The Dead House

On 25 January 2005, at 1:46 AM, Naida Chounan-Dupré was admitted to Musgrove Park Hospital with severe blood loss, shock, and a severed tongue. She entered the operating room at 2:05 AM and was transfused with five units of blood, type AB positive. Coma was induced for three days. The use of her tongue was permanently lost.




The following diary entries are smudged with blood in various places. It is presumed to be from Kaitlyn’s wounds, reopened while breaking out of the wardrobe Ari Hait locked her in before rushing Naida Chounan-Dupré to the hospital.





Diary of Kaitlyn Johnson


Tuesday, 25 January 2005, 2:24 am

Basement

Her tongue is still on the floor. They left it behind.


2:36

Torn between fury and fear. Want to hunt down the Shyan and slit his throat. Want to throw myself blindly into the Dead House and will my way to the gateway. I don’t even know what to look for.

Terrified to try.


Someone took the chicken.


Lost them. Lost Carly. Now Naida too. I keep hurting the people around me.


He probably saved me, Dee.

Yes, I know he locked us in a cupboard.

Yes, I know that too.

But if he hadn’t, I’d be back in Claydon, wouldn’t I? Probably in isolation on the high-security ward. Maybe even prison. Can they arrest you for breaking out of the hospital? And that’s without what they’re saying about Juliet…

I would never hurt anyone.

Besides, they would have found a way to blame me for Naida too. And I couldn’t live with any more of their accusations and lies. Still… when he pushed me in like that and locked the door… when I realized he was going to leave me in there while he got Naida to the hospital with the others… I’ll admit to a certain… annoyance.

But he was protecting me. Protecting us.

Protecting the thing inside me too.


3:12 am

I need news.

What’s happening?

Is Naida okay?

I can’t believe what I saw… what she did. What it did. She saved me. She saved me. She sacrificed her voice for me. How can I ever repay that? She’s a saint.

I don’t know—I don’t bloody know! Shhh! I hear something—





91


8 days until the incident


Naida Camera Footage

Tuesday, 25 January 2005, 3:14 AM

Basement



Footsteps echo in the room as someone hurries down the stairs, their heavy, condensed breath following like a trail. The armoire door is broken, kicked out from the inside.

“Carly?”

Kaitlyn, who has been kneeling in the corner over her journal, looks up as Brett rounds the corner from the stairwell. All we see of him is his dark outline, trapped in the shadows of the darkest part of the room. The meager lightbulb flickers above him.

“Anything?” Kaitlyn asks, closing her book and sliding it behind her. “News? Is she okay?”

“They were operating when I left.”

“Can they… fix it?”

He steps closer, out of the shadows, and Kaitlyn gets to her feet, but doesn’t move closer. Brett seems to teeter, wanting to step forward.

“No. She’ll… she’s lost it. I… What the hell happened in here, Carly?”

“Kaitlyn.”

He nods. “Sorry.”

“You saw. You saw what happened.”

He grabs his hair and shakes his head. “I don’t know—she… she cut off her own tongue… she almost died.”

“There was something in the house. I didn’t see it… it was going to do something to me… maybe kill me? I don’t know. Can the thing in the house live if the house itself—me—is gone? But it was going to get inside me maybe, control me? And Naida… Naida, she—she put herself in the way. It got her. I… I don’t know why she cut out her… maybe the thing made her… or maybe she did it to protect us from it… maybe it was trying to possess her? Use her against us? And she stopped it. I… I don’t know, Brett. I just don’t know!”

She is shrill.

“This is mental,” he says, then yells, “This is insane!”

“You didn’t believe it was real, did you?” She gives him a withering look. “Did you?”

He sighs, paces the room. “I don’t know. I don’t bloody well know. That house—the… I don’t know!”

“You knew something could happen. Naida explained it. She told us it was risky—”

“Yeah, but I didn’t know it was—” He breaks off, turns to face her. “I didn’t know it was… that you… Carly…”

“You thought I was insane? Thought I was making it up? That I really am Carly but that you had to humor me or something? That crap you spun about me being different at night was just—”

Her words are cut off as Brett leans forward, and we can assume he is kissing her, since his arms lift and disappear as though around her small torso. “I thought… I thought I was helping you by letting you think…” Something in the shadows moves, and the camera adjusts to the change in light as Ari, apparently having descended the stairs, hurls himself at Brett.