They talked idly. Father and son.
Looking into the fire, Bruce thought he should burn the place down.
No, they were flat broke, and despite the way they were feeling right now, after they reached the world outside this place, life would go on, and it couldn’t go on without money. Provided that he was the actual inheritor—and there was no reason to believe otherwise—the best thing to do, the only thing to do, was to sell the manor. As much as he’d like to see this place reduced to a rubble of ash, he needed the authorities to come see all of this. Someone else had to confirm its existence, the things they had seen. Someone else needed to see what had happened upstairs to Mother. What had happened back there, at the end of the east wing, in the cathedral of trees.
Someone else needed to confirm he was not insane.
He shivered. Cody seemed to catch it. The boy set down his toy and crawled up onto his daddy’s lap. They hugged and got warm, silent and staring into the flames.
* * *
Around midday, the sun broke through the clouds and began melting the frozen tundra outside. Icicles dripped. The ground began to thaw even in the shadows of the trees. The elder trees seemed to relax. Relieved of their heavy burdens, they straightened up and the hollow along the driveway was once again a tunnel of trees, no longer choked with wicked branches as it had been the night before. Even the manor itself seemed to have relaxed, but Bruce did not trust it.
The moment the ice began to melt outside, he grabbed their backpack, bundled up Cody, and left the house.
They walked out the doors of Elderwood Manor. The dreary place seemed to release them reluctantly into the world. Its tall oaken doors opened easily on their hinges. As soon as they stepped out from under the shadow of its pillared front portico, they felt a weight lifted off them, a falling-away of the layers of gloom that had gathered around them over the past day and night.
The touch of sunlight on their faces was like the kiss of angels. Bruce looked up, squinting through the tree tops to the patches of blue sky visible above. He looked down and saw Cody doing the same thing.
Things will be okay.
He felt the manor behind him, ancient and brooding.
Holding Cody’s hand, carrying the gas can with the other, they walked across the slushy front yard and started down the driveway.
The thought crossed his mind that he could come back someday, but not to stay. He imagined coming back just long enough to honor the memory of his father with a blaze the likes of which these hills and valleys had never seen.
It almost made him smile.
* * *
He tried to strap Cody into his car seat, but the boy wouldn’t be separated from his father and insisted on standing with Bruce as he filled the tank with fuel from the gas can.
Finished, he left the driver’s-side door open as he tried to start the car. Cody stood next to him, eyes full of hope.
The engine coughed, chugged, and died.
He tried again. The engine turned over, caught, and a surge of triumph ran through Bruce, but it still held an undercurrent of dread. The engine ran ragged and barely stayed running.
“Daddy, here dey come!”
Cody was pointing down the road behind them.
His car’s engine roughly died as a sheriff’s patrol car crested the hill behind them. Bruce stepped out of the car, put his arm around his boy, and waved them down.
* * *
The FOR SALE sign went up, the ads were placed, but interested parties were few and far between.
No matter. There was time.
There was always time.
Through night and seasons, Elderwood Manor waited. It grew and shifted and coiled inside. It brooded and held the secrets of bleak histories in the dull shine of its walls, the hunched shapes of its ancient furnishings, the spirit whispers of its air. Floors twisted, corridors groaned. Its arched Gothic windows occasionally revealed the presence of something within. A shape, little more than a dark figure, there and gone again.
The forest encroached upon the structure, as if gathering it into its sinister arms.
One day it would live again.
About the Authors
Christopher Fulbright is a former reporter turned technical writer whose stories have received honorable mentions in The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror and Best Horror of the Year.
Angeline Hawkes is a Bram Stoker Award–nominated author with a B.A. in Composite English Language Arts.
Individually and collaboratively they have been published by Dark Regions Press, Bad Moon Books, Chaosium, Delirium Books and many others. For more information, please visit their website at: www.fulbrightandhawkes.com.
About the Publisher
DarkFuse is a leading independent publisher of modern fiction in the horror, suspense and thriller genres. As an independent company, it is focused on bringing to the masses the highest quality dark fiction, published as collectible limited hardcover, paperback and eBook editions.
To discover more titles published by DarkFuse, please visit its official site at www.darkfuse.com.
Table of Contents
ELDERWOOD MANOR
Connect With Us
About the Authors
About the Publisher
Elderwood Manor Page 6