by Blake Croft
Ian picked up a stone and threw it at Dougald’s retreating back. Unknown rage filled him, funneling out of him like a stream. A strange buzzing noise droned on in his ears and he felt like he was going mad with an unknown pull at his navel.
He hurried home to look for the small photo album they kept in the living room. He flipped through the pictures looking for his daughter’s familiar face, but he found nothing. It was as if she had never existed.
Chapter Seven
Diana felt the string around her navel loosen.
Ian had paid for his wish with his daughter and his sanity. Diana was free. She hadn’t wanted to lure Ian into this hell, and now she felt guilty. But she had to do it. She wanted out, and she would do anything to escape this great grey limbo.
Her spirit was lighter suddenly and she was rising up into the ether. She was finally free.
The grey mist lifted. It revealed a darkness so complete it made her tremble with fear. It was so pitch black she wasn’t sure of how far the space around her stretched. Was it just limited to her field of vision or was it an endless expanse that would devour her? Where was the crowd that had laughed so merrily?
The air shifted around her and crackled with electricity.
“Welcome, Miss.”
Diana spun around in the dark, trying to locate the source of the voice. Her body shook. The dark pressed down on her corneas.
She saw the small back of the boy, Brian. A nervous laugh escaped her lips.
“I was afraid I’d ended up someplace else.” Diana placed a hand on the boy’s shoulder. He turned.
Diana screamed.
The boy’s face was drained of all color. His ruffled shirt was torn, his chest cleaved open to reveal bloody lungs punctured with shards of bone.
“You’re in the right place, Miss.”
“Have you welcomed our newest member, Brian?” The beautiful woman emerged from the dark, her dress bloody from the waist down. Strings of her innards trailed down along her feet.
Diana’s heart was in her throat. She screamed and hurtled back. Her foot hit something prone beneath her and she fell. She screamed thinking she would fall into space, but she landed on her hips, suspended in the darkness.
An emaciated man crawled towards her, his broken-toothed grin slashed from ear to ear. He had no legs. “Welcome, Diana.”
More people materialized from the dark, each more ghastly than the next. An Asian man holding his broken legs; a soldier in foreign uniform she didn’t recognize, his eyes gaping holes; a young woman with her dress drenched in blood holding the rotting corpse of a baby.
They crowded around her, their leering face coming closer and closer. Her breath thinned to a sharp blade of knife in her chest, slashing at her lungs. Her own breath had turned on her. She jerked her head around trying to find an opening in the sea of faces, a way to escape but there was no way out.
Amidst the faces was the wizened crone’s face, the old gypsy who had come to her backdoor, eaten her food and then cursed her with the gift of the box.
“You bitch!” Diana screamed into the timeless void. “What did I ever do to you?”
“None of us ever did anything to deserve this,” the old gypsy cackled. Diana stared at the blood and gore around her, her left eye twitching. “Yes, we’re in our true forms here. The mist hides our scars, makes us as pretty as we were in our lives to entice those trapped there. This is who we really are, warts and all.” The gypsy laughed. “We are stuck here, and we seek company.”
“You sick witch. I would never harm someone like you have harmed my family,” Diana cried.
“But you have.” The woman spread her hands. “Who was that man you persuaded to find the box?”
She felt guilt slice across her chest. “I had no choice. You know this! You told me to do it!”
“Oh, don’t be sad, dearie.” The woman rubbed her hands. “You are not alone here.”
She pointed to a cluster of burnt figures.
A loud wail rent the air.
Diana froze.
No… this can’t be… no… It’s impossible…. Not him!
The mass of burnt figures began to writhe as someone pushed their way out and came out of the mass. He was unrecognizable, but Diana knew him like she knew the shape of her own hands.
“Ma! Please, save me Ma!” Peter pleaded.
Diana screamed and ran, but her feet were like lead. She stumbled and fell, overcome with anguish. Her poor, sweet boy… she had condemned him to eternal damnation. There was just one hope in her ice-cold heart that Steven had made it out.
With that one last hope, she gave herself up to the burning embrace of her son.
Epilogue
Bray Cottage, Marywell Village
12th October 1976
The fire singed his hand. Steven yelped and sucked on his burnt fingers.
He stared at the box in the midst of the roaring flames and then at the clock on the mantelpiece. It had been almost an hour since he had thrown it in the fire. It should have been ashes by now, but it had hardly caught.
Sirens wailed in the distance. His breathing became labored, and pressure built in his chest. He stuck his hands in the fire and pulled the box out. Crying softly, he held the box in trembling fingers. His skin was red and raw. The hair on the back of his hand had burnt down to a nothing.
The box looked brand new. The fire hadn’t touched it.
Screaming in rage Steven threw the box across the room where it hit a framed picture of Ian and Clara. Broken glass littered the wooden floor.
The sirens were coming closer.
Steven grabbed the box, ignoring the crunch of glass under his cloth slippers, and put it inside the pockets of his hospital gown. He rushed out the front door of Ian’s cottage, grabbed the shovel resting against the garden gate and got inside the car. It was a little after 10pm. The entire village was asleep.
He kept the headlights off and started the engine.
“Please… Please let me go, Steven.”
Steven startled. He looked in the rearview mirror. He had forgotten all about the doctor from the mad house.
The man was lean and pale. Blood stained his shirt collar where Steven had bitten him.
“I believe you. You’re not mad. I was just doing my job. Please let me go. I won’t report you to the authorities.” The doctor shifted, but he couldn’t loosen the straitjacket and seat belt Steven had used to tie him up to the car.
“No!” Steven growled reversing down the dirt road. He had not taken his medications at the hospital, and he kept a clear mind despite the doctor’s opinion. He left the headlights off. The crescent moon provided enough light to guide him. “You don’t understand. I need to do this. When I heard you talk with your colleagues about Ian going insane, I knew it was the box. But it’s not a mere box. It’s… She’s a she-demon. She can’t be left lying about. She’ll not rest till she’s ruined all our lives.”
“She… Steven your wife…”
“You said it yourself. You told the officers Ian was at the mad house. This cursed box ruined him. Took his daughter away!”
He tore down the road. He could see the dark edges of the woods up ahead. Steven put his foot down on the accelerator.
“What are you going to do with me?” the doctor whimpered. “If you hurt me they will send you away for life.”
Steven looked back at the trembling doctor.
The doctor’s eyes widened. He stared beyond Steven’s face and screamed.
Steven whirled his head around.
A large tree rushed towards the car.
Steven hit the brakes. The car screeched to a stop inches away from the trunk.
The doctor began to sob. Steven looked at the bulge in his pocket. He could tell she was pleased.
Steven stepped out into the cold night. He opened the back door, unbuckled the seatbelt and pulled the doctor out. The doctor could hardly stand, but Steven pushed him along the dirt road till he started to run and escape.
The dark silhouette of the town was far in the distance. The bright red lights of the police cars pulsed somewhere in its streets.
Time was running out.
Steven checked the box in his pocket. “This ends now!” He ran back to the stolen car and drove deeper into the foggy forest. He had to bury her to be sure nobody ever found her…
~ o ~ o ~
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1995. On Halloween night, Scott just wants to go trick-or-treating, but his older brother has other plans. He is having a party in an abandoned house on the wrong side of town, and he insists Scott remains outside.
As the drinks flow so do the stories, until one of them starts to sound too familiar… and a night of fun turns into a night of terror.
Blake Croft
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The Haunting of the Creole House (excerpt)
Summary
A move for a better future becomes a descent into hell. Something dark lurks in the Creole House, and it is waiting for the newly arrived family...
Richard and Abbie Coltrane, with their two boys, move to a Creole house for a well deserved break. The beach house looks charming at first, but strange things keep happening to the boys.
Richard Coltrane is desperate for money. He is an author who had some success, but it has been years since he had a major hit, and his finances are hurting. Hoping to turn things around, he picks up his family and takes them to a summer writing retreat in Louisiana.
Abbie, his wife, wants to go back home. The writing retreat makes no sense to her. It is a waste of money, and it uproots her from everyone she knows.
When Aiden, the youngest finds a friend in the teddy bear he found in their room, his brother Dave sees something far more sinister. The constant nightmares and fighting take a toll on the whole family, and then tragedy strikes.
There is something in the Creole house. Ever watching, always hungry… it waits.
Prologue
June 9th – 4:45 PM
Lakeshore Drive, Mandeville – Louisiana
The sun kissed the surface of the blue waters before it began its slow sink into Lake Pontchartrain. In the quiet, old Creole house overlooking the creek, you could hear the hiss at the exact moment sun and water collided. The roar of an engine pierced the waiting quiet like a knife, stirring the stale air into the beginnings of energy. As suddenly as it had started, it stopped when the family car parked close to the colonial house. The quality of the stillness in the house changed from melancholia to anticipation. When the car doors opened, little children’s voices mingled with their parents and It knew that a serious change had come.
In the fast fading daylight, the sound of closing car doors echoed through the house, like thunder rolling across an immense empty plain. The floorboards creaked with expectation, and doors stood ajar with attention. The house braced itself for the new occupants. But in a room on the upper floor, It sat very still by the window, trying to make out the faces of the young children running about in the short driveway.
The windows were streaked with grime, blurring the children’s faces. They were a neat family of four, a set of parents and two young boys. The perfect nuclear family. It hungered for a closer look, a whiff of scent, a snatch of song, and presently it was rewarded.
“Bumble, bumble,
My busy bee,
Buzzing around,
The mulberry tree.
From hither to tither,
From blossom to bush,
Making up honey,
For Mummy and me!”
The giddy words were half chanted, half sang by the child with a head of yellow sun. His small legs pumped up and down as he ran around the garden, a tantalizing blur of yellow and green.
The elder of the two chased the little one, his arms outstretched. The squeals of delight rippled up to the window where the shadows shifted, and the glass fogged briefly under a splayed hand. It had to see their faces. It had to be sure.
The children ran closer to the house. The youngest, no more than five, stopped to look up at the house. The older brother, twice his age, came to stop beside him. They shaded their eyes with their little hands, their faces twisted in concentration.
Two little boys. Finally returned.
It waited.
Chapter One
June 9th – 5:17 PM
Lakeshore Drive, Mandeville – Louisiana
“They’re excited,” said Richard.
Abbie Coltrane smiled and squeezed her husband’s hand. The sand felt cool, wet, and alien beneath her toes. The foamy surf looked like aggressive fingers clawing ever nearer, to grasp unsuspecting passersby.
The laughter of her two boys pierced the air, competing with the shrill call of the seagulls. Dave the eldest at ten, with his mop of brown hair, and his broad slopping shoulders was running on ahead. Aiden, the baby of the family, tried his best to keep up, his yellow curls shining like a halo in the setting sun. He looked back often, his big blue eyes making sure Abbie and Richard were close by, then flitted behind them to the house they had just come from.
“This’ll be good for our boys.” Richard fished out a cigarette and lighter, and cupped his hand around the flame to protect it. “Two months on the beach, under the sun, and they’ll be as brown and brawny as me.”
“Hmm.” Abbie bent down to pick up a seashell letting her hair curtain her face.
“Two months is all I need, Abbie.” Richard’s voice was urgent, a precursor to an argument. “I have the perfect story. I just need to get most of it on paper, and this place is going to do wonders for my block. I’m sure of it.”
“I just can’t see why we couldn’t have gone up to a cabin in Ridgway.” Her voice dropped lower. “Ali said she’d lend us the place free of charge for the summer.” Abbie was still bent low, her fingers sifting aimlessly through the sand.
“This is not the same as Ridgeway.”
She couldn’t argue with that. The weather was warmer, the houses had that tempered beauty you only get with really old places, the people were more colorful, and Lake Pontchartrain itself was mercurial. Maybe Richard was right. Maybe this was the place he needed to be to write his breakthrough novel. Goodn
ess knew he was struggling back in Colorado. His agent was at his wit’s end and had confessed to Abbie that the royalties were more of a drip than a steady trickle.
Standing up straight, Abbie brushed the sand off her hands and looked back at the beach house they had rented for the summer. It was built atop a narrow strip of rock that acted as a natural barrier to the beach and the sea, insuring the children would have a modest walk before they got anywhere near the water’s edge. The house itself was built in classic French Creole style with wide porches and galleries, and several colonnettes that supported a wide roof. The whole structure had been painted azure blue.
While the front garden was blooming with hibiscus and iris flowers, the inside was dreary. The furniture pieces were mismatched. The windows were choked with dirt, and the whole place needed to be aired out. As for the owners, Abbie hadn’t laid eyes on them at all. They had found the keys dangling by a hook next to the front door. The owner hadn’t even bothered to leave a note.
As Abbie watched the house, the sun bled into the large body of water and the tall dark windows of the house stared out like blank brooding eyes. She had the acute sense that someone was watching her. A shiver ran up her spine, and she turned away to the lake. The children were playing at the water’s edge, running away from the chasing waves. She was very aware of a sense of not belonging. Born and bred in landlocked Colorado, Abbie couldn’t help but be aware of her location on the map, how New Orleans was right on the edge of a yawning abyss. The sight of the smoldering red waters of Lake Pontchartrain made her wonder how easy it would be to fall off the edge of the earth, swept away on one of the greedy waves, and disappear without a trace.
She shook her head, as if trying to dislodge the morbid thoughts that had made a nest in there.