Nightmare Ink Presents Issue 8

Welcome once again to the pages, or to be exact, screen, of Nightmare Ink Presents.

It’s the second one this week and I know it might be a bit too much but it was something I couldn’t avoid doing. I even thought of doing an issue of NIP with both chapters of the story (this week’s and the one from the week before) but it would be a longer one and I decided on two emails this week.

And so, here it is, the ninth chapter of our story.

Hope you enjoy it!

The Haunting of Blackwood Manor Chapter IX: Echoes

Mark had woken up to listen to the kids leaving the house. They had asked him to take the car to go help their new friend Pete with the cleaning from last night's screening. He was happy to see his children making friends, and integrated, so quickly in the place that they would be calling home, hopefully, for many years. He had so many happy memories of this place and he wanted Alex and Emily to have the same. God knew his children needed it, especially Alex, with all that had happened to him last year. Lying in bed Mark thought about how we had wanted to bring the family here for some time but how only such a tragedy had finally made Sarah cave in. Was he a bad person for being glad to have had his way?

He remembered the conversation with his wife when she had told him that maybe it was time to move out. She had told him they should try for a summer and see how things would go. They had been here for less than two weeks and things were going ok. The kids were making friends and so were they, even if they had been his summer friends for long ago, reemerged from the waters of time to greet them. But Sarah had hit it off with Emma but being in the art business. Maybe Mark could talk with Emma and do his wife a surprise getting an atelier ready for her in one of the rooms on the top floor. Or maybe something with a kiln in the basement. He really should talk to Emma about that. But thinking about his wife made him start wondering where she was.

He had sensed she was not in bed when he had woken up, but he imagined she had gone to the bathroom or seen that the kids were okay when they left, maybe even preparing them breakfast before they left. But he thought she would be coming to join him in bed again, as time completely alone was hard to get for them.

Mark got up and left the room deciding to surprise his wife, wherever she was. As he crossed into the corridor, he heard a humming coming from the room down the hall. Maybe she was making the room up or had found something in the, still plenty, boxes they had to get through that belonged to Alex.

The humming continued and Mark couldn’t hide a smile.

“Even she is happy,” he thought as he neared the end of the corridor and Alex’s room.

He peeked inside trying to get a glimpse of his wife before rushing to lift her in a tight hug.

She was sitting on the edge of the bed her face turned towards the window. She cradled something in her arms, the soft hum directed at whatever it was. She wore a nightgown he had never seen before and never even knew her interested in that kind of clothing. And did her hair look different too? More curled and brighter?

He tried to enter the room but somehow couldn’t move. His throat was harsh, and he couldn’t utter a word. He forced his legs to move and finally was able to get into the room. The hum was clearer now, he didn’t recognize the tune, but he recognized the rhythm. His wife was humming a lullaby. Was she the one with a surprise in store for him?

He managed to get closer to the bed. Why was it so difficult to move? It seemed something was trying to hold him in place, to push him back so he couldn’t reach the woman in the bed, so he couldn’t reach his wife. A few more steps and she would be within her reach. As he got closer, his hand reaching for her shoulder, she turned in his direction.

Her skin had a sickly white tone to it, her eyes streaked with red veins. In her arms, there was that bundle, a green blanket or shawl involving something, and as she moved to look at him a small arm got loose and hung limp toward the ground. He noticed the purplish marks around the woman's neck. She looked at him with knowing eyes, but Mark didn’t know the woman in the bed, it certainly wasn’t his wife. Frozen in place Mark couldn’t do anything except stare at the strange woman, an intruder in his own home, and listen to her speak in a raspy harsh voice, all while trying to face the dread that rose to his heart. The woman got up and moved towards him. She spoke again.

“Mark?” Sarah called her husband as she got up from the bed, the wool sweater she was folding falling from her lap and into the ground. “Mark!” she called again.

Sarah had been getting clothes out of a box when she heard the soft crying again. This time she was sure she heard it. She was wide awake, having been up since the kids had started making a ruckus as they got ready to go to town. She had decided to surprise her husband, whom she had left in bed, as soon as the kids got out of the house. “Some well-deserved alone time” Sarah had thought, a sly smile drawing on her lips.

But then, shortly after the kids had left the crying had started. She had followed the sound to Alex’s room, the baby’s room, not Alex’s, it was the baby’s room, and he was crying again. “For how long can it keep crying?” Sarah found herself thinking. “Day and night. Night and day. It doesn’t do anything else but cry.”

She entered the room and moved to the bed, the crib?, and she started humming a song to calm the baby down. The baby kept on crying. She was at her nerve's end, always tending to the house, the baby, and her husband. “And does he help? Of course not. Always going around too busy to help, God knows doing what,” she muttered pausing the lullaby for just a second, a second which the baby took as a cue to turn up the volume on his crying. She reached into the crib, hands like claws moving closer, inch by inch, to the small body wailing at her.

“How easy would it be…” she whispered at the tune of the lullaby she was singing.

She picked the baby up, her mind changing tracks at the moment her hands touched the soft body of her son.

Sitting down on the edge of the bed, there was a bed after all, she started cradling the bundle in her arms, rocking it in rhythm with her lullaby, looking at the baby with mixed thoughts running through her head. Still, the baby kept on crying.

And then she looked up from it, and Mark was there staring at her, frozen still as if in terror. She called to him, but he didn’t seem to be able to listen to her voice.  She pulled at him, to no reaction. She started to worry. “Is he having some sort of attack?” She moved toward the door and as she crossed the doorway the floor creaked.

“Sarah?” She heard her husband say from behind her and looking back she saw him moving in her direction a smile on his face. She smiled back at him.

“Everything will be fine,” Sarah thought as she moved back into the room, whichever spell had held them both now broken. She hugged him. “As long as we have each other.”

And now we are back on track!

Can’t wait to hear what you think about this chapter. I really like this chapter (which means you probably won’t), and I truly liked writing it, so, despite everything, I hope you all like it too.

Now it’s on to next week’s chapter and to what’s supposed to be the finish line, at least that’s the plan.

Thanks for reading and see you next week!

Until then, don’t let the ink of nightmares dry!

M.

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