A Secret Room.....

The party is going as well as it could be, Stacey and I are just constantly nodding our heads, as more talkative types pontificate on the state of the economy and theBREXIT downside of . It is Stacey's friends engagement party and they are holding it in their parents mansion out in the sticks. I find it all very boring. Her friends are all London types with jobs in the city and have an air of snobbery about them. I obviously don't fit in with this crowd of people and make my excuses to go to the toilet.

I walk up the old wooden stairway, a curly step bridge to the floor above in a grandiose house built many decades, even centuries ago. As my hands cusp the railings I notice not a single speck of dust, they must have at least a few maids or cleaners to keep such a large building so clean I wonder. Her family come from old money, and now their daughter is marrying into new money, the mix of the aristocracy and the brash. I wonder how their marriage will go with such a dichotomy of influences, horrible I hope secretly. Either way they are too rich, either born into money, or given a top job because your Dad plays golfs with Freemasons from his lodge. I don't know which is worst to be rich and idle or be given a job your not even competent to do just because you know the right people.

The stairs lead me to the second floor where I start to walk down a long hallway lined with art work, a knights suit of armour in jet black, and at the end of the corridor a stags head. I stand in front of it and look into it's lifeless eyes. It just stares out, no noticeable shock on it's face at being shot, the taxidermist has done his job well and taken all manner and means of it's end from it's calculated death. It's place to hang as an ornament of the distinguished, “We must go hunting on Sunday's, ra ra ra”. I hate people like that, if you can kill an animal for sport, who says you couldn't kill a human as well. I've heard stories of ex MKUltra agents, such as Cathy O'Brien being made to play “the great game” with Dick Cheney, and other millionaire power brokers, hunting live people in a fenced off woods but never totally believed it. Then who knows maybe when you get that powerful, killing humans, becomes the ultimate sport.

I go to touch the Stags right antler just to get a feel of its strength. It's very smooth and not rough in the slightest, I bet if it knew what was going to happen to it that it's antler would have been strong enough to gouge out it's human enemies stomach. I go to turn away but as I do the antler moves down in my hand. I turn back hoping I haven't broken it off but see that the wall behind the dead mount is open. I look around to make sure no-one has seen me, I'm clean and I decide to investigate what this secret room contains. The doorway is very narrow but I shimmy through into a dark room and my hands scan the wall for some kind of light switch or string to pull but there is nothing, nothing to light this room up to view it at all. It smells damp and musty and as I reach around in the air I swipe old cobwebs that get stuck over my hands, whatever this place is it's not as well kept like outside.

I pick my lighter from my trouser pocket and flick it on, not much is revealed but I can see a little better than before. I walk forward tentatively and then bump into something hard, I move my hand around and the lighter illuminates what looks like a hospital bed. I put my hand on the rails and move it around until I feel a steel circular rim, the unmistakable shape of a handcuff wrapped around the bed rail. I take hold of the cuff and shake it but it doesn't move lightly, there is something on the other end.

My heart starts beating faster as I slowly move the lighter along the cuffs link to the other end of the cuff and find it is only wrapped around a hand. I go to touch it, not knowing if its going to be dead or alive. It feels cold and limp and I wonder if it is linked to a dead body as I keep flicking the lighter on and off to get some more illumination and to see more clearly.

I flick the lighter again over the centre of the bed and can see a lump under the covers, the bed is not empty and I feel slightly sick thinking there might be a dead body in this bed. I move the lighter higher up the covers and can just make out some white hair and a pale face. Who is it I am looking at I constantly think as thoughts of murder rooms and the film SAW cross my mind.

The clipper hasn't got much gas left in it now and it's about to die, I flick it one more time above the head of the person, and make out an old wrinkled face lying on a pillow, it's a woman, probably in her eighties, dead or alive I do not know but her hand in the cuff is as cold as snow.

I peer down to have a closer look at her face and then suddenly feel my left hand holding the cuff move up and down. It's alive! I turn to the hand in the cuff but just as the lighter dies I hear a voice.

“Help me!” I turn back quickly from the cuff to the bed head to barely see a pair of open eyes and mouth as the light from my lighter fades away for the last time. I flick the clipper one more time but it's dead, I can see no-more, I don't want to see no-more. I don't want to know no-more and my hand detaches from the hand in the cuff shaking up and down and I stumble backwards towards the small glimmer of light from the hallway.

I slide back through the hole and pull the raised antler down and watch in slight disappointment and disgust as the door to the room closes back up. Who was that woman, Stacey's friends mother, some captive, or just someone ill in an unkempt hospital room. 

I have no clue and my mind is racing. Old money, stolen money more like it I start to think. I look downstairs at the room half visible full of people and wonder how many of her family know about this. I intend to come back to have a proper look but next time I will be prepared. Blacked up, flash light, pick lock and bolt cutters for the cuffs and in case anyone comes at me my stun gun will put them on their ass.

Something feels very wrong in this building and the sick stags head on the wall, a trophy to a secret room, with a cuffed woman says it all. This old house is cursed and now I have to go back and pretend I don't know anything about what I've discovered for the next few hours. Fake smiles and boring conversation whilst all I can think about is the woman cuffed to the bed in that dark hidden room.

I want to tell Stacey but then it's her friends parents house and I don't want to upset her by ruining any illusion she has about her friend and what secrets she may have. I will do my best to uncover what is going on here and as soon as possible. I don't want these freaks around my girl any longer than they have to be.

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