Nightmare Ink Presents Issue 9

Welcome to the next installment of Nightmare Ink Presents story, The Haunting of Blackwood Manor.

This chapter brings us a step closer to the climax of our story and I am really happy with how it is going. I just hope you are enjoying it too.

So let’s just dive in!

The Haunting of Blackwood Manor Chapter X: Dawning Secrets

The mood in the manor was heavy and apprehensive as Mark got downstairs. It had been for the last couple of days. He had noticed the changes and how the air seemed to grow heavy.

He had observed how Sarah had been distracted, how her gaze became lost as if looking for something, mostly when she thought he wasn't paying attention to her. He had found her more than one time in Alex’s room, sitting at the same spot he had seen her before. It was eerie to see her sitting there, looking at the same place she had been looking at, humming the same song. He had never got into the room again to interact with his wife as he had that the very first time he had found her like that.

He noticed changes in Alex too. His son, always so active and energetic in the mornings, had started to sleep in, sometimes looking more tired than the previous nights. Had the night terrors he had suffered since Addie's death returned? It had taken months of therapy and it seemed as if he was doing good, even his therapist had said the same when the topic of moving almost halfway across the country had come up. Maybe he should try to make Alex give him a call. Or maybe he should talk to Ollie about finding someone local, there should probably be one at the school. He still left to do his morning runs though, and even tired as he looked, he always put all his energy into it as if getting away from the house was the thing he wanted the most.

Only, Emily seemed to be unaffected by whatever was going on in their new house. Sure, she was staying later in the living room reading instead of retreating to her room as she usually did, but Mark didn’t read anything into it.  The armchair she liked to sit and read on was one of the most comfortable and cozy in the place and Mark was a little bummed she had taken to occupy it for so long, leaving him with no time to enjoy it. He even found her asleep on it one day as he came down in the morning. Or maybe she was just better at hiding how the house, or whatever it was had affected her.

Because even he had been affected. Mark had been seeing the old man from his dream at the house, who as it seemed wasn’t that much older than Mark himself, and more than that, the man had spoken directly to him.

It had happened the night after the kids had gone to town to help clean the Marquis. Mark had just finished reading a chapter from his book and decided to get a fresh glass of water before going up to bed. As he entered the kitchen his eyes fell on the brown envelope the kids had brought with them. Mark had completely forgotten about it, tossing it on top of the counter but now his curiosity peaked, and he decided to take a look at what it was.

Inside the envelope were two pieces of paper. One was a small handwritten note that read:

Dear Mr. Smith,

I hope things are going well at your new home, and if they aren’t I hope that the document I send you will shed some light on whatever is happening to disturb your stay.

I would be glad to tell you what I know and help you in any way I can.

You can find me at Cedar Books & Curios.

Hopefully, you won’t need me.

Kind regards,

James Morrison

Mark took the other paper from the envelope and looked at it. It was a xeroxed page from an old diary or a fragment of a letter. Mark's face turned sour when he went through the words. As he put the page down the man, who he now knew to be Silas Holloway, was sitting opposite him.

“You can see it, can’t you?” Silas' voice was deep and hollow. “She’s going to do it too if you don’t act first. I was late, oh so late, and doomed all of us. But you can make it right and save your family. You know what you must do. I’ll even help you…” He continued, his smile turning mischievous as he talked Mark through what he should do.

Alex had had another bad night. He had, once again, awakened to the feeling of someone standing next to his bed.

In the previous nights he had felt this presence, he had always made sure he didn’t look up in its direction, always keeping his head on the pillow doing his best to keep his eyes closed to avoid the temptation to look. He too, knew his horror movies, and that when things like this happened, the moment when the character looked was the moment he couldn’t deny what was happening anymore. But something inside it stirred, making him want to look. He couldn’t be sure what it was; if it was the realization that this was real life and that what he felt was just some kind of feedback from the bad dreams that had been plaguing him or just being in an old manor house that resembled many he had seen in so many horror movies he didn’t have enough fingers to count.

And so he looked. He did all he could not to scream.

A woman was standing next to the bed, her arms motioning toward him. He could tell she had been crying. She stopped as she noticed he was looking at her, and muttered almost in a sob.

“My son…”

He closed his eyes, harder this time.

When he opened them again the woman was nowhere to be seen and the sun was starting to rise.

Alex stood at the edge of the street having pushed the garbage up to the place where it would be retrieved later in the day.

He was trying to keep his mind busy, going for his early morning run, mostly trying not to think about the events of the previous dawn, and he had half succeeded, planning to ask Em if she wanted to go to town to grab something to eat and get some comics. Maybe they could ask Pete and Lily to join them.

“Yeah, that seems a solid plan,” Alex was thinking when something caught his attention. Through the corner of his eye, he saw the brown envelope sticking out of a trash bag. He had seen the envelope before going to bed so, whoever had thrown it away later that night. Alex picked the envelope out of the bag. It had been opened, so it could be empty, his father taking out whatever was inside and throwing away the envelope. But he could feel something inside, though. Maybe his father didn’t care for what the old historian had sent him and threw the whole thing away. He took out the contents of the envelopes and read them on the sidewalk.

He ran back home.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter and that I’m able to keep you invested in the story and the strange happenings of the Smith family.

As I said we are reaching the climax and planned finale of this story, and your feedback really means a lot to me. So don’t forget to tell me what you think.

See you next week,

M.

Thanks for reading Nightmare Ink! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.