PRESENTED TO JACK MONROE 1869
ON THE OCCASION OF HIS WEDDING TO ELENORE WINTERS.
The first entry was the marriage of Jack Monroe to one Elenore Winters in 1869. There was then the record of the birth of four children. Between the birth of the third and fourth child, the death of the eldest child was noted. The cause was falling down into the well. The boy was six at the time.
The next two entries chronicled the loss of two other children and Elenore, then the marriage of the youngest. Oddly enough each death was due to an accident of sorts, all of them suspicious. A pattern began to emerge until the end of the record in the early 40s. Every generation carried its own tragedies, accidents that plagued the Monroe family for as long as the house had stood.
There were some entries, notably in the 1920s and 1930s where people whose births were recorded had simply disappeared. In 1880, a child born as Maddox vanished entirely. That mystery was cleared up when she found a clipping from a newspaper. On one side it held the word GROOVY in the distinct font of flower children and on the other, a mention of a man with the same name who had passed away at the ripe age of 87. Survivors matched the list of kin in the Bible.
She pulled up her phone and did a family tree search on other “missing” people who were never again added to the Bible. One of the ones from the 30s was still alive, though she was pushing 90.
The door to the library slammed. Scarlet jumped, her heart was in her throat, choking off her air. Her heart thundered in her chest and she couldn’t breathe, AGAIN she couldn’t breathe, she who had never had lung problems of any sort. It’s dust. Too much dust in here. The thoughts ricocheted around her brain, coming up short against the very fact that there simply WAS no air. She clawed at the door.
She was lost in a vacuum or drowning in a fishbowl, she couldn’t breathe, there was no air and in another moment she would die. She grabbed the handle of the door and pulled, pounding, pounding, POUNDING her fucking hand against the door until bruises blossomed, until skin split and she left bloody handprints to document her desperation. The wood echoed with the beat of her heart, slapping in her ears and she cried out, but there was no air for her cries and she turned and fell and the room spun…
…and she woke.
In her bed. Her own bed.
She gulped air. Fresh clean, warm air. It filled her lungs. It flowed around her and she began to cough. Once started, she couldn’t stop. She fell from the bed onto the floor, landing on her hands and knees. She rolled to her side and lay on the floor gasping and trying to breathe, just breathe.
Somehow she climbed back to her feet, her breath becoming more even, steadier. The curtain was closed, the fireplace was cold. There was still some residual heat in the room but her legs were freezing.
She wore the shirt and panties she’d put on after her bath, but that was night before. Wasn’t it? I had breakfast, I pissed of Malinda and saw the dress and…
Phone. The phone had an automatic date time that went beyond her control, it was set up with the signal and that would tell her if she was… she tore apart the room.
Her phone was gone.
She looked around for her pants, they were draped over by the door. The bathroom door. It’s where she put them while running the bath. The hot water pipe helped by knocking twice.
She parted the curtain. Daylight streamed in, the sun was… rising? Setting? It was dawn. Scarlet pulled her jeans on and stomped into her boots lacing them up tightly.
She grabbed the journal and left the room, the door standing open and headed down the steps. A thrill of fear ran through her as she stormed through the library door flinging it open hard enough for it to hit the wall behind it with a crash and bounce back toward her.
Everything was put away, as if it had never been touched. She headed to the shelf, walking straight to the Bible and found that it was covered in dust as though it had never been touched.
Scarlet couldn’t find her phone. It was gone. She slapped the journal onto the table, forgetting the age and delicacy of the book. Something flew free and skidded over the table top. It was an ancient photograph of a young woman in a fancy gown and had the words ELLE AT WEDDING printed neatly on the bottom.
A shock ran through her. She knew that dress. She ran to the stairs and to the door at the end of the hall. It was locked, as if she’d never had the conversation with the old woman. Scarlet stepped back, took a deep breath. There was no WAY she was going to be defeated by a fucking locked door at this point. The doorframe splintered on the third kick. She stormed into the room past the girl to where the dress waited silently for the bride to take it up and put it on.
She froze and turned, the blood draining from her face. The picture in her grasp fell from nerveless fingers. It floated to the feet of the girl standing in the room. The dress on the dummy seemed to glow with a health that belied its years. Every pearl, every bead hung on it with the perfection that could only come of being affixed by a seamstress only yesterday.
“Get out!” The girl cried out from behind her, her scream holding in a sob that Scarlet felt all the way in the pit of her stomach. “It’s not safe here for you.”
Chapter 7
“Who are you?” The voice came from her, but Scarlet didn’t recognize it. She wasn’t aware she’d spoken. Her knees shook, and her body trembled. She couldn’t have moved if she’d wanted to. “Ella?”
“I am caught.” The girl tilted her head and looked at her solemnly. “Generation after generation and I cannot go free. I am bound, cursed and she will use me to hurt you. Run. Run away. Please.” The girl whirled suddenly to look behind her. “Run! She is coming! She gets her power from me, please! She’s…” The girl twisted and tried to run, but started to fall, her head came around to face Scarlet. opened her mouth to scream, the tendons in her neck showing an agony beyond understanding, but no sound came through the terrified gaze. She threw her head back, her back arching, her neck cracking and she vanished, becoming so much fog freezing in the cold air.
Scarlet heard the footfalls; they rang off the steps. She bolted to the hallway and the glow that had chased her down the hallway was back, but this time it preceded Malinda, a terrifying harbinger of evil incarnate.
The old woman stood at the end of the hall, not even winded. Her hair was white fire around her and hands held power that ebbed and throbbed as she stalked Scarlet.
“You… All of you and your kind. This is MY house. I gave it my life as my mother did and her mother and hers. I gave my EYE for this house! I gave up any chance of family, husband, I SOLD MY SOUL for this house and you! What did you ever do but be born the spawn of a murderer and his whore?”
She raised her arms and blue light crackled and spat. Scarlet jumped back into the room and slammed the door. She spun the lock and looked around for something… anything… all she had to hand was a dressmaker’s dummy and that rotted dress.
The dress.
The dress.
She tore the dress off of the dummy and used the dummy’s torso to block the door, wedging it under the knob. It couldn’t possibly hold, the whole arrangement was too precarious. The bottom edge caught in against the warped and uneven floor. The knob rattled, then fell silent. She could hear the key slipping into the lock.
Malinda was locking her in?
She couldn’t picture it. For how long? How long before madness set in, and starvation. She’d be left there to die. Of that she had no doubt. Everything started to come clear. The accident that had taken her aunt’s life, so strange an unexpected.
Not an accident.
None of them had been accidents.
Not me. I will not die this way. I WILL NOT.
Scarlet ran to the window and threw it open. There was a thin shelf of brick that ran the length of the back of the house, ending at the large window in the master bedroom. It was also covered in ice. She glanced at the cemetery below and prayed that she would not be the next one to be buried there. She slipped out of the window, her
boot clinging to the edge of the brick, her fingers searching for any hold she could find.
The door was jammed, the dummy was still stuck in between the door and the jamb, but Malinda was screaming again and pressing against it hysterically. Starvation would have been better. Death grew more immediate and time was running out. Heart in her throat, Scarlet eased her way around the building, her feet slipping and sliding, the old dress draped over her shoulder.
Somehow she managed to reach the edge of the window just as the door gave way to a great crash. The dressmaker’s dummy flew through the window and landed on a grave, thrown with enough anger that it broke into several pieces. Scarlet flinched and almost lost her grip on the brick. Her foot slid toward the edge. In a moment the rest of her would follow.
Malinda shoved her head out of the window and screamed a wordless challenge to her. A moment later she disappeared. and Scarlet could hear her running. She knew the old woman was heading for the master bedroom. How long did she have? She wrapped the dress around her fist and punched the window with a strength born of fear and desperation. The glass shattered, large pieces slicing her arm. The motion made her slide, her feet gave way after all, skittering over the ice.
She fell.
Chapter 8
Scarlet scrabbled at the window frame with all the desperation of a woman about to die. Somehow she wrapped the cut arm around the window frame, driving sharp fragments into her forearm. She had no breath to scream though the pain was excruciating. She pulled herself into the room just as the door exploded and Malinda ran shrieking into the room.
Scarlet leaped over the couch and shoved the dress into the flames of the fireplace, her hand pushing through the metal mesh that trapped the embers. It caught and Malinda screamed. The dress went up like flash paper. Scarlet fell backwards, her right hand burned and bloody.
Malinda spun. There by the door, the girl - the one Scarlet had spoken to. Ella’s face darkened, her eyes blazed and her mouth opened. “FREE!” She shouted and the room spun and the house shook with the power of that single word. Malinda screamed. She had nowhere to go except through the broken window. She threw herself into empty air, and plummeted toward the ground. The specter screeched and flew after her, pulling her under the ground into the empty plot beside hers.
Scarlet stumbled to the window. Her entire body trembled against the frame. Was she imagining it or did the old woman scream until the soft earth covered the sounds.
Oh God.
She shoved herself back, away, into the room, sobs shaking her slender form as she sank to the floor crying.
Eventually the horror faded. Scarlet limped downstairs and out to her car. She drove until she found a house. A neighbor who didn’t understand any of what she said. The story came out garbled. Hysterical. Finally, she lifted her hand and showed them.
It was enough. They understood. Or at least seemed to.
She was safe.
~~~~~
When Scarlet next woke, she was in a hospital. Her arm had been mummified in a swath of bandages. The police came and listened with the dubious looks of those who had heard inane stories covering for an abuse one too many times. They asked questions. They called a social worker. They begged and cajoled her to turn over the culprit who had done this to her.
Scarlet held to her story.
She’d argued with the housekeeper who left in some kind of fit. She’d inherited the house. They hadn’t gotten along. No, she had no idea where she was. How had she hurt herself? She’d tripped and fallen. End of story.
A tragic accident.
The truth she would take to her grave.
Epilogue
The house slept.
The next day an ad appeared in the local paper:
HELP WANTED: CARETAKER.
MUST BE RELIABLE, HAVE REFERENCES
AND BE ABLE TO LIVE IN.
APPLY @ HANLEY MANOR.
ASK FOR SCARLET HANLEY.
The Haunting of Deer Park House
Rosemary Cullen
Copyright © 2019
All Rights Reserved
Prologue
The red on the floor was making it difficult for Mrs. Clark to walk. She had never realized how slippery blood was when it was all over a slick surface. The wood should have soaked up more of it but the stickiness was causing problems.
“Peter, momma needs your help with something,” she hollered through the house. Some of the candles had gone out and the one kerosene lamp she did have on was dimmed down. A habit from trying to keep the budget within check. Wiping away bits of flesh from her face, she started into the next room. He couldn't have gone too far.
~~~~~
“Don’t make a sound child.”
Peter looked up at his father with terror in his eyes. He had no idea what was wrong but the screaming and thuds from just a few minutes ago were weighing heavily on his mind.
“But Pa, shouldn’t we go help?” Peter was torn between finding his sister and staying in the shelter of his father’s arms.
“You will do no such thing,” Mr. Clark whispered through the dark. “Stay here and I will be back for you shortly.”
Peter whimpered as his dad left him in the small enclosed pantry space and shut the door. There was no light coming in through the slits in the door. Normally a candle would have been going on the table but his father had blown it out as soon as they had come through the room.
He wiped tears from his face and felt a new wetness appear. He felt his hands and parts of his arms and realized his father had left part of himself behind. The smell of coppery blood became overwhelming.
“Peter!” his mother’s voice sounded unusually high. “I need your help. Your sister is hurt and badly needs you.”
A slam of the door caused Peter to jump and let out a squeal. He prayed to the Lord that he had not been heard. His father had seemed quite serious about not letting momma know his location.
“Your father just left us; like he had always been planning on leaving us. That makes you the man of the house now,” momma sounded so sad.
Should he go see what had happened? Had his father lied to him? His mother needed cheering up and that was always his job. Peter was torn on whether or not to wait out this episode - that was what his father called them in the past.
There was no sound from Lily and Peter was becoming worried that his sister really did need some assistance. Maybe he could offer to go fetch the doctor and momma would be happy again.
Slowly cracking the door to the crawlspace, he tried to see anything in the room. His eyes had somewhat adjusted to the darkness but the room seemed to be empty. The quietness surrounded him like an eerie blanket.
He started to tread lightly across the room. Every ounce of his being was focused on not letting the floor squeak with his steps. He pretended he was sneaking through to get sweets in the middle of the night even though at that moment he just wanted to find Lily.
Random mutterings and grunts were echoing across the house and he was sure momma was in the middle of one her fits. She hadn't been resting during the day like she was supposed to be especially after the last incident.
Peter had a vision of his mother crying in the middle of the kitchen, piles of her hair around her as she rocked back and forth. Father had assured him that she just needed to sleep. It was Peter's job to do the chores around the house and take care of Lily while he was at work so momma didn't have to work so hard.
A gurgling cry came from the room next door. He looked in and couldn't stop the scream that left his mouth. It must have been Lily. Half her face was smashed in and her body was a blob of blood and mush with limbs facing in wrong directions.
It looked like what was left of the intact eye was staring right at him but blood gurgled out of her mouth as her chest tried to fill up with air. He had seen the same thing happen to one of the dogs when mother had punished Peter for breaking a cup. Tears began to cloud his vision. Poor Lily. His father would be so disappointed in him for n
ot protecting her. Maybe that is why he had just left him.
~~~~~
"Don't worry about Lily. She doesn't feel a thing," Mrs. Clark voice traveled through the silence. She now knew exactly were Peter was and found it no surprise when his scream was in the exact opposite direction of the back door. Her husband must be trying to lure her out back.
Peter is such a good boy to come out of hiding. She would make it quick.
She headed through the hallway towards the room where she had left Lily. A smile inched onto her face as she followed her own bloody footprints. Images of all the ways she would put her little man to rest began cycling back through her brain. It bothered her to think she was worried just a few minutes ago that he had actually made it out of the house.
In the dimly lit room she could see Peter staring blankly at Lily. His face was streaked with tears.
“My poor little boy.” She squatted and opened her arms to him. “Come give your mother a hug.”
The hesitation was apparent. Rage began to cloud her thoughts as Peter began to back away from her. “You ungrateful wretch!” She threw herself directly at him.
A splat occurred as she landed half in the remains of her daughter and half on the floor. Her hands just barely got a hold of Peter’s rough cotton shirt. His scream was deafening but it renewed her purpose.
She felt the vibrations of the running steps just in time to turn and see the ax coming down to her body. Letting go of Peter, she fell sideways and felt the whoosh of air as the blade landed into Lily.
Turns out that girl was good for something.
She laughed with pure delight as she rolled through the mess of blood, ignoring the pain as shards of bone cut through her clothing.
“Run Peter,” his father grunted as he pulled the ax free from the ball of flesh taking up the middle of the room.
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