Monroe House

Research

Seven finally came and the rest of the group pulled up to Hunter's driveway. They hopped out of their vehicles and idly chattered as they walked up to the front porch. They filed through the front door and saw Hunter throwing pillows on the floor.
"Well, Hunter, your hospitality never ceases to amaze us", Layla said in a joking voice.
Hunter bowed, "thank you, m-lady".
"Ok love birds", Caleb interjected. "Quit flirting and sit down so we can find out what we're up against here".
Everyone took a seat while Hunter ran to the kitchen to get drinks. A moment later he came back with an armful of sodas and an open laptop in the other.
"Ok, children", he said. "What I found out was pretty interesting".
The group grabbed their drinks and sat haphazardly around the living room facing Hunter's laptop. "Ok", Hunter started. "First, I researched the family. And boy let me tell ya. It's nuts. The Monroe family built their house in 1863 in a clearing in the middle of the woods. Red flag number one. The family consisted of parents, Charlotte and Jameson, and their five children. From oldest to youngest, there was Carrie, Jacob, Daniel, Gordon, and Melody". Hunter pulled up an old, weathered picture of the family standing in front of the house.
          Charlotte had long black hair and dark eyes. Jameson had blonde hair and blue eyes that practically glowed in the colorless picture. Carrie, Jacob, and Melody had their father's blonde hair and glowing blue eyes. While Daniel and Gordon had their mother's black hair and dark eyes. The group looked at the photo and felt an off-putting feeling. Their smiles seemed to be too big and unnatural. All except for Carrie. Her smile looked fake, practically forced. Her eyes held a look of, what looked like, fear to the group and that she was trying to hide it by smiling.
           "They look like a friendly bunch", Caleb sarcastically remarked as he grimaced at the Cheshire smiles looking back at him. Hunter took a swig from his drink and pulled up some more files.
          "Actually, my friend", he said. "They were far from friendly. They 'were' a freaky bunch, though".
           Hunter typed into his computer and more pictures popped onto the screen. The pictures were that of newspapers articles of missing people and photos of personal items abandoned on the ground. The group stared at the screen in confusion and shock.
        "That's not as freaky as this", Hunter said as he pulled up a grainy, black and white picture of Jameson and Jacob loading what appeared to be a body wrapped in a sheet into the back of a wagon, with Charlotte sitting at the front.
"Holy shit",  Caleb mumbled. "So, they were serial killers"?
"In a sense, yeah," Hunter replied. "Charlotte was heavily into witchcraft and did rituals that required, say it with me now, sacrifices. And that's the fate of only half the people on this list. The other half were people the family had personal vendettas with. To name off a few: Andrew Cassidy, Jameson's boss at the local stables, caught him gambling with a few coworkers. And for that he docked their pay".
"Gambling"? Chris interrupted. "He docked the man's pay just because he was gambling"?
"Apparently, Andrew lost everything he had gambling himself. He got a job at the same stables and bought it after a number of years. When he took over he had a strict 'no gambling' policy, even if it was just using rocks in place of money. Plus, that wasn't the first time Jameson was caught gambling on the job. However, this time was different since the Monroe family were experiencing some hard times and were struggling with money. So Jameson decided to hedge his bets on this game, I guess".
"So, what happened to Andrew"? Candice asked.
"He was reported missing on February 23, 1864. He had been missing for three days until a group of hunters found Andrew's jacket and an alarming amount of blood in a small clearing". Hunter pulled up a small picture with a jacket laying crumpled and abandoned on the ground with blood all over it. The group swallowed with unease.
"Who else bought it from these guys", Layla asked.
"A lot. I have to warn you guys, though, they get worse. Sandy Arnold called Charlotte and her oldest girl, Carrie, 'Trollops' and that they should find employment in a brothel three towns over".
"That's pretty damn harsh. Especially for Carrie, who seemed like a sweet girl". Candice said.
"Well, she didn't word it quite the way I said it", Hunter continued. "Sandy more or less said that Charlotte belonged there and wouldn't be surprised if Carrie was the same way! Needless to say, about two days later, Sandy was found face down in a pond behind her house. COD was listed as a drowning".
"So, did Charlotte drown her"? Layla asked, picking up her soda can.
"Not exactly, those two days after she insulted Charlotte, neighbors said Sandy was seeing wolves the size of lions that were pitch black with red eyes circling her home. Day and night".
       The gang was silent for a minute. They've heard of wolves stalking people in wooded areas, not daring to come so close to person's home.
"And that's not the worst of it", Hunter said. Startling everyone out of their thoughts. "She claimed to have heard voices in her house and found no one upon checking everywhere".
"So she heard ghosts"? Caleb asked.
"No. That's the thing. Sandy claimed to have heard Charlotte's voice. Then the next day she was found dead. Some believe she drowned herself, others say she was pushed and held under. Many suspected Charlotte but they could never prove it".
        The group paused again. Their mouths hung open as Hunter continued reading from the list.
"Then after Sandy, many others were added to the list. Jameson was the prime suspect in a double murder of a sheep farmer and his wife. They supposedly tried to poison the Monroe family with tainted meat, but they noticed it before consuming it. Then their sons, Jacob and Daniel, banged up a schoolyard bully who was picking on their younger brother.
        Two days later the bully went missing and was never found. Then the younger ones, Gordon and Melody, threw rocks at some fellow students, which had some disastrous results. The parents then threatened Jameson and Charlotte, and they ended up missing as well. And the list goes on and on and on. Each one worse then the last".
"Jesus. Hey, where does this curse come in to play"? Julia asked.
"After the mass disappearances and mysterious deaths, the townspeople understandably got suspicious. It seemed to them everyone in town had been targeted, except the Monroe family. So the remaining townspeople gathered a mob and headed toward the farm. Now this is where things get weird".
        Hunter scrolled through some files and found an old picture of Carrie, looking scared and disheveled. "As the mob made their way through the woods, Carrie came running out screaming for help. She was cut up, her dress was torn and she was scared out of her wits. She frantically told the mob her family had attacked her after she threatened to tell the sheriff about them. Seems to me she finally snapped. As you can see it didn't go over well. A couple members took her back to town to get her injuries looked at, while the rest of em' kept going toward the farm. When they got there they were met with a whole mess of terror. The barn door was open and the inside was an absolute bloodbath, the walls were lined with bloodied tools, the walls and floors were practically baptized to put it lightly, and even the grounds around the barn were covered as well. When the mob ran to the house, it was even worse.
        Belongings of the victims were displayed like trophies: hats hanging on the walls, pictures with x's through their faces, and the worst was the skull of a man that had once tried to burn the family's crop. They found the family hiding in the basement. The mob swore up and down that Charlotte made the house rattle, slammed doors around the house, and even threw members out the door without even touching them. Finally they rounded the family up and hauled them outside, hung Jameson and kids, then took Charlotte into town and prepared to, quite literally, burn her at the stake. The kicker: she willingly stepped up to it. She then declared loudly that she would allow them to burn her, so long as she would be buried with her family on their property or she would curse the town. They agreed and her parting words before succumbing to her injuries were that the property and the surrounding woods would hold their worst nightmares come to life.
        Then after that, they took her body back and buried her and her family by the same tree they hung by. I don't know about you guys, but that just sounds like a final fuck you. And rightfully so. The whole town tried to locate the bodies of the people these psychos targeted, but there was so much land, add the woods, the house, and even the barn that they simply held one big memorial and erected a plaque for the victims at the entrance of the woods. Those who were brave enough to enter the woods reported disembodied voices, dark figures, cults, full body apparitions, and those big ass wolves I mentioned earlier, which have also been known to look like, well werewolves, but with a more human-like physique, according to some people. The only people who came close to the real prize were those urban explorers that disappeared".
       "I remember the day after that happened! There was a huge search party. They were brave enough to go to the house, and strangely enough nothing happened to them", Julia stated.
"Maybe because there were more people. 'Strength in numbers' rule, I guess", Chris said.
"Wait a sec", Layla cut in. "Didn't someone say they found cameras laying in the middle of the living room"?
        Hunter finished his drink and responded. "They sure did. They ran a YouTube channel called 'Haunted Explorations'", he pulled up the channel that was filled with videos of haunted locations with the group smiling and standing in front of wherever they were.
"Wow. They really enjoyed doing this. They even went to the Eastern State Penitentiary"?
"Sure did. When the search party found the cameras, the footage got uploaded to the internet until it was ordered to be taken down. However, someone saved the footage, edited them, and published it again in memory of the group. It's been taken down numerous times but it continued to pop up until it kept on YouTube. And here it is".
         Hunter pulled up a video that had the title, "Monroe House. In memory of the Hazard Falls Four".
"The video shows footage from each camera, starting from them showing up and ending at the property. The only one to go in the house itself was Kendall. He wandered around the house for a few minutes. He captured some odd noises that almost sounded, to me, like voices, then his camera stopped recording. Everyone else was outside and they turned their cameras off. Wayne was int the barn and Carmen and Justin were by the hanging tree. Wayne caught noises and some other creepy shit. Carmen caught a laugh that came from seemingly nowhere".
"What about when they were walking through the woods", Candice said.
"They caught a lot of stuff. They caught voices, apparitions, wolves howling/growling, and even chanting. Some believe a cult or some other group of crazies followed them and nabbed them once they were in one area. Others truly believe the spirits of the Monroe Family got them and added them to their twisted collection of victims".
          The group sat in silence for what seemed like hours. They exchanged looks and shifted nervously in their seats. Suddenly the idea to go there seemed like a bad idea.
          "Saturday night", Layla said, shocking the group out of their silence. "We go Saturday night. It's a little late to back out now, guys". Everyone exchanged some final glances and nodded.
             "Ok. Saturday night. I have all the equipment we need, so you guys just have to show up. I recommend parking in the lot behind the roller rink and walk the rest of the way. This way we don't get nabbed by a cop. Sound good"?
"Sure".
"Yep".
"Shouldn't be to hard".
"Ok then. Saturday night. It'll be great! You'll see".