Haunted (Book #1)✔️

ℭ𝔥𝔞𝔭𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔉𝔬𝔲𝔯

It was the next day when Mark had woken up to find Sean staring down at him. Mark screamed and fell off his bed onto the floor with a loud thud. Sean laughed watching Mark tumble onto the floor and it was clear that he had startled him.

"Sorry," says Sean. "I wasn't expecting you to fall like that,"

"Well next time warn me or something before you sneak up on me like that," answers Mark as he clears his throat and dusts himself off. He looked at his bed only to see that his fiancé hadn't been in the bed with him. "Where's Amy?" he questioned.

"I think she had gone somewhere, but she did leave you a note," said Sean as he led Mark out of the master bedroom and into the kitchen. Mark followed and saw a piece of paper sitting on the table. Curiously, Mark walked over to the table and read the paper. Hey babe, heading into town to search for some new furniture, make sure you get something to eat. I'll be back when I get the chance.

Love Amy.

"Wow," says Sean. "Your fiancé must really care about you,"

"That's Amy for ya," says Mark. Now knowing that Amy wasn't going to be around probably for the entire day, Mark grabbed a paper plate and a slice of pizza. Taking a seat at the table, Mark began to dig into his food.

"Okay, so what's the plan for the day?" asked Sean. "Are we going to start figuring out what happened to me?"

"That's the plan," said Mark as he swallowed his food. "The first step to figuring out what happened is to find out where you had died," he continued. "Think hard Sean, what's the last thing you remember?" Sean leaned back in his chair and tried to remember what he had last remembered. He hadn't exactly put much thought into how he had died, all it had been was a blur. Mark had finished his food and tossed the paper plate into the trash can, he walked back over to Sean who opened his eyes and sighed.

"It's no use," he said. "I can't think of anything,"

"Maybe we should try going upstairs," said Mark. "That's the next best thing we could do," Sean looked at Mark with worry on his face, he wasn't sure how to react especially since he was getting used to the idea of speaking to someone and didn't really know all of the ropes. Standing up, Mark started to make his way upstairs. Sean followed unsure of what Mark was going on about, suddenly, the minute he got to the top of the stairs Sean took a step back as he began to get a flashback about what happened years ago.

Sean was out on the street late at night, it was the 1920s and people had been going about their daily business. 31-year-old Sean McLoughlin was heading home when he felt someone had been following him. The young man started to pick up the pace when he ran into a stranger with a fedora and an oversized coat, Sean tried to scream but it had become muffled then darkness had once again befallen him.

Sean stumbled slightly shocked by what he could do and blinked a couple times hoping that everything he saw was only his imagination. Mark looked at Sean with concern, judging by the way Sean had stumbled or even winced; it had given Mark at least some proof that he could use to solve Sean's death.

"Sean?" he questioned. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," says Sean. "But I remembered a little bit of what happened,"

"Tell me," said Mark. "What did you see?"

"I saw me, walking down the street late at night," responded Sean. "I felt like someone was following me, I was about to run away when I ran into this man with a fedora and oversized coat,"

"That rules out natural causes," said Mark.

"What?" asked Sean.

"You didn't die of a sickness nor did you die of hypothermia," Mark continued. "More likely, how your death links to the man you saw,"

"What else can we do?" Sean had been desperate to figure out what happened to him that it wasn't funny. He wanted to find out how he died, all he knew was that he had seen a man who had been following him years ago but now it seems that there was more to his story than he realizes.

"What year was this house built?" asked Mark.

"1898-1899," responds Sean. "My grandparents built this house and passed it down from parent to child, I was supposed to be the next to inhabit it," Without saying anything, Mark pulled out his phone and started to type something up on his device. Sean watched intrigued by what he was looking at, he hadn't seen something like that before and was curious about what it could do. He could hear Mark tapping on the phone and stop briefly, Sean solidified and stood behind Mark. "What is that?"

"It's a cellphone," said Mark, he had hit a blue button that said Search and it brought up a bunch of different things that Sean could barely decipher. Mark was scrolling through the site until he clicked on a link that brought him to a website and historical information.

McLoughlin Residence

Built in the late 1800s by Irish immigrants who had immigrated from Ireland to California. The family wanted to create a home that would be in the family for years.

Mark read on, as Sean was surprised to see that a tiny phone was able to hold that much information about his family. His heart leapt through his chest while Mark continued to read about the house until he scrolled down and saw something that he wished he hadn't seen.

The last known owner of the house is Sean McLoughlin, 31 of California. Who had disappeared in 1920.

"What?" said Sean. "But that's not possible, I was actually on my way back home," Sean looked at Mark for help wondering what they were going to do next. "How could this be possible?"

"I don't know Sean, but this website can only tell us so much," responds Mark.

"What do we do now?" he questioned.

"Now, I've got to go to the Archives in downtown Los Angeles," Mark left the browser and placed his phone back into his pocket. If he wanted to know more about the house and it's occupants then he had to search the archives. "Are you able to leave this house?"

"No," says Sean. "I'm stuck here, I can't really go anywhere beyond the property,"

"Okay," spoke Mark. "Then I'll have to go to the archives by myself,"

"How will you get there? You only had one car between Amy and you," Asks Sean.

"I can easily call an uber," Says Mark. "With any luck I might be able to get more information from the driver than I can the internet,"

"What's an Uber?" questioned Sean.

"Right," Mark said. "Your from the 1920s, the Uber driver is basically a taxi only I'm riding with someone who gets paid depending on the route,"

"But isn't that a taxi driver?" suggested Sean.

"Kind of the only difference is that the driver uses their own vehicles to drive the customer to places they need to be, and they get paid through an app," answers Mark. "Taxi's are starting to go out of style anyway," Without saying another word, Mark whipped out his phone again and opened the uber driver app. He typed in the address that the driver needed to take him and sent it to the driver. Once that was done, he placed the phone back in his pocket and went through his desk to grab a pencil and notepad. "I'll be back with information," Mark walked out of the office and down to the foyer. Grabbing the door, he got his keys and walked out of the house to wait for the driver to arrive.