Hope House Chronicles volume II: The Possession Read online

  HOPE HOUSE CHRONICLES VOLUME II:

  THE POSSESSION

  MICHAEL BRAY

  Copyright © 2016 Michael Bray

  www.michaelbrayauthor.com

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  The moral right of Michael Bray to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  ALSO BY THE SAME AUTHOR

  Dark Corners

  MEAT

  MEAT: Uncut

  Whisper

  Echoes (Whisper Trilogy book II)

  Voices (Whisper Trilogy book III)

  Funhouse

  Forgotten Fears

  From the Deep

  Return to the Deep

  Spawn of the Deep

  The Island

  Cody Rexell & the Death Worm

  Project Apex

  Eradication: Project Apex book II

  The Void (With Albert Kivak)

  Hope House Chronicles I: The Visit

  Art (With Matt Shaw)

  Monster (With Matt Shaw)

  Home Video (With Matt Shaw)

  Trapped (With Matt Shaw)

  The House that Hell Built (With Matt Shaw & Stuart Keane)

  Seat 6A

  Cabin Fever

  Shoebox

  Scarecrows

  Scratchers

  Something in the Dark

  THE HAMILTON FAMILY

  March 1963 – June 1963

  ONE

  I was relieved when I saw in the news that the house had burned down. Although I hadn’t lived there for years, not since I was a little girl, just seeing its name in print made me cold and clawed up those memories I thought I’d hidden for good. I supposed I should know better, even though things are good now. I have my own life, a husband who I love more than anything and two gloriously amazing children. The scars of living in that place are still there, and every now and again give me that deep seated uncatchable itch that I so want to scratch. In my mind’s eye I see myself tearing open those invisible scars and exposing the rot and maggots that still fester underneath.

  Somehow, I manage not to. I’d like to say it’s for my husband or family, but the truth is I do it for me. If I learned anything from that place it’s that I’m stubborn, a fighter. That’s right, meek old Vanessa Palmer (formerly Hamilton) a stubborn survivor, and hell why not? After all, that’s exactly what I am. The things that happened in that place, the things that I saw, would be enough to change anyone. Look at what happened after, first with the people who lived there when it burned down, then later with the hotel they built around it. That place is death.

  I paused in the middle of writing this down to think about what I want to say next. My therapist says writing my feelings down will help me, (I wonder if that’s because she gets paid so well to tell people that) and the truth is since I saw about Hope House in the news, it has been playing on my mind. If my overpriced therapist thinks writing about it is a good idea, then write about it I will. The reason for my reluctance is when I consider how much to write. To have any benefit from this, I have to tell the truth as I remember it, but that then could open up questions about my state of mind and sanity. I want this to be a healing process. The last thing I need is for it to make things worse.

  I suppose the only real option is to just be honest. If I read this all back and it looks like the deranged scrawling of a crazy woman, then I’ll throw it away and be done with it. For now though, I don’t see any harm in starting it at least. The kids are in bed and Robin is working nights, so I may as well make the most of having the place to myself. The age old question is where to start. Where does it all begin? The funny thing is, real life is different to the movies and to the way we expect things like this to work. Often in those mediums, it’s all sweetness and light, happiness and laughs, usually with some sickeningly gorgeous couple arriving at the home of their dreams, a place where they can finally be together alone. We the viewer of course, know differently. We’ve seen the cover to the movie, we’ve read the blurb, and we’ve spent our hard earned cash to watch these people go through hell. The poor characters though are none the wiser. They arrive at said house and are all smiles and daydreams. The reason I mention this is that for me, it wasn’t like that. For me, even as a thirteen year old girl, I knew the instant we rolled up to the house that there was something wrong with it. Whatever it was, I felt it. I felt it the second I saw the place rolling into view through the trees.

  TWO

  “It’s not as big as it looked on the pictures.”

  Bill looked across the seat at his wife as she peered at the house through the car window. Its engine idled as they sat parked on the short driveway. “We haven’t even seen inside yet, Pam.”

  “These places are all the same, Bill. They make them look huge, like bargains, then you get here and they’re just overpriced and undersized.”

  Bill sighed, and joined her in looking at the house, to see if she might be right. “This place was cheap considering its detached.”

  “It’s just a word Bill, Something they use to draw you in and part with the cash. Besides, we both know well enough why the price is so low.”

  They looked over their shoulders into the back seat. Their daughter, Vanessa was paying no attention to their squabbling. She glanced briefly at them; her mother, hair permed and too much makeup on her narrow face; her father, overweight with a barrel for a stomach and four-day old whiskers on his cheeks. She dismissed them and looked back to the house. It looked old and dirty. Its windows were dark and hid whatever secrets lay beyond. She was sure it was full of spiders and rats, creeping, scuttling things that would love it in such a gloomy place.

  “What do you think, honey?”

  Vanessa looked at her mother, then back at the house. “It looks….old.” She wanted to say creepy, but decided against it. She could sense the tension between her parents and didn’t want to fuel it any further.

  “Look,” her father said, unclipping his seat belt. “It might not be perfect or look as nice as it did in the pictures, but we have to remember it’s ours to make it what we want it to be, right? Now why don’t we go take a look around, wait for the furniture to arrive then, if we have time, we can take a drive into town and find somewhere to get some food? I’m sure there’s a restaurant or something.”

  “What about school? We still haven’t found me a new school.”

  “We’ll get to that. All in good time. Besides, it’s the summer holidays. You don’t have school for another month.”

  “I don’t have a school at all. Or friends.”

  “Come on, Vanessa, we need to make the best of it, okay? Positive thinking and all.”

  Despite his positive rally, there was little enthusiasm as the trio got out of the car. The day was wet and chilly, the barren branches of the trees appearing foreboding.

  Bill joined Vanessa at the side of the car. “Just imagine how beautiful this place will look when the trees grow back through.”

  Vanessa nodded. She didn’t think the place looked beautiful. She thought it looked….uninviting. She said nothing, instead putting her hands into the pocket of her winter coat and looking again at the house.

  “Besides,” Bill went on, determined to sell the place as best he could. “Did you know a river runs through the back of the house? Not only that, there are woods there. Think about exp
loring it, the wildlife you will see. We’ll be happy here.”

  Vanessa glanced at her father, then felt her eyes pulled back towards the house. Her stomach tightened. “It looks dirty,” she said.

  “It is, but we can clean it. You have to remember that all these dead leaves on the ground make it look worse than it is. Downside of living surrounded by so many trees.” He kicked the brown tangle of brittle leaves at his feet for emphasis.

  “Come on, I’ve had enough of standing out here in the cold. Let’s see just how much those property people have ripped you off,” Pam said as she stalked towards the door, heavy brass key clutched in her right hand, a cigarette in the other.

  Bill glanced at his daughter, raised his eyebrows, and then followed her towards the house. Vanessa stood for a moment, a mixture of emotions surging through her. She felt light and restless. She was disappointed at her father’s lack of backbone when it came to her mother and her forceful way of belittling everyone. She was already missing her friends, who seemed so far away now that they had arrived at their new home. Then there was the house itself. She stared at it, dirty curtains, grubby walls, moss covered roof tiles and all. She wasn’t sure why or if it even meant anything, but she felt safer staying by the car. Knowing she couldn’t put it off any longer, she reluctantly followed her parents into Hope House.

  Inside, the house was as dull and shadowy as she had expected. The wallpaper was yellowish and looked slick and slimy. She looked around the room, taking it all in: the staircase, its wood so dark it almost appeared black, the sitting room, a good sized space, the semi-circular window giving a decent view of the trees beyond the car they had arrived in. The window frames themselves though, were flaking and damp. Even without touching them she knew they would break away with ease at the slightest bit of pressure. The room itself was a good size. She could hear her mother and father bickering in the kitchen about the state of the pipe work and, as was the norm recently, tuned them out to a dull hum as she further explored her surroundings. She walked to the fireplace, running her fingers across the cold brick. Her father, she guessed, didn’t realise quite how much work the house would need. It was filthy. She went next to the window, glass wet with condensation and hard to see through. She looked at the car, and how out of place it looked surrounded by so many dead leaves. The skeletons of the trees shook, waiting patiently for new life to flower on them. She hoped it would be soon. To her, they looked like long, bony fingers. Briefly, she tuned her parents back in. The bickering was on the verge of becoming a full blown argument, and so she turned down their volume again and continued her exploration. She went upstairs next, the wood soft underfoot and creaking with each step she ascended. Upstairs was dark and stuffy, the windows closed for too long, letting the mildew take over. There was a bathroom, then two other rooms off the hallway and another one at the end of the hall. She was hoping to choose a bedroom, and hoped the options she had were at least nice smelling. She poked her head into the first room; it was too small and on the wrong side of the house to get much sun. She could imagine her mother claiming it as a studio for the ghastly paintings she did in the process of trying to convince people that she was some kind of artist. Unfortunately, the enthusiasm didn’t match the skill level. She had no grasp of balance or perspective, resulting in ugly, badly rendered images of sunflower fields or families enjoying picnics with weird proportions. She closed the door and moved on. The second of the rooms was the one her parents would likely claim. It was a good size, the floorboards bare and dusty. Tiny mouse shaped footprints lined the skirting on the perimeter of the room, and she made a mental note to tell her father they might need some traps. She entered the room, imagining it with their belongings inside, and couldn’t quite connect the dots. Like the rest, the windows were misty with condensation and the smell was just as bad.

  “Do you want me to open up some windows up here?” she shouted, pausing to listen for a response which didn’t come. They were still arguing, and had resorted to getting one up on each other for a variety of reasons. She tuned them out again and decided she would do it anyway, just in the hope that it might rid the room of the awful smell. The latch on the window was broken, which saved her a job having to pry the rusty mechanism open. The windows were the type that slid vertically within their frames. She grabbed the edges, grimacing at the slick feel of the old, chipped paint on her fingertips. At first, she thought the wood might be swollen, then she noticed the nails. She peered closer, making sure she was seeing correctly. It looked as if some previous occupant of the house had decided to nail the window closed. Vanessa couldn’t imagine why anyone would do such a thing. She ran her fingers across the unevenly spaced nails, curiosity sparking a thousand questions in her head. She looked out of the window, wiping away a small hole of condensation so she could see outside. The view was of the side of the house, the trees hanging over and reaching towards the property as if wanting to reclaim it. She could see a little of the river her father had mentioned curving across her field of vision, and beyond it, more trees which sloped uphill as far as she could see. Something there caught her eye. She leaned closer, supporting her weight on the sill and pressing her nose to the glass to better see it. There was some kind of clearing where the trees had been cut away in a rough circle. If they had arrived later in the year, she didn’t think she would have spotted it. Only because the trees were without leaves, was she able to notice it. She glanced down at the nails hammered into the window frame and tried to make some kind of connection, but nothing sensible came to mind. All she knew was that she felt like she had done something wrong, as if she were never meant to see it. The glass was cold against her face, and the sill slick with moisture. She glanced at her hands, feeling an overwhelming desire to wash them. As she stared; a spider, plump bodied and long legged scuttled out from under the sill and across the back of her hand. She gasped and lurched back, flinging the spider across the room. She stared at it, heard drumming as it scurried across the floor in search of a dark recess in which to hide. It was an old house, and she should have expected such things to happen, but even so, there was one thing she was certain of. As she wiped her wet palms on the legs of her jeans, she was glad this wasn’t going to be her room. She didn’t like it, not one bit. She quickly crossed the room and closed the door, relieved to be away.

  She stood in the shadow draped hall, breathing the dusty air, and re-tuned the world in. Her parents, it seemed, had moved on to the silent treatment portion of the argument. She could see it all in her head. Her mother standing and smoking, defiant and sure she was right. Her father, arms folded, glaring into space. That was the way it always happened. All that varied was the length of time before they would eventually speak again and make peace until the next inevitable argument. With no desire to join them and soak in the inevitably awful atmosphere, she walked to the last room, the one at the end of the hall and what would inevitably be her bedroom, an idea that appealed to her more now as long as she didn’t have to take what she now referred to as the spider room. She hoped this room would at least be half decent. She pushed open the door and had to shield her eyes. It was as if the room was on fire. For a moment, her breath caught in her throat and she let it out.

  The room was large, and was directly above the curved portion of the sitting room below. Large windows looked over the forest at the front of the house, and let in glorious sunlight which formed a grid on the floorboards. Unlike the other rooms, there was no must smell, no damp or rot. Vanessa walked into the middle of the room, enjoying the warmth of the sun on her face. She could have stayed there forever.

  “Nice room, isn’t it?”

  Vanessa spun around, still jittery and on edge. Her father stood at the threshold to the room, his massive frame filling the door. “It is,” she said, turning to look out of the window. “It’s the best room in the house.”

  He came into the room and stood beside her, father and daughter enjoying the sun. Absently, Vanessa wondered where her mother was,
then reasoned that if they weren’t together, then they weren’t arguing. She thought rooms like this should be spared the bickering of couples who were falling out of love.

  “It will be fine, really. I wouldn’t have brought us out here if I didn’t think it was for the best.”

  She opened her eyes and looked her father. Behind the frustration and stress, she could see the kindness, a glimmer of the man he always hoped to be but never quite managed. “I know dad, it’s just…. Everything is just so new, that’s all.”

  “It’s the same for all of us, even your mother and me. We’ll soon settle in, you’ll see.”

  “Can I have this room?” she asked, looking up at her father.

  He grinned and scratched his beard. “I don’t think your mother would be too pleased about that.”

  “Dad, come on. I don’t like that other room. It smells funny. This one makes the fact that we moved easier to deal with.”

  He smiled at her, and walked to the window, looking out over the trees. “That sounds a lot like a bribe.”

  “It might be, but you love me so it shouldn’t matter.”

  He grinned and leaned on the wall by the window, putting his hands into his jacket pockets. “I don’t care where I sleep, but your mother….”

  She didn’t push him to say more. Both of them knew well enough about the third person in the household. “Yeah, I get it,” she said, not wanting to cause even more tension.

  He crossed the room, boots echoing on the wood floors. “Leave it with me, I’ll talk to her and see what I can do. This really is the best room in the house. My daughter deserves the best. Makes sense.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  He kissed her on the head and disappeared down the hall. Vanessa watched him go, then turned back to look at the room. She was already planning where to put her things.

  THREE

  She didn’t get the sun room. The request had resulted in an argument the likes of which she had never experienced before as her parents tore into each other. She had kept out of the way, guilty for putting her father in such a position and resentful of her mother for being so stubborn and set in her ways. Her reasoning for demanding they kept the sun room was that she never wanted to move there in the first place, and that, as the adult, she shouldn’t have to compromise just because her daughter didn’t like the other bedroom. Until that point, she had always been hazy on the details about why they had to move in the first place. Her parents had always given her vague reasons when she had asked. During the argument, she found out as she listened from the top of the stairs, knees pulled up to her chin and crying as her mother and father screamed at each other in the kitchen. There had been debts, huge in number run up by Vanessa’s mother in order to feed her addiction to bingo. She had used mortgage money first, then when that was gone started on the savings. There was talk of savings for Vanessa when she was eighteen to start her off in life, but those too were gone with the rest. With the imminent loss of the house, the move was one that was unavoidable. It had been a week since that particular argument, and Vanessa now had a new found sympathy for her father.