by Amy Cross
Great. Two minutes across the threshold, and I'm already getting freaked out.
“Did you know there are no photos of this place?” Toby asks suddenly.
I turn to him.
“Not of the inside, anyway,” he continues. “I mean, people must have taken photos, but none ever got out. I did a lot of research, but I never came across even one picture that was taken in any of the rooms. I didn't even know the full layout of the place until tonight.”
He looks around, clearly awestruck.
“And you're right,” he adds, “the temperature is very low. There's a noticeable drop once you get through the door. It's an old house, but still, that doesn't entirely explain why we're freezing our asses off in here. There have been studies that show spectral presences have an impact on their immediate area.” He takes a device from his pocket and holds it up for a moment. “It was plus five when we were sitting in the car. Then plus two just outside the door. In here, it's minus six.”
Stepping over to the doorway, I look into the next room and see an old dining table with several chairs left neatly in place. It's almost as if, even though Wetherley House has been abandoned for a while now, somebody is still expecting a family to show up for dinner.
“This place is pretty creepy,” I continue, “but not in a ghost kinda way. It's just sad.”
“She's here, you know.”
I turn to him. “Who is?”
“Mary.”
Smiling, I realize that he's actually serious.
“Can't you feel the presence?” he continues. “Can't you tell that we're not alone? That there's something in this house with us?”
“Can you feel a presence?” I ask, humoring him.
“I've been in troubled houses before,” he mutters, heading to the bottom of the stairs and looking up toward the landing, “but I've never felt a presence so fast, or so strong.”
I wait for him to continue, but he seems lost in thought.
“So why hasn't she said hello?” I ask finally.
“I guess she's waiting to see why we're here.”
He pauses, before turning to me.
“She's being cautious,” he continues. “This house has been locked up for more than a decade. In all that time, nobody's been through the door, and she's just been waiting. You can't blame her for being a little suspicious now.” He holds up the little device in his hands, and for a moment he seems to be reading something from the screen. “The electron spectrometer is showing elevated readings of five parts per thousand.”
“The what?” I ask, raising a skeptical eyebrow.
“It's real science, Rosie.”
“I never said it wasn't. I just -”
Before I can finish, a loud bump rings out from one of the nearby rooms, as if wood briefly banged against wood.
I turn and look through a nearby doorway, and Toby quickly hurries past so he can see.
“And that was a ghost, was it?” I ask, trying to ignore the faint flutter of fear in my chest. “I've never understood why ghosts do stuff like that, anyway. Is she auditioning to play percussion in an orchestra?”
I wait for a reply, but he's far too busy with his little machine. In fact, I don't think he heard me at all.
“Or was it a warning?” I continue with a faint smile. “Does she want us to leave?”
Again I wait, but again Toby seems oblivious.
“Or is she trying to sucker us in?” I add, before realizing I'm starting to creep myself out now. “Whatever. It's an old house and you said it yourself, we're the first people in here for years. It's natural that we've disturbed things a little, and that there are some noises. Right? Isn't that totally natural and logical?”
“Mary Carmichael was born here at Wetherley House,” he says as he turns away from the open doorway, keeping his eyes fixed on the device. “By all accounts, she was a sweet little kid, but her mother was this monster who tortured and abused her. I mean, you can imagine how all that crazy stuff must've destroyed Mary as she was growing up. Consistent, systematic abuse and violence.” He pauses for a moment. “They say that by the time she turned eighteen, Mary was as bad as her mother. Worse, even. Whatever she'd been like before, she'd become this kind of monster zombie cannibal psycho... thing!”
“Uh-huh?” I reply, shivering slightly. I swear, the temperature has actually dropped further over the past couple of minutes.
“She killed, you know. Mary, I mean. They say she murdered two members of her own family, and then when the police came she murdered two of their officers as well. She tore their necks out, according to the stories, and sat chewing on their guts until the other officers had no choice but to cut her throat. If you read the whole story, it's just one of the most tragic things you could ever hear. After Mary died, her mother was convicted of murder herself, and ended up hanging for what she'd done. She'd basically taken a happy, carefree child and turned her into a monster.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
I want to tell him his story sucks, but at the same time it's kind of cute that he seems to believe in all this stuff. To be honest, on the way here I was starting to think I'd been suckered into some lame chat-up routine, but now it's clear that he really, truly has brought me on a ghost hunt. Even now, he's staring intently at his little device as he slowly turns away from me.
“And do you know the craziest part of the legend?” he continues.
“I think you're going to tell me anyway.”
“They say that even today, Mary Carmichael comes and claims any child who's born within the walls of this cursed house.”
“Is that right?”
“Why do you think the house is abandoned? No-one dares live here anymore. It's not safe to sell it, it's not safe to knock it down, so it's just left here. I guess they think that if they shut the doors and keep it sealed, no-one'll ever have to deal with the truth.”
“And then someone decided to send you the key.”
“Yeah, well... Go figure, right?”
He tilts the device in his hands and aims it toward the floor.
“What the hell?” he whispers.
“No kidding,” I mutter, looking around and seeing that wallpaper is peeling away in several spots, exposing rotten-looking beams. “I'm no expert, Toby, but it looks to me like this house is ready to be bulldozed. I mean, seriously, what's the point of leaving it standing here like some kind of monument to -”
Suddenly there's a loud bump from beneath our feet. As I look down at the bare boards, I realize I felt a brief but firm vibration.
“I knew it!” Toby says excitedly. “At first I thought the readings were wrong, but they are coming from the basement!”
He stares at the device for a moment longer, before heading over to a door in the far corner of the hallway and immediately sliding a rusty bolt to one side. Pulling the door open, he leans through and looks down into the dark space beyond.
“Stairs!” he adds.
“You want to go down into the basement?” I ask, feeling just a little worried. “We're not going to be here all night, are we?”
“It's so cold through here,” he replies, holding the device up. “Wow, it's minus nine where I'm standing.”
He holds his hand out into the darkness, before taking his phone from his pocket and using the flashlight app to get a better view.
“The steps are still here,” he says after a moment. “The air is noticeably colder as soon as you reach through this doorway. Sometimes sudden temperature drops with marked delineations are associated with paranormal manifestations, and it's very clear to me that the cold spot in this house is focused in the basement.” He turns to me, and I can see the anticipation in his eyes. “Are you coming?”
“Down there?” I ask dubiously.
“Of course!”
“I think I'd rather not,” I tell him, “on account of there maybe being a badger or some other kind of wild animal down there. Or, you know, a mad hobo with a bunch of rust
y knives, some guy who doesn't wanna be disturbed while he's cutting up the corpses of his latest victims.” Damn it, I know I'm starting to sound cynical, but I can't really disguise the fact that I want to get out of here. “Toby, listen...”
“If I'm not back in ten minutes,” he replies, clearly eager to start exploring, “come down and check on me, okay?”
“Down there?”
“Don't worry, I know what I'm doing.”
He starts making his way down the rickety steps, and I can already hear wood cracking and swaying in the darkness.
Heading over to the doorway, I'm shocked by the wall of cold air. I look down into the basement, and for a moment I'm just about able to make out the back of Toby's head as he heads further and further down. The wooden steps creak for a few more seconds, and then I hear him reaching what sounds like a concrete floor at the bottom. A moment later, I see the light from his phone's screen.
“I'll be up here!” I tell him.
When he doesn't reply, I roll my eyes and head through to take a look at the rest of the house.
Rosie
This place is filthy.
Running a fingertip across a table in the kitchen, I immediately feel a layer of dust. The more I look around Wetherley House, the more I realize that the place really does seem to have been abandoned. Nothing was packed up, there was no orderly process. Instead, whoever was last here seems to have run out and locked the door, and left everything standing. There are several dead plants by the window, and as I get closer to the cupboards I realize I can smell something pretty foul. Pulling one of the doors open, I'm hit by a wall of stench, and I see rotten food.
I don't even dare open the fridge.
When I reach the window, I find that the glass is thick with grime. I guess Wetherley House was probably a pretty cool place in the old days, and it could probably be nice again if someone spent the time and money needed to do it up properly. Looking up at the ceiling, I can just about make out old beams that I guess must be hundreds and hundreds of years old, and I've got to admit that – even if this makes me seem totally old-fashioned and homely – that I could maybe see the appeal of living in a place like this. Somehow it feels like it should be someone's home.
Leaning closer to the window, I peer out through a clear patch and see a large, moonlit lawn with some kind of small forest at the far end. Now that's something I wouldn't like to have at the bottom of the garden. For a moment, I allow myself to imagine what I'd do with a house like this, and pretty much the first thing is that I'd...
No.
Wait.
I wouldn't have the forest taken down. What the hell am I thinking? As I continue to stare out the window, I realize that the forest is actually kind of beautiful, although I feel like I can hear a distant sound coming from the dark spaces between the trees. Maybe I'm letting the house influence me, but it's almost as if a voice is crying out, loud but silent at the same time. I guess I'm just letting the spooky atmosphere of this place get to me, but for a few minutes I can't help just staring at the forest and listening to what seems to be a kind of silent calling. After a moment, I realize the glass in the window seems to be vibrating slightly.
Suddenly I look down at my phone, and to my surprise I see that it's already 1am. We got to the house a little after midnight, but I must have zoned out completely. Turning, I look back toward the dark hallway, but there's no sign of Toby. He wanted me to check on him after ten minutes, but he must have been down there for more than half an hour now.
“Hey!” I call out. “Are you still in the basement?”
I wait.
Silence.
Sighing, I make my way back around the table and out into the hallway, where I see that the basement door is still wide open. Heading over, I lean through into the cold passage, but I can't see a goddamn thing. I raise my phone and use the screen to light the rickety, dangerous-looking wooden steps that lead down under the house, but there's still no sight or sound of Toby, and no hint of light down at the bottom. I only have 3% battery left after charging my phone at the service station on the way here, but I guess that'll have to do.
“Hey, Egon Spengler! What's so fascinating down there, anyway?”
Again, I wait.
Again, silence.
“Come on,” I continue, “don't make me come down there after you! It's freezing!”
No reply.
With another sigh, I grab a pot from a nearby table and set it on the floor, propping the door open. Then I start making my way down the steps, only for the first wooden board to creak and shift dramatically under my foot. I hesitate, worried that this whole goddamn staircase is going to collapse, but after a moment I tell myself that Toby made it down just fine, so I force myself to keep going even though the entire set of steps is creaking and shifting slightly. By the time I get down to the bottom, I'm glad to set foot on something solid again, even if the basement floor is kind of dusty and cracked.
Holding my phone up, I look around and see that Toby isn't here.
“What the hell?” I mutter, shivering slightly as I look back up the stairs.
I know I zoned out at the window, but that still doesn't explain why Toby would skip out on me. I'm pretty sure he'd have crept up behind me and made me jump. I guess he must have just gone up to the house's top floor, and maybe he was too wrapped up in the spookiness of the place to even notice that I was in the kitchen. Nice. Whatever, I don't fancy spending any more time down here in this cramped, low-ceilinged little room, so I turn to head back up the stairs.
And then I see the words on the far wall.
Squinting, I try to make them out, before ducking under a beam and making my way over. I was half expecting to find that the supposed words weren't words at all, that they were just a bunch of random scratches, but instead I find that the entire wall is actually covered in a series of repeated phrases that have been carved not only into the wooden sections, but even into the stones themselves.
“My name,” I whisper, as I run a fingertip across the stones and try to decipher the words, “is Mary.”
Kneeling down, I find a section where the carving is a little neater and more ordered, which makes it easier to read.
“My name is Mary,” I whisper again.
That's definitely what it says. Hundreds and hundreds of times. Maybe even a couple of thousand. Tilting my phone, I watch as the faint electric glow is cast high across the wall, revealing those same four words scratched and carved into every available surface. Spotting something a little different on the far end of the wall, I get to my feet and take a closer look, and I quickly realize that as the writing spreads across the basement, the letters seem a little less neat and clear, as if the person responsible was starting to get tired.
By the time I get to the far corner, the message has been reduced to just one word, repeated over and over again.
“Mary,” I whisper, looking along the wall and seeing that word carved into the stone, as if after a while it was the only important part of the sentence. I can't help feeling a shudder pass through my chest as I try to imagine what kind of person would spend their time down here, carving a name into the wall so often.
I guess the infamous Mary Carmichael must have been here. Even if Toby's ghost story was a load of baloney, it must have been rooted in the life of a real person. Either that, or someone came along later and did all of this, hoping to freak people out.
I guess it kind of worked.
Spotting movement in the corner, I step closer and peer at a rotten timber, and to my horror I see several plump little maggots wriggling in a section of mulchy wood.
“Gross,” I mutter. “What -”
Suddenly something bumps against my hand, knocking the phone away and sending it clattering to the floor. Startled, I turn and look, but all I see is darkness. I crouch down and fumble to find my phone, and I can't help panicking slightly for a few seconds until finally my fingers brush against the phone's side. Picking it up, I quickly
tap to light the screen and then I turn to cast the light across the basement.
There's no-one.
So what the hell just hit my hand?
Getting to my feet again, I turn and make absolutely certain that Toby isn't hiding down here, and then I look at the far corner, at the spot where the massive scrawl of carved words finally comes to an end. Stepping closer, I see that here the name Mary is barely legible at all, as if the person responsible was losing their strength. By the end, there are just several sets of seemingly random marks, some of which seem to been simple crosses.
It's almost as if this Mary girl eventually forgot how to write her name at all.
***
“Toby!” I call out as I stand in the hallway, having coming up from the freezing basement and stopped at the foot of the main staircase. “Dude, are we gonna be done here soon? I thought we were just dropping by for a few minutes?”
I wait, but there's no reply.
“This isn't an all-night thing, is it?”
Again, I wait.
“Oh God, it is, isn't it?” I mutter under my breath. “You want to stay until the sun comes up.”
He's clearly not anywhere on the ground floor, and I still refuse to believe that he'd just run off and leave me here, so I guess he has to be upstairs somewhere. I really, really don't want to go up, especially if he's hiding somewhere and planning to jump out at me. That kind of stuff gets really tiresome really fast, and I'm actually half tempted to just walk out of here right now, and just leave him to get on with all this hocus pocus rubbish.
Not that I'd actually do that, of course.
“Toby?” I call out again, this time unable to keep a hint of a whine out of my voice. “You're right, the house is creepy. Is that what you wanted to hear? I'm cold and I'm freaked out by that spooky basement, and I just want to leave. Why don't we go somewhere else, and you can tell me a load of ghost stories about this Mary Carmichael girl? I promise I'll be scared!”