The Bell Witch
By
John F.D. Taff
“A classic ghost story full of creepy sounds, scary nights, and top-notch dialogue. Fans of great ghost stories now have cause for celebration.”
~ Gabino Iglesias, HorrorTalk.com
- BOOKS of the DEAD -
Smashwords Edition
“An outstanding read by one of my favorite horror writers of all time.”
~ Rhiannon Elizabeth Irons, TrulyDisturbing.com
“A compelling ghost story like no other, which will haunt you long after the last page.”
~ John Milton, Horror Reviewer at AndyErupts.com
“If you enjoy scares and surprises, skillfully wrought human drama, and dark secrets, you must read The Bell Witch.”
~ Award-Winning Author, Erik T. Johnson.
“An American Haunting meets Casper. Kept me entertained the whole time!”
~ Ann Hale, Pop-Break.com
“I enjoyed it quite a bit. The Bell Witch will haunt you long after you finish this well-crafted, all-American ghost story.”
~ Rob Errera, Author of Hangman’s Jam
This book is a work of fiction. All characters, events, dialog, and situations in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission except in the case of reprinted excerpts for the purpose of reviews.
Cover Design by Kealan Patrick Burke
Edited by James Roy Daley
THE BELL WITCH
BOOKS of the DEAD
Copyright 2013 by John F.D. Taff
For more information, contact: [email protected]
Visit us at: Booksofthedeadpress.com
* * *
For my Aunts & Uncles, Susan & Pat Pardo, Donna Taff, and Woody Landreth.
Family is a wonderful and terrifying thing.
* * *
PART I
WICKED DREAMS ABUSE
January to February
1820
ONE
A cold wind whistled through the trees along the road to his cabin, but Richard Powell could see nothing through the moonless dark that would have given the horse any reason to flinch.
The horse lurched to a stop, and Powell, startled to consciousness, nearly fell off. It was about one o’clock in the morning, and he was returning from tutoring a promising student who lived miles from Powell’s small schoolhouse. A committed teacher, Powell had offered to tutor the boy at his home a few evenings a week.
“You can have him after chores and before dinner, and that’s it!” the boy’s father, leery of Eastern education, had snapped. The suspicious father had also relented—at his wife’s urging—to allow the headmaster to have dinner there as well.
All fine and good, but it meant that Powell didn’t leave the house until after nine in the evening. The ride home was long, cold and lonely.
He reseated himself, drew his heavy coat tight, and gave the reins a bare snap. The horse, however, did not move.
Exasperated, Powell peered into the darkness. He could make the outlines of the Bell farm to his right, the small slave quarters at its rear. The bluish smoke drifting from both buildings mingled in the air above.
He gave the horse a gentle spur in the ribs and an incredible thing happened. It threw him, rearing up so far that Powell first thought it meant to leap straight into the air. It didn’t, but he was unseated, landing in a rough bundle on the hard, frozen ground.
As this happened, Powell didn’t worry about why the horse was acting so peculiarly, or if he’d be injured when he hit, or how he’d get home if the horse bolted. No, Powell had a habit of viewing everything with empirical distraction, a by-product of his Age-of-Enlightenment education.
He was more interested in the sensation of vertigo he experienced as his feet flipped over his head, the sight of the jewel-bright stars as he somersaulted through them, the vaporous burst of breath that exploded from him when he hit the ground.
Science did not prevent him from lying in the road like a stunned fish, unable to move as he heard the clop-clop-clop of the horse galloping away.
Aside from having the wind knocked out of him, he was uninjured. He climbed dazedly to his feet, and stared in the direction of the fading hoof beats.
I hope the damned thing finds its way home, he thought, brushing himself off. And I hope it doesn’t lose my bag. The bag contained many of the textbooks and primers that he used every day, plus his copy of Ovid’s Metamorphoses bought in Boston.
“Well, it’s a long walk home,” he sighed, accepting his fate. Tomorrow—actually today now—was Saturday, and that meant no classes, which was good because he was still at least a mile from home.
Thrusting his hands deep inside his long coat, he shivered against the light, icy, wind. Luckily, it was a still, clear evening, because it was cold enough to freeze his marrow if the wind had been stronger.
As he set off, a light, conspicuous in the absolute black, caught his eye.
He turned toward the Bell house, watched a small, single flame as it disappeared and reappeared inside the windows of the second story. He suddenly felt a little less alone.
“I hope everything’s well there,” he muttered, lowering his head, and beginning to recite Ovid quietly as he walked.
As if at one glance, Death,
Had caught her up, delighted at his choice,
Had ravished her, so quick was his desire,
While she in terror had called to friends and mother,
A prayer to mother echoing through her cries,
Where she had ripped the neckline of her dress,
Her flowers had slipped away--and in her childish,
Pure simplicity, she wept her new loss now,
With bitter, deeper sorrow than her tears,
For the brief loss of spent virginity,
He who had raped her lashed his horses on,
To greater speed, crying the names of each,
Shaking black reins across their backs and shoulders.
Powell paused, momentarily lost in the verse. Then––
With savage hands,
She smashed the crooked ploughs that turned the soil,
And brought down dark ruin on men and cattle.
“That’s not right, professor,” he said aloud, annoyed at himself, his voice echoing on the sharp air. “You skipped an entire section.”
“Oh, hell,” he laughed, “there’s no one out here to know. Or to care, for that matter. And besides, Ceres should have gotten to that sooner anyway.” He shivered again, and a wave passed deeply through him as the Bell house disappeared into the night.
* * *
Inside the house, she drifted uneasily in her sleep, buffeted by waves of nameless, faceless dread.
It was a strange dream, one she dreamt often, one she had spoken about to no one. It was so vague, so tenuous, that it seemed ludicrous in the daylight. At the same time, it was so overwhelming that the idea of bringing it up, even with her mother and even in the day, terrified her.
It was a dark dream, a violent one. Sometimes in the morning, there were bruises along her arms, her neck, her stomach. And profoundly embarrassing, though she showed no one, sometimes on her breasts, her buttocks, her thighs.
It was a humiliating, violating dream, suffocating as it pressed down on her, hurting her, cupping the rough hand of night over her open, silent mouth. It pulled at her nightgown, pawed at her small breasts, raked at her.
It was an angry dream, and the anger was a cord that bound both Betsy and her silent assailant together in the night, a cord that leashed her even in the day. At times she could feel her hat
red as something apart from her, separate, somewhere deeper in the darkness, taking form.
Watching in rage, straining at whatever bonds held it.
Waiting.
It was, finally, a painful, confusing dream as it straddled her, forced itself roughly into her, pounded her beneath it.
Still the anger was there, watching.
Waiting.
The dream came upon her suddenly as it usually did. With great stealth it crept into the room; the fire it held placed cautiously on her dressing table. There was a rustle of bedclothes, and cold air slapped at her exposed flesh.
The dark thing pressed down upon her, its breath hot and foul. A rough kiss, dry and raw on her numb lips. The pawing, intruding hand. The hesitant creaking of the bed.
The bed her father had fixed for her.
Her father. He could help her now, protect her from the nightmare.
“Daddy,” her voice squeaked beneath the attacker.
From above her, in the depthless dark, came a strangled cry, the hiss of breath.
Out of that darkness a hand flew, catching her with the solid mound of its palm across her temples. Light flashed through her skull.
As the dream faded, Betsy felt the house shudder around her and she imagined that she heard the snap of something taut being broken.
In an instant, anger flared within her, brighter and more consuming than the fading light of the blow. It exploded across her consciousness with unexpected force, driving all thought before it. The shock of its passing penetrated into the darkness beyond, gathered there, coalesced.
As she retreated into the protection of sleep, she felt that thing—that thing deep inside her, that thing separate and apart—and knew it was alive.
Knew it waited no more.
* * *
In the Bell’s slave quarters, Adam wrapped a thin woolen cover around himself as he crouched by the open fireplace and poked at the banked embers. He knelt there for a moment, drinking in the warmth of the flames, when he felt a vibration rattle through the small cabin.
Adam rose slowly to his feet as a low roar followed, just at the limits of hearing. He tottered to the window, pressing his face to the rattling glass, but saw nothing. Just then, there was a tremendous CRACK! and he saw the top of the main house’s chimney explode. So violent was the explosion that the windows in the slave cabin shattered, and Adam was thrown off his feet.
Others in the house rose quickly at the sound and gathered around him. Sam jumped from where he lay with his young wife, Anky, and she helped Adam up while others searched the cabin to find something to cover the windows with. Already the icy wind was toying with the fire, threatening to extinguish it.
“God almighty!” yelled Sam, his young eyes sparkling in the sputtering firelight.
“The whole damn chimney exploded at the house! Just exploded! Done thrown me to the ground,” whispered Adam in amazement as Sam stuck his head out the window.
“Well, it’s too dark to see anything. You sure?”
“Hell, yeah, I’m sure.”
Sam considered this for a moment. “Should we tell Mr. Bell?”
“You taken your leave, boy?” asked Adam. “You recall how he boxed my ass all the way back here when I saw a candle moving through the house one night back and thought it was a thief? Said as how he’d have no goddamn niggers in his house after dark, thief or no? Well, I remember, for sure. You go and see if they’re safe if you want. I’m goin’ back to bed before it gets too cold in here.”
Shaking his head and muttering, Adam shooed everyone back to bed. Climbing in himself, next to three of the still-sleeping children, he felt suddenly anxious and afraid.
He did consider, for one moment, putting on his clothes and checking on the family anyway, Mr. Bell be damned. But sleep took him, and he changed his mind.
Let them deal with their own devils tonight.
TWO
“Well, I’ll be damned if I know what happened,” said Jack Bell as he stomped into the dining room. Jack was a large, solid man, with a ruddy complexion and a short reddish beard that jutted from his prominent chin.
He threw his coat to Naddy, the housekeeper, and warmed his hands by the huge stone fireplace that dominated the open room. Fortunately, the damaged chimney was the one servicing the fireplaces on the other side of the house.
“Jack Bell!” hissed Lucy, his wife. “What language! And in front of the children.” She busied herself with helping Saloma, the Bells’ cook, with setting the children’s breakfast.
“Ahh,” he waved her off.
“What happened, Pa?” asked Williams around a mouthful of mush.
“The chimney exploded,” said Jack, taking a seat as Saloma whisked a plate before him. Jack pounced on his breakfast.
“‘Sploded?” asked Drew, the Bells’ youngest child. “What’s that?”
“It means it blew up into a million pieces,” answered Zach, sitting next to him. He lent this dramatic explanation clearer meaning by making a sound like an explosion, sending bits of mush flying across the table.
“That’s quite enough, young man,” corrected Lucy. “Eat your breakfast, all of you.”
“Exploded? How?” she asked.
“Don’t really know, Luce,” answered Jack, folding an entire piece of bacon into his mouth. “John’s out there now with Sam picking up the pieces. It even blew out the windows in the niggers’ cabin. I can’t believe no one heard anything.”
“I heard something, Daddy,” came a small voice from the end of the table.
Jack looked up from his plate slowly to his daughter, Betsy, who had been sitting quietly, poking at her food.
Lucy ignored the girl, injecting herself instead into some minor argument between the three boys.
“Yes, Bets?” Jack asked.
“My bed still squeaks, even after you fixed it. It kept me up and gave me bad dreams last night,” she said.
Jack put his fork down. “Well, then, we’ll fix it again.”
“Thank you, Daddy,” she smiled.
“More hot food?” asked Saloma, appearing at Jack’s side with a heaping platter.
Jack surveyed his half-eaten breakfast. “Not this morning,” he said, pushing from the table and motioning Naddy for his coat.
“I’ve got to get out there and help get the chimney fixed. You boys,” he said, pointing at the three, who immediately stopped bickering, “get dressed and get your chores finished.”
As Saloma and Naddy cleared the plates, Lucy sent the boys upstairs to get their winter clothes on. “You seem very quiet this morning,” she said to Betsy over the rim of her coffee cup. “Is anything wrong?”
“Bad dreams again last night,” Betsy answered, her voice thin and distant.
“Do you want to talk about them?’
A moment, then, “No.”
Part of Lucy, buried and ashamed, relaxed at that, relieved with Betsy’s answer.
“But, I’ve been thinking,” Betsy continued.
“About what?” Lucy asked, and that deeply buried part within her twitched a little.
“Oh, about Hank and the dance at his parents’ house next weekend.”
“We have to get working on that dress.”
“I know.”
“You don’t sound very excited. Even now if a boy asked me to go to a big dance with him, I’d be jumping up and down.”
“Mama!” giggled Betsy. “Well, I am excited. It’s just that…”
“What, honey?”
“It would have been nice to be asked.”
“What do you mean?” Lucy prompted, though she knew exactly what Betsy was saying.
“He just assumed I’d go.”
“Would you have liked to go with someone else?” her mother asked, a touch too much coaxing in her voice. Lucy didn’t really like Hank Gardner, and Betsy knew it.
“I don’t know. It’s just that he never asks me… about anything,” Betsy trailed off, realizing she might have said too much.
>
“Like what?” Lucy asked, suddenly focused and intent. She set her cup down, her eyes narrowing.
“Oh, nothing, nothing,” stammered Betsy, her face flaring red. “I’m blabbering. Not enough sleep, I suppose. Those dreams…”
Lucy reached across the table, took her daughter’s hands. “If you ever need to talk, about Hank or… anything… I’m here for you.”
“Oh, mama, I know that,” Betsy said. “Hank… well, he’s just Hank. I can’t seem to get angry with him. Like you always tell me, it’s a woman’s job to do what a man wants.”
Lucy winced at those words, wished she’d never said them.
Never believed them.
THREE
“Well, Pa, I think we’ve found all the big pieces,” said John, dropping a large stone onto an already heaping pile.
Jack shielded his eyes against the sun. It was a bright, metallic cold that morning. The sunlight sparkled like frost on the powdered rock that dusted the roof and the nearby trees. “How do you suppose it happened?” he asked.
“Don’t know, sir,” answered John, squinting into the sunlight. “Doesn’t make sense.”
“You still say you didn’t hear anything last might, Sam?” asked Jack, not looking at the young black man.
“No, sir, Mr. Bell,” he shook his head. “We thought the wind had blowed the windows in, and we got up and fixed `em. And that’s that. We ain’t heard nothin’ else.”
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