House of the Seven Sirons

Chapter 5

Around midnight, there is a booming explosion. The luxurious Greek-style spar suddenly bursts into flames. The panes of the large windows explode from the immense heat of the roaring fire with a loud smash! Billows of black smoke rise into the clear starry sky. Above the sounds of the roaring fire and snapping wood came the loud sound of sirens in the distance. People gather outside their houses. They watch in horror as large orange flames tears through the roof.

Eventually, two scarlet red fire trunks, an ambulance and a police car pull up outside, sirens blaring and blue lights flashing. A crew of firefighters dressed in gold fire tunics, leggings and steel-toed boots clamber out of the vehicles. As they go to unreel the fire hoses, the police start to put up barriers to stop anyone from getting too close to the fire. After the hoses are in place and attached to the iridescent red and indigo blue hydrants, two teams of firefighters approach the building to put the fires out. Water gushes out of the hoses at the fires as they struggle to subdue the flames.

"We need to search the building for any survivors." The lead firefighter shouts above the noise of the fire, as he puts on the SCBA equipment. He listens to the roars of the searing fire as he adjusts the shoulder straps of the harness to hold the air cylinder in place. After he puts his fire helmet on, he walks towards the building, a team of firefighters follow closely.

Once they are inside, they carefully make their way through the thick smoke, treading carefully over pieces of scorched wood and broken furniture as they pass an office. The light from their headtorch penetrates the smoke. "I'll check it out!" shouts the lead firefighter over the sound of the roaring fire so the others can hear him. Stopping outside the door, he kicks it open. The door crashes onto the floor with a loud bang!

The lead firefighter stares into the inferno. His eyes are wide with fear as he watches as the fire spreads up the walls and across the ceilings above him. He walks inside the room and has a look around to see if there was anyone inside.

"Can you see anything!" shouts a firefighter loudly.

"I can't see anything yet!" He scans the room slowly.

"We're going to search the other rooms!" replies the firefighter louder.

The leading firefighter stops and has one final look around. He slowly turns towards the doorway and walks towards it. Suddenly, the ceiling caves in with a loud bang! blocking the doorway with bits of scorched wood and plaster.

"Ant are you alright!" Shouts a firefighter.

"Don't worry about me. Just keeping searching for survivors!" replies Ant tells him. He turns away from the doorway and looks for another escape route. But with it being an enclosed office it has only one doorway and that is now blocked with debris. As he walks around the office, he sees a narrow crack in the wall and quickly approaches it and peers through the gap and thinks.

'Maybe I could escape through the crack?'

He tries to push his way through the narrow gap, but his air cylinder gets stuck making him too wide, stopping him from going any further. Struggling to fit through the tight gap, the cylinder makes an awful screeching as it scrapes against the wall, unbuckling the shoulder straps of the harness, the air cylinder hits the ground with a metallic clang! a loud echo resonates around the room. Ant pushes his way through the gap, stumbling over a broken beam in the main hall. His head hits the ground with a thump. The plastic visor on the fire helmet breaks with a loud crack!

Lying on his side, Ant looks around the room and starts to cough loudly. His eyes begin to shut and his breathing sounds Wheezy. The last thing he sees before slowly passing out is the doorway with a shadowy figure standing in the portal.

Early the next morning. DSI Carter and DSI Fishers are busy investigating the remnants of the burned down spa. Searching amongst rubble for any clues as to what may have caused the fire but there were no clues.

"What do you think caused the fire?" asks DSI Fishers.

"I don't know."

DSI Fishers kneels beside a pile of rubble and carefully pushes it aside and sees what looks like an open-toed v-cut ankle boot on the dusty floor that has him wondering if the office belonged to a woman or not. "Who did this office belong to?" he asks, looking back over his shoulder at DSI Carter.

"It belonged to Mr Edwards. Why?"

"Why would there be a woman's shoe in here?"

DSI Carter strides towards her partner and kneels beside him to have a look at the shoe. As soon as she sees it, she knows who it belonged to. Standing up, she has a look around and notices that a large burnt desk is turned over and as she goes to have a look at what is behind it, what she sees making her gag. Putting her hand over her mouth, she stares at the remains of a half-eaten body. What remained of the flesh is seared and charred, smelling because it was so badly burnt from the fire, it will be hard to identify who the woman was. She looks away and stares at her partner. "I don't think this fire was an accident."She says.

"What makes you think that?"

"Take a look for yourself." She points to the half of the corpse that remains.

DSI Fisher stands up and walks towards the desk where his partner is standing and looks behind it. Turning away, he put his hand over his mouth and couldn't believe what he has just seen. "What kind of animal could have done this?" he asks.

"I don't know."

"I'll call for forensics," says DSI Fishers, taking his mobile out of his pocket, he walks out of the office and calls the forensics department immediately.

DSI carter walks outside the office and looks at the scorched bookcase. Something about it is out of the ordinary and has her thinking.

'Why would there be an old Victorian bookcase inside a Greek-style spa?'

She crosses to the bookcase and stares at it, her brows furrow and her eyes narrow to pinpricks as she studies the bookcase carefully. Pulling each book off the shelves as if she is looking for something and as he pulls the last book, the bookcase slowly moves across the floor with a loud scraping noise. Behind it is an old stone doorway. She stares at the opening and thinks.

'I wonder where this door leads?'

Looking back over her shoulder at her partner. Although she feels intrigued to find out what lies beyond the door and whereabout it will lead to. She knows that it is far too dangerous to go alone because she doesn't know what could be in there. The thought of being trapped behind an old bookcase inside a dark and creepy room with no way of escape did cross her mind. However, curiosity gets the better of her and she finds herself facing the doorway. She wanders off down the stone steps that delved deep beneath the ground and disappears into the darkness.