Nightmare Ink Presents Issue 5
Welcome back to Nightmare Ink Presents.
This one is a bit later than usual but here it is, so I won’t take any more of your time and will let you dive into the newest chapter of our story.
The Haunting of Blackwood Manor Chapter VI - Morning Chill
Emily left her room as soon as she saw the first rays shining through the windows. She hadn't been able to fall asleep again after awakening to the strange sound, her eyes locked in the place where the wallpaper had been peeling, waiting for it to happen again. But, it hadn't. Mostly because there was no wallpaper surrounding her, just grey walls waiting for a new coat of paint.
Before leaving her room, she thought about picking up "The Killer Within" but decided against it. She just wasn't feeling it. She ended up picking "Tress of the Emerald Sea" instead. Fantasy would be a better fit for today. Sanderson would find a way to fuck her up but at least it wouldn't haunt her at night. As she came to the stairs, she noticed movement in her brother's room but kept moving on, descending them two steps at a time.
As she got to the foot of the stairs, she started making her way to her usual reading spot but decided against it, the memory of when she had fallen asleep there on their first day at the house suddenly too vivid in her mind. She decided to go outside and sit on the porch bench. It was a chilly morning, the sun not yet high in the sky and so Emily pulled herself under the blanket that rested in a basket under the bench, its soft wool comforting her. She looked in the distance towards the edge of the woods to her right, the sun rising behind the canopy of the trees. She looked at the green on the cover of her book and opened it.
Matt and Sarah came downstairs together, laughing.
At first, Sarah didn’t want to get out of bed, but her husband teased her until she relented, but not before throwing a pillow at him.
“So, Mister,” she opened the curtains letting the sun come into the room, the last drops of dew evaporating from the window sill. As she did, she saw Alex in the distance, where the path to the forest started. “I got out of bed as you wanted, what do I get in return?” She continued, hugging her husband from behind, her hands sliding down his chest and past his starting-to-appear beer belly.
“I’ll make you breakfast,” Matt said without missing a bit, turning to her. “It’s my best offer.”
Sarah pouted and Matt laughed, before planting a kiss on her lips.
“Now get dressed and let’s go downstairs.”
As they both did, the dreams and wander of last night, at least for now, were the last thing on their mind.
Alex had just awoken when he heard his sister get down the stairs.
After some time, he had finally been able to fall asleep but was surprised to awake in the same position he had when he had been roused from the nightmare as if his body knew better than to roll over to the other side of the bed. He didn’t feel rested, but he needed to move. That was the way coped with the bad things in his life. Which had started as a hobby, and later became the basis of his school life, was now an outlet. And so, he ran, not away but just enough to leave his ghosts behind. And that worked for him, at least until the moment he stopped.
He sprinted down the stairs, through the kitchen, and out of the back door barely noticing his sister, almost mid-book by now, curled in the bench. He lifted a hand in her direction and greeted her with a Hey, goblin! Before going down the porch stairs, missing the raised finger she gave to his back taking care not to lose the page she was at.
He started through the yard as he usually did but as he reached the path to the forest he stopped. Just the idea of going down the path he had gone in his dream filled him with an overwhelming feeling of dread. So, he turned and made his way to the main road. After, a while his earphones died and he cursed himself for not checking their charge last night. He thought of turning back and cutting the run short, but the morning was serene, the sun a quarter of his way up in the sky and the chirping of birds was inviting so he decided to keep going.
He had been making his return run home, after going a bit more than half an hour down the road when he heard a faint sound behind him. He ignored it, rationalizing that, in this kind of place there was always a noise or another. Even so, a bead of cold sweat ran through his body mixing with the sweat from the run. He kept on running and as he did the noise became constant, and faster as he pushed his muscles harder. He wanted to look behind him, to see whatever was making that sound. But he didn’t dare, he knew what he would see if he looked, he was sure of that. He also knew that he could keep on running but he would have to stop sometime, and wouldn’t it be better to face his ghosts sooner than later? “Yeah, it would,” he thought. “Just not today,” he almost said out loud when he heard a voice calling his name. But there was something different with the voice. It was not the voice he was expecting to hear calling him. Definitely not the voice he had heard in his dreams. Not Addie’s voice. He glanced behind him, quickly and saw a figure lifting an arm and waving at him. At first, he didn’t recognize whoever it was but after a second a name formed in his head, Lily Evergreen.
“My father went to get some supplies for the store and I asked him to leave me nearby so I could come meet you,” Lily had offered when Alex asked her what she was doing so far out of town on foot at this time of the morning, but not before she had given him a huffing Dude I’ve been running and calling after you like crazy didn’t you hear me.
They were making their way back to the manor as they spoke.
“And you wanted to meet me because?” Alex asked in return.
“Duh, first we fumbled all of the twenty-first-century conventions and didn’t exchange socials at the very least, so if I wanted to ask you and your sister to come to, for example, attend a special session at the Marquis the only way I had to do that was coming to the Manor. And that’s what I did. And about the time, well, I wasn’t going to walk all the way here, right? So, I hopped at the chance to get a ride from Dad.”
They were now halfway to the house and Alex was weighing all the information on his head.
“Sorry, for not answering right away, I was a bit lost inside my head.”
“Lost? You seemed to be running from a ghost when I called you,” she must have noticed something change in Alex's demeanor because she stopped herself. “But everything ok now, so no biggie.”
“So, what’s the Marquis?” Alex asked looking at her.
“Oh boy… So…” and she kept on talking until they reached the house.
Hope you enjoyed this chapter and I hope to see you here again when we return next week for another exciting (?) chapter.
As always we at Nightmare Ink await your comments. Also, we would like to know what you think of the story in its entirety and what you expect from it. We want to know it all.
See in a week,
M.
