Haunted House Dread

by Carrie Bates

  Haunted House Dread

  ©2018 by Carrie Bates

  All rights reserved. No part of this may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are a product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, events or locales is completely coincidental.

  The Haunting of Cardon House

  The Haunting of Bertha House

  The Haunting of McGregor Mansion

  The Haunting of Redding House

  More Books by Carrie Bates

  The Haunting of Cardon House

  ©2018 by Carrie Bates

  All rights reserved. No part of this may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are a product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, events or locales is completely coincidental.

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  Prologue

  Before the house ever existed, the land was alive with the history of the native people. And, the land was content to be put to use by people who appreciated it – the tribe conducted themselves morally, treating each other and the earth with respect. They gave thanks for everything they took from it, made use of every single berry and bone, and lived a peaceful life in the beautiful wooded area to the north.

  They were a serious but friendly people, and when the French trader came down the river in the first few days of spring, they welcomed him as they had all the others before him. He chose to stay and learn their ways of trapping, favoring them over his own. He didn’t need to trap to make money – he had behind him a lucrative trading business that he managed by mail. But he wanted a quieter, more content life for himself, and he found what he needed among the tribe.

  The natives knew the secrets of the land and the animals he hunted. He took up their habit of thanking the spirits whenever he found a beaver or mink in his traps. It wasn’t long before he caught the eye of the fairest woman in the tribe. She was sought after by many of the men, but had turned every single one of them down. She had eyes only for the French trader. He was so well respected that once she made her intentions clear no one objected – not even her father, who currently led the tribe as chief.

  It was indisputable that accepting the trader among them had only benefited everyone. He brought trade and good relationships with men who otherwise would’ve taken advantage of the tribe.

  It wasn’t long before she bore the trader three children – all boys – and the chief was so proud that he gifted his son-in-law a piece of land of his choosing. The small family was growing quickly, and they needed the room to flourish.

  The trader chose a section of land that other white men had tried to purchase before. The tribe had rudely chased all of them off, and they reacted violently when the trader tried to claim this same piece of land. He assumed it was because the land was particularly valuable and took offense, threatening to leave with his wife and sons.

  “You don’t understand,” his wife tried to tell him one night, “We’re doing it to keep you safe. That land isn’t healthy land.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” he bit out, pacing the large room they slept in. “That land is flat and fertile. The grass is greener than any in the area, the soil richer – “

  “How do you know about the soil?” she asked fearfully, grasping her husband’s arms. He stopped, shaking his head at her. Although he respected the tribe, some of their superstitions struck him as too ridiculous.

  “I went out two days back and dug down a few feet,” he answered. “When you were with the boys.”

  Her hands dropped to her sides. His wife knew then that there was nothing for it. He’d already tainted himself. She went quietly to her father, who granted his son-in-law the land soon after with the agreement that the couple would continue to live among the tribe and pass on the land to their progeny.

  Things were never quite the same after that. Although the grandsons were well-loved and spoiled by their grandfather, the adults in the family had a strained relationship. It continued that way until both the trader and the chief passed away within a few days of one another from old age.

  ***

  Jacques Cardon, a trader like his great-great grandfather, discovered that he’d inherited a piece of land with his father’s passing. He set out to see it the day after he received the letter. He had never before heard of it, having grown up in a different state, but traveled to the small town that was just beginning to fill out with a decent population and businesses.

  Jacques stood on Main Street watching people walk by, chatting, and as a young boy struggled to haul a sack of flour from the general store, he thought that perhaps he could finally settle down and continue to make a living there. He was already very well-off.

  That same day, he made his way to the outskirts of town to see the bundle of land and approved. It was flat and covered in springy, healthy grass and wild flowers.

  He spent the night at the only Inn in town. It was there that he saw his future wife – the daughter of the mayor – and thought to himself, drink in hand, that he could definitely be happy living there.

  Cardon was half French, half Native American, and the latter made the towns people nervous. Tensions with the natives were high. It was said that the surveyors had pushed out the boundaries of the town into tribal territory, and when the natives tried to claim their rightful land, quite a few of them went missing.

  But Cardon was a handsome and successful man. All it took was him spending some money in the town, supporting the local businesses, and charming the women. Soon enough, they accepted him as their own and looked past his almond-shaped eyes and beautifully tan skin.

  He was betrothed to the mayor’s daughter the same week the house was planned to be built. His fiancé, Faith, was a beautiful woman. They were a powerful and promising couple. Cardon opened his own shop with the help of the mayor, a large building right on the main street, and he stocked it well using his connections around the country. Deliveries came in weekly.

  It wasn’t long until the Cardon’s were expecting their first child. Soon, Jacques pulled together a team of men, and the estate was well on its way to being built. He brought Faith out to show her the land, and she immediately started planning for large gardens and walkways.

  As soon as the men put the finishing touches on the house – expensive tile floors, the beautifully painted porch, an ornate stained glass window set into the front door – two of Jacques’s trading ships went down. Faith found him pacing the back room of his store with the letter gripped tightly in his fist.

  “Can’t you just contact the merchants in France and get more goods?” Faith asked quietly, cradling her swelling stomach. She’d never seen Jacques like this. The color was rising in his face, turning it a blotchy red, and he grit his teeth.

  “You don’t understand. It wasn’t just the goods on the boat. I sent for the money, too.”

  “The money?”

  “Yes. The money they were keeping for me, from my businesses there. There were three safes on those two ships. That’s half of our fortune.”

  He yanked a chair out from the table and sat abruptly, his head in his hands. “I still need to pay the carpenters for the cabinets and the bed. And…the landscapers. They’re still putting in th
ose damned lilac trees you want,” he ground out.

  “I’m sorry,” Faith whispered. The evening was darkening around the edges, and the room was lit by candlelight. The shadows dimmed Jacque’s good looks enough that he looked tired and stressed. “The shop is paid off, right?”

  Jacques nodded. He’d had enough foresight to buy the shop outright. As long as there were goods in it, they’d have a steady income. “There’s another ship coming in three weeks.” He sighed, straightening and looked at his wife. Her beauty brought a smile to his face. “We’ll have to hold back until then. Just buy food. I’ll work something out with the carpenters.”

  Faith nodded, moving closer to him. He reached a hand out to touch her stomach. “We’ll be okay,” she murmured, leaning into him.

  * * *

  But things got worse quickly. Before the third ship had even set sail from France, one of the workers drunkenly lit the Cardon’s house on fire when bragging to his saloon buddies that he’d had a hand in building it. A group of them had made their way out to the land, where a lit pipe was dropped onto a pile of landscaping hay.

  The house, freshly painted, burned quickly.

  The only bit of luck that Jacques had left was that the kitchen was the only part of the house truly gutted. The fire had burned hot enough to leave scorch marks on the new tile, and flames had licked their way up the staircase. The entire first floor would need a thorough cleaning before it was inhabitable.

  After that, things went wrong very quickly. Although the store was still stocked, the third ship never showed. Jacques had now gone almost two months without replenishing the goods on the shelves. Frequent customers were bored without new items to browse and purchase.

  The messenger found him on a bright afternoon, shuffling through his finance book and adding up numbers. The man was out of breath and haggard. “Cardon,” he panted, already turned back toward the door, “Come. Now.”

  Faith had been visiting her mother and father. She’d gone to the second floor to look at the crib that they’d purchased for their daughter, and she spent quite a while gushing about how beautiful it was. On the way back down the staircase, her foot got caught in the train of her dress. With both hands already on her stomach she was unable to catch herself. There was enough blood that no one had wanted to remove her from the house, but they called the doctor there instead.

  They lost the child.

  Jacques didn’t have time to mourn. Fall was already approaching, and they were behind on paying the bills for construction on the house, without even considering the repairs. He sold his jewelry first, which didn’t matter much to him anyway. He was a simple man. It was when he started selling Faith’s jewelry without her knowing – she was confined to her bed in a deep depression and ill health – that he took to visiting the saloon in the evenings.

  They were told not to try for a child again for at least a year. The foreman leading the team of builders wouldn’t begin repairs until Jacques had paid off the original bill. No new goods were coming into the shop, and what was there was old news.

  Faith pulled herself from her bedroom after her mother whispered the rumors to her. Jacques drunk every night, the house empty of furniture as he’d had to sell it, his talks to her father about putting the shop up for sale as well. She found him out at the house pacing the lawn in the dark. It was September, and the trees were rattling with what leaves were left clinging to the branches. She shivered, wrapping her coat tighter.

  “Jacques,” she called, unwilling to step off of the dirt road.

  Her husband continued to pace and mutter to himself. She shouted his name again, feeling uneasy in the dark. Her father’s porter had dropped her off here and continued on to the post office, where he’d pick up packages, and then return to retrieve her and hopefully Jacques, as well.

  “We need to go home,” she called, taking one step onto the thick grass. Even now, at night, she was in awe of how beautiful their land was. She could smell the lilacs, which weren’t supposed to be blooming now but were heavy with flowers anyway.

  Faith never saw Jacques coming up on her despite how large of a man he was. They would find her body first the next day, on the porch. Even as she tried to pry her husband’s hands from around her throat, she thought about how strange it was that all of the flowers and bushes were in full bloom in such chill weather.

  The porter, who assumed that the couple had left together when he didn’t see them waiting that night, found Faith the next morning. It didn’t take him long to find Jacques – hanging from an old oak tree in the back yard. He had a flask in his shirt pocket and unpaid bills stuffed into his belt. His handsome face looked grotesque with the noose around his neck and his tongue sticking out.

  With no children or relatives, Cardon’s home, as destroyed as it was, was given over to the mayor and his wife. They refused to repair it and chose instead to keep it empty.

  The town grew bigger. The mayor retired. The house was put up for sale quite a few times, repaired to its original beauty by whatever person owned it for a few months, but never lived in it for long. The owners always seemed to fall on hard times and move on quickly.

  Chapter One

  Brad and Camille Keeney grinned at one another as soon as they set foot in the foyer. Camille bounced excitedly in place before letting out a squeal and hurrying to see the rest of the house.

  She’d only seen the pictures, having had to stay for the sale of their last house as Brad closed on this one, and the woodwork framing of the ceiling was even more beautiful than she’d imagined.

  This huge Victorian mansion was going to be their home.

  Although still excited, she walked slowly through each room with her chin tilted up. She just could not get over all of the original woodwork and the high ceilings. The windows were huge, the front door even had a section of stained glass, and the yard was meticulously kept despite the property having been on the market for quite a while.

  Brad and Camille had seen the listing and fallen in love even as they despaired. The price was relatively low, and they were sure it would fly off the market. But a week later, the house was still listed. Three weeks later, it had even dropped in price…within a month, the couple was preparing their home for sale and negotiating with the realtor in charge of the mansion, who insisted that no one had made an offer yet.

  She found Brad standing in the kitchen, hands in his pockets. “Honey?” she asked, still grinning. He turned to smile back at her and held out an arm, wrapping her up against his side.

  “Look at this,” he said, nodding toward the huge room. Camille searched quickly and couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Beautiful white tiles and cabinets, large windows letting in the light, newer appliances in spotless stainless steel.

  “Mmm?” She bumped up against him, grinning again.

  “There,” he insisted, removing his arm from around her to point. She followed his gesture and saw it – there, near the door out into the garden, were strange stains seeping up the wall from the floor.

  “What is it?” she asked, squinting. Brad walked across the open area and crouched, one hand on the beautiful French doors.

  “It looks like…soot, almost. Like something burned here.” He stood and began inspecting the rest of the wall. “Weird, though. It isn’t anywhere else.” He shrugged, turning back to his wife.

  “Most of the house is original, right?” Camille asked.

  “Well, yeah. Early 1800’s. But now that I’m looking at this room, it does seem to be more updated.”

  “Of course. They had iceboxes in the 1800s, not refrigerators!”

  “No, I mean, they would have left the tile original, too. It’s not new but it’s definitely not that old. And the woodwork, too.” He gestured at the beams on the ceiling. “They’re definitely newer than the rest. You can tell by the way the paint sits on it.”

  Camille was squinting again, trying to see the differences her husband was pointing out. They were both wealthy, bu
t Brad hadn’t always been. He came from a family of tradesmen and had worked his way up into the stock industry from the mail room. He had an eye for this kind of stuff.

  “All right…well, I’m not that upset. I mean, for a house this old it’s in pretty good condition.”

  “Yeah, it is. The realtor said it hasn’t been much lived in.”

  Camille shrugged. “Works for me. Have you gone upstairs yet?”

  Brad grinned, his wife’s excitement infectious. “Yeah, I beat you to it. You get first choice for office. The one upstairs is bigger but the one down here opens up into the garden.” He wiggled his eyebrows comically at her, and Camille laughed.

  She’d been nervous on the drive out from the city. The U-Haul trucks left early in the morning to unload their possessions before they arrived. The furniture was placed almost exactly where she’d imagined it, but they still had boxes of kitchen utensils, clothing, and sentimental items to unpack.

  While Brad came from a simple background, Camille did not. She was a city child, and nervous about working from home, even though being a stockbroker of her caliber didn’t require working in the city. None of her clients had batted an eyelash when she’d told them she’d be moving two hours away – as long as she had good reception and they could reach her, they were happy.

  Brad and Camille made their clients money and put away a good deal for themselves. It was how they’d been able to purchase the mansion, which probably wouldn’t have happened if Camille hadn’t been so captivated by its beauty. She knew that where she saw offices, Brad saw future bedrooms for their children. The children she wasn’t sure she wanted to have.

  At thirty, Camille was very young for how far she’d come, and Brad was only two years her senior. She couldn’t imagine not focusing on her career, and although Brad got excited about the idea of having kids, he wouldn’t be the one having to carry them around for nine months!