The Haunting of Bloodmoon House

by Jeff DeGordick

  They turned the corner and headed down the long hallway leading to the front of the mansion. Jess had turned on the flashlight and they could see Roy bounding along in the distance.

  Jess was still stunned, working through the confusing emotions tumbling through her. She couldn't believe she'd been so stupid to fall for his sappy act, and a whole new level of rage and resentment resided in her chest like a boiler fit to burst. She no longer cared a single bit about her uncle or what happened to him, but they needed that book.

  The multitude of ghosts residing in the house floated in and out of the hallway, disappearing through doorways and walls. They tried to dodge them as best they could. One ghost swept in front of them suddenly, leaving them with not enough room to squeeze by. So Tyler shoved Jess to the side and let her slip through while his shoulder passed through the spirit. A numbing coldness came over him and he shuddered. The feeling was so icy that it was painful, but he tried to shake it off.

  When they got to the front of the hallway, they could hear Roy stomping down the stairs to the foyer.

  When he reached the bottom, he stopped and checked his watch. "It's time! It's time!" he shrieked.

  Tyler, Jess and Buddy stopped at the top of the stairs and watched him.

  Suddenly all the ghosts in the house fully materialized. Their blue shapes flashed and warped, and the glow from them momentarily expanded. When it receded, their shapes were transformed into full, detailed human beings.

  Tyler and Jess nervously looked all around them as the spirits materialized next to them in the hallway. Buddy jumped up on the spot, wheeling around and barking at each one.

  Down in the foyer, Roy held his arms in the air triumphantly. He beheld the ghosts that spawned next to him and in the dining and living rooms. "It's done!" he cried.

  A ghost walked around the corner from the dining room, tall and burly. He had very stern eyes and he carried a straight razor in his hand.

  Jess remembered that face, and when her eyes fell on the razor, she recalled the details she'd read about the Dovers and knew that it was Vernon, transported to the physical world.

  He walked across the dining room toward Roy. His strides were long and heavy. The straight razor was held against his leg as he walked, and he didn't take his eyes off his grandson.

  The spirits in the hallway next to Jess and Tyler walked past them, some of them holding ghostly weapons, and the two of them backed against the wall to get out of the way. For some reason, all of the spirits were solely focused on Roy.

  "I've done what you asked!" Roy said gleefully as the spirits approached. "Now give me the powers that you promised me!" He pulled the book out of his cloak and held it up into the air. "I did it! It was all for you!" he said in fawning admiration of Vernon.

  Wet footsteps echoed next to Jess and she and Tyler snapped their heads to the side just in time to see Vernon's oldest daughter walk by them on the second floor. She gazed at Tyler with a smile on her face and reached out with a long, slender finger, brushing it under his chin. Tyler felt the icy touch of frostbite on his skin, and he gasped and pulled away.

  The girl threw her head back and laughed. Water gargled in her throat and spilled out of her mouth as she turned and walked down the steps, gliding her hand over the rail.

  "Well?" Roy demanded. "I did what you asked! Make me powerful like you promised!"

  Jess had no idea what he was talking about, but she could see that there was one part of his sob story that was true: he had been severely manipulated.

  Chains rattled across the floor from somewhere below. Another spirit came out of the ballroom and came into the foyer, causing Roy to take a step back. An emaciated woman with chains wrapped around her wrists and ankles staggered toward him. Her mouth hung open and her eyes bulged at him in her gaunt face.

  As the spirits closed in on him, Roy wheeled around, looking from one to another. Suddenly, he recognized the faces of each person he had killed and sacrificed for the Dovers. And he saw that each of them had a look of deep hatred and anger etched into their face as they gazed upon him and closed in.

  Roy's face fell and he backed up toward the living room. More spirits came out of the hallway connected to the room, and Roy pressed himself to the wall, working around the archway and retreating to the far corner.

  The spirits in the foyer and the dining room followed, slowly closing in on him.

  "Wait!" he cried. "What about me?"

  Tyler helped Jess down the stairs, and Buddy trotted with them. They stood in the foyer and watched as the crowd of ghosts formed a quarter circle around Roy whose back was now firmly pressed to the corner of the room.

  He saw the anger burning on each face, including the Dovers'. And in that moment, he knew that he had no friend in any of them, and he never did. The Dovers had used him as a pawn just like he had tried to use Jess and her friends.

  "Wait!" was his last word before they descended on him. Jess saw his hand shoot up above the crowd in protest, and the ghosts replied in kind, raising weapons, clawed hands, and fists in the air. Then they descended upon him.

  Roy screamed bloody murder as they hacked him apart. Jess and Tyler could see blood splashing up in the air and against the walls as his screams filled the house.

  Very quickly, the life was snuffed out of him like the insignificant flame of a candle, and his cries fell silent. When they did, the ghosts of at least a hundred people turned around and faced Jess and Tyler, that same look of murderous rage on their faces.

  Whispers and Ciphers

  There was a moment of silence as the two groups stared at each other. The ghosts didn't speak, only glaring at Jess and Tyler. Then they came for them.

  Jess and Tyler instinctively took a step back and Buddy barked at the crowd.

  As the spirits walked and their ethereal bodies shifted from side to side, a narrow line of vision connected Jess's eyes to her uncle's brutalized body. It looked like a mess from where she was, almost unrecognizable, but she could also make out something lying on his outstretched fingertips: the book.

  "We have to get the book!" Jess said. Tyler just silently nodded with a vacuous look, not offering any suggestions.

  Jess glanced down at Buddy. He was sitting in front of her, barking at the ghosts and protecting her. As the crowd moved, they spread out from their cluster, offering narrow paths between each dead spirit. Jess knelt down and patted Buddy on the back, and he looked up at her and panted. She reached out and pointed through the crowd at the book. "See the book, boy?" she said. "Fetch!"

  Buddy barked at her, and then he turned and took off. The dog weaved his way through the crowd, growling and barking as he dodged their legs. He whimpered as part of his body touched one of the spirits, no doubt giving him a cold shock, but he made it through to the other side as Jess and Tyler slowly backed away from the encroaching mob. Some of the ghosts looked down at him as he sped by, but most of the crowd kept their eyes permanently affixed on the two teens, holding their weapons by their sides.

  Jess lost sight of her dog as she and Tyler were pushed to the stairs. "Come on..." she muttered under her breath, watching, as Tyler's hand squeezed hers.

  "We have to get out of here!" Tyler warned her, tugging on her.

  But she refused to move. "Come on..." she repeated.

  Then Buddy leapt out from the front of the crowd, the book clutched in his mouth. He bounded up to Jess and jumped up on her hips, offering the prize. She grabbed it, and the three of them immediately turned and ran back up the stairs.

  Tyler held Jess close and helped her along the hallway as the three of them made their way back to the room where Simon and Ashley were. They prayed that he was still alive and would be conscious enough to help them. But Tyler was already forming ulterior plans in the back of his mind if that reality didn't happen.

  Ghosts still littered the house who hadn't already made their way to the living room, and some of them dotted the hallway in their path. They sidestepped one spirit befo
re it turned around and realized they were running by, and another phased through a wall ahead of them and blocked their passage. There was a large hole in the middle of his chest, pale blood staining his ethereal shirt, and in his hand he held his own beating heart. He reached out for them as they approached and Buddy launched forward, barking furiously. He jumped up and tried to take a bite out of the ghost, uselessly sailing through, then he spun around to do it again. The vicious, but ineffective, attack of the dog was enough to distract the ghost as he gazed down at the canine, allowing Tyler and Jess to split up and glide by. They rejoined on the other side and continued down the hallway, Buddy giving up his attack and following them. They threw a glance over their shoulders to see that the crowd of angry dead had entered the hallway on the upper floor and was pursuing them.

  They made it back to the room, and Ashley gave them a worried look.

  Simon was dreamily opening his eyes and squeezing them shut, trying to clear some blood out of his throat.

  "He's not doing good," Ashley said.

  Simon groaned.

  "We got the book!" Jess said, hoping that would arouse his vitals. "What do we do?" She stared at him, waiting on bated breath for him to say something.

  His hand was pressed on his wound, and he had enough strength to lift his head and look down at it. He peeled his hand back and saw the blood, then his head fell back and clunked on the floor. "Not bad, kids," he uttered.

  The three of them perked up, their hearts swelling at the fact that he formed a sentence. They thought he wouldn't even be able to do that and that his life would slip away before their very eyes at any second.

  His sallow eyes drifted over to Tyler. "Who taught you how to shoot?" he asked, then he tried to laugh, but he soon broke down into a harsh cough as blood sputtered past his lips.

  Jess held the book up to him as if he would lunge up to grab it. "What do we do?" she repeated.

  He lifted his head halfway up to try to look, but he realized the strain was too much, and he let it sink back down again with a long sigh. "You have to read it to me," he said weakly. He paused for a while, then he said, "You're gonna have to perform the exorcism without me."

  Stress riddled Jess's body, and she became terrified at the prospect of doing something so monumental when she had no idea what she was doing. Flustered, she looked down at the book and opened it up, mindlessly flipping the pages. "This is all gibberish!" she said.

  "Is that gibberish spelled with English letters?" Simon asked quietly.

  Jess gazed at the book. "Yeah."

  "Try your best."

  "Um..." Jess's brow strained, and Tyler looked over her shoulder, trying to give a second opinion, but he was just as mystified as she was.

  She started on the first page, thankfully seeing that only the first seven or eight pages in the book were sparsely filled out, and she began reading, slowly sounding out each strange syllable.

  "Keep going," Simon said. His eyes drifted shut and his mouth fell open, and Ashley stared down at him in horror, thinking he'd croaked. She gave his shoulder a push, and he scrunched his eyes, like he didn't appreciate it.

  Some things in the book were underlined or circled, and Jess decided to cut to the chase and start with those. She read a few of them, but Simon offered no reaction. Finally, she spoke something that sounded like "Egot Parson Niefor", and then Simon's eyelids rolled open.

  "That one," he said. "Keep that one in mind. What else you got?"

  "What does it mean?" Jess asked.

  "Just keep going," he said. He weakly reached into his shirt and pulled out the crucifix around his neck. His eyes swiveled around in their sockets, doing a quick inventory of what he could see around them in the room. He seemed alarmed, like he knew what would show up on their doorstep soon, and he began muttering quiet phrases under his breath, holding the crucifix over his chest.

  "Uh," Jess continued, "Gregor Vinom Yedhum. Lednor Timron Argat Flor. Hashine Drepthor Cantal."

  "Stop," Simon said. "Those last two you read... those will do."

  "What are they for?"

  "When your uncle initiated the séance, he used certain ciphers, or codewords, to charge the ritual. Think of it like a password. The séance can't be undone without them." He looked over at her. "Take the crucifix off my neck."

  Jess crawled across the floor and gently lifted his head, unhooking the small chain behind him. She pulled it off and held it in her hand, staring at it.

  He motioned to her with a finger to come closer.

  She leaned over him, letting him whisper in her ear. Simon gave her a set of instructions, adding that the anchor point of the house was in the dining room downstairs. He paused and reached into his jacket, producing a piece of white chalk, and he handed it to her. She gripped it tightly in her hands and leaned her ear up to his lips again.

  His voice was growing weaker, and he could barely muster the strength to give her the instructions. But Jess listened intently, nodding along.

  He pulled away from her. "You got it?"

  She nodded.

  Simon motioned to Tyler next, and Tyler leaned in and got a set of whispered instructions on what to do as well.

  Tyler nodded when he was finished, then Simon told them to go.

  "What about you?" Jess asked.

  "I'll be fine," he said.

  Jess looked at Ashley. "Watch over him, Ash."

  Ashley nodded, a look in her eyes telling Jess to be careful.

  Jess picked up on it and nodded back.

  Then she, Tyler, and Buddy left the room.

  Master of the House

  The dead were already in the hallway.

  Jess and Tyler screeched to a stop as soon as they left the room, looking left and right.

  The spirits had started to come around the corners in each direction, some of them moving directly through the corners. A multitude of the restless dead glided or walked for them, keeping a slow pace, certain that their prey wouldn't escape. There was too much congestion for Jess and Tyler to hope to get by them, and with a silent glance and nod, they turned their attention to the spiral staircase in the middle of the hallway.

  They ran for it, Tyler helping Jess along as Buddy kept up next to them, jumping and barking at the spirits closing in.

  The ghost of a woman who looked to be in her mid-thirties—her throat sliced opened and blood washing down her pale neck—held a kitchen knife by her side and had a look of pure murderous rage painted on her face as she came for them. She reached the top of the staircase before they did and blocked their escape.

  But Jess and Tyler were determined to get through, and they lunged forward.

  The woman raised the knife into the air, her crazed eyes fixed on them.

  Tyler approached first, and the woman slashed the knife down toward his head, but he backed up suddenly, stepping out of the way of the swing as the woman's shoulder plunged forward toward the floor.

  "Come on!" Tyler said as he grabbed Jess and dragged her around the ghost. Buddy jumped up and snapped at the woman's heels, yelping and retreating as the cold touch numbed his gums.

  They worked their way down the spiral staircase, thankfully not running into anything on the way. Their footing was shaky, especially with Jess's bad leg, but they made it down to the ground floor without any problems.

  The two of them searched in each direction, trying to determine the best way to get to the dining room, and then they set off. Tyler used the flashlight to guide the way, as Jess held onto the book, chalk and crucifix that Simon had given her to initiate the house's exorcism of evil spirits.

  They rounded a corner and came to the long stretch of hallway that led to the kitchen, and then the dining room just beyond. They looked up in horror as they saw some of the ghosts on the second floor start to descend through the ceiling, floating through the air down to their level. It was like a horrific rainfall of the dead and they picked up the pace, desperately trying to dodge the teeming crowd.

 
One of the dead, a tall, gaunt young man dressed in an old tweed suit, had a garden rake. He landed in front of them, filling up most of the narrow hallway as he clutched the rake in his hands.

  Tyler and Jess apprehensively lurched forward, and Buddy ran ahead of them, trying to attack the ghost.

  But he didn't pay any attention to the dog, keeping his eyes fixed on Tyler specifically. He raised the rake into the air, twisting his arms for a big swing, then the ghost took a step forward when Tyler neared and swiped the weapon with surprising speed and power. The ethereal rake made a swooshing sound through the air, and Tyler ducked just in time for the teeth of it to miss his face. But they caught his shirt and sliced right through the shoulder of it.

  Tyler stumbled forward, glancing behind at the ghost they passed, then he looked down at his ripped shirt, seeing two thin lines where his skin had been cut and blood began to form. He winced at the pain, but he kept running.

  "Are you okay?" Jess asked as she ran.

  "I'm good," he said, a little shaken. He kept his arm wrapped tightly around her and pulled her along as the kitchen neared ahead.

  More ghosts descended all around them, but they managed to shirk any more close calls with their speed, and soon they vaulted through the doorway into the kitchen.

  An old, fat woman stood by the sink, and she spun around as they ran by, sharpening a meat cleaver in front of her blood-stained apron.

  They bounded into the dining room, getting ahead of the ghosts, and they stopped and spun around, casting glances behind them and seeing that they had a little bit of a lead.

  Jess held up the chalk, then she looked at the large walnut table and scattered chairs in the middle of the room, wondering exactly how to do this. "We have to move this table!" she said.