Taryn's Camera: Beginnings: Four Haunting Novellas Read online

Wrapping a wool shawl that had belonged to her grandmother around her shoulders, Sarah began the descent to the lake. She didn’t worry about locking her screen door, or even closing the heavy inner oak one. Nobody would bother anything; they never had.

  The mist that rose from the lake was thin, making the air damp and sticky. She watched it play upon the water’s surface and listened to the music of the gentle waves as they lapped against the muddy shores. As a child she and her sister had played in the water, although she’d been ten years older than her sister and always a little freer. Taryn, with her big imagination and sense of adventure was much more like herself than she was her mother. Frankly, Sarah was surprised her sister had even had a child. She’d never liked children, always been annoyed by them. Taryn was better off living with Stella; in her own home she’d been pushed to the side. She wasn’t abused, had never wanted for a thing, but there were other ways to be neglected.

  “If only I could have her,” Sarah said wistfully. Something in the middle of the lake gave the water a heavy push and set it in motion, sending a wave to wash nearly all the way to her feet.

  She knew she couldn’t have Taryn, though. Sarah was never meant to be a mother. The Universe had not seen to that. She’d tried, of course. Even without a husband she had gone to the doctor and asked to be sent a child and she’d paid the money to have it done, despite her sister and brother-in-law’s objections. She’d tried twice.

  Both times had ended in heartache and the second had ended with the removal of the organs that made her female.

  Now, she was too set in her own ways. She enjoyed going to bed when she wanted, sleeping in until she was ready to rise, sometimes eating nothing for dinner but a candy bar. Going without heat, without running water at times. It wasn’t the place for a child.

  And yet…

  Sarah sighed and turned to leave when, suddenly, something from behind her gave a sudden push. Sarah went flying through the air, arms flailing as they searched for something to grab onto. When she landed in the lake, the icy water was a shock to her system, knocking the air from her. She gasped from the shock but before she could move another push found her head pushed under the water, the mud and plant life offering zero visibility.

  Sarah struggled to stand. The water was only knee deep where she’d landed, but she was on all fours and could feel her hands and feet slowly sinking into the muddy depths of the lake. Her head was in a vise, held down by an invisible force. Sarah struggled and fought with everything that was in her, trying to ignore the cold and not give in to the panic that threatened to consume her.

  For a moment the pressure eased and she was able to raise her head and gulp in a beautiful cup of air before she found her head back under the water again. Her heavy boots kicked at the ground, resisting the mud that tried to pull her downwards. With her hands she clawed at the slippery bottom. She could feel her fingernails tearing and breaking. Clouds of blood floated up before her eyes. This just tempered her to try harder.

  Just when she thought her lungs would burst, the vision of a man appeared before her. He wasn’t really there, he was just beyond her eyes in the cloudy water, but she could see his features as plain as day. His curly black hair floated in the ugliness; his bright blue eyes were bright and full, his mouth closed against the water. Concern lined his face as he reached towards her and grasped her hands. Sarah stopped struggling and let him take her fingers in his. His were strong and even colder than the icy water.

  The pressure against her head was abruptly released. She could move again. Now she could feel herself slowly drifting upwards, pulled up by an invisible string as though she were a doll. When she reached the top she rolled onto her back. The fresh air that met her had her crying with relief.

  For several seconds she floated, gazing up at the steely, lifeless sky. The lake was peaceful. Both the man in the water and the thing that had pushed her into it were gone. When she felt like she could move again, she rose to her feet and trudged back to the shore, her clothes soaked and heavy. Dirty, icy water squished from her boots with each heated step she took through the yard; blood dripped down from her fingers. She felt neither the cold nor the wetness, however.

  She felt only anger that something would dare attack her on her own property.

  THERE WAS NO way Sarah was going to put Taryn in Taryn’s mother’s old bedroom, not after what had happened with the window. She wasn’t real keen on having her in bed with her, either, after what happened in her own bedroom, although she knew Taryn would probably end up there eventually. Her niece was afraid of the dark and didn’t like sleeping alone, although she always gave it her best shot on the first night.

  So, Sarah found herself fluffing the pillows on the bed in the second guest room, the one her parents had used. There was nothing in that room remotely childlike; the heavy, brocade drapes and ornate four-poster, canopy bed was meant for someone much older. Still, Taryn would be fine. It would serve as a place for her to unpack her suitcase in and perhaps take a nap when she was tired. (Taryn had no qualms about napping alone, as long as it was daylight.)

  Two days had passed since the incident at the lake. The house had been quiet since then. Sarah had not visited the water since that afternoon, however. She hated herself for being a chicken but she couldn’t forget the feeling of helplessness, of the water closing in over her face.

  “I don’t care who you are,” she warned the house now as she pulled back the freshly laundered duvet and smoothed it down. “You hurt my niece and I will kill you deader than dead. You think you’re in purgatory now? You just wait.”

  Somewhere downstairs a door slammed in response, rattling the house. A painting of an English garden shook on the wall and threatened to fall off its nail. Sarah walked over to it, straightened the painting, and dusted her hands.

  “By God, it’s my house. You leave me alone!”

  With that, she flipped the light off and stomped into the hallway, pulling the door shut behind her.

  The scene that met her had her struggling to catch her breath.

  Moments earlier, it had been daylight. Sunbeams had shone through the windows, leaving a sparkling pattern across the floor in her parents’ old room. The world outside had been bright and cheerful, hours away from the shadows of dusk.

  Now, in the hallway, it had turned to night.

  The narrow hall that ended on a shadowy landing was almost pitch black. Sarah could barely see her hand in front of her face. She took a step forward but then, afraid of tripping on the floor runner, clutched at the wall to steady herself. Sarah touched something cold, wet, and slimy and gasped at the unexpected sensation. When she quickly brought her hand away, the thick, gooey substance clung to her fingers and trickled down to her ankles where it dribbled off with a wet “glop.”

  Caring less now about falling, Sarah moved with determination to the landing, keeping her arms outstretched to feel for the railing. When she felt her foot hit the antique telephone table, a sign she’d reached the end of the hall, she bent over and searched for the old bordello lamp and the string that would turn it on.

  Suddenly, the hallway and landing were filled with light.

  When she straightened and looked around, she almost wished she’d remained in the dark.

  The floral-papered walls, with their bright colors and Victorian designs, were streaked with a thick, red substance. The liquid, which started at the ceiling, slowly ran down the walls and puddled on the floor in crimson pools. On the walls, the liquid was a deep red; on the floor, however, it was a shiny black. A hard metallic scent filled the air and had Sarah gagging, sour bile rising from her stomach and burning her throat as it threatened to spill out and mix with the vile matter beneath her.

  Sarah covered her mouth and smothered a scream, unwilling to give the house what it seemed to want.

  Then, she turned and ran down the stairs and out the front door.

  “MOTHER, YOU HAVE to know something that I don’t.” Sarah struggled to keep her to
ne patient.

  On the other end of the line, Stella’s voice was cheerful and pleasant. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Oh, you know what I mean,” Sarah retorted. “Things are going on inside the house. Things that are trying to drive me insane.”

  Sarah paced back and forth on her front porch, phone cradled against her shoulder. She’d been back inside since leaving it earlier that afternoon. The hallway had returned to normal, just like nothing had happened. Her hand, however, was still stained a slight crimson. It had taken quite a bit of Dawn and hard scrubbing to get most of it off. She knew she’d have to go back in soon, but was putting it off for as long as possible.

  “So spill the beans, Mother,” Sarah implored her. “What’s going on?”

  “Well, there’s always been something there,” Stella said, the pleasantness not leaving her voice.

  “I find it odd that it’s just now coming out,” Sarah said.

  “Do you? Do you really? How funny,” Stella laughed. “But that’s neither here nor there. I will be honest with you. I don’t know what it is. I have my suspicions, but I am not really sure.”

  “Do you think it has something to do with the fire?”

  “Perhaps, yes,” Stella answered. “That’s always been my theory.”

  The farm house, built in the mid-1800s, had once boasted a whole other wing that was no longer visible. Although the foundation was still there, and could be seen in the winter when grass was dead and weeds gone, the two stories that went with it had been gone since 1905. That part of the house had burned well before Sarah, or even Stella, was born.

  The house’s owner, Julian Alderman, and his daughter Delilah had died in the fire. Growing up, they’d always joked about the ghosts that haunted the house, about Julian and Delilah hanging around.

  But nobody had ever really seen them. Not once, in all her years, had Sarah felt so much as a whisper. She’d never truly believed that either one of them haunted the house. And even now…

  “I hardly think a young girl or her grieving father would be trying to kill me,” Sarah reasoned.

  “I wouldn’t have thought so, either,” Stella replied, more subdued. “I’d always wondered if they didn’t pop back in from time to time to check on the place but I never thought they were anything but benign spirits.”

  Sarah was quiet, contemplating. What was going on then?

  “Maybe you should come down here,” Stella said at last. “Maybe you need to get out of that house. There’s something going on and I don’t like it.”

  When Sarah hung up the phone she sat back and sighed. She hated to admit it, but her mother might be right. She didn’t want to think that she could be run out of her own home but she certainly didn’t want to live like that either. On the other hand…

  Sarah wasn’t entirely sure that her mother was telling her the whole truth.

  She was going to have to figure out what was going on, and put a stop to it if she could. She had to before her niece arrived and, if she couldn’t, then she couldn’t allow her to come at all.

  SARAH STOOD OUTSIDE and looked up at the house, her gaze fixated on the back where the other wing had once been. It had only consisted of four rooms: a parlor, a bedroom, and two servants’ rooms. The bedroom had belonged to Delilah. Both servants’ rooms were empty at the time of the fire.

  Extra windows had been added to what were once the interior walls; you couldn’t even tell that part of the house was missing now.

  The foundation, where she currently stood, still existed, however. Sarah could feel the stones sticking up from the ground, could almost make out the shape of what had been the fire.

  “Do you want something?” she asked. “I don’t think I can help you. I’m sorry you and your daughter died a terrible death but that was a very long time ago and it wasn’t my fault.”

  A large branch broke off not far beyond the tree line; the cracking sounded like a slamming door.

  “I realize that you’re probably angry but why now? What do you want?” she asked again.

  A rocking chair on her front porch began quickly rocking back and forth, with so much power it looked as though it might fall over. Another tree branch fell off in the distance and Sarah jumped as her eyes moved back and forth between the porch and the forest.

  “Okay, you have my attention, what do you want?”

  Above her came a tapping, a rapping on the window.

  When Sarah looked up, a small girl stood in the window, her pale face gazing outwards. Her mouth was distorted in a scream, her eyes wide. It was the same girl she’d seen in her dream, the same one from her bedroom.

  “Delilah!” Sarah called.

  The rocking chair stopped moving. The tapping paused as well. Now the little girl was looking down at Sarah, eyes still wide, but curiosity replaced the fear.

  “You can see me, can’t you?” Sarah asked with wonder. “You know I’m here.”

  And with that, the child vanished.

  “OKAY, IT’S NOT much but it’s all I have on the Aldermans.”

  Sarah slipped on her reading glasses as the stack of books were slid towards her on the library table. The heavyset woman who stood before her with creased brows bit her lip. “Of course, I might know a thing or two more about them if you were interested in, you know, something that’s not in the books.”

  “What’s that?” Sarah asked, already distracted as she thumbed through the pages. They were all local history books, most of which she’d read before. She wasn’t unfamiliar with local history. Before she was a principal she’d been a teacher and had taught her students about the area in which they lived. She knew, for instance, that Julian’s family had been one of the first settlers to the area. She knew he’d been a farmer, knew his wife had died in childbirth, knew that the farm house had set empty for years after his death. She’d seen pictures of him, his wife, his daughter, and the house before it lost a wing.

  None of this was new to her.

  Sarah had no idea what she was looking for.

  “I know that it might not have been an accident,” the woman said at last.

  Sarah paused and looked up. “Really Denise? You think he was murdered? For what? He wasn’t wealthy.”

  Denise, a woman Sarah herself had taught twenty years before, shrugged. “I just know what my grandmother told me.”

  “I’ve never heard that before,” Sarah retorted. “Everyone knows that the house was struck by lightning. That lightning struck it and the wind blew over some kerosene lamps. It was a tragedy, but an accident nonetheless.”

  “Maybe,” Denise shrugged again, nonplussed. “But what about Benjamin Warwick?”

  “Who?” Sarah was already back to looking at the books before her. She loved the picture of the original house, the one that had the whole family standing on the porch. Julian had been a handsome man. He was tall and muscular and looked stern but his arm was wrapped protectively around his pretty young wife and their heads were bent intimately towards one another. It was easy to tell that she was pregnant. Sad to know that she’d never meet that child.

  “The man who helped on the farm,” Denise explained, appearing to revel in information Sarah didn’t have. “He lived there.”

  “The Aldermans lived there alone,” Sarah said, frowning.

  “Not always. They had two men who lived there, one right in the house. Warwick left just two weeks before the fire. It was a big scene. He got paid a lot but some people heard him threatening not only Julian but Delilah, too,” Denise added smugly.

  “Huh,” Sarah said. Well, that was something she hadn’t heard before. “I need to learn more about that.”

  “You can talk to my grandmother if you’d like,” Denise told her. “She’s at the rehab center.”

  Sarah spent the next several hours reading through the books but didn’t learn anything new. She wasn’t sure that she was buying the murder angle, it sounded too much like bad TV, but she didn’t want to discount anything either
.

  She might have to pay Denise’s grandmother a visit.

  THE STORM SENT a torrential downpour on the roof. With drops that had to be the size of golf balls, the thunderous noise echoed throughout the house, driving out the sound of the television. Sarah finally gave up watching the late-night movie and turned the TV off. Settling back in bed, she removed her glasses, massaged her temples, and sighed. Taryn would be there in a few more days. Again, the house had been quiet.

  “I can handle a child ghost and her father,” Sarah assured her bedroom. “I’ve handled children and their parents before.”

  But she couldn’t handle blood running down the walls and ghosts that tried to drown her. That was a whole other ballgame.

  Sarah turned off the lamp and pulled the covers up, trying to ignore the hammering of the rain above her. It was good for the garden, she tried telling herself. April showers brought May flowers and all that nonsense.

  Despite the racket, she must have dozed because when she opened her eyes and looked at her clock four hours had passed. The house was silent; the rain had stopped.

  Something had woken her, however.

  She had smelled it before she saw it.

  That appalling, metallic scent was back again, the thing she’d smelled out in the hallway. The scent of blood. It was stronger now, and somehow more familiar. Sarah sat up in bed and sniffed, trying to figure out where she knew it from.

  It hit her about the same time that the young girl appeared in her bedroom.

  “Delilah?” Sarah asked, her voice shaky.

  The girl, who was too solid to be a ghost but too ethereal to be human, stood at the window and looked out. Sarah watched as she lifted her hands and tapped on the glass, first quietly and then louder. Then Sarah watched as she began to scream and bang on the window, rattling the panes and the wood around it.

  “Delilah! Delilah, stop it!” Sarah commanded, forgetting to be scared and instantly transported back to her time in the classroom. “You’re okay now; stop right this instant!”