Spook_me 2020 - Haunted - Chapter 20

[m_findlow]

Title: Haunted
Fandom: Torchwood
Characters: Jack, Gwen, Ianto, OCs
Author: m_findlow
Rating: M
Length: 50,847 words
Content notes: none
Author notes: Written for spook_me 2020 Prompt - Ghost
Summary: The team investigate rumours of a haunted house in rural Wales.

Ianto was going to find Jack. Jack would be down here. Jack would be okay. He couldn't die. But he might need help. Ianto imagined him perhaps tied up and gagged, unable to cry out for help. When he found the people, or whatever, that had done this, he vowed he'd make them pay.

The place was almost pitch black but he could begin to make out some shadowy shapes in the darkness. The more he focused on them, the more they began to form into tangible, identifiable shapes. A broken chair, an upturned crate, buckets and a mop. Things he remembered seeing down here before. He grabbed for the mop, wielding it like a staff in case he needed to defend himself against anything. It felt better having some kind of weapon than nothing at all.

More and more things began to take shape. There was a faint glow emanating from the boiler grille that cast some items into sharp relief and others into shadow. He might have sobbed in relief that his vision was returning were it not for the fact that it was almost beginning to reveal the floor of the cellar which was missing one crucial thing. Jack.

If he'd had a stack of bibles he'd have sworn he thought Jack was down here. He'd smelled him. More than that, he'd heard someone down here. He hadn't imagined that. He'd heard their rasping breaths, their chattering of teeth. Although that in itself was odd. With the boiler down here, it was actually reasonably warm. It was probably the warmest place in the house, being such a confined space.

A thud of wood against wood made him turn on the spot. A second more distinct sound of a heavy meal key turning in a lock drove every other thought from his mind. He dropped the mop in an instant and bolted up the steep steps whereupon he found the door now shut and bolted against him.

‘Hey!’ He pummeled the door with his palms, continuing to yell at whoever was on the other side. There was no handle for him to tug, no latch he could move. And of course there bloody wasn't, his mind screamed, because who needed a handle on the inside of a door that would never be shut against you!

He gave up beating against the door when it became apparent that no one could hear him, or whoever had locked him in here in the first place was ignoring his cries. He leaned his head against the wood for a moment, cursing his own stupidity. When he pulled it back, he wiped the back of his hand across it and down his face, removing a thin sheen of sweat. It struck him as odd. He didn't sweat very much, not even when Jack had him utterly spent after several hours of very physical lovemaking. Out of breath, yes, but it took a lot to get him lathered up.

He turned around and leaned his back against the door, rolling up his sleeves. It really was getting ridiculously warm down here. It had been so cold down here earlier. He plodded back down the steps, just barely illuminated from below.

The boiler was a monstrous looking thing, all hard cast iron and brick. It had three heavy grates, one large one at the base and two smaller ones above it on either side, making it look like a huge sad face. That face glowed with a strong orange light now, brighter than before. The metal basket sitting beside it had been full to overflowing with chocks of wood to feed it, which he and Jack had diligently carted in from the stockpile by the side of the house. Now the basket lay empty. Someone had forced all of the wood into the boiler and it was beginning to burn fiercely. Too fiercely.

He looked around for the metal shovel that had been used to put the wood into the grille before, but it was missing. As was, he began to realise, pretty much anything that might have been of use in helping to remove some of the fuel load. Everything he looked at was either made of wood or something else flammable.

A trickle ran down the center of his spine as sweat accumulated beneath his clothes. He felt more beading on his forehead and the clammy uncomfortable feeling as he pulled his collar away from his neck. It felt like the room had doubled in temperature in just a few minutes. He wiped his brow again and fished around in the piles of abandoned junk. He picked up the mop again, turning it around and using the end to flip open the main boiler door. He wished he hadn't as the heat of the furnace within came radiating out, hitting him in the face and sucking the air dry with its heat. It was like looking into the jaws of hell itself.

He tried to swallow but his mouth and throat were already parched. Staying down here was not going to be pleasant. He jogged back up the steps and shoulder charged the door, hoping to force it open, but it was solidly bolted in place and his body just bounced off it, nearly sending him tumbling all the way back down the stairs. He managed to stop himself just in time. Instead he tried bracing his hands against the stone walls, kicking out at any spot where the hinges might be weakened with age and rust.

‘Son of a bitch!’ he swore, giving it one last hard kick to nil effect. A salty bead of sweat rolled down into his eye and made it sting. The irony of it wasn't lost on him. ‘I really don't get paid enough for this.’ He dropped down onto the steps and buried his head against his knees, trying to find a breath in the oppressively hot air. Hot air rises, he knew, but he couldn't be bothered moving further down. It didn't seem like it would be any cooler down there sitting right next to a sweltering furnace.

There was a snap and then a crackle. He almost didn't notice it, but suddenly the glow from the furnace was brighter. A mass of bright orange and yellow flame was lighting up the room. Not just lighting it up, but burning it up. There was a whump! as flames danced from one spot to another, igniting a large canvas cloth that had been covering broken furniture. Oh, God! A piece of burning wood must have tumbled out of the overfilled furnace hatch. The space was quickly becoming a ball of orange light as more items were licked by flame, catching alight and spreading to more areas.

There was no way to stamp it out. Too much was already on fire and thick black smoke was beginning to fill the room, searching for any way out. It traveled quickly up the narrow steps and filled the space around him, even as the heat intensified.

Ianto beat against the door for all he was worth. ‘Help! Somebody help! Please!’ Black smoke began to choke his words, blurring everything as it thickened around him. Flames were engulfing the room below him and he didn't know if they could travel up the stone steps and walls to meet him, but he guessed he would surely suffocate first.

He began screaming Jack's name over and over again, panicking and not knowing what else to do. In his head he desperately pleaded that Jack might sweep in at the last possible moment. That was what he did, be the hero, save the day. If ever Ianto needed saving it was now.

He yelled between heaving coughs until he felt his fist against the door growing less and less effective, finally forgetting to beat altogether as he dropped to his side whilst the rest of him slumped against the door and slid to the ground, tumbling several steps down even as he lost all conscious awareness.

Next chapter...