The Proctor Hall Horror

by Bill Thompson

  A harsh laugh. “You blame me? I didn’t tell you to take the girl. Your career means nothing to me. Family, history, legacy — those are the only things that matter. Continuing to show everyone Noah Proctor is a cold-blooded killer is what’s important to me.”

  A long, deep sigh like the lowest notes of an instrument echoed throughout the house. Landry noticed chilly air encircling him, and he realized he stood on the fourth riser — the one where Noah sat after his family died. A sensation of profound sadness swept through his mind.

  Julien said, “But he’s not a killer, Mother. It’s been years — decades. Why allow the sore to fester? Why keep this bizarre charade alive? You’ve accomplished the goal. Everyone blames Noah, even to this day. Why can’t you let it go?”

  “Are we remorseful tonight? That’s not a good look for you. Cheer up, Julien. You’ve experienced the euphoria of taking a life. What an amazing feeling! Soon you’ll do it again — the girl is yours to do with as you wish. And Noah too. When I’m ready, I’ll let you do the honors.”

  “I’m not you, Mother. I felt the euphoria, yes, but you’re different. You’re…insane and you know it. The other day you killed my student, Michael. There was no call for that, and I might have gone to prison for it. I gave up the life I had for you. I’ll deal with the girl, but then I’m finished. Noah’s your problem. You should have eliminated him years ago, but you delighted in keeping him around. Your lunacy is your issue, and I refuse to let you make it mine.”

  The old house creaked and the windowpanes rattled as a strong breeze arose from nowhere. A mournful sound emanated from downstairs, rising in intensity until it was a screeching wail. Landry sensed a presence in the hallway next to him, but he saw nothing.

  “Look at what you’ve done!” Julien screamed. “You’ve stirred them up.”

  A dark thing appeared in the hallway — a wraith wearing black that floated toward him. The thing raised its arm, and a bony finger pointed at him. He drew back in alarm. It swept closer and now Landry realized it was pointing not at him, but to the stairway above.

  He looked up and saw an old woman grinning as she descended the stairs. She had something in her hand — something that she swung through the air toward Landry’s head. It connected solidly and there was nothing.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  After worrying during Landry’s harrowing adventures, he and Cate had established an emergency plan. If he was away on a paranormal assignment by himself, he would communicate every three hours. No call meant something was wrong.

  Tonight she got a text at eight, and she lay in bed waiting for another. At eleven fifteen she left Landry a message and called Harry Kanter. The cop understood her concern, but he told her it was too early for him to become involved. He had to wait twenty-four hours from the last communication before filing a missing persons report.

  “He texted you at eight, so it’ll be tomorrow night before we can investigate. You might try calling the sheriff’s office in Thibodaux. Even if they have a waiting period like ours, they’re local. Their guys patrol all over the parish. If a car’s in the vicinity, they might send an officer to Proctor Hall to check things out.”

  She had no connections in the sheriff’s department, so she called the dispatcher and explained her concern. The woman recited protocol about domestic disputes, which pissed Cate off.

  “This is no domestic dispute, lady,” she fired back. “Do you know who Landry Drake is?”

  “The ghost hunter? Sure. Who doesn’t?”

  “Okay. He’s my…uh, colleague, and he’s the one missing at Proctor Hall. He checked in with me at eight and should have again at eleven. It’s a huge red flag when he misses a check-in. It’s a signal something’s wrong.”

  The dispatcher’s attitude changed in an instant. A celebrity disappearing in a sparsely populated rural parish would mean lots of publicity. If the sheriff ignored Landry Drake’s going missing in his parish, it might come down on everybody, especially her.

  “Hold on a moment,” she said. Cate listened as she got on the radio.

  “One-four, this is base. What’s your twenty?”

  “I’m on 308 coming into Larose. What’s up?”

  “Possible 10-57 at Proctor Hall. Can you stop by and look around?”

  “10-4. Should be there in thirty-forty minutes unless you want me to light ’er up and do it quicker.”

  “No. Just check it out and radio me when you’re done.”

  Cate gave the dispatcher her cell number and the combination to the gate padlock at Proctor Hall. The woman said she’d call as soon as she knew something.

  Cate was waiting in the living room with the phone in her hand when the return call came at 12:26 a.m. The deputy reported the house was dark, there were no cars around the house, and he saw no sign of activity.

  She had two options. One was Henri, who would be asleep at this late hour, but he would do anything to help Landry. She hated to get him up when this might be as simple as a poor cellular connection.

  Instead, she called Phil. If he thought Landry was in trouble, he’d go, but tonight he didn’t answer. She left a message explaining what had happened and that she was going to Proctor Hall to find him. As terrifying as it was, she had to handle this one alone.

  She arrived around two and found everything dark and still. She circled the house, calling Landry’s name, and ended up back at the car. Without a plan, she held the key for a long time and wondered what Landry would do. That foolish thought made her smile. He’d barge in like a bull, safety be damned, and get himself into a predicament. But wouldn’t she be doing the same thing if she went through that door?

  She received her answer in an unexpected and chilling way. Sitting in her car and wondering what to do, she saw a light inside. It flickered like a candle, drifted across an upstairs window, and disappeared.

  Oh God, somebody’s in the house! If it’s not Landry, then who’s here?

  Terrified to do what she knew she must, Cate put the key in the lock, took a deep breath, and stepped over the threshold into the shadows.

  Please don’t let Noah be sitting on the stairs.

  Nothing moved, and the only sounds were the creaks and rattles that a drafty old house made. Cate tiptoed up the stairs far enough to see the hallway. No one was there, and all four bedroom doors were open. Through the windows, moonbeams played on the walls and floors, creating an undulating shimmer of ghostly shapes.

  “Who’s…is anybody here? Landry, can you hear me?” Her voice cracked as she stammered the words. If someone was in here, they now knew she was too.

  “May Ellen, help me. Please help me find Landry.”

  “I can give you answers.”

  The whispered words echoed in the empty hallway. They might have come from anywhere.

  “May Ellen?”

  There was a low, guttural laugh — long and drawn out like the one in the seance. “I’m something that inhabits your nightmares. Do you want your man back enough to face me?”

  “Where are you?”

  “Maybe inside your head. Maybe just up the stairs. Maybe right behind you.”

  Cate jerked backwards, missed the step, and tumbled down, banging her knee against the railing as she fell. As she sat up and tested her legs, she looked up the staircase.

  At the top stood a figure dressed in black. Something in its hand gleamed in the moonlight. Something metallic.

  A hatchet.

  She screamed and screamed as the ghostly entity descended the stairs one slow step at a time.

  A wave of helplessness and fear she’d never experienced coursed through her body. She trembled and cried for help as the figure moved closer.

  The last thing Cate recalled was the room spinning, the thing lifting its draped arms, and a merciful nothingness as her consciousness faded.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Regaining consciousness in utter darkness, Landry felt a throbbing in his right temple that outshone any headache known t
o man. He touched the place carefully; it would hurt like hell, but it was superficial.

  He smelled a powerful, musty odor — the airless, moldy scent of an ancient place. He lay on a dirt floor, and when he put out his hands, he felt a damp earthen wall. As he stood, he banged against a low ceiling and fell to the ground, more pain shooting through his already throbbing head.

  He moved around the room to determine its size. It was empty except at the far end, where something solid connected with his foot. Just then he realized his phone was in his pocket, and tried to call Cate, but there was no signal. He flipped on the flashlight and found he was in a ten-foot-square room with dirt walls and floor. The ceiling consisted of wood joists that might be the floor of a room above.

  The thing he bumped into was a large wooden box longer than it was wide and three feet high. It looked like a coffin, and then a sound came from inside — a series of knocks.

  Someone’s in there! “April! April, I’m here to help you!” The sound stopped, and he examined the top, seeing three large hinges on one side and an old metal hasp with a four-inch nail holding it shut. He tugged on the nail until it came out, unhooked the hasp, and raised the lid.

  A person lay inside. Not April, but a man of indeterminate age whose pasty-white complexion hadn’t seen sunlight for a long time. Matted, dirty gray hair hung in strings down to his shoulders. When he sat up and put his hands on the sides of the box, Landry noticed his long grimy fingernails.

  “Who are you?” he asked, but the man stared at him and gave no response.

  With some difficulty he rose to his feet, and Landry noticed a chain around his ankles and tethered to a bolt in the floor. The bottom of the box was damp; a little water had seeped in from recent rains, and the poor guy had been forced to lie in it. The man turned away and unashamedly urinated on the floor beside the box.

  Landry asked, “What is this place? Where are we?”

  The man looked at him but didn’t respond.

  He’s not deaf, so why won’t he answer?

  Then he understood. He’d found Noah, the man who never spoke. Perhaps mute, perhaps autistic — no one was certain which — people claimed he hadn’t spoken a word since birth. Here lay an accused mass murderer who spent half his life in an asylum.

  “Noah, my name is Landry. If you’ll let me, I’ll help you.”

  Landry tugged on the chain, finding it secure and impossible to unhook without tools. A few minutes later there came a scraping noise from somewhere above, and Noah reclined in the box.

  Light filtered in as someone opened a trapdoor in the ceiling. Landry snapped off his phone and moved to a corner. Someone lowered a crude wooden ladder into the room. He saw shoes, and then legs, and he struck.

  He body-slammed the ladder, knocking the person to the ground. He landed a hard kick to the torso, and there came a grunt. A familiar voice cried, “Dammit, Landry, stop! You’re killing me!”

  He switched on the flashlight. “Phil! What are you doing here?”

  “I was trying to save your ass until you assaulted me. Damn, man, you kicked the hell out of me. I think my ribs are broken.”

  “Sorry. I never expected you to climb down that ladder. Speaking of which, where are we?”

  “In a hidden room below the old sugar mill. If I hadn’t followed the people who brought you here, I’d never have seen it. There’s old equipment lying around everywhere, and the entrance to this vault is under some of it.”

  Phil noticed the man lying in the box. “Who the hell is that?”

  “Noah Proctor, I think. He doesn’t talk. Let’s get out of here while we can.”

  “Too late!” The words came through the open trapdoor as they ran toward the ladder. And it was true — they really were too late. The door slammed shut and there was a dragging noise.

  “He’s moving junk back over the door to hide it,” Phil said.

  “Did you recognize the voice?”

  “Yeah. It’s the professor we saw earlier.”

  Landry nodded and asked Phil to help him search for an exit. As Noah watched impassively, they examined the seams where the earthen walls intersected with the joists above. They found nothing helpful there or in the ceiling. They found loose boards, but with junk and equipment stacked on them, they wouldn’t budge.

  They turned off their lights to conserve power, and Landry asked again how Phil had ended up at Proctor Hall. “You followed me, didn’t you?”

  “No, I beat you here. I just hid and waited until you came creeping down the lane. You made me jealous when you played games on your phone. I had to sit behind you in the woods and be quiet the whole time. When Julien Girard came on his scooter, you peeked through the window and went inside. I hid in the bushes next to the porch and was about to come looking for you when the door opened.

  “I thought you’d died when I saw two people come out, one holding your shoulders and the other your feet. With no weapon and up against two of them, I stayed put for a minute. I was damn glad when the woman dropped your legs and you groaned.”

  “The woman? One of my attackers was a woman? Might it have been April?”

  “No way. She had long hair, and she was old and bent like she had arthritis. I couldn’t see a face, but I definitely heard a woman’s voice. Croaky, like a frog’s, but female.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said she couldn’t carry you that far, and the professor hoisted you up on his shoulders in a fireman’s carry. When he went off into the woods with you on his back, I was surprised at his strength. I followed him along a trail he knew well. Even when the trees blocked the moonlight and it was pitch black, he kept moving.

  “He brought you here. It’s a ruined brick building with only four walls standing. The roof collapsed a long time ago, and like I said, there are rusted metal machines and tools everywhere. Girard knew exactly where to go. He pushed aside an old wagon, opened the trapdoor, dumped you inside, and left. I waited a few minutes before I snuck down the ladder and you tried to kill me.”

  “I guess I’m lucky you disobeyed my order and came anyway. Thanks for caring enough to follow me.”

  “Somebody has to keep you out of trouble, boss. Speaking of trouble, I didn’t do that great a rescue job. What do we do now?”

  “We hope one of them comes back. I want to find out who the woman is.”

  “Think maybe before she kills us, she’ll introduce herself?”

  Landry snorted a reply and settled back to wait.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Phil asked Landry how he was certain the other person in their prison was Noah Proctor.

  “Stands to reason. The age is about right and he doesn’t speak. I suppose he might be someone else, but I’ll bet I’m right.” He turned on the light and walked to the box that held the man.

  “Noah, we want to help you, but we have to get away first. Any idea how we can get out of here?”

  He stared into Landry’s eyes without expression or words, watching as Landry and Phil searched every square inch of the place. At last they gave up, sat down, came up with a plan, and waited.

  Someone walked across the floor above them, and they moved into position. Landry had the ladder; if they got the opportunity, one of them would scramble up and overpower whoever was there. There was the sliding sound and the trapdoor opened.

  “Hello, gentlemen. I hope everything’s satisfactory.”

  “Julien, what the hell are you doing?” Landry said. “You kidnapped April and now you’re just making everything worse for yourself. You won’t get away with this.”

  “I’m at the point I don’t want to get away with it. Have you considered that? Perhaps I’m ready to give up the I that has been my life.”

  “There are people out there who can help you. I promise —”

  “Don’t promise what you can’t deliver,” said a voice from above. It was the woman Landry had heard Julien arguing with at Proctor Hall — the one he’d called mother.

&nb
sp; “You’re going to kill them, right?” she said to Julien.

  “Mother, stop it. For once, we’re doing things my way. I don’t need April any more now that we have Landry Drake. She was uncovering too many secrets, but she’s weak. Now we have the person I most wanted, the ghost hunter himself. I can’t wait to tell him everything about Proctor Hall. Before he dies, of course.”

  “No!” the woman screamed. “You cannot tell our secrets. I forbid it. You’ll ruin everything. Kill the girl like you promised. Then we can kill these two as well.”

  “Yes, yes, I will. First things first. She’s not going anywhere. I have to think about these two now. I’ve enticed my students to explore Proctor Hall every semester, but I’ve kept the truths hidden. I’m bursting to tell someone. Landry! I have to tell him about the Proctor Hall horror. The real horror. That would be you, Mother.”