by Blake Croft
The
Haunting
of the
Creole House
~ ~ ~
By Blake Croft and Ashley Raven
Copyright © 2019 by Blake Croft
Book Description
A desperate move to secure their future becomes a descent into hell for a young family.
Abbie Coltrane and her husband Richard know their financial situation is dire, so when Richard decides to take the whole family on vacation in Louisiana, Abbie is baffled.
It doesn’t take long for her apprehension to prove founded. Something dark lurks in the old Creole house.
Abbie and Richard’s young sons are the first to witness this phenomenon. When Aiden, the youngest, treats the teddy bear he found in their room as a friend, his brother Dave senses something terrible. Constant nightmares and fighting take a toll on them all, and what begins as a strange occurrence takes an ugly turn that spurs them to run for their lives. However, the sinister entity has other plans.
Can the Coltranes bring an end to the madness before tragedy strikes?
There is something in the Creole house. Ever watching, always hungry… it waits.
Foreword
This story is dedicated to you, the reader.
Thank you for taking a chance on us, and for joining us on this journey.
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Blake Croft & Ashley Raven
Prologue
— ∞ —
June 9th – 4:45 PM
Lakeshore Drive, Mandeville – Louisiana
T he sun kissed the surface of the blue waters before it began its slow sink into Lake Pontchartrain. In the quiet, old Creole house overlooking the creek, you could hear the hiss at the exact moment sun and water collided. The roar of an engine pierced the waiting quiet like a knife, stirring the stale air into the beginnings of energy. As suddenly as it had started, it stopped when the family car parked close to the colonial house. The quality of the stillness in the house changed from melancholia to anticipation. When the car doors opened, little children’s voices mingled with their parents and It knew that a serious change had come.
In the fast fading daylight, the sound of closing car doors echoed through the house, like thunder rolling across an immense empty plain. The floorboards creaked with expectation, and doors stood ajar with attention. The house braced itself for the new occupants. But in a room on the upper floor, It sat very still by the window, trying to make out the faces of the young children running about in the short driveway.
The windows were streaked with grime, blurring the children’s faces. They were a neat family of four, a set of parents and two young boys. The perfect nuclear family. It hungered for a closer look, a whiff of scent, a snatch of song, and presently it was rewarded.
“Bumble, bumble,
My busy bee,
Buzzing around,
The mulberry tree.
From hither to tither,
From blossom to bush,
Making up honey,
For Mummy and me!”
The giddy words were half chanted, half sang by the child with a head of yellow sun. His small legs pumped up and down as he ran around the garden, a tantalizing blur of yellow and green.
The elder of the two chased the little one, his arms outstretched. The squeals of delight rippled up to the window where the shadows shifted, and the glass fogged briefly under a splayed hand. It had to see their faces. It had to be sure.
The children ran closer to the house. The youngest, no more than five, stopped to look up at the house. The older brother, twice his age, came to stop beside him. They shaded their eyes with their little hands, their faces twisted in concentration.
Two little boys. Finally returned.
It waited.
Chapter One
— ∞ —
June 9th – 5:17 PM
Lakeshore Drive, Mandeville – Louisiana
“T hey’re excited,” said Richard.
Abbie Coltrane smiled and squeezed her husband’s hand. The sand felt cool, wet, and alien beneath her toes. The foamy surf looked like aggressive fingers clawing ever nearer, to grasp unsuspecting passersby.
The laughter of her two boys pierced the air, competing with the shrill call of the seagulls. Dave the eldest at ten, with his mop of brown hair, and his broad slopping shoulders was running on ahead. Aiden, the baby of the family, tried his best to keep up, his yellow curls shining like a halo in the setting sun. He looked back often, his big blue eyes making sure Abbie and Richard were close by, then flitted behind them to the house they had just come from.
“This’ll be good for our boys.” Richard fished out a cigarette and lighter, and cupped his hand around the flame to protect it. “Two months on the beach, under the sun, and they’ll be as brown and brawny as me.”
“Hmm.” Abbie bent down to pick up a seashell letting her hair curtain her face.
“Two months is all I need, Abbie.” Richard’s voice was urgent, a precursor to an argument. “I have the perfect story. I just need to get most of it on paper, and this place is going to do wonders for my block. I’m sure of it.”
“I just can’t see why we couldn’t have gone up to a cabin in Ridgway.” Her voice dropped lower. “Ali said she’d lend us the place free of charge for the summer.” Abbie was still bent low, her fingers sifting aimlessly through the sand.
“This is not the same as Ridgeway.”
She couldn’t argue with that. The weather was warmer, the houses had that tempered beauty you only get with really old places, the people were more colorful, and Lake Pontchartrain itself was mercurial. Maybe Richard was right. Maybe this was the place he needed to be to write his breakthrough novel. Goodness knew he was struggling back in Colorado. His agent was at his wit’s end and had confessed to Abbie that the royalties were more of a drip than a steady trickle.
Standing up straight, Abbie brushed the sand off her hands and looked back at the beach house they had rented for the summer. It was built atop a narrow strip of rock that acted as a natural barrier to the beach and the sea, insuring the children would have a modest walk before they got anywhere near the water’s edge. The house itself was built in classic French Creole style with wide porches and galleries, and several colonnettes that supported a wide roof. The main walls had been painted azure blue.
While the front garden was blooming with hibiscus and iris flowers, the inside was dreary. The furniture pieces were mismatched. The windows were choked with dirt, and the whole place needed to be aired out. As for the owners, Abbie hadn’t laid eyes on them at all. They had found the keys dangling by a hook next to the front door. The owner hadn’t even bothered to leave a note.
As Abbie watched the house, the sun bled into the large body of water and the tall dark windows of the house stared out like blank brooding eyes. She had the acute sense that someone was watching her. A shiver ran up her spine, and she turned away to the lake. The children were playing at the water’s edge, running away from the chasing waves. She was very aware of a sense of not belonging. Born and bred in landlocked Colorado, Abbie couldn’t help but be aware of her location on the map, how New Orleans was right on the edge of a yawning abyss. The sight of the smoldering red waters of Lake Pontchartrain made her wonder how easy it would be to fall off the edge of the earth, swept away on one of the greedy waves, and disappear without a trace.
She shook her head, as if trying to dislodge the morbid thoughts that had made a ne
st in there.
This is all Richard’s fault. Just because you write horror for a living doesn’t mean your road trip stories need to be macabre.
“All right. Boys!” Abbie called out. “That’s enough for today. You can come back to the beach in the morning.”
“Pizza for dinner?” Richard asked, dropping his cigarette in the sand.
“I’m not sure any place will deliver.”
“Why don’t you and the boys take a shower and start settling in. I’ll go into town and get us some dinner.”
She smiled as he kissed her forehead and went off towards the house.
“Come on, boys! I’m going to count to ten.”
They came running back at eight.
Chapter Two
— ∞ —
June 10th– 12:31 PM
Beachfront, Lakeshore Drive, Mandeville – Louisiana
T here was sand in his eyes. The more Aiden rubbed it, the more painful it became. He screamed, but not in pain. He was furious. He kicked in Dave’s general direction, but his foot didn’t make contact with anything.
“I hate you!” Aiden screamed. “I’m telling. That will teach you to bully me.”
“I wasn’t bullying you,” Dave protested. “I just said you’re too little to play with us, you’ll get hurt. And you did, didn’t you?”
“What a baby,” one of the boys laughed.
Tears of frustration pooled in Aiden’s eyes and dislodged some of the gritty sand; he could see better than he had a moment ago. He looked back at the boys that had ruined the day. They were taller than Dave, but not by much, and they had a beach ball. What wouldn’t Aiden give to have a beach ball of his own. That’d teach stupid Dave, and his stupid new friends, that Aiden wasn’t a baby, and he could play too.
“I’m not a baby! Dave’s the baby. He cried last night for Mommy because he had a nightmare.”
The boys laughed. Dave’s face was red with embarrassment. He pushed Aiden in the sand.
“I’m telling!” Aiden stomped his little foot in the sand and made a mad dash for the beach house.
Filled with righteous fury, Aiden pushed the screen door open with a mighty bang. Abbie stood in the kitchen trying to sort through the boxes that had finally been delivered by the moving van that morning.
“Mom!”
“Hmm?” Abbie opened a box and rolled her eyes. “He’s mislabeled another one.”
“Mom!”
“What, Aiden?” Sharp tone. Not a good start to his righteous crusade against bullying older brothers, and the vagaries of their lofty stature. Yet, Aiden persisted.
“Dave won’t let me play volleyball with his new friends, and he pushed me so I got sand in my eyes, and I hurt my knee!” He tried not to sound too petulant, but he had learnt that a few tears went a long way to soften his mother up, and gain the upper hand.
Not this time, though.
“That’s all very sad, Aiden. Why don’t you help me instead? It’ll be fun. Take this box of your toys upstairs, and store it inside the closet in there. And I mean inside, not scattered all over the floor.”
“But Mom!”
“Thank you.”
Puffing his cheeks in anger at the unfair conduct of adults, Aiden took the small box of toys and hauled it upstairs, step by step.
“Dad! Could you help me with the box?”
“I’m setting up my study, kiddo. Ask Mom,” Richard called from the front of the house.
“I’m busy with the kitchen. Ask Dave.” Abbie’s distracted voice bobbed up the hall like a deflated balloon.
Aiden rolled his eyes. Mom had totally spaced out. She usually got this way when she was upset about something. He started dragging the box up one stair, then the next. It was so like his parents to completely ignore him at times. It felt like nothing he said was taken seriously, and he was someone to be petted and cooed over. He hated being treated like a baby.
I’ll show them. I’ll take this box up and then dump it all on Dave’s bed. Let him sort it out.
Evil plan in place, it became easier to tote the box up the unforgiving stairs and down the hall to the room with a view of the front drive. Aiden would have much preferred the room with the view of the beach, but his parents had laid claim to it. Another unfairness notched against the adults.
Aiden kicked the box the last few feet into the room with twin beds. He hauled the box over to Dave’s bed, the one closer to the bedroom door, the one Dave choose first even though it was Aiden’s turn to do so. Aiden dumped the entire contents of the toy box on to the freshly made bed, giggling with glee.
“What are you doing?”
Aiden screamed and whirled around. His father stood in the door, a mug of coffee in his hands, and a stern frown on his brow.
“Are you trying to get your brother in trouble?”
“No.” Aiden’s voice was as small as he felt.
“Good. You should put those away in the closet.”
The closet handles were wrought iron. Four slats spanned across the wood marking where the hinges were. It was a tatty old thing, dust nestled inside its carvings, and pushed against the far wall. Aiden made a show of collecting the toys back in the box and taking them up to the closet till his father was satisfied and left. As soon as Richard’s footsteps receded down the stairs, Aiden promptly dropped the box on the floor and kicked the closet doors a few times for good measure. A splinter of wood felt from the bottom of the closet’s door.
Fuming, he paced the room and formulated a plan to run away to teach his family a lesson. Tantalizing images of his distraught parents and guilt-ridden brother made him smile.
The low creak of protesting wood made him stop in his tracks. The skin on the nape of his neck tickled, and he looked back. The closet door had opened slightly, revealing a sliver of darkness. He must have unlatched it when he kicked it. Aiden peered a little closer, fancying he saw a smudge of red in the gloom. Aiden stepped closer to get a better look. The sudden jangling of music made him jump back a few feet.
Music was coming from the closet. It sounded scratchy and wobbly, like the old vinyl records his grandfather had in his study back home. Aiden tilted his head to hear the music better, taking a cautious step closer. It was a sweet melody, innocuous, yet engaging. Aiden placed his hand on the smooth edges of the closet door and opened it completely, letting in a shaft of light to dispel the darkness. The song seemed to swell in that moment.
A small teddy bear sat propped up in one dark corner of the closet, a tartan red bow tied around its neck. It looked forlorn and lost. Aiden picked it up, his anger and frustration forgotten in the face of a surprising discovery.
The texture of the old toy was unlike any teddy bear Aiden had ever seen. It was rough, and reminded him of the flour and grain sacks at the whole foods store. It was also covered in layers of dust, the tartan bow the color of moldy tomatoes.
Dodo tipititmanman
Manman-w ou pa la
L’alélarivyè
Si ou pa dodo djab la vamanjé-w
Dodo pititkrabnankalalou
The words sounded silly to Aiden, and meant nothing to him, yet he found the song soothing. He checked the teddy bear closely to find the source of the music, his back turned to the open closet. The music stopped. Aiden searched more frantically, wanting to hear the song again, an unexplainable pressure building between his shoulders and the nape of his neck in the heavy silence.
“Aiden!”
Aiden looked up, his fingers going still. Dave stood just outside the bedroom door, one side of his face streaked with sand, his cheeks pallid as if all the blood had drained out of him.
“Aiden, come here.” Dave waved him over frantically, standing absolutely still. “Aiden, get back! Hurry!”
But he wasn’t looking at Aiden. He was looking directly behind him at the yawning dark mouth of the open closet.
Chapter Three
— ∞ —
June 10th – 09:02 PM
Beachfront, La
keshore Drive, Mandeville – Louisiana
“D o you want me to clean it?” Abbie asked.
“No. It’s not that dirty.” Aiden sat the bear he had found earlier on his bedside table.
Dave stood in the doorframe watching his mother tuck Aiden into bed. The light from the bedside highlighted his mother’s blonde hair, her smooth skin, and the mole on her cheek. Dave remembered crying in a reading class in kindergarten because the witch in the story had a mole too, but on the tip of her nose, and she wanted to eat children. He had been a silly baby back then, so why was he suddenly mortally afraid to go inside this room?
The room wasn’t very large, yet the lamplight seemed to fade as it reached the closet against the far wall. From where Dave stood, he could make out the deep shadows that clung in the small space between closet and wall; a small space, but shrouded with malice.
There’s nothing there. You’re just being silly. Did Mom turn out to be a witch? No. So the closet isn’t full of monsters. Get a grip!
“Hop in, Dave.” Abbie got up and came to Dave’s bed. She pulled the covers back and waited for him to jump in. At this angle, the light hit her from beneath and deep shadows hollowed out her face till she looked ghoulish.
Stop it!
Dave forced his feet forward, and once he had started, it became easier to keep walking. He slipped under the covers, and felt a little better. Abbie bent down and kissed his forehead.
“Dave? Are you all right? You feel a little feverish to me.”
“I’m fine,” Dave reassured her. “I was in the sun all day. Maybe that’s why.”
Abbie pursed her lips, and looked at him quizzically.
“Hmm. You better get your rest then.” She brushed away the hair from his eyes and walked to the bedroom door. “I’ll check up on you later so no getting out of bed,” she warned, then shut the lamp.
