by Carrie King
William reached the door as they watched the nun spreading salt in front of the windows.
He grabbed the handle but the cellar door wouldn’t open. The sound of roaring could be heard in the flames and a wind blew the blaze toward them.
Sandra dropped to her knees, scalded and choking but the door wouldn’t open. They would die here, together and it seemed so unfair.
Then the nun appeared before them. Like a breath of fresh air her presence cooled them and she put her hand over William’s. Together they turned the handle and the door opened.
As a cool breeze came from the cellar it fanned the flames behind them and they were engulfed for a moment. Sandra could feel it blistering her skin but then a hand pushed her and she was stumbling down the stairs as the door was slammed shut behind her.
William stopped and packed wet towels against the door jamb before following her down into the cellar.
Together they huddled in the darkness wondering if they would make it out alive. Things were different. William was like himself and Sandra knew that something had taken hold of him. Something had used him and once it was done it had wanted to kill him. Had it lit the fire?
No that was the nun and that was done to save them... or maybe to save the people who came after. She rested her head against William’s chest and pulled the tea towel tight over her nose. Breathing in the damp but mostly smoke-free air.
The fire raged above and the heat was unbearable. They knew that it would be a race between life and death. The fire wanted to consume them but hopefully they would survive long enough for it to burn out.
As the smoke seeped into her lungs she fell into a deep sleep.
Chapter 34
Several fire engines stood outside the house, sirens wailing. Firemen in heavy uniforms dashed this way and that, spraying strong jets of water at the house in Briar Park.
Neighbors gathered on the street, watching the unfolding events with horror. Mike and Lisa stood at the entrance to their drive, the man’s arm slung protectively around the shoulders of his young wife.
“We can contain it and stop it spreading, but that’s all,” Bert, the fire chief, called to the young fireman standing beside him. He struggled to hold the squirming, writhing firehose as it pulsed torrents of water onto the flames.
“We’re not going to be able to save the house.”
“Was there anyone inside?” the young man shouted back.
“The neighbors seem to think that the owners were there. God save their souls,” answered Bert.
He stared into the hypnotic glare of the fire. The stench of burning plastic and rubber filled the air and his eyes watered. No, there was no way anyone could still be alive in that hellish mess.
Some hours later the last remaining smoke curled up from the property and then part of the floor gave way.
Bert stood and surveyed the smoldering ruins, his heart heavy. No matter how many fires he attended, it still wrenched at his heartstrings to see someone’s hopes and dreams destroyed like this. Especially when there were fatalities involved.
Exhausted men rushed forward as they heard a scream.
They splayed torches across the ruins and then they could see an opening into the cellar and something was moving in the depths of the house.
Quickly the men lowered a ladder down into the wreckage and before long they were carrying out the still forms of two people.
“They’re alive,” one of the men called and Bert let out a sigh of joy.
This was a good day. To find someone in that wreckage was a miracle and as he moved across the wreckage he saw something shine in the embers before him. He kicked at it with his foot to reveal a silver cross in amongst the burnt wood and rubble. It looked new, untouched by the flames and he picked it up.
“Sandra,” a weak voice called.
“Here my love,” came the reply.
Bert saw the hand of a young woman reaching out and he walked over and put the cross into her fingers. She was covered in smoke and soot but looked remarkably well. For a moment their eyes met and she nodded as her fingers gripped onto the cross.
Bert glanced at the ambulance as the two survivors were loaded aboard. It was emblazoned with emergency colors and the hospital’s crest. As he watched the doors were closed and the vehicle whisked away two of the luckiest people he knew.
He’d make a few notes, then he would head back to the station. Once everything had cooled down it would be the turn of forensics to sift through the wreck for anything that could indicate the cause of the fire.
Bert stood to one side of the ruins of the house as he wrote in his notepad. He was suddenly aware of a low whispering sound and he looked up, cocking his head to one side. The back of his neck prickled. It was an unpleasant sound—but what was causing it? He glanced over to the scorched trunks of the sycamore trees, hardly more than blackened stumps now, their scorched leaves remained and seemed to be making such a sound.
Epilogue
In a room in the hospital two people were ready to be signed off from the burns unit. Even though they had been below the raging fire they had come away relatively unscathed.
William and Sandra had stayed in the hospital for a month and had since been visiting regularly for the next seven months. Now they were finally being discharged and were ready to start again with their own lives.
As they walked out they took each other’s hand and walked along the corridors.
“Coffee?” William asked.
Sandra nodded and they walked along the corridor and into the café.
While Sandra took a seat William got them two drinks and came over.
“Do you remember anything yet,” she asked as he set the drinks down and pulled out a seat opposite her.
William sat down and hutched the chair in. “Nothing but the whispering. It was all I could think of and it seemed to tell me what to do. It seemed to rule me.”
“Sometimes I wonder if you just pretend to forget,” Sandra said. “If you ever cheat again we are over.”
“I know and I love you too much to risk such a thing.”
“You’d better,” she said.
Then she thought back to that time and she too remembered the whispering. The way it made her feel and the way it raised the hair on her neck. Then she thought of the nun. William said he didn’t remember her but she knew that was a lie. She thought he just didn’t believe it had really happened. That he thought it was just a hallucination, or something they had imagined to get them through. Only she knew it was real. That the nun had helped them escape.
Sandra had asked it the nun had been found and was told that no one else was in the house. That was when she had looked into the history of the house and when she found out about Sister Agnes and how she died there.
Though it made no sense she knew that the sister had saved them and that she had made sure that the evil in Briar Park was trapped within its walls as it burned. She knew that it was over and with the insurance money they could start again.
Then she decided if they ever had a girl she would call her Agnes.
“Thank you,” the words were whispered in her ear.
In the maternity ward of the same hospital a woman screamed.
“One more push. You can do it,” the midwife said briskly, staring intently between Lisa’s legs.
“Your baby is nearly here.”
Moments later the slippery baby sped into the world, and Lisa fell back against the pillows, exhausted.
Mike mopped her sweat-soaked forehead and smiled at her encouragingly. “You did it!”
The couple looked over toward where the midwife stood at one side of the room, her back now to them.
“Is the baby all right? Is it a boy or a girl?” Lisa called out anxiously.
The midwife looked down, her face pulled into a mask of sadness and sorrow. She swallowed hard. Despite her years of experience, she had to stop herself from dropping the baby and crying out in disgust and fear.
The little boy squirmed in her arms, covered in the gore of birth, as he opened his tiny mouth in a silent and distorted scream.
But instead of the cherubic face of a newborn, the face that looked up at her was twisted and deformed, its eyes red and inflamed, its nose no more than a snout, and its contorted mouth pulled into a perpetual and permanent sneer …
The Haunting of Greyfield Manor
The next 4 books are all based in the old and creepy Greyfield Manor
The Dark Secret that will not stay buried
Hoping to mend the growing rift in her marriage, Tiffany Baker treats her husband to a weekend at the secluded Greyfield Manor. The rugged and beautiful property is situated on a picturesque bluff overlooking the ocean, but she finds that the waters of betrayal run deep.
From the moment Tiffany enters the house, strange things happen. She tries to brush them off, but with her nerves already shredded, she learns that coming to the old manor was a horrible mistake. Her husband's mood swings, noises she can’t explain, shadows, and the secret they discover beneath the house gradually take their toll.
Could it be haunted?
Tiffany arrived with high hopes for the weekend.
Will the history of the centuries-old manor interfere with her need to mend her marriage? It could, for something in Greyfield Manor is waiting and it has needs of its own.
Enter Greyfield Manor if you dare!
The Dark Secret
The Waters of Betrayal Run Deep
The Haunting of Greyfield Manor – Book 1
By
Carrie King and Caroline Clark
©Copyright 2019
All Rights Reserved
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Prologue
Greyfield Manor 1732
The breeze from the Solway Firth tugged at his hair and the scent of the sea air was heavy on the wind. It was impossible to move, for his hands and feet were bound tightly. Heart pounding, breath tight in his chest, he was pushed from the cart and landed heavily on the ground.
His mind was roiling with disbelief, his faith shattered by the secrets and the betrayal. Close to succumbing, he lay on his back, staring up at the night sky. It twinkled, mocking his insignificance, as thousands of stars winked down at him, sharing in this dastardly deed.
This couldn't be happening. This was not the way it was meant to happen.
“Is he dead?”
The voice of his wife reverberated in the silence, broken only by the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks at the base of the cliff far below. That betrayal crushed him as much as those waves would do if he was tossed from the edge.
Pain wracked became his world, taking his mind away from those who had wronged him and onto the broken body that he feared would soon fail. It was impossible to recall how many times he’d been stabbed, but the warmth of the blood pooling at the base of his back faded as his bodily fluid began to congeal. So too did the blood dripping down his chest. It was hard to breathe as his lungs filled with blood and he began to drown.
Hands reached down for him but he was too weak to do more than swat at them as ineffectual as a fly’s wings against a plow horse.
A dark shape blocked his view of the stars and he caught a whiff of perfume. The profile of his wife filled his vision and he felt the swell of hatred surging through his veins at a pace with his throbbing pain.
“You’ll pay for this,” he managed, choking on the blood in his mouth and lungs. “I will have my revenge.”
Strong hands grasped his shoulders and he stared.
“Keith … I damn you to hell for this betrayal.”
“You first,” his former friend chuckled.
Two sets of hands began to roll him toward the edge of the nearby cliff. Panic flared in his chest, followed by a desperate breath as blood flooded his lungs forcing him to cough and choke before he could breathe. Though he tried to resist, the bindings, his injuries, and his overwhelming weakness, impeded his efforts. The hands were strong and determined. His heart pounded in fury. Panic and adrenaline enabled him to twist away from their grasp, but it was only a temporary reprieve.
They were back and the cliff edge loomed before him. Just an empty space that would swallow his soul on his way to hell.
“You’ll pay!” he managed to choke out just as he slipped over the edge.
A chuckle followed him down and he clamped his lips together as he dropped down into the blackness, refusing to give them the satisfaction of a scream.
The rocks hurtled toward him. The moment, lasted a lifetime as ice filled his veins and fire his heart. And yet, in but a blink of an eye, he landed hard on his shoulder. Pain exploded in his already broken and bleeding body. But his hell was not over, his body bounced and hurtled downward, slamming into more rocks, the sound of the waves ever closer as he plunged to certain death …
He swore a curse on this place, swore a curse on all those who wronged him. “Revenge will be mine,” he screamed just before his body slammed onto the shoal rocks below and everything went black.
Chapter 35
Present day – Greyfield Manor
Tiffany Baker sat quietly, gazing out the window of the car as they traversed the seemingly endless miles of northern England toward Greyfield Manor. The silence between her and her husband Wylie was heavy, awkward, and disconcerting. More than a little painful. His refusal to engage in casual conversation only cemented her belief that if something didn't happen this weekend, her marriage would be over.
Wylie had not been prepared to accept any part of the blame for her brief yet torrid affair with his former best friend, Jack. The affair had been unexpected and short-lived. It had lasted less than two months, and had ended months ago. Wracked by guilt, and afraid that Wylie would find out from someone else, Tiffany had decided the news should come from her. She took responsibility and had admitted the affair to Wylie six weeks ago.
Not that her admittance and apologies for the affair negated the seriousness of it, not at all. Her five-year marriage to Wylie had been strained for the past year, but really, did that justify what she had done? No. She wasn't sure what had started the downhill slide. They used to be wildly in love. So passionate. So connected. So attuned to each other's feelings and emotions.
Though she didn’t know exactly when the problem arose between them she knew why. It was when his business took off. Wylie was obsessed and she found herself spending more and more time alone, bored. Even when he was home, he wasn’t there.
At first, that had been her excuse. It was Wylie’s fault for he was never around anymore. She felt neglected and wanted company, someone to pay attention to her … and she had been needy enough to feel flattered when Wylie's best friend had, quite unexpectedly, become her sounding board.
It had started innocently enough. Just someone to talk to. Just another human to pass the time of day. Then, one day over coffee, she had poured her heart out to Jack. One thing had led to another, Jack was easy going, understanding and a great listener. Before she knew it she had made the biggest mistake of her life, but she was trying to fix it, wasn't she?
"It's supposed to be haunted, you know."
Tiffany turned to him, a slight frown tugging at her eyebrows. They were the first words Wylie had spoken to her in nearly an hour.
"What? What's supposed to be haunted?"
"Greyfield Manor," he said, his fingers tight on the steering wheel as he carefully navigated the curves as they traversed the road onto the more rugged terrain. The Solway Firth was off to the west, Scotland was just over the border to the north, and a green expanse of farmland lay to the east.
He didn't look at her, but at the rough, wild, and rugged countryside. It was a deep, lush green this time of year, the sky incredibly blue and dotted with a few puffy white clouds. On any other drive before her secret had been revealed she and Wylie might have sung songs, pretended the shapes of clouds were fantastical
animals, or even hinted at a variety of sexual escapades they would engage in during their upcoming visit to the old manor house.
Tiffany had gone out of her way to ensure that they would be the only guests there. It'd cost a pretty penny, but she wanted … no, needed, Wylie all to herself. She had to get him to talk to her, to listen to her. She had made a mistake. A terrible mistake. She would have forgiven him, wouldn't she?
“It’s haunted by the old Lord who built the place."
She turned to Wylie again, though he was still refusing to look at her.
"What do you mean, haunted?"
He deigned to glance at her finally, frowning.
"What do you mean, what does haunted mean?" he muttered. "It’s pretty obvious. Ghosts, things that go bump in the night, inexplicable stuff, you know. Haunted."
His tone spoke of the betrayal he felt, she didn’t like him talking down to her like that... but maybe she deserved it. If only she had the courage to say something about it, but she didn't. As far she was concerned, she deserved his anger, his impatience, and his reluctance to even come here this weekend. So, she said nothing. If he couldn't let go of his resentment and anger toward her, there was no hope.
Tiffany saw the sign as they approached:
Solway: 1 km
She glanced down at the paper that she'd printed out, giving them directions from the turnoff. Apparently the sat nav couldn’t find the old manor. Nervously, she folded one corner down, then unfolded it on her lap.