Haunted House Tales

by Riley Amitrani

  However, once the demolition was over and Darren’s crew took off, both inexplicable events began to pop up in and around the site as well as some others that Darren was sure were actions from some of the disgruntled locals, though it was just supposition on his part. Nothing was ever witnessed. The first involved Ava and once Louise dug into it, she actually began to get an insight into part of what might have been responsible for Ava’s recent emotional withdrawal. One night Louise ran to Ava as she came from the small bedroom that she and Logan were sharing. It was late into the night, well past both the children’s bedtimes, but her eyes were wild with fear, and she was alternately sobbing and gasping for air.

  “Ava! Are you hurt?” Louise asked as she gathered her daughter to her.

  Ava just shook her head back and forth rapidly but continued to cry and exhibit signs of high distress. Louise hugged her tight and rocked her gently until whatever it was that had set the poor girl off seemed to pass away.

  “Better now?”

  Ava just nodded, but made no attempts to leave the safety of her mother’s embrace.

  “Want to tell me what happened?”

  “OK…”

  As Louise pushed Ava’s hair back off her brow and wiped away the remaining tears from her face, the little girl exhaled in relief and told her story.

  “There was this man. Just across the lane from the church.”

  Ava’s eyes drifted toward the side of the caravan where she had just come from.

  “He’s just standing there watching us. I could see his cigarette glowing red in the dark.”

  Louise felt her skin chill and left Ava to go to a nearby window to take a look for herself. But as she pulled back the curtain and peered out, there was nothing to see except the dark of the night.

  “I don’t see anyone there now, honey…”

  “He comes and goes, Mom…he scares me!”

  “Just probably a man out for a stroll, Ava.”

  Even as Louise said this, she felt a trickle of anxiety creep through her as she knew this was unlikely. Their property was well removed from Abberfield. It was one of the things that had made the property so appealing to them in the first place—it was isolated. So, it seemed to Louise that whoever Ava had seen, if in fact, it had not been a dream or just her imagination, might have more sinister intentions than just a nighttime stroll.

  “Why does he scare you, honey?”

  “It’s that glowing cigarette. Mom. Fire really scares me.”

  This was news to Louise. Ava had, until they had arrived here, been such an outgoing and cheerful and carefree child, that she had never had any indication of her possibly having any phobia of any kind.

  “I’ve been having nightmares lately. I wake up in an old house, and there are flames all around me. I try and get out but for some reason, my legs will not work, and I cannot move. I scream and scream for someone to help me, but no one ever comes. And…well…the fire grows stronger, and I die…”

  Ava again burst into an uncontrollable fit of tears as she buried her face in Louise’s chest. Louise comforted her again, but as she sat and thought this over, it seemed as if what was going on might be two-fold. The move to this old spooky and dilapidated church that was hopefully soon to be their home must have sparked this pyrophobia. Louise could not explain it, but the timing seemed to line up. As well, she now did not doubt that the man Ava was telling her about was in fact real. As she pondered this over, it seemed likely that someone from Abberfield—someone not so keen on their renovation plans—was stalking about in the gloom of night. It made her mad as well as scared, not knowing if this initial move might escalate into something more serious.

  Time went by, and Ava did not seem to have any more episodes of the mysterious man with the cigarette…or at least she did not mention it anymore. She seemed better since she had confided this secret to Louise, but she was still not the same happy-go-lucky child she had been back in Sheffield. Louise kept a recurrent lookout for the man, but she never saw him. Despite the lack of evidence of the man since, Louise was getting an increasingly bad feeling about the church now and was giving serious thought to whether or not they should reconsider this idea, regardless of the money. She was fighting off this underlying dread in her mind that something much worse might transpire from other people in Abberfield, assuming this was what might be beginning with the man with the cigarette.

  In another incident, the day Darren was to have the roll offs picked up and removed from the property, he came outside early in the day to find that a majority of the contents had been dumped onto the ground and scattered about. The trail of debris was strewn from the roll offs in a fairly direct route right up to the door of the caravan. To Darren, this was an obvious sign from town that they had crossed a line with the residents of Abberfield by not acknowledging the rejection of their proposal. On one hand, he supposed this was not all that surprising, but the passive blowback pissed him off. Not only was it an additional mess to clean up, but the reaction seemed childish—why not come and talk instead of pulling off some adolescent prank?

  Darren refilled the roll offs and they were removed that afternoon once he explained to the agency from which he had hired them as to what had happened. Another couple of days went by with no incidents, and Louise and Pete’s sister, Madeline, began to browse the gutted interior to plan the reconstruction of the new home. Louise was still feeling this weird vibe about the place, but since the last few days had been uneventful, she did her best to shrug it off and begin working with Madeline on the design options she had come up with. But just when all seemed calm and back to normal, Louise returned to the caravan that evening to find the door slightly ajar. She was sure she had secured the latch when she had left that morning, and that old touch of a cold and clammy dread rippled up her spine as she hesitantly approached the open door. Louise was really wishing that Darren was around at the moment and not away arranging for materials for building. She listened carefully but heard nothing but the gentle breeze in the remaining leaves of the trees as fall had come on quickly. The door swayed back and forth as she reached out to grasp the handle. Taking a deep breath, Louise eased open the door and peered inside, but the caravan was just as she has left it that morning. She exhaled in relief, assuming that she must have left the latch not tightly secured and feeling foolish for letting her imagination run wild. But as Louise stepped inside, all that changed…

  Weirdness Abounds

  Abberfield, UK

  October 2015

  In various spots around the interior of the caravan were crosses. Some were newer than others, but for the most part, they were crudely crafted homemade wooden figures. It did not look as if they had been arranged in any manner or pattern, just left at random, but in sites that would be sure to be spotted. Some were from what looked like leftover pieces of scrap lumber and even a few just created from pieces of twig from trees and bound together into shape with twine. There was no sign that anyone had been inside the camper. Nothing was out of place, and as far as Louise could tell, nothing was missing. No footprints. No damage. Just this odd assortment of crucifixes.

  When the initial shock of the whole scene passed by her, Louise sat on the sofa and wondered what in the hell was going on. And just as she was thinking of making a cup of tea to calm her nerves further, she looked into the little kitchenette of the caravan and spied this large, thick, black book on the counter. It was nothing like any book she knew of that they had and she reluctantly pushed herself from her seat to take a look. After all the crosses, she supposed it should not be surprising that the black tome on the counter was a bible, but it gave her a chill nonetheless. The bible was worn but still in good shape, the frayed edges of the black cover curling up slightly at the edges. At least, Louise thought to herself, it’s not open to some passage that might be intended to send a message. Or on the other hand, she mused…maybe that would have been helpful.

  Considering that they were making over an old church, and that
despite the weak protestations they had gotten from the locals as to why their application for the conversion had been refused, it seemed likely to Louise now that this was a ploy from some in town to let them know they were not pleased. She was not sure if it was meant to be a warning or maybe just a generic threat, but whatever the case, it made her uneasy. She left it all untouched until Darren got home so he could see what she had discovered. He agreed with her assessment of what must be going on, but rather than feeling uneasy it was just making him more annoyed and angry. He had no intentions of letting the locals try and scare them off since they had simply refused to adhere to the application denial. Louise, on the other hand, was not so sure going against this obvious statement from town was such a good idea.

  Time went by, and Darren continued with the plans to fix up the old church, even as more and more signs appeared making Louise quite uncomfortable. Each day she removed the crosses and bibles that kept appearing, but it did not seem to stop the flow of new ones taking their place. On one day, when a new bible appeared placed on the steps leading up to the caravan entrance, Louise really felt threatened. This time the bible was charred, with about half the volume burned back. The sight of the damaged bible disturbed her—not so much in a religious sense as Louise had no real affiliation in that regard—but that she began to wonder if this was meant to make a connection to the fire that had ravaged the old church so many years ago.

  Louise was feeling her life unravelling more and more with each new day and each new event in and around the caravan. To try and remove herself from all the weirdness there, she meandered over to the church one afternoon to take a final look around at the empty shell that Darren had prepared to see if she had any last ideas to pass along to Madeline before the real renovations began. Nothing new or nothing to be altered came to her mind as she walked around, but as she made her way back through an area that had once been a hallway that led to small side rooms behind the sanctuary, she found a set of stone steps that led upward into one of the dual spires at the front of the building. Darren had removed the remnants of the old wooden door that opened from the hallway to the steps and Louise tentatively began to climb the winding stones using a torch to illuminate the shadowy and dim recesses.

  The climb was not long, but Louise felt her heart pounding anyway as she neared the top. As she rounded a final turn she came upon another wooden door that was still intact—apparently the fire had not reached it. It was a thick and sturdy thing with substantial iron hinges and other metal framing at the latch and edges where the door set into the frame. She tried to open the massive door, but it would not budge, and the handle seemed frozen in place. There was no key in the lock, and upon a thorough search of the building, Louise never found a key, so she retreated to the caravan to begin dinner wondering why the room at the top of those stairs was locked off.

  Over dinner, she told Darren about what she had discovered that afternoon, but he had no clue about it either. In fact, he had been so focused on just getting the main structure cleaned out and prepped for building, that he had not even ventured up the stairs. As well, he had not yet come across any type of key, but he assured her he would look around for one and if nothing else gets locksmith up there to figure it out. This did not help assuage Louise’s growing apprehension of what they had taken on. As bibles and crosses continued to appear—in fact so many had arrived that Louise in a moment of black humor reasoned that she could soon open “The Abberfield Bible and Crucifix Store”—another shoe fell to make Louise want to flee.

  She went into the church late the next afternoon to take one final measurement for Madeline that the designer had forgotten to make during her visit, but that would be critical to part of her plan. The day was quite overcast as Louise walked from the caravan and past the cemetery with a torch and a measuring tape. She was getting more accustomed to the old graveyard, but the gloominess of the day along with a stiff chill wind were not making her especially welcoming of the old stones in the weedy and overgrown parcel. She hurried her pace by the cemetery, like some skittish child at Halloween, and flipped on the torch as she entered the church.

  However, as soon as she flipped on the light, she gasped and came to a sudden halt as she shone the light around the interior of the place. All across the ceiling and covering a great proportion of the walls, all Louise could see were the small and compacted forms of bats as they huddled together. She had never seen anything like this in her life. It was like all the surfaces of the interior shell were alive with the furry and leather forms, breathing easily as a unit, probably, Louise thought, trying to warm themselves against the approaching evening chill. Though she knew it was an adolescent phobia, not born of anything rational or even a bad experience she had ever had with bats—in fact, Louise was not sure she had ever seen a bat outside a film in a cinema or on television—she felt utterly creeped out.

  Feeling too unnerved by the sight, though the bats seemed not even to be aware of her presence, Louise began to slowly back out of the church, keeping her gaze firmly on the mass of hanging bodies. However, just as she was about to exit the door frame, a night owl sounded off in the distance, and as if it was a call to arms, the bats began to release their grips and flood through every possible opening in the church. A few even came flying past Louise as she screamed and fell to the ground as they flitted over her head and into the growing dark. She covered her head with her arms, but the bats had not even noticed her. By the time Louise recovered, they were long gone, out on their nightly hunt for insects.

  Louise sat in the dirt and sobbed, not from anything more than a release of an emotional upset. She realized she had most likely overreacted to the whole thing, but all the same, she felt like she had just escaped a possible attack. Over dinner, she told Darren of this incident and even though he was sympathetic to her experience, Louise was less than mollified when he tried to explain to her that bats naturally looked for large open places to roost. The church shell, he had said, probably resembled a large cave that they preferred for rest during the day and he assured her that as soon as he began the building in the church that this would be a non-issue. Everything was adding up day by day, and Louise was not happy. In fact, she was beginning to get a stronger and stronger feeling that perhaps this was not the best place to be raising their children after all. Between pissed off locals and the bats, she was dreading that they had ever come here and that Pete Jeffries had even mentioned it to them.

  However, all of this was not the end of the anxiety for Louise. With all of what she was seeing as explainable events, a new problem arose on the horizon a few days later. And this time it involved Logan. Ava was returning to her old self bit by bit, but was still somewhat withdrawn as she just could not seem to get over this fear of dying in a fire based on her nightmares which did not seem to be going away. Logan, however, was just growing more and more outwardly focused as each day went by. Overall, Louise and Darren were thrilled with this change in their son, until one afternoon when he told Louise this story as they were walking through a small forest just at the edge of the property. Logan had always been a self-entertained kid, but this change in his personality since they had arrived in Abberfield included making new friends easily.

  All this was fine with Louise, but as they walked and talked, Logan began to tell Louise of this new friend he had made just this week. On the surface, this might have meant nothing to Louise, but at the time the kids were on a brief fall break from school, and it seemed odd that Logan would meet someone new while not at the nursery. And on top of that, he said the new friend’s name was Malcolm. Not a totally unusual name, Louise thought, but a bit formal and out of the ordinary for a small child. Logan was a bit vague about the new friend, but seemed utterly thrilled and excited about him.

  Despite their shaky standing with the locals in Abberfield, Louise decided to take a quick trip into town and ask around about a young boy named Malcolm to see who his parents might be and see what she could find out about this myst
erious child. To her surprise, the former resistance to their presence at the church seemed to have faded for most of the people at this point. Louise appreciated that, but it did not square with the recurrent appearance of the bibles and crosses back at the caravan. It would seem that this must be coming from a very small proportion of Abberfield residents based on the reception Louise s now getting as she arrived. That was until she mentioned the name Malcolm.

  Louise Goes Snooping

  Abberfield, UK

  October 2015

  Louise received a mixed bag of responses when she bandied about the name Malcolm, wondering who this child was that Logan had recently made friends with. On the plus side—if there was one—was that some of the people she spoke with did not know of anyone, child nor adult, that went by that name in Abberfield. While not especially helpful in identifying the boy, and leaving Louise still in the dark, it was not as disturbing as the other reaction she began to get from a few she spoke with. On these occasions, a look of fear and extreme dread came over some faces at the mere mention of the name Malcolm. These individuals denied any knowledge as well, but the look on their faces and in their eyes made Louise know she had struck a nerve on some level.

  These people denied knowing of Malcolm but then immediately put space between themselves and Louise, scurrying along the lanes in Abberfield as if she was a sudden danger to them. A few of the women even clasped a hand to their mouths in an unmistakable act of horror as their eyes went wide with fear before departing from her as quickly as they could. Louise knew she had stumbled upon something, but was still just as confused as before. However, she now began to suspect that something much more sinister might be behind the old Abberfield Church than they were aware of.