“If you ask me, the Roberts didn’t just want a smaller home - they also wanted to get away from it all.”
Cam raised a brow. “What did they need to get away from?”
Bob shrugged. “You can’t have a tragedy like that without remnants remaining behind. I used to walk by the house, such as it was, before they restored it, and I’d see a little girl playing in the ashes. If I stood there long enough, I would see a boy join her, but if I took my eyes off them for just a moment, they would be gone.”
“A little boy and a girl, you said?” Jill felt her heart begin to race. She wasn’t alone in seeing the children. She wasn’t imagining it.
“Yup. I’ve seen them even recently. They play in the yard. Their faces press up against the windows, peering out at the world.” He shrugged. “These things happen with tragedy. It leaves a mark. It leaves ghosts.”
Cam looked at his wife. Perhaps she wasn’t imagining things. Perhaps the children were not imagining things. He drew in a deep breath. What had they stepped into?
Smoke
The weekend passed without incident which was somehow surprising to them. After hearing the story, they had expected to see the children again. Jill had definitely expected to see them again, but they hadn’t seen anything. Not even their children had mentioned seeing the other children.
The silence was unnerving. Jill would rather have seen ghosts than spend the day wondering when they would show up again. She hated jumping at every noise, wondering whether the sound of footsteps could be those of their children or the other children. It was wearing on her nerves.
Somehow the sleepless nights had been preferable. At least she’d been aware that there was a cause for it, while now it was just her fear and anxiety keeping her up.
Cam wasn’t much help with it all. He remained sceptical over the ghost aspect, regardless that everyone else had seen them. It didn’t matter that Bob had told them the story. Cam didn’t believe in ghosts and he wasn’t willing to change his mind.
It was the middle of the week before anything happened again. Jill was almost resigned to think that nothing would happen. She was getting used to the normalcy of it all, but she should have known that it was too good to be true.
Jill woke up in the middle of the night, but it wasn’t the usual demons that caused her to stir. She didn’t hear footsteps. She didn’t hear the door creak open.
She woke because she couldn’t breathe. The air was thick with the smell of smoke and she was choking on it.
She bolted up in bed and shook Cam awake. His eyes flew open at her violent shaking and he sat up in bed. He knew immediately that something was wrong by the look in her eyes. Then he smelt the smoke.
“Get the kids!” He ordered.
Jill jumped out of bed and raced down the hall. She woke Greg first and then ran to get Beth. When she had both kids, she hurried them down the stairs and out of the house. She glanced back at the door and hoped that Cam would be close behind them.
Cam had left the bedroom after he’d told Jill to get the kids before realising that there was no evidence of smoke beyond the smell. He could smell it. It felt thick in the air and made breathing difficult, but there was no sign of smoke in the house.
He went from room to room looking for the source. He cleared the top floor and the main floor and even went down into the basement, but there was no fire. The house was fine.
Nevertheless, he could still smell the smoke. He could still taste it. He didn’t understand it at all, but it definitely unsettled him and he knew that he wanted it to stop.
The lights began to flicker in the house as he made his way through it, still looking for some sign that the fire was real. The lights flickered and the cupboards opened and closed in the kitchen. He thought he could hear the faint sound of screaming.
He focused on the sound as it grew steadily louder. It was not the sound of someone yelling for help or the sound of someone yelling for their children to get out of the house. It was the sound of a person screaming in pain.
Cam could think only about the story Bob had told them, of the family burning to death in that house. As the sound swelled around him and the lights flickered and the smoke hung heavy in the air, he could only think that the scream was that of a person burning alive.
It was the worst sound he’d ever heard in his life. There was such pain in it. Such fear and anguish. He’d heard nothing similar outside of the movies and he was certain that he never wanted to hear anything like that again.
He hurried out of the house, certain that there was no fire, but there was something going on. He couldn’t explain it, but whatever was happening in that house, he was certain he wanted no part of it.
He emerged from the house a good ten minutes after he’d sent Jill out with the children. Jill ran to him immediately and threw her arms around him. The children were right behind her, joining in on the hug.
They lingered there for a moment, reassured that they were a family and they were together, safe from whatever it was that was happening inside the house. They were safe together.
“What took you so long?” Jill asked, her voice frantic. She’d been imagining a hundred different possibilities during those ten minutes. They’d been the longest ten minutes of her life.
Cam kissed her, adding an extra squeeze before releasing from the embrace.
“I checked the house. There’s no fire anywhere. I can’t explain it. The house smells of smoke. The air feels like it’s thick with it, but there’s no smoke at all. It makes no sense.” Cam ran a hand through his hair and looked back towards the house.
Jill followed his gaze and, in the front window, looking out at them, stood the two children. Their faces were burned. Their bodies were covered in soot and their eyes looked sad and lifeless. It was terrifying to see them just standing there, staring out at them. They seemed to be expectant, waiting. But for what, Jill was not sure.
“So what do we do?” Jill looked to Cam for answers. He could not see them in the window, of that she was certain. He had his back to the house and his attention was on his family. Jill was in no hurry to bring his attention to the visual she had of their house.
She glanced over at Greg and Beth whose gazes were fixed on the house, and she knew that they saw the children in the window and how sad and hurt and lonely they looked.
Jill moved to their side and gathered them close. She didn’t want them to have to see that or to know that other children had suffered, but she also knew that she couldn’t protect them from it. They’d already seen more than she could know and they knew the children better than she ever would.
Jill looked at her husband from where she was crouched beside the children. “What do we do?” She repeated the question “Do we go back inside?”
Cam shrugged and shook his head. “I don’t know, Darling. I have no clue what we’re dealing with.” He glanced back at the house, but the children were no longer in the window. The house looked empty. “I have a feeling that we shouldn’t go back inside though.”
Greg tugged at his father’s pyjama bottoms and Cam glanced down at his son. The boy’s eyes were wide and he looked tired. “What is it, Greg?”
“Don’t worry about the smell, Dad. Tom says you’ll get used to it.” Greg glanced back towards the house and gave a small smile. “Tom and Angela say it’s not so bad after a while.”
Cam looked at Jill and then back at Greg. “Oh, do they now?” Cam looked back at the house and once again found it empty, but there was an eeriness to the empty state of it.
Greg nodded his head for emphasis and looked at Beth who also nodded in agreement. “They said it’s not so bad. We should just go in and wait it out.” Beth suggested.
“Like hell am I going to get used to it, and like hell am I going to just go back into a house filled with smoke.” Jill shook her head. Her voice was firm. “It’s not going to happen. Not tonight. Not ever.”
She was not putting up with this anymore. She didn’t w
ant to see dead children, or wonder every night whether it was her child or a ghost crawling into bed with her, or wake up choking on smoke that didn’t exist. She was done.
She wanted to sleep and work in her kitchen in peace. She didn’t want to start a business and fear that clients might see dead children. That wasn’t the environment she wanted to work in or the reason they’d moved all this way.
“We are staying in a hotel tonight,” Jill stated, her voice firm and final. She looked at Cam and almost dared him to argue the point with her. She was waiting for him to say something about the expense or that it was unnecessary, but he was silent on the matter.
“And in the morning, we are doing something about this. I’m done.” She stomped her foot for emphasis and scooped Beth into her arms.
Cam knew when not to argue with his wife, and this was one such time. Sixteen years of marriage had taught him that much. It was very rare for him to see her in such a state and he knew that it was not a time to put his two cents in, so he simply nodded in agreement and helped her pack the kids in the car. They didn’t even bother to pack clothes. No one was willing to go back into the house, especially not Cam, after all he had seen and heard. He didn’t tell Jill about any of that. He didn’t want to worry her more than she already was and there was no point to it. He would keep his encounter to himself even though it would likely haunt him for the rest of his life.
Tomorrow was another day and hopefully tomorrow would mark the beginning of them actually starting this new phase of their life, a phase that would be unbothered by ghosts.
Evicted
That night in the hotel was the first good night’s sleep that Jill had had in close to three weeks. She slept long and deep, and they paid extra for her to sleep in past check-out time. She deserved it; she needed it, and she felt better for it.
In the morning they needed to address their haunting issue. She couldn’t really believe that she was even calling it that, or that their house was haunted, but there was no denying it now and she didn’t want to deal with it any longer.
She wasn’t even sure where to start. How did one get rid of a ghost? She’d seen enough horror movies to know about exorcisms and spells, but did that happen in real life? She had no idea.
They ate breakfast in the hotel restaurant and then headed to the only place that Jill could think of to find answers. They sought out the local church and waited for an audience with the priest.
It was an odd time in the week to be stopping by the church. After all, nothing really happened there on Thursdays, but the elderly priest made his way from the manse to the chapel to speak with them. He was never one to turn down a chance to speak with potential patrons especially ones who were new to the area.
Father Mitchell knew the names of every family that attended his church and he was certain that he’d never met any member of the Bates family. Upon entering the chapel, he was even more certain that he’d never seen the family before. It was always good to speak with new people.
“Good afternoon,” he greeted, a bright smile on his face. “What can I do for you on this lovely day?”
Cam and Jill exchanged a look. They weren’t even sure where to start. How did you just tell someone you’ve never met before that your house was subject to a haunting? They didn’t even really believe it themselves, so how were they supposed to convince this man?
“Don’t worry, my children, there is nothing that you could say to me that I haven’t heard before. You are safe in the house of God.” Father Mitchell read the stress on their faces and the fatigue in their eyes. Something was burdening this family, of that he was certain. It was just a matter of what.
He’d heard all manner of stories in his years as a priest. He’d heard good and bad. He’d heard things that he wished to God that he could unhear, but such was the burden of his profession, and he was willing to listen to whatever this family had to tell him.
Jill glanced back at her children who were sitting quietly in a pew. They needed to get this sorted if they were to have any sort of life here, and in order to do so they needed to face what was happening and admit that their house was haunted.
“How familiar are you with the Ashwood House?” Cam asked the priest and saw the flicker of recognition in his eyes.
“What happened there all those years ago was most tragic indeed. It is always a tragedy when children die, but to see a whole family taken like that… I know that the community found it hard.” His voice was solemn. “Are you the ones who bought it from the Roberts family?”
Jill nodded. “We moved in less than a month ago and strange things have been happening.” She looked to Cam for reassurance and he took her hand. “Have you heard mentioned of strange occurrences in that house before?”
Father Mitchell thought about it for a moment. “There are always rumours after such a tragedy. I would hear members of the congregation whisper about ghosts and talk about seeing the children playing in the ashes. But it was always just talk. You know how people like to talk.”
Cam thought of Bob and nodded. People often told stories in tight-knit neighbourhoods and it was always hit or miss as to whether those stories were true.
Father Mitchell looked from one face to the other and then glanced over at the children who were seated in the pews. “Are you telling me there is truth to these whispers?”
Jill nodded her head after a moment’s hesitation. “We’ve seen the children. Our children have been playing with them for over a week. We didn’t know what to think of it and it seemed fairly harmless. Until last night…”
“What happened last night?” Father Mitchell’s gaze was intent. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard of such happenings in a home. It was important that he listen closely to what they told him in order to assess what needed to be done.
“The air became heavy with smoke but there was no fire.” It sounded ridiculous to say it out loud but Cam pressed on. “We were overcome by the smell of smoke, and so we got the children out of the house. While I was searching for the fire, I heard screaming and the lights began to flicker. The doors began to slam, but no one was there and there was no fire.”
“You didn’t tell me that part,” Jill looked over at him, her voice surprised.
“I didn’t want to think of those screams,” Cam admitted. “It was the most horrible sound.”
Father Mitchell nodded. Hauntings had a different effect on everyone. Some people enjoyed the novelty of it. Others sold their house and ran for the hills. He could tell that this family was squarely between these two options.
It was clear from the way they spoke about the home that they liked it, but they did not enjoy what was happening in it right now. He couldn’t blame them. If he woke up to smoke and screams that had no source, he wouldn’t be pleased.
“You said your children were playing with the other children.” Father Mitchell glanced over at Greg and Beth. “Were the other children ever violent or mean? Did they ever cause your children any distress?”
Jill shook her head. “Beth was a little frightened of the little girl once. Angela, I believe she said her name was. I suppose they’d appeared as normal children up until that point, at least as far as Beth had seen, and then suddenly she was covered in soot and burns. It was rather frightening to her. She is only five, after all.”
Father Mitchell nodded again. “Yes, I believe that would give me quite a scare as well.”
“I’ve only ever seen them look like that, but they’ve never been violent. Last night was the only time anything remotely extreme has happened. It’s just not an experience I would like to relive.” Jill sighed. It was still all rather strange to her. Ghosts? If someone else had told her such a story, she would have never believed it. But there was no doubting it now.
“I see.” Father Mitchell seemed to consider the story for a moment. “Tragedies such as the one that took place at the Ashwood House leave a mark. Something so terrible cannot happen without some dark residue. It seems as t
hough the children are trapped there. They may not know that they are dead or where their family is, but they are aware that they are alone.”
“That’s terrible,” Jill muttered and felt Cam give her hand a squeeze.
“So what do we do?” Cam asked. He was hopeful that the man would have answers. He needed a solution. He wasn’t willing to move again.
“Well, to put it bluntly, we need to evict them. We must administer the last rights and send them on their way. They will no doubt enjoy where they are going more than where they are.”
“You can do that?” Cam’s voice indicated his scepticism.
“Have no fear, my child. We will take care of your problem.” Father Mitchell smiled. “Head on home and I will be right behind you. There is no need for these children to suffer any longer and there is no need for you to be put out of your home.”
Cam and Jill nodded. They hoped the priest was right and that he could solve their problem. It was time for them to have a little faith. Sometimes that was all that was needed in life.
Moving On
If someone had asked them what Father Mitchell had done to fix their problem, neither Cam nor Jill would have had a straight answer to give. It had all happened rather quickly, if they were honest about it. The longest part had been waiting for Father Mitchell to get to the house.
He arrived and stood on the lawn with his bible and his cross and spoke several words in Latin. Neither parent understood what he’d said or the purpose behind it. If they had to guess, they would have said he was preforming last rights.
Jill had seen the children appear in front of him. They’d looked normal when they’d appeared on the front lawn. Cam and the children had seen them too and Father Mitchell had spoken to them. He’d told them that their family was gone and that they were dead and needed to find peace.
“Will we find our family there?” Angela had asked, her voice sounding small and scared.
Haunted Happenings Page 66