Eddie let the breeze whip his face as their hired car whooshed down the more or less empty street. Sitting next to Sadie, who was driving, he felt his spirits higher than before. He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. The sunlight was falling on her face, making her look prettier than ever. He smiled to himself as he turned back outside the window. He caught Alfie’s eye behind him, and Alfie smirked at him. He could sense what Eddie was thinking.
It was a beautiful day. Eddie, Sadie, Lani and Alfie looked like regular college-goers. If someone saw them, they would never know that they were being haunted every day by a strange murderous woman.
Eddie tried not to think about her, or Mrs Page or Mr Owle or their horrific deaths. He still had sleepless nights with their faces looming out at him in his dreams. He would then wake up in the middle of the night, and feel reassured to see his friends with him.
Last night he had seen them again. Their faces and their massacred bodies, coming towards him, with the woman behind them, holding them on leashes. He had woken up in terror, and in fright, had grabbed Sadie beside him and had buried his face between her shoulders. He had fallen asleep soon afterwards, his arms around her, and when he had, she had turned her head back and had patted him on the face lightly, smiling to herself.
They reached Bangor before noon. They had a lunch of sandwiches at a roadside café, and then they started tracking down the address that Mr Boone had written down for them. It took them a while, but forty-five minutes later, they were standing in front of their destination. The house was a small one, with barely space for a garage. The rusted mailbox outside bore the name: Mrs Susan Beck.
“This is it,” Alfie said. They went to the door, and Sadie knocked. They had to wait for some time before they heard footsteps on the other side, and a door opened a while later.
Time and grief had taken their toll on Susan Beck. Once a beautiful young woman, she now looked older than her sixty years. She peered at them in confusion, until Eddie said in a gentle tone, “Mrs Beck? We … we are from Wyke. We need your help.”
“Wyke?” Mrs Beck looked a bit horrified. She nodded and said, “Come in … come in …”
They went inside. The house was littered. A pungent smell drifted in the air. The furniture was disoriented and damaged with time. The wallpaper was peeling off. One of the panes on a window was shattered.
They gingerly sat down; all except Eddie. He watched as the old woman slowly closed the door, and with shaking hands, walked over to them. He made to speak, but she said first, “I have battled through years and years of trauma. All because of that town. I don’t have anything to say to you. Don’t think that I have any hatred towards you; I don’t even know who you are, but I really don’t want to do anything with that town.”
“We can understand, Mrs Beck,” Eddie said in a gentle, cajoling voice. “But the woman … the woman who killed your husband … she has returned. And she is making our lives miserable.”
“Then run,” Mrs Beck said, her wide eyes staring at Eddie’s. “Run away before it gets too late! I wish I had done that! I wish I had taken my Ray and had escaped Wyke!”
“We cannot run, Mrs Beck,” said Alfie. He stood up and joined Eddie. “If we run away, then the woman will remain to terrorise people in the future. And we cannot knowingly do that.”
“We are trying to put an end to this all,” said Sadie. “We’re trying to finish that woman, whatever she is!”
“That won’t bring Ray back!” Mrs Beck cried.
“No,” Eddie agreed. “But it will give his soul vengeance. Don’t you want to see his murderer meet her fate? For what it’s worth, let’s try and give Mr Beck’s soul some peace!”
“It would have been a different matter if it was a human being we were talking about,” said Mrs Beck shakily. “But it isn’t! And there’s no way you can just make that woman ‘meet her fate’!”
“Please, Mrs Beck,” Lani said. “All we need from you is information. Even if it doesn’t help, we’ll get to know that woman better, at the least!”
Mrs Beck sniffed, and did not say anything for a few seconds. She moved to her cluttered coffee table and poured herself a glass of water with shaking fingers. Draining it, she turned back to them and begun, “The Millers had many secrets. Some of them were so well-kept that everyone in the town knew about them. Nobody liked them. Not a single soul. And it wasn’t just because of their nature; they were evil reincarnate.
“The youngest of the four brothers was probably the worst of the lot. Thrice he was detained for drug abuse, a few times for drunken driving, and once his name was even roped into a murder case. Yes, he was the worst.
“But the worst thing he did was to that poor girl,” her voice quavered. “She was a small-time model, I believe. Hannah Blush, her name was. And young Timothy Miller fancied her. She would be seen many times in the lavish parties that the Millers would throw in the little town. Some say that she hoped to marry him. I don’t know. I never met her. Just saw her from a distance once or twice. She was a jolly pretty girl, I’ll give you that. Tall, graceful. Her expressive eyes … and her hair. Her thick black hair that had made me so jealous …”
Her mind drifted away, and Eddie brought her back, “What happened to her?”
“No one can say exactly what happened to her,” Mrs Beck said. “But there were rumours, spread about by the servants of Miller House. Word is that she stumbled upon something very sinister in the house, something that the Millers had wanted kept secret. And it was something that cost her life. People saw her enter the last party, but nobody saw her leave. Some claim that they saw Timothy Miller in his backyard, digging.
“A police investigation was started, of course, but it went cold within a few weeks. The Millers were said to have cooperated, and their story was that the girl had left before midnight to catch a flight to New York. Soon after that, the Millers bundled up all their businesses in Wyke and fled.”
She stopped here, and she reached for another drink of water. Eddie, Sadie, Lani and Alfie watched her with patience, when she finally opened her mouth again. “And that is the legend of the woman. It came into existence soon after the Millers left. People said they saw a woman in the grounds of the house, stalking about … nobody believed them, of course. And the rumours died down pretty quickly. And then the building was made, and … and she took Ray!”
Eddie expected her to break down again, but she didn’t. She wiped away her tears with a dirty handkerchief and said, “I am grateful to the four of you for what you are doing. You are right. My husband was a good man. He did not deserve to die like this. In the hands of the woman in a basement! No! Find that woman, children! And kill her if you can! But be safe! For heaven’s sake, be safe!”
When they left, none of them spoke for a while. The sky was getting darker now, and Eddie sat with his mouth resting on his fist, thinking. Finally he broke the silence, “It is clear then. The woman … Hannah Blush … it’s her ghost …”
“Difficult to believe, but …” Alfie gulped. “A bloody ghost.”
“I know,” Eddie said gravely. “As to whether it is an actual ghost or just a demonic force that is feeding on her soul, we don’t know. And how the hell do we kill a ghost?”
“There must be some way!” Lani exclaimed.
“I’m no expert on ghosts,” Sadie said. “But from all the stories about them … they have a purpose. Something that is holding them back. What can it be?”
“Redemption,” Eddie said quietly, still looking out the window. “Revenge.”
“On the Millers?” asked Alfie.
“Of course,” said Sadie. “She wants to bring them to justice! But how … what was it that Mrs Beck said? She saw something sinister at the Miller House … what was it?”
“Heaven knows,” Eddie said. “But whatever it is, if we can somehow prove that the Millers murdered Hannah, then maybe she will get her redemption.”
“So from ghost-hunters we are going to be ghost-redeemers?” Alfie said. “I guess I’m fine with that. But how are we going to go about with that?”
“We need a plan,” Sadie and Eddie said at the same time, and beamed at each other. Eddie craned his neck to look at Alfie and Lani. “We need a grand plan.”
YOU ARE READING
Below The Dark
Horor*********** There's something about Sunrise Towers. A curse, maybe. A horror. As a group of friends start exploring, they are haunted by a strange entity. An entity from below the dark, dank basement. A place where the sun never rises. *********** ...
