Carlton House

by B. Groves

  Michael moved out of the way. He collapsed into a heap trying to catch his breath.

  Lily watched wide-eyed as Hannah changed in front of her. Her rotting skin peeled away, the fangs fell out of her mouth, her eyes turned black.

  After seconds of the monster deteriorating in front of Lily, she gazed at a beautiful young woman kneeling in front of her.

  Hannah’s eyes transformed into a healthy color blue. Her mouth no longer held fangs, but ordinary human teeth. Her skin was smooth and clean.

  Lily realized she was staring at the real Hannah Carlton. The woman before the monster claimed her body.

  Hannah’s facial expressions changed from hard to soft.

  She met Lily’s eyes and smiled.

  “Thank you, Lily,” Hannah said.

  Hannah turned and smiled at Michael who was struggling to recover from his injuries behind her.

  “I forgive you, my love.”

  Michael got to his knees. His face changed from fear to regret. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  Hannah nodded. She turned back to Lily and smiled at her again.

  Hannah then closed her eyes and turned her head up to the ceiling. Her skin turned ashen. Her arms fell to her side.

  Lily stiffened her muscles waiting for Hannah to mutate back into the monster, but instead, Hannah’s body crumpled and all that was left behind was a pile of gray ash with an empty dress resting on top of it.

  Chapter 21

  Fire

  Michael looked between Lily and the pile of ash sitting in front of him.

  He crawled over to Hannah’s remains and flopped down the floor sobbing. He lifted the one sleeve of the dress and held it close to his chest.

  Lily turned back to the bite marks in her hand. The throbbing pain was shooting up into her arm and neck, her hand was swollen with some possible broken bones. She sat down on the floor and nursed her wounds. She wrapped her t-shirt around her hand to slow the bleeding.

  Lily was still shaking from the events. She avoided directing her gaze over to Jordan’s body as her grief over his death washed over her.

  The tears ran down her face from the pain in her hand, being so close to death, and even for Jordan lying dead only feet from her.

  Strong arms wrapped around her and a head resting on her good shoulder.

  Michael whispered comforting words to her.

  Lily pulled away in question and stared at Michael. “You’re still here. How?”

  Michael placed a hand on his chest. He looked as baffled as Lily. “I don’t know. I don’t feel different.”

  Michael eyed her with a smirk. “Why? Did you want me gone too?”

  Lily tried to laugh, but the pain kept that from happening. Her expression turned sympathetic. “I’m sorry.”

  Michael grasped her good hand and looked at Lily as if she’d grown two heads. “What are you sorry for?” He planted a light kiss on her lips and smiled down at her. “You’re my hero.”

  Lily scoffed but managed a smile. “I doubt I’m anything close to a hero.”

  “You are to me. Let me see your hand,” Michael said placing his palm out.

  Lily unwrapped her hand from her T-shirt and let Michael inspect it. “It might be broken. You need a doctor.”

  Lily closed her eyes let out a breath through clenched teeth when Michael turned her hand over. “It hurts like hell.”

  “Let’s leave and go to a hospital,” Michael suggested. “Can you walk?”

  Lily nodded, and Michael helped her to her feet.

  They looked around and Michael shook his head. “I can’t believe it’s over. I’ve lived this life for so long that I’m at a loss for words.”

  “We’ll figure something out.”

  Michael nodded, and he and Lily made their way for the stairs. Lily was walking in front of him when she heard a gagging noise.

  She turned around to see Michael doubled over and heaved like he would vomit any second.

  “Michael?”

  Michael continued to gag and kneeled down in pain.

  “Michael, what’s wrong?”

  Michael straightened. His eyelids were half-closed. His mouth was hanging open. The black tar substance dripped from his lips.

  Lily gasped. “No.”

  Michael hunched over again as he vomited the same substance that Hannah had done moments earlier. Lily wrapped her good arm around him when the house rumbled as if an earthquake had struck them.

  Lily had to grip Michael’s shoulders as she lost her footing. The house shook violently. Lily eyes widened when smoke rose from Harry’s portrait and a small fire consumed the painting right in front of her.

  “Michael, we have to get out of here,” Lily said.

  “The curse is breaking,” Michael muttered as he vomited more substance.

  Lily stood up straight. It wasn’t just Harry’s portrait that caught fire. She turned her eyes into one room and the drapes inside were also on fire. The smoke was drifting around her making Lily cover her mouth with her good hand.

  Lily turned back to Michael and tried to help him into a standing position, but all he did was look at her and smile.

  “We have to go,” Lily urged.

  Michael shook his head. “You need to leave. The curse is killing me and destroying the house. I’ll finally rest but you need to leave so you can live your life.”

  Tears fell down Lily’s cheeks as she tried to coax Michael into a standing position. She kept saying no repeatedly.

  Michael reached out and grasped her arm. He forced her to face him. He wiped his mouth with his hand. He leaned over and whispered into Lily’s ear. “You were my light in the darkness.”

  Lily couldn’t help herself. She knew Michael was dying along with Carlton House, and she didn’t want to accept it. She didn’t care about the fire or the smoke swirling around her. All she wanted was to escape with him.

  Lily let her despair and her anger get the best of her. She punched his chest with her good hand. “No. No. No. I won’t let you die.”

  Michael laughed lowly. He grasped her hand in his and brushed it with his lips. Lily’s shoulders slumped in response. She leaned her head on his chest and wept.

  Michael placed his hand on her hair. “If you don’t run, I will carry you down the steps myself and push you out.”

  “Michael,” Lily moaned.

  Michael then gently pushed Lily away. She coughed as the smoke thickened around them.

  Michael stood and held Lily’s hand. “Go.”

  Lily’s tears blurred her vision, but she knew Michael was right. She had to leave the house.

  Lily gave Michael’s hand one last squeeze. She studied his face, so she would remember it forever, then she turned and staggered down the stairs. She reached the foyer; the smoke stung her eyes. Her lungs burned from breathing in the smoke. The flames lit up the house in an orange glow.

  Lily stumbled to the front door. She opened and breathed in the cool night air.

  Lily turned around one last time. She saw Michael standing at the top of the stairs surrounded by the orange glow of the fire.

  He waved to her and Lily watched in horror as the flames surrounded him and he disappeared into the fire.

  Lily closed the door behind her. She didn’t have a way to call for help. Jordan had destroyed her cell phone. She stumbled through the grass and tripped in a hole in the ground.

  Lily fell to the cold earth and moaned. She’d put her bitten hand out to stop her fall.

  More pain shot up her arm and Lily turned over on her back. She forced herself to sit up.

  The fire was engulfing the house. Flames were shooting out the windows. Lily heard cracking sounds as the glass from the windows broke from the pressure. Black smoke billowed into the sky.

  Lily sat on the grass and rocked back and forth while she sobbed.

  Lily needed to gather her strength to find help and the only she could achieve that by finding the main road.

  She hauled herself
into an upright position. She turned and stumbled through the grass and prayed for another surge of adrenaline. Relief washed over her when she looked up to find the gate open.

  Lily stumbled and tripped as she rushed through the gate and ran through darkness hoping she’d make it out to the main road. She followed the asphalt underneath her barefoot, the only sounds now was her own ragged breathing.

  Lily heard the traffic moving in the distance. She came out by the mailbox. She glanced around and tried to wave to some cars. Turns out a car had already pulled over near the mailbox.

  “Miss, all you all right?” A voice called to her.

  Lily pointed breathlessly behind her. “There’s a fire.”

  “I see it. I’m on the phone with 9-1-1,” a man’s voice said.

  Lily collapsed to her knees. Pain and weakness overwhelmed her. She lay down in the sand and pine needles on the side of the road. Her vision was blurry, but she thought she heard a female voice asking her questions. Another woman was frantically giving orders to someone.

  Lily stared into the starry night and that’s all she remembered.

  Chapter 22

  Six Months Later

  Lily typed the numbers into the software for small business. The end of the tourist season had come and gone, and Lily and Francine combed through Francine’s finances for the year.

  She flexed her fingers after she had stopped typing. They still felt a little stiff from time to time. She tried to ignore the scars from Hannah’s bite.

  Francine leaned over and read the numbers. “Am I rich?”

  Lily grinned. “You’re Bill Gates.”

  Francine scoffed and gave Lily a gentle push on the shoulder. “Yeah… right…”

  “It’s been a good offseason,” Lily explained. “This along with the internet sales, you’re set for the rest of winter.”

  Francine smiled. “That’s all I needed.”

  Francine placed the newspaper on top of the keyboard and pointed to the front page. In bold letters the article read:

  The Curious Case of Michael Carlton

  “Have you read it yet?”

  Lily stared down at the newspaper out of Philadelphia. She remembered the investigative reporter hounding her for months until he finally gave up.

  Lily skimmed a few lines.

  Who was Michael Carlton? The article began.

  It questioned his finances, the family name, and gave a history of the influential Carlton family.

  The reporter questioned the official police reports and wondered what happened to the owner of the mysterious house.

  Lily’s eyes narrowed and grief choked her as she read about Jordan’s body being found inside the house. She pushed the paper when she read about herself and how she refused to give an interview.

  “Asshole,” Lily muttered.

  Francine shrugged. “Expect more of it, dear. This made big news around here and nationally.”

  “They’ll never find out the truth. Michael covered his tracks thoroughly,” Lily said.

  “It would be strange. Since the family died off, only one son,” Francine made quotation marks with her fingers, “after another with different identities but the same last name ever owned the house,” Francine pointed out. “No mothers, no cousins, uncles, aunts… no other living relatives.”

  Lily sighed. “You’re right, but they’ll never find out the whole truth, at least, not from me.”

  “I think it’ll eventually develop into an urban legend around here,” Francine said.

  Lily smiled at her friend. “You’re probably right. As if there aren’t enough of those.”

  Lily heard the little bell tinkle in the shop. She stood to attend the customer, but Francine stopped her and said she would get it.

  Lily sat back in the office chair and sighed still flexing her stiff fingers.

  She accepted Francine’s offer to help out at her antique store. Assisting her with daily chores, waiting on customers, and her bookkeeping, because Francine stated that she sucked at bookkeeping.

  Francine couldn’t pay her much, but it was enough for Lily to save and attend a few classes at the community college. She also stayed in Francine’s spare bedroom and found a wonderful friend for life.

  Francine had taken her in after the fire. When Francine saw the fire on the news, she rushed to Lily’s side while she recovered in the hospital. “I didn’t think that would happen,” Francine commented. “That woman made one nasty spell.”

  Lily had been lucky. An older state detective questioned her about the fire while she recovered in the hospital. Lily was sure she would go to jail for something.

  Detective Thaddeus Buyers sat down at Lily’s bedside, thumbing through his small notebook. He let out a breath and ran a hand over his bald head.

  Lily could tell the man didn’t miss a thing with the way his square jaw set when he questioned her.

  He asked her question after question. He asked her about her relationship with Jordan and why she lived at Carlton House.

  “I worked there as a housekeeper,” Lily said.

  “For how long?”

  “Four months.”

  “You said in your initial statement that Jordan had been stalking you?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “Tell me more about Michael Carlton.”

  Lily tried to hide her emotions when she answered. She gave the detective a watered-down version of Michael. She never mentioned Hannah.

  “Jordan bit me,” she lied.

  The detective raised an eyebrow. “The doctor said those bites are not consistent with human teeth.”

  Lily kept her eyes steady. “He bit me.”

  The detective stopped writing in his notebook and gazed at Lily. She tried to sit still but inwardly she was panicking. She tried to hide it but her body language told a different story. Lily couldn’t hide her fear any longer. She broke down crying in front of the detective.

  “You know, my grandmother had gotten dementia in her last few years,” the detective explained after handing Lily a tissue. “It was hard on my mother because she was taking care of her.”

  Lily looked up questioning why the detective was telling her this story.

  “She rambled about this rich white man she used to work for and told them outlandish stories about a woman locked in a room and the owner who was a vampire—in her own words.” Detective Byers frowned at the memory. “We did not understand where these stories came from. Curiosity got the better of me and I went to investigate the house but I didn’t stay because from the gate I saw a figure in the window on the second floor. It spooked me, and I decided I wouldn’t touch it. In my experience, sometimes things are better left alone.”

  Lily’s mouth dropped open.

  “My grandmother was ranting and raving about a curse. There was some kind of family tragedy but she said he was the best employer she’d ever had and if my aunt hadn’t died she would have stayed there until she had to be dragged out of the house in a body bag,” the detective stroked his chin and smiled at the memory. “My mother never believed a word, but my uncle confirmed she worked at that house, he just didn’t understand where those crazy stories came from. When she died, a huge bouquet arrived the day of her funeral along with all expenses paid. We never knew who did that.”

  The detective’s lips turned upwards.

  Lily grabbed a tissue and wiped her eyes, relief washing over her. “What was her name?”

  “Ramona,” the detective answered with a smile.

  Lily smiled remembering when Michael praised her.

  Lily stared at the computer while Francine spoke with the customer inside the shop.

  The fire had destroyed Carlton House. The only remains found were Jordan’s, and he had to be identified through dental records. No traces of Michael or Hannah were ever found according to Detective Byers.

  The burial mounds found in the forest because of Lily’s story were indeed animals. Some anonymous source paid for Harry’s gr
ave to be excavated and moved to a nicer cemetery.

  Lily attended the service. No one else attended the burial except her.