Copyright ©2008 by Bryan Smith

Headline from the May 1 edition of the Chattanooga Herald:

“HOUSE OF BLOOD”CONTINUES TO MYSTIFY

CHATTANOOGA, TN -Nearly a year has passed since the revelation that an old mansion high in the east Tennessee mountains for years doubled as a house of horrors and a prison for luckless travelers. In that time, remarkably few survivors of the so-called “House of Blood” have been willing to speak to the press.

The known facts are few. Authorities have been as unforthcoming with details as the survivors. The cloak of silence has fueled wild Internet speculation, including persistent rumors of a strange, perhaps supernatural element to the mystery. Many have claimed the house was ruled over by a centuries-old entity, a vampire, perhaps, or an alien creature masquerading as a human man, a man known only as “The Master.” And while it may be safe to dismiss these notions as obvious hoaxes and flights of fancy, the truth is they will continue to flourish so long as the public is kept in the dark about what really happened.

A month ago, this reporter set out to learn that truth, only to be foiled at every turn by a seemingly impenetrable wall of lies, misdirections, and general obfuscation. Each of the top law officers in the county refused to talk to the Herald for this story, citing the “sensitive nature of the ongoing investigation.” Authorities at the state and federal level also refused comment.

Repeated attempts to contact the handful of survivors who spoke with the media in the immediate aftermath of the “liberation” (as they called it) invariably met with the same stony silence. Dream Weaver, 31, is perhaps the best-known survivor. The stunning blonde was a media darling in those first weeks, but she has become as reclusive and elusive as Howard Hughes was in the latter stages of his life. She appeared on magazine covers and was featured extensively in television interviews. Late night talk hosts famously made fun of her colorful name. She eventually married Chad Robbins, 31, another survivor of the House of Blood.

Neither Ms. Weaver nor Mr. Robbins could be reached for this story. One source reports that Weaver and Robbins have separated, though the Herald has been unable to confirm this prior to going to press.

We also attempted to contact the man known as “Lazarus,” who functioned as a sort of guru to those imprisoned in the cavernous region beneath the infamous house, a place known simply as “Below.” He has been described as “charasmatic” and “almost godlike.”

He appears in only a minimal amount of news footage from that time, and even then only in fleeting glimpses, behaving, some say, like a man deliberately avoiding the spotlight. The blurry images of “Lazarus” have been analyzed and picked apart by legions of amateur online sleuths. One investigator claims to have identified him as a Virginia businessman missing since the early 1990s. Others insist the man is one of a handful of long-believed-to-be-dead rock stars, with the majority of theories centering around Jim Morrison and Elvis Presley. Though these theories are clearly absurd, they will continue to proliferate in the continued absence of any real answers. No one the Herald has talked to has seen or heard from “Lazarus” since shortly after the revolt at the House of Blood.

Most of the Master’s accomplices died in that revolt. However, two have remained missing and unaccounted for, Giselle Burkhardt and a woman identified only as “Ms. Wickman.” Though both women are regarded as highly dangerous (both have been on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List for several months), the Herald has learned that authorities are particularly keen to find Ms. Wickman, whose role at the House of Blood has been likened to that of an SS commandant at a concentration camp…

Five months later

Blood was everywhere.

Sticky gore was on his face and in his hair, hot little rivulets of it trickling down from the gash behind his ear and the larger wound at the crown of his skull. The salty tang of it stung his mouth. Dean wiped more blood from his eyes with a shaking hand and saw bright red splotches on the dirty hardwood floor of the old farmhouse. He lifted his head and saw yet more blood on the nearest wall, huge crimson smears. It looked as if a crazed housepainter had splashed several cans of dark red paint all over the fucking place. Here, in the foyer, all over the goddamned floor. On the front door. And over there, the staircase bannister, it was covered with a slick film of red.

…blood everywhere…

His blood. Some of it. More blood entered his mouth. Check that. A lot of it. Lisa’s blood. A fuck of a lot of Lisa’s blood. John’s blood. And don’t forget Debbie. Some of the biggest splashes had erupted from the stump of the poor dimwit’s neck when the crazy woman with the axe lopped her head off.

The air was pungent with the combined stenches of spilt blood and recent, violent death, with underlying aromas of piss and shit, the ripest of the latter emanating from the seat of his own soiled britches.

So much blood.

So much motherfucking blood.

Here.

There.

Blood…everywhere.

Then, the absurd capper to it all, the guitar riff from AC/DC’s “If You Want Blood, You’ve Got It” began to echo in his head. He closed his eyes again and gritted his teeth, trying to will the old song away-but it just kept playing on an endless loop, that maddening, relentless riff and the dead singer’s voice on the chorus.

Over and over and over. Holy hell, how incredibly fucked up was that?

His eyes fluttered open again. Drank in the carnage again.

He heard voices. Muffled. He strained his ears and realized the sound was coming from outside. Then came an abrupt burst of mad laughter. The sound made him shake with fear and anger. How could anyone do the things these people had done and laugh about it?

But the answer was obvious. These weren’t just people.

They were monsters.

And any moment now they’d be back inside, back to finish the night’s grisly work. Because he was the only one still alive. He sniffled, the hard reality hitting him again. His friends were all dead. And they had died horribly. After hours of torture and unspeakable violations.

Suffering beyond quantifying.

The memory of the awful things he’d seen taunted him, a dark promise of the shape of his own near future. For some reason he couldn’t fathom, they’d saved him for last. He had been beaten. Tortured. Mutilated. Two fingers were gone from his left hand, the stumps a charred mass of blackened flesh where they’d cauterized the wounds with an acetylene torch. But they’d spared him the worst of it, measuring the pain and trauma, keeping him alive and forcing him to watch helplessly as his girlfriend was flayed alive.

He sniffled again, wiped more tears from his eyes.

Something glinted in the periphery of his vision. He turned his head slowly to the left, wincing as fresh jolts of agony sizzled through his body. His breath caught in his throat at the sight of the axe propped against a side of a broken down old sofa in the living room. Lantern light flickered in the room. The old house had no electricty. The old Sutton place had been abandoned for decades. Once in a while kids from town would come here to party and fuck, but even that was a rare occurrence these days. The creaky, termite-infested farmhouse was just too creepy and gross a place to take girls. But tonight had been different, of course. What better night to visit the old Sutton place than Halloween, right?