The Rattler (Rattler Trilogy Book 1)

by P. A. Fielding

  2

  Later on that morning, Zoe was showered and dressed as she emerged from her bedroom recording on her iPhone. “OK, peeps; part two of the popular video,” she said, walking around the landing. “Now, what was Aunt Sally talking about?”

  She climbed up the stairs to the second floor. Again it felt cold and creepy. “Obviously you guys can’t feel this sensation, but I can tell you it’s freaky. It’s as if someone’s watching you. Aunt Sally said not to come up here in the middle of the night. Why say that? Had she experienced something? I may have to get Vana up here, filming us both.”

  Zoe walked around the landing. “As you can see, it’s empty. The old house never had this many bedrooms, so furnishing them should be fun! Right, this is the bathroom – the only one working in the entire house. Enough said on that. Nothing strange in here.” She moved the phone around the room. There were two toothbrushes in a cup next to the washbasin. “That one’s mine, so I guess someone’s forgotten theirs. I’m guessing it’s James. I don’t think anyone else likes Ben Ten.”

  As Zoe walked towards the stairs leading up to the attic, she noticed the scratch marks on the wall. “Right, I’m pretty sure they weren’t there the other day. I’ll check the video footage. No doubt you guys will comment on that.” Zoe flicked the light switch. Still nothing. She slowly climbed the stairs and headed towards the closed attic door. The intrepid explorer placed her hand on the doorknob and started to open the door when, SLAM! CRASH! Zoe staggered backwards. “What the freakin’ hell was that?”

  She took several deep breaths, composed herself, and cautiously pushed the door open. The loud creaking noise the door made caused goosebumps. Again, the attic was empty apart from the chest. Still filming, she walked over to the open window and closed it. She turned, and then noticed all the scratches on the floor in front of the chest. “They definitely weren’t there the other day.” Zoe wasn’t scared, but she struggled to piece it altogether in her mind. She’d never seen a ghost, or witnessed anything paranormal, so her finger was firmly pointing towards James.

  She went back down to the kitchen, made some toast, and sat at the table with her laptop open in front of her. She examined the video footage. “I knew those scratches weren’t there,” she said, as she watched the first video. It clearly showed a lack of marks on the wall and on the floor. She was fascinated, but also perplexed. “I bet it was James,” she said. Here is the next weird and wonderful video. Enjoy! she wrote on Facebook as she posted video number two.

  3

  An hour later, whilst listening to Pixie Lott, Eliza Doolittle, and Rihanna, via her iPhone, Zoe was finishing off emptying boxes in the study. Her dad would be working in there, drawing animations for computer games, when at home. “Everything is now officially unpacked.” She collected the empty boxes together and took them to the hallway. “One of mum’s chores can be ticked off the list.” Still plugged into her iPhone, a short alert interrupted Rihanna. Jake, one of her friends, had posted You’re scaring the sh!t out of me with these videos! She laughed. Thanx :).

  4

  The rest of the day passed by quietly and uneventfully, as Zoe watched television and caught up with friends from Uni on Facebook. She had always been a popular girl, with lots of friends, and since her dad worked for a top computer games company she had even more throughout the campus.

  It was dinner time. Zoe had skipped lunch to finish the unpacking, so she was ravenous. She ordered a pizza using an app on her iPhone, and sat on the sofa waiting for it to arrive. “Hurry up and bloody come round, Sky! I so miss you already,” she moaned, browsing the Freeview channels on TV. Eventually, she settled for Friends on E4.

  Insistent rings on the bell, and loud knocking on the front door, woke Zoe up. “Shit! The pizza man,” she muttered, as she got up from the sofa and walked into the hall. She checked herself in the mirror, and opened the door. In front of her stood a boy wearing a baseball cap showing the pizza company’s logo, holding a pizza and bottle of Coke. “Sorry I’m a bit late,” he said, handing over the items. “We’ve been mad busy, with it being a Bank Holiday and all.” He took the £10 note Zoe handed to him. “Yeah!” she said, “about that. I was like, just gonna give you guys a call, and say, where’s my mouthful – I need my pizza!”

  The teenager smiled, took two discount vouchers out of his pocket that offered 10% off the next purchases, and handed them to her. “Here take these as an apology.”

  “Thanks; keep the change,” said Zoe, as she closed the door and walked back into the lounge. “That’s a result!” She sat back down with her Coke and favourite 16” pizza – topped with chicken and sweet corn. “Oh my God, that’s amazing,” she said, taking a bite. “Pizza in Chelsea is good!” Her Facebook status later changed to My first night alone and I’m bravin’ it!

  The two videos had proved to be popular amongst her friends; they liked them, and gave them the famous thumbs up symbol.

  11: Sweet dreams

  1

  2.03 am. Zoe abruptly woke. Little Miss Piggy. She struggled from a deep sleep. There it was again. Little Miss Piggy. Someone whispered in her ear. She was then conscious of faint voices that seemed to come from the landing outside her bedroom, and also from the second floor.

  “Zoe,” said a long drawn-out voice. “Oh, Zoe. Out here; I’m up here.”

  “Hello? James?” Zoe forgot that she was indeed, still all on her own. “What the hell’s going on?” she muttered. “Am I dreaming, or can I really hear voices? Hello? Is anyone there?” She reached in the darkness for her iPhone, her hands shook as she started recording. “God, it’s freezing in here. Get a grip girl. It’s five past two in the morning, and I’ve just been woken up by someone whispering in my ear.” She got out of bed and opened the door, silently. And there it was again. “Up here.”

  “Listen you guys, you must’ve heard that.”

  As she walked onto the dark landing, the only light coming from her phone, the voices stopped. “I wonder if this is what my Aunt Sally was talking about. I’ll just take a little peek upstairs. Best to leave the lights off for this.” Zoe slowly felt her way through the darkness, recording as she went, and walked up the stairs to the second floor. She filmed each room in turn, but all was quiet. What she didn’t see was the shadow of a man; he moved down the attic stairs and hid behind the bathroom door.

  As she turned to go back down the stairs, Zoe heard a tapping noise. “You must have heard that,” she whispered, excitedly, into her phone. “Oh, please let me have recorded it.” She walked down the stairs, in the darkness. The noise got louder. Then it stopped. Zoe sat on the bottom step. “Shit! It’s gone quiet. I can’t hear it now.” She was just about to pack it all in, and go back to bed, when the tapping started again.

  “We’re on again!”

  2

  She followed the noise. It came from the kitchen. “Maybe a neighbour’s cat got trapped in there, or perhaps I left a window open?” She pushed the door open; the first thing that the camera captured was the empty pizza box on the table. “Honestly, guys, just for the record I didn’t eat all of that! Right, nothing weird in here, but I can still hear the noise. Hang on. It seems to be coming from the basement.” She nervously opened the door. It was pitch-black. She turned on the light, and started down the stone stairs. Now it sounded as if metal objects were being knocked together.

  Wires and cables ran across the ceiling. There were cobwebs hanging everywhere. In the corner, where the noise was the loudest, was the central heating boiler with copper pipes going up through the floor. “Mystery solved, guys. I guess it was just air in the pipes. Bit of an anti-climax, really,” she said, as she pulled a face into the camera.

  As Zoe made her way back towards the stairs, she had a funny sensation, as if she’d stepped into a giant cool-box. “Guys, I’ve just gone really cold.” She shivered. “This is really strange,” she said, moving her hands in front of her. “There seem to be a couple of cold spots here.” As she moved the phone
slowly around the basement, one of the floorboards near to the boiler creaked lightly.

  “What was that?” she said, moving over to the corner of the basement. “Hello? Is someone in here with me?” The floorboard creaked again.

  “OK. You’ve gained my attention.” She stood the phone up against the wall, and bent down to examine the floorboards. The boards moved under her touch. “Hey, this one seems loose. I wonder if I can shift it. Just need to find something to lever it up.” As she searched around, the phone continued to record. She did not see orbs of light circling over the floorboards – the start of a ghostly manifestation.

  3

  “I’m back; right, let’s see if this works.” She tried to loosen the boards with the aid of a rusty, flat-head screwdriver, which she found in a rotten toolbox. “Success,” she said, lifting the floorboards. She reached for the phone. “There’s something in the hole! Yeah, you guys definitely need to see this.” Zoe moved the phone to show the gap in the floor before her. She propped up the phone again, removed a parcel, unwrapped a dirty piece of cloth, and found the first issue of the Daily Express newspaper.

  “I totally don’t believe it!”

  She moved her fingers delicately over the paper. “According to the date, this paper is over a hundred years old. Wonder how much this would fetch on eBay?” Zoe sat with her back against the damp wall, cold conditions forgotten, and started to read the paper. A dirty thumb mark next to an article about the Manor Murderer caught her eye. She was just reading about the tragic deaths of the Clifford family when her phone beeped. She jumped. “OK peeps, I’m running out of space on my phone, so I’ll have to stop now. Zoe out.”

  Zoe picked up the phone and newspaper and walked back up the stairs into the kitchen. She poured some milk into a mug, shoved it into the microwave, and sat at the table. Questions flooded her mind. Who, or what, had whispered in her ear? Was it a ghost? And what the heck had led her to the basement? Whatever the reason, she struggled to believe what had just happened. It wasn’t long before the microwave pinged; she stirred some powdered chocolate into the hot milk. “Right, time to go back to bed,” she said, carrying the newspaper under her left arm. Sleep would certainly be out of the question now, but at least she’d be warm and comfortable as she read the story.

  12: Rediscovering the past

  1

  It was 3.30 am by the time Zoe arrived back in her bedroom. She turned on the light, closed the door, placed her laptop on the bed, and got under the duvet. The first thing she did then was to connect her iPhone to the laptop and transfer the video files across. Whilst the phone was transferring the data, and updating software, Zoe continued reading the newspaper article about the Manor Murderer. After a swig of hot chocolate, she put the paper down.

  “Time to find out about this Manor Murderer, and who he actually was,” she said, moving the laptop up onto her thighs. She definitely wasn’t tired now; her head absolutely buzzed with the night’s experiences, and she was desperate to know...

  Zoe had loved history during her school years and enjoyed researching and studying historical events. Every summer, Zoe, James and Aunt Sally, would visit the vast beach at Holkham Bay, Norfolk. The trio would spend hours roaming in the fresh air and digging in the sand, hoping to find some buried treasure. They never discovered anything of great importance, but it didn’t stop them searching.

  “Right. Here we go. Internet search. The Manor Murderer. That was quick!” The website results flooded onto the screen. “Where shall I start?” She quickly scanned the list before clicking on the first link. The website was solely about the Manor Murderer. It covered locations, victims, and timelines, all with their individual tabs on the menu bar.

  Zoe read the well-documented reports of the Mather and Clifford families and how they had perished. There was only a small article referencing the demise of Charles St Claire. The website also had disturbing pictures of Victoria, taken in Whitechapel. Zoe covered her mouth in horror. “Poor woman; what a way to go. I hope you found peace,” she said, as her mouse scrolled further down the screen. It was a very interesting article and detailed the whole case. Zoe rested her head against the headboard, and breathed slowly through her slightly opened mouth whilst her eyes wandered over the room. She drank the final mouthful of hot chocolate.

  2

  It was a dark night; the rain was lashing down. Detective Dryden knocked on the front door of a guesthouse at number 10 Wyne Tree Square. His partner, Lockhart, stood behind him, glancing up and down the dark street. “Hurry up,” said Dryden, gruffly, banging more forcefully. “We’re getting soaked out here!”

  “Alright, alright. I’m on my way. Who is it?” shouted an old woman from behind the door. “Open up. It’s the police,” replied Dryden. They heard the door being unlocked, and a small, elderly woman, wearing an old robe hastily thrown on over her nightclothes, appeared. She peered at the two men over the top of her glasses. “Yes?” she said. “What is it? It’s almost 10 o’clock!”

  “Do you have one Sydney Ellwood staying here?” Lockhart demanded. “Yes,” replied the woman, as she opened the door wider and allowed the men to enter the dark hallway. “He rents the attic room. Why do you ask?”

  “It doesn’t concern you,” replied Lockhart.

  “As you wish, gentlemen.” The two men started to climb the stairs when the woman pointed to a room next to the front door. “I’ll be in there if I am needed.” She wasn’t a nosey person and didn’t particularly want to get involved, but she had the feeling this concerned the recent murders. She’d already had that month’s rent in full from Ellwood, and that’s all she cared about.

  3

  The two Detectives walked quietly up the stairs towards the attic, not knowing whether Ellwood would be there or would already have bolted. “Nothing rash,” said Dryden, as he placed his hand on the doorknob, nodded to his partner, then gradually opened the door. Inside they found Ellwood, sitting on his bed, elbows on knees, head in hands, and a look on his face as if he’d been expecting them. Ellwood was their biggest arrest, and it was the pinnacle of their careers. Ellwood knew that his life would end on the gallows, but at least he believed his death would bring an end to the travellers’ killings.

  4

  “Wow,” said Zoe, “where did all that come from? Did I nod off? Did I actually dream it, or is my mind playing tricks?” she went back to the laptop and clicked on an icon that profiled the infamous Sydney Ellwood. When the page loaded, it gave a brief history of the former butler, and detailed how he had eventually been arrested at a guesthouse in Wyne Tree Square. “Shut-up!” gasped Zoe, “this is exactly what I have just seen. What the hell is going on? I wish Vana was here.”

  She scrolled further down the page and found, to her horror, a picture of their house with a headline describing it as the Chelsea Guesthouse where the murderer was arrested. Zoe’s heart sank. “No freakin’ way! Our house was the guesthouse! Wait ‘til I tell Vana!”

  Zoe wasn’t in shock, far from it, but she wanted to know more about her new home. She searched the address and found more than a thousand hits that related to the building being linked to the Manor Murderer – and a few hundred stating it was haunted. “This just gets better and better,” she said. She found one website that listed the house as being one of the most well-known haunted buildings in and around London. She read on. There were ghost stories about the house, told by guests who had stayed there over the years; apparently it was a very popular guesthouse until after World War II when the house was sold and reverted back to a private property. She already knew that Ellwood’s room was in the attic, and the tales all mentioned the ghostly activity that occurred on the second floor. “This is too much! Why does it have to happen when I’m on my own?”

  5

  Once Zoe’s software update was completed, and the videos uploaded to Facebook, she disconnected the iPhone. What she’d learned tonight had got her thinking; Aunt Sally’s cryptic words before she left for Florida now
seemed to make sense. What she couldn’t get her head round, though, was why had Ellwood guided her to find the newspaper? What was he trying to say? Did he have a message for her?

  Zoe sat and thought about her discoveries for a good ten minutes. As a former A-Level history student she knew that the question to every good story always started with WHY? It was whilst Zoe was considering this that she became aware of thumps on the ceiling. She plucked-up the courage, got out of bed, turned on her video recording, and went out of the room. She turned on the landing light. OK, peeps. Another video. It’s 4.15 am, and well, you’ll never guess what – I’ve just found out that my house has history! Fill you all in on it later, but for now – there’s movement in the attic.

  13: The second floor

  1

  The second floor was pitch-black. The only light, that from Zoe’s iPhone, led her across the landing and towards the stairs to the attic. Floorboards creaked with every footstep. The atmosphere was not, by any means, normal or perfect. Was that all in Zoe’s imagination, though, after what she’d just discovered about the place?

  As she reached the stairs, her heart started to beat a little faster. With one hand on the handrail, and the other filming, she slowly made her ascent. The wind outside shook the windows in their frames. She pushed open the door, tentatively. It was completely dark. This is where a man called Sydney stayed, and where he was arrested as the Manor Murderer. Zoe slowly moved the phone around the room, the light cascading from it gently illuminated every particle of dust. “Hello? Sydney, what do you ask of me?” she asked, sitting down on the floor in the middle of the attic. Then she had a strange sensation, as if someone had run a cold ice-lolly down her spine. She turned the phone towards the door.