The Vault

18

"See, isn't she a beauty?" Mr. Reagan asked.

"It depends on what your definition of beauty is..." Mr. Bridge replied.

The two businessmen climbed down from the horse and cart they had used to trot along the winding path into the Templeton Manor.

The hot summer sun bore down on them from high behind the tall, greenish steeple that emanated from the front of the house, as birds chirped happily around them.

"I almost want to stay here myself!" Reagan joked.

"You're welcome to buy my half, but I want double what I paid," Bridge answered.

"That would still be a steal," Reagan said with a greedy smile, the sunshine forcing a bead of sweat to trickle down his brow.

Wiping it away with his sleeve, the young man jingled a key towards his older business partner. "Come on then, let's have a look."

The musty wooden door creaked open as it slid along the cobbled porch floor, and the stale, cool air inside engulfed them. Hanging up their expensive jackets inside, they entered.

"Now obviously, it may need a bit of a clear up, but you have to see the potential." Reagan said as he walked his partner into the living room.

Scanning across his surroundings Bridge looked over the dusty, spacious empty room. Peering upwards to the odd chandelier that hung way above the two of them he turned to his younger partner. "This isn't the first time I've done this boy," he scowled.

Reagan smiled at him sarcastically before leading him through to the greenhouse.

"Not much of a gardener then," Reagan said, turning his nose up at the messy greenhouse that had a putrid green mould glued to the windows that shut out the light from the burning sun outside.

Opening the frail door out to the partially weeded back garden, the blistering sun once again began baking the two businessmen.

"So who was the last tenant?" Bridge asked.

"Some writer and his daughter, didn't really ask many questions, was offered a cut-price and took it," Reagan answered, before picking up a shovel that lay on the floor. He peered into an empty excavation that had been shovelled from the mud.

Making their way back inside, they came to the cool air of the hallway once again, and following the muddy footprints that littered the passage, they stopped before the sudden hole that had been smashed into the wall.

"What on earth is that?" Bridge exclaimed.

"I don't know... there was no mention of this on the floor plan," Reagan answered, peering curiously around the edges of the make-shift entrance.

The air from within was even cooler than the chilled temperature of the hallway, which they realised was probably so cold from the breeze down below.

"I think we should board this up." Reagan said, feeling a strange tingle of anxiety from the odd darkness before him.

Turning away to have a look at the kitchen, they both suddenly froze.

Looking at each other with curiosity, they realised that the sound they both heard did not come from each other.

"Did you hear that?" The younger man asked. "It sounded like it came from down there," he said, leaning closer to the entrance once more.

Pausing for a moment, the hairs on the back of their necks stood up once again as the unmistakable but distorted noise of some harrowing, spluttering laugh came rebounding towards them.