The Haunting of Rachel Harroway: Book 0

by J. S. Donovan

  “Brett, I told you that I’m done with the investigation.”

  “I know,” Her husband replied. “But your father and I have been discussing your mother and her condition. We don’t want to see history repeating itself.”

  Rachel felt like he’d jabbed her with knife, and it hurt worse because she knew there was some kernel of truth to it.

  The next morning, after Rachel had slept two hours, Brett and her packed up and returned to the Hadley House. They didn’t discuss the conversation from the night before. Nor did they act like anything was amiss. From an outsider’s perspective, they were just another jolly married couple settling into to their new home. Rachel set back up her easel. She removed the sketches she had no recollection of drawing and tucked them into a cardboard cylinder. Brett and her raked leaves together, washed the car, and sifted through the antiques in the basement. Rachel didn’t fight him on what he wanted to sell. Over three/fourths, he marked up for eBay, but Rachel knew it would be more, by the end of the month.

  When they were researching various online markets, they found site dedicated to the Hadley House Massacre. None other than Andrew Shaw, the creep who knocked on Rachel and Brett’s front door nearly a week ago, hosted the website.

  “That explained his interest in the place,” Brett said. “Maybe we should sell this crap to him.”

  “I’d rather not,” Rachel replied.

  The first day back felt slow, despite all they’d gotten done. Rachel couldn’t shake this empty feeling inside. Brett set out in the morning for a photo op. Rachel worked at unpacking the remaining boxes and decorating their selves and dressers with knickknacks and sculptures they’d acquired over the years. As she moved between the downstairs and the master bed, Rachel took a detour into one of the side bedrooms. She opened the massive wardrobe and pushed aside dead Reginald’s moth-eaten clothes. Dark spots stained the back-bottom corner. A sudden chill caused her skin to rise.

  “Stop them,” a voice said behind her.

  Rachel twisted back.

  Bullet riddled and pale, nine years old Amanda Barnes and her brother, Benny, watched Rachel with unblinking eyes.

  Rachel stumbled back, knocking into the wardrobe. She let herself breath and forced herself to face the massacred children.

  “Stop the bad men,” Amanda said, her arms slack at her side and tears of blood dripping form the wounds on her torso.

  “Who are they?” Rachel asked, her head becoming light.

  “They wear masks, but it isn’t Halloween.” the boy inclined to plumpness answered.

  “I need more than that,” Rachel said.

  “We never saw their faces,” Amanda replied. “Never saw anything.”

  Rachel glanced about the vacant bedroom. “What about your parents?”

  Amanda’s glossy eyes went wide. “They’re angry at you.”

  “Why?”

  “You haven’t stopped the bad men.”

  “I don’t know who they are! How can I stop them?” Rachel shouted.

  Amanda and Benny lifeless eyes stared deep inside of her.

  “The police will take care of it,” Rachel said trying to calm down.

  The shutters outside began to shake violently and clapped against the outer wall. The bedroom door slammed. The floor rocked and creaked and moaned. Rachel held on the wardrobe to keep her balance. With wide eyes, she stared at the kids for help.

  “Father’s angry.” Little fat Benny said.

  Rachel shut her eyes as tight as she could. It’s a nightmare. It’s all fake. You’re okay. Lies, lies, lies.

  Suddenly, the house was still again. Rachel forced herself to look. The bedroom door was open and the shutters unmoved. Rachel lurched over, wanting to vomit. She gagged and spit on the floor. After a moment of rest, she left the room and locked the door behind her. Outside of it, she slid to the floor and hugged her knees close to chest. She wished she had someone to confide with.

  Alas, she was alone.

  An idea came. She forced herself to her feet and to stacked of unpacked boxes. She picked up the decaying cardboard one on top and pulled it open.

  Sitting on the living room floor, she removed old family photo and poems from the old file box. She slid out the cardboard slab separating the her mother’s journal and herb collection from other sentimental items. Rachel picked up the journal and opened the old leather binding. The words of different languages and tongues. Some common, like Spanish and French and others completely incomprehensible. Rachel sifted through the texts of a mad woman, soaking up every understandable work like sponge. The word Orphans appeared many times, followed by the Sense, The Vision, The Gift. None of this made sense and doubt pushed into the front of Rachel’s mind as she read. Her mother was crazy, that was the simple truth of it. Right?

  A passage stood out to her. It started in Latin and then became English. “And when the Orphan gazed upon me and our eyes met, I knew I had been Marked. The only way I could free myself was through their redemption.” The passage continued on in Latin.

  Another sentence grabbed Rachel a few pages later. “The truth became harder to bare as the days dragged on. No one could see what I saw: the Orphans influences on our world. They’d smash a mirror and only I would see the creaks. They’d lead me to item and only I could touch it. Was I insane? I couldn’t be. It was all so real.”

  Rachel paused toward the middle of one of the final pages. She didn’t want to read on. The words. They terrified her. “When my Gift develop. It was violent. The damage became real. Even Liam saw it, though he did not believe. Thankfully, the attacks subsided and I became their sole witness. This changed after She was born. I played coy. The good wife. The good mother. Then I could see the Orphans Marked Rachel. Her imaginary friends where the victims I sought to redeem. Therapy would help her forget. For how long, I did not know.

  The rest of the ravings described odd locations like a twisting tree and a bottomless well. Beyond that were pictures of mutilated corpses and crude weapons. In the exact center of the book resided a recipe for an herbal concoction. Rachel recognized some of the ingredients as highly poisonous and extremely rare. Rachel’s world spun. She let the journal fall from her hands.

  The memory of her mother’s episode replayed.

  “Keep her far from him!” her mother shouted at Liam.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” her father yelled back.

  Her mother threw plates across the room. She picked up a shattered shard of glass and lunged at something near Liam. Liam avoided the jagged edge and grappled her. Her elbow knocked his tooth and caused him to spit blood. She ran to Rachel, grabbed her by the wrist and bolted outside, only dressed in her underwear. She screamed at someone Rachel didn’t see. “She’s not yours! She’s mine! Mine! Mine! MINE!” The cops came soon after and forcefully separated Rachel from her mother’s iron grip. They put a towel on her and put her in the back of the cop car. She glared at Rachel as she drove away. Glared at her like she was the spawn of Satan. But was that really her she was glaring at or someone else entirely?

  Rachel phoned Brett. “I’m going to visit my mother in Charlotte. It’s only for a day.”

  “I thought we talked about staying home for the next few days?” Brett complained. Though Rachel knew that his “we” meant her.

  “I know. It has nothing to do with the case or the break ins or anything. I just think that seeing her will help me understand some things. Help me get better.” That last part was painful to say.

  Brett was quiet for a good while. “Do you want me to come with you?”

  “No, I need to do this alone,” Rachel declared.

  “Okay. I love you. I’ll let you have the car. Liam can drive me back to the shoot.”

  Less than an hour passed before the Escalade arrived and Brett handed her the keys. He gave her a kiss. “I never met your mother.”

  “That makes pretty much both of us,” Rachel said honestly.

  Brett gave her a piti
ful smile. “Drive safe, okay?”

  “I will. See you soon, Brett.” They kissed again. Almost as a final farewell.

  The mental hospital wasn’t much different from any other medical facility, two stories, clean and objective in its design. Rachel arrived and stepped inside, recalling every horrific of a sanatorium she’d ever seen in works of fiction. Though this place juxtaposed those terrifying images of dark halls and screaming patients, it still provoked the same feeling of dread down in the pit of Rachel’s heart. The kind nurse led her the visiting area and had her find a seat. Through the fortified window, patients played in the fence in yard. An elderly woman tossed a basketball and missed horribly. A bald fat man giggled to himself while rocking back and forth. Rachel didn’t judge them. She pitied them and wondered what it must be like to spend the rest of your days in the walls of place like this. Whether the staff was nice or not, you were caged. At least that’s how Rachel felt. She wasn’t quite sure if that was wrong or right of her to think such things.

  The nurse returned and, with her, the strange woman. Rachel stood from the chair at the round table and kept herself from gawking. The woman’s hair was frizzy and short, her nose was tiny and her eyes seemed empty. The patient scrub hung to her bony arms and legs like burlap sack. She shambled toward Rachel at the behest of the nurse and took a seat beside Rachel.

  “She took her medication and may be a bit drowsy, she been very good these last few months. We no longer have to use the straitjacket” The kind nurse said with her tiny voice. She smiled softly at the woman. “Look, Mrs. Sanders. You have a guest.”

  The woman’s hair was grey like the ash and charred wood. Rachel could see herself in the woman’s face. Their eyes were same shape and the same shade of green. They shared the same lips and nose.

  “Mom?” Rachel said as the nurse stepped away, but stayed in the room.

  Sarah Sanders said nothing. Drool trickled hung to the corner of her mouth.

  “It’s me. Rachel.” Rachel fought back tears. Why I am crying? I don’t know this woman. “I’m your daughter.”

  Sarah’s hollow eyes stayed on the white tile floor.

  “Do you remember this book?” Rachel asked.

  Sarah didn’t react to the letter bound journal place before her.

  “Please. Look at it.”

  Her mother turned to the journal, her face completely devoid of emotion. Rachel didn’t know if this was her medication or her normal demeanor. Both explanations frightened Rachel.

  “Talk to me, mom. Say something,” Rachel commanded.

  The woman turned her gaze from the book back to the tile floor. Rachel leaned back her chair and crossed her arms. She reminded herself what she was dealing with and that helped calm her.

  “Please, mom.” Rachel begged. “I need your help. Something is happening to me. I’m seeing things. What you call Orphans.”

  Sarah’s iron grip constricted Rachel’s wrist. Her dead eyes became suddenly full of fury. Just like the Barnes Children, she stared deep into Rachel in way that violated. The husk of the woman was gone and what stared at Rachel was something far more terrifying. Her voice was rough and dangerous. “You have it, cursed child.”

  Rachel tried to pull from her mother’s grip. Her mother’s finger nails pierced Rachel’s flesh.

  “You have the Gift,” Her mother said.

  “Let go,” Rachel whispered, trying not to make a scene in front of the nurse.

  Sarah’s eyes widened. “They’ve Marked you. I can see it.”

  “Please, mom. Let go of me.”

  Suddenly, the woman’s tight grasp released. Rachel pulled her arms back and rubbed her red wrist.

  Tears trickled down Sarah’s face. “She has it. Yes… just like me.”

  It took Rachel a moment to realize that her mother wasn’t talking to her, but someone else. Someone unseen.

  “Who is it?” Rachel asked, unsure what else to say.

  Sarah ignored her. Turned her ear up to ceiling and nodded in agreement to something Rachel never heard.

  “What does it mean to Marked? What is the Gift?”

  Sarah turned back to Rachel. She looked both ways and got low to table, gesturing Rachel to do the same. Hesitant, she obeyed. Sarah whispered, careful not to let the nurse hear her. “The Gift is a blessing. A curse. A joke. It feels the Orphans; feels their remains with the Sense. It tugs at you, when they are close. When danger comes.”

  “I’ve felt that,” Rachel said, her eyes glossing over. “In the basement.”

  Sarah ignored her or refused to listen, and kept on. “The Gift is three. The Sight. The Vision. That opens them up to you. Opens them up to Mark you. Yes… Then there’s the Reality— You witness their death. You taste it in your mouth just as the Orphan did and you join them in their special place.”

  “I think I’ve used the Sense and Vision,” Rachel couldn’t believe her own words. She felt just as crazed as her mother. “How do I stop it?”

  Sarah cried and sniffled. “You don’t, my dear.”

  “There has to be way,” Rachel argued. “I can’t live like this.”

  Sarah wiped her tears away and looked at Rachel like mother giving her daughter the most important advice in the world. “Find their killer. Give them rest. Then they leave. Only you can do this. Only you, Rachel Harroway. It’s your burden now.”

  Just as fast as the life returned to her mother’s eyes, it left and Rachel sat before the hollow shell of a woman.

  The woman Rachel feared she’d become one day.

  Chapter Eight

  Knocking at my Door

  Rachel’s trip to her visit her mother left her with more questions than answers. What was this Gift? How did her mother get it? Was Rachel truly the only one capable of seeing the Orphans? Thinking about made her head hurt. Only one truth matter, she needed to solve Barnes murders and then she’d be free.

  She spent the next few hours in the library archives, hunched over the microfilm kiosk and reading every news report regarding the 1983 massacre. The stories were the same: family of four killed in robbery. Barnes lumber purchased by bank. Life returns to normal. Rachel sat back in her chair and pinched the bridge of her nose. She closed her eyes, feeling a wave of sleepiness splash over her. The repetition of the same facts beat down on her. Nothing was moving forward. If Detective Peak had any leads, it wasn’t enough to stop the Barnes killers. Otherwise, the Orphans and the incomplete feeling Rachel had inside would’ve departed.

  Rachel imagined the case like an artistic sketch. She had the framing but the details were lacking. Rachel typed in the database “Highlands Lumber” and started pulling microfilm from different boxes. There wasn’t much news to work with. After all, the lumber trade isn’t a part of everyday conversation. Finally, Rachel stumbled across a small 1985 article called Lumber Kings. The picture showed much younger David Winsler and Allen Umber with wide grins and a stack of timber at their back. With them stood another man, Ian Linx. Unlike the other two men, Ian seemed uneasy. Upon further inspection of the article, Rachel discovered that he was both of these men’s lawyer and was credited with bartering negating some profitable deals for Umber and Winsler. The journalist called it a “friendly but shameless” promotion of the attorney. The lawyer’s involvement seemed to stand out. Was his appearance only coincidence or did he have a larger role in the death of the Barnes?

  After some research into Linx’s practice, Rachel was pleased to hear the attorney was local. She couldn’t deal with two out of state trips in such a short period of time. She dialed Ian and scheduled an appointment. On the off-kilter street, Rachel felt eyes on her. Is it an Orphan? Parked a block down the road sat an unfamiliar car with tinted windows. A cab pulled in front of Rachel. She climbed in and took off down the wavy street. The vehicle followed Rachel to lawyer’s office but kept driving on after Rachel exited. Rachel couldn’t shake the crawling feeling on her skin. She chalked it up to paranoid but her mother words about the Sense and its abi
lity to feel danger bubbled in the back of her mind.

  With a head of dyed blond hair, Ian Linx wore a three-piece suit and a cheesy smile. Like his office, his eyes were big and American blue. The uncomfortable expression on the newspaper article picture was nowhere to found. He guided Rachel into his semi-circle office, offered her refreshments and locked his fingers on his desk. “I didn’t pick up all the details on the phone. You said wanted to discuss a past crime and needed my expertise?”

  Rachel nodded. “Something like that, Mr. Linx.”

  The lawyer raised a brow.

  “I’m looking into the 1983 Barnes’s massacre. I wanted to hear your take on what happened.”

  The side of Ian’s lip twitched. He hid the feature with a smile. “Are you a detective?”

  “I’m a novelist,” Rachel lied. If he had contact with Allen Umber and David Winsler, she needed to keep her story consistent.

  “Why is novelist interested in that story?” Ian replied.

  “Conspiracy. Murder. It’s a tale dying to be told,” Rachel smiled as cockily as she could.

  “Well, I don’t know what you want from me.”

  “You made your name by helping Allen Umber and David Winsler conquer the local lumber trade in ‘85. That’s something that would’ve only been possible with Reginald Barnes’s demise.”

  “I didn’t realize I was in courtroom,” Ian replied. He stood from his seat, walked around Rachel and closed the door to the office.

  “Children were slaughtered.” Rachel stated.

  “I am aware of the robbery.” He returned to his seat and relocked his fingers on the desk.

  “Does that not bother you?”

  Linx’s lip twitched again. “I wish I could help you with whatever questions you may have, but I cannot share any information regarding my past clientele.”

  “Even if they may be involved in a quadruple murder?” Rachel felt nothing like an artist today. She projected herself as a combination of her favorite TV detectives. “Besides, you only worked as a negotiator for them. Not to protest their involvement in murders they were never even suspected of committing. Everything you say should be completely legal. You would only want to hide that fact if you knew something.”