by Kevin Guest
Dr. Anderson put down the newspaper. Next to it laid his rejection. He had worked so hard and come so close that to be stopped now was almost criminal. Could this be the answer he was looking for? He thought about it all afternoon, then on the way home decided he had to go to Reindeer Manor.
Several hours later, Anderson was questioning his decision. On this October day, it had been raining all afternoon and into the evening. The traffic down Interstate thirty-five was horrid. Once he got off on Bear Creek Road, he thought things would ease up. How wrong he was. The line of cars heading to Reindeer Manor seemed endless. For forty-five agonizing minutes, he inched forward, until finally he came upon the entrance. Once he crossed under the iron arch, he thought he was home free, but to his dismay, another long line of cars was ahead of him. Thirty torturous minutes later, he was finally directed into a parking spot.
He stood outside his car, weary from the traffic. Unlike most of the patrons, who were young and able, he was an aging instructor of psychology, in his middle sixties, slightly overweight and balding. The rain falling from the sky, along with the cold temperature, made the night miserable. In the distance he saw a tractor dragging cars out of their spots. He felt lucky he was not forced to park in the mud.
In the distance, through the rain, Anderson saw a lone lantern. It glowed yellow, signaling all those around, “Over here, this way.” With their heads bowed, the people resembled zombies, walking mindlessly toward the lantern.
Anderson was cold and his clothes were quickly saturating. He questioned his thought process and choice to venture out on this night. Only the prospect of completing his life’s work gave him the motivation to continue.
As he reached the lantern, he was relieved to see an awning. Under the awning stood a crowd of people, waiting for something. He shook his head, thinking he would see a ticket booth. After such a long entrance, surely this would be the end of the waiting. He was mistaken.
As he walked under the awning, his subdued demeanor was shared by all. No one was talking; rather, they were huddling together for warmth.
The howl of the wind whistled through the trees as a light in the distance broke through the darkness. Everyone scooted forward as the tractor drove past them, towing a long trailer with seats of hay. Once the tractor came to rest, they boarded.
Because of his bad leg, Anderson was the last to get on. He had barely sat down when the tractor jerked and moved forward. The ride was bumpy and uncomfortable. Anderson gritted his teeth as every bump sent ripples of pain up his injured back. He thought of his prior hauntings, how those in need would come to him, but now those days had passed. He felt desperate, and in his mind he knew that desperation was often followed by bad decisions.
As the tractor pulled them along, they crossed through the old cemetery before plunging into the dark woods. The rain and wind were magnified by the speed of the tractor. It made an already miserable autumn night even worse.
As they emerged from the woods, they passed another iron gate with the name ‘Reindeer Manor’ on top of it. Without stopping, the tractor continued on, pulling the hay wagon along the dirt road, then around back of the 13th Street Morgue, and finally to the front entrance. As the tractor stopped, with a big whoosh, a huge fireball erupted right above their heads. Anderson looked as the ball of fire illuminated the dilapidated gas station underneath it. Only one pump remained, but the roof of the building had collapsed and a portion laid on top of the old pump. He could clearly see the price, forty-two cents a gallon. How dated it was, he thought.
As Anderson stepped off the hayride, he noticed the ground was as saturated and muddy as it had been in the parking lot. He sighed and smiled a bit, giving credit to the date; this was good weather for a haunted house, but even better for Halloween.
Finally, nearly two and half hours after he left his prestigious home in Highland Park, he saw the ticket booth. Luckily, since he was the last one on the hayride, he was the first one off. He walked up to the booth and was greeted by the friendly cashier. She happily sold him a premium ticket.
As Anderson walked away, the smell of slow burning hickory wood tickled his nose. His mouth began to salivate as he realized he had not eaten dinner. He followed the heavenly scent and found a group of people standing in line, drawn by the aroma.
Anderson joined the line, trying to block his hunger pangs until they could be satisfied. He watched as young children ran screaming from one of the attractions. They darted across the midway as ghouls chased them. He chuckled at their terror and wondered if he would be so affected by these haunts.
As the line moved forward, he had trouble staying upright. His left leg was weak from a previous car accident, and the cane provided little support on such saturated ground. As he stepped forward, his fear came true. The cane was properly stuck.
Fortunately for him, a nice young man walked over and freed his cane from the mud.
Finally, his time to order had come. He stood before a young man who had a smile that would warm even the darkest of hearts. Above him stood a sign, ‘The Ole’ Texas Smokehouse.’ The man was wearing a black t-shirt, covered by a black apron that sported the same name as the banner. Atop his head was a hat that read, ‘The nicest guy in town.’ Dr. Anderson thought, We shall see.
The booth was made of cheap timbers and used lumber; parts of it even looked as if it had been in a fire. It was a hodgepodge of corrugated metal and wood, but perfect for the Neanderthal food of fire and meat.
As he looked down, he could see a beer cooler filled with cold drinks covered by ice. Even in such miserable conditions, a person could enjoy an ice-cold soda.
Beside the cooler was a wooden cutting board, with a large razor sharp cleaver laying on top of it. To the left of the board was a portable steam table, no doubt where the delicacies of the barbeque were held.
The man smiled and said, “How are you tonight?”
Anderson eyed him. “I’m fine.”
“That’s great! Now, how are you really?”
What a persistent man, Anderson thought. “Actually, I’m cold, tired, and regretting coming out here with my cane.”
The barbeque man looked at his watch. “I can understand. It’s Friday, it’s Halloween, and it’s half an hour ‘til midnight. A lot of people are out here.”
Anderson rolled his eyes. “So what’s the deal with these houses? What’s so special about them?”
“Well, since you’re now the only one in my line, let me tell you a story.”
Anderson motioned with his free hand. “Please do.”
“In the early 1900s, a two story wooden house stood on the site of the current house. The owner of the house was James Sharp, a prominent Texas oil pioneer and banker who partnered with Howard Hughes, Sr. in the famed Sharp-Hughes Tool Company. He leased the house and property to a family of Swedish immigrants because he was often away on business. Unfortunately, in the early hours of a morning in 1915, the silence of the farm was shattered by screams. Lightning had sparked a tragic fire, which quickly consumed the wooden house. The entire family of sharecroppers, including several small children, perished in an unspeakably horrific death. Upset by the fate of his tenants, or perhaps because of the loss of property, Mr. Sharp decided to rebuild, only on a grand scale.”
Anderson leaned against the booth. “Why would he do that?”
“Well, he decided that this time he would occupy the property and turn it into the crown jewel of all his properties. But that’s where his normal side ended. He wanted to make sure the newly built house would not succumb to something as pedestrian as fire. Even though it nearly tripled the cost of construction, he made sure the buildings on the property were as fireproof as possible. This explains the unusual construction of virtually all the structures on the property. If you visit them during the day, you will notice they are all almost entirely engineered with concrete, brick, and steel. The lack of wood in their construction is oh-so-odd.”
Anderson sighed, only slightly intrigue
d. “You don’t say.”
“Yes, well, it was not to be. Mr. Sharp was killed, but by whom is still unclear. Even the location of his death is a mystery. Some say he was killed in the manor, by both his mistress and his wife. Some say it was just his mistress. Additionally, there is a bit of proof that he was killed at his city house in Oak Cliff. Even the details of his affair with his secretary are unusual. Some say they were married, some say it was a general affair, and some say he was a devoted father and would never succumb to such temptation.”
Anderson felt his eye lids growing heavy. “Uh-huh.”
The barbeque man looked around, making sure he was not missing out on any customers. He leaned in to the professor. “Well, the fact is, no one really knows who killed Mr. Sharp. The details are vague because of the bare semblance of an investigation at the time. You see, the Widow Sharp didn’t want her husband’s rumored infidelity widely known. She pressured the county Sheriff to quickly close the investigation and thus end the wild speculation of the press and neighbors. However, a darker rumor still circulates, that Mrs. Sharp and his mistress, who may have been the second Mrs. Sharp, chopped him up and put him in the attic of the house. But that rumor really does not correspond with the coroner’s report, which stated that the cause of death was due to the loss of two to three ounces of brain substance.”
Anderson sighed as he considered ending this conversation, but the barbeque man continued, “Now, it gets even more interesting. In 1917, shortly after the death of his father, James Jr. moved into the newly completed manor, but the legacy of misfortune continued. He developed quite a prosperous farming and ranching operation, in addition to breeding horses for harness racing. Between 1918 and 1928, additional buildings were added to the grounds: servant’s quarters, barns, and a carriage house. It was important to Junior that the estate was well equipped with an appropriate amount of space, which a wealthy family was expected to have. Everyone thought the Sharp family had survived the untimely death of its patriarch and had even come out better for it.
“However, James Junior’s stewardship of the property was cut short with the onset of the Great Depression of 1929, which thrust the Sharp family into poverty. His wife, a prominent spiritualist at the time, was convinced that the family and the estate itself were cursed. With creditors threatening, Junior began to act strangely. The staff was not shy about spreading the rumors of Junior’s insanity to the locals. Though many did not believe the help’s stories, they began to notice how reclusive Junior and his wife had become. The rumors spoke of strange and unholy pursuits going on behind the doors of the main house.
“It was only later, after the fall of the estate, that some of the goings-on were revealed. One maid, named Bonita stated, ‘Constantly tormented by the whispers of a Sharp family curse, James and his wife were obsessed with finding a solution to their woes. Strange folk were seen going in and out of the Great House, from psychics to witch doctors; Mr. & Mrs. Sharp invited anyone with access to the occult to their bedroom in the vain attempt to lift the hex. His wife held séances to contact James Senior from beyond the grave for advice and counsel. Potions were mixed and incantations were chanted to rid the home and family from the string of bad luck. No one is sure if they were instructed by a spirit or simply came upon the solution on their own, but soon the couple found a way to bring the Sharp family out of the shadows.’”
Anderson was becoming a bit more interested. “So what happened?”
The barbeque man smiled and wagged his finger. “The final chapter of the Sharp family ended with the discovery of James Junior’s wife, dead by poisoning, and his lifeless body swinging from a noose in the barn. To this day it is unclear who killed whom or if it was a suicide pact. Either way the curse was lifted.”
Anderson smiled. “Well I’ll be. That’s a tumultuous history all right.”
“Well if you have a bit more time, there’s more.”
Anderson was beginning to sense a gold mine lay here. “Son, I’ve got all night.”
He smiled. “Well, years after the Sharp family was no more, a man named Jonathon Maybrick leased one of the barns for his residence and funeral parlor, which was an expansion of his funeral home business in Alvarado, Texas. It is said that he intended to get the business going, then lease it out and return to his home in Alvarado. He was able to create a state of the art embalming facility, funeral chapel, and crematory. The north end of the barn was converted into a residence while the south end became storage for the horse-drawn hearse. The land to the west of the building was used to bury folks who could not afford a plot in the city cemetery. Even today, the owner still enjoys sizable tax discounts on the property for the paupers’ graves.
“The Maybricks did well at their new location, but trouble began to brew when a local criminal met his end in a botched bank robbery. During the crime, a local widower’s sixteen year old daughter was shot and killed. The widower, Alfred Helm, religiously kept his three children indoors for fear of losing them like he lost his wife. In a strange twist of fate, he had sent his eldest daughter, Abigail, to the bank that afternoon. The robber, Raymond Reynolds, an out-of-work railroad employee, killed the bank teller and Abigail for no apparent reason, though it was suspected that the teller resisted the robber’s demands. As he tried to flee, he was shot dead by the town’s only police officer.
“After the shootings, Raymond’s mother came to the morgue to make final arrangements for her son. Even though Mr. Maybrick was hesitant to arrange the funeral for such a notorious villain, he finally acquiesced because he ultimately needed the money and media attention.
“As word spread of the funeral, Alfred Helm was not at all happy to hear the news that the murderer of his precious Abigail was to receive a proper funeral when he had to lay his child to rest on his own land with his own shovel. Rumors spread that Helms would show up at the funeral and cause trouble, but on the day of the event all was quiet.
“A few months later, close to Christmas, the public’s memories of the robbery and shootings were beginning to fade, but not in Mr. Helm’s mind. Early on the morning of December 13, Mr. Helm cut the phone lines and broke into the morgue. Dressed as Santa Claus to fool the children, he made his way into the building and into each of the bedrooms. After strangling the two small children, the wife, and finally Jonathon, Mr. Helm sat in the Maybricks’ living room, in Jonathan’s rocking chair, and shot himself in the chest. How long he sat there before killing himself is unknown, but the butt of a cigar was found on the floor, and Jonathon Maybrick did not smoke.
“The note Mr. Helm left read simply, ‘Please watch after my children. They are the product of an unholy mind.’
“After years of abandonment, I believe the Red Oak Fire Department used the main house as a training ground, since it would not burn. However, strange reports of floating objects and unexplained noises unnerved some of the firefighters. After years of petitioning the town for a new facility, in 1974 they received it. Shortly after, it was determined by city leaders that the strange events that occurred on the property could make a worthy fund raiser for the fire department. At that point, the haunted attraction was born and named after its mailing street, Reindeer Road. Years later, it was bought from the city and run by an unknown family who eventually sold to the current owner. When the history of the morgue was discovered, they decided to exploit that history as well; however, they have had more problems with the barn lately than the house. Some say the true evil lies there, where Junior hung himself and Alfred did his killings.”
Suddenly, Anderson saw spots before his eyes; he grabbed the cutting board to stabilize himself as his cane hit the ground. The barbeque man reached across the cutting board and grabbed him, arresting his fall.
Anderson stood up and regained his balance, “I’m sorry, I’m not sure what happened.”
The barbeque man smiled, “That’s all right. Here, just take a sandwich. It’s on me, just sit down and take it easy.”
“Thank yo
u.” He took it and walked over to a table. As he sat there, he thought about the history and the newspaper article. It seemed too good to be true. He recalled days of wasted time spent staring at useless monitors and listening to the unexplained sounds of rickety old homes. His mind wandered to a specific haunting in his manuscript, a haunting he called ‘classic.’
Anderson finished the sandwich, then returned to the vendor. “Thank you for your kindness. May I have your name, for reference?”
The barbeque man smiled at him. “Kevin.”
“Nice to meet you, Kevin. Say, if I wanted to investigate the house, how would I do that?”
Kevin looked toward the manor. “Well, you would have to talk to Andy; he’s the owner. Unfortunately, he also runs the special effects, so he will not be available ‘til the show is over.”
Anderson raised his cane and smiled. “Thank you, sir.” He walked away, hopeful he had found what he was looking for. He wandered over to Reindeer Manor and enjoyed the rooftop show, the customers being put in the gallows, and the overall atmosphere. He stood in line and slowly inched his way ever closer to the house. Finally, after nearly two hours, he was escorted inside. Unlike the rest, though he enjoyed the acting, he was more enamored with the house itself. He spent a good deal of time looking up at the ceiling, trying to authenticate that at one time this was a residence.
After the show, a group of actors took Anderson to Andy. As he walked along the large concrete porch of the house, he came to a special window. Inside, a thin man in his late forties was finishing up some kind of paperwork. Around him were knobs, buttons, computer screens, amplifiers, and ropes that disappeared into the ceiling.
The man looked up and saw him. “What can do for ya?”
“I’m sorry for staying behind, but I was told I would have to wait ‘til the show was over to talk with you. My name is Dr. Jonathon Anderson.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Andy. Now, you waited a long time, doctor, what can I do for you?”
Anderson leaned his cane against the window, “I want to investigate the house. How might I go about that?”
Andy sighed. “Well, during the week, I will be happy to give you a private tour. We have prices for private parties.”
“No, I want to stay in the manor.”
Andy sat back in his chair. “No one spends the night here, ever.”
“I am willing to make it worth your while. I have the backing of the psychological department at the university. The picture we saw in the paper has generated quite a bit of enthusiasm.”
Andy folded his arms. “Dr. Anderson, there are places in this house that are sealed off. Not even I will go there. You have to understand, this place is like a museum. Enjoy it while you’re here, but let it be. Let whatever resides here rest. You’re not doing anyone any favors by stirring up further controversies. It’s just a Halloween attraction. It’s best if you leave it that way.”
He was not deterred. “But you know it’s more, much more. You’re selling the history of the house; why do you deny its true form?”
Andy sighed and his smile faded. “I made the mistake of staying in the house after I bought it. I thought it would be a neat experience, but it’s not. Sometimes things happen to visitors that are out of my control, but for the most part, things remain calm. I know this sounds like bad news, but it’s not. Please, go back to the university. Leave this house alone.”
Anderson shook his head. If only Andy knew how much this meant to him. “I cannot do that. Though you’re warning me, it’s only furthering my curiosity. I am offering you one hundred thousand dollars to allow myself and a staff of my choice to reside in the manor for five days. These are my conditions: return the house to its original design and open up any sealed-off areas. After five days, we will depart and make no further requests of you.”
Andy shook his head. “I don’t—”
“One hundred thousand dollars plus the cost to take down and rebuild. Take it or leave it.” Anderson put his business card down and walked away.
After going over his finances and realizing what he could do with the money, for the first time, Andy decided to allow an extensive investigation. The next day he spoke with Anderson’s secretary and approved the deal.
Obsession
