Ghosts, Ghouls, and Haunted Houses

by Carrie King

  Mandy nodded, still scanning sections of the journal. "Uh-oh."

  "What?"

  "She had a lover. Keith Miller."

  She read a few more lines and then turned to Jessica again, frowning.

  "I think we both know where this is leading, don't we? Do you think they plotted to kill him? This says that he is buried out back."

  Jessica thought about that. "I wonder if they're both still here? The spirits of Lord Greyfield, probably murdered and seeking revenge, and Lady Beatrice, maybe trapped here because of her own hatred."

  Well, this was something, wasn't it? Jessica stood. "I want to go see if we can find where he was buried."

  Mindy nodded to show her agreement, but she looked a little reluctant.

  With that, she left the sitting room and exited the front door, walking along the front of the manor house before rounding the side and heading for the back. There was no ocean view here. The grass was long and tangled, and maybe thirty meters away heavily wooded trees blocked the view of the area to the north. The pine trees were bent and gnarled, the underbrush thick and unwelcoming. Would the two murdering lovers have buried Lord Greyfield deep in those woods or in the field beside the house?

  The field? She searched the field for several minutes, walking back and forth, seeking an old tombstone, a marker, something that designated the final resting place of the murdered lord. She saw nothing …

  The pain! He couldn't move, couldn't defend himself. The shock, the betrayal, the fury of his helplessness, surged through him. The first thrust of the knife had come from behind as he and Keith headed for the stables to check on one of the horses. Keith, his foreman, had told him that his beloved gelding was acting strangely.

  The first unexpected blow had caught him off guard, but he did manage to spin around, shocked to find Beatrice standing not far behind Keith. Her face was pale, her eyes wide. There was a disconcerting smile on her face. At that moment, he knew. At the same instant, Keith stabbed again. The blade caught him in the stomach. The pain made it hard to breathe …

  "Kill him! Kill him!" Beatrice shouted.

  He tried to grab the knife from Keith, wrestled for it, but he knew he was mortally wounded. The blow to the back of his head knocked him to the ground. He landed on his back, staring up at Beatrice, holding a rock stained with his blood.

  The rock crashed down on his skull once more, rendering him motionless. Another sharp stabbing pain as the knife was thrust deep into his chest. He gasped, but could do no more. As the blood left his body, he felt its warmth, its ebbing pulsations as the two murderers brought a cart and somehow manage to lift him into it. He heard their heavy breathing. He managed to force his eyes halfway open, but everything was dark. Night had fallen; the stars had come out, twinkling in the sky. Panicked, he tried to move but found it impossible. He saw their shadows above him. The wheels of the cart bumped roughly over the seagrass and the rocks. He smelled the ocean breeze and knew what their black hearts were planning.

  They were going to toss him over the cliff.

  And then he was falling …

  Jessica stood unmoving, her heart pounding, the pain doubled her over, her body was screaming in agony. She felt what Lord Greyfield had felt. She had felt his pain, his anger, and his fear. She had felt him fall to his death.

  "Are you all right?"

  With a gasp, she spun around and saw Mindy watching her with concern.

  "They stabbed him here," she said, then gestured toward the ocean. "Then they dumped his body over the cliff."

  Mindy frowned. "I wonder why they bothered with the tombstone?"

  "What?" she asked, frowning, still shocked by the pain thrumming through her every nerve. She tried to concentrate.

  "They could have erected a tombstone and told anyone who asked that he'd gotten sick or had an accident and died. Back then, there would have been no way to disprove it." She slowly straightened. "That hurt like crap."

  "Over there," Mandy said, pointing toward the woods.

  Jessica followed Mindy to the location at the edge of the dense woods, disbelieving as she stared down at the tombstone. She read the writing carved into it, plain as day despite the centuries that had passed since that night:

  Here lies Lord Angus Greyfield

  B. May 15, 1698

  D. September 24, 1732

  Beloved husband, you will be missed dearly

  Jessica stared at Mindy.

  "What is it?"

  "The date," Jessica said softly. "Today is September twenty-fourth."

  Chapter 51

  Jessica woke the following morning, after a night of restless sleep. She had dreamed repeatedly of falling, startled awake at least four times as she relived the last seconds of Greyfield's life. No matter how many times she dreamt it, she always woke up at the same instant—the instant his body crashed onto the rocks below the cliffside, not far from the shoreline.

  Throwing the covers back she swung her legs out of bed, and froze, eyes wide. On her inner thigh, she saw three long, equidistant scratches. Her heart skipped a beat. Shouldn't she have felt that? They looked like cat scratches—thin, long red lines, with slightly raised welts.

  Three scratches were typical of malevolent or demonic spirits. But usually, people felt the heat or a burning sensation with that—a wave of nausea hit her, coupled with a horrible pain in her skull. She dropped her head into her hands, wincing with the pain. Her chest felt like it was on fire.

  "Mindy!" she gasped.

  There was no sound from down the hall.

  "Mindy!" Louder this time, but still nothing. She waited, hoping that the pain would soon pass. "I get it, Greyfield, I get it! I know how you died!"

  The pain eased, and as it did her ears began to buzz, but even beneath the buzzing, she could've sworn she heard a woman laugh. Goosebumps erupted on her skin. A shiver, almost electrical in nature, raced up her spine. The hair on the back of her head stood up on end.

  One or more spirits were here in the room with her. She sensed the change in the air; the heavy, oppressive nature of it, so thick that it almost crackled with an electrical charge.

  She scrambled to snatch her K2 meter and digital tape recorder from the bedside table and turned them both on. The lights on her K2 flickered, and the needle jolted sharply. Something was definitely in the room with her.

  She pressed the record button on the digital tape recorder and began an impromptu EVP session.

  "Is that you, Lord Greyfield?" Pause. "Is that what you wanted us to discover, that you were murdered?"

  Several moments passed. The thickness of the air seemed to increase, it was hard to breathe, and she was feeling weak and then suddenly the air dissipated. She left the digital recorder running for several more moments but then shut both pieces of equipment off and rose from the bed. She padded to the door, opened it, and walked down the hall, knocking softly on Mindy's closed door.

  "Mindy? Mindy, are you awake? Come on, it's our last day here. We should get started."

  Nothing. Jessica frowned and opened the door. She saw the bed, but it was empty. The rumpled covers were thrown back. She turned and walked toward the end of the hall toward the bathroom.

  "Mindy?" her voice rose, and a sense of panic crawled down her back as she knocked on the door. "Are you in the bathroom?"

  No answer. Slowly she opened the door and found the small room empty. Shaking her head, she wondered where Mindy had gone? It was unlike her friend to wander about without telling her first. Jessica quickly returned to her own room and dressed. She wondered if maybe Mindy had decided to explore that tunnel by herself. It was not typical behavior for her, but then again, it was a captivating find.

  Once dressed she grabbed her handheld equipment and headed downstairs. There was no sign of her friend anywhere, and her sense of dread continued to grow.

  Stepping into the sitting room, she gazed out the window. A stark mist covered everything in white, but Mindy's car was still out front. Not that Jes
sica had expected otherwise, the question was, where was she? Her gaze was pulled past the driveway and toward the cliffside, but there was no sign of her friend. Did something want her to go there or was it just the history of that edge that drew her eye? Jessica couldn’t decide, but this was not finding Mindy and part of her felt that was now urgent.

  Leaving the sitting room, she turned down the hallway, immediately noticing that the secret door to the tunnel was closed.

  The house stood eerily quiet. Maybe Mindy was outside, but it was cold and damp out there. Still, her gift may have called to her. Jessica strode into the kitchen and reached for the knob on the outside door. A cold blast of air, but one that was entirely natural washed over her as she pulled it open. Ignoring the mist, she quickly scanned the landscape. Nothing. She stepped around the corner and did the same at the back of the manor.

  There was nothing there just the mist, and the cold and a slight glow where the sun would soon rise. She frowned in consternation. Where the hell was Mindy? Thinking she could be nowhere else, Jessica headed once again to the hidden panel in the wall underneath the stairs and pushed it open. As before, a gust of stale air greeted her.

  "Mindy?"

  There was still no answer. Though it seemed the only place to look, Jessica didn’t want to go down there alone. A feeling of despondency overtook her as she stared into the gloomy tunnel. A noise from the sitting room pulled her eyes away, though she knew it wasn’t Mindy.

  Leaving the tunnel doorway, she quickly retraced her steps to the sitting room.

  The room was empty, but it was darker than the hallway, and a sense of bone-chilling cold emanated from the doorway.

  "Is that you, Greyfield?" she challenged. "Or is it Beatrice?"

  The noise came again, and Jessica realized it was a thump, a soft thud, coming from the wall. No, not the wall exactly, but from inside the wall.

  "You're not scaring me!" she announced to the room at large. At this point, she didn't care if it was Lord Greyfield or Beatrice or any other spirit residing in the old place. It could have been anyone. Centuries had passed since Greyfield had been murdered and no doubt many people had died here since.

  This time the noise did not reoccur, and the room warmed back to normal ambient temperature.

  Had she got anything? Stopping her digital recorder, she played it back. At first, there was nothing but the sound of the tape winding over the reels and her own heavy breathing. That sound told her that she was rattled more than she cared to admit. Then she heard something. Faint. She quickly pressed the stop button and rewound, then held the recorder up to her ear and listened.

  "… it's me …"

  Her heart skipped a beat as she frowned. The voice sounded like … like Mindy. Impossible. Rewinding the tape, a little more, she listened carefully, frozen, her heart now thumping so hard she felt the pulse throbbing in her neck. Once again, she heard a whisper of sound from the tape recorder.

  "… it's me … down … go down …”

  Chapter 52

  Jessica's mouth grew dry. She could hardly swallow. More than anything she wanted to check the video cameras, but first she had to find Mindy.

  Though she had heard her voice on the EVP recording, she knew it had to be a trick.

  "Mindy? Where are you?" she called out loudly this time, but again there was no answer. The house remained quiet.

  Jessica turned and left the sitting room and once again retraced her steps to the still open door that led into the tunnel. This was the only "down" she could think of. She pulled the flashlight from her back pocket and shone it into the dark and narrow tunnel. Was there any sign of Mindy passing through earlier? She couldn't tell.

  None of the cobwebs looked disturbed, but they had both avoided them as much as they could. Hesitantly, she stepped through the opening. It seemed a lot scarier in here by herself than it had yesterday with Mindy.

  "Mindy?"

  Jessica cringed at the fear she heard in her own voice. Normally, she didn't spook easily. She'd been to places a lot worse than this, and yet her stomach felt like it had dropped, and her breath was coming fast and short. Aiming her flashlight down at the stone steps, she descended, trying not to touch her free hand to the wall. Sometimes, merely by touching an object, she could pick up on things, and right now she needed to focus on finding Mindy.

  The urge to look around was strong, but she managed perhaps fifteen steps before she paused to turn and glance back over her shoulder. Relief flooded her. The doorway to the tunnel was still open. How morbid would that be? A spirit slamming the door after her, trapping her down here in the darkness?

  "For crying out loud, just stop it!" she scolded herself. "Mindy?"

  Soon she reached the bottom of the steps and shone the flashlight beam further along the tunnel. It just lit up the location where they had found the box yesterday. So excited were they by their find that they hadn't proceeded any further into the tunnel. Where did it go?

  She surmised that it led to the beach. Maybe Greyfield had been a smuggler, or it had been carved out of the earth as an escape tunnel. Escape from what, she didn't know, but it was not unusual and was nothing to cause the raising of the hairs on her neck… and yet raised they were.

  Soon the ground leveled out, her tennis shoes made no sound on the hard sand floor. It smelled slightly of fish and musty, a little like death. Where had that thought come from? A hint of breeze drifted through the tunnel, making the cobwebs move slightly. As if they breathed. It seemed the oppressive feeling of the place was getting the better of her imagination. She definitely didn't like it down here. The pressure was growing, and her head hurt so bad. It felt like someone had put a clamp around it and was slowly tightening the screws.

  "Mindy, if you're down here, you'd better let me know right now. This isn't funny!" Her words echoed a little and then drifted away down the tunnel.

  She paused and listened. There was not a sound. Heart pounding, she took a few more steps and swung the beam of the flashlight against the walls. Maybe fifteen or twenty meters further on the left, she saw the deeper shadow of an indentation in the wall. Curious, she walked closer before she realized it was another short tunnel. What was … was that a door? It looked old, with a rusted iron ring for a handle and a heavy piece of wood sat in iron braces to keep the door securely closed.

  A gasp escaped her and her heart pounded like a hammer against her chest. It wasn't the sight of the door that startled her so, but what lay on the floor in front of it. A small flashlight, similar to her own lay discarded on the sand. It had to be Mindy's. But what was it doing there?

  Was she on the other side of that door? Had she gone through it and hurt herself? It didn’t make sense. Why had she dropped her flashlight? Had she been locked in, either in a small chamber or a tunnel that led to who knew where?

  Taking a deep breath, calming her nerves, Jessica stepped toward the door and reached for the wooden brace that kept it closed. It was solid in the iron clamps, and she had to place her own torch next to the dead one on the floor.

  The light was confusing as it shone at her feet and hardly lit where she needed to see. Ignoring it and the pain in her head she grabbed the wood again and lifted with all her might. For a moment nothing happened. Grunting with the effort, she heaved against it. Shifting her weight to push from below, the wood jumped out of the iron castings. A groan echoed around the tunnels. It could be from the wood moving, probably was, but Jessica felt her heart jump.

  The wood removed, she placed it on the ground and picked up the torch.

  The rusty iron ring was cold and crusty in her hands. Turning and pulling had no effect at first. The door felt like it was swollen in the jamb. She pulled once more, and it swung open.

  "Mindy?"

  Musty, stale air greeted her. Her flashlight skimmed the walls of what looked to be a small room carved out of the earth. And there, the torch nearly dropped from her numb fingers as it lit up the horror before her.

  “No!�
��

  Leaning against the far wall, were two bodies. Every nerve in her body fired and she stood frozen for a second. Adrenaline surged through her veins, prompting her to run. Instead, she stifled her scream as she lifted her left hand to her mouth while she focused the beam of light from her flashlight, now grasped tightly in the other hand, onto the two figures.

  One sat upright, leaning against the wall. It was no longer a person but a complete skeleton. An old, possibly burgundy dress hung off the bones. The dress looked old, way old, like from another century old.

  But the other figure … that didn't look so ancient. A groan escaped her as the torch played across the face.

  This one was not completely skeletonized. It was more like … mummified. Wisps of hair were still apparent on the scalp. It was hard to tell, but this figure looked female as well. It was wearing boots, blue jeans, and a long-sleeved button-down blouse. The woman’s mouth hung open in a perpetual scream.

  What happened here? Who had done this?

  A shiver raced down her spine, and Jessica quickly backed away and retreated through the threshold, closing the door firmly behind her. Fear pummeled her senses. She recalled what the property owner had said about a woman disappearing from the manor house a while back. He figured she'd left her husband, but maybe not. What was she doing down here? Had she too gone exploring and found that secret room down in the tunnel? If so, who had shut her in? Her husband, the spirits?

  Then she knew. The woman … both women had been killed and left down there. But who were they, and more importantly, who had killed them?

  Jessica needed to get out of here to find Mindy. They needed to leave and call the police, and yet for a moment, she couldn’t move. Fear made it impossible to make a decision. Every fiber of her being wanted to get out of there but which way? What would she find if she retraced her steps? Would someone be waiting for her and what had happened to Mindy?