The Haunting of Beacon Hill
The Beckoning Dead: Book 1
Ambrose Ibsen
Copyright © 2019 by Ambrose Ibsen
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses and events are the product of the author's imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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Created with Vellum
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Thank You For Reading!
About the Author
1
The dark house sat on the knob of raised earth the area's first settlers had taken to calling “Beacon Hill”. Other houses had stood there once, but this mouldering specimen was now the last of its kind, blighting the hillside with its dereliction. The shadows that fell from its awnings and chimney stacks were oily, and cautious onlookers agreed, nine times out of ten, that they were more angular than crumbling features such as these should have been able to cast.
Passersby with an interest in architecture had no shortage of things to discuss where this house was concerned. The ivy-grown exterior of white stone had been discolored by the passage of seasons, and many of the brown shingles along the roof had long ago been worn through, but there persisted in the shabby ruin an almost gothic grandeur.
It was never the architecture that the passersby discussed, however. No, what most drew the eye when one got close to the house was the deposit of shadow in its windows, and the vague but oft-repeated notion that something had only very recently stirred just beyond their shattered panes. Those in close proximity tended to speak of odd noises—chiefly laughs, sobs and echoing footfalls—that emanated from the ruined interior in the hours after dark.
It was likely none had lived in the thing since the Great Crash, and there were some in town who doubted it'd ever been occupied at all—except, that is, by the phantoms populating Montpelier lore. Once every other decade, rumors spread through town of a potential restoration—of an initiative to preserve it as a local landmark by some moneyed interest. But the money never came, plans of restoration never gelled and the stone sentinel of Beacon Hill was left to decay in perennial solitude.
Though somewhat remote from the bustle of surrounding Montpelier, there were occasions when denizens of the town found themselves treading close to the house on Beacon Hill. The hillside was flanked by a narrow creek where local fishermen sought walleye in the spring and summer, and the open fields to the east were popular sites for picnics in good weather.
And still others ventured there—however rarely—with the intention of exploring. Youngsters seeking to make their own fun in a quiet Indiana suburb, or seeking tests of courage, sometimes found their way to its shattered doorstep.
It was on a summer night when the wind rolling down the hillside was uncommonly cool that three high schoolers strode across the moonlit fields and approached the dark abode.
“I've never been this close to it,” admitted Ophelia with a slight tremor in her voice. “It's a lot bigger than I thought—huge.” Combing a lock of soft black hair behind one ear and batting away a cloud of gnats that swarmed her path, she slowed her pace and glanced sheepishly at her companions. “Maybe this is close enough, yeah?”
Leslie, pausing just long enough to square up the house and snap a picture of it with her phone, shook her head. “Nah, let's keep going. We should pop in for a minute, have a look around.”
“But, the stories—” began Ophelia.
With a wad of gum between his teeth, Joey interjected. “You mean the stories about Mother Maggot?” He stepped past the girls, hands in his pockets, and marched onto a crumbling brick walkway that led directly to the house. When he'd walked it a few paces, he stopped and waited for the other two to catch up, the bill of his ball cap masking his face in shadow. “They're true. All of 'em.”
“Shut up, Joey.” Trudging up the path to meet him, Leslie tucked her phone away. “There's nothing in here but a bunch of spiders, maybe some rats.” She looked to Ophelia, who was still hesitantly keeping the rear. “Right?”
Ophelia forced a smile. “O-Obviously.”
“Oh, there's more than just rats in this house.” Joey kicked a loose brick down the hill, watching it tumble for a few moments. His voice sank and he donned a wolfish smirk. “Years ago, my older brother came here with his friends. He and a few guys planned to camp inside the house for the night—even brought sleeping bags.”
“Sounds romantic. Didn't know your brother was into that kinda thing,” was Leslie's rejoinder.
Joey ignored her. “It was just past midnight when one of his buddies left to take a leak, and when he went back inside, he looked up into one of these windows—” He paused, pointing up at the black panes of the second story. “Something was staring back down at him—something terrible. After that, they all lost their nerve and packed up.”
Ophelia tried her hardest to ignore the shiver creeping down her spine as she listened to Joey's yarn. “So, what?” she concluded, shuffling across the discolored bricks and casting a sidelong glance at the house. She cleared her throat and attempted to summon a haughtier tone, but with each step she took she found it harder to banish the quaver in her voice. “One guy thought he saw someone in the window. Big deal. That doesn't prove anything.”
“Sounds like a load of bull if you ask me,” added Leslie. She jogged ahead a few paces and reached into Joey's pocket for his pack of gum. Helping herself to a piece, she dropped the balled-up wrapper into the grass and took to wiping her glasses with her t-shirt. With clean lenses, she peered up at the house, reappraised the contours of its arched entryway, and tossed her shoulders. “It's so dark in there that you can't trust your eyes. You might think you see all sorts of things, but when it comes down to it this is just a big, empty house.”
“Yeah? Well, why don't we find out, then?” Joey tugged on the bill of his hat and finally came to a stop. “It isn't just my brother—loads of other people have claimed to see things in or around this house. Mother Maggot still walks these halls. You can bet on it.”
Still trailing the other two, Ophelia picked at one of the buttons on her shirt with shaky fingers. “Why do they call her Mother Maggot?” she asked. Having arrived within a dozen feet of the entrance, she was struck once again by the place's enormity. It towered above them like a small mountain, its weathered lines aglow in the gleam of a tired moon. Shadow as deep and rich in color as chocolate syrup seemed to pour out of the place. The centuried air that seeped from the open doorway stung her nostrils.
Joey plucked a small flashlight from his keychain. He clicked it on and thrust the bright LEDs through the
threshold in the hopes of taking a look around, but the darkness was vast, unyielding. “Years ago,” he began, his voice unintentionally dropping to a whisper, “a woman lived here with her children. The story goes that she abused them all—did terrible things to them. When one of her sons grew up, he decided to repay her for the years of abuse. He murdered her, brutally, and by the time she was found the maggots had feasted on her body. Or so the story goes...”
Leslie, only moments ago a skeptic, now clung to Joey's arm. Her face appeared pale in the sweeping light. “That's just gross.” Throwing her free hand behind her, she reached out to Ophelia, seeking to link arms.
Ophelia, though, remained anchored in the entryway, watching with wide eyes as the other two floated off into the gloom. “I don't want to...” she said, resting a hand on the stone arch.
“C'mon!” urged Leslie, waving frantically. “We've gotta stick together!”
Joey's clumsy footfalls made the floors whine. Though he and Leslie had made it inside, there was no telling if the boards would continue to support their weight further in. It was possible they'd tread upon a weak spot and plummet straight through. “Come on, Ophelia! We'll just take it slow. I think the floors are holding up.”
It wasn't a fear of falling through the floor that kept Ophelia from venturing inside. As she stared into the darkness, she was overcome with a terror that left her paralyzed. Her stomach fluttered and her limbs grew numb. She knew this feeling. This was what it felt like to court a nightmare on the very edge of sleep—this was like the nauseous fear that pooled in the pit of one's stomach before leaping from a diving board.
Leslie back-tracked just enough to snatch up Ophelia's hand. “Come on!”
Ophelia fell into step behind her friends like a dog dragged on a leash. Her heels dug into the creaky floors and her heart took to thumping irregularly in her chest. She thought to protest, to yank her hand from Leslie's, but now that she was in the thick of it the very notion of breaking the chain was unthinkable. A whimper made its way up her throat and was fossilized there, leaving her to suck the dusty air fitfully through her nostrils. Her eyes began to water—and to this, the dust was merely an accomplice.
The trio delved deeper in. Though its exact dimensions were hidden by the darkness, there could be no doubt that this was a very large, high-ceilinged room. Their shuffling steps disturbed masses of windblown detritus and incited the tenants dwelling therein to scurry away from the bobbing light. Interior walls of crumbling plaster were much-festooned with ancient ribbons of mold; where the exterior walls had grown thin, withered stems of ivy crept through the cracks.
There was no furniture to speak of, no indication that anyone had ever lived in the house, only filth. The curious squealing of the floors—coupled with the furtive chitters of the things that lived beneath—made for a ghastly soundscape. Every step, every labored breath the three sent up into the air echoed till the room seemed to resonate with the stirrings of a legion. Dust floated up from the floors and drifted down from the ceiling; motes danced in the feeble light like flakes of snow in a blizzard.
They persisted into yet remoter passages. From the vast room they unwittingly entered a space of narrower dimensions, the walls streaked in brownish stains. Cobwebs as thick as lace doilies were glimpsed hanging in the distant corners, and in them many-legged things remained huddled in wait.
Ophelia crept on behind her friends, knees knocking against one another. Her hands were getting so sweaty now as to prune up, and the immensity of the darkness was proving disorienting. She tracked the thin glow from Joey's flashlight, and its constant swinging from one side to the next left her dizzy. She opened her mouth to speak—to urge the others to turn back—but could barely draw in sufficient breath to prop up her voice. The taste of the house settled on her tongue as she inhaled and her stomach seized up.
Turning a corner, Joey paused to inspect something in the light. “Looks like I found the way upstairs,” he said, placing his foot tentatively atop the bottom step of a wide stairwell. Pressing down on it, he nodded firmly. “It seems secure enough. Let's go up there and have a look.”
Whatever courage Leslie had possessed prior to that moment was suddenly exhausted. She tugged at Joey's arm, nearly knocking the flashlight from his grasp. “Let's go. We've seen enough. I don't wanna go up there.”
“M-Me neither,” choked out Ophelia. A draft wormed its way through the house, stirring the hairs on her arms. Matting them down with a shudder, she tried pulling the other two back toward the entrance. “Let's get out of here.”
Joey retained his balance and met Ophelia's yank with one of his own. “Aw, don't get all freaked out. It's just a house, right?” His face glowed eerily in the whitish light. “Don't tell me you're actually scared! Don't be such babies. You guys were the ones who wanted to come here, remember?”
His mockery seemed to have the intended effect on Leslie. She drew in a steadying breath and ceased her protests.
Ophelia only became more frantic, however. “I mean it. We need to leave. We shouldn't have come here at all!” Under the circumstances, she didn't mind being labeled a coward. From the moment she'd set eyes on the place, her instincts had been inflamed. The further they'd gone inside, the more conscious she'd become of a great weight in the air—of an impending horror due to materialize around the next corner. Her senses were all in agreement: She needed to leave—before it was too late.
“Let's just look around up there. Then we can go,” insisted Joey, pointing the light up the stairs.
“No, I wanna go now!” Ophelia wrenched on Leslie's arm for all she was worth. She pulled, perhaps, a little too hard.
Leslie lost her footing and sailed to the floor with a thud. Joey followed her down.
In the space of an instant, the chain had been broken.
“Shit!” The light slipped from Joey's grasp and went out with a sudden flash. The three were now buried completely in darkness. Only the sounds of his groping for the light, of Leslie's cursing, gave any indication of their respective positions in the pitch blackness.
“Why the hell did you do that?” asked Leslie. She spat out her gum and hissed, cradling a sore elbow.
Even as she hacked in the newly-flown dust, Ophelia threw herself onto the floor and patted around in search of the flashlight. Without any light to see by, the horrors lurking in this sea of darkness were soon to manifest—to close in on them. She scrabbled about, gasping and coughing, but her fingers found nothing but splinters.
There entered into the scene a new noise, which halted Ophelia's search and quelled the bickering of the other two instantaneously. From up above—somewhere on the stairwell—there came an unmistakable footfall. One of the steps groaned as someone unseen began a descent.
They all fell silent, unsure of what they'd heard.
A second footfall removed all doubt, however.
Spooked, Joey stammered, “Is... is someone there?”
No one replied, but there was a third step, and that was answer enough.
Then a fourth.
The trio did not sit and listen for a fifth. Instead, the blind scene erupted into chaos. There was no time to sit and consider the intentions of this new presence; the occupant of the stairwell was soon to be upon them.
All hope of retrieving the flashlight was abandoned. Joey rose with a groan, slamming into one of the walls. After a moment of hesitation, the sound of his sneakers beating the floors drowned out everything else. He sprinted into the interior darkness, casting off all pretensions of bravery.
Leslie yelped confusedly, calling for the others in turn. “Joey! Wait up! Ophelia, where are you?” Her voice bounced off the walls, waxed deafening as it grew in shrillness. Throwing out her hands and trying to regain her bearings, she choked back a cry and thundered off. In her flight, she caught the edge of an unseen corner with her leg. The remainder of her confused escape was to be carried out with a limp.
“G-guys! Wait for me!” In the commotion, Oph
elia felt the boards shaking beneath her. Still on the floor where she'd been searching for the flashlight, she found her sense of direction hopelessly muddled. Which way was she supposed to turn to get back to the entrance? Joey had seemingly gone in one direction and Leslie was fleeing in another. Everywhere she looked there was only darkness.
Rising to her feet, she fast understood the direction of her flight didn't matter. The only important thing was that she run—that she get away from whatever dwelt close-by, on the stairs. And that someone or something stood very near indeed she was nauseously certain.
“Joey?” she shrieked. “Leslie?”
Her friends didn't reply, but from the stairs there came yet another footfall. The vibrations coming through the very floor she stood on told her that the descent was finished; Ophelia was standing within arm's reach of the unseen presence now.
Finally, pulse pounding in her ears, she gathered her wits and fled. Having no sense of direction, she tried to latch onto whatever sensory clue she could grasp, and attempted to follow the sound of Leslie's whimpering.
She raked through the blackness for something, anything, to help her find her way—a helping hand, a wall to lean against—but was lost in the sea of shadow. Trembling and barely able to control her legs, Ophelia staggered on, the sounds of Joey's running and Leslie's voice fading quickly into the distance.
Stifling her sobs, she ran with no clear aim, the floors squealing obnoxiously as if to mock her wandering. Just stay calm. If you stay calm, you'll get out of here eventually, she assured herself. The house isn't that big... you'll find a door or window soon enough...
The Haunting of Beacon Hill Page 1
