13 Hauntings

by Clarice Black

  Grace screamed again and stumbled back, tripping and falling off her feet. She scrambled back slashing the knife in front of her. Her back hit the dining table and she maneuvered under the chairs, her body trembling, her eyes focused on the landing, waiting for the thing to emerge.

  “I’m here,” the spine-chilling voice sang from the top of the table. Something heavy began to bounce on the table top. “Come out, come out. Let’s play!” The voice deepened with each crash.

  Grace bolted from under the table, running towards the safety of her room. If she could only make it there…

  The bedroom door slammed shut in her face. She turned around, the knife in front of her, scanning the living room. The monstrous face popped up from behind the sofa. Then behind the TV. Then from under the coffee table.

  “I’m here.”

  “No, here I am!”

  “Look at me, Grace!”

  “Come catch me!”

  The room filled with the horrible face, the clown jeering, howling and capering about. Grace looked from one to the other, her knees giving way, her back sinking against the door.

  There was no way out. The monster was everywhere.

  Holding the knife in trembling fingers, Grace turned the blade towards herself.

  “Do it Grace. Do it!”

  “Come join us.”

  “Join your dead, pathetic baby.”

  With an anguished cry, Grace ran the blade across her forearm.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

  The Devil in Rutley Mansion

  It had been a stressful week. After Carson had found Grace slumped in a pool of her own blood in the living room, the days had turned into blurred moments, each more painful than the next. The Emergency Room doctor had said it was lucky that Grace had been brought in on time; the wound wasn’t serious but she would have bled out if Carson had been any later.

  Sunil had bene to visit Grace in the hospital and discussed admitting her into the safety of his clinic for the time being. Carson had reluctantly agreed; the risk of Grace coming to harm again was too high for him to do anything else. Plus, Grace had been muttering about the clown again in her sleep, and Carson didn’t know what to do to help her.

  Grace had cried when Carson had left her at the Diya Care Home for the Mentally Ill. She hadn’t protested. Her tears had been silent and that had done more to fill Carson with guilt than any screaming demonstrations would have.

  How had it come to this?

  Six months ago, they had everything in the world with much to look forward to. But now…

  The phone on his desk rang, bringing Carson out of his morbid thoughts.

  “Yes?”

  “Mr. Browning has arrived for his appointment.”

  Carson frowned in annoyance. He should have listened to Grace about Lilian. The girl just didn’t know how to read a room. Her cheerful voice felt like a direct assault on his vulnerable state. Was she too stupid to know to keep her voice professional? She was the receptionist at a psychiatric clinic, not a cashier at Nando’s.

  He sighed. He was being unfair to the girl. She was trying her best. He just felt so guilty about Grace and was projecting it on Lilian.

  “Send him in, please.”

  Carson took a sip of water and prepared himself for the session. Seth Browning’s file was already on his desk, the entire roster of patients he had to see today were on his desk. The pile had grown smaller after lunch. Carson was grateful for that.

  The door opened just as Carson finished reading the brief notes of the previous session.

  “Hello, Seth.” Carson said with cheer he did not feel. “How are you this afternoon?”

  Carson hadn’t expected much of a reaction.

  Seth Browning was five years old, with a head full of thick brown hair, and big brown eyes in a small pinched face. Seth had started his toddler years gabbing in a language of his own, but as soon as he had turned four he had stopped speaking entirely. The once spirited boy became a recluse who preferred to play with his toys rather than friends. His worried parents had brought him to Carson and slowly the boy had started to speak again.

  They still hadn’t progressed enough for Seth to reveal what had prompted his sudden muteness or extremely altered behaviour, but Carson was confident that they would get there eventually.

  “So, I hear you’re going to Egypt in the holidays. That must be exciting.”

  Seth sat with his hands folded in his lap. He kept looking down at his hands.

  “A bit gritty what with all the sand, but the pyramids are always great to look at.”

  Most sessions with Seth were one-sided conversations. Carson spent most of them touching on topics most prominent in Seth’s life, gauging his reactions and moving forward accordingly. Egypt wasn’t getting any reaction.

  “At least you’ll have something to write in that dreaded school essay. Every year; ‘What did you do in your summer holidays?’ Like clockwork.”

  Seth’s lip quivered.

  “Are you okay, Seth? Is it bullies at school?”

  The boy lifted his head, his large eyes filled with tears.

  “You shouldn’t have sent her away.”

  “What?” Carson sat forward. A whole sentence from Seth was nothing short of a miracle. “Who?”

  “Grace. He didn’t like that.”

  “What do you know about Grace? Has Lilian been talking?” Carson felt his face flush with anger; the emotion clouding his professional instincts to turn the conversation back on Seth.

  “He’s very angry,” Seth whimpered. “Please make him go away,” he wailed, tears streaming down his face.

  “Who, Seth? Who are you talking about?”

  “Clown,” Seth whispered.

  Carson was stunned. He had told no one but Sunil about the clown, and Dr. Gupta was bound by patient doctor confidentiality. It had to be Lilian; but how did she know about the clown?

  “Who told you about the clown, Seth?”

  Seth shook his head, his little hands gripping the arms of the chair.

  “It’s okay, you can tell me. I won’t be angry.”

  Seth shook his head, his eyes bulging in his eyes.

  “Seth –“

  “Saw.”

  “What?”

  “Hear.” He shook his head fitfully. “Saw.”

  For a moment Carson didn’t breathe.

  “You saw the clown.”

  Seth nodded his head, tears flying off his chin, his nose running freely.

  “Where did you see the clown, Seth?”

  Seth shrunk back in his chair, his face crumpling into a pitiful grimace.

  “Seth…”

  “Behind you.”

  Carson froze. The hair on the back of his neck prickled as if a cold finger had touched him.

  “Please.” Seth moaned. “Make him go away.”

  Carson turned slowly. Seth’s moans grew louder and the boy began to shake. Carson’s heart was thrumming a tattoo on his chest. Seth’s moan pitched into a high wail, low and keening.

  The small space behind Carson’s chair was empty.

  “There’s no one the- Seth!”

  The boy was on the floor, shaking uncontrollably in a pool of his own piss.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

  A Shared Psychosis

  “It can’t be a coincidence.”

  Carson was in Ryan’s office, staring at the stunning view of downtown Lancaster City. He wasn’t looking at anything his mind a far way off.

  “How is the boy?” Ryan asked, handing Carson a cup of coffee.

  “They released him last night, saying he suffered from an acute panic attack. He’s gone mute again. He said more to me yesterday than he has in the entire year I’ve been consulting him.”

  “And he mentioned the clown?”

  “Yes. That’s all he talked about.” Carson sipped his coffee and grimaced. “And Grace. He said I was wrong to send her away. He told me that the clown did not like that Grace had been sent away
”

  “How did he know about that?”

  “I don’t know.” Carson sighed. “I asked Lilian if she had said anything and the girl was in tears trying to convince me she wouldn’t do something that stupid.”

  “Wow. This is creepy.”

  “I don’t know why this is happening. It can’t be a shared psychosis; Grace has never consulted on Seth’s case. They’ve never met.”

  Ryan began tapping a pencil on his desk, the loud rat-tat-tat shattering the mood in the room. He got up suddenly, a big frown on his face, and made a beeline for a filing cabinet in one corner of his office. He rummaged for a while, then stood triumphantly with a slim folder in his beefy hands.

  “Shared psychosis,” Ryan said, slamming the file down on the desk in front of Carson. “I knew I’d read that somewhere.”

  “What’s this?”

  “It’s a file my secretary complied on the Rutley Mansion after my firm acquired the rights to sell the property.” Ryan sat back in his chair, absentmindedly chewing on the back of a pencil. “It’s all news clippings and random assessment reports on the property. There’s an article in there I think you’ll find interesting.”

  Carson raised an eyebrow. Ryan grinned, the pencil firmly stuck between his teeth.

  Carson opened the file. He rummaged through some serious looking documents in small print before he came to a yellowing newspaper clipping.

  Behemoth Pet Project Abandoned

  ‘I saw the Devil in Rutley Mansion’

  Carson read on.

  George Rutley famously acquired the abandoned Pierson Mental Hospital to convert it into a summer home. Claiming to fall in love with the original structural design, the ironworks magnate set to convert the asylum into his own personal haven.

  Now he has decided not to inhabit the much-coveted villa after a spate of ‘hauntings.’

  “Mr. Rutley is a religious man and takes the threat of supernatural elements very seriously,” said his personal secretary Jeffry O’Doul. “There have been enough disruptions at the construction site for him to abandon all hope of moving into the mansion.”

  When the construction team was contacted, they refused to speak unless under the protection of absolute anonymity.

  “Things would go missing, not like you left your hammer someplace the other day, and the next you find it across the lot. Things would pick themselves up and fly across the room. One nearly hit a labourer once.”

  “Something horrible happened there. I mean we’ve all heard stories but experiencing them first hand convinced me.”

  “I saw the devil. He was red, and had the most horrible face. A clown face! I saw the devil in Rutley Mansion.”

  Carson stopped reading, his hands were shaking so bad he couldn’t go any further. There it was again, from years in the past, the clown. Carson would have to get to the bottom of this.

  “Where can I find information on the Pierson Mental Hospital?”

  “You could check the archives. City Hall must have them.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Hey, if you need anything…” Ryan called after him.

  “I’ll call you.”

  **

  The Lancaster archives were stuffed in a small airless room in the back of the City Hall. An old stooped woman showed Carson the way and then left him to sort through the mess himself. It took him hours to make sense of the documents and their storage. Everything had been dumped in boxes, which had then been piled one on top of the other. Thankfully, one stack of boxes encompassed an entire year so Carson had to go back from 1962 to get to the information he needed.

  After hours, with only a fifteen-minute break to wolf down the dry sandwich and mug of tea which the old lady had very generously brought him for lunch, Carson had achieved nothing. Giving up hope, Carson dusted his hands and the knees of his slacks.

  He was disappointed and dejected. He didn’t know what he was looking for exactly, but he knew there was information out there that would shed some light on this whole preternatural clown business. But what then?

  Was Carson really leaning towards believing in ghosts and demons? His entire career was based on curing peoples’ mental illnesses, illnesses that made them believe in supernatural elements. Was he willing to set his life’s work aside to prove the existence and reality of ghosts?

  “Done for the day?” the old woman enquired.

  “I’m done, yes.”

  “Did you find what you were looking for?”

  “No.” Carson sighed heavily.

  “What were you looking for, Dearie?”

  “I was looking for articles and press cuttings on the Pierson Mental Hospital.”

  “The one that got converted into a mansion?”

  “Yes.” Sudden hope flared in Carson. “Do you know anything about it?”

  “Not really, no, but there’s a whole box full of articles on hospitals in the city in that stack over there.”

  Carson looked at the teetering stack of boxes, physically exhausted at the thought of having to go through another dusty file. But the thought of Grace sitting alone in a room, confused and scared spurred him on.

  He found the file in the third box.

  It wasn’t very thick and there were only three articles in it. The first one was from 1939, a profile on Dr. Walter Pierson and his revolutionary humane treatment of mental health patients through a relaxed environment, lots of sunshine and physical activities. Most patients, once cured, would be sent back home. It had a grainy picture of Dr. Pierson standing laughing in the back gardens of the hospital with some of his patients.

  The next article was from 1942, although it was less an article and more of an obituary. It detailed how Dr. Pierson had passed away in his sleep and that the care of his hospital had fallen to his assistant, Dr. Gary Langley.

  The third and last article dealt with the permanent closure of the Pierson Mental Hospital on the grounds of unethical treatment of patients. It revealed how most patients were misdiagnosed to allow for cruel experiments to be conducted on them; electroshock therapy was a favourite, as was bloodletting to purify the mind. The authorities had long been suspicious of Dr. Langley’s methods since none of the patients proclaimed as cured were allowed to leave the hospital, and the spate of sudden deaths at the hospital had become alarming.

  The team of doctors and nurses had first blamed a patient for the deaths; a man named Harry Fletcher, an old circus clown who was diagnosed with schizophrenia. They claimed he had become violent one night, embarking on a killing spree before the nurses had succeeding in detaining him. The authorities had believed it for a while, but then the truth had come to light.

  The hospital was shut down, the doctors were put on trial before being sent to jail. The building still stood, but there were rumours of hauntings because the remains of some of the murdered victims had not been found.

  Carson replaced the file and scratched his head.

  It was true then; the wronged spirit of Harry Fletcher still haunted the clinic, probably chaffing at having to share the space with yet another team of psychiatrists. Grace had been right all along. She wasn’t crazy. She must have been channelling Harry’s spirit when she screamed not to be put in the chair.

  The question now was how would he go about fixing things.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

  Bleed for Pleasure

  “I can’t say how sorry I am for not believing you,” Carson said.

  “It’s behind us.” Grace kissed his fingers.

  They were lying in bed. In the dark they could only make out the silhouette of the other. Carson had brought Grace home as soon as he had finished reading about the Pierson Mental Hospital. It was unfair to have her confined against her will.

  “That’s what scares me,” Carson caressed her cheek. “I don’t know if it is. I have no idea how to be sure”

  “We’ll face it together.”

  They were silent for a little while. Carson must have dozed off because he suddenl
y felt wide awake, and realized some time had passed. Grace’s body beside him was stiff as a board, a low moan coming from her.

  “Grace? Grace, what is it?”

  “He’s here.”

  His body turned cold.

  “Harry?”

  “He’s behind you.”

  Carson whipped around but the room was too dark to allow him to make anything out. He fumbled for the lamp and hit the switch. A sudden yellow light pierced his vision and for a moment he was blinded. He squinted his eyes open and there it was, the most horrific sight he had ever seen, crouching beside his bed.

  Demented eyes stared out from a wickedly grinning face. The mouth opened wide and launched itself on the bed. Grace screamed. Carson leaped away, shielding Grace’s body with his own. He vaulted her out of bed and raced her to the door.

  “Run, run, but you can’t hide!” the howling jeer followed them out of the room.

  “Go, Grace. Hide!” Carson pushed Grace forward and stood his ground, trying to buy her some time. How did you defend yourself against a ghost? It was too late to think any of this through. The creature was bounding out of the room, his head lolling from side to side, its disjointed limbs pitching forward.

  “Oh, Jesus!” Carson cried before the thing was on him, slashing at his open throat. Carson lifted his arm just in time to deflect a fatal blow. Claw-like nails raked through his skin, and his arm transformed into a gory mess with the welling blood. Carson cried out in pain.

  “Did it hurt?” the clown asked. “I wouldn’t know. I’m crazy, and crazy people don’t. Feel. Pain!” It hammered a fist into Carson’s face and cackled.

  “Stop it!”

  Carson was overcome with an immense pain, but none of that hurt as much as hearing Grace somewhere nearby. She was in danger and needed to get away.

  “Grace… no!”

  Grace stood in the middle of the living room, a Bible in one hand, and a wooden cross in the other.

  “You’re not meant to be here. You died, unfairly I grant you, but you’re dead. You can’t change that; we can’t change that. But we can help you find peace. You need to give up your body and move on”