigarette. When I heard a woman screeching. I couldn't tell what the hell she was saying, she was, like, speaking some demonic tongue or whatnot.”

“Demonic tongue, Mr. Trent?”

“Hey, I'm just saying what I went through, dude. Do you want to hear it or not?”

“Yes, Mr. Trent, I do. Please proceed.”

“I was just rounding the corner, sir, when I heard it. There was a loud noise, like a cannon going off. Except it couldn't have been a cannon, sir, just that it sounded like it. It made me stop quite suddenly. If I'm honest, when I looked over I was a bit scared, sir.”

“Scared? Scared of what?”

“Ghosts, sir. I didn't want to see no more ghosts through the windows. They say once they have their eye on you, that's you cursed. I know, I know, these are just stories we tell children, but once you've seen one, sir, it's hard to forget about it.”

“I understand, Mr. Voigt. Please, continue.”

“I was sitting among the spirits on the front lawn of the house when-”

“Excuse me, on the front lawn?”

“Yes.”

“Of 1734 Worthington Drive?”

“Yes.”

“Why on earth would you do that? The place looks like a jungle.”

The kid smiled. “There are powerful spirits in that house, Detective. Although I dare not enter it, for fear of my soul being consumed, their auras help me channel my inner medium and contact the dead.”

“Ah. I see.” He didn't. “So what happened next?”

“Well, I had just finished speaking to a lady who once lived in this area, in the late 1700s.”

“The spirit of a woman from the late eighteenth century?”

“No, Detective. A woman who used to live in the area until a couple of years ago, in one of the last houses in the 1700s of Worthington Drive. 1797, I think she said. Anyway, we had finished speaking not three minutes earlier when I heard the sound of a man screaming, followed by the breaking of glass. When I looked up behind me, I saw one of the attic windows in shards raining over the garden, just a few yards away from me.”

“So I hear this demonic screeching, or foreign language, or whatever, yeah? And I look over at the house. The voice stops after a few seconds and I hear some kind of commotion, as if someone were crashing down the stairs or something.”

“Could you see into the house at any point, Mr. Trent?”

“Not really, man. The garden is fairly long and I was puff- er, I wasn't wearing my glasses.”

“I see.”

“Anyway. Suddenly, the front door bursts open, and this huuuuge guy, like, I don't know, at least seven feet tall, he runs straight along the overgrown path, towards this other guy who is just staring up above the house, as if he couldn't see the giant man running at him. Luckily for him, the large guy ran just past him and fled up the street. A few seconds later, this woman staggers out through the door, clutching at a knife sticking out from her stomach, blood just spurting everywhere. I'm telling you, it was whacko, man. She only managed to take a few steps before she collapsed on the bushes. That's when I called you guys.”

“Well, sir, against my own instincts, I forced myself to look up at the attic windows, and was relieved not to see any ghosts this time around. Not there and not in any of the windows. However, I began to see some kind of red haze coming out through the chimney, sir.”

“A red haze?”

“Yes, sir. A bit like a mist, like a thin cloud. Only red, sir. Blood red, sir. The next minute, I do see something at one of the windows. At first I'm terrified, sir, thinking it's one of the children ghosts, but then I realise it's a woman, very much alive. Well, for a few seconds, anyway. She starts pounding at the window, fear in her eyes like I've never seen before, sir. Then, I heard gunshots.”

“Gunshots? Are you sure?”

“Yes, sir. Gunshots. My father and I have been out in the shooting range before, I recognise a gunshot when I hear one.”

“Alright, Mr. Voigt. You heard gunshots. Then what?”

“Well, then the woman stopped pounding at the window, and blood splattered all over it. Her blood, sir. The shooter didn't stop, though, and soon the window was in pieces. The young woman fell through it and into the garden, right next to this weird emo guy who was sitting cross-legged among the plants. The strange thing was, he didn't pay her any attention. He was looking round the other side of the house, as if none of this were happening right next to him. That's when I pulled out my phone and called the police, sir.”

“I could feel the pull from the souls inside the house, trying to lure me in, but I resisted it. Not long after, the window next to the broken one also shattered, but this time there was a woman crashing out through it. She flew out towards the far end of the garden, next to the road.”

“Excuse me, did you say next to the road?”

“Yes.”

“You're saying this woman was pushed by some force that flung her 20 yards across the garden?”

“Yes. Not only that, but she landed right next to this pothead who was just staring at the house, paying no attention to her, probably stoned or something. As she crashed down, I heard a loud crunch, and I could tell she had broken her neck, as it was in an unnatural angle. I've seen plenty of spirits who've gone through that, you see, and who are now stuck in spirit form with a neck permanently looking sideways. Anyway, she did not look like a spirit to me, so that's when I decided to phone the police.”

Marcus sighed as he stared at the three folders sprawled over his desk. He looked back up at the clock. Almost three o'clock.

Here he was, with the strangest case he'd ever been assigned. At six thirty-two p.m. three calls had been made simultaneously from outside 1734 Worthington Drive. All three callers reported having just seen a woman bursting out of the house in some dramatic way or other and dying right in front of them. All three had reported different scenarios, with the woman dying in three different ways. All three described the woman as having the same features.

When the police had arrived at the scene, each of the callers was pointing at a different empty spot in the garden. On a hunch, the officers had decided to enter the abandoned house, where they had found the woman described by the three individuals. She was dead indeed, but not in any of the ways the callers had described. The woman had been found hanging from one of the beams in the foyer.