by K. F. Breene
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Secret of McKinley Mansion
K.F. Breene
Copyright © 2018 by K.F. Breene
All rights reserved. The people, places and situations contained in this ebook are figments of the author’s insane imagination and in no way reflect real or true events.
Secret of McKinley Mansion
It was a dark and stormy night...
But then, it was always a stormy night when she came. Beckoning. Calling to her followers.
And follow her they did - never to be seen or heard from again.
Larkin, MO is not the cute, sleepy town it appears to be. Beneath the quaint façade lurks a secret – a secret everyone knows, but no one will talk about.
Everyone knows to keep curfew. To stay in on stormy nights. To avoid that big, empty house up on the hill.
Until one day, a new family moves to town…
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Contents
Secret of McKinley Mansion
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
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Read Born in Fire
Try: Chosen
Try: Into the Darkness
Also by K.F. Breene
About the Author
Chapter One
These Events Unfolded In October 1991
I flinched as a thick sheet of rain slapped the window in front of my desk. I looked up from my homework and squinted through the streams of water running down the glass.
Trees waved wildly in my front yard, bowing near to snapping. Leaves broke loose and tumbled down the street, pounded by the downpour. An eerie howl of wind drifted through the attic above me.
I hated storms like this, when nature whipped up enough energy to lend bodies to the dead. Or at least that was what happened in Larkin.
The floorboards creaked in the hallway outside my bedroom door.
I froze in the stillness of my room, a stark contrast to the wildness outside.
Another creak, this one right at my door.
Holding my breath, I turned slowly and stared at the worn gold-brown handle. My rapidly beating heart kept the time. My shallow breath barely inflated my lungs.
Another sheet of rain smacked my window. I jumped, still staring at that handle, a light sheen of sweat covering my forehead.
Nothing.
If it was my resident ghost, my roommate, as I liked to call him, he either didn’t have enough energy to open the door—yet—or he wasn’t ready to try and force me out of what had once been his room. If only he were the worst of my problems…
I turned back to my desk slowly and took a deep breath, resting my hands on my open calculus book and peering out the window.
The light bled from the sky as evening snuck closer and the clouds darkened above. Across the street and two houses down, a large moving truck sat in front of a previously vacant house, the new owners having made the poor judgment call to move to this town. Hadn’t they taken a hint from the fact that their new house had sat unoccupied for five years? I could barely see the movers, heads ducked and shoulders hunched against the raging storm, carrying boxes or struggling with plastic-covered furniture.
Of course, a little wind and rain wasn’t the problem with Larkin. No, the problem was what the storms summoned in many of the older houses.
Across the street, two movers struggled with a tarp-covered couch.
Of all the towns in the Midwest, so many of them cute and placid, why on earth would they move here? Hadn’t they done any research? Plenty of our problems ended up in the papers, after all. Deaths and disappearances going back generations. Unexplained phenomena no one who lived here wanted to talk about. They could have chosen a place where the beautiful architecture didn’t feel rotten. Where the lush greenery didn’t have a black presence lurking within.
Another angry pelt of rain slapped my window. Light continued to seep out of the sky.
I caught an unusual sight for this neighborhood: a guy walking his dog in the driving rain.
Who would be fool enough to get a dog in this neighborhood? Animals sensed the supernatural, and the barking would be enough to drive a person insane, not to mention their neighbors.
I leaned forward and attempted to peer through the rain-smeared window, hoping for a better look. No go, so I opened the window slightly and squinted out, ignoring the mist from the water splatting on the screen.
A stranger, a guy about my age, sauntered up the sidewalk, holding the leash loose and low, clearly having no idea his dog could spook at any moment and take off running. His wide shoulders and trim hips suggested a football player, or someone who was fit, active, and strong enough to be one. Despite the wind yanking and pushing at his umbrella and the rain drenching his legs, he glided down the street in apparent unconcern, his gait smooth and confident. His dog zigged and zagged at the end of the bright green leash, trying to smell and pee on everything at once.
Strangely, as I watched him make his way, a peculiar sensation overcame me. Tingles, then shivers, rolled over my skin. Time slowed down to stillness, all movement swimming in molasses.
The raging of the storm bled away into the background.
His head swiveled in my direction. His eyes locked on to mine.
I felt more than saw his eyebrows dip, a strange sensation, given I was feeling his confusion, not seeing it.
And then reality rushed in and stole the moment.
He
was probably part of the new family moving in across the street—and his first glimpse of me would be with my face smashed against the screen, now soaking wet, showing him what my mother called my “mad-dog face,” an unwelcoming sort of expression over which I had no control. In other words, I was ogling a handsome stranger like an absolute creep.
“Oh my God,” I said, and slammed the window shut before dropping out of sight like a complete doofus.
I was nothing if not socially awkward.
As if agreeing with my self-assessment, the floorboards outside my door creaked again. The handle jingled and I whipped around.
The door swung open and my mother poked her head in, her pretty face lined with fatigue and pinched with worry. Once she was the belle of the town, getting crowned prom queen and marrying her king. That was before adulthood, bills, and a kid—me—stole her vitality and her ability to jump on a trampoline without peeing herself. Oh, and Dad’s rad bod. Her words, not mine.
“Ella?” she said, her eyes roaming my face.
I let out a shaky breath and allowed myself a relieved smile. I hooked a thumb toward the window. “Some day to move into a new house, huh?” The handsome neighbor boy was out of sight. He’d probably run for cover as soon as he saw me.
Her gaze followed my gesture and an exhale deflated her chest. The smile on her face didn’t reach her eyes.
She took a few steps into my room, angling herself so she could see the moving truck. “Stella Rhodes, the new neighbor, stopped by after you went to school. Apparently the shipping company was ahead of schedule, so they had to fly in during the week instead of on the weekend like they’d planned. I had to get to work, so I didn’t have much time to chat, but she seems nice enough. Very well-to-do. She works a few hours from home. Marketing or something? I couldn’t make sense of it. Her husband has a high-powered job in textiles. No, wait…” She tapped her chin and glanced out the window. “I’m not sure that’s right. But he’ll be commuting most of the week. Forty-five minutes each way. I’m not sure why they didn’t just move to St. Louis. They certainly have the money for it. But when I asked, she gave me a vague non-answer and changed the subject.” Her brow furrowed. “Something seemed off about that. Almost like she was hiding something…” My mom’s voice trailed away while she looked out the window.
I couldn’t help a grin. Mom loved her mystery shows and novels. She always thought someone was up to no good. She spent her crochet time in the evenings pondering the various deceits and betrayals that might be afoot in our neighborhood. The fact that she always came up empty didn’t daunt her in the least. She never missed a detail that might launch her into the next investigation.
“That explains why they moved in on a Tuesday, then,” I said, throwing an arm over the back of my chair and leaning against it.
She shook herself out of her reverie and her eyes snapped back into focus. “Yes. Their son isn’t supposed to start school until Monday, but she said she might send him early. Get him out of the house. Her explanation checks out. Long-distance moving companies can be unpredictable at the best of times.”
Yikes. I wasn’t looking forward to meeting him after my less-than-graceful welcome.
The wind picked up in intensity, howling like a tortured beast through my old, cracked window frame. Mom drew closer and bent so she could see the sky out of my window.
“How much more do you have to do?” She pointed at my opened calculus book.
“Only a few problems.”
“Well, hurry up, okay? The power is likely to go out tonight. You should get to bed early.” She leaned down and kissed me on the head before glancing out the window one last time. When she left, she closed the door behind her with a soft click.
I took a heavy breath and watched the movers for a moment more, trying to slow my racing heart. The streetlights clicked on, doing little to brighten the graying street.
I stared down at the calculus problem, trying to force myself to concentrate. I needed to graduate and get into a good school, somewhere far away from here. I could already taste freedom, less than a school year away.
My purple pager shook against the hard wood of my desk. I grabbed it and checked the phone number on the small screen.
My best friend Scarlet’s number showed up. The fact that she’d paged, not called, meant she wanted me to know she was thinking of me. She knew the score. She knew what tonight was likely to bring.
My eyes flitted to the window again.
This time, I didn’t look at the new neighbors—my gaze shot toward the large mansion topping the hilltop at the end of the court. From this vantage point, my neighborhood’s cute, well-kept homes blocked my view, hiding the vacant and run-down mammoth. But I knew McKinley Mansion was there, looming over the rest of us, poisoning our town. Everyone in Larkin felt the silent pressure of it, whether they were willing to admit it or not.
We’d all heard the tale of the Old Woman of the mansion. Kid snatcher. Responsible for countless deaths over the last century. When she stood outside your window, you had no choice but to follow her. And what awaited you was death.
Or so the rumors had always gone. From where I stood, there were a few discrepancies, like the age of the victims. Those who disappeared in the middle of the night, never to return, weren’t all kids. And they hadn’t all given in to her.
I was living proof.
Sighing, I bent my head over the textbook, but before I could get anything done, a light clicked on in an upstairs window of my new neighbor’s house. I squinted through the streaked glass, ignoring the wildness of the blowing street. A figure appeared, wide shoulders on top of a powerful frame. This had to be the guy I’d seen earlier.
I leaned back a little, cutting off my view. I didn’t want to get caught staring again. Sure, from this distance, he wouldn’t be able to see the drool, but he’d still know I was watching. There was a level of creepy that I didn’t aspire to.
“Ella.”
I jumped and spun, not having heard the jingle or clicks of my doorknob turning. My dad’s girth filled the doorway.
“Yeah?” I asked.
He looked beyond me out the window. “How much work do you have left?”
“Just”—I tapped my open book with my eraser—“two problems.”
“All right, well…” He shifted and tapped the doorframe. “Finish up. The power is likely to go out with a storm like this one.”
“Okay. Can you close the door—” He was gone before I could finish the question. The door stood wide open in his wake.
I sighed and thought about closing it, but decided against it. I didn’t feel like getting up. Sometimes my laziness won the war against my desire for privacy.
I glanced at the curtains, the same laziness keeping me from rising and reaching for them. Not like it would matter, anyway. Curtains had a tendency to open by themselves.
I put pencil to paper, working through the next problem. The squeak of the door broke me out of my concentration. That was when I felt it. The heaviness on my chest and shoulders. A chill settling over my skin.
My heart sped up. My breath came in short, fast spurts.
The hair on the back of my neck standing on end, I slowly, ever so slowly, turned in my chair.
My door stood open, empty. I could barely breathe, waiting.
It wiggled, just a little, and I felt my eyes widen and my fingers clutch the desk. Was this it? Was my roommate here?
The door groaned as it moved on its own, gliding toward the doorframe as if pushed by an unseen hand on hinges not from this decade. Those hinges had recently been oiled.
The door stalled a quarter of the way open.
“Go away,” I said in a hoarse, shaky whisper. Scarlet said this approach seemed to work for her, and though it never had for me, I always kept trying. “This isn’t your home anymore. Go away.”
The door slammed shut.
The lights clicked off, dousing the room into darkness.
No… An answer so f
aint I barely heard it. A voice like an echo in an empty chamber.
“Oh crap.” I launched out of my chair and dove for my bed. My hand glanced off something, but when I looked around wildly, nothing was there. Tremors ran the length of my body as I pulled up my feet, shoes still on, and grabbed the comforter.
I pulled it, intending to cover my head.
Something yanked it back.
“No. Let go!” I shouted, my heart feeling like it was punching a hole through my chest. I wrestled with unseen hands. “Let go!”
The comforter came free abruptly and I punched myself in the face. My cheekbone throbbing, I fell back onto my mattress and jerked the bedding over my body.
Shaking, I squeezed the bunched-up comforter, keeping it wrapped tightly over my head. There was probably a better defense against dead attackers, but cocooning myself with bedding had worked in the past, so I went with it.
The sound of my harried breath competed with the beating of my heart rushing in my ears. Rain beat at my window in angry raps. Footsteps pounded across my floor, heavy and purposeful.
My unwelcome guest had returned, and he’d brought his surliest attitude with him.
I squeezed my eyes shut, tremors making my limbs shake. More footsteps, this time above me in the attic, a place my family seldom went. Not all of the dead had made the transition to the afterlife. Some of them had stayed behind, either unaware that they had died or uncertain if they really wanted to leave. I never saw them, but they still made a racket.
