The Box Set of Hauntings and Horrors

by Jeff DeGordick

  "So, change of plans. In case you don't know, that was Will, the curator. That construction crew that was on hold pending negotiations? Well they settled it. They start on Monday."

  "That's two days from now!" Billy said.

  "I know," Trevor replied. "That's why whatever we're doing, we've got to do it quickly."

  "Can't we just hide in the daytime when they're here?" Karen said. "Wasn't that the original plan?"

  "We could," Trevor said, "but with the swing of good fortune, I was hoping to get this done before they came."

  "Guys..." Bridgette said.

  "What?" Trevor asked, somewhat annoyed.

  Bridgette had fear and confusion on her face. They all saw that she was looking at Janet.

  Janet sat in her seat, her head down and rolling hypnotically from side to side.

  "What's she doing?" Dawson asked.

  "Jan?" Bridgette said. She touched her arm, but she didn't respond.

  Bridgette looked around the room, taking in all of their surroundings.

  "What's up, Bridg?" Dawson asked. "I've seen that look before."

  "I... I think there's something really going on around here," she replied, her voice quivering.

  Trevor was unimpressed. "What are you saying?"

  "I think this place is... is..."

  "Is what?" he demanded, almost daring her to say it.

  "Haunted!"

  Trevor couldn't stifle his laugh. "Haunted?" he said with as much derision in his voice as he could muster. "You've been listening too much to that old nutjob down the road. Just because Janet's acting like an invalid doesn't mean—"

  "She's not acting like an invalid!" Bridgette shot back.

  —"and there's not a single thing haunted about this place!" Trevor finished.

  There was a moment of pause, and then Janet's head snapped up suddenly. Her lips peeled back into a sharp scowl. "Ta gueule!" she shouted. Her head swiveled toward Bridgette. "Salope! Sors d'ici!"

  Everyone's jaws dropped as they stared at their usually quiet friend, her eyes now bulging out of her head, teeth bared, spittle flying from her mouth with each harsh word of a language that she didn't know how to speak.

  Who You Gonna Call?

  "What the hell's wrong with her?" Trevor shouted.

  "I don't know!" Bridgette said. "Janet? What's going on? What's gotten into you?"

  Janet twisted in her seat, snapping her teeth at each of them and shouting more French obscenities. She lunged at Karen and Karen screamed and jumped out of her seat like a frog jumping out of a hot pot.

  "Someone grab her!" Dawson shouted. "Hold her down!"

  Billy shot out of his seat and faced her, but he was apprehensive about approaching. She snapped her head at him and started foaming at the mouth as her teeth clapped open and shut. Her fingers curled into claws and she reached out and swiped at him as he tried to get near.

  Dawson skirted around the table and came up behind her. He wrapped his arms around her chest. Janet's head rolled around like a ball bearing, trying to bite him. When her mouth couldn't reach, she flailed her arms and thrashed at his bare skin, tearing red streaks into his flesh.

  "Help me!" Dawson cried.

  Billy rushed forward at last and grabbed one of her arms, pinning it down to the arm of the chair. Dawson grabbed her other arm and pinned it on the other side. Janet pressed her feet flat against the floor and shoved herself backward. The chair scraped across the marble and made the two men stumble.

  Bridgette slid onto her knees and held one of her legs against the chair's leg. Her other one kicked wildly, and Karen, feeling the courage of the others already holding most of her down, rushed forward and tackled the remaining limb, struggling with it at first like she was riding a mechanical bull before she finally got it under control.

  "We need something to tie her down!" Dawson said.

  Trevor had been standing there watching the situation, and an idea popped into his head. He had seen a length of rope in a cupboard down the hall and he rushed to get it. When he returned, with all four of them holding her down, he unbundled the rope and tied her to the chair as best as he could. Bound, she still yelled at all of them and thrashed, causing her chair to bounce across the floor a little at a time.

  The five of them took a step back when they were done and observed her, each of them panting.

  "What's her problem?" Trevor asked. He took a step forward and shouted at her. "Why are you acting like a freaking nutcake?"

  "It's not her!" Bridgette said.

  "Oh give me a break," Trevor said. "I always knew she was nutty!"

  "You idiot!" Bridgette snapped. "She doesn't even know French!"

  The realization of what she had just said dawned on all of them, and they each came to the somber realization—as hard as it was for some of them to believe—that she was possessed.

  "We have to leave," Bridgette said. "We have to leave right now. We have to bring her to a hospital or something!"

  "No!" Billy said. "I don't think that's a good idea."

  "Why not?"

  "Because the hospital's not going to have any idea what to do with her." Billy looked around uneasily. "If there's something... dwelling in this place... it might not be a good idea to take her away. At least until we can figure out what's going on. What we need is a... well, an exorcist."

  Trevor rolled his eyes out of habit. "An exorcist," he scoffed. But his derision wasn't quite as strong as it usually was. Observing her, clearly not in any way similar to the person he had known before, was chilling.

  Billy took out his phone and began browsing the Internet. He didn't know what to search for at first, so he just simply typed the words "ghost exorcist possessed" into Google and hit Search. He thumbed through the results, mostly finding a bunch of useless articles about the subject, but no one that seemed to have any actual expertise.

  "Are you really doing what I think you're doing?" Karen asked, leaning over his shoulder and looking at the screen.

  "Quiet," he said. When he got to the fourth page of results, he found a website that caught his eye. He tapped it. A few seconds later the website began to load up, and he recoiled at what he was seeing. "This thing's definitely not optimized for mobile," he complained. "This website looks like it's from 1996. A GeoCities classic."

  "What are you looking at?" Bridgette asked.

  "I think I found an exorcist," he replied. "As bad as the quality is, it sounds like he's serious. It doesn't say anything about where he is or where he operates, but there's a phone number here." The others began to murmur over each other, but he told them to be quiet as he punched the number into his phone and waited for someone to pick up.

  The phone rang and rang and rang. He was afraid it was some old unused number or that the website wasn't actually serious. For a moment, he thought someone at a pizza joint would pick up. But after another set of rings, there was a noise on the other end of the line.

  "Hello?" a dry voice said. It sounded like a woman in her late fifties, maybe Italian.

  "Um, hello," Billy said. "Is this, Simon Donatti? Is he there?"

  A pause. "Who's calling?"

  "Uh, Billy. Billy Thurmond. I found a website for Simon, and I, uh, I mean we... I think we need his services."

  Another pause. This one longer than before. "Please hold," the voice said.

  The line went quiet. No music or anything. Then about a minute later, someone picked up.

  "Hello?" A man this time.

  "Hi. We have a situation and we need some help from an experienced, uh, exorcist I guess."

  "You guess?" the man on the other end asked.

  "We don't really know what we're dealing with here, mister," Billy said. "But we're really scared. We think we need help from a professional."

  The others in the room listened intently, leaning toward the phone and trying to hear what the man on the other end was saying.

  "You can't?" Billy said. "But we really need your help." They watched Bill
y's face fall.

  Bridgette stepped forward and took the phone from him. "Please, sir, I think my friend is possessed," she said.

  "Who is this?"

  "Bridgette."

  "I don't really do possessions so much, Bridgette," he said.

  "Well we have nowhere else to turn!" she said. "Please! We'll do anything, just please come!" There was a long pause and Bridgette thought that the man had hung up. "Hello?"

  "I'm still here," he said.

  "Well?"

  "I just got out of the hospital," he said. "I wasn't planning on taking any jobs this soon."

  "Please. We need your help."

  "Where are you located?"

  "Jasper, Louisiana. It's a big mansion at the edge of town. It's called the Jasper Estate Museum."

  "I'm up in Vermont," he said. "That's a long drive."

  "Please, we'll wait." Bridgette looked at Janet, who was still snapping around in the chair. "We don't know what else to do."

  Simon sighed. "I charge a consultation fee."

  "How much?"

  "A thousand dollars, flat rate."

  "A thousand dollars?!" Bridgette cried. Everyone's eyes widened.

  "You just said you live in a mansion," the man said. "But if you don't want my services, I don't have to come."

  "No, please. We'll pay you. A thousand is fine."

  "All right. I'll get there soon as I can, but it'll be a long drive."

  "Okay, thank you. Please, just hurry."

  The line clicked and fell silent. Bridgette hung up the phone.

  Dawson spoke up. "Bridgette, none of us have a thousand dollars on us."

  "We'll figure something out," she said.

  As the day went on, Karen and Bridgette took watch over Janet. They kept an eye on her from across the room, leaving her tied to the chair. She began to settle down after a while, eventually falling into a nap. Bridgette knew that the exorcist they called wouldn't be there for at least a day or so. She didn't know what they would do in the meantime, and she was terrified, but she would do whatever it took to make sure her friend was okay.

  Billy and Dawson took a walk. "Can you believe all this?" Billy asked him. Dawson walked down the hallway next to him, not saying anything. The sunlight came in from the windows next to them, and they could see the sparkling water on another clear summer day, a sharp juxtaposition to what was happening inside. "I don't know what the hell's going on anymore," Billy added.

  "Your guess is as good as mine," Dawson said. He'd never seen anything like what he witnessed that morning. No ghosts, no hauntings, no anything like that ever in his life. But he couldn't deny what was happening.

  "So what's going on with you and Bridgette?" Billy asked, trying to take their minds off things.

  Dawson tossed a suspicious glance his way. "What are you talking about?"

  "I mean, even before this strange stuff started happening, you two just didn't seem right. Is something going on?"

  "Yeah, actually. We broke up."

  "You what?" he said. "But you two are so good together."

  "Yeah, I thought so too," Dawson said bitterly.

  "What's been going on?"

  "I guess we're just not as compatible as I thought," Dawson said. "She just can't take anything seriously for the life of her. What's going on now with Janet is probably the first time I've seen her take charge of something rather than having her head float in the clouds."

  "Ah, you just gotta give her some space, buddy. Sometimes these things happen, and you have to let her go for a while, let her get some air. I think it will all turn out okay."

  "I'm not so sure," Dawson said.

  "It's nothing," Billy said. "I guarantee it. My sister drives me nuts sometimes. Sometimes you just have to let them ride out their own insanity."

  This produced a genuine smile from Dawson. "The way you and your sister bicker all the time, I'm surprised you're not actually married."

  Billy looked at him with disgust. "Ew. Dude."

  "You know what I mean," Dawson said. "Then there's all this crap with Trevor. Maybe I've been letting that get to me more than it should. Sometimes I still feel like the new guy in the group."

  "Dude, are you kidding me?" Billy said. "We've gotten pretty tight over the years. I know you never went to school with the rest of us, but since you and Bridgette started dating, we've had a lot of good times together. If anything, it's Trevor that's maybe drifted away from us a bit. Always off on some crazy scheme. I guess things haven't really changed at all."

  "I guess not."

  Trevor watched them cross into the courtyard and continue their conversation as their footsteps and voices faded away. He walked into the dining room, but Bridgette and Karen didn't even acknowledge his existence, still fretting over their friend. He left and stared at the bay out a window with his hands on his hips.

  "Well if no one's going to help me," he muttered, "I'll do it my damn self." He continued his search for the other piece of the map. There was a clue that his mind was too busy to notice before, but he noticed it now: Will's briefcase. He seemed unusually frantic about finding it and didn't want it sitting around or left behind. Trevor had placated him before, but he realized he'd never actually looked for it in his office. He wondered what was inside and why Will was so eager to have it. Well, he was about to find out.

  A Grave Situation

  Billy sat on the couch in the living room, his feet resting on the coffee table. An errant breeze coming through the hallway from the open balcony rustled up a patch of dust and made him sneeze. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand and continued browsing on his phone. He was looking up any information he could find on the mansion. He had had his suspicions before from the odd information he had found in the records from the sealed wing, and they were exacerbated by the clear hauntings and other strange occurrences.

  He jumped in and out of websites, thumbing through more results until he strained his eyes. Finally, he stumbled on the same site Janet had on their drive to the estate. He recognized it from when she quickly passed her phone around to show the others.

  The site had a black background and no frills. It looked to be created by an interested individual who made it their hobby to curate information about old buildings and areas. One of the tabs at the top of the page was about the Jasper Estate. Billy clicked on it and skimmed through the information, reading some general stuff that he already knew or could find on any of the information displays around the museum. He scrolled down and found the part about the murders a hundred years ago. The website detailed how the police never found the culprit or culprits, and that it was still an open but long-cold case.

  Billy put his feet on the floor and leaned forward, pulling the phone right up to his eyes.

  He felt a cold chill when he read the rest. There was more information that he never heard before. Another slaughter. The owner of the website had inserted a picture in the middle of the text. Billy poked it to make it bigger and saw that it was a scan of an old newspaper. The fuzzy and smudged print talked about a massacre different from the one a hundred years ago. Billy scrolled back up and compared the information, making sure it wasn't the same event.

  And it wasn't.

  This one was similar—all the inhabitants of the museum being murdered—but the fine details were different. The one from a hundred years ago took place in the daytime with tourists visiting the museum. The other event apparently took place at night, the slaughter happening around eight or nine pm, the newspaper estimated. The victims were attendees of a formal gala hosted at the estate. And police never figured out that case either, but the website had less information on it than the event from a century ago.

  Billy's brow furrowed at the oddity of two such similar events happening in the same place—the place where he and his friends were currently staying. He scrolled down the page.

  At the bottom, it talked more of the rumors of the pirates' attempted siege and pilfer in August of 1718, detailing ho
w they not only stole the treasure and sank into the bay as they tried to make their escape, but that they also slaughtered everyone in the mansion—a detail he had never heard before.

  Billy paused. He scrolled back up and looked at the newspaper clipping again. The paper didn't detail the date that the gala slaughter happened, but the newspaper itself had the date printed at the top of it, just above the headline.

  The date was August 21, 1818.

  Billy's mind raced. He thumbed back up to the most recent murder and his eyes darted back and forth for the exact date.

  August 23, 1918. All the slaughters happened within days of each other, exactly one hundred years apart.

  Billy closed the browser in a cold sweat. His eyes shifted over to the date on his smartphone's home screen. August 18, 2018.

  "Oh my God," he said, nearly choking on the words. He shot up to his feet and broke into a sprint.

  Trevor stood in the doorway of Will's office. He looked inside and his eyes fell on a briefcase sitting on the desk on the far end of the long room. It is here! he thought. He allowed a moment of vindication to overcome him, then he set off to find out what was inside.

  But after only a few steps, he hesitated. His eyes fell on the suits of armor lining either side of the room. Their axes and swords gleamed in the yellow light. He swallowed and then shook the stupid thoughts out of his head; they were just statues. Nothing more.

  He stared at the slim silver briefcase lying on the desk and made his way for it. But his legs wouldn't cooperate. They felt sluggish and numb to his brain's directives, like he was wading through a pool of some sticky substance. His eyes wandered. His face scrunched, trying to clamp onto them and point them straight ahead only. But he saw glints of light dancing on the edges of the blades surrounding him. Boy they looked sharp.

  He took another step. The suits of armor stood motionlessly around him, all of them silently watching.

  Trevor couldn't get the bodies he'd seen in the water when they were lost in the bayou off his mind. But that was ridiculous, he told himself; they weren't bodies. They were just alligators. Never mind that he saw their forms clearly. Never mind that they were dressed in antiquated clothing, something that a pirate might wear in centuries long gone.