Don't Stray From The Light

Disregard The Disappearances

"It's a weird one mate...of that I'm sure." The police constable said apprehensively, standing among the ruins of the charred house with a perplexed look on his mustached face.
"What makes it weird? It's a fire, fires happen all the time." Greg insisted, kicking his way through the ashes and the wood so as to stand at the man's side and look in at the firemen who were still hacking away at the crumbling infrastructure.
"It's not the fire, it's who was in the fire, it's who wasn't supposed to be here. The man lived alone, with his butler or whatnot. No one was reported to have been at the house at the time of the blaze, no one's gone up here in twenty years." The constable said, wiping his sweaty brow with a black handkerchief before looking over towards the ambulance that was sitting docile near the driveway, under the gates that remained the only remains of the house that went untouched. The trees lined the driveway in their eerie way, with long spidery branches hanging over the cobblestone, lining a path that led down the hill and to the city. People had noticed the smoke right away, a beacon of sorts, considering the house's juxtaposition to the residential part of town. However it went up quick and it burned fast, had the house been constructed with bricks it may not have burned so easily, but the wooden frame of the walls and the floors...well all that was left was the heavy stones that had been used in near medieval construction of the manor. It was a mere ghost of a house now, once having stood so tall.
"Did the two die?" Greg wondered, turning back to the constable as the man nodded grimly.
"We believe they did, the bodies are heavily burned, and no one's around the identify them. It'll take a while." The police constable admitted with a sigh. "But that's not the weird part."
"Then what is?" Greg demanded, only a bit irritated at this man's insistence to being vague and mysterious. If something was off about the fire, why didn't he just come forward about it, rather than alluding to it to build suspense?
"Two men lived here, and we pulled eleven from the ruins." The constable said grimly, tucking his hands into his pockets miserably.
"Eleven?" Greg emphasized, to which the man nodded gravely. "Who else was in there? Why would there be what...nine others?"
"Well that's just the thing, but we have been able to identify one of them, and heavy suspicion alludes to the rest being the missing men, all of them. In the house." The constable admitted heavily.
"You're saying they were being hidden up here the whole time, they're not actually dead?" Greg wondered with an almost relieved sigh, for this case has been heavy on his shoulders for years now. To think that the eight men had been hiding about here for all that time, well why hadn't he seen it before? This house has always given him the creeps; well of course he should've given it a better look before it burnt to the ground!
"Well they're dead now!" the constable exclaimed. Greg just rolled his eyes, for that wasn't really what he had been getting at.
"All that effort, just washed down the drain. Found with a fire, despite years of investigation, a bloody fire!" Greg exclaimed. The constable nodded, however he didn't seem satisfied, almost as if the worst of the news was still yet to come. Greg watched the house as it smoked, wondering just what secrets had been hiding in here with its only two occupants.
"Mate that's not the worst part, the man we've identified...you knew him. We all did, in fact we'd like you to talk to the widow." The constable admitted with a sigh. A shiver went down Greg's back as he looked towards the man, nervous now as to who else might have been found in this fire.
"Widow?" Greg clarified, thinking to all of his friends and which of them had actually been married. Well the list was short, that was for sure.
"We found the body severely burned. It seemed almost as if he had been attacked before the blaze, the scarring around the wrists alludes to capture and there were...bite marks." The constable admitted with a shiver, making Greg's eyes squint as he tried to think of just which of his friends might have suffered such a horrible fate.
"Well out with it then, who is this unlucky fellow?" Greg demanded, his fingers clenching as he already suspected whose untimely fate they were discussing. The constable took a deep breath, shaking his head mournfully and staring out towards the destroyed manor once more.
"John Watson." He admitted finally.