Haunted House Tales

by Riley Amitrani

  Josh nodded silently and the only sounds nearby were a few singing birds and the pinging of the car engine as it cooled in the evening air.

  “Everyone ready?” Trent asked.

  “As we’ll ever be, I guess…” Sally said.

  They got out of the car and followed Josh around to the rear where he removed a small daypack. He handed flashlights to both Sally and Trent and then double checked his gear before zipping the pack back up and shouldering it.

  “You planning on a major expedition, buddy?” Trent asked as he slugged Josh playfully on the arm.

  “Very funny,” Josh replied. “Just want to be prepared in case…well…just in case.”

  Trent did not reply and was thankful for the fading light that might have otherwise betrayed his underlying anxiety.

  “Everyone check their lights,” Josh said.

  They all did as he requested and all three seemed to fully charge. Sally could stand it no longer and she led the way. A light breeze sprung up as they made their way through a few stands of tall grass and scrub. The sun fell without warning behind a dense bank of clouds behind the mansion, and they found themselves in a much darker environment than the time of day might have indicated.

  “Gee…” Trent said quietly, “all we are missing is a full moon, maybe some thunder and lightning, and maybe the screech of a barn owl…”

  “Being a little snarky and melodramatic, aren’t we?” Sally asked as she shone her light into her boyfriend’s eyes.

  Josh uttered a light laugh.

  “Just then, an owl’s call pierced the night as thunder rumbled in the far distance.

  Trent shone his light into Sally’s face.

  She shrugged.

  “I stand corrected I guess…”

  “You can make it up to me later, sweetie…” Trent shot back with a laugh of his own.

  Halloween at the Drummond-Evans Mansion

  Savannah, GA

  October 31, 2016, 9 PM

  With that, the trio moved closer and onto the very splintered and rickety planks of the porch to see just how it was they were going to gain access to the interior. Despite its’ overall dilapidation, there was no real indication of a way inside. The door, even though not padlocked or otherwise secured was resistant to even the most valiant efforts. They walked the exterior of the house, panning the beams of their lights across the lower level and were about to wonder if access was even going to be possible at all without vandalizing something. However, just at the last moment, Josh ran his light over a window on the far side of the mansion where a window was almost completely broken out.

  “Guys…” he said getting Sally and Trent’s attention.

  They came to where he was standing.

  “I think I found us a way in with minimal cause to be accused of breaking in.”

  They followed his light and saw the shattered pane of glass that looked as if it would allow them a relatively easy access point.

  “If you two can give me some light, I can go in and see if I can free up a door to let you in.”

  Trent and Sally nodded as Josh slipped off his pack and handed it to Trent. Sally and Trent focused their beams on the opening of the window as Josh looked it over to figure out his best approach. He reached through the opening and tried to raise the frame itself, but the wood seemed to have swollen over the years and it was stuck firmly in place. Josh shrugged.

  “Oh well…” he said as he withdrew his arms from around the few remaining shards of glass, it was worth a try.”

  The outstanding points of glass seemed stubbornly in place as well and Josh was afraid that trying to remove them might be taking more of a chance of getting cut then to just step in through the opening and around the pointy fragments. He took a deep breath and eased himself in and around the glass that was jutting up from the lower frame. Never one that had prided himself on his dexterity and deftness, Josh suddenly felt proud and relieved when he cleared the potential for getting cut and began to bring the rest of his frame in through the opening. However, just as he was metaphorically patting himself on the back, a piece of the glass that was sticking out sideways that Josh had overlooked reached out to snag his coat. It threw off his whole sense of balance and he tumbled through the opening and onto his back as the offending shard snapped off and followed him onto the floor inside.

  “Shit!” Josh cried out as he hit the floor hard and knocked over a small table just inside the window.

  “You OK?” Sally asked as she came closer to the opening where Josh had fallen. You hurt?”

  “Just bruised my ego I think…” Josh replied. “But I appeared to have broken a family heirloom in the process. Hang on and let me see if I can open that back door to let you guys in.”

  Trent and Sally wandered to the back of the house to see if Josh could let them in that way and sure enough, in just a few seconds, a door that led to an old pantry and the kitchen opened just a crack and Josh stood in their lights, his clothes dusty and dirty from the fall and the left sleeve of his coat ripped open in a jagged flap at the elbow. He forced the door back on very resistant hinges, as it fought against his efforts, perhaps as if it did not want to admit intruders, and the hinges cried out in protest.

  Josh collected his pack back from Trent and stepped aside letting them enter as the thunder that has been far away sounded closer with each rumble. The wind had picked up as well and a soft display of lightning was muted by the cloud bank and was playing across the river, back toward Savannah. Josh moved back into the house and to the window in which he had unceremoniously come through as he picked up the pieces of a shattered old ceramic pitcher and wash basin that had been causalities of his fall. The table on which they had been perched had not fared much better, two of its four spindle-like legs snapped off where they attached to the top of the table.

  “You sure you didn’t get cut?” Sally asked again as Josh set aside the debris of the table and its contents and began to dust himself off.

  “I’m fine, thanks. But my Mom is going to be none too happy that I ruined this jacket she gave me as a graduation present from high school.”

  Josh led the way as they moved slowly and deliberately into the kitchen and then down a long passageway that had various rooms branching off from each side before leading them back toward the front of the mansion and into an expansive foyer. Trent shone his light up an enormously wide staircase that ran from the foyer up to a second level. Even at this angle, he could see that the stairs did not stop at just an upper level. They merely took a break and then made a second turn after a small landing before doubling back to rise again to at least one more upper level.

  “Big joint…,” Trent whispered as he wandered over from the base of the stairs to rejoin Josh and Sally. “And pretty well gone from its days of splendor…”

  “For sure…” Sally replied. “And plenty creepy as well.”

  “You wanted a haunted house, sweetie,” Trent replied with a warm smile. “Surely you were not expecting the Ritz?”

  She snickered at his comment.

  And indeed, that assessment was accurate. The foyer was larger than anything any of them were currently living in back on campus. A brief survey on the main floor revealed a series of six side rooms off the corridor that ran from the foyer to the kitchen. As well, there were dual, matching sitting rooms off to each side of the foyer. However, in each room the condition of interiors and furnishings were fairly identical: horrendous. The furniture itself had been designed and intended for separate identity in each room, but in all cases, it was so covered in filth and grime and dust and cobwebs that it was hard to even appreciate how grand and elegant it might have once been. Sally, by her own admission, had a vivid imagination, but even she was having a hard time creating a vision of what surely must have at one time been quite a showplace.

  Much of the upholstery that was visible through the neglect and water damage was threadbare at best and gnawed away by various rodents leaving gaping holes at worst.
With Sally’s distinct phobia of all things rodential, she was glad that there seemed to be no signs of any recent rat or mouse activity. It was just like the place had been painstakingly furnished and then abandoned. Various figurines and sculptures sat undisturbed on shelves and mantles and tables and artwork still remained attached to walls in all the rooms as well as along the long hallway. Josh was no expert in this, but it seemed as if none of those items might even be salvageable. They were stained from obvious major leaks in the high ceilings and many were chipped and caked with a black soot that he hoped was not mold or some other toxic fungus. That was one precaution he had not thought of ahead of time when planning this adventure.

  “Anyone getting any type of vibe off this place?” Josh asked as the three of them just gazed around in wonder at the lower level interior.

  “Not me…” Trent replied, not knowing what the hell it was he as even referring to.

  “Me neither,” Sally added.

  “Think it’s safe to maybe split up and see what else is around? Maybe check out the upper levels as well?” Josh asked as the storm outside began to grow in intensity, the lightning now giving them bright flashes of illumination from time to time.

  Both Trent and Sally nodded back.

  “I’m just not going into a cellar or an attic alone if there is either one of those here,” Sally added.

  Trent laughed.

  “Whose kidding?” she shot back. “Everyone with any sense of history knows that it always the attic or cellar where the real ghosts in a haunted house hang out!”

  The three of them shared a shaky laugh knowing that they were mostly exhibiting that old axiom of “whistling past a graveyard” to stave off any shreds of anxiety or trepidation that any of them might be feeling and did not want to telegraph. Sally offered to make her way back through the rooms they had already checked out to get some photos and to take a closer look, while Josh and Trent flipped a coin about the upper levels. Trent won and headed for the upper levels while Josh, despite Sally’s concerns, descended to the cellar which they had found from a door in the kitchen. As he ascended the staircase upward, even Trent had to admit that he was getting into the spirit of this little expedition. He was sure they would find nothing more than additional rooms in disastrous condition, as they had seen on the main level, but for a Halloween lark, this seemed to be a perfect setting.

  Josh peered down the well-worn and dangerous-looking stairs that descended to what had once been the insane Herbert von Kraken’s research laboratory, if the legend of this place was to be believed. It was pitch dark and though he was sure it was just his imagination, it felt to Josh like the inky black of the cellar was consuming the beam of his flashlight as it shone ahead. He had to sidestep a couple of disintegrated steps as he went, but soon Josh was on the cellar floor. His mind was racing with visions of what he had read of the mad scientist, but as he moved further into the space it was just a musty and earthy-smelling cellar, much like any of a number of ones he had been in during his childhood in Indiana. There was no indication anywhere that von Kraken had carried out any of the myriad of experiments that the legend purported. It was just a very ordinary and typical dirt floor cellar, the only indications that any sort of life had ever been there being old boxes that were for storage and the occasional old rusty garden tools hanging in a random fashion from rafters and support beams.

  Meanwhile, Trent’s explorations on the upper two floors were revealing nothing of a paranormal presence as well. The two floors contained just myriad bedrooms and bathrooms that had apparently been used by the most recent owner when the von Kraken mansion was renamed the Drummond-Evans Mansion and refitted as a guest house. The various rooms were just as damaged and filthy as those on the main level, but as far as Trent could tell nothing of an ethereal presence was here…or ever had been. He snapped off some photos in case Sally was curious, but as far as he could tell, if this place was actually haunted this was not the case any longer. With a deep sigh partly of relief and partly of frustration at having let himself even begin to buy into what the mansion had a reputation for, Trent had an idea.

  It was perhaps a bit cruel, but in the end, he was sure Sally would forgive him. And though it was self-serving, he had a feeling it would make her jump with fright into his arms. As quietly as he could, Trent crept back down the staircase as he listened for Sally on the level below him. He walked slowly on the very edges of the stairs, as he recalled reading something somewhere about there being less chance of groaning boards in an old house on the edges. This seemed to play out as Trent descended and soon he was back in the foyer without having given away his movements. He tiptoed into the passageway and caught the flash of Sally’s phone as she was still clicking off photos of the rooms along the hallway.

  He slipped into the sitting room off to the left and flattened himself against the wall just away from the door and waited. Soon, he could hear Sally making her way back toward the foyer and Trent doused his flashlight. He held his breath and when Sally began to pass the sitting room entrance, Trent sprung out, catching the unaware Sally by surprise.

  “Yaaaa!!!!” Trent cried as he emerged from his hiding spot, using his flashlight to illuminate his face in a way they had done when he was a kid and telling spooky stories.

  Sally screamed at the top of her lungs and dropped her flashlight as Trent’s little surprise attack scared her from the top of her heads to her toes. She turned to flee when she realized she had been had.

  “Trent! You bastard!” Sally cried as she pounded on his chest with both her fists.

  Immensely proud of himself at accomplishing his goal, Trent could only laugh.

  “You could have given me a heart attack, you asshole!”

  Trent realized he might have gone a bit too far with the prank and gathered the trembling Sally into his arms. Time passed and Sally’s fear subsided and her pounding heart slowed.

  “I’ll give you a heart attack, sweetie…” Trent whispered into her ear as he pinned her to the wall of the foyer and kissed her long and hard.

  As Trent’s mouth pressed hard into her own, Sally’s fear and faux anger from his prank faded as she returned his kiss in kind. Sally felt her heart beat faster again, but it was from passion rather than fear this time. She felt Trent grow hard as he pressed tight up against her and felt short of breath as his hand began to work up under her T-shirt. However, before they could proceed any further, their embrace was shattered by the sound of a scream from the cellar. It was Josh…

  So Much for Peace and Quiet at the Mansion

  Savannah, GA

  October 31, 2016, 10 PM

  Trent and Sally broke free and looked at each other with looks of confusion before Trent ran to the door that led to the stairs for the cellar with Sally close behind. He aimed his light down the flight and much like Josh was surprised that his light was not making the impact on the darkness that he would have expected. Sally found herself trembling a bit as she stood close to Trent. With no more delay, Trent began the climb down to the cellar, seeing Josh’s figure in a hazy outline as his friend’s own light was panning the far wall. Sally was right on Trent’s heels, her pulse still jackhammering away.

  “Josh?” Trent asked into the dark, “you OK?”

  Josh turned as the pair came closer to where he was looking around. He was not physically shaking, but Trent had known Josh long enough now to see he was unnerved.

  “I heard a noise over there,” Josh whispered back as he pointed with his flashlight. “There is definitely something down here with us.”

  “What did I tell you about cellars and attics?” Sally added.

  The three of them stood absolutely still as they listened hard to see what if anything might happen next. The cellar was dead silent—no pun intended. The only sounds they could detect, other than their own breathing, which had accelerated, was the growing storm outside. Rain had now begun to lash at the old place and they could hear curtains of water beating against the window pa
nes and on the roof high above them. The wind as well was whipping about as lightning illuminated the cellar through some small windows just above ground level. A sudden clap of thunder struck sounding like it was right over them and all three friends flinched in reaction.

  “What did you hear, Josh?” Sally asked in a whisper.

  “Not sure…” he replied back, quiet as well. “Just this noise in the back of the cellar that convinced me I was not alone. It just startled me more than anything. Sorry for the outburst.”

  “Why are we whispering?” Trent asked.

  All three of them chuckled. But just as their laughter faded away, they went completely silent again as the distinct and clear creak of a floorboard groaned above them. Instinctively, Josh redirected his light upward but saw nothing. Then with no warning, a heavy candlestick holder fell from a crate just off to the right, and falling to the hard dirt floor with a resounding thump, and pinging sharply off an exposed piece of granite that was jutting through the soil. As one, almost comically and reminiscent of characters in an old children’s cartoon, the trio jumped back a step or two and exclaimed in fright and surprise. Sally clutched tight to Trent’s arm and Josh felt like his heart might actually leap from his chest. In a panic, they all panned their lights around randomly looking for a threat coming their way. But all that appeared was this skinny black cat that waltzed across the top of the crate on the right. Apparently, this was what had caused the heavy holder to fall over. They all exhaled at once as the adrenaline that had built up in each of them drained away.

  “Just a goofy cat…” Trent said as he lowered his light and laughed, mostly at how they had all overreacted. “Let’s go…”

  And with that, Trent turned to head back up the stairs. However, after just a few steps he noticed that Sally and Josh had not come along. He flipped his light back in their direction to see them both crouched down stroking the cat’s black coat and talking animatedly. As Trent returned to where they were, he stood and listened as they were having this serious conversation about the von Kraken legend and how a cat had been part of the story. Trent remembered the association vaguely from what Sally had read to him a few days ago, but to him, this was quite a stretch to accept that this waylaid animal was evenly remotely connected to a cat that been alive over 130 years ago.