Riley Manor

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Riley Manor2

Moira had always been a bit flaky as she called it. Orphaned in a fiery accident at the age of thirteen, she spent the next ten years rearranging the thoughts in her head like she did the chairs and tables in her room. Never considered completely stable but no longer considered demented, she had been released from Rivers Run Asylum for the criminally insane. 3

At thirteen, they had believed her when she told them that she had killed her parents. Of course they did. It was the easiest road to take. The voices, the shadows, the things that went bump in the night at Riley Manor were just too out there. A thirteen year old girl-child raised on abundant love and affection of parent for child and child for parent, why sure they murder their parents every day. Something just happens, they slip. It was just easier to blame prepubescence and poltergeists. Anger, erupturing like a geyser, deep from within uncontrolled and not stopped and you get a child turned to murder for being denied her desired want of the moment. Yeah, that explained it all. Jesus, Moira had been confused and unstable but a murderer she was not. Growing tired of the constant questions, the third degree, she broke. She told them what they wanted to hear, anything as long as she never returned to the Manor.

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Riley Manor, a dilapidated aging gray edifice, more ruin and rot than manor house, was the ancestral home of Moira Riley, now wife to Stephen McGee, M.D., practicing psychiatrist.

 5

She often joked that marrying Stephen was the best thing she’d ever done. She had her own private shrink. He kept her out of the locked places, the padded cells. No more leather bite blocks shoved between her teeth while they sent 1600 milliamps of God’s power through her body. If she had been asked who was the Looney Tune in their partnership without doubt she would have said, Stephen.

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Moira and Stephen were married only a couple of years when Stephen learned of Riley Manor. It had never troubled him a whit that she had been labeled insane, spent seven years at Rivers Run, but at not knowing about Riley Manor he went ballistic.

 7

“Goddammit Moira, I have been going around here for months trying to get investors interested in my Phoenix House. That sniveling idiot, Bentley, at the hospital asked me – “What about that manor home of your wife’s?” Not willing to ask - What manor home? - I said it’s being considered.”

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“Surely you’re joking, Stephen.”

 9

“No my dear, I am not. I spent time in the library and in public records, and I’ll be damned. You own a virtual mansion and the surrounding six-hundred acres that go with.”

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“Yes, operative words, I OWN.”

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“Careful Moira do not become too comfortable in you relationship with me. I have certain instruments, legal and otherwise, to get what I want where you are concerned.”

 12

“Why Stephen, threats – I thought you were on a higher plane.”

 13

“Christ Moira, be reasonable. At least consider using the place. You have to admit from what I saw of the Riley, it would be perfect for Phoenix.”

 14

“You saw? You’ve been there?”

 15

“No. Just pictures.”

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“Believe me Stephen, the best way to see the place is in a picture. Get closer and Riley Manor, re-birthed even as Phoenix House, will arrive DOA.”

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That conversation had taken place over two years ago now. Stephen had gotten his way. Moira deeded the property and the house over to Phoenix Enterprises. Much like when in the hospital, she grew tired of the constant prodding and threats, and gave in to Stephen, but Moira refused to be part of the build. She would not go near Riley Manor. She would not go near Phoenix House.

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Stephen had been thwarted on every front at first. The local stories of the goings on at Riley Manor were rife. The tales of the mist that traveled the land and swept the unsuspecting away, to where - no one knew. The plaintive cries and great wailing that emanated through the windows. The house stood like a bird of prey its wide front door its maw used to chug down its victims. There were stories of people finding regurgitated bits of clothing, teeth, hair and bone on the house proper. True or not, it was scary stuff.

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The town’s folk believed evil was afoot at Riley Manor. They had believed it all those years ago when they tried to convince Moira’s parents it was best to just leave the place, and they believed it now.

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Quite suddenly Stephen’s luck changed. He got the needed capital for the renovation, but that was the stipulation - renovation not a rebuild. Moira pleaded with Stephen to walk away, but Stephen did not listen.

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Stephen had been away more these past months than at home. When he was home he was restless, and had taken to being cruel to Moira. He had become insistent that she come to see Riley Manor. She argued and said a picture was enough. These days when his eyes alighted on Moira, they were devoid of gentleness and love, if there had ever been love. They were rabid openly showing the desire to wield power to make Moira do as he bid. This night was different. He simply came in. He did not cajole or try to convince. The time for argument he simply declared as being done. Imperiously he stood as if her king, her ruler, his to command.

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“It’s time Moira.”

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“What are you talking about Stephen?”

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“I have a contract that’s come due.”

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“So take care of it.”

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Moira was feeling chilled, trapped. Her desire was to run. She backed slowly toward the door.

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Stephen rapidly closed the distance between them. He swept her into his arms. Held her tight against him and administered vecuronium bromide, a paralyzing agent. His lips grazed her ear as he whispered, “I am my dear.”

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Suddenly white-coated men entered the room with a gurney. Stephen motioned to them to place her upon it. Stephen strapped her down, all the while staring into Moira’s eyes. When done, he leaned close and whispered once more.

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“Contract due and soon paid in full,” and he smiled.

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Moira saw an evil she had not seen in him before. She was aware of every movement, every word said, totally conscious but just as totally unable to move. Stephen said it was necessary. She had to be aware when they arrived. Moira had no need to ask the “where.” She knew. Riley Manor.

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Moira closed her eyes and remembered back more than fifteen years. She let the memory out that she had put in a box, chained with chains and locked with locks. She was now full circle, no longer the child, but now she knew what it wanted. It wanted her.

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Stephen had been used as the conduit, much the same as her own parents had been, but her parents loved her more than they loved their own lives, and they ran taking Moira with them. Moira just did not know that she carried the seed inside, the first, like a prototype, a dry run. Yes, she had killed her parents or the thing inside had – the rage within, the black tide. It spread its tentacles, first to her father taking from him the breath of life, a sucking vortex that left him lifeless. It snaked around her mother as she ministered to her fallen husband. Then they were gone and Moira had been the instrument. She had been forcefully ejected from the car just prior to its being engulfed in flames. The accident became a crime scene when they found some type of strange accelerant covering the outside of the car and splashed about on the interior. At thirteen she may have maturated enough to carry out their desires physically, but mentally she had slipped over the edge and became lost to them and confined in the asylum more due to their own machinations than her having lost her mind. But even so, the one thing Moira was now sure of she had to be in close proximity to Riley Manor for them to carry out their plan.

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As the miles passed, she heard the sepulchral chattering, the hiss of whispers rising one over the other vying to be heard. It has been almost fifty minutes past the time this epoch had begun. They were just a few miles out from the Manor. Her ability to feel her body had been slowly creeping back. She moved to test and Stephen caught her movement from the corner of his eye.

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“Stephen, I’m nauseated.”

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“Well sweetie, cant’ have that. We are almost there.”

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“I know. I can hear the voices.”

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“Moira, what a find you’ve been. You know what they want?”

 38

“No Stephen. I don’t. I have figured out enough to know that I am a carrier of some kind, a vessel for them?”

 39

“My dear you are to serve as their queen.”

 40

“Your DNA, you carry that something they need. You will be their incubator, give birth to legion. They have been waiting a very long time.”

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At that moment Moira threw up, choked on her own vomit. Stephen elevated and turned her head, cleared her airway.

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“Ah Moira, we can’t’ be having that.”

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Stephen opened his medical bag.

 44

“I set up another dose of the vec just in case. They were quite clear that they wanted you paralyzed but totally aware.”

 45

The nausea worried him. He withdrew some droperidol, an antinauseant, and without giving it a thought administered it right after the vecuronium. It was normal to follow the one with the other.

 46

Moira was again helpless. The voices were louder now and sounding more like the drone of thousands. She felt movement inside her body. Her organs she could feel each one. She felt her blood sluicing through her veins. But even with all this that she was feeling, she could not move. A tear slipped from Moira’s eye.

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The van came to a halt just outside the main entrance. The stretcher was lifted out and rolled forward. Moira was still, unmoving, eyes closed.

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Suddenly the wind rose in an unholy wail. The vaporous mist rose up. It enveloped the manor, the van, and the entire surrounding acreage. A chorus of agony spewed from the house. The Phoenix was now without wings. Stephen panicked. He glanced at Moira and then he knew. Moira was dead. At that moment, Stephen was catapulted into the air, a marionette in dance, the puppet master unseen. Rage had laid hold of Stephen as he done before with Moira’s parents.

 49

The stories of the locals about Riley Manor now were bigger, bolder, more terrifying. No one in the town traveled about when the mist was out, and now no one dared come close to Riley Manor any more, night or day.

 50

The people involved with the Phoenix project put out a news release. It seems Moira McGee had relapsed into psychosis. Stephen in fear of his life administered the drugs to subdue and allow transport of his wife to Phoenix House where he had hoped to use ECT to restore his wife’s mental status. Unsuspected by all was that Moira had long QT syndrome. Seems the particular drugs administered, the droperidol in particular, exacerbated the syndrome. It caused her heart to go into V-fib arrest, and she succumbed before she could be helped. In the midst of the medical tragedy, there had been an undiscovered gas leak which was inadvertently ignited. It was the source of the explosion that killed Stephen McGee and the medical attendants who had helped him in the care of his wife. The Phoenix Foundation representative said there was nothing other worldly or paranormal in the matter. It was all quite attributable to ordinary events.

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The talk in the town diner told a different tale, but that’s what people do. They like hanging their fear on ghosts and ghoulies, and things that go bump in the night.

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