The Haunting of Blackburn Manor Read online

  The Haunting of Blackburn Manor

  Blake Croft

  Ashley Raven

  Copyright @ 2019 by Blake Croft

  Contents

  Book Description

  Foreword

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Epilogue

  Note from the authors

  Other books by Blake Croft & Ashley Raven

  The Haunting of the Creole House (excerpt)

  The Wishing Box (excerpt)

  The Abandoned House

  Book Description

  Blackburn Manor hides a terrifying and unnatural secret. Evil just got a new address…

  After months on the run from an abusive relationship, Linda Green is ready to slow down and start her life over again. Exhausted from ever-present fear and stress, she yearns for the peace that a fresh start can bring. A fresh start she hopes to find at Blackburn Manor.

  The lush green trees and serene nature surrounding the manor feel so calming to her frazzled soul that Linda is ready to take advantage of everything this peaceful oasis has to offer. No internet, no distractions. It’s perfect.

  Until she sees the faces in the window.

  Not one to believe much in the supernatural, Linda shrugs it off as just a feeling. But the longer she’s at the manor, the more the feeling of uneasiness grows. From the creepy old neighbor who watches her every move to the moving shadows and unexplained phone calls in the middle of the night, something is just not right.

  She can trust no one. Not even herself.

  As Linda begins to uncover the history of the place, she is sure that something strange is going on at Blackburn Manor. Something sinister that hides in the shadows, deep within walls cloaked with secrets.

  Something that will stop at nothing to keep those secrets hidden.

  The Haunting of Blackburn Manor is a chilling supernatural tale of what happens when a woman’s search for sanctuary turns into a desperate and terrifying attempt to save her own life. Evil truly has a new address...

  Foreword

  This story is dedicated to you, the reader.

  Thank you for taking a chance on us, and for joining us on this journey.

  Do you want to keep up to date with all of our latest releases, and get a FREE copy of The Abandoned House (exclusive to members of our readers’ group)? Sign up for the no-spam newsletter. Details can be found at the end of the book.

  Blake Croft & Ashley Raven

  Prologue

  The old woman sat on her front porch.

  Summer was bleeding into winter, and there was a chill in the air. In the gloom of dusk, even the birds had stopped chirping. The only sound punctuating the arrival of night on that empty street was the rhythmic creak of a rocking chair.

  The old woman swayed back and forth on a chair almost as old as she was. The carved wood was warped by the elements, and so were her bones, twisted and rusty under her paper-thin skin. Her thick white hair was cut short, and she wore a pale-blue house dress that sagged at the front and stopped at her knees, revealing blue varicose veins running along the length of her spindly legs. A group of cats sat around the porch, their tails flitting about to the rhythm of the creaking chair.

  There wasn’t much to see on that empty street hedged in by thick woods, but the woman stared with focused contempt and spite across the street at the only other house for a mile. Being a house was the only thing they had in common. It was a nineteenth century manor, its tiled roofs rearing against the sky, and its narrow windows like eyelets peering down on the old woman’s small dwelling, as if the house sneered at something so humble in its presence.

  The woman’s eyes were narrowed, her lips as thin as the edge of a blade. She stared as if waiting for something to happen.

  A low thud broke through the peaceful quiet.

  The rocking chair stopped.

  The cat tails stood still.

  A low feral yowl rose into the night. A cat hissed, back arched, hair standing on end. The old woman licked her lips as she leaned forward expectantly in her chair.

  Another thud broke through the thrumming silence. It came from across the street. A final thud and the front door opened. A dog came shambling out, head lolling from side to side. Its golden coat looked less lustrous than it usually did. Drool dangled in ropes from its open mouth. It was followed by a man in his mid-thirties, a look of concern and consternation on his face.

  “Jesus, Bud,” the man’s voice resounded in the wilderness. “If you wanted to go out, you could just scratch the door. No need to break your head against it.”

  The old woman’s body tensed, her gnarled hands clutched the arms of the chair. Her pupils were so dilated they resembled the dead-black eyes of a shark.

  The dog whined, its tail stuck firmly between its legs. It turned in circles, emitting pained yelps. The sounds of its nails clicking against hardwood punctuated its distress.

  The old woman licked her lips again. The cats were in a frenzy, their raucous cries a cacophony in the still twilight.

  The dog stood still, ears cocked, as if it had heard some animal scurrying in the underbrush.

  “Hey, Buddy.” The young man’s brow was creased in worry. “Are you all right? You wanna go for a walk? We can play fetch, huh, what’dya say?” He leaned down and tried to pet the dog but the animal bolted as if shot.

  “Buddy!” The man scrambled for the dog's collar, but it was too late.

  The golden retriever hurtled off the steep porch.

  The crack of breaking bones was ominous and loud in the sudden silence.

  “Buddy?” The man ran down the porch steps, nearly losing his balance.

  He knelt down by the twitching dog, and held it in his arms. “You’re going to be okay,” the man said. “You’re going to be fine.” His voice broke. “You won’t die, Buddy. I’ll call the vet. You won’t die.”

  The old woman watched the stooped back of the man as he trudged up the porch steps across the street. Her breathing was shallow, and her lips moist. The cats settled around her, their tails twisted around their hind legs.

  The woman sat back in her chair.

  Her hands relaxed on the arms.

  The chair creaked as it began to rock again.

  Chapter 1

  There were eyes in the woods.

  Linda sat up straight in the passenger seat of the old Chevy truck. Her backside hurt. Pins and needles pricked her legs as blood rushed to her cramped limbs.

  She squinted at the moving tre
e line as the truck rushed past. The woods were thick but she could make out houses in the distance. The sun reflecting off glass windows looked like winking yellow eyes in the woods.

  Linda shivered and tried to shake the morbid thought from her head.

  “I think we’re finally closing in on the town,” said Ashley.

  The two sisters had been driving for hours, and it was the first thing one of them had said for some time. Conversation had run out when they’d crossed into Pennsylvania. They were in Blackwood County now.

  A small sign appeared to the left. Keystone Pop. 6000 was painted black against a stark white background. It was a long way from Brooklyn where they had always lived.

  A lone yellow bus stop emerged in the middle of the woods. Two minutes later, the town itself reared out of the tree line. It wasn’t a smooth transition from thick wood to subtle clearing and then office buildings and townhouses. Trees bunched up around the edges as if they remembered the past when the whole area had been one undisturbed carpet of green and they would soon take it back.

  “It’s remote.” Ashley said. “I’ll give you that. They have one diner, no hotels, and… Oh my God, that’s the movie theater?”

  It was something out of the 50’s. The posters for Jurassic World were glued over so many others they jutted out slightly from the uniform length of the block. A group of gangling young teens leaned against the wall.

  “At least they have the latest releases.” Linda spread her hands.

  Ashley glared at her.

  They sat in silence as the town passed by. There was another bus stop at the other end of town next to the post office, and a branch of Bank of America. The woods invaded again. They were oppressive, and as the sun set lower in the sky their branches looked like fingers reaching down to grasp the truck.

  “What’s the name of the owner again?” Ashley asked.

  “Evelyn Blackburn,” Linda said, folding her arms across her breasts. “She was one of the pioneers of second wave feminism, used to be a professor at Columbia.”

  Ashley whistled.

  “I hope this place is livelier than Keystone. The town seemed to emerge from the tree line like some lost city in the Amazon forest.” Ashley slumped low in the driver’s seat.

  “It wasn’t that bad,” Linda tucked her hair behind her ears. “The artisan bakery/café looked nice.”

  “Lin,” Ashley blew air out of her cheeks, “they have one cafe, the motel looked seedy, the movie theater has one screen, and the hospital is twenty minutes away. I wouldn’t call that ideal.”

  “That’s not fair,” Linda laughed. “It’s a seasonal town and predominantly the B&B kind. It’ll perk up in a few weeks once school is out.”

  Ashley pursed her lips in response.

  The woods thinned out a little as the road curved to the left. Large, slightly shabby houses sat brooding for half a mile on both sides of the road. Linda spied the American flag hanging wet and limp outside a house in serious need of paint. A forgotten bike lay upturned in a yard dotted with garden gnomes, their cherub pink cheeks highlighted the evil slant in their ceramic eyes. There weren't any lights on in any of the windows.

  “They certainly have good taste in this town.” Ashley snorted. “Are those plastic flamingos?”

  Linda couldn’t help but smile. Yes, the yards were atrocious and wild. She kept an eye out for people, but they didn’t see anyone as they passed the handful of homes that were quickly replaced by thick woods.

  It was like no one lived there. Linda twisted in her seat to get another look at the forlorn homes.

  The empty windows made her uneasy. It was true that she had come this far for some solitude but this was more than she had bargained for. They left the small neighborhood behind but Linda couldn’t shake off the uneasy feeling.

  “What does Google maps say? I feel like we should have reached this place half an hour ago,” Ashley said.

  Linda checked her map. There was only one bar and the blip that marked their location was still stuck on Keystone. She zoomed in and marked the neighborhood they’d just passed and made some swift calculations.

  “Another ten minutes.”

  “Jeez,” Ashley rolled her eyes. “They should have mentioned these things in the employment letter. If half of my wages go towards gas to get to and from town, how is this job worth it?”

  Linda didn’t take Ashley’s complaining to heart. It was usual for her to look at the negatives in any given situation. Their mother had always said they were Ying and Yang, Ashley the negative and Linda the positive balance in the relationship.

  “I didn’t hear you complain about it last week,” Linda gave a wry smile. “Come on, Ash. We both need jobs and I need the counseling.”

  “I don’t see why it had to be in the middle of nowhere.” Ashley grumbled but didn’t disagree.

  Guilt spread through Linda’s chest. They were here because of her.

  It was true that Ashley had lost her job because of company downsizing, but Linda still felt a little responsible. By the time she had been let go, Linda was completely dependent on her sister for financial and emotional support.

  “Sorry.” Linda muttered.

  “It’s not your fault,” Ashley sighed, her voice full of regret. “It’s that bastard’s fault.” Her brow darkened, jaw clenched, and she frowned. Anyone glancing inside the car at that moment would fear the wrath of Ashley.

  She was referring, of course, to Linda’s ex-fiancé Jackson.

  The scars had mended, the bruises had faded, but the psychological damage was far from healed. She had made progress through the lengthy trial, but getting out of bed had been a mammoth task let alone caring for herself.

  Unable to afford psychiatric counseling, Linda had met with abuse survivors at the local library. One of them had mentioned the Blackburn Healing Retreat in Pennsylvania where you could work to reduce the fees for counseling, and regain some sense of productivity in the world. The founder was Dr. Evelyn Blackburn herself, a psychologist who had retired from the life of academia to start a retreat to help women just like Linda.

  “This will be good for us,” Ashley said. “I know I’m gloom and doom sometimes, but I have a good feeling about this. Now if only we can get there.”

  “Oh, look! I can see rooftops.” Linda pointed at the horizon.

  The road stretched on, the woods sentinels along its edges, but two houses jutted out of the landscape as afterthoughts. There were no other houses nearby, which seemed off to Linda. The twisting ball of anxiety that had rolled about in her stomach since they passed the barren beginnings of Keystone became still. It didn’t go away. Linda doubted it ever would, but that’s why she was here.

  “Wow,” Ashley whistled as they drove closer.

  Though they were divided by a single road, both houses looked drastically different.

  The Blackburn Health Retreat was nothing short of a sprawling manor house. Victorian in design, it contained all the elements of gothic architecture Linda had read about in her H P Lovecraft books. An old stone structure, it had moss and ivy creeping up along one wall and a single spire like tower on the left side with large windows along its length. Linda thought of Rapunzel when she saw it, but the image that kept creeping into her head was the one in her childhood storybook of Dame Gothel, her hands twisted into a claw as she snatched out the eyes of the prince.

  Linda shook her head. Get a grip. What’s with the spooks?

  Ashley turned into the short driveway of Blackburn Manor. Only one other car was parked in the drive.

  “God, my legs are killing me.” Ashley stopped the engine and stepped out of the car.

  Linda stayed inside for a minute longer, looking at the manor. It captivated the imagination, but why was her heart beating madly in her chest? Her breathing was shallow and she felt trepidation trip down her spine.

  Not right now, she thought. I can’t have an anxiety attack right now.

  “Come on, Lin,” Ashley knocked on her wi
ndow making Linda jump. “Let’s go introduce ourselves, then we’ll deal with the luggage.”

  Swallowing to moisten her dry throat, Linda stepped out of the car.

  As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but an army of trees. This stretch of road continued to curve along a ridge of rocky hills in the distance. The other house was a slipshod structure of wood, dominated by a large porch and narrow front steps.

  Linda smoothed her skirt and stretched her aching limbs. Her stomach was still fluttering. The sun was on its way down; shadows were building in the woods that surrounded the property. A screen door squeaked open and shut from behind them.

  Linda swiveled around to the house across the street, her scalp prickling with nervous sweat.

  An old woman in a loose summer dress and lumpy cardigan stood on the porch, squinting down at them through thick glasses. Her hair was cut short accentuating her thin neck. A couple of cats were meowing at her feet, with more rushing out of the trees and under the porch. The woman held two large bowls in her hand.

  Linda smiled and waved. The woman scowled, placed the bowls on the porch, and huffed back inside. Cold fingers dribbled down Linda’s back. She flashed hot and cold, her skin peppered with goosebumps.