by Cailyn Lloyd
Shepherd’s
Warning
By
Cailyn Lloyd
Shepherd’s Warning
© 2019 Land of Oz LLC
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright holder.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover art by Rose Miller
For Jennie, who insisted
I finish this.
And for Mike.
One
July 1972
A flash of light—sunlight glancing off a windshield, perhaps—disturbed his pensive mood.
Tom Wolff, sitting astride a grumbling Case tractor, had been admiring his land, a hundred acres of rough and tumble farmland rising from the shore of Lost Arrow Lake. The lake formed a perfect circle, a deep blue gem in a sea of green trees. His ramshackle farm, with its white two-story American Foursquare and a weathered-grey barn, sat atop the hill, sheltered by tall pines and great oaks. A beautiful view, tranquil.
Tom looked around for the source of the light but saw nothing. He shrugged, adjusting a greasy Purina Feeds cap over his thick tangle of hair. Shifting gear, he rumbled across the field, dragging a hay rake in the hot Wisconsin sun. The smell of fresh cut hay filled the air, fragrant, like clean linen.
Another flash, quick and bright like a laser beam, startled him.
He saw glass falling behind the MacKenzie house, sparkling in the sunlight as it fell. From here, he could see a broken window on the top floor, a jagged black hole in the shiny pane. Alan and Elizabeth MacKenzie had been his neighbors and friends until Alan died and Elizabeth moved away with her two young boys. Sadly, the vacant house had become the target of vandals and thrill-seeking teens.
Tom downshifted with an irritated jerk. “Little bastards.”
He shut down the wheezing tractor and vaulted to the ground, reached up, and grabbed the pitchfork—an antiquated but effective weapon—mounted on the tractor frame. A little insurance.
In a huff, he charged fifty yards across the fence line to the back of the house.
The MacKenzie house, built on a slope, stood three stories tall in the rear. The basement was exposed, an imposing stone foundation supporting the timbered framing and stucco finish. A fine example of Tudor architecture, someone once told him, whatever that meant. Above, several panes in the leaded-glass windows were broken. Around the side of the house, the thick oak door stood ajar, confirming his suspicions.
Tom eased it open, smelt a faint whiff of mold and decay in the air. Condensation covered the stone walls of the basement. The house was silent. Perhaps the little shits had seen him coming. Were they hiding? Had they fled out the front door?
Wary, he crept up the plank stairs to the first floor, remembering last fall when he had driven over after seeing flickering lights in the house. A fork-wielding druggie, ranting about ghouls and voices, had attacked and stabbed him in the arm. Tom dropped the guy with a roundhouse punch and called the sheriff. Hence the pitchfork.
That incident added to a growing list of strange stories about the MacKenzie place that included apparitions, odd noises, accidents, and strange deaths in or near the property. People from town were convinced it was haunted. Couldn’t drag any of them within a mile of the place, except for the teenagers drawn here by the rumors and legends. Tom didn’t believe the superstitions himself but understood how they had arisen.
A creepy old house and the natural tendency of small-town people to gossip and embellish the truth? Yep, the place must be haunted. From those roots, the rumors and stories had grown and spread.
That hunter killed by the tree was weird though.
A tree dropped on the guy on a clear fall day a few years back and crushed the poor bastard fifty feet from the house. Tom had seen the guy, crushed and impaled by a branch. Ugh. Probably not ghostly but certainly spooky.
He stopped, setting the pitchfork against the wall of the foyer. The house inside looked much like the exterior: a frame of heavy timbers and beams, plaster walls—a grand house really, not like any other farmhouse he’d ever seen. To his surprise, other than dust and cobwebs, the house had suffered little since Elizabeth and the boys left.
A lone oil painting, a portrait of an older woman dressed in vintage clothing, hung on the back wall. Her face was narrow, pale and homely, framed by grey hair, lips drawn tight and grim. She wore a black gown drew up to a white pleated collar. Tom knew Elizabeth hated it though she’d never said why.
Elizabeth was the only ghost who haunted him here. She had left a year ago, but Tom still loved her, a one-sided affair that began as a childhood crush and lingered after she married his best friend, Alan MacKenzie. Elizabeth was the only reason he looked after the house. She’d never put it on the market, keeping alive a glimmer of hope that she might someday return.
What if she did? He didn’t have a chance with her. Never had. He could still picture her, felt a resonant longing whenever he thought of her—
A spasm of guilt twisted in his stomach when, as an afterthought, he remembered Sally.
Sally was his girl and things were serious, but Tom suspected Sally knew she was his second choice. Sally was like that. She just knew things. Always had. In some ways, she was spookier than the house.
Elizabeth had never been back, never called. Tom thought they were friends but felt abandoned now, though Alan’s death had been hard on her. In all fairness, maybe she couldn’t face the house yet.
The place felt deserted, yet he now heard a low steady beat like the muffled bass of a boom box. The sound seemed to be coming from upstairs, toward the back of the house. No voices, no footsteps, just that steady low-frequency pulse. Given the attack last fall, apprehension tingled in his belly. He didn’t need this aggravation and was behind on his fieldwork. Better to walk away, but he couldn’t. Curiosity and a sense of responsibility pushed him forward.
As he crossed the foyer and started up the stairs, the clomp of his work boots on the maple floor echoed from the ceiling above. The pulsing noise continued, steady, deep—a heartbeat, he mused. What the hell was that sound? Must be a boom box, but where? It grew louder, seemed to emanate from everywhere, and sounded uncannily like a Pink Floyd song.
Goosebumps rippled up his arm to his neck, the tickle of cold fingers playing over his skin, a creepy invisible touch of fear and anxiety. Tom hated this disquiet. He was no longer a child and these were childish feelings.
“Dummy,” he mumbled under his breath.
Trying to relax, Tom pushed his feet forward, up the remaining stairs, creeping to the right along the hallway, glancing in each open door, seeing nothing. His senses seemed amplified—the musty odor of the old house, the surreal light filtered by dirty windows. The creaks and scrapes of his boots on the plank floor were hollow, resonating about the house in sync with the undulating bass tone.
The house itself stirred. The floorboards seemed alive with the subtle beat. Was he imagining that? Though unsure, his pulse quickened, his neck ran cold with sweat. His insides churned in a tightening knot. The anxiety grew stronger and more intense, a full-blown panic. Tom felt compelled to leave, to run away, feeling foolish but unable to control his spiraling fear. Deep down, his inner child sensed ghosts and bogeymen in every dark corner of the hallway. Eyes, teeth, claws—cold, cold creatures lurking behind the doors, waiting to pounce.
As he closed the door behind hi
m, another down the hall banged shut, plunging the hallway into darkness.
He froze.
The broad oak floorboards undulated, a low rumbling sound, the same sound he had heard earlier, but louder, more pressing. The house shook and trembled as if the ground beneath the foundation were in the grip of an earthquake. It all happened in seconds. Tom stood, gripped by morbid fascination and fear. A dizzy, nauseous feeling swept through him. He bent over, thinking he would throw up.
Another slamming door jolted Tom from his trance. He had to get the hell out of here! Jesus! The floorboards were clattering like a mad drum brigade. He turned and ran down the hall, toward the stairs. Ahead, a door at the end of the long hallway pushed ajar—just an inch or two. Bright sunlight spilled through that crack and the keyhole, down the dark hallway, a surreal contrast between the sudden calamity indoors and the serene July afternoon outside. Cheerful birdsong, from beyond that door perhaps, completed the insanity.
Drawn to the doorway like a moth to a lamp, he felt powerless to resist the attraction of whatever lay beyond the threshold. Light emanating from the room grew brighter and warmer. He drifted down the hallway, clenching his fists for a moment, trying to shake the anxiety, trying to regain his composure. The floorboards rattled beneath his feet, the ominous rumbling continued, danger lurked around him—but not beyond the door. He just knew it.
He took a deep breath.
Reached for the knob. Hesitated.
Pulled the door open—
Two
Present Day
Laura MacKenzie ducked and covered her head involuntarily as a heavy object crashed on the second floor overhead.
There was a mumbled, “Oops,” followed by male laughter.
Her husband, Lucas, appeared moments later in the timbered doorway. “Sorry, hon. I hope we didn’t freak you out.”
“Not much.” She smiled. He was dirty, disheveled, and handsome in an outdoorsy way. Casually sexy in a manner that had drawn her to him almost thirty years ago, and still did. With his light brown hair tossed to one side and his intense gaze, he looked a tad dangerous, but quite the opposite was true. He was a considerate, loving husband and her best friend.
“You find anything yet?” he asked.
“Nothing interesting other than an old Bible with a couple of names in it. Might be something.” Laura sat on the floor in the library looking through a stack of books that had been abandoned in a closet. She liked researching family histories, and the house had renewed her interest in the subject and their family ancestry—a welcome distraction from her normal melancholy mood. At the north end of the house, the library was well lit by four large windows looking out to the woods, the walls inset with shelves and bookcases. Angled bookcases in the corners stretched from the floor to the vaulted ceiling, with intricate carvings on the corners of the bookshelves. Two oil lamps sat high on a corner shelf next to a single dust-covered book.
“How’s it going up there?” Laura said.
“Got the old unit out, as you heard. We’ll be ready for the plumber tomorrow. Where’s Nate? We need his help.”
Laura pointed to the timbered archway behind her. “Walking the film crew through the plans for the Hall.”
Lucas scowled. “Oh sure, we’re busting our asses and he’s playing tour guide?”
“He’s going to be a star, you know.” She pursed her lips and nodded.
Lucas muttered something and walked away.
In the expansive room adjoining the library, Laura had watched a film crew follow Lucas’s brother, Nate, as he outlined the steps involved in renovating the space at the rear of the house called the Greate Hall. Those words, in Old English script, had been carved into the timbers atop the three arched entryways into the room.
Almost forty feet long, the Hall consisted of three conjoined rooms. The large center chamber, with a lofty cathedral ceiling bridged by trussed hand-hewn beams, was flanked by alcoves with ten-foot ceilings, the walls finished with raised quarter-sawn oak panels. Light streamed through large west-facing windows and clerestory windows set in the imposing back wall. On the inside wall of the north alcove, a fieldstone fireplace rose from floor to ceiling.
A moment later, Nate and the crew emerged from the Hall into the library. Nate, somewhat bohemian in contrast to his brother, sported a cultivated three-day stubble and near shoulder-length hair.
“Hey, Blondie, the guys want to talk to you,” Nate said.
Blondie was Nate’s cutesy nickname for her. Laura didn’t mind the appellation but never considered herself a classic blonde, rather more the dirty dishwater variety.
Nate pointed to the guy with a handheld video camera, a twenty-something hipster with a clipped beard and prominent ear stud, wearing a pork pie hat. “This is Zach. Zach, Laura.”
Zach tipped his hat.
Nate introduced the taller, attractive brunette as Hannah, who looked like one of the Weather Channel women. Nate hired the crew as part of the process to document the renovation for HGTV. He had worked with the network on a few renovations in the Chicago suburbs which had given him an in when he pitched this project as a possible special.
“Can we talk to you for a few minutes, Laura?” Hannah asked softly, perhaps aware they were intruding.
“Sure. Why not.” She smoothed her hair and scanned her clothing. “Do I look okay?”
“Yeah, you look great.”
Laura whispered to Nate, “Keep it short, buddy. This is your deal, not mine.”
He nodded, looking a bit harried. The television aspect, the film crew, was all Nate. He saw the property as a stepping stone to bigger things in his career, a chance to pursue a longtime dream—his own YouTube channel and a major feature on HGTV. She, on the other hand, had come here to escape a memory, the memory of Jacob.
Hannah fitted Laura with a small lavalier mic. “There, that’ll limit the background noise. We’ll do voice-overs as needed.”
Laura didn’t know how the video crew could work in these conditions. The house was a war zone. Above, roofers ripped off the accumulated layers of asphalt, cedar shingles, and supporting lathe boards, and were laying plywood decking in a constant clatter of pry bars, hammers, and shovels. Below them, the heating and cooling guys were ripping out a monstrous gravity feed furnace in an assault of hammers, drills, and groaning metal saws.
Hannah, holding a notepad, looked to Laura. “So what’s your part in this project?”
“Right now, mostly support. I’m an interior designer, so I’m working on the color schemes, furniture, and decor. As you know, we’re trying to maintain the Tudor character of the house. I’ll be looking at reproductions and antiques to that end. I’m also a full-time grandma to a two-year-old.”
“Aww. So where is the little darling?”
“Asleep.”
“With all this racket?”
“She’s outside, in the RV,” Laura said. “It’s much quieter there.”
Laura explained that the old Tudor mansion was a gift of sorts, bequeathed to them by Lucas’s mother, Elizabeth, who had died six months before. The house was a surprise. Until the reading of the will, none of them had known it existed. She omitted the remaining details, that Elizabeth had amassed a trust fund for her children worth millions of dollars, the product of a frugal life, large insurance policies, and a generous stock-sharing plan from the internet start-up where she had worked for twenty years.
“Are you all going to live here under one roof?” Hannah asked.
“Good God, no.” Laura rolled her eyes and laughed. “We’ll fix the house and then renovate the barn. Nate and Ashley will live there.”
Hannah looked to Nate and raised her eyebrows. “You guys are being relegated to the barn? Isn’t this house your baby?”
“It is, but trust me, the barn won’t seem like second prize when we’re done,” he said. “We’ll restore all the crossbeams as part of a stunning cathedral ceiling. A 3000-square-foot open plan on the first floor and a master bedroom in
a loft above. Then we’ll gut the old milking parlor in the lower level and convert the space to an office and workshop. This house is too medieval for me.”
Laura said, “You’ll regret those words when I’m done with it.”
“Not likely,” Nate said. “Regret will run the other way, Blondie.”
“Good luck with that.” Laura smirked. The large grey barn sat out in the trees like an abandoned prairie schooner. It hadn’t fared well over the years. Numerous boards were missing from the walls and a section of the roof had collapsed.
Zach said, “Are we done here?”
“Let’s move to the barn.” Hannah gestured toward the back of the lot. “I’m curious to see how bad it looks on the inside.”
As the entourage filed out the front door, Laura followed and turned right toward a thirty-foot RV parked at the edge of the drive. For now, this was home. An electrician had roughed in power, and the plumbers brought water to the RVs and connected the drains to the septic system. Nate and his wife, Ashley, had their own RV parked out by the barn.
Laura eased the door open and saw Dana, her daughter, sitting at the dinner table, typing furiously on a laptop. One of two children, she was petite with blue eyes and with long dark hair handed down from Elizabeth, who’d had striking dark hair in her youth. Despite her somewhat delicate appearance, she was fit and agile. Both she and Laura had taken Taekwondo classes and enjoyed sparring with each other. Dana was twenty-four and single, approaching her final year of a master’s program in psychology. She lived in Naperville, Illinois but had offered to help with Leah for a few weeks.
“How’s she doing?” Laura nodded toward the back bedroom.
“Good. Still out cold,” Dana said.
Leah, her two-year-old granddaughter, was asleep in the back bedroom, sprawled out on the queen bed, covered with a light blanket.
Leah’s father, Jacob—Laura and Lucas’s son—had died a year ago. Just that thought brought tears and sadness to the brightest day. She closed her eyes and shoved it away, practicing a mindfulness technique—one she had learned working with a therapist, to push back the darkness when grief threatened to overwhelm her.