The Haunting of the Creole House

by Blake Croft

  Doralise didn’t feel well. She thought about poor Abbie and her children and sighed. Not a day went by that Doralise didn’t think she should have done more to warn Abbie. But there was something else. It shared terrible similarities with an old case.

  Her meeting with Abbie at the market had awakened painful memories. Doralise thought it was just a trick of her tired mind, and she had chased away those ideas. Until then, she hadn’t paid much attention to the brief visions she could have in touching people's hands. This time the effect had been startling and she had been scared.

  These visions had haunted Doralise for several nights. She tried unsuccessfully to warn Abbie of some danger, but it seemed unreal.

  Not anymore.

  Doralise needed to confront the past one more time. An itch had settled in her skull, and if she didn’t scratch it wouldn’t go away. Sighing, she got up on her aching feet and pulled down a rusty coffee tin from the top of her bookshelf. Settling back down at her kitchen table, she removed the keepsakes and knickknacks she had collected over the years. It was a miracle the tin had survived Katrina and wasn’t at the bottom of the ocean somewhere.

  Dirty yellow snippets of old newspaper were at the very bottom of the tin. She fished them out and shuffled through the articles on the Civil Rights Movement, and local baking awards won by her mother, to a story at the very end. The story she had not succeeded in sharing with Abbie.

  Her grandmother’s face stared up at her; blurry but still discernible. She had experienced the tragedy. She had discovered the corpses. She was a handsome woman and even though the print was black and white, the impression of color was there. She stood just behind her mistress.

  A doleful face stared up at her; a large white woman with a square face and eyes like black coals. There was sourness to her mouth which was bowed down. Two little boys in sailor suits stood in front of her. The husband, tall and handsome, stood at a little distance from them, his face angled slightly away from his family.

  “Lakeshore Horror – The Mystery of the Drowned Woman Comes to the Surface” was emblazoned on top of the first page.

  Doralise scanned the old article, taking in the half remembered story.

  The recent tragedy at Willow’s House on Lakeshore Drive has left many horrified and fearful for a child-killer on the loose. Though primary investigations pointed the blame at the household help, recent developments have shed a new light on the investigation.

  Kathryn Willow, the mother of the two murdered boys, who had been reported missing soon after the bodies of the Willow children were found, has been discovered. Her remains washed up on the beach at Lewisburg.

  Though severely waterlogged, and the process of decomposition set in motion, injuries to the fingers are similar to ones one might sustain while using a heavy object to wield harm. Soon after, the investigating officers announced Kathryn Willow as their primary suspect, Edward Willow, her widower, came forward with scandalous news.

  Mr. Willow’s public dalliance with another woman seems to have triggered a chain reaction as he claims Kathryn had been unusually confrontational and violent up to the day of the murders. He believes her fit of rage must have taken an insanely violent turn resulting in the deaths of their sons.

  Neighbors and acquaintances back this theory. They remember Kathryn as painfully awkward, and quick to take offence. The house help corroborate these findings with reports of their Mistress being high-strung and prone to periods of abject melancholy and unfounded euphoria.

  Her death has been deemed a suicide.

  (See full interview with Officer Caldwell on page 2

  “The Mistress and the Gold-digger,” our in-depth investigation into the nature of the Willow marriage on page 4

  “Neighborhood watch” discusses the merits of inspecting household environments on page 6.)

  The closet. Doralise sighed again. Her grand-mother never talked about the event, but her mother told her fragments of the story. She suspected that Kathryn Willow went insane, and her ghost got bound to the closet.

  She clicked her tongue. Poor Kathryn. How could a woman lose her sanity so completely that she had bashed in the heads of her little boys, stuffed them in the closet, and then gone out to drown herself in the sea?

  She supposed it wasn’t so hard to believe now when so much was known about depression, and her husband’s cheating didn’t help matters much either.

  Doralise had laughed in derision when rumors of the blue house haunting had surfaced a few years ago. It was just fiddle faddle to scare the young folks away from the house. The new owner was humorless and hated squatters and layabouts on his property and must have fueled the rumors to keep them out. She now knew she was wrong. The ghost of Kathryn Willow still haunted that house, always looking for her boys.

  Saddened, Doralise placed the old newspaper clipping back in the tin. There was nothing she could do now. If only she could have shown this to Abbie. Maybe then, she could have convinced her that Katherine Willow still infected the closet, the very place where she had killed her sons.

  Abbie and her children’s faces stared up at her from the latest newspaper. Doralise sent a prayer up for their souls and got up off the table. She placed the coffee mug in the sink and stepped out to water her vegetables. The newspaper ruffled in the wind, opening on the real estate listing page:

  For Rent

  Newly refurbished French Creole beach house on Lakeshore Drive, Mandeville waterfront. Two minute walk from the beach. Three bedrooms, two bathrooms. Call now for competitive rental rates.

  — ∞ § ∞ —

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  You will also receive a free copy of The Abandoned House, a short spin-off of a novel scheduled for spring 2019. This story is NOT available anywhere else.

  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 & Ashley Raven

  www.facebook.com/BlakeCroftAuthor

  www.blakecroftauthor.com

  Note from the authors

  Thank you for taking a chance on the Haunting of the Creole House.

  Did you enjoy the novella? We hope so, and we would really appreciate it if you would help others enjoy this story too and help spread the word.

  Please consider leaving an honest review today telling other readers why you liked this book, wherever you purchased this book, or on Goodreads. It doesn’t need to be long, just a few sentences can make a huge difference. Your reviews go a long way in helping others discover what we are writing, and decide if a book is for them.

  We appreciate anything you can do to help, and if you do write a review, wherever it is, please send an email at croft.raven@blakecroftauthor.com, so we could thank you personally.

  You can jump right to the review pages by clicking the links below depending of your country:

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  Thank you very much,

  Blake Croft & Ashley Raven

  PS: We love hearing from our readers. Feel free to email us directly at croft.raven@blakecroftauthor.com, (or to connect with us on Facebook here www.facebook.com/BlakeCroftAuthor). We read and respond to every message.

  Upcoming books

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  The Haunting of Blackburn Manor (excerpt)

  Summary

  Linda found the perfect house to rebuild her life—but the house has a different plan for her.

  Linda is so busy running away
from her ex-boyfriend, she doesn't see what she is running into. Her desperate search for a new life after years in an abusive relationship brings her to a remote manor in Keystone, Pennsylvania.

  The private retreat in the middle of nowhere offers counseling, employment and a chance to rebuild her life. But soon she sees faces in the windows, hears sounds in the walls, and there’s her neighbor who watches her every move.

  From strange phone calls in the middle of the night, moving shadows, and a haunting lament to her own visions of violence, can Linda find the peace she craves, or has she landed in a greater horror?

  In Blackburn Manor, Linda can trust no one. Not even herself.

  Prologue

  T he old woman sat on her front porch.

  Summer was bleeding into winter, and there was a chill in the air. In the gloom of dusk, even the birds had stopped chirping. The only sound punctuating the arrival of night on that empty street was the rhythmic creak of a rocking chair.

  The old woman swayed back and forth on a rocking chair almost as old as she was. The carved wood was warped by the elements, and so were her bones, which were twisted and rusty under her paper-thin skin. Her white thick hair was cut short, and she wore a pale-blue house dress that sagged at the front and stopped at her knees, revealing blue varicose veins running along the length of her spindly legs. A group of cats sat around the porch, their tails flitting about to the rhythm of the creaking chair.

  There wasn’t much to see on that empty street hedged in by thick woods, but the woman stared with focused contempt and spite across the street at the only other house for a mile. Being a house was the only thing they had in common. It was a 19th century manor, its tiled roofs rearing against the sky, and its narrow windows like eyelets peering down on the old woman’s small dwelling, as if the house sneered at the presence of something so humble in its presence.

  The woman’s eyes were narrowed, her lips as thin as the edge of a blade. She stared as if waiting for something to happen.

  A low thud broke through the peaceful quiet.

  The rocking chair stopped.

  The cat tails stood still.

  A low feral yowl rose into the night. A cat hissed, back arched, hair standing on end. The old woman licked her lips as she leaned forward expectantly in her chair.

  Another thud broke through the thrumming silence. It came from across the street. A final thud and the front door opened. A dog came shambling out, head lolling from side to side. Its golden coat looked less lustrous than it usually did. Drool dangled in ropes from its open mouth. It was followed by a man in his mid-thirties, a look of concern and consternation on his face.

  “Jesus, Bud,” the man’s voice resounds in the wilderness. “If you wanted to go out, you could just scratch the door. No need to break your head against it.”

  The old woman’s body tensed, her gnarled hands clutched the arms of the chair. Her pupils were so dilated they resembled the dead-black eyes of a shark.

  The dog whined, its tail stuck firmly between its legs. It turned in circles, emitting pained yelps. The sounds of its nails clicking against hardwood punctuated its distress.

  The woman licked her lips again. The cats were in a frenzy, their raucous cries a cacophony in the still twilight.

  The dog stood still, ears cocked, as if it had heard some animal scurrying in the underbrush.

  “Hey, Buddy.” The young man’s brow was creased in worry. “Are you all right? You wanna go for a walk? We can play fetch, huh, what’dya say?” He leaned down and tried to pet the dog but the animal bolted as if shot.

  “Buddy!” The man scrambled for the dog's collar, but it was too late.

  The golden retriever hurtled off the steep porch.

  The crack of breaking bones was ominous and loud in the sudden silence.

  “Buddy?” The man ran down the porch steps, nearly losing his balance.

  He knelt down by the twitching dog, and held it in his arms. “You’re going to be okay,” the man said. “You’re going to be fine.” His voice broke. “You won’t die, Buddy. I’ll call the vet. You won’t die.”

  The old woman watched the stooped back of the man as he trudged up the porch steps across the street. Her breathing was shallow, and her lips moist. The cats settled around her, their tails twisted around their hind legs.

  The woman sat back in her chair.

  Her hands relaxed on the arms.

  The chair creaked as it began to rock again.

  Chapter One

  T here were eyes in the woods.

  Linda sat up straight in the passenger seat of the old Chevy truck. Her backside hurt. Pins and needles pricked her legs as blood rushed to her cramped limbs.

  She squinted at the moving tree line as the truck rushed past. The woods were thick but she could make out houses in the distance. The sun reflecting off glass windows looked like winking yellow eyes in the woods.

  Linda shivered and tried to shake the morbid thought from her head.

  “I think we’re finally closing in on the town,” said Ashley.

  The two sisters had been driving for hours, and it was the first thing one of them had said for some time. Conversation had run out when they’d crossed into Pennsylvania. They were in Blackwood County now.

  A small sign appeared to the left. Keystone Pop. 6000 was painted black against a stark white background. It was a long way from Brooklyn where they’d lived their entire lives.

  A lone yellow bus stop emerged in the middle of the woods. Two minutes later, the town itself reared out of the tree line. It wasn’t a smooth transition from thick wood to subtle clearing and then office buildings and townhouses. Trees bunched up around the edges as if they remembered the past when the whole area had been one undisturbed carpet of green and they would soon take it back.

  “It’s remote.” Ashley said. “I’ll give you that. They have one diner, no hotels, and… Oh my God, that’s the movie theater?”

  It was something out of the 50’s. The posters for Jurassic World were glued over so many others they jutted out slightly from the uniform length of the block. A group of gangling young teens leaned against the wall.

  “At least they have the latest releases.” Linda spread her hands.

  Ashley glared at her.

  They sat in silence as the town passed by. There was another bus stop at the other end of town next to the post office, and a branch of Bank of America. The woods invaded again. They were oppressive, and as the sun set lower in the sky their branches looked like fingers reaching down to grasp the truck.

  “What’s the name of the owner again?” Ashley asked.

  “Evelyn Blackburn,” Linda said, folding her arms across her breasts. “She was one of the pioneers of second wave feminism, used to be a professor at Columbia.”

  Ashley whistled.

  “I hope this place is livelier than Keystone. The town seemed to emerge from the tree line like some lost city in the Amazon forest.” Ashley slumped low in the driver’s seat.

  “It wasn’t that bad,” Linda tucked her hair behind her ears. “The artisan bakery/café looked nice.”

  “Lin,” Ashley blew air out of her cheeks, “they have one cafe, the motel looked seedy, the movie theater has one screen, and the hospital is twenty minutes away. I wouldn’t call that ideal.”

  “That’s not fair,” Linda laughed. “It’s a seasonal town and predominantly the B&B kind. It’ll perk up in a few weeks once school is out.”

  Ashley pursed her lip in response.

  The woods thinned out a little as the road curved to the left. Large, slightly shabby houses sat brooding for half a mile on both sides of the road. Linda spied the American flag hanging wet and limp outside a house in serious need of paint. A forgotten bike lay upturned in a yard dotted with garden gnomes, their cherub pink cheeks highlighted the evil slant in their ceramic eyes. There weren't any lights on in any of the windows.

  “They certainly have good taste in this town.” Ashley snorted. “Ar
e those plastic flamingos?”

  Linda couldn’t help but smile. Yes, the yards were atrocious and wild. She kept an eye out for people, but they didn’t see anyone as they passed the handful of homes that were quickly replaced by thick woods.

  It was like no one lived there. Linda twisted in her seat to get another look at the forlorn homes.

  The empty windows made her uneasy. It was true that she had come this far for some solitude but this was more than she had bargained for. They left the small neighborhood behind but Linda couldn’t shake off the uneasy feeling.

  “What does Google maps say? I feel like we should have reached this place half an hour ago,” Ashley said.

  Linda checked her map. There was only one bar and the blip that marked their location was still stuck on Keystone. She zoomed in and marked the neighborhood they’d just passed and made some swift calculations.

  “Another ten minutes.”

  “Jeez,” Ashley rolled her eyes. “They should have mentioned these things in the employment letter. If half of my wages go towards gas to get to and from town, how is this job worth it?”

  Linda didn’t take Ashley’s complaining to heart. It was usual for her to look at the negatives in any given situation. Their mother had always said they were Ying and Yang, Ashley the negative and Linda the positive balance in the relationship.

  “I didn’t hear you complain about it last week,” Linda gave a wry smile. “Come on, Ash. We both need jobs and I need the counseling.”

  “I don’t see why it had to be in the middle of nowhere.” Ashley grumbled but didn’t disagree.