13 Hauntings

by Clarice Black

  The clown hissed at Grace, it’s hackles raised at the sight of the cross.

  Grace stepped forward. The thing backed away.

  “Give yourself to the Lord, let Him guide you to your afterlife.”

  “I deserved to live!” the clown hissed. “I was robbed of my sanity. I was robbed of everything!”

  “I know,” Grace said, opening her arms. “And I’m sorry.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re one of them!”

  The furniture began to vibrate, responding to the anger in the creature that crouched cornered against the wall.

  “We can help you.”

  “Help me? Put me in a chair? Strap me down so I can’t move, gag me so I can’t breathe.” Every item in the living room lifted an inch off the floor, the air full of a latent charge waiting for release. “Dunk my head under water and cut me so I bleed for your pleasure? Grab me, strap me, trap me? No!”

  With a sudden whoosh and crash all the furniture went flying off the floor towards the ceiling windows of the sun room, breaking the glass. The figure of Harry Fletcher’s ghost went careering out the window, escaping into the night.

  Grace rushed to the ruined windows.

  “There!” she cried. “His ghost disappeared at the edge of the property. Carson, are you listening? Carson!”

  She rushed over to his side. His face was swelling, his arm was a bloody mess and the cut on his lip was bleeding, but other than that he felt alright.

  “Where’d you say the ghost went?”

  “Oh, it can wait till morning.”

  “I’d rather be done with it right now.”

  “What are we doing?”

  “I don’t have a clue.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

  R.I.P

  By the time they had located the bones of the unfortunate erstwhile patients of the long defunct Pierson Mental Hospital, the sun had risen high in the sky. Grace had helped, but Carson had done most of the work. At first they had excavated a small grave but, as the bones began to pile up, they had extended the perimeter. During their unearthing, they had discovered no more than fifteen skulls in various sizes.

  “I think these are the remains that were never found.” Carson wiped his forehead, the palms of his hands blistered, raw and bleeding. “What do we do now?”

  Grace thought for a long while, finally letting her instinct take over. It had helped her when the clown was attacking Carson and she hadn’t known what to do. It had led her to the Bible and the cross.

  “I think we should tell the authorities, and then see to it that these remains are given a proper Christian burial.”

  “Do you think that will work?” Carson looked sceptical.

  Grace smiled.

  “I have a feeling it will.”

  ***

  Grace made it her mission to follow up on the identification of every one of the skeletal remains they had retrieved from the grounds of their Rutley Mansion. It took the powers that be a fair amount of time to complete the forensics. Fortunately, the Haywards had a network of medical types at their disposal. During their years at Medical School they had trained and socialized with students who had gone on to work in the field of forensics. Grace and Carson had called on Simon, now a forensic anthropologist, who agreed to work on the body identification and reconstruction, and Phyllis, a renowned forensic odonatologist, who had time to spend on the dental evidence available, since she was on extended sabbatical for study purposes. In fact, the findings had become a source of respected proof in the medical and forensic fields, being that the skeletons ranged in chronological age from infants to geriatrics, and had ‘expired’ during medical trials of sorts.

  Once each former patient had been identified, Grace went on to source their closest living relatives. Contacting the next of kin of people who had, for all intent and purpose, gone missing while sick, was somewhat distressing. The parents of two children, aged between seven and nine, were the most disturbing to inform. These two couples had both gone on to have another child after the hospital had informed them that their babies had evaded the staff and security to run away during the night. They had spent their entire adulthood searching for children who had never intentionally left their families.

  For the most part, the siblings of these long departed unfortunates were informed. Various burial services were held to put the families at peace, and the remains were at last interred, decades out of time.

  Requiescat in pace, or Rest in peace, for so long used in epitaphs, had never held a more significant placement than on these fifteen graves.

  Seeing to the identifications, familial contacts and last rights of the Pierson Mental Hospital patients had a restorative effect on Grace. She had the power to reinstate these individuals, somehow. Where she had been the unwitting victim in the miscarriage of their baby, she was in a position of authority in settling the spirits and earthly remains of these victims.

  One thing was left to do, though. Harry had been labelled the committer of unspeakable atrocities and left to be the tormented scape-goat for the sins of the cruel and barbaric team of doctors and nurses under Dr. Langley. Grace was relentless in absolving Harry’s name, by any means thinkable. By way of atonement for the medical fraternity’s hand in Harry’s suffering, a wing of Rutley Mansion was later added to be run in line with the model made famous in Robin Williams’ portrayal of Dr Patch Adams – the clown Doctor. The Rutley Mansion modelled this wing for terminally ill children on Adams’ vision of doctors’ compassionate connections with their patients. The prescription for this kind of care relies on humour and play. The sign in red and white above the door to the wing reads “Harry’s Patch”.

  ***

  “Oh my God, Grace, I am so sorry!”

  Grace tried her best not to laugh.

  Lilian was sitting on the floor of Grace’s bathroom, her head resting on the toilet seat.

  “I’m just so sick, I don’t know what to do,” Lilian wailed.

  “You could go home.”

  Lilian grew paler still at the thought of being fired.

  “To rest, you silly goose. You really shouldn’t come in if you’re so sick. You’ll infect any number of our patients, and then where will we be?”

  “Oh, thank you!” Lilian struggled off the floor and staggered to Grace to envelope her in a hug. Grace patted her receptionist’s back tentatively, and was relieved to be let go. “I’ll see you in a few days.”

  Grace closed her bathroom door and settled in to her office chair. She picked up the phone and dialled Carson’s extension.

  “Darling.”

  “Hi Honey,” Grace cooed. “Are you a betting man?”

  “Depends on the wager.”

  “I have a young girl who works for me who isn’t very bright.”

  “I think I know the one.”

  “Yes. Well she just went home with a terrible case of stomach flu.”

  “It’s been bothering her for some days, hasn’t it.”

  “Yes, it has. I want to wager when it is she might realize that she’s pregnant.”

  “I’ll wager around the three-month mark.”

  “Two weeks. You men just don’t give us women the credit we deserve on maternal instinct, do you, now.”

  “You’re on!”

  Grace chuckled and set the receiver down. She was in much better spirits these days. Four months had passed since the terrible incidents in the house, and the Haywards had picked themselves up, dusted everyone off and continued with their lives.

  The hauntings had stopped suddenly after the remains had been discovered, and a priest was brought in to perform a cleansing of the property. Even young Seth Browning had looked relaxed at his next visit, and the feeling of constant gloom and despair had evaporated.

  Grace poured herself a cup of tea and looked out her office window over a colourful array of flowering shrubs bordering manicured lawns and shady trees. A fund had been started for the reinterring and commemoration of the ‘Pierso
n Unfortunates’, and the administrators had allowed for funds to be used in the landscaping of the Rutley Mansion grounds. Gone but not forgotten.

  Grace was back to being her old self, and her relationship with Carson was better than before. They had faced a far worse adversary as a couple and come out stronger. The loss of their unborn baby still hurt, but Grace’s gynaecologist had given them the go ahead to start trying again.

  Grace was full of hope for the future, but even more so now that she had found a purpose to believe in.

  Harry Fletcher and the atrocities inflicted on his fellow patients in the name of psychiatric medicine had brought home to Grace the full extent of the importance of her work. She had thrown herself into making the Hayward Clinic work with fresh zeal. It meant the world to her to give her patients the kind of understanding and help that Harry had never received.

  The phone rang.

  “Yes, Clara?”

  “You’re three o’clock appointment is here.”

  “Please send Mrs. Barret in, Clara. And could we have some tea, if you wouldn’t mind? Mrs. Barret likes the oolong. It helps her relax.”

  “Of course, Dr. Hayward.”

  Grace smiled. Life was happier again.

  The Haunting of Drerie Haunt

  Clarice Black

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

  Prologue

  “I want my child to live. I want it live,” Tawni shouted, cringing at the pain in her belly that looked like a swollen balloon. She crouched and stretched her body, her face sickly yellow and her eyes shut tight. She bellowed with the pain and collapsed on the floor.

  “Please doctor, please save her. I don’t care about the baby but I want her to live,” her husband, Tom pleaded with the doctor.

  “It’s alright, I can save your child and your wife, too but I will have to operate and I need your consent.” Dr. Blayne’s tone was mechanical.

  “What do you mean you will have to operate?” Tom squinted into the pale, bland face of the doctor.

  “Your wife is in critical condition and I need to operate on her as soon as you approve, because there is a slight chance that she might not survive, but the baby will. You will also have to pay the fee for the operation.” Dr. Blayne turned from Tawni groaning on the small cot, as if it was all the same to him who lived or died.

  “But I have no money to feed my wife and myself. How can I afford your fee?” He pleaded, hoping that the doctor might be a little sympathetic.

  Dr. Blayne was far from compassionate. He took his time, rubbing his pointed chin with a knobbly finger, before making a proposition. “Ok, I will help you if you’ll help me. “

  “Anything you say, but please…”

  Before he could finish Dr. Blayne interrupted with a hint of triumph in his voice as if he had won a prize. “Ok, then it is settled. I will save both your wife and baby, and in return you will give me your child after it has been weaned.”

  Tom was taken aback. He looked from his wife’s pale anguished face to her extended belly. He had no love for the child. It had been this pregnancy which had revealed their affair to his parents and led to his banishment from his family home and farm. His wife was another matter. He loved her dearly and would not be parted from her, no matter that she was a Romani. Tom nodded. “Yes, I accept your offer. But only on condition you present me my wife safe and sound.”

  They shook hands in agreement.

  Pacing outside the doctor’s house on Drerie Haunt Tom, fretted as the minutes turned to hours with still no news of his beloved. It was close to midnight when a baby’s cry rent the night, and a short and sturdy woman came outside carrying a bundle in her hands.

  Tom cringed at the sight of the bundle. Did this mean the doctor had chosen to give life to the baby at the cost of his wife? Cats yowled in the distance, and a dog cried somewhere in the village.

  “It’s a daughter, sir.” The woman lifted the bundle for Tom to hold. He was reluctant to do so. He couldn’t explain why, but he felt fear lick his bowels. He was mortally afraid of the child.

  He looked down at the bundle. A small pale face peeked up through the blankets. The firelight from the lantern revealed raven-black hair and impossibly long lashes for one so small. Her lips were ruby red as if she had fed on her mother’s blood.

  Tom shuddered. The baby girl had already opened her eyes. Her gaze was direct and unwavering. Dread settled in his heart and he was glad he had promised this cursed child to the doctor.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN

  Drerie Haunt

  The sun was still in bed, but Bob Freestone was lumbering about in the private quarters of the Haunt on the Hill, the local village pub, much to his daughter’s annoyance.

  “You best be up in there.” Bob knocked for the fourth time on Milly’s door.

  Milly screamed into her pillow. There was no point ignoring him. Her father didn’t know about boundaries or the special adult treatment required by an eighteen-year-old. He would simply keep knocking as if Milly was still seven and being stubborn about going to school.

  Knock knock knock

  Milly got out of bed and opened the door. “It’s five in the morning, Dad.”

  “Best time for breakfast on a Sunday, eh?” Bob smiled down. He was a head taller than his daughter, and weighed three times more, at least. Milly could easily fit both her legs in one of his pants legs. “You need to polish all the tables before the breakfast rush.”

  “Whose grand idea was it to open for breakfast on Sundays?” Milly muttered.

  “I made pancakes!” Val, her mother, called from down the short hall.

  “Brush your teeth, that’s a good girl.” Bob winked and waddled off down the hall.

  Milly sagged against her doorframe wondering if it would be worth her parents’ wrath to go back to bed for five minutes. Deciding against it, she took herself off to the bathroom they shared.

  It had been two months since Milly had been uprooted from her life in London and brought to the village of Drerie. It hadn’t been out of the blue, no matter how much Milly protested otherwise. Her parents had been tending bar for a man who owned three pubs in Camden Town. Owning a pub of their own had been a lifelong dream which had finally come to pass when Milly had said she wasn’t interested in going to college. They had taken a loan, pooled it with the money they’d saved for her college tuition, and made a down payment on an abandoned house in Drerie village.

  If she had known it would mean moving to backwater Drerie and putting in hard labour every day of the week, she would have opted for academic hell any day.

  Now the pub had been operational for over a month and, though Milly enjoyed talking to the locals and getting a sense of the social gossip, she hated the dawn to midnight hours.

  “I couldn’t have done it without you two,” Bob said between sips of scalding hot tea. “Thank you for sticking by my side through thick and thin.” Bob sniffed, his large nose a bright pink.

  Val got out of her seat and hugged Bob. She tried to at least, her spindly arms not quite making it around his girth. They both sniffled quietly while Milly rolled her eyes at the dish of butter. Once the breakfast was cleared, Val went down a floor to clean the three bedrooms they had for any travellers wanting to stay the night. Bob went off to the kitchen to receive the daily vegetable and dairy delivery and to get started on breakfast for the patrons, while Milly got the front of the pub ready.

  She saw no point in cleaning the pub in the morning when she was made to rub it down the night before. But Bob and Val were sticklers for floors and tables you could eat the food off of.

  There was a knock on the pub door. Norman’s surly face darted into the window at the front of the pub. Milly’s mood soured as she let him in. Norman, their neighbour and the caretaker of Drerie Haunt, came in from time to time to help out for a small sum of money. He had helped the family settle in and had just stuck around after.

  “Could you get all the chairs off the tables and tucked nice and tight?” Mil
ly waved Norman away while she cleaned the bar.

  She watched his shuffling gait. He lived in the nearby cottage and rumour had it he was born in the house and had never had the inkling or notion to leave since. There was something eerie about his demeanour and Milly found it unnerving. She had not felt comfortable in his presence after she saw him tiptoeing out of his cottage late into the dark night carrying a small bundle in his arm a couple of nights before. She thought of discussing the matter with her father before it slipped her mind.

  Throwing the washcloth under the counter, Milly went back to the kitchen where Bob was seasoning hanks of lamb shank for their Sunday Roast Special. “Dad, I need to speak to you about Norman.”

  “What about him, Milly?” Bob was engrossed in measuring spices.

  “Don’t you think he’s a bit weird? He hardly ever talks; he’s indifferent to the anything going on around him. And also…” she hesitated. Bob put the spices down and looked at her. “I saw him sneaking out of his own house a few nights back, and I am sure I saw him carrying something in his hands but I couldn’t figure out what exactly.”

  “Everybody’s different, Milly. You of all people should know that.” Bob smiled to lessen the sting of his remark. “As far as my opinion about the boy is concerned, I find him quite respectful and I like that he keeps himself to himself. He’s a good lad, his labour doesn’t cost me an arm and a leg, and I’d thank you not to Nancy Drew him out of here.”

  Milly puffed her cheeks. They’d called her a busybody back in London because of her curious nature. It had ticked a lot of people off, so it was no surprise that Bob wanted her to keep that trait of her personality hidden. They couldn’t afford to offend customers or any locals.