The Haunting of Aldburn Park Read online

  I stop and look around the room.

  “Mmm,” I murmur, before reminding myself that I should really try to curtail this strange new habit.

  Oh, but the silence. The house is so blessedly silent, and I realize now that any lingering concerns are well and truly gone. His Lordship was a fine man, but in his last days he was dreadfully ill and there is no shame in acknowledging that he perhaps had fever dreams of things that were not really happening. I am sure that he thought they were real, and in that case they must assuredly have been absolutely terrifying. I dearly wish I had been able to console His Lordship in the hours before his death, but perhaps nobody could have done that.

  I turn to walk away, but then I happen to glance toward the window, and I see the summer house in the distance. In that instant, I think back to the night when I helped His Lordship dispose of that large bag, and I realize that I always felt a flicker of concern about the bag's contents. His Lordship reassured me, of course, and I told myself that this reassurance would suffice. Did it, though? Now I think of it, I recall the bag seeming very heavy in the middle, and perhaps I did at the time wonder whether it felt like a human body. Is it possible that I allowed myself to be deceived? I have believed all this time that Her Ladyship was indeed sent away to an asylum, but now I allow my thoughts to wander.

  Did -

  Suddenly I hear a clicking sound, and I turn just in time to see that the conservatory's electric light has been switched on. I turn to look at the bulb, which is almost directly above me, and then I look at the switch itself. For a moment I feel a flicker of concern, but then I recall the efforts of that wretched electrician Mr. Jones. I should have known better than to have believed he had remedied whatever problem exists in the house's electrical circuits. Reaching over, I switch the light off, and then I walk out of the room.

  And then I stop as I hear a clicking sound again.

  I half turn, just enough to see that the light has been turned back on, and then – refusing to surrender to such matters – I march along the gloomy corridor.

  As I walk, I make a mental note to arrange for a second – more competent – electrician to come out. Indeed, I imagine that there will be several small jobs that need to be completed over the next few months, and I anticipate that the executors of His Lordship's estate might well choose to keep me on for the duration, seeing as how I am so familiar with the house. I shall of course be honored to do anything that might help with such matters, so I am quite sure that I shall be back at Aldburn Park before too long. And then one day the house will be owned by somebody else, and I am sure that the place will thrive. I am equally sure that its history will always be remembered, and that His Lordship Matthew Fetchford will be included in that history.

  Stopping in the next doorway, I suddenly find that I am back in the dining room. I had intended to go to the main hallway and then leave the house, but I inadvertently took a different route. I must now cross the dining room, heading toward the door at the other end, although this path will take me right past the huge mirror. I hesitate, considering other routes I could take that would not involve this room, but finally I tell myself that there is no reason whatsoever to fear the mirror.

  I take a deep breath, and then I begin to make my way across the room.

  I hear the clicking sound, still coming from the conservatory, as if that wretched light is never going to stop switching on and off. Then, as if to counter that thought, the sound stops.

  There.

  That is better.

  I walk around the table and toward the far door, but then I stop as I realize that I have been deliberately avoiding looking at the mirror. I am not even looking at it now, even though I know that there is no reason not to do so. His Lordship might have imagined Her Ladyship appearing to him in reflections, but that was just a part of his madness. I try to force myself to turn and look, but I just cannot do so.

  “Mmm,” I mutter.

  I could walk straight ahead, of course, and leave the house. But if I am only to return soon anyway, is it not better to nip this fear in the bud? I can feel my heart-rate rising slightly, which of course is absurd, but I am worried that this kernel of fear might grow over the next few days and weeks. I vomited upon my most recent return to Aldburn Park, and I would rather avoid the same thing happening again, so finally I turn and step toward the mirror. I keep my gaze down, though, and I stop in front of the mirror without yet daring to look at the reflection.

  I take a series of deep breaths.

  The sound of those breaths is all I hear.

  Closing my eyes, I raise my head and tell myself that now I can look, and that all fear shall be cast aside. I take another deep breath, then another, and then I resolve to open my eyes following the third breath. And then, just as I take that third breath, I hear a single brief sound somewhere in the distance, and I freeze. A moment later I hear the sound again, then again. I tell myself that another switch must be flicking itself off and on, but deep down I know that this sound is different. Indeed, deep down, I believe I already know what I am hearing, even if I know that such a thing is impossible. I am hearing... Well, I am not sure what I am hearing exactly, but it certainly sounds like slow, measured footsteps heading this way through the house. Has Mrs. Ferguson returned? I would like to think so, but at the same time I am also starting to recognize that these steps sound as if they are bare-footed. Indeed, they are in this very room, now approaching me from behind with a steady intensity, and I can only stand with my eyes closed as the bare steps coming right up to me and then stop just behind my left shoulder. I am shivering now, and not just from the cold on the side of my neck. I am clenching my fists too. It was not Her Ladyship under the oak tree. There is no reason to be scared, but then I feel a cold touch on the side of my face, like fingers, and I take a step to the side. I have my eyes shut still, and I know I must open them, but I can't, I just can't, even though I know I must. I must. I think back to the night at the summer house, when I helped throw the bag into the dark water, and I realize that perhaps I knew all along what we were doing. I am clenching and un-clenching my fists now. I tilt my head slightly, and then I hear one more soft step moving closer behind, and I tell myself that if I don't do this now then, well, when will I? So I grit my teeth and I ask the Lord for forgiveness and finally I do what I knew I had to do all along, and I do it with the most tremendous fear in my heart.

  I open my eyes.

  OTHER BOOKS

  BY AMY CROSS INCLUDE

  Horror

  Stephen

  The Farm

  The Haunting of Briarwych Church (Briarwych book 1)

  The Horror of Briarwych Church (Briarwych book 2)

  The Ghost of Briarwych Church (Briarwych book 3)

  The Haunting of Hardstone Jail

  Asylum (The Asylum Trilogy book 1)

  Meds (The Asylum Trilogy book 2)

  The Madness of Annie Radford (The Asylum Trilogy book 3)

  The Devil, the Witch and the Whore (The Deal book 1)

  Like Stones on a Crow's Back (The Deal book 2)

  The Devil's Blade

  Haunted

  Devil's Briar

  The Night Girl

  Last Wrong Turn

  Friend From the Internet

  The Haunting of Caldgrave House

  The Haunting of Blackwych Grange

  The Bride of Ashbyrn House

  The Ghosts of Hexley Airport

  The Curse of Wetherley House

  The Haunting of Marshall Heights

  The Ghosts of Lakeforth Hotel

  The Body at Auercliff

  The Soul Auction

  The Border

  Eli's Town

  Laura

  Annie's Room

  The Priest Hole (Nykolas Freeman book 1)

  Battlefield (Nykolas Freeman book 2)

  Perfect Little Monsters and Other Stories

  The Ghost of Longthorn Manor and Other Stories

  Room 9 and Other Sto
ries

  Fantasy / Horror

  Grave Girl

  Raven Revivals (Grave Girl book 2)

  The Gravest Girl of All (Grave Girl book 3)

  The Library

  Beautiful Familiar

  Dark Season (book 1, 2 & 3)

  The Hollow Church

  The Vampires of Tor Cliff Asylum

  Dead Souls (book 1 to 13)

  Lupine Howl (books 1 to 6)

  Dystopian / Apocalypse

  Ward Z (The Ward Z Series book 1)

  Terror at Camp Everbee (The Ward Z Series book 2)

  Apocalypse (The Ward Z Series book 3)

  The Dog

  Mass Extinction Event (books 1 to 7)

  Also by Amy Cross

  THE FARM

  No-one ever remembers what happens to them when they go into the barn at Bondalen farm. Some never come out again, and the rest... Something about them is different.

  In 1979, the farm is home to three young girls. As winter fades to spring, Elizabeth, Kari and Sara each come to face the secrets of the barn, and they each emerge with their own injuries. But someone else is lurking nearby, a man who claims to be Death incarnate, and for these three girls the spring of 1979 is set to end in tragedy.

  In the modern day, meanwhile, Bondalen farm has finally been sold to a new family. Dragged from London by her widowed father, Paula Ridley hates the idea of rural life. Soon, however, she starts to realize that her new home retains hints of its horrific past, while the darkness of the barn still awaits anyone who dares venture inside.

  Set over the course of several decades, The Farm is a horror novel about people who live with no idea of the terror in their midst, and about a girl who finally has a chance to confront a source of great evil that has been feeding on the farm for generations.

  Also by Amy Cross

  ALICE ISN'T WELL

  (DEATH HERSELF BOOK 1)

  “There are lots of demons in the sky above London. The problem is, this one came crashing down to earth.”

  Ten years ago, Alice Warner was attacked and disfigured by an attacker in her own home. She remembers nothing of the attack, and she has been in a psychiatric hospital ever since. When she's finally released, however, she starts working as a security guard at an abandoned shopping mall. And that's when she starts to realize that something is haunting her, keeping just one step out of sight at all times...

  Meanwhile, seventy years earlier, a little girl named Wendy is left orphaned after a World War 2 fighter plane crashes onto her house. Taken to a monastery, Wendy is quickly singled out by the nuns for special attention. They say she has been possessed by a demon, and that there's only one way to save her soul. Fortunately for Wendy, however, there's someone else who seems to know far more about the situation.

  What is the shocking connection between Alice and Wendy, reaching out across the years? Does a demon really lurk in the girl's soul? And who is Hannah, the mysterious figure who tries to help Wendy, and who seventy years later begins to make her influence felt in Alice's life too?

  Alice Isn't Well is the first book in the Death Herself series, about a dark figure who arrives in the night, promising to help deal with the forces of evil whenever they appear.

  Also by Amy Cross

  MEDS

  (THE ASYLUM TRILOGY BOOK 2)

  “Welcome to the Overflow. And remember, all roads lead back to Lakehurst.”

  At the edge of a ruined town, a burned-out hospital houses one final, functional ward. There, a small group of doctors and nurses tend to patients who have been consigned to the Overflow. Unloved, forgotten by the people who knew them, these are the patients who will never receive visitors. If something happens to them, no-one will ask questions.

  When she starts work at Middleford Cross, Nurse Elly Blackstock thinks she's getting a second chance. She soon discovers, however, that this particular hospital is unlike any other. In one of the beds, an old man grapples with the horrors of his past, while in another there's a woman condemned to a life of darkness and silence. Ghosts stalk the corridors, and more ghosts are on the way. And watching over all of this is the hospital's administrator, Nurse Kirsten Winter, a woman who is desperately searching for someone named Annie Radford...

  Asylum: Meds is a dark horror novel about the lengths one woman will go to as she searches for the truth about the voices in her head.