Westerfield Manor

Chapter 1

        The girls couldn't wait for the car to arrive. To have seven whole days away from home and school on a rural property with their friend was going to be awesome. They would hike, fish, go on horse rides and tractor rides, and sit around a fire at night telling each other ghost stories.

Finally a muddy SUV pulled up at the front of the house. A girl jumped out and ran to the front door. "Hey," she called, "Are you ready?"

"We sure are. Bye Mum." The two girls burst through the door, each carrying a small suitcase.

Their mother came to the door and waved to the woman behind the wheel of the car. "Have fun, girls. See you in a week," she called after them.

It was just over an hour's drive to reach the Campbell family property. Ten minutes after driving through a small village called Watson's Creek, which was really only a handful of houses and a general store with a petrol pump out the front, the car turned onto a long bumpy driveway.

"There's our house up ahead," Laura exclaimed, pointing through the windscreen.

It was starting to get dark. An old looking two story house gradually loomed up in the gathering dusk. There were no lights on and it looked dark and forbidding.

"It looks spooky," Shannon said from the back seat. "What do you think, Grace?" She turned to her friend who didn't reply, but just stared at the building as they came closer.

Laura's mother Jane Campbell brought the SUV to a stop outside the front door. "Wait till we're inside with the lights on," she said with a laugh, "You'll find it's not spooky at all."

"How old is the house, Mrs Campbell?" Grace asked.

"I'm not sure of its exact history, but the estate agent told us it was built in the early 1920s, so it's over a hundred years old."

Laura jumped out of the car. "Come on," she called to her friends, "I'll give you a tour and show you your rooms."

The girls grabbed their bags and followed Laura and her mother through the front door. Grace lagged back slightly looking up at the top floor, and just as Jane turned on the outside light a sudden strange feeling swept over her as she saw an extraordinary sight.

She dropped her bag and staggered back slightly. Jane and Laura had already gone inside, but Shannon turned around and noticed Grace's reaction. "What is it?" she asked.

Grace put her hand to her head and blinked her eyes a few times. "I'm not quite sure. I just got a sudden feeling that something..."

"Hey you two," Laura stuck her head out the door, "Are you coming in?"

Grace picked up her bag, "Right behind you," she said, then whispered to Shannon, "I'll tell you about it later."

It was a beautiful old house with a huge kitchen and large living room with a fireplace, creaky red carpeted stairs which led up to four bedrooms, and out the back there was even a swimming pool.

The Campbells had moved in two months earlier. There were only three of them, Laura and her parents, although right now her father was away for a few days. She had invited her two school friends Grace and Shannon to spend the first week of the April school holidays at their property and the girls had happily agreed.

Later as they sat down at the dining table for a late dinner of chicken and salad, Shannon turned to Laura. "I love your house," she said, "It must be cool living out here, but it's such a long drive for you to get to school every day."

"I know," her friend replied, "but with only three terms of school left before the final exams we decided I wouldn't change schools. Besides the only other high school I could go to is almost as far anyway."

They talked on for a while, then Grace asked Jane again about the history of the house and the property.

"I believe this was a much larger property early last century," Jane replied, "which is why this rather lavish two story homestead was built, but in later years the land was subdivided and now it's only three hundred acres. We run a few horses and sheep. We have a manager who takes care of them. David, my husband, has an I.T. business which he runs from his home office here in the house. We have satellite internet, but unfortunately no television reception."

"That's the price we pay for moving into a house in the middle of nowhere," Laura grumbled, "I'm so glad you two could come and visit for a week or I would have been bored silly."

"So being such an old house does it creak and groan and make spooky noises at night?" Shannon asked.

"You bet it does," Laura answered, "The other night I was woken up by the sound of someone coming up the stairs, but there couldn't have been. The only other person in the house at the time was Mum, and she was asleep in her room. I was so scared."

"I thought you were about to say the house has a ghost," Shannon said.

"It probably does," Laura replied looking serious.

Jane looked at the serious faces of the three girls and laughed to break the tension. "People always say old houses are haunted," she chuckled, "but I'm sure this house is ghost-free. I haven't seen or heard anything out of the ordinary since we've been here."

Laura jumped up from the table. "Let's watch a movie," she said, "Take your pick. Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity, or Cabin in the Woods."

It was after midnight when the girls retired to their bedrooms. Grace was just settling into bed after noting that her mobile phone had no reception when there was a soft knock on the door.  

Shannon came in and sat on the bed, her long dark hair hanging down her back. She looked seriously at Grace and said, "Well?"

Grace leaned closer to her friend and whispered, "I don't want Laura or her mum to hear this, they would think I was crackers, but just as I was about to walk through the front door....."

"What?" Shannon prompted her.

"I got this really weird feeling, it's hard to describe, but then I looked up at the house above me and that's when I saw the strangest thing. It looked all hazy like there was smoke drifting around, and I could hear people screaming for about two seconds Then it stopped and everything was normal again."

Grace knew that if she had told this to anyone else they would tell her she had imagined it, and she had had a hallucination, but Shannon knew about Grace's psychic abilities.  Shannon and Grace were best friends, and Shannon had been living with Grace and her mother since her father had died in an accident a few months previously as she had no other family in Australia.

"So," Shannon whispered slowly, "Do you think it was some kind of premonition?"

Grace shook her head. "No, I don't think so, but there is something strange about this house. I've had a sort of feeling about it ever since we got here. I wish I could find out its exact history."

Shannon returned to her room and Grace drifted off into an uneasy sleep listening to the noises of the old house.

Could the old house be haunted?
Read on to find out, but please vote first :)