The Ghosts of Stanton Hall

by John Simpson

  He opened the journal and found the next entry.

  January 1, 2001 9:45 p.m.

  New Year’s Day at Stanton Hall saw the small gathering of close friends and business associates as we threw on a big feast to celebrate what I hope will be a great and prosperous new year. The guests are gone now and everyone seemed to have a good time. They certainly liked the food; there’s nothing left!

  It’s getting rather cold in the house and I can’t figure out why. I’ve checked the thermostat, but the temperature is set where it always is and it appears to be functioning properly. The chill I feel however seems to sink in right to my bones. I’ve put a few more logs on the fire and I hope that will take care of the problem. I begin to grow sleepy, as the heat of the fireplace feels so good. I will turn in early and get some much-needed sleep.

  January 2, 2001 1:32 a.m.

  As I was sleeping soundly, that damn crying started again and woke me! I am now sitting at my bedroom desk writing with a shawl around my shoulders as the room has once again become chilly. At times, the crying seems to be right next to me, and at other times, the voice sounds far away. I must confess that I don’t like being in the house all alone with this ghostly crying. I shall hire a male housekeeper if one can be found and have him live in. Something new has been added to the ghost’s repertoire: steps in the attic. It sounds as if someone is walking from one end of the attic to the other. The sounds grow louder each time the walking is directly overhead. What am I to do? Why is this happening?

  That was the final entry for New Year’s night. Obviously, this had become a problem for my uncle that I had inherited along with everything else. Since Father Ken was of no help, and this certainly didn’t fall in the area of an attorney, Scott and I were on our own. We would have to get through it somehow.

  Dinner that night was simple but wonderful: meatloaf, mashed potatoes, corn, warm rolls, salad, and iced tea. Ryan passed on dessert as was his custom, and he and Scott had coffee in the living room. Scott had built a fire, and the large room was much cozier for it. It was only a little after eight o’clock, and Ryan turned on the television to watch a movie.

  As they sat there together, Ryan couldn’t help glancing over at Scott to admire his butler’s good looks. The T-shirt that Scott had on showed off a nice chest and complemented the rest of his lean body. Ryan wondered why a man so nice and so good-looking was so single.

  After a final nightcap, they went to bed around eleven.

  “Good night; sleep well,” Ryan said.

  Scott smiled and wished him the same. As Ryan crawled between the sheets, he fantasized about what it would be like to have Scott in his bed out of something other than fear. The longer he thought about it, the harder he became. Finally, he managed to stop and rolled over to go to sleep.

  A little after one a.m., Scott came flying into Ryan’s bedroom scaring the hell out of him. “Oh… my… God! You have got to be fucking kidding me! Ryan, I’m sorry to wake you up, but move over ̕cause I’m getting into bed with you.”

  “What’s wrong? What happened?”

  “I was sound asleep and found myself snuggling up to someone in bed with me. When I woke up enough to realize that there shouldn’t be anyone in bed with me, I got up! I flipped on the light and looked, but there was no one there. As I stared, I saw the sheet move and felt the mattress bounce like someone was getting off the bed. I screamed and ran down here!” Scott said in a rapid stream of breathless words.

  Ryan dropped his head back down into his pillow and moaned. “God, how are we going to put an end to this?”

  “I don’t know, but until we do, can I sleep in here with you?”

  “Yes, of course. For now, let’s just try and get back to sleep.”

  Both men tried to get comfortable and go back to sleep. Ryan listened carefully to see if he could hear anything out of the normal and then closed his eyes. All was quiet. He could sense from Scott’s body that he was tensed up and knew it would be hard for him to go to sleep again.

  After a while, though, both men did fall asleep. A half hour later, Ryan woke to the sensation of something rubbing his crotch, making him hard. He thought that Scott was finally making a move on him and waited a minute to see if he would give up. When the fondling didn’t stop, Ryan turned his head to chastise Scott for being so forward.

  “While that feels really good, would you please stop so that we can actually sleep?”

  Scott opened his eyes and looked at Ryan. “Stop what? I’m not doing anything.”

  “You certainly are; you’ve got your hand down my shorts!”

  “The hell I do!”

  Ryan bolted upright in bed and flung the covers off. Scott’s hand was nowhere near his body. Scott sat up too, as the covers were thrown from the bed by an unseen force. The fire flared up, lighting the room, and that’s when they saw it: a ghost! The misty figure of a young man stood at the foot of the bed. The specter did nothing but stood looking at the men with a smile on its face.

  “That’s a fucking ghost!” exclaimed Scott.

  “No shit. What the hell else could it be?” Ryan said before addressing the phantom. “Are you Phillip Bartholomew?”

  The ghost began to cry, sending shivers through both men. “Now ya did it! Now it’s damn well crying again; great job, Ryan! We’ll never get any sleep tonight!” moaned Scott.

  “Oh, be quiet! I’m trying to communicate with it. Tell me; are you Phillip Bartholomew?”

  The crying stopped, and the ghost now began to hover over the bed so that the men had to look up “Yes, I’m Phillip.”

  Scott got out of bed and stood by the fireplace in his underwear as Ryan moved toward the chair. “What do you want?”

  A book dropped out of thin air and fell onto the bed. The cover flew open, and the pages turned as if caught by the wind. They stopped on a particular page, and Ryan walked back to the bed to look. He recognized the funeral records book from the attic; it was open to the page that described Phillip Bartholomew.

  “You want me to read this again?” Ryan asked.

  The ghost nodded its see-through head.

  Ryan began to read aloud. “‘Phillip Bartholomew was a homosexual. He was beaten by two men the day before Thanksgiving as he walked to a bar to meet his boyfriend. Phillip died three days after the attack. The attackers were never identified or arrested.’ Is that what you wanted me to read again?”

  “Yes,” the ghost whispered.

  “Are you gay, Phillip?”

  “Yes, and my boyfriend Harry misses me to this day, as I miss him.”

  “Harry, is that the boy you were on your way to meet when you were attacked?”

  “Yes, I was going to ask him to move in with me that night,” the ghost said, and he began to cry loudly.

  “I’m sorry that this happened to you. Both of us are gay, so we understand,” Ryan said as he motioned to Scott and himself. “But why are you here instead of going into the light?”

  “I want to go, but I’m in so much pain from losing Harry, and I want vengeance on those who killed me. They still run free while I suffer. Our souls cannot go back to whence we came if they are full of hate and anger.”

  “What can we do to help you move on?”

  “Get the police to arrest my killers!” Phillip said very loudly. “And make sure Harry knows that I love him still and will wait for him.”

  “You know who they are and where they’re at?” Ryan asked with surprise.

  “Oh yes, I took pleasure in walking among them and scaring the hell out of them! But that’s not enough; I must have justice on Earth before I can move on.”

  “I can understand that, but why are you scaring us? Poor Scott over there won’t sleep alone anymore,” Ryan replied.

  “Yeah, really! You grabbed my junk!” Scott added.

  The ghost had a reaction that neither man anticipated. He laughed and floated up all the way to the ceiling.

  “You think it’s funny! Well, it’s not,” Sco
tt said with as much indignity as he could muster, under the circumstances, becoming angrier the longer the ghost laughed. “This is insane, Ryan! We’re standing around in our underwear in the middle of the night talking to a ghost! A gay ghost, no less!” Scott continued.

  Ryan began to chuckle along with the ghost until a loud crash in the attic brought an abrupt halt to the laughter. Ryan turned to ask Phillip if there were other ghosts in the house, but Phillip was gone.

  “I don’t know what the hell that was, but I have no intention of going up there to find out,” Scott said as he got back into the bed. Ryan went to the bedroom door, locked it, ran over to the bed, and jumped in.

  They snuggled together under the covers with only their heads sticking out. Scott turned to Ryan and said, “I’m so glad I took this job!”

  Ryan’s laughed lightly. “And I’m so glad I inherited this old house.”

  Neither man could go back to sleep immediately. They lay awake shifting their eyes around the room looking for anything out of the ordinary. The wind picked up outside, creating a howling noise as it whipped around the corner of the house. Finally both men drifted off, holding each other as tightly as they could.

  Ryan woke up the next morning because something hard was pressing into his ass. Someone’s arm was around him and he realized that the stiff object was another part of Scott’s anatomy.

  “Good morning,” Ryan said, as he untangled himself from Scott’s arms and legs.

  “Oh, hi, it’s morning already? I felt like we just got to sleep.”

  “Yeah, looking at the clock, I’d say we slept about four hours. Let’s get up now and do the things we need to this morning, and then we can take a nap this afternoon. What d’ya say?” Ryan asked.

  “Okay, but first a shower.” As Scott got out of bed and stretched, Ryan couldn’t help but notice the very large erection sticking out from his underwear. Before Ryan could say anything, Scott left the room. Ryan shook his head and smiled as he went to get his own shower.

  Chapter Seven

  JUST before lunch, Mark called.

  “Hi, Mark; did you find out anything?”

  “Yeah, I did. I got Henson to lower the bid to seventy thousand, and I think that’s about as good as you’re gonna do. They can’t just dump all the debris into a landfill since there’s machinery mixed in. By EPA regulations, they have to separate the things that can be recycled from pure debris. Of course, this increases their costs and thus yours, but I did get him to come down a bit.”

  “Thank you. I don’t mind them making money off the deal, I just don’t want to get taken to the cleaners over it. Can you have them fax you a revised bid for you to sign as my attorney? I don’t have a fax here, and I want that building gone yesterday. We have a serious ghost problem here, and I believe it’s connected to that old crematorium.”

  “You’re serious.”

  “You’re damn right I’m serious. Scott and I got a lousy four hours sleep last night because of the haunted circus. The sooner that building is gone, the sooner I’ll have a peaceful house!”

  “I’ll try and get that wrapped up today. I take it you want them over there as soon as possible?”

  “The sooner the better.”

  “All right, I’ll let you know if there’s a problem. Otherwise, you’ll be hearing from Henson about when they’re gonna show up.”

  Ryan hung up with a feeling of having accomplished something. He’d saved some money on the job, and the building would soon be history. He went into the kitchen to tell Scott the good news but couldn’t find him. Maybe he’d decided to lie down before lunch?

  As Ryan was leaving the kitchen, he saw a note from Scott. The butler wrote that he had gone to the store for food and would be back shortly. Ryan threw the note away and went back into his office where he picked up the journal once more.

  February 12, 2001

  It had been quiet and uneventful here at Stanton Hall since New Year’s night. I thought that the ghost was gone, but I was proved wrong this night. As I walked up the stairs with a brandy, I was shoved. The glass flew out of my hand, spilling brandy all over the carpet. I turned around to yell, but could see nothing.

  I picked up the glass and continued up the stairs, when I saw them: not one but three ghosts standing at the top of the stairs looking at me. I felt dizzy and sat down on the steps so that I would not fall. When I did, the ghosts began laughing! I didn’t know what to do or say, so I told them to shut the hell up and get out of my house.

  The one who appeared to be the oldest of the three, yelled at me that I had failed to do right by them. I had no idea what the specters were talking about and told them so. The only response was pitiful moaning before they disappeared. I put the glass on the table at the top of the stairs and ran to my bedroom. William, my butler, was in bed in the servants’ quarters at the other end of the house, so I knew it was no use to call him.

  Once inside my bedroom, I locked the door, thinking that made me safe for some reason. When the ghosts appeared before me again, I realized of course that you can’t lock out a ghost—it can simply do whatever they do to pass through solid things. I asked them again why they haunted me, and I got the same answer: I had somehow failed to do right by them. When I asked for an explanation, I got none!

  They disappeared, and I climbed into bed determined not to let this disturb me. That’s when the latest assault against me began. A steady banging began in the attic, growing louder and louder. I put a pillow over my head in an attempt to block out the noise, but to no avail. This went on for some time until it stopped as suddenly as it had begun. I laid there in my bed waiting, but the madness seemed to be over for the night. I finally got to sleep around one a.m.

  Ryan heard the front door close and left the office to see if it was Scott. The butler was moving down the hallway to the kitchen with three bags in his arms. I followed him and offered assistance, which he declined.

  “I wanted to pop out and get some things that we were low on. Everything okay?”

  “Yes, everything is fine. Since we skipped breakfast this morning, I’m a little hungry. What’s for lunch?”

  “Sandwiches and chips; is that okay?”

  “Sounds fine to me. Then I really do need to lie down for an hour.”

  “You’re not the only one.”

  Ryan helped Scott clean up from lunch and started upstairs when Scott called after him. “Care for some company for your nap?”

  Ryan looked back. Scott had a slightly worried look on his face, as if he were afraid to be in his bedroom alone. “Oh, all right, come on. Thank God, I’ve a queen-size bed!”

  “Well, that fits,” Scott said with a laugh. Ryan reached over and smacked Scott on the ass.

  As they removed their clothes, Ryan found himself getting hard. After all, they were undressing in the middle of the day and getting into bed. Ryan’s penis figured if that was happening, the only possible reason would be that it was “hammer time.”

  Ryan quickly got under the covers before Scott could see him in that state. Too late. “Ah, I hope you plan on keeping that deadly weapon to yourself there, boss!” Scott said with a snicker.

  “Sorry, you just remind me of an old hustler I use to hire.”

  “Oh, you bitch!” Scott responded, and they had a good laugh before drifting off to a sound sleep. Their nap turned into a four-hour deep sleep. Both men were far more tired than either realized. Scott woke up first and shook Ryan awake.

  “Wake up, the sun is low, and according to your clock, it’s a little after five.”

  “Holy shit! I didn’t mean for us to sleep this long. Let’s get up. I’ll never get to sleep tonight.”

  “I suppose I need to put dinner in the oven already as well. I have a beef casserole lined up for us tonight. I think you’ll really like it.”

  “Sounds good to me,” Ryan replied. Both men got dressed and headed to the first floor. Ryan poured himself a cup of coffee and watched as Scott put the casserole in t
he oven and prepared a salad. Before Ryan realized it, he was staring at Scott’s ass when the butler bent over to look into the refrigerator.

  Ryan shook his head and went into the living room to drink his coffee. He worried a little that he was beginning to get turned on by Scott. What about Mark? Ryan knew that he had the beginnings of feelings for Mark, so why was he getting turned on by Scott? The phone rang before Ryan could put any more thought into it.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi, Ryan, it’s Mark. I’ve received the new bid on your project, so you’re free to go with it anytime you want. Shall I keep it here or send it over to you?”

  “Why don’t you drop it by? I’ve got something to ask you and I think it would be better to do it face-to-face.”

  “Oh? That sounds either sexy or mysterious. Which is it?”

  “I’m afraid it’s more of the mysterious type of request.”

  “Okay, I can drop by on the way home from work today, if you like,” Mark replied with a bit of curiosity in his voice.

  “Tell you what, why don’t you come for dinner? That way you don’t have to cook when you get home.”

  “That sounds fantastic. Scott can out-cook me on his worse day. I’ll be there around five-fifteen.”

  “See you then.”

  Ryan got up and went into the kitchen. “Scott, we have a guest for dinner tonight.”

  “No problem. Is it Mark?”

  “Yep, gonna ask him about the murder of our ghost. Maybe he can do something for us.”

  “Well, he’ll be sorry he came for dinner!” Scott said with a loud laugh.

  LATER that day, Henson Construction called to advise Ryan that they would be out first thing in the morning to begin taking down the crematorium. After hanging up, Ryan went to the dirt road and took down the chain and sign so that the crew could get in without having to stop at the house first. As he looked down the long, winding road, a chill overcame him, and he turned quickly and headed back to the house.