Hidden Under the Floorboards

“The art of investigation is a fickle one. Many think of themselves as one of those marvellously witty detectives you see on tv. But few ever put their energy into the mysteries that matter. The legends of ghosts lurking in the dark and monsters out of sight. The cases that get you labelled as the craziest nut in town. Those are the ones worth taking. I may not be a detective by day, but every fibre of my being knows that it's what I’m meant to do. The moment when the last pieces of the puzzle click together, that rush of adrenaline coursing through my veins. That is what I live for.” My voice broke at that. The thousands of flashing cameras shone in my face expectantly, each worming its way through the crowd of reporters crushing me within their ranks. 

A young woman thrust her microphone through the flailing arms. Her breath came in hurried jabs as she rushed to speak in a clipped professional tone. 

“Miss Prior, can you tell us how you solved this truly confounding mystery?”

    I nodded, gathering my breath.

“I guess you could say it began a few weeks ago,” the woman pushed through the crowds with renewed vigour until the microphone was directly in front of me.

“A friend of mine had recently been visiting from London. He and his partner had been looking forward to the trip since I first proposed it. My friend Howerd's partner Mathew had an intense fascination with gothic literature. The perfect hobby to have in an area like this, Fardale Manor is perhaps the most prominent feature of the entire countryside. Anyway, before arriving at my place the two had decided to take a tour of the manor. It was only to be an hour long so they should have been at my house at around three in the afternoon. So I waited, and they never came…”

The audience had fallen silent now. Each reporter relaxed their grip on their cameras and made way for others to listen to my tale. 

“Their phones gave me no answer to their whereabouts,” as only the monotone drone of my mobile dialling them answered. Concern and panic began to blossom inside my chest. Howard and Mathew were nothing if not punctual. Even when I contacted the Manor tour guide I was no closer to locating them. I pushed the problem aside thinking that perhaps one of them had fallen ill, or something else of the sort had occurred. Yet the week flew by with no word from either of them. 

I had now talked with a few other locals who had sworn they saw the two in town. The couple were hard to miss with all their joyous energy. Then I realized that the last anyone had seen of my friends was just before they toured Fardale Manor. That was confounding at the very least. The tour guide had made it very clear that he had not seen even the slightest glimpse of the two men who had undoubtedly been in his presence. I made a decision then, I picked up my phone and booked a tour for the next day. 

The tour was unusual to say the least. The history of the house was familiar to me as I had studied it during school, but the tour guide told the tale with clear disdain. In my group, there were around five others. We had each been given a slip of paper stuck to our chest with our names scribbled in black Sharpie. I glanced around at everyone’s as the stout toad of a man serving as the tour guide led us through the manor. At regular intervals, he would stop and raise a pale hand to point out a feature of the house, then he paused in front of a child’s bedroom.” 

A small gasp escaped from several of the reporters in the crowd, every person within ten kilometres of Fardale manor knew what I was talking about. The legend of the Fardale children was one that the children of the town thrived on. There was something so enticing about the legend and its sick nature. 

The manor had been owned by none other than Dr James Fardale. An eccentric lunatic who was obsessed with the ideas of the creatures of the night. His most passionately loved myth being that of the vampire. The man was a fanatic when it came to the creatures. He sought to replicate their pale skin with unnerving accuracy and was spotted on multiple occasions donning a long black cape over his frilled white dress shirt. He was so fascinated by the idea of such creatures that he drove himself into striving to become one. 

Fardale was immediately shunted out of his profession as a doctor for such outlandish thoughts. But that didn’t stop him. In a month he purchased the imposing gothic manor and set up multiple children’s bedrooms for his plans. Every month from there on, several street urchins from near by cities would be warmly welcomed into his home. The man was hardly ever present and the children lunged at the thought of a house to themselves. Soon, however, they would find themselves locked in with no escape. One by one the once grimy midgets roaming the streets would disappear until Fardale was suddenly welcoming a new batch of unsuspecting children into his home. 

Back in town people thought nothing of the matter. While in the city there was an increasing concern. It was true no one could care less for the young thieves roaming their streets. But a threat to them was a potential threat to their children, and so the town glumly agreed to investigate the manor. 

And what they found shocked them. Piles upon piles of human corpses littered the attic of the manor. Each face leached of all colour with a long jagged gash along their throats. Fardale had been murdering children and draining them of blood to satisfy his urge for months without any notice. Soon after the town folks revelation, Fardale returned to his home with yet another batch of children The townsfolk desperately scrambled to apprehend him in rage, but they were too slow. The children’s blood stained the dark walls and Fardale fled to the outskirts of town. Some say he’s still there, having succeeded in unlocking the secrets to vampires and their longevity. 

With the manor empty the townsfolk converted it into a memorial for the Fardale children, and in more recent years a tour service had opened to the public. But nothing could ever quite quench the fear of Fardale still burying his teeth into the soft flesh of one's neck. 

I shook my head in disgust, everyone knew the story there was no reason to tell it again. I grasped at my mind for where I had left off and continued again. 

“I had, like every other member of this community, already known of the tale of Fardale manor. So instead I turned my attention to scrutinising every inch of the house while we stood there. Within minutes I noticed the floorboard beneath a large flamboyantly dressed man's foot, it's dark wood was just as scuffed as the rest from years of treading feet. But the groves along each edge were abnormally deep and almost certainly wider than the others. Politely I asked the man to remove his foot paying no attention to the fact that everyone's eyes were now on me. 

I knelt and pressed the wood lightly with a finger, it slid around in the confined space as I tried to shift it with my finger. The man who had moved his foot for me then pried into the corner of the panel and yanked it free of its position. A heavy industrial leaver lay in the cavity rusted to the concrete beneath. With a heave, the other group members and I swung it up despite the tour guides objections. We soon wished we had listened to his pleas.

A door sprung open next to the child's room, revealing a manky prison-like cell. It seemed as though the tales of old had come back to haunt us. Bodies, swathed in modern-day clothes, all ripped to bloody ribbons and laying limply on the floor. The group gasped and stepped back, I walked in. Then a choke caught in my throat. Hanging above the door like marionettes were Howard and Mathew. Their hands still entwined in death despite the obvious fear scarring their faces. My friends, some of my only friends. Murdered like they were nothing. 

Everyone ran from the house then, even the tour guide followed us while hindered in his unflattering clothes from the era of the house's construction. I called the police and now we’re here.” 

Murmurs began to spread throughout the crowd once more as I finished my tale. The woman who first thrust the microphone at me withdrew back into the crowd to allow others their time. I sighed, weighed down by the stark reality of it all. Recounting Howerd and Mathew’s death had only made it more real. 

Ignoring the hail of questions combing their way towards me I lazily scanned my eyes over the crowd. Just in the background barely visible was the tour guide standing with the other group members. My eyes widened. He opened his mouth in a villainous snarl revealing two, needle-sharp, teeth.