Forever Ash: The Witch Child of Helmach Creek (Frost & Flame Trilogy Book 1)

by Rick Kueber

  “No, I think we should all go. That was the feeling I had when I was outside earlier at the cellar door, and I really think we should go through the cellar entry to get there. If she is still down there, well, we could step on her or something, if we climb down from here. Right?”

  Katie was right, and we all agreed. We set an infra-red video camera up pointing at the charred opening in the floor and placed a few digital recorders near the edge of the hole. Once everything was set up and running, we made our way outside and around to the cellar door. It was early evening and would be dark in an hour or so. It was definitely best to go now, and not wait until nightfall.

  The latch was rusty and stuck. Katie searched around and quickly handed a broken brick to me. I started tapping on the latch, and each tap grew stronger. I thought to myself, 'If it doesn't break free soon, it's just going to break.', but break free it did, and with a few taps at the proper angle, the latch was undone. I pulled at the door, and it opened with a creaking sound and laid all the way open to the point of almost touching the ground. As if on cue, we all turned on our LED flashlights and with a deep breath, I hunkered down and crawled inside, followed by Katie and then Jenn. I moved to my immediate left and the girls circled around to the right. We sat down in the dirt and the ash and were completely

  dumbfounded. Every word was true. Over one hundred years later, the charred remains of Ashley's leg still hung there, disconnected in the shackles. My flashlight beam scanned the ground to my left between Katie and I.

  Katie saw it first. “Oh my God!” was all she could muster up until our lights all focused on the blackened, round mass that lay there. Still mostly covered in the gray and black ash of burned tissue was the skull, separated from a pile of ashes and charred wood and the burnt and broken pieces and bones that were once a vibrant nine year old child.

  We were overtaken with excitement, and fear, and grief. Our heads swam, and our stomachs turned. Though we didn't know it at the time, we later would discover that we all had the same experience. Our pinnacle of not only horror and fear, but of understanding.

  It was still daylight outside, our flashlights were turned on, but everything went black, and silent. Each of us felt utterly alone, and for me, it was one of the worst feelings I have ever had. The phantasm we each had may have been identical according to our recants, and the following passages describe them as closely as we can recall though it is written from my point of view.

  CHAPTER 11 BURNED

  When the light slowly began to fade back into existence, my head pounded, the dim light danced and hurt my eyes, but I opened them just the same. When everything came into focus, I was confused for a moment. I was upstairs again, alone...and the room was on fire. The awful truth shook me to my senses, I was experiencing the same dream as I had before. Standing inside of the ring of fire, I raised my hands to see they were the hands of a child, the hands of Ashley Sue.

  The heat became over bearing as the flames closed in on me. I could see the people standing in the distance through the window in the backdoor. The pain grew with every second, as did my fear of what was to come, knowing no one was coming to help. I could hear the ever present snaps and pops of the hardwood floor. The inferno was concentrated just around me, but its intensity was overwhelming. The pungent smell of my hair burning caused a sickening feeling in my stomach, and I could see and feel my reddened skin beginning to blister. I knew I would pass out from the pain soon, which I longed for.

  I lunged forward to escape the torment and hell fire that surrounded me, but to no avail. I lunged but the leg irons around my ankle only caused me to fall face first into the flames before me. The nightgown I was wearing burst into flames and I tried to pull or rip it off with my burnt and blistered hands, but it burned to ashes faster than I could remove it. The feeling in my hands was not the only unimaginable pain I was experiencing. My feet and legs were literally on fire, and the rest of my body had gone from being blistered to dry and cracking, like a beef roast that had been baked on a temperature far too high. My skin was splitting open exposing the raw flesh and boiling blood that oozed from the cracks. Then perhaps the most terrifying, and most painful thing began. The flesh of my face began to cook until it began to split open like a hotdog that was overcooked in a microwave, but it didn't end there. The thin skin of my eyelids began to shrink and split. The skin and flesh of my lips, nose, and eyelids began to curl back in the flames. I could feel my eyes cooking in their sockets, and my brain boiling inside of my skull.

  Two things crossed my mind; first, this can't be happening, I should have passed out and be dead long before now... and second, this much torment and torture would surely cause a hatred that only one who had experienced it could understand. The flames engulfed me and the heat was so concentrated that the muscles of my legs were burning to a charred crisp in some areas, and in other places… well, let’s just say 'so tender it falls off the bone' had a whole new morbid meaning to me.

  I collapsed. When my body hit the floor, the floor itself gave way beneath me. I fell to the cellar floor about four feet below, but the chain did not reach the floor. Its short length caused my leg to abruptly stop with a snap and my upper body and head slammed into the dirt floor below, along with the cinders, and ash and burning embers of the wooden floor.

  Then as if by some supernatural force, a shadow came over me, and even the flames lost their light. They not only lost their light, but they went out completely. I laid there face down, my body contorted in such an inhuman way, and my leg still caught in the irons two feet off of the ground. I cannot fathom how my consciousness remained. My body was a mass of charred flesh and bubbling blood and bodily fluids only oozed slightly, as most had evaporated, and been 'cooked' out of me. The pain would not end and seemed to only worsen with each passing second. I sobbed in my mind, for I could no longer move my body.

  A realization came over me at that point, and there were truths I could not deny. I could feel pain. Though I knew I was too badly burnt, I could see. I also knew that during the horror of the experience I could remember my ears burning off of my head, and feeling my eardrums burst, yet somehow I could hear...everything. I...was...dead. I closed my 'mind’s eye' and let everything go dark.

  The pain began to subside quickly, and with a gasp, like I had come up from nearly drowning and broken the surface of a still lake, I awoke. It was pitch black where ever I was and my face was covered in tears of pain and sadness. I looked and felt around myself frantically. I was alive, and not burned at all, or maybe I really was dead. Could this be what everyone goes through when they died? The thought chilled me and still frightens me to this day.

  Groggily, I began to come to. Jennifer and Katie sat staring at me in the faint glow of the evening that filtered down through the hellish hole in the floor. It seemed silently surreal, as Jennifer and Katie's stares shifted away from me.

  Jenn leaned back on one hand and felt around for her light with the other. The two women were looking to my right now, searching into the blackness that filled that place beyond the opening overhead. Jennifer lifted her flashlight, pointed it in the direction of her stare and pushed the button with a click. I am not proud of the fact, but I jumped and would have screamed, but I was frightened beyond the ability to make a sound. A large black shadowy cloud of vaporous mist swirled before us and disappeared, revealing the child.

  “I am quite sorry, but please understand, I had to show you. How would you ever understand my feelings, my anger and rage, the loneliness and betrayal I felt, that I sometimes still feel. I never meant to hurt or scare anyone. I have been here for a very long time, and I don't understand how this all works exactly, but the darkness of my emotions made me believe that you all had to see and feel exactly what I did.”

  Ashley spoke to us as if she were just another person in the room, and as ridiculously unbelievable as it was, it was as real as the paper on which I now write about it. For me this was the first kind encounter I had had with the burning gi
rl, and I began to understand how Jenn and Katie had found compassion for her.

  I was beginning to think her 'dark emotions' actually had a presence of their own. A shadow demon, perhaps, and this was another subject for the team to research.

  “We want to help you find peace.” I said, still in shock.

  Katie followed up with, “What can we do for you Ashley?” The little ghost girl wiped her eyes and said, “There are a few things that would truly make me happy, but I don't know if that will give me the peace you speak of.”

  “We don't know for sure either Ash, but you just tell us what they are and we will do our best to help.” Jenn's response was honest and heartfelt, though I am sure we were all still in shock from our experience. Part of me wanted to label it a vision, or mass hallucination, but those rarely include anything but visual and audible components. The pain we felt was real.

  Ash began to speak again. “First, I want to find my parents. I know they have long been dead, but I have never known my mother, though I desperately want to, and the man who was my father, still has a penance to pay.”

  “Your father may have died just before he made it home to you. We believe he wanted to make amends and may have passed away just mere feet before he reached the house. I have found remains in the front of the house, and I think they may be your father. I thought maybe we could give him, and you, a proper burial.” It was so odd, and awkward for me to be speaking to someone about burying their remains. “I think, if you agree, that we should let your descendants, your family, know... and let them take part in the actual burials.”

  “I found your mother's burial site and headstone out in an area behind the old barn. There is plenty of room in the clearing. Maybe they will want to lay you and your father's remains to rest there, beside hers.” Jenn said in such a low solemn tone, and I understood, this was like making preparation for a friend or family member who was dying. It was a sorrowful moment for us all.

  But, Ashley spoke up saying, “I have waited over a hundred years to be with her, if I must wait a little longer, I certainly shall.” She paused a moment looking down, and continued, “I do not want my father to rest next to my mother and I. He doesn't deserve to rest at all.”

  “Secondly,” she drew a deep spectral breath, “I have been lonely for so long. I have existed in this house forever burning, forever ashen, forever alone… only this dark shadowy feeling of hatred to keep me company. Even when I was alive, I was unaccompanied. I have truly enjoyed interacting with you-all these past weeks. I have never known the feeling of friendship. If I could have a second wish, I would wish for friends...friends like you who truly care and no matter how horrid a thing I have put you through, you have not judged me. I wish for friends like that.”

  Katie sobbed as the tears streamed down her face. “I can speak for us all,” she sniffled and wiped her face on her sleeve, “We will always be here for you Ash, and we will always be your friends.”

  This choked Jenn and I up as well, to the point we could not even speak, so Ashley Sue did. “Thank you all for showing me the true meaning of love and friendship. You have become family to me”

  When I had finally collected myself, I questioned Ash. “What other wishes do you have?” “It is nothing, only the silly wish of a child. I shall soon have everything I could ever want thanks to you three.” and with that she turned and faded away into the darkness. The light of the evening and the flashlight dimmed until we were again in complete and utter darkness.

  I reached out in the blackness that surrounded me and grasped at the dirt that lay beneath me. Miraculously, my hand came across my flashlight and I snatched it up and quickly turned it on, half afraid of what the light would reveal. I found Katie and Jenn awakening from their dream states even more startled than I was. Perhaps it was the light that I was shining around that scared or confused them. We all sat in silence for a few moments, red eyed and teary. Why the hell had we come here? This is one of those moments a person will never 'un-experience' and would leave us all with a memory and fear of death, wondering what form it may take for each of us.

  We found our way out of the cellar, covered in dirt and ash and salty tears. I closed and latched the door behind us and for levity's sake said, “Remind me to get some W-D 40.” which caused me, and the girls, to smile.

  It was night time, and I wondered how late it really was. I had no real idea how long we had spent in the cellar, so I asked Katie since she was the only one of us who actually still wore a watch.

  “It's, wow...it's nearly eight o'clock. We lost several hours down there.”

  Jenn winked and gave the perfect response. “Yeah, but look at what we gained.” “Okay, I'm freezing! Can we head back inside and out of this wind for a bit?” Katie said wrapping her arms around herself.

  It was a notably cold spring evening, the kind that makes you yearn for the warmth of summer, and leaves your nose and fingertips chilled long after returning to the warmth of home. Once back inside the house we stood in silence for a long while, coming to terms with the events of the day. It was growing colder by the minute and I could see the breath billowing like smoke from Jennifer’s lips in the dim, pale green light of the K-II meter as she spoke.

  “Did you hear that?” she whispered as if telling a secret no one was to ever hear. I paused for a moment and replied in a more direct whisper, “No.”. I did not hear anything in the unnerving silence of the abandoned Helmach home.

  Our eyes turned simultaneously to Katie who stood shivering across from us. I think we both wondered if the noise Jennifer had heard was Katie’s uncontrollable shaking.

  My mouth opened slowly as I instinctively leaned towards Katie and the very moment I was about to speak, or more correctly poke fun at her for not dressing warm enough, my eyes grew open wide, and I stared for what seemed minutes at Katie, and more so at her shadow which now began to grow and move to one side, her left side. The dim lighting from the equipment hadn’t moved to cause a change in the shadow, and as my eyes strained to see in the darkness, I immediately noticed that Katie had stopped shivering, but a look of dread had overtaken the expression on her face.

  I could no longer see Katie’s breath at all. The shadow grew and seemed to move. A few loose strands of hair that laid still against her face in the darkness now appeared to lift lightly as they might when the heat from an oven slightly moves ones hair while opening the oven door to check the doneness of a pizza.

  Her eyes shifted to the extreme left as if to look behind herself without turning her head. Katie’s arm dropped to her side, and almost in prefect timing, her digital recorder hit the floor, followed immediately by her knees. She swayed as if sudden nausea had struck her and left her less than powerless. It was that feeling of helplessness one feels when sickness has you curled up on the bathroom floor unable to move as everything else around you sways and spins uncontrollably.

  Before Jennifer or I could rush to see if she was okay, a shrill screech, some cross between the scream of an infant and the cry of a large feline, caused us to shudder and freeze where we stood.

  Suddenly all three of the LED flashlights we had placed in various locations in the room lit up. Much in the way a dark house becomes light when the electricity suddenly is restored after a power outage, the room immediately lost its ominous, and oppressive overtones as quickly as they had appeared. We stepped quickly to Katie’s side. Much to our astonishment, she turned her face upwards revealing a smile and in a soft spoken voice simply stated, “Ashley Sue Helmach! You know we will never forget you and thanks for warming me up, but remember, you made us a promise, a truce. Play nice! “

  Jennifer quickly followed up with, “Ugh!... Uh…., we didn’t find that funny at all,” speaking in a rather loud voice and looking around the room as if she were going to be able to visibly see Ashley again, and shoot her a look of displeasure.

  The silence was broken. Broken? Okay, Jennifer had smashed it, shattered the fragments and the stomped on them for g
ood measure. I made my best attempt to refrain, but I chuckled out loud for a brief second, and was shot down with scowls. The glaring eyes of two dark haired, deathly serious women, pierced my soul ever so swiftly.

  “Hahahahahahahahaha!!!” they laughed in unison at me. I suppose the look on my face must have been priceless. As we helped Katie to her feet, my thoughts became audible, “I don’t suppose there is going to be any more activity here other than our trickster paying us an unexpected visit. Let’s wrap things up and get the van loaded so we can get back home.”

  Jennifer didn’t miss a beat in her offering, “I'll go warm up the van!” Katie smiled her reassuring smile and said, “Like you always say Rick, 'They can’t all be genuinely haunted', and besides, I am so ready for sleep!”

  “Really... did you seriously just say that?” I smiled back knowing I probably deserved that comment. I don't think I will ever be quick to jump on the 'It's haunted bandwagon' again, but I was in no hurry to have another experience like this anytime soon either.

  As we turned to go our separate ways and begin collecting our equipment and cameras, the room went suddenly black. Not even the lights from the equipment seemed to be working. A chill swept up my spine and the hair on my neck and arms stood on end. Something was wrong, terribly wrong, and I didn’t believe, in fact I somehow knew in my bones, that Ash had played no part in this. That in itself struck me with a fear I had never known. Perhaps the 'Darkness” Ash mentioned is behind this latest trickery.

  I reached into my pocket, pulled out the yellow Bic lighter that I had always carried as my ‘just in case’ caveman flashlight, and pressing my thumb to the flint wheel, struck it.

  While my eyes adjusted and scanned the room, I blurted out, “What the hell was that Jenn?...” A few moments passed when Katie’s voice cracked “Jenn? Where did you go? Come on now! I am ready to get out of here, soooo... joke’s over. Stop kidding around.”