by Amy Cross
Copyright 2015 Amy Cross
All Rights Reserved
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events, entities and places are either products of the author's imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual people, businesses, entities or events is entirely coincidental.
Published by Dark Season Books
Kindle edition
First published: June 2015
“The haunting of Emily Stone was a hoax. There was no ghost, it was just a money-grabbing old woman and an easily-manipulated little girl.”
Twenty-four years ago, Robert Slocombe thought he had proof that ghosts were real. British newspapers filled their pages with photos of little Emily being tormented by what seemed to be a malevolent spirit. And then the whole thing turned out to be a trick, and Robert's career was over.
And then one day Emily Stone, now an adult with a child of her own, contacts Robert out of the blue and begs for his help. She claims that her daughter is being tormented by a dark entity, and that parts of her original story were true after all. Robert dismisses Emily's claims out of hand and tells her to leave him alone, but then a horrific incident forces him to go back to the scene of his greatest humiliation. Was the haunting of Emily Stone really a hoax, or was there a sliver of truth at its heart?
The Haunting of Emily Stone is a horror novel about two damaged people trying to save a little girl from dark forces.
The Haunting of Emily Stone
Prologue
Two hundred years ago
He used the torn shreds of her dress to wipe blood from the knife.
“Always a sad day when a life gets lost,” he muttered, holding the blade up so he could see its edge glinting in the sunlight. “No-one ever wants things to end like this, but sometimes...”
He paused, before turning to look down at the figure in the long grass nearby. He could barely see her properly, since the grass was too tall, but he could just about make her out, twitching in the spot where she'd last fallen.
“You didn't listen,” he continued. “I told you what to do, and you did the opposite. You fought back, you made me so angry... I warned you, when I get angry, I don't have control over myself. You can't...” He paused, suddenly a little short of breath. “You can't say you weren't warned,” he added finally. “No, I swear, you can't.”
Ignoring her faint gasps, he gave the blade another rub. As he peered more closely at the metal, he saw that small pieces of bloodied flesh were stuck in the knife's serrated edge.
“Damn,” he muttered, glancing across the field and seeing the village nearby. “No-one ever treats me with respect. They act like I'm some kind of idiot, like I'm just a fool to be bossed around and told what to do. I swear to God, no-one ever actually worries about me. If only they knew...” He paused for a moment, watching distant figures getting on with their daily chores, and finally he smiled. “Then again, I'm glad they don't know. They'd try to stop me, wouldn't they? I'm having too much fun for that to happen. I suppose they'll notice eventually, but...”
Checking the blade again, he saw that it was clean.
Nearby, a bloodied hand began to reach up from the grass, trembling slightly in the sunlight.
“You going somewhere?” the man asked, looking over at her. “Where do you think you're going?”
The hand swayed for a moment, as blood continued to run from several deep cuts around its wrist.
“I didn't tell you it was okay to raise your hand like that,” the man continued, reaching out and slashing at the arm with his knife. As the blade caught and cut the skin, the arm dropped back down.
He laughed.
“You've got some fight in you,” he continued, “I'll give you that. Not enough, but more than most people.” He looked down at the blade, which was once again covered in patches of blood. “Now I'm gonna have to clean it again, do you realize that? I've just wasted the past few minutes. Still, I reckon I can do that later. There's no point fussing over it now. I expect you'll be wanting to get on with things, won't you?”
He held the knife up for a moment, watching as drops of blood ran down the blade.
“Looks weaker than before,” he added. “More watery. Maybe you're running out.”
He chuckled to himself.
Setting the knife down, he got to his feet and then pushed his right foot through the grass until he felt her body. Ignoring her gasps, he used his foot to turn her over, until finally she slipped down into the pit he'd dug earlier. Stepping forward, he looked down and saw her slumped at the bottom, slightly on her side and covered in blood. She was mostly naked, save for the cloth bag he'd placed over her head earlier, which was stained with thick red patches that had soaked through.
He listened for a moment, as she sobbed.
“I'll tell people you ran away out of shame,” he muttered, before grabbing his spade and starting to fill the grave. “I don't think anyone'll have any trouble believing that.”
She let out another pained cry, but he simply got on with the job of shoveling more and more dirt into the hole. As each shovelful of dirt landed on her body, she clawed at the bag over her head.
“What you doing that for?” he asked, throwing more dirt down. “Ain't no point.”
Just as he'd almost finished covering her, he saw that she'd managed to pull the bag away, revealing a face that had been carved open. Parts of her skull were showing, and her mud-caked fingers ran across the bone as if she was trying to work out what he'd done to her, as if she couldn't quite believe what she was feeling.
“Peace,” he added, before dropping a shovelful of dirt directly onto her face, covering her completely.
A few minutes later, he was done. The grave was filled, and if she was still clinging to life down there, still twisting and squirming, there was no sign on the surface. He turned the shovel over and patted down the soil until it was flat. Sweat was pouring down his face and the heat of a summer's day was making him feel woozy, so he headed over to a nearby tree-stump and sat for a moment. He figured she was definitely dead by now, since she'd been six-feet-under for more than long enough. Sniffing, he wiped sweat from the back of his neck.
Nearby, the leaves of a cherry tree caught the light of the mid-morning sun.
Chapter One
Twenty-four years ago
“Okay, Emily,” he said calmly, “the tape recorder is running, do you understand that?”
She nodded.
“That's good. So everything we talk about today is going to be recorded, and other people will listen to it later. Is that okay with you?”
She nodded again.
“And the reason for that is -”
“I already explained all this,” said Emily's mother, Joyce, as she tore open a new packet of cigarettes. “You can get on with the main part, none of the papers are gonna want to hear you explaining the set-up. It's the juicy bits they're gonna wanna buy. All about the ghosts, yeah?”
“Let's not get ahead of ourselves.”
“Yeah, but there's no need to waffle, is there? You bloody academics love to talk, don't you? Never use one word when ten'll do.”
“I just need to explain it briefly for Emily,” he replied, keeping his eyes fixed on the little girl as she sat obediently on the other side of the table. “Emily, the reason for the recording is that I need to document everything you say and do during this interview so that I can get some other people to take a look later and give their opinions. I also have a camera running over there.” He pointed at the camcorder. “Do you want to give a quick smile?”
Emily paused, before glancing nervously at her mother as if she was waiting for permission.
“Knock yourself
out,” Joyce muttered, fumbling with trembling hands as she pulled a cigarette from the packet. She added something under her breath.
Turning to look at the camera, Emily stared for a moment at the dark lens before finally offering a faint smile. She was doing a bad job of hiding her nerves, and as she turned back to Robert there was a look of fear in her eyes.
“Just relax,” he told her. “Are you sure you don't want anything else before we get started? A drink, or maybe something to -”
“She's fine,” Joyce said, lighting her cigarette. “She had some Jammie Dodgers before you arrived.”
“You can't smoke during the interview,” he replied, turning to her.
“Why the hell not? This is my house!”
“It might...” He paused, trying to think of a reason. “It might affect the camera. You're welcome to go outside if -”
“I'm all the way over here. Me smoking won't affect anything.”
“You're over there,” he replied, struggling to remain polite, “but the smoke is already reaching us. Please, Mrs. Stone, if you want to stay for the session, I'm going to have to ask you to put the cigarette out.” As if to prove his point, he coughed a little as he registered the distinctive smell of Marlboro Lights.
Rolling her eyes, Joyce stubbed the cigarette out and balanced it on the side of her ashtray, saving it for future use.
“So,” Robert continued, turning back to Emily, who was still sitting patiently as she waited to begin. “My name is Doctor Robert Slocombe, I'm a researcher at Westerson University, and I'm here today, January 5th 1991, to conduct an interview with Miss Emily Stone -”
The little girl smiled, genuinely this time.
“- aged twelve, of Mardenborough Drive, Coltreath. The time is 14:02, and Emily is attached to a simple monitor that will keep track of her heart-rate for the duration of the interview.” He paused for a moment. “Hi there, Emily.”
She glanced at her mother for a moment, as if seeking permission again, before turning back to him.
“Hello,” she said, before biting her bottom lip.
He paused, unable to shake the feeling that something had changed, that she'd shifted gear and become more confident now that the interview had formally begun.
“Emily,” Robert said after a moment, “I want to start by asking you about some of the things that have been happening in this house over the past few months. In a recent newspaper feature, you claimed that there have been strange noises, strange things that you and your mother have seen, and in some cases you've even interacted with what appears to be some kind of entity.”
“What does entity mean?” she asked.
“A being. Something else that's in the house, apart from you and your mother.”
She paused, before nodding.
“And it's just one entity?” he continued.
She nodded again.
“You're sure of that?”
“I've only met one,” she replied. “It's always her, every time.”
“Tell me about her.”
“She...” Another pause, as a faint frown crossed Emily's face. “She doesn't like where she is,” she said finally. “She's trapped somewhere, and sometimes she can come and visit us in the house, but she wants to come permanently. That's why she's so mad all the time. She says she shouldn't have died when she did, and she doesn't want to stay in the dead place. It's dark and cold there.”
“She told you all of this?”
She nodded.
“So you actually talk to her?”
“She talks to me,” Emily replied. “I don't talk to her.”
“Have you tried?”
She shook her head.
“And this happens when you're in bed?”
She nodded.
“And do you like it when she talks to you?”
She shook her head.
“You find it frightening?”
She nodded.
“And you want her to go away?”
“I don't want to be mean,” Emily replied. “I feel bad for her, but... She's scary.”
Picking up a copy of a local newspaper, Robert turned to the third page and held it up. Covering the top third of the page, there was a black-and-white photo showing Emily shouting as she appeared to be thrown backwards across her bedroom.
“Your mother took this photo, I believe?” he said, after giving her a moment to look at the image.
She nodded.
“Were you hurt when this happened?”
Emily looked at her mother.
“She had a bruise,” Joyce said. “Big one, on her shoulder.”
“And this was when the entity was angry?” Robert asked, keeping his eyes fixed on Emily.
The little girl nodded.
“Do you know why she was particularly angry that night?”
“She said she wants to be alive again. Or at least to see the sun.”
“She actually told you that? In so many words?”
She nodded, before glancing up at the ceiling as if she'd heard something.
“And she took her anger out on you?” Robert asked.
Turning back to him, Emily paused for a moment. “She always says that I'm important. She says I can help her to get free. I think she's mad at me for not doing something.”
“But she hasn't told you what it is she wants you to do?”
She shook her head.
“And this photo,” he continued, turning to another page of the newspaper, which featured a black-and-white image of a door with a blurry shape on the other side, “is the entity you're talking about?”
Emily nodded.
“It's hard to make out her face in this picture,” he pointed out. “Have you seen her more clearly?”
“Once.”
“And what did she look like?”
She thought for a moment. “Angry.”
“Anything else?”
“She had black hair. Her skin...”
He waited for her to continue. “What about her skin, Emily?”
She opened her mouth to reply, but something seemed to be holding her back.
“You've said before that she's kind of gray,” he added. “Is she more -”
“She doesn't have much skin on her face,” Emily replied cautiously. “I could see her skull underneath.”
“That must have been very frightening.”
She stared at him.
“And if -”
“She's here,” she replied suddenly.
He paused. “Who is?”
“The woman you keep asking about.”
He looked around the room, but saw nothing. “Right now? In this room?”
She nodded.
“Can you see her?”
She looked over at her mother for a moment, before turning back to Robert and shaking her head.
“But you know she's here?”
She nodded.
“And how do you know that?”
“I can feel her.”
“She feels it in her bones,” Joyce butted in. “Bit like a cat. It's part of her special gift, all spooky like.”
“And what's her name?” Robert asked, keeping his eyes fixed on Emily.
“I don't know her real -”
“Emily calls her Drella,” Joyce said.
Emily flinched slightly, as if the name itself was painful.
“I need to hear these things from Emily herself,” Robert reminded Joyce. “Is that right, Emily? You call this woman Drella?”
Emily paused, before nodding cautiously.
“Why did you choose that name?”
Frowning for a moment, Emily eventually shrugged.
“You just made it up?”
“I just...” Again, she looked over at her mother, before turning back to him. “I don't know if it's her real name. It's just what I call her.”
“And it's Drella who does these things in your room?” he asked.
She nodded.
“I have a photograph here,” he cont
inued, holding up a black-and-white print, “that was taken by your mother on December 21st of last year.” He showed it to the camera, before sliding it over to Emily. “Can you briefly explain to me what was happening at the time this photograph was taken, Emily?”
Staring down at the photo, Emily paused for a moment at the sight of her own face frozen in a moment of terror with her eyes rolled back in their sockets and some kind of dark liquid running out of her mouth and down her chin. Swallowing hard, she finally looked back at Robert, and this time there was a hint of panic in her eyes.
“Drella was doing that to me,” she said quietly.
“Can you speak up just a little?” he asked. “For the microphones.”
“Drella was doing that to me,” she said again. Her voice was trembling this time. Again, something in her countenance seemed to have changed.
“Drella was making you shake like that?”
She nodded.
“Does she do that often?”
“Sometimes.”
“And why does she do that? Is it when she's angry?”
“She's always angry.”
“She takes hold of her,” Joyce added, having picked up her cigarette and started smoking again. “Shakes her like a rag doll, she does. It's horrible. And poor little Emily gurgles and spits up all this black stuff.”
“Could it be dried blood?” Robert asked.
Joyce shook her head.
“I don't suppose you saved any of it, did you?”
“I'll try that next time.”
“And the photos,” he continued, “are they always blurry?”
“It's only a cheap camera.”
“I guess.” He turned back to Emily. “You're very brave,” he told her.
Without replying, she simply stared at him.
“Are you scared to be in your bedroom now?” he asked. He waited for an answer, but Emily seemed reluctant to speak. “I'd be scared,” he continued. “You should never be ashamed about being scared, you know. Sometimes being scared is the natural response, especially when you're faced with something you don't understand. So... Are you ever scared in your room, Emily?”
“Sometimes,” she replied. “Only when Drella's in there.”
