Haunted House Tales

by Riley Amitrani

  He was immediately overtaken with the fear and panic that whoever had done this might still be in the house. Or might be lying in wait outside to add him to the body count. Or would simply come back later to finish. His heart was shattered, but all he could think of was to run. He had nothing here. Toby watched as Eddie scrambled to his feet and raced from the kitchen to his truck and sped off. The dog looked in vain toward what had been his family as well. But he did not run. He tried over and over to arouse each and every member of his family who lay slain in the kitchen. But when so one moved, Toby just whimpered pathetically to himself and lay beside the bodies, his fur taking on the scarlet hue of the blood from the floor.

  Peter and his family had lived in an isolated location, far removed from the bulk of any foot or auto traffic of town. Even the hired hands did not think to look in on them, as Peter and Eddie often did not join them for days at a time. It was only when payday came that they began to wonder what was up and sent a couple of the guys to the house to get their pay. They only had to ease through the front door that had been left ajar from Eddie’s rapid departure to know all was not well.

  The smell meeting them at the door of death and decay was enough to make them retch uncontrollably and one peek into the kitchen sent them to fetch the police and any other authorities they could think of. The deaths of Peter, Sarah, and the three children was never solved. It was assumed that Eddie might have had some sort of breakdown due to his experience in the war and was responsible, but he was never located, despite an extensive search by multiple agencies. The poor lifeless body of Toby, the ever-loyal family dog, was found just where he had laid down initially. He had simply remained in his vigil, waiting for one of his care takers to arise. They never did and he simply starved to death.

  Though he was never located, Eddie Mincer’s story did not end there. After having fled the premises of Sunnyday House, the dream house he had built for himself and his new family, Eddie moved from state to state trying to rid himself of the memories of the scene in the kitchen. At first, his constant flight was fueled by the realization that the police would ultimately come for him as a prime suspect in the multiple murders. But after enough time passed, he realized this was no longer an issue. His fear and anxiety, however, did not come to a stop at that point. He was constantly followed by the spirit of Sarah, his beloved wife, no matter where he went. It was not a haunting of evil intent or of malicious danger. It was simply that Sarah had such a deep love for Eddie that she could not move on. That she could not imagine life without Eddie. Even in death. When he could no longer bear it, Eddie took his own life. His heart was still broken from the loss of Sarah, but when his body was found by an early morning walker, at the base of a bridge that spanned a highway in Kansas, no one could identify him.

  Sarah’s spirit was not alone. While she pursued Eddie out of love, Peter and the children remained attached to Sunnyday House. No one knows why. Sometimes when people are taken from their mortal lives too soon, or in a sudden and unexpected violent way, they often get stuck in the location where they died. Perhaps this was what happened in this case. The case drew lots of attention from sensationalist media as well as some self-proclaimed “psychic experts”. Whether or not they are to be believed, it became a common opinion among the paranormal professionals that the children may have been too traumatized to move on, feeling as if their mother had abandoned them. Peter on the other hand, was most likely too attached to the land he had spent most of his adult life refining and developing.

  Sunnyday House sat unoccupied for many years. The stigma of the murders was most likely the primary cause. Many made offers and tried to live there, but in all cases the new occupation did not last long, with all new owners complaining of unexplained noises, wide swings in temperatures within the house, regardless of the season, and the sightings of vague shapes and presences wandering the house as well as the grounds outside. A thriving apple orchard continued to operate on the land just down the road from Sunnyday House, but none of the workers there ever went near the house down the road.

  Sarah at School

  Middlefield, CT, October, 2012

  Sarah Howells was nineteen years old and had grown up in Hartford. Sarah was the first member of her family to attend college, and she had been stunned when she had been accepted at Wesleyan University in Middletown. She had not imagined she would be able to afford the tuition at the private liberal arts school, but a couple of generous academic scholarships as well as a student work study program were going to help her swing it. She had even taken an extra year off after high school to work to sock away some extra funds as well. At nineteen, she was a year or so behind most of her classmates, but she could not have cared less.

  Sarah had no idea what she might want to focus on ultimately, but the thing she loved about Wesleyan was that it did not require undergraduates to take prescribed courses. Freshmen were offered first year “initiative seminars”, designed to prepare them for upper level courses by emphasizing writing, analysis, discussion, and critical thinking. It was the most unique scenario Sarah had ever come across, especially for someone like her who had no clue as to where she might end up by her senior year. All that was required initially was to take courses in a variety of departments, the idea being that by exposing students to a range of topics they would exit Wesleyan with a more well-rounded education. And for someone like Sarah, it was the opportunity to sample many things to find a true calling.

  The one unexpected bump in the road for Sarah, however, was just how expensive all the ancillary needs of being a student were. It was not that she was blind-sided by something…she simply had underestimated the cost in her budget. For this reason, Sarah was always on the lookout for any kind of job or other opportunity to pick up some extra money whenever she could. As October was coming to an end, Sarah just needed a few dollars to tide her over until the 4th quarter installments from her scholarships kicked in. It was not looking good as she settled into a seat at Klekolo World Coffee in Middletown. She loved the little café that had what she considered the best organic coffee in the area, and being independently operated and owned by women appealed to her as well…anything to avoid Starbucks…

  The sun was out, but weak in the late fall sky as Sarah leaned back letting the beams warm her as she snapped open the current issue of the Wesleyan Argus, the university paper. She leafed through the usual topics and departments of the paper in a bit of a fog, just skimming over the articles on her way to the classified pages. To her utter disappointment, there was nothing there that she felt she could do, and she tossed the paper on the table with a disgusted sigh. She finished her coffee and was heading away from the café to walk around the square for a bit when she spied a wrinkled and weathered note tacked to the cork board that was available for customers to announce events and the like.

  She did not know why it had caught her eye, other than the large “help wanted” script at the top. She went back to the board and smoothed out the note to read it more carefully:

  Help Wanted

  Responsible College Student (preferably female)

  to dog sit for me while I attend

  a nighttime conference 10/28/2016

  needed from 6PM-???

  $100

  Call 203-671-5403

  Ask for Peter if interested

  The note was in an odd font, but Sarah could not believe her eyes. A hundred dollars just to take care of a dog for a few hours? Unless the dog was a major pain in the ass, this was the answer to her prayers. The hundred bucks would more than float her to her next infusion of cash. Even if the dog was a handful, she could deal with it for that kind of money. She snatched the note from the board to keep anyone else from possibly beating her to the punch, while at the same time sure that the opportunity must be long gone by now.

  She pulled out her cell and dialed the number. A calm and even voice on the other end answered, definitely that of an older man.

  “I’m calling about the dog si
tting job? Is this Peter?”

  “It is.”

  “Are you still looking for someone?”

  “I am…uh…sorry…what is your name?”

  “Oh, yeah…sorry about that…Sarah…Sarah Howells. I am a freshman at Wesleyan.”

  “Sarah…wonderful, wonderful…”

  The lilt of his voice and the hint of wonder as he repeated her name, gave Sarah a chill, but she blew it off, figuring it was just his age and his way.

  “Is this ad correct? “One hundred dollars for just the one night?”

  “It is. My Toby is all I have left for family anymore, Sarah. At my age…well…one day you will see for yourself, I guess. He is everything to me.”

  “Sure…sure…”

  “If you are still interested, you could drop by just before six and I can show you around and let you meet Toby so he can get use to you. I am not real sure how late I may be. I hope leaving my return open-ended is OK. It is a reunion of sorts and you never know how long these things may run.”

  “No problem, that sounds great.”

  Sarah jotted down his address and hung up. Despite having grown up not so far away in Hartford, she was not intimately familiar with the towns in and around Wesleyan. Peter’s address was in Middlefield, practically just an extension of Middletown but as she googled the address she saw it was well off any major routes. The house seemed to be in a very rural setting, just down from an orchard that she knew well where she had gone with some friends on a

  “pick-your-own” outing back in September. She had not remembered any roads heading off in the direction of Peter’s address when she had been there, but then again, she had not been really looking either. She figured some company from her friend, Lacey Stinson, who she had met in her dorm, might be nice, as Sarah was not one who especially cared for solitude in general. Halloween was just around the corner, and she thought pitching an evening of staying up late, hanging out, eating pizza, and watching old horror movies would appeal to her. Lacey was game and told Sarah she would come out later to meet up with her.

  ……….

  As Sarah drove out to the house, she was finding the area more unfamiliar than she had expected, but sure enough, there on her left was Mincer Orchard, where she had picked apples. The GPS on her phone indicated she was just a few minutes from the house, though the indicated route seemed wrong. Sarah pulled over as the GPS was telling her to bear right after the orchard. From what she could see, the road did not seem to continue in that direction. In the fading daylight, Sarah retrieved her flashlight and walked just past her parked car and shone the light off at an angle that her headlights were not catching. It was obviously not a well-travelled route, but just as the GPS had insisted, a rutted dirt road went off the pavement to the right as the large branches of trees on both sides of the road hung low, making the passage appear like a tunnel.

  “No wonder I couldn’t see it,” Sarah said quietly to herself.

  She shone the beam of her light down the route, but the vanishing light of the day and the dense tree branches made the way too dark for the light to help out much. Not that the light was not powerful enough, but more along the lines of the dark appearing to almost consume the illumination as it hit the black opening. Sarah returned to her car, clicked off the flashlight, and entered under the overhanging branches. Even the powerful beams of her headlights seemed to have a limited effectiveness as she drove, but in just a few minutes, just as the annoying voice on her GPS had indicated, she had arrived at her destination.

  Sarah Meets Sunnyday House

  Sarah got out and walked along the pavers that led from the driveway to the house. It seemed as if Peter had neglected to keep the pavers clear of the weeds and other overgrown grass that had sprung up between the individual stones, but Sarah figured at his age he might not have the energy or the inclination for such landscaping issues. The dark that had been so pervasive on the short drive from the orchard to the house appeared to be not so intense now. There were also a few lights streaming from the front of the house as well as a weak but adequate light illuminating the front porch that helped. She glanced up as she approached to see an old plaque that had been adhered over the front door. The lettering was mostly worn away, showing only:

  Sunn use

  She personally had never understood the desire to want to name your house, but that was sure the impression she got from what remained on the sign. The house was simple, but elegant, in Sarah’s opinion and it gave off a warm and welcoming feeling as she stepped to the front door. The house might have been somewhat small and simple in design, but the land it sat on seemed to go off endlessly in all directions, with no other houses anywhere around. It was definitely isolated and offered Peter tons of privacy, Sarah thought as she reached out and rang the doorbell.

  The door opened slowly and the face of an old man appeared. Even before he spoke, Sarah would have matched the face with the voice she had heard on the phone the day before.

  “Sarah, I presume?”

  “Peter?”

  He opened the door and stood aside so she could come in. He had the slow and deliberate movements of a man of his apparent age, and though Sarah was not a big believer in intuition, there was just something about the man that seemed not quite right. He offered to take her coat and Sarah’s attention was caught by the sudden appearance of an excited and overexuberant collie that burst into the foyer. She bent to greet him but he just barked and ran off just as quickly as he had appeared.

  “Toby?” Sarah asked as she stood up.

  “It was…it takes him some time to get used to strangers I am afraid.”

  She followed along behind Peter as he shuffled along giving her a quick overview of the house as well as all she would need to know to take care of Toby. As she trailed along, Sarah began to pick up on a few of the idiosyncrasies he displayed. They were not a big deal, but still they stuck out to her. For one, since she had arrived, he had not actually looked her directly in the eye. His gaze was off her shoulder or over her head when it was in her direction at all. In a day of normal eye contact, Sarah found it quite off-putting, but there was a significant age difference between them and perhaps Peter was just not comfortable with guests as it seemed he lived alone with Toby. Also, and this was a much more minor issue, he had never even offered his hand when she had arrived. In fact, he seemed to keep his hands in his pockets all the time. But the oddest of his patterns was that he kept repeating her name. Not over and over like a mantra or anything, but much more frequently than would have been expected in a typical conversation.

  Otherwise, though, Sarah found him soft-spoken and kind in his demeanor, being thorough and very detailed in his tour of the house and in the directions for attending to Toby. It was sweet, she thought…his concern for the dog was evident and she understood it based on their phone conversation.

  “Any questions before I take off, Sarah?”

  “None that I can think of. You have a good time and don’t worry about Toby. We’ll be fine.”

  “I am sure you will, Sarah.”

  She went with him to the door to see him off. He turned to look back as he was on the porch just as she was about to shut the door.

  “I knew right from the beginning you were perfect for this job, Sarah. Even on the phone I could tell. And now that you are here, Sarah, I know I was not mistaken. None of the others could hold a match to you, Sarah.”

  He put on his hat and walked off as Sarah shut the front door. It was such an odd thing to say, she thought, as she leaned against the door. The house was a bit dark and cold as well with lots of outdated and antiquated bric-a-brac on the shelves and tables. If she had let her imagination take over, she would have not been surprised to have seen goblins or other sprites dart from the spooky-looking recesses that the interior lights were not illuminating well. It was just her nerves, she was sure, and money was money. The timing and the amount was perfect. She shook off all of that as she wandered back to a small den where she
had seen a television to settle in until Lacey arrived with the pizza. She began to flick through the channels, looking for some stations that might offer them a good movie or two. Certainly this place was perfect for creating an atmosphere conducive to watching horror films...

  As she flipped around the dial, Sarah thought maybe it was a good time to try and bond a bit with Toby and she called for him. Her first attempt produced no dog, so she tried several times and even walked through the lower level of the house seeing if he might be hiding somewhere. Still no dog materialized. She shrugged and returned to the den figuring he would come when he was ready. As skittish as the dog had been when she had arrived it seemed as if it might take some time.

  An old Sherlock Holmes film, one of the classic versions with Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson, caught her eye and she relaxed. The remakes of the Holmes films were numerous to be sure, but often mediocre, in Sarah’s opinion, following up on the penultimate pairing of Rathbone and Bruce. They still remained some of her all-time favorites when it came to classic movies which had been introduced to her by her grandfather from Britain. As she watched Holmes again make the elusive appear blindingly obvious, she texted Lacey to let her know she was alone and that she could head over whenever it was convenient.

  The movie ended and Sarah stood to stretch and walk around the house again in hopes of enticing Toby to join her. The big empty place was still giving her a slight case of the creeps and she was hoping that the dog might help chase them away until Lacey arrived. She went all through the living room and dining room and even into the kitchen to see if Toby had ventured out from wherever it was he was hiding, but still she seemed to be unable to find him.