The Mansion Incident

Chapter Fifteen

Chris left the lobby and walked back into the hall. The thick mansion walls muffled the gunshots, but they must have been close. He encountered a locked door right before the door to the lobby, and not wanting to waste bullets this time, he simply kicked it open.

The doorframe splintered and the door swung open easily, revealing a supply room of some kind with another door on the opposite wall. The floor and walls were spotlessly white, and everything was arranged meticulously. Glass shelves full of jars and bottles lined one wall, with their colored labels facing outward. Another shelf beside the door contained boxes full of blue rubber gloves and breathing masks like a doctor might wear. Dozens of white lab coats hung from a metal bar on the far wall, each with a name tag above the front pocket. And in the corner, there was a narrow elevator. Chris approached it and noticed dirt on the floor leading from the elevator, standing out when the rest of the floor was so clean. He decided not to use it, since there was only one unmarked button inside and there was no telling where it would lead.

The other door led to a similar storage room with boxes of supplies, mostly medical or scientific in nature. More lab coats and gloves, along with boxes of paper and various printed forms. A door on the left side of the room led back to the lobby, leading Chris in a circle. He went back to where he started from and headed down the hallway toward the balcony.

The only place left to go was down the stairs. He doubted he could have heard the gunshots from the first floor, considering how thick the walls seemed to be, but he looked everywhere else and he knew that the shots must have come from this general direction. Gun drawn, he carefully walked down the steps.

He was halfway down when he found Edward’s body. He jumped over the railing and landed beside the body, immediately reaching down to take a pulse. Edward was still warm, but Chris didn’t feel anything. He must have just died no more than a few minutes ago. Chris remembered that Ed usually carried a shotgun, but where was it now?

He heard a scream and jumped up, forgetting about Edward for the moment. Three quick gunshots, this time from a pistol, followed a few seconds later. Chris went down the hall and quickly checked the two doors on the left, but they were just more storage. He went through the door at the end of the hall and turned left straight through the metal doors at the end of the next hall. He nearly tripped over the body laying in the middle of the floor, but he paid it no mind as long as he didn’t recognize it and it didn’t get up and attack him. The next door led outside to the back yard.

He stopped and looked around, but no one was there. He knew the scream and gunshots must have come from out here, but now there was nothing. He wanted to shout out for anyone, but didn’t know what might come after him. Confused, he lowered his head and tried to clear his thoughts. Maybe he missed something. Then he noticed the faint footsteps in the grass, outlined in dew.

Looking more closely, he saw footsteps from at least two people. One came from the same door as him, and the other from another door farther to his left. He followed them until the courtyard, where they disappeared. A Glock lay abandoned on the cement and Chris stuck it in his belt beside Forest’s.

Chris looked around and followed the courtyard away from the mansion, hoping that he was going the right direction. He didn’t even know who he was following. The Glock could be anyone’s, except for Barry, who used a Colt Anaconda. And although the scream sounded female, Chris did not think it was Jill who made it.

The courtyard eventually split up into cement paths through the woods. Chris shook his head and debated returning to the mansion, when he saw something on the ground a few yards ahead. Another body, and like the last one, it remained dead. He examined it until he saw the stab wound in the temple, and then continued on down the path.

He found the guard house a few seconds later.

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