The Ghosts and Hauntings Collection

by Cat Knight

  That was a huge step. She waved the torch, and there it was—the access panel. It was some feet away, and she had to move along a joist to view it closely. One hand on a rafter, the torch in the other, she moved slowly along the three-inch-wide joist. She shined the light down on the panel, and she didn’t see anything unusual. No signs that it had been moved in — forever.

  Even as she stared, the torch weakened., the batteries were dying. There was no way in hell that wanted to be in the attic without a torch, but she had no choice, she needed to hang around long enough to take a very close look at the panel.

  As carefully as she could, she lowered herself to her knees, her feet on the joist behind her. One hand held the torch; the other was on the joist. She leaned forward, and she wondered if earning a Sherlock Holmes medal was worth this kind of work. The fading light revealed… Nothing.

  If Paul or someone else had made the trip from room to room last night, there would be evidence, something. Balancing on the joists, she reached down and ran her finger along the panel.

  Dust. Thick, old dust. For a moment, she couldn’t believe it. She had gone to all this trouble to find the way in, only to learn that the panel hadn’t been disturbed. She wanted to scream.

  She didn’t need to. The BELLOW came from below, and it was followed by a crash.

  Chapter Fourteen

  She jumped at the bellow, and without a hand on the joist, she tumbled over. For the second time that day, she tried to catch herself. Her hand landed on the panel, and she managed to keep from ramming headfirst into a joist. But she couldn’t keep from falling to the side, and in a moment, she found herself sitting on the ceiling of the room below, stuck between two joists.

  She had managed to hang onto the torch, but that gave little comfort. She sat there, not quite sure what to do. She was pretty sure she was wedged between the joists, and that meant she would have to work to get out. With her damaged wrists, she wasn’t sure she was strong enough to push herself up and out.

  Below her, she heard a moan, and she was certain the moan came from Jeff. If he was painting below her, had she found the right room to begin with? She sat, her hands on the joists, hoping she didn’t fall through and now discouraged because she hadn’t found the room she wanted.

  All the work and all the pain had been for nothing. She hadn’t learned what she needed to know.

  She raised one arm and noticed the scrape. It stung, and she knew it would produce an ugly welt.

  Just what she needed. She looked out over the dim shapes in the attic and thought this would be a perfect setting for a horror movie. She could almost see the evil clown dancing nimbly along the wood paths, singing some inane jingle as he slashed the air with a wicked knife. She could almost see it. Then, her torch died. She bit her lip. In a way, losing the torch was a good thing. She laid it down and gained the use of that hand. Now, all she had to do was push her way out of the joists and get back to the path. Simple. Not easy.

  The laugh was high and lilting, and it chilled Alison the bone. It reminded her that the light and airy often hid the ugly. One of her friends had once told her that if evil looked like evil, no one would ever sin.

  “Who’s there?” Alison asked.

  Laugh.

  The laugh certainly didn’t sound like a murderous clown, but it didn’t sound exactly friendly either.

  “Who’s there?” she repeated.

  Nothing. No laugh, no words, nothing.

  Taking a deep breath, Alison ignored the pain in her wrists and pushed hard on the joists. For a moment, she didn’t move, and then, she slid out from between the joists. She stopped right there as she tried to figure out how she was going to manage the rest.

  She used one foot to push and she twisted until she was sitting on a joist. Then, she paused. She felt as if she had fallen down a raft of steps. Her hips and wrists ached, and her arms stung. She had no idea how badly she was hurt, but it was something that she was still able to move.

  The groan came from below, reminding Alison that someone else was hurt.

  “PAUL! ALISON!”

  Jeff’s voice included a level of pain that stirred Alison. She scooted along the joist until she was on a wood path. Then, she crawled to the door. She stood as she let herself out. The stairs were tricky since her hip hurt, but she managed.

  “PAUL! ALISON!”

  Alison limped down the hall even as Paul ran past without a word. For some reason, that bothered her. Hadn’t he seen her limping? Alison followed Paul down the hall and watched as he dashed into the room Jeff was painting. By the time Alison reached the door, Paul was already helping Jeff to his feet.

  “Call emergency,” Paul said.

  “What’s the problem?” Alison asked.

  Paul nodded at Jeff’s arm, which looked decidedly injured. Even Alison could tell that. With a nod, she turned and limped away.

  Alison found her phone in her office and dialled for emergency service. She didn’t have to say much—address and problem. The person on the other end of the connection promised a prompt response.

  She found Jeff and Paul in the kitchen where Paul tapped some pills from the uncapped bottle. Jeff sat at the table, moaning. Paul opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of water which he handed to Alison. She uncapped it as Paul fed Jeff a pill. She added some water, and he swallowed.

  Paul added two more pills. Alison looked at Jeff whose pale face said all she needed to know.

  “What happened?” Alison asked.

  “Someone shook the ladder,” Jeff said through clenched teeth.

  “What?”

  “Maybe I was a step too high, but I was doing fine until someone shook the ladder. I couldn’t keep my balance.”

  “I don’t see how that could happen,” she said. “I was in the attic, and Paul, well Paul was in the kitchen, wasn’t he?”

  “It wasn’t Paul.”

  “Well, it wasn’t me either. As I said, I was in the attic.”

  She waited for Jeff to ask what she was doing in the attic, but he didn’t. He kept his eyes shut and panted. “We three are the only ones in the house,” Alison said. “Are you sure?”

  Jeff nodded. “I know when someone tips a ladder.”

  Alison stood and started limping out toward the doorway.

  “Where are you going?” Paul asked.

  She showed Paul her scraped arm. “Shower. I need to clean this.”

  “How did that happen?” Paul asked.

  “I fell in the attic.”

  “There’s an attic?”

  Alison rolled her eyes. With a wave, she started away. Even as she limped, she wondered about what Jeff had said. Was there someone else inside the house? That didn’t make sense. Certainly, one of them would have seen a stranger. And it wasn’t as if there were secret passages. While someone might have used the attic move from bedroom to bedroom, there was no way to secretly move from room to room on the other floors. Jeff had to be mistaken. As she walked to the servants’ quarters, she remembered the icy cold that had paralyzed her. She remembered the laugh. She remembered Paul’s wallet appearing on her bureau. What if those things were the doings of something other than human?

  Ghost? Alison didn’t want to consider something supernatural, but didn’t a ghost fit the facts? Evil spirit?

  It would seem evil if it shook Jeff’s ladder. It would seem evil if it tried to freeze her to death. With sudden swiftness, Alison accepted the facts. There was a ghost in the manor. But whose ghost? She didn’t know of any deaths inside the manor except for the old Earl. According to everything she knew, he wasn’t a particularly evil or angry man. Who then?

  Or was it some spirit from the outside who had found a convenient place to haunt?

  That was a disturbing thought, because if it as some random spirit, how was she to get rid of it? And she had to get rid of it. Her livelihood depended on the venture working.

  The hot water stung her arm, making her bite her lip. But she had to scrub it with
soap. How many horror stories had she heard about wounds that became infected? Too many. A little pain now was much better than a lot of pain later. She rinsed her arm and thought again about a ghost. Whose ghost?

  She yelped as the water suddenly turned icy cold. She backed away from the spray, wondering who had fiddled with the controls.

  “Who’s there?” she asked.

  Laugh.

  Alison knew the laugh. She reached through the cold and turned up the hot water.

  Which suddenly seemed scalding hot. What?

  Laugh.

  “Who are you?” Alison asked. “What do you want?”

  Steam rose from the hot water, and Alison knew her soothing shower was over. Someone or something wasn’t about to let her enjoy a relaxing shower. She reached around the spray to turn off the water. Which didn’t stop.

  Fear, abject fear raced through her. Why wouldn’t the water shut off? What was going on? She tightened the handles still more, and it didn’t do any good—until it did. The water stopped flowing in an instant, which wasn’t right either. She climbed out of the shower quickly, before the water could come back on without her intervention.

  Laugh.

  She dried off and dressed in clean clothes, and for the first time wondered about Jeff and Paul. She hadn’t heard any sirens, and Paul hadn’t come up to tell her they were leaving. Yet, she was pretty sure that Paul had gone with Jeff. That made sense. She wasn’t hurt. She could fend for herself. She ran a brush through her hair and left the quarters. She needed her phone.

  A blast of cold air met her as she entered her office. She shivered, but she didn’t let the cold distract her. Grabbing her phone, she left the office and the house. Outside, she called Willard.

  “How did the old Earl die?” Alison asked when Willard answered the phone.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “He had a heart attack.”

  “And he was alone?”

  “Totally. He wasn’t found for some days.”

  “Did anyone else die in the manor?”

  “Not that I ever heard of.”

  “Did anyone complain of sudden blasts of cold or laughter or voices?”

  “What are you hinting at?”

  “What did you hear about the house being haunted exactly?”

  Alison waited for Willard to say something.

  “Yes,” he said. “As I told you, I’ve heard rumours, but it’s old. Every old castle in England is haunted.”

  “So, if the manor has a ghost, is it the Earl or someone else?”

  “I don’t know. But maybe it’s not a ghost at all, just events that can’t be explained.”

  “Something tried to kill Jeff who was painting a room.”

  “That’s bonkers. Was he hurt?”

  “Broken arm.”

  There was a long pause before Willard spoke again. “There was a girl, a maid, I think. She disappeared the day the Earl died.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because, every once in a while, some reporter writes a story about her. You know, one of those - whatever happened to—”

  “She was never seen again?”

  “Not as far I know.”

  The connection died, and Alison turned back to the manor. She hesitated outside the door but ploughed through with her teeth clenched. She was ready for the cold and the laugh. She wasn’t ready for what she found in the kitchen.

  The fridge stood open, its contents spread across the floor. One of the cabinets had been opened, and the shards of plates, cups, saucers, and glasses littered the floor. The room looked as if a hurricane had ploughed through. Alison saw the destruction and fought the fear that wound like a snake around her gut. No, she wasn’t going to be afraid. She was going to feed her anger.

  “I don’t know who you are, or why you’re doing this, but I swear by all that’s holy that I’m going to find you and get you gone from this house!”

  Laugh.

  Alison stared. The laugh didn’t sound scared at all. It taunted her.

  And then the knife flew.

  She saw it coming, and she was able to duck out of the path of the large, sharp knife. Alison suddenly understood that whatever was in the house was not benevolent. She looked for a second knife even as a cabinet door opened and a plate spun toward her like a flying disc. She dodged that also and backed away.

  The kitchen was not the place to do battle with whatever she faced. There were too many objects, sharp objects like forks and knives that could cause irreparable harm.

  “You haven’t won,” she called out. “I’m coming back.”

  A rolling pin sailed through the air, and she skipped to one side. Then, she was out the door even as something shattered inside the kitchen.

  Fear leaped into her head. Cold, shivering fear grabbed her brain. She looked around the house and understood that there were a thousand items, some precious, that might be hurled about like so much trash. The entire manor might be reduced to something akin to rubble. And if the entity could turn on the stove, the place could burn to the ground. Not only was her business in jeopardy, but her life was too.

  She hurried to the front door. Even as a ROAR chased her. She was running away from something huge, like a wave, like a pounding tidal wave that would snare her and slam her into the wall.

  There was a malevolence in the sound, a wish to get even.

  Whatever had the power to throw knives also wanted the knives to stick. Alison’s blood was not outside the realm of possibility.

  Why did it hate her?

  As she grabbed the door knob, a hand grabbed her shoulder.

  Alison SCREAMED.

  She spun to find no one there.

  And she didn’t wait. She jerked open the door and ran into the gathering gloom. As she turned back, the door slammed shut with a violence she could scarcely believe. That was when she discovered she was still holding her phone… and it was chirping.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “No, I can’t pick you up,” Alison said into the phone.

  “Why not? They’re keeping Jeff overnight because they found a lump on his head. So, you have to pick me up.”

  “I can’t. I don’t have my keys.”

  “Where are they?”

  “In the manor.”

  “And, where are you?”

  “Outside.”

  “I don’t understand. Just walk inside and— “

  “I can’t get them! Get a taxi and come out!”

  She killed the connection and stared at the house. She understood why Paul was exasperated.

  How hard could it be to walk into the house and retrieve her purse and her car keys? Simple, right? Not with that thing inside. She wasn’t about to try the knife test again.

  She sat on the grass in front of the house and considered where she stood. She didn’t like her status. This didn’t feel like winning. She hadn’t moved when the taxi disgorged Paul. He glared as he paid the bill.

  “What the bloody hell is going on?” Paul demanded.

  “I want you to see something before you explode,” she said. “Come with me.”

  Alison felt braver with Paul by her side. She didn’t think the spirit would attack the both of them. Still, she didn’t charge in. She stuck her head past the door and waited a moment.

  “What’s the problem?” Paul asked.

  “I’m being cautious.” Alison led Paul into the house and straight to the kitchen. She hesitated at the door. If knives were flying, she didn’t want to be skewered. Impatient, Paul pushed past her.

  “Wait,” she warned.

  Too late, she followed him into the kitchen.

  “What have you been doing, Alison?” Paul asked.

  Alison looked around the room and was amazed. Everything that had been thrown at her was arranged on the table. Knives, pots, pans, they sat mute and inanimate, hardly the stuff of her memory. And the shards of the plates and cups and bowls had been swept into a corner. Not picked up but certainly not
littering the floor.

  “This is… this is… not me.”

  He smirked. “You expect me to believe that someone else did this?

  To tell you the truth, I don’t think I can work in a place like this or with someone like you. I take a friend to hospital, and you throw a fit, breaking half the china.”

  “I didn’t break anything, and I didn’t sweep up anything. You have to believe that.”

  “This is not going to work.”

  She watched as he left the kitchen. Then, she looked around, half daring the spirit to do something, anything that would prove Alison was not losing her mind. In the master bedroom, Alison found Paul gathering his things, which wasn’t easy with one hand.

  “You’re leaving?” she asked.

  “I would think that obvious,” Paul said. “You’re unstable, Alison. I suggest you get help.”

  “I am not unstable.”

  He zipped tight the bag. “Pinching my wallet was one thing. I got that back. Sabotaging my kitchen cannot be forgiven.” He stopped and half smiled. “Good luck, and I mean that.”

  She watched as he left, and a part of her wanted to stop him. But she knew that was what he wanted. He wanted her to beg and promise and make him seem like the linchpin in her business. No, she wasn’t going to do that. She could find another chef, even another boyfriend. But not before she rid the manor of the ghost that mocked her.

  Laugh. It was a snicker really, and it angered Alison beyond what she thought she could stand. It also scared her. She looked from side to side, checking to see if anything was flying at her.

  “I don’t know who you were, or why you’re making a mess of things. But I’m going to find out, and when I do, I’m getting rid of you.”

  She waited for a reply. Nothing happened.

  She retreated to the parlour and opened up her laptop. A quick Internet search found the story of the missing girl.

  Sure enough, the girl disappeared the same day the Earl died. And according to the stories, no one knew what happened to Shelly Redkin.

  In one story, they gave the name of Shelly’s mother — Estelle. Alison knew it was a long shot. There was no obvious connection between the missing girl and the manor, but what else did she have? Alison left the manor, purse in hand. She phoned even as she walked to her car. No one answered. She considered leaving a message but decided against it. She didn’t want to sound like some media type looking into an old disappearance. Instead, she drove to the address and knocked on the door of a small house on a street of small houses.