A Ghostly Dare

by Zoey Kane

  Claire didn’t; she’d just entered an adjoining space which proved to be much more than just a closet. “I found the weapons room!” she announced. Rifles and pistols gleamed up at her inside their protective glass case. “He must have been a collector! Hey, there’s a Kentucky rifle in here.”

  “What does that mean?” Zoey asked, having entered.

  “I don’t know. That’s what it’s labeled. And a 1911 .45 automatic Colt. And a Colt made in 1903. There are a lot of rifles that seem to belong to some guy—John Moses Browning.”

  Zoey smiled. “Think they are worth anything? Or should we take up target practice?”

  “I’d rather take up golf, Mom.”

  “That’s good, because there are a whole lot of golf clubs and equipment across the room over there.” She pointed with glee.

  “You know,” Claire said, thinking over the weight of the situation her mother had fallen into, “what we need to do is take inventory of everything in this house; keep what’s right to keep and see about finding a way to protect everything else. One thing is for sure, we must keep all of this a secret for now. If anyone sees us coming or going, we will emphasize the old cemetery and overgrowth of this impossible property—a property that’s mostly uphill.”

  “Yes, yes.” Zoey’s eyes were wide in agreement.

  Claire’s eyes darted past her mom to the doorway. “What was that?!”

  “What? What was what?” Zoey turned to look.

  “It was a flicker. A motion, I thought….” Claire hastened to the hallway. “Nothing. I see nothing.”

  “Now, you stop that! Or I’m going to have to load up one of those pocket guns and start carrying.”

  That was enough of cigars and guns for them. They decided to hurry and go on to the next room. It was right across from the mystery man’s room. It had double doors, which swung easily inward. A large picturesque window had open, silk drapes that touched the wood floor. A bed with posts reaching to the ceiling sat in the center of the room. Just by pure habit, Claire looked for a TV opposite it, but realized quickly, when seeing the magnificent fireplace, what a fool she was for expecting that. She went over to the fireplace and touched the old black smoke stains on the stone.

  Zoey’s attention was taken by the oil painting hanging above the bed—so large, so real. It was a portrait of a woman with a white bouffant hairdo, wearing a gray dress with a robe lined in what she supposed was rabbit fur—very common for royalty back then. The woman’s gaze was haunting. “These people were filthy rich.”

  “This feels like a dream, Mother.”

  They spent a lot of time going through every inch and corner, nook and cranny, closet and dresser. Then the Kanes lay on the bed, taking turns reading passages from multiple diaries, which they discovered in a chest that sat at the foot of the bed. The name of the woman in the painting was Loretta Fillmore. She came from a wealthy line of Europeans. Her husband—who loved his guns, cars, and Cuban cigars—was Thomas Fillmore. Mr. Fillmore’s father was a self-made success, having worked his way up from dirt farmer to bank owner; it was a family business, passed down. Mr. Fillmore only had one child, Lilly. Mrs. Fillmore wrote her concerns of what would happen to the family business, since she couldn’t have a son.

  “I wonder what happened to them,” Claire said, having found a picture of the Fillmores standing outside their estate. Fourteen servants stood with them, all white except for one black man in a belfry topper hat, posing beside an antique car. She stared at the photo while saying, “Why did they abandon this place? Was there something so pressing that caused them to suddenly up and leave their most precious belongings behind?”

  Zoey shrugged. “If they were that rich, they could afford to pack a suitcase of money and just go.”

  They lay there in awe, tired from all their time spent discovering so many amazing things, including the mystery of the Fillmores.

  “I can’t believe it’s already night time,” Claire said.

  “There is no way I am walking back to our car, dear.”

  “What should we do?”

  “I suppose we can sleep in this bed.”

  “With all the dust?”

  “Help me remove the bedspread. I’m sure not one molecule of dust has touched this bed in a century.”

  As they lay in bed, the Kanes couldn’t stop their rampant thoughts. If this really was true, it was the best kept secret in Riverside, and it was all theirs. As they began to simmer into a slumber, something woke Zoey.

  “Claire, are you awake?”

  “Hm, yeah,” she said groggily.

  “Do you hear that?”

  “No. What?”

  “The song Allegany Moon,” Zoey said, and sang softly, “Allegheny Moon ta da ta da, lada lada ta da ta da.”

  “I hear the melody too, now…” Claire shivered.

  “Well,” insisted her mother, “What do you suppose it is? It’s giving me the heebie-jeebies.”

  “It sounds like it’s maybe a clock. I’m sure the time is on the hour right now, which explains its chiming.” Claire knew how impossible that was under the circumstances, but was too scared to acknowledge the other possibility. That maybe they were being haunted.

  Zoey accepted her daughter’s words without any contention, but even so a chill went down her spine, and it took her another hour to fall asleep.

  END OF SAMPLE. PURCHASE THE BOOK HERE.