The Last Blog: A Short Story (The Soren Chase Series)
Page 4
I’m a survivor but I get the joke. You can’t hear me laughing, but I am. I came here to find out what happens when we die.
I think I’m about to find out.
What really happened to Sean Gordon?
Oct. 12, 2012, 10:20 p.m.
Soren Chase
Stephanie Hunter was killed on Nov. 7, 2008. Although the case has been extensively reexamined since these blogs were posted, it remains officially unsolved to this day.
For many, Sean’s last post was proof that he killed her. Hunter’s body was found in the Matoaka Woods in Williamsburg, Virginia, with her throat slit. Sean’s description of the crime, while brief, appeared to match the circumstances of her death, including details that were not made public at the time.
Yet it is hardly an open-and-shut case. A closer look at Sean Gordon’s life shows an incredibly ambitious individual with a near-compulsive need to draw attention to himself. There is a strong argument to be made that this entire series of blog posts was a premeditated hoax — and that he knowingly referenced Hunter in them because he knew it would dramatically increase his audience. Claiming to be trapped in a haunted house is one thing, but taking responsibility for a murder takes it to a whole other level.
There is also very little hard evidence tying Sean Gordon to Stephanie Hunter. Although they both attended William and Mary and lived in the same dorm, interviews with friends turned up little more than basic interactions. Friends can recall them at a few of the same events and one friend of Stephanie’s mentioned that she had turned down Sean for a date. Beyond that, however, there is nothing out of the ordinary, and certainly little to suggest Sean had motive to murder her.
Officially, it seems unlikely Sean will ever be charged with her death, given the lack of motivation, evidence, or any other substantive ties. It’s possible he killed her and admitted it on the Internet — but equally possible that he falsely confessed to her murder in an attempt to boost the story’s appeal.
Either way, however, it remains an open question of what happened to Sean Gordon. A technical error kept his final three entries from being posted until well after midnight. By the time the fans still awake at that hour called the police, Sean was no longer in the house.
The police did find Madison Manor in the same condition Sean described it. Nearly every painting, mirror, or picture had been torn off the walls — some with dramatic force. In their public statements, police said they found no further evidence and nothing to suggest what had happened to Sean.
The lack of hard facts has left much of Twitter and the blogosphere arguing over what really happened in the house that night. Some say Sean’s crimes caught up with him. Others say he pulled off a terrific prank, and may one day reappear to take credit for it. Still others warn Sean is a dangerous psychopath who killed Stephanie Hunter, publicly told the world, and then vanished. They say he could assume another identity and kill again.
Yet my investigation turned up some new facts.
The first concerns the police investigation of the house. Two police sources confirmed for me that they did find other physical evidence in Madison Manor. There were small gouges in the hardwood floor between the back door and the living room. There were also barely discernible scratches along the dining room floor. The scratches were consistent with possible finger-nail marks. A chair from the dining room was also found smashed near the kitchen.
Taken together, these pieces of evidence suggest that at some point, likely at the end of his ordeal, Sean Gordon was dragged from the living room to the back door — and he attempted to use his hands and a chair to stop himself.
Although Sean himself asks whether the thing crawling towards him is “her,” presumably referring to Stephanie Hunter, that is extremely unlikely. Even if we take for fact that something otherworldly attacked him, it wasn’t Hunter. She’s buried in Radford, Virginia, hundreds of miles away from Leesburg. Her gravesite was undisturbed.
Overlooked by most others, however, was the fact that the Lenox Cemetery in Leesburg was vandalized on Nov. 14, 2010. The gate, normally locked, was found off its hinges. One of the graves, a gray monolith, was also overturned. While it is not clear who was buried there — the writing has been worn away and records lost — it is possible that Sgt. Phillip Morgan was interred at the site.
While I recognize that decomposition should have long since reduced Morgan’s bones to dust, making him unable to crawl from his grave and claim Sean, the supernatural world is unusual. According to my research, there are powerful spirits that can manifest themselves in different ways. Sometimes they just take corporeal form, looking as they did in life, but other times they preserve and reanimate their corpses. Is it possible that Sgt. Morgan is such a spirit?
Finally, I should also note that while everyone focused on the connection between Stephanie and Sean, no one closely examined a possible link between Stephanie and the house. Stephanie Hunter did live in Leesburg as a child and in her early teenage years. Her family moved when she was 16. It’s not clear if Sean was aware of this.
Although there is no definitive proof she ever visited Madison Manor, I turned up this small fact in my investigation: Stephanie Hunter was the region’s top Girl Scout cookie seller in Loudoun County in 2004.
When I asked Harold Madison whether Stephanie Hunter was the Girl Scout that he found in the house — the incident recounted in Sean’s blog — Harold wasn’t sure. Yet it seems likely, even probable, that she was. Harold remembered that the girl had gone on to win an award, even if he didn’t remember her name. Stephanie’s mother, meanwhile, told me she remembered her daughter once mentioning a strange encounter with a woman in Civil War dress while the girl was out selling cookies.
According to Sean Gordon, Margaret Madison believed the house took a liking to people — and that it could sometimes read the thoughts of those that visited it.
Is it possible that the spirits that lived in the house took a shine to Stephanie? And when they found out what Sean had done to her, did they take revenge?
What I suggest is only speculation.
Too often in stories we see haunted houses as a repository for malevolent entities and angry spirits. They are haunted by their own pasts. But what if it’s the person visiting the house that’s evil? What if Sean’s past haunted the house, instead of the other way around?
A closer examination of Sean Gordon’s life turns up other oddities. One former neighbor confirmed, for example, that his cat had gone missing when Sean was only 10 years old. Another mentioned they once saw Sean digging in the backyard at dusk, quickly shoveling a bag into a hole.
I cannot prove that Sean killed Stephanie Hunter, any more than I can prove Stephanie visited and spoke with the ghosts that reside at Madison Manor.
But I will tell you this. Based on my investigation, I have reached a conclusion: Sean Gordon got what he deserved.
THE END
Did you like the book? Please make your voice heard by leaving a review here. Every review is helpful and Rob greatly appreciates your taking the time to leave one.
If you liked The Last Blog, be sure to check out Rob’s Soren Chase novels, now out on Amazon. You can get the first novella, Closed at Dark, for free by joining Rob’s e-mail newsletter here, or by buying it on Amazon here.
When a mysterious white-haired man tries to kidnap Sara Ignatius’ son and then vanishes before her eyes, Sara knows there’s only one person who can help her: Soren Chase, one of the country’s best supernatural investigators.
For Soren, the case is personal. Sara’s fiancé was John Townes, Soren’s best friend who died in a supernatural attack several years earlier. Soren will do anything to save Sara’s son, but he must act fast. Because the kidnapper has a mission of his own, and he’s willing to destroy anyone who gets in his way…
Also available is The Forest of Forever, published by Kindle Press.
In The Forest of Forever, Soren’s investigation into the haunted Reapoke woods may be his most da
ngerous case yet. Hired to find a missing girl and unlock the forest’s secrets, what he discovers is far darker than he imagines and forces him to confront his tragic past. Buy it on Kindle here!
Just released! In Carnival of Stone, Soren investigates a case in the normally sleepy hamlet of Hilltop and he finds he’s up against a creature unlike anything he's encountered before. It’s going to take all his skills--and working with an unlikely ally--to survive!
And for another great series, check out The Sanheim Chronicles, Rob’s highly-rated bestselling Dark Fantasy novels for Kindle. Available as a box set and on audiobook.