Remington

I was utterly devastated. I walked into the house, put my keys on the foyer table on my way to the kitchen, grabbed a glass of wine, walked up the back stairs to the master bedroom and sat on the edge of the bed. With tears running down my face, I slowly stripped. I walked into the bathroom and filled the antique claw-foot tub with water as hot as I could stand it, adding a few sprinkles of bath salts and some baby oil. I lit the candles scattered all over the room, remembering the last time they were lit and why. Crying, I lowered myself into the tub. I missed Remy so much. My heart ached just to remember his lopsided smile and the glitter in his eyes. I couldn't believe I would never see him again.

Our relationship had started eleven months prior. It was one of those rare friendships that developed into something more. The fire inside us burned hot and deep. I was so sure that it would last forever. This time it was right. Boy, was I ever wrong!

The trouble all started to happen two weeks before that fateful day. Remy had gone out on his monthly ghost hunt with the guys. I was once again left at home to amuse myself. I decided to watch some of his old home movies of past ghost hunts. I watched tape after tape, I couldn't stop myself. It was like passing the scene of a head-on collision, you just have to look.

* * * * *

When Remy came home that night I was waiting up for him. I had the videos scattered all around the living room. I was floored by the phenomena recorded on those tapes.

"Why didn't you tell me what was going on? Did you think I couldn't take it? Did you think I was so simpering and weak that I would freak out and not believe you?"

Remy was patient in explaining past experiences with other people, people who were supposed to be experts, when he told them about the happenings that went on each month in that old house. When shown videotaped footage they would claim that it was a fixed tape. No one wanted to believe it was true. That would mean they would have to believe the rumors that had once floated around town about the couple that owned the house. That would mean they would have to begin a new investigation and admit to their mistakes. They would have to admit they were blind and prejudiced about one of their own.

I sat there on the couch, curled up next to him, listening to the stories. Listening to him recounting the rumors and speculation. Listening to him putting the pieces together and coming up with the truth. The truth of the horrors that went on in that house. The torture and maiming and raping and killing of innocent victims. Victims that had no idea of the fate that awaited them when they walked through the threshold of that horrible, horrible house.

I went to bed that night in quiet contemplation. My thoughts would not be still enough for me to sleep for hours. We lay next to each other, our legs barely touching, not saying a word until the next day. And the next day I begged him to let me become a part of the group. I had to see these things for myself. I had to solve the mystery. Help put all those lost souls to rest.

* * * * *

I spent the entire day at the regional library, two towns over. I decided that it would be a bad idea to go to our local library, if what Remy said about the town protecting the couple was correct. I was sure they would not like my "noising around in their business". It would probably cause a lot more trouble than it was worth.

So I spent the day pouring through old newspaper articles on the microfiche machine. Reading the stories of disappearances that occurred during that time. Jotting down notes and looking through books on serial killers and why they do the things they do.

I came home with a briefcase full of copies and books that I had checked out. I had news stories with headlines that I couldn't believe the people in this town had just ignored. Had no one spoken up for these victims? Was no one willing to stand up and say enough? Why did they allow it to go on? Why did no one stop them, arrest them or lynch them? I sighed, assuming that since the victims were all from out of the county the towns people had assumed they and their loved ones were safe from these two monsters. Therefore no one took action, no one stopped the slaughters.

I walked through the front door, put my keys on the foyer table as I had millions of times before and headed to the kitchen to get a glass of wine and mull through all the information I had gathered. Passing by the living room I noticed a fire was going in the fireplace, so I decided to curl up on the couch and drink my wine and sift through the paperwork instead of doing it on the kitchen table.

I had simply assumed that Remy was downstairs, in the basement where he had set up our home office. I opened the door and yelled down that I was home on my way back to the living room. He never replied, but he sometimes was so involved in his web designing that he didn't hear me. I decided to go down an hour later and bring him back to the real world for dinner at Dick and Jane's house.

I had no idea at the time that I would not find him downstairs. That he was not in the house at all. That I would never see him again, until the fateful day that I had to identify his body.

* * * * *

I went down to the basement about two hours later, having lost all track of time. I called downstairs from the doorway. When he didn't answer I ventured down. The computer was on, so I assumed that he had gone upstairs to get ready, that he must have seen how involved I was and didn't want to disturb me. So I headed upstairs to the master bedroom.

There was no sign of him at all, but I could tell he had been here recently. Drawers were not completely closed - something he knew drove me up the wall as much as an open cabinet door. I checked in the closet. Yes, his ghost hunting bag and equipment was gone. I couldn't believe he would just up and leave, no note or anything, when he knew we expected for dinner at Dick's.

Then it hit me. Dick was part of his ghost hunting team. So I called Jane, sure enough, Dick had vanished without a clue, as well. I slumped downstairs, Jane was going to call Jill - whose husband John was part of the trio of ghost hunters - and we were going to drink margaritas and male bash for the rest of the night.

Walking to living room to grab my purse I noticed a message on the answering machine. It was John, on his cell phone, it was a bad connection but the message was clear. Tonight was the night, he was going to contact Dick as well, hurry up and get to the mansion.

I drove over to Dick and Jane's as fast as I could. Luckily Jill was already there. I told them of the mysterious message. We were all in agreement. The vibes weren't good. We loaded up in my car and headed out to find the mansion.

* * * * *

None of us knew of the exact location of the old mansion the boys had been going to for the last six months. None of us knew why they would up and go in such a hurry without letting any of us know where they were going or what they were planning on doing there.

Thankfully I had done my research and at least had an idea of where we were going. I had also seen the video the boys had made, the others had not and didn't seem interested in watching them, so I knew what the outside of the house looked like. All Jane and Jill were concerned about was getting a hold of their husbands and giving them what-for because they had ruined their evening. But knowing what I knew of what they had uncovered and what my own research had revealed I was scared. Scared for us, and scared for what I was sure the boys were going through down in the basement of that old house.

We drove for what seemed like hours before we found the old dirt road that lead onto the property. Weeds and flowers gone to seed strangled the driveway. You could see the beauty that the property once had been, when the mayor and his new bride occupied the house. There were beautiful flowering dogwoods that lined the drive. And rosebushes surrounding the circular drive in front of the mansion. There was a fountain in the middle of the circle that no longer spewed water from the pitcher in the cherub's hands. Ivy grew up the face of the house and rose bushes gone wild covered the windows on the first floor.

We walked up the marble steps to the front door. It was already open, as if the house had been waiting for us to come after its latest victims - and that is what I thought of them already, they were victims. I could feel the link which we had shared all these months had been severed. The link that let us know when the other was sick or hurt. From almost the day we had met it was as if we could read each other's minds. We were totally perfect for each other in every way. And now I couldn't feel his presence at all.

I looked over to tell the others what I felt, knowing that they would think I was as crazy as they had thought the boys were for as long as I had known the two couples. I turned, noticing them staring toward the top of the staircase. I walked over and looked up. What I saw chilled me to the bone. Jill and Jane screamed, turned and ran out the front door in less than a minute. Rooted to the spot I heard the car's engine start and the tires squeal as the car took off down the drive, neither girl caring I was still inside.

* * * * *

I remember the rest as if it were a dream. Laying in the tub, with the lavender bubbles soothing my aching head and the wine soothing my pain, I remembered how the girls had come back to the mansion with the police and an ambulance. I remembered the EMTs walking slowly up the stairs to untie Jack, who was tied between the two railings and had been carved open with his insides on display. I remembered the young rookie had gotten sick at his first site of the scene. They found Dick in one of the upstairs bedrooms. He was hiding in the closet, incoherent. The doctors called it post traumatic stress syndrome. They are not holding out hope of a recovery, nor a coherent explanation of what happened, anytime soon.

And Remy. Remy's body was discovered in the basement. He had been shackled to an ancient rack, his body had been cruelly torn in half, signs of torture all over his now pale body. I collapsed when I saw him. The doctors called it a mental breakdown.

I spent three months in the mental ward of the hospital. But I'm better now. They released me just a few hours ago. I came straight home from the hospital. Jill and Jane picked me up and brought me home. They wanted to come inside with me, make sure I settled in and was ok to be here alone. They still feel guilty about running off and leaving me in that house all alone. Especially when there had been the possibility of someone still being in that house with me - they and the police still believe a group of transients had found the old abandoned house and had attacked and killed Jack and Remy. But I politely told them to go home, that I wanted to be alone and take a nice long private bath.

I could feel the effects of the sedatives starting to take effect. I had dissolved twenty tablets into my glass of merlot. My body was beginning to feel heavy and my eyelids were starting to droop. I couldn't live without my Remy. I loved him too much to go on alone.

Suddenly, I detected a movement out of the corner of my eye. Turning, almost positive Jill and Jane had followed me in against my wishes. Slipping down in the tub, no longer able to hold my body up above the water, I saw him. My wonderful, loving Remy. He had come to me in my final moments. He was reaching out for me and I could feel myself floating up out of my body, as my head slipped below the water. We were together again.