Foster's

Teddy .8

Sherriff Campbell knew a call out the Culverton House about a dead body or two was bound to be coming, but the house got people at least a year after they moved in. Not two days in.

The girl couldn't have even unpacked yet.

And wasn't the tea on the street that it was only one woman?

But the call stated multiple bodies, the need for multiple coroner vans, and one ambulance.

They were obviously short staffed, so a few hearses had been called in from other small towns near-by.

He got there and found that there was a fleet of people there. The single news crew the town had was attempting to get access to the house. There was a flock of concerned neighbours. All available cop cars in the town were there, all three of them, and all of his available cops were working on crowd control.

He rounded the ambulance and found the EMT sitting there watching the house. Like everyone else he probably didn't want to go near it.

"What did they call you in for?"

"Poor thing had a right shock," he said nodding in the direction of the massive rose bushes under the windows where he could see a woman hunched over and just straight vomiting. "Apparently she couldn't handle the sight. Fainted first and now she's just... getting all that negative feeling out of her."

And oh boy was she.

"She's gotta be running on empty soon."

That had to be the new owner. And she was alive. He probably shouldn't have been shocked.

Another round of bodies came out and past him. They weren't... fresh though. They looked to be mummified.

So... she had stumbled onto a few bodies hidden in the walls?

He called his deputy, Brett Fernsby, over and hit him with a typical: "What do we have?"

"She found a room in the basement, hidden room. Had twenty five bodies in it. Doesn't look like foul play, doesn't even look like the room's been opened in a couple hundred years. Coroner says they've probably been in there since the house was first built. It's probably the missing slaves."

Oh shit.

They never had gotten official proof that the Culverton House was a stop on the Underground railroad, this might be what proved it.

"And she just... opened a door and found them?"

"Well it's a hidden room, hidden latch. Apparently she was looking for secret passageways. You know? Moving bookcases, hidden doors, that sort of thing. Thought she hit a jackpot and found a treasure or something, found bodies instead."

It was weird that she was the first person to stumble upon this. Especially with all the renovations that had been done to make the place a hotel. Not a single person had ever found the hidden room? Really?

The two of them stood there and watched as she straightened up. She ran the back of her hand over her mouth, briefly, took what seemed to be the barest of breaths and then just leant back over those rose bushes and started vomiting again.

"She's gonna dehydrate herself if she doesn't stop soon," he said.

He waved over their resident medic, Mickey, who had just been standing by his truck watching this happen.

Campbell knew most of the folks in this own. Which meant he knew Mickey Dunn. Mickey had been trouble as a kid, but he mellowed out when he got the medic job. He liked driving the ambo around town. Made him feel important helping people.