“I don’t think that’s what it meant. We haven’t even established who we’re talking to. Don’t be afraid. We’re all here with you.”
“But you can’t protect me. You know how this works. No one can protect me.”
“Please come back. Let me ask the questions for a bit.”
Reluctant, she gave in and returned. As she placed her fingers on the planchette, she cried, “Did you feel that? Something shocked me!”
Henri hadn’t, perhaps because he wasn’t touching the wooden instrument. He put four fingers on it, and she did the same.
He said, “ME, are you here with us?”
After a moment the planchette moved to the top of the board. YES.
“Is your name Proctor?”
No answer.
“How did you die?”
DIE. HOUSE.
“Did someone want you to die?”
YES.
“Who was that person?”
CRAZY.
“Someone who’s crazy?”
YES.
“What’s his name?”
Silence.
“Can you tell me what his name is?”
NO.
The pointer moved from letter to letter, and the answer surprised Henri.
N-O-T-H-I-M.
NOT HIM.
Did the spirit mean Noah, the one everybody believed murdered his family? Or did she mean something else?
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Henri took his fingers off the pointer and asked April to do the same. To Landry he said, “What do you make of this?”
“Perhaps the spirit’s telling us Noah isn’t the killer.”
“You may be right, but from what little we know, it’s impossible to draw a conclusion. This spirit hasn’t identified herself. She considers Proctor Hall her house, meaning she might be one of the dead family members. But that may not be correct. When a lost spirit is trapped in a home, they sometimes call it their own. That may be the case here.
“The spirit says a person she calls CRAZY killed her. It’s a nickname, perhaps, or a word the spirit used in life to describe the killer. She didn’t say how CRAZY killed the spirit. Was it murder or perhaps an accident?”
To April he said, “We’ll continue talking with the spirit later, but for now let’s sign off and go exploring.”
They touched the planchette and April said, “Thank you for talking to us. We’ll come back later.”
A-N-D-Y-G-O-N-E.
As Henri recited the last letter, Landry said, “What? Andy gone?”
April asked the spirit what she meant by that, but the seconds ticked by with no response. “She’s left us for now,” she said as Landry walked away and pulled out his cell phone. Henry gathered the others for a walking tour of the house.
When Landry returned, he caught Cate’s eye and motioned for her and Doc to come into the hall. “Andy Arnaud has vanished,” he said. “That’s what the spirit meant.”
Cate was amazed that a Ouija board told them that.
“I called the sheriff and asked how he was getting along. He said Andy disappeared from his house in Baton Rouge a couple of nights ago. He’d been doing okay, gradually regaining his memory and recalling events. His mother checked on him around ten p.m. and found his bed empty. Their surveillance camera caught him crawling out a bedroom window and running away. Nobody’s heard from him since.”
Doc asked, “How was he dressed? Did he have money, credit cards, a phone — things he’d need?”
“I didn’t ask. The sheriff said the cops in Baton Rouge filed a missing persons report as a courtesy to his parents, but they aren’t actively searching for him. He’s twenty-two years old and left on his own, so there isn’t much they can do. The sheriff only found out because one of the Baton Rouge cops remembered Andy’s mental issues began at Proctor Hall. The cop asked Lafourche Parish deputies to keep an eye out in case he was heading back here.”
Cate was skeptical, although she’d seen it with her own eyes. As Henri led the others into the hall, she asked how it was possible the board told them about Andy.
“What about Andy?” he asked.
Landry explained, and Henri rubbed his chin, deep in thought. “We must be careful,” he said at last. “There are powerful negative forces at work in that upstairs bedroom where we found Andy. I think it’s luring him back here. Regardless, we’re on dangerous ground.”
To the others he said, “Stay alert, everyone. There are paranormal phenomena everywhere in this house. We can’t imagine how our intrusion affects them. Watch out for yourselves, and give a shout if you need help.”
April shuddered. The man was right. The evil at Proctor Hall was the reason she’d resisted coming back. But now here she was. Here they all were, and there was nothing they could do to stop the malevolent things in this house.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The old woman hid in the trees and observed the activity. She saw the first van arrive — the one from the TV station — and as they carried equipment into the house, she wondered what they planned to do. When the rain got heavy, she took shelter in the abandoned supervisor’s house a hundred yards west of Proctor Hall. Mike was the last supervisor to live there, and he’d been gone fifty years.
It was raining like the dickens when some other cars drove up to the house. She counted the people — eighteen in all. She would remember that number in case she needed it.
A little later she got a scare when the house went dark, the door flew open, and men ran out into the rain.
Are they coming over here? Did they see me looking out the window?
She crouched, ready to flee into the secret room. They’d never find her there, but after a moment she realized they had something else to do. They moved heavy boxes from the van to the house, probably batteries. Even though the power was out, soon dim lights glowed from the first-floor windows.
She hadn’t seen so many lights over there in years. Usually there would be just that one light, when the ones who inhabited Proctor Hall moved about. A single light would pass across the upstairs windows as a lamp was carried from room to room. The woman had always wondered why they walked around like that, but Ben told her never to go upstairs when they did that. They didn’t like intruders.
Tonight she wondered why the people came. When the rain slowed a little, she put a trash bag over her head and darted across the yard to peek through the sitting room window. A man and a girl sat at a table doing something while the others stood behind them. It was hard to see; she rubbed the vapor from her breath off the window and saw them using a Ouija board.
Idiots! What on earth do they think they’re doing? They’re in danger. Proctor Hall is no place to go talking to phantoms. Can’t get you anywhere but in deep trouble.
Frantic, the woman wondered what to do. Ben always told her, but he wasn’t here. Neither was Noah, not that he would have offered an opinion. She had to do this alone.
Should I burn down the house with them inside?
That was a foolish idea. It was raining buckets. You couldn’t start a fire in a thunderstorm.
I can kill them.
No, that wouldn’t work either. How would she get all those people to be still and wait while she killed them off one by one?
Every time she became frantic, her mind veered in the wrong direction. Calm down, she told herself as she ran back to Mike’s old house. She wished Ben were here to guide her. She fretted about it for a bit longer, seeing one room grow dim and another brighten up as they moved their equipment from room to room.
Don’t go upstairs, she commanded them in her head, but after an hour they did just that. They started in the bedrooms at the back, but she knew that before long they’d go to the rooms that overlooked Bayou Lafourche. They’d go to that room.
Ben! Ben, help me! We can’t let them go in there! What if they use that Ouija board?”
Ben can never help you again, she told herself, so she made up her own mind what to do. She had to act quic
kly. Not only did she worry about the Ouija board, they were interrupting her nocturnal routine.
The woman knew every square inch of Proctor Hall — how to get in and move about without anyone realizing she was there. She’d go inside, take care of business, and decide what to do about all those people.
The rain pelted her as she ran across the yard and hunched down to pass through the small opening to the crawl space under the house. She could almost stand up under there. Like so many others, Proctor Hall stood on stilts to prevent flooding when the bayou overflowed. Most times the soil was dry, but tonight she slogged through several inches of water to reach the brick base of the fireplace.
The woman felt along the floorboards above her head until her fingers closed around a steel pin. She pushed on a board, tugged the pin, and as it slid out, a hinged trapdoor fell open. The opening was dark until she pushed away the corner of a rug that covered it from above. Now there came a dim glow from lights they had set up in the hallway. She entered the music room under the grand piano, removed her boots and dropped them into the muddy water below. With the door closed and the rug replaced, she listened and learned which upstairs room they were in.
She peeked into the hall, but no one was there. Everyone had gone upstairs now. It was safe to go to the kitchen. Careful not to make noise, she opened the pantry and took out a few things.
It was exciting having people in the house again after all this time. It was exhilarating to think one of them might unexpectedly discover her.
If that happened, I could kill him!
The idea made her smile, but she shouldn’t think like that. There were too many of them. If they captured her, then what would happen?
She put the things from the shelves into a bag and shuffled down the hall to the music room and the trapdoor. No one in the house looked out the windows. If they had, they’d have seen an old crone moving quickly across the yard toward the trees. She was carrying a bag and looked like someone on a mission.
And that was correct. It was feeding time.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Henri’s instruments recorded “energy” — not a measure of work as in physics, but a sign of paranormal activity. As he and April walked through the house, the devices recorded energy fields that should corroborate what she sensed.
Landry thought the night had been a success so far. Henri’s equipment recorded dozens of energy manifestations, proof that several entities haunted the old farmhouse. In places where the readings were strongest, April’s fear matched his measurable data.
She sensed far more than the instruments could detect. As they moved from room to room, she reported several entities, most of whom accepted their presence. Two were different; from them April sensed a chilling, overpowering negativity and a sense of foreboding.
“Evil things are in some rooms,” she said. “When we go there, something in my head says, ‘Get out! Get out!’ and I know they’ll hurt us if we don’t.”
Cate stayed by her side, providing calm reassurance as the girl’s emotions ran the gamut. Landry and Henri tried to bolster her confidence too, but even they sensed a foreboding that draped the old house like a curtain.
The two primary sources of energy on the first floor surprised no one. The fourth riser of the stairway and the sitting room caused the dials to fluctuate wildly. April termed them sad and depressing.
Cate wondered what would happen in the upstairs bedroom where April had earlier experienced powerful feelings. Her job was to watch out for the girl despite Landry and Henri’s push for answers. She recalled her own horrifying experience at an old French Quarter building where a murderous, long-dead spirit killed a woman named Tiffany. She knew Landry cared about April’s safety, but his driving passion was the supernatural. She must choose when the session ended.
With the first floor done, the crew dismantled equipment and moved everything upstairs. They set up lights and cameras in the hallway and four bedrooms. April trembled as she went upstairs and avoided the fourth riser where Noah had sat.
Henri led them first to the storage room in the hall that became a cell. He presumed it was meant for Noah, and hoped to learn more tonight. The upstairs yielded nothing at first — neither his instruments nor April’s powers detected anything.
They entered a bedroom and April said, “Someone’s here. I feel a presence — a deep sadness from a lost soul.”
Henri swept the room with his instruments, but for the first time tonight, he found nothing to corroborate her statement.
“A spirit?” he asked, and she shook her head.
“Something else. There’s a presence, but not a negative one like in the other places. I can’t explain it — there’s a difference in this room — something I can’t describe. The occupant of this room was a lost soul — drifting and lonely.”
“Noah,” Landry whispered to Cate. “I’ll bet this was his room.”
April reported that a spirit was following them through the house, but the entity seemed curious about them rather than sinister.
The second bedroom yielded more unique results. April had strong sensations from entities in each room. “This is Noah’s mother’s room,” she said. “She died in that bed. There’s nothing but sadness here.”
“You say it’s the mother’s room,” Landry said. “Did the parents sleep in separate rooms?”
“Yes. The next one will be his.”
Henri expected the same result this time, and he was surprised when the dials flickered wildly. April reported many things happening around them. She closed her eyes and held her fingers to her temples. “They’re spinning around the ceiling! Furiously, like they’re in a race. Now one’s coming down. Oh God. It’s with me…”
She lowered her arms to her sides and stood like a statue. “We mean you no harm,” she whispered. “Who are you?” She listened and nodded. “Is this your room? Your father’s? I see. Please manifest yourself and let us see you.”
April’s eyes flew open as a wispy film grew from the floor beside her. It rose as high as her shoulder, and it took shape, rippling as if caught in a breeze. In a moment it became a shadowy figure — a person wearing a black dress.
As it fully formed, someone shouted, “It’s missing its head!”
The figure vanished and April fell to the floor. Cate rushed to her, hugging her as April sobbed, “It’s so sad. It’s just so, so sad.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Cate sat with April until she felt ready to continue. The first question everyone had was who the spirit was.
April said, “She’s May Ellen Proctor, the twelve-year-old who died in the massacre. She’s the one following us around. And whoever just shouted, please restrain yourself. I have a fragile bond with the entities. When it breaks, they sometimes won’t return.”
She described other spirits in this room — filmy, gauzy things that were visible only to her. “May Ellen is the primary one. We have nothing to fear from her. She’s a kind, gentle child. But others are just the opposite.”
They moved into the hall, preparing to visit the final bedroom and the one Landry saved for last. It was where he’d found Andy beside the bed, white-haired and babbling nonsense. April had become upset in there too and had to leave. If that happened again, the session would be over, but they would only have missed the one room.
It was time to go inside. Landry and his director stood in the hallway while the crew placed tripods, lights and sound equipment. Landry hoped things would go well for April and perhaps she and Henri might use the Ouija board in there.
April only got as far as the threshold. She would not cross over despite entreaties from Henri and Landry. Cate took the girl aside and spoke with her before returning and scolding the men.
“Of all people, you two should respect her paranormal ability. She can’t go into the bedroom. She was willing to try, even though the room scares the bejeezus out of her. Something inside — a frightening thing — is stopping her.”
Apr
il added, “I heard a man’s voice in my mind, but I know it wasn’t a man. It’s wicked and scary. It has tolerated us until now, but if one of us goes in there, someone will die.”
From the doorway, the room appeared just like the others. How would merely stepping across the threshold be fatal? None of them understood.
On previous occasions Cate and Landry had gone in — she to rescue April and he to do the same with Andy. On those days odd things had happened, but neither recalled negative sensations.
“The bedroom doesn’t look scary to me,” Marisol said, and the camera crew agreed.
The Proctor Hall Horror Page 7