Nightmare Ink Presents Issue 1
Nightmare Ink Presents is one of my new projects, and the first of the new year, that I hope to keep doing during this year. It will be released every week, and each week will feature a new chapter of the story. I have a loose idea about the length this story will be but I truly plan to let it run its course so it can end up longer or shorter than I had envisioned it. As I took longer preparing this than I should on this one you’ll have not one but the first two chapters corresponding to the first two weeks of the year. Hope you enjoy it and without further ado let’s start this. Drum roll, please…
The Haunting of Blackwood Manor Chapter I: Welcome to Blackwood Manor
The Smith family's arrival at Blackwood Manor was a mixture of various feelings, at least for Emily and Alex. Their father, Mark, under what they had been referring to as a mid-life bout of craziness, had decided that it was time for the family to pack up and move to the little town where he used to spend his summers as a kid. Focused on creating a sense of normalcy for them, their mother, Sarah, just went along and did her best to support her husband’s decision. And now, as they stood in front of the imposing mansion, amidst anger and resentment and tiredness from the long drive, a feeling of wonder and excitement was growing.
“Didn’t I tell you guys that the house was really something?” their father's voice was that of a child who had just been given a present. Stepping next to Sarah he continued, his voice a bit lower, “Told it looked better than in the photos. So, let’s go inside and christen it?” his smile turned sly, which made him the target of a punch to the arm.
“Let’s,” she replied, hooking her arm in his and moving to the mansion entrance, making a sign for Emily and Alex to follow them.
As the family stepped into the mansion's grand entrance hall, the air thick and dusty with anticipation, a chill came over Alex. The mansion stood tall, its architecture grand but weathered, the kind that hid tales of a dark history. The creaking floorboards and flickering lights gave the family a sense of dread not only because of the creepy shadows it created but also because of all the work they could see in their future. The realtor, and some of the townsfolk, had warned Mark about both, but the allure of the Victorian-era estate and new beginnings had proved too strong for him to resist.
“Dad,” Emily had said as she looked around. “I didn’t forget to thank you for making me leave my friends and move into Hill House, did I?”
Her dad chuckled at the comment, but her mother gave her a stern glance.
“Sarah, she’s just joking, and if she’s not at least she read the classics. Or at least saw the Netflix show, right?”
“Be careful of the ghostly governess, Sis. Don’t let her get you,” her brother teased.
“That’s Bly Manor!” both her parents and his sister replied, with Emily adding a “you moron” at the end.
After settling in, choosing which rooms they were going to stay in, and after the usual sibling quarrel, tiredness overcame them, and the family decided to call it an early night.
Awakening to what seemed scratching at her room walls, Emily felt a creeping chill overcome her. She thought of getting up and checking the windows but instead tucked herself as deep as she could under her comforter. “Just an old house settling in,” she reassured herself, trying to put aside all the horror books that filled the boxes around the room, waiting to be unpacked.
As her sister was battling the cold that had entered her room Alex awoke too. Still groggy and misty-eyed he noticed, through an open door he could swear he had closed, someone, definitely a woman, passing by in the corridor, its wooden floor creaking.
“Mom?” he asked the now empty space. “Em? That you?”
“Shhh. Go back to sleep. Just checking if my babies were okay.”
“M’kay, mum. Close the door, please?” he muttered already more than half asleep again.
Down the corridor, shuffling on their own bed, their parents slept.
The Haunting of Blackwood Manor Chapter II: Familiar Fears
When Alex got to the kitchen the next morning, his eyes still not completely open, the rest of the family was already having breakfast. The smell of coffee from the old percolator, his father was so keen on using, encompassed the entirety of the ground floor of their new home.
“Hey!” he said nearing the table and picking up the piece of toasted bread his sister had just finished buttering up from her hands, which made her mumble something under her breath. Whatever it was caused Alex to give her a little punch in the arm, and their mother to give both a side glance.
“Slept well, kiddo?” his father asked, making Alex look at him with a pleading face. “Oh, come on, your sister doesn’t mind I call her kiddo, do you Em?”
Before she could answer her brother intervened.
“Course she doesn’t. She’s daddy’s little girl,” his voice turning an octave higher and melodious. He decided to punctuate his affirmation with a bite of the toast he had just stolen.
Her only response was to make a covert hand gesture at her brother, hoping their parents wouldn’t see it.
“Emily Rose! I saw that.” her mother scolded her, back still to the table. “Behave yourself, young lady!”
Alex chuckled at his mother's remark, especially the use of his sister’s two names, which he knew she hated, but was quickly called out too.
“Let them be, honey. They are just teasing each other. It’s normal in their age. Me and my brothers…”
Sarah quickly interrupted her husband.
“Yes Mark, we all know how you and your brothers were. The terror of the neighborhood, the bane of the household. Well, I don’t want my children to be hooligans.” She kissed the top of his head and put a plate with fried eggs and bacon on the table. “Now answer your father kids. How was your night?”
Emily slid a look at her brother but averted her eyes before he could notice. She tried to look at the view behind him through the kitchen big window, but her father caught her.
“Em?”
“Oh, it was nothing. Just woke up to some noise. But it scared me a little.” She once again glanced at her brother waiting for a quirky remark. What she got instead was a nod.
“Probably just mum, as she did the rounds checking up on her babies,” he stressed that last word. “She woke me up too. There are some creaky boards in that corridor.” He bit the toast once again.
“Hum, Alex. You were probably dreaming. I never left the room last night.”
“You know how that is. New house and all. Any little noise will sound like an explosion. It doesn’t help that no one lived here for quite some time. Both us and the house, damn, even the land itself…”
“Language, sweetie.”
“…is settling in. I wouldn’t pay much attention to it,” their father continued giving them a sly smile.
As they finished eating, Emily and her mother went to unpack the boxes marked “Kitchen” while Mark went to town to get some groceries. Alex excused himself to go on a morning run, promising his mother that he would make up for the time when he came back.
Putting on his wireless headphones Alex started making his way to the street a few feet from the house's entrance when he noticed something amidst the dried ferns – that sooner or later he would be brought up, or bribed, to cut – to the side of the house. There was a path a few paces into the vegetation, one that was cleaned and that seemed to go around the house. Careful not to get tangled in the prickly vegetation Alex got to the dirt path and started to follow it at a jog. Contrary to what he had thought the path swerved to the side roughly in the middle of its way around the building. Pondering his options Alex decided to keep following it. A bip interrupted the song playing through the headphones marking half his objective for this morning when he noticed that he had come to the edge of the forest that bordered the property. His father had even told them on their drive that supposedly some part of it was “in the property” but that he wasn’t too interested in it and that from what he had been told no one ever had really laid claim to the wooded area. Alex could see why no one would want to. Even from the very edge of it, he could feel the chill that came from beneath the natural dome of boughs that also darkened the way ahead of him. He thought of sucking it up and going a little bit further up the path but a look at the the trees and the darkness made him turn around and get back home. After all, he was already halfway to his objective, and going further would put him over it.
Emily was sprawled on the ancient, at least by her standards, and used but comfortable leather armchair in the living room, a leg over the arm and a book resting open atop her chest.
After emptying the boxes that now filled the shelves and furniture around the division, she, her mother, and her brother had eaten a lunch of cucumber sandwiches – with their family special recipe of mayo, cream cheese, and egg – and sweet potato chips and then they all went their separate ways.
Her brother was meant to be unboxing his stuff but if she knew him, he would unpack his PS5 and set everything so he could play with his friends. She could understand the need for that.
Her boxes would have to wait too. Before coming here, she had gotten Harry Donovan’s “The Killer Within”, his first after a long hiatus after the great success of his first and only book “Blood-Soaked Nights”, and that supposedly dealt with his own writer's block.
Emily had barely gotten to the first chapter when sleep started to overcome her, and she gently let the book drop onto her chest.
She was roused out of slumber, not getting her bearings for some seconds, by the sharp screeching coming from somewhere in the house. A blanket had been placed on top of her legs She saw a shadow coming into the living room and made herself smaller, almost as if trying to melt with the armchair. Her mind raced back to the sounds she had heard last night.
What she saw was his father's head appearing at the door.
“Sorry, sweety. Didn’t mean to wake you up. Guess the wood on that windowsill is more swollen than I had thought. Go back to sleep or better yet, why don’t you go up to your room and rest before dinner?”
For some reason the thought of going back up made her flesh crawl, she knew she had to go up sometime, but she didn’t want to.
Her father started to move back to what chore he was up to, opening windows, her sleepy mind guessed. She had to tell her what really had woke her up the last night.
“Dad?” she called softly almost hoping he didn’t hear her.
“Honey?” his head back into the frame.
“Nothing,” she replied quickly, deciding to let things go. “Just wake me with time for a shower before dinner’s ready.”
(to be continued…)
So here are Chapters I and II of The Haunting of Blackwood Manor. Sorry for the lengthy presentation but hey, this kind of thing is needed. I hope you enjoyed this week’s installments and that you come back for more.
As always I would love to hear your opinions, so hit me up. See you next week for Chapter III!
M.
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