The Haunting of Bechdel Mansion: A Haunted House Mystery- Book 0 Read online

  Anabelle looked away without response. She then flinched as the gunman stepped closer. “Come on, Mrs. Bechdel. My men don't have the time to search every room.” He took a knee, inches from her face. “Be honest with me, and no one gets hurt. Fair enough?”

  Tears trickled down her cheeks as she nodded and looked around the room. “Everyone is here.”

  Pleased, the gunman stood up. “Where’s the Drake family?”

  After a brief hesitation the two parents raised their hands from within the huddled group. “Great,” the gunman said. “Come out here and join your friends.”

  Fearing for her family and herself, Julie knew that she needed to run and call the police before it was too late. She turned from the staircase and could see that the door to her parents’ room was closed.

  The lead gunman continued with demands for wallets and purses. “Everything you have, just put it in the bag,” he said as one of his men held out a burlap sack, approaching the crowd.

  Katelyn's father, Victor, tossed his thick billfold into the bag, a creeping fury in his eyes. “Just take it and get the hell out of here. Damn punks.”

  “In time, Mr. Drake,” the gunman said. He then shifted toward George and kicked him lightly in the side. “Get up, Georgy Boy.”

  George grunted in pain as Anabelle glared at the masked man. “You don't have to kick him, you monster!”

  The gunman stared down with indifference. “You too. Both of you on your feet.”

  Anabelle helped George up, holding him as he looked at their remorseless assailant and spoke. “We're willing to cooperate with you. Please stop pointing your guns at us. You're scaring people with this nonsense.”

  The lead gunman nodded, seeming to consider it. He then raised a gloved finger, signaling further instructions. “Everyone get closer. Huddle together tight.” As he spoke, the other two gunmen took places at both sides of the group. “My men are going on a little pillage mission, and we can't have any of you running off. Got it?”

  The terrified guests looked at each other in confusion. They were hesitant, and no one seemed to fully understand the situation, or the intent of the gunmen as they boxed them in like cattle.

  “Come on, people,” the gunman continued. “Don't make me have to ask again.”

  The guests reluctantly inched closer to each other, forming a tight huddle. “Great!” the lead gunman continued. “Now we can wrap this up.”

  Julie carefully ascended the stairs, but no matter how light her movements, the steps creaked. She ducked down immediately as silence followed. She could feel the intruders listening as her heart beat wildly.

  “Go upstairs and check it out,” she heard the lead gunman say to one of his men. “The rest of you, prepare to fire.”

  An ocean of screams followed. Julie jumped up and looked over the side to see two masked men aim their rifles into the huddle as another one moved toward the stairs, closing in on her. She turned and ran the moment she heard her father's voice scream out, begging the men not to shoot.

  Gunfire erupted in a cacophony of deafening blasts. Julie stormed to her bedroom, not looking back. She closed the door, locking it. Her hands were shaking, and she could barely breathe. The shooting continued amidst the screams, initially rapid but then more widely spaced, and then one final shot. Julie couldn't believe any of it.

  She heard footsteps outside the door, nearing her room, slow and methodical. She turned off her bedside lamp and looked to her window. It was her only chance to escape. She ran over and unlocked it, without concern for anything she was leaving behind. Though her diary had crossed her mind. It was sitting on a nightstand in view, but there was no time. Her doorknob rattled from the other side. Someone was trying to get in. Her heart raced as she pulled the window open, feeling the night breeze hit her face. She looked down over the ledge to the thick grass below.

  She could climb down the trellis on the side but doubted she had time. A loud bang suddenly came at her door, startling her further. She had to run. She climbed out the window, legs dangling in the air, closed her eyes, and said a quick prayer.

  She leapt out just as her door was kicked open. She hit the moist grass like a deadweight. A pain shivered up her leg as she looked around in panic. Her adrenaline was in overdrive, but she couldn't shake off the confusion and disorientation.

  She turned to run and collided with the waist of a man, smacking her face into his thick belt buckle. She flew back, feeling dazed. She covered her face in pain, blocking the man from sight. She couldn't tell whether he was friend or foe. However, she learned quickly as soon as he spoke.

  “Where you off to, little darlin'?”

  It was the same man as before. The lead gunman downstairs whose voice had sent shivers down her spine. She looked up and could see him towering over her, no longer wearing a mask but with his face nearly concealed by darkness. She shuddered as he held his rifle up and pressed it against her forehead.

  “I have to give it to you—you almost got away.”

  Her legs locked as she shook in fear, tears streaming from her eyes. She felt cold. Sheer terror tore her stomach into knots. “No...” she said with a trembling voice.

  The man paused with the barrel still pressed against her head. She could see his long jaw and the thick stubble on his face where he had a noticeable scar on his left cheek. Shaggy hair hung to the side over his forehead. His eyes appeared as two black holes, as though there were nothing underneath.

  “Don't worry. It'll be quick. You won't feel a thing.”

  “Why?” she cried out.

  After a heavy sigh, the man spoke. “Nothing personal, sweetheart. Just business. Now close your eyes and go to sleep.”

  She clenched her watering eyes as a white burst of light pummeled her, followed by a silent darkness that consumed everything around her.

  Welcome to Redwood

  For the longest time, the Bechdel Mansion had remained an old, dusty, and vacant shadow of itself. There was always some morbid fascination with the place in the decades that followed. The town of Redwood had grown weary of the association and tried to distance itself from the mansion and the family’s supposed curse. The Redwood city council tried several times to have the house demolished and leveled but was met with resistance every time.

  George Bechdel’s will awarded all of his financial assets and properties to his bank, in the unlikely event of just the sort of catastrophe that had, in fact, occurred. Assets were to be invested, and undistributed to distant relatives or charities making claims. The estate, he contended, must always remain intact. He explicitly forbade the destruction of the mansion and/or liquidation of the property. This, Bechdel’s lawyers explained, was non-binding, but the will could be broken. What was the bank going to do with a hundred-year-old mansion with such a history? Apparently, and surprisingly, they had several offers.

  Boris Sokolov, a wealthy Ukrainian businessman, leased the mansion with his family one summer day in June 1992. He had high hopes of remodeling the property and suiting it to his family’s elegant needs. Two weeks after moving in, the Sokolovs were out with no explanation for their hasty departure. All of their furniture hadn’t even been moved in yet.

  In 1996, Christopher Taylor, a famous Hollywood director, leased the mansion to shoot his latest horror movie. It only took a week for the troubled production to immediately shut down, and Taylor was on his way back to California with his demoralized cast and crew. Nobody ever explained the reason why, as though they had been sworn to secrecy. Taylor never made a movie again.

  Five years later, the Bechdel estate found another purchaser—a wealthy Manhattan magnate who had big plans for the mansion. Eugene Garland moved his wife and four children, oblivious to its history and the lore surrounding the mansion. Garland, himself, didn’t believe in that kind of stuff. He died in his sleep from a heart attack three weeks later.

  Then, for a while, there were no buyers. No tenants. No renters. No one wanted to go near the house. Each owner ha
d fled, for some reason or the other, and no one could ever understand why.

  ***

  October 9, 2016

  Mary Malone woke up when her head bumped against the car’s passenger window. It was afternoon, and her fair-skinned face felt the heat from the flashing rays of sunlight beaming through the oak trees along the leaf-strewn road. Her husband, Curtis, was at the wheel of their Ford Expedition SUV. A twenty-six-foot moving truck followed behind them. Soft rock played from the stereo as Mary tilted her head and squinted against the blinding sun. Her neck ached, and she didn’t know how long she had been out. She reached for her sunglasses on the dashboard as Curtis glanced over from behind his own shades.

  “Hey. You’re awake.”

  Mary felt her neck and shook her head. “How long was I out?”

  “’Bout three hours,” he answered.

  Her eyes widened. “Really? Oh my gosh. I’m sorry!”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “We crossed the state border about an hour ago.”

  Mary looked around. A forest of trees, barren of leaves, lined both sides of the rural, two-lane state road.

  “We’re in Indiana?” she asked.

  “Sure are,” Curtis said as they continued down the road, blowing leaves to the side.

  A fresh, familiar vision entered Mary’s head. She could see a large boarded-up door with vine-covered pillars on either side. Beyond the entrance sat an empty fountain in the center of a cracked courtyard, weeds sprouting all around it. “I saw it,” she said. “In my dream, I saw our new house.”

  Curtis pulled at the collar of his white polo shirt. His black hair was slicked back, and his face was clean-shaven, with the lingering musk of aftershave still there. They had been married for two and a half years. They had a happy marriage and good jobs and lives back in Chicago. Recently, however, all of that had changed, and they were looking to start over.

  They had fled the city for a reason: a new beginning under new and better circumstances. The town of Redwood afforded them that opportunity, as Curtis had explained to her. He was the primary force in their sudden relocation, and Mary had felt like a simple bystander as of late.

  She continued describing her dream and its unsettling visions.

  Curtis nodded along, interested. “Really sorry that you never got a chance to see the place first, but I wanted to lock the deal in as soon as possible.”

  “I understand,” she said. “You’ve done a lot for us the past couple of weeks.” She smiled and took his hand. “You’ve been very busy.”

  “I certainly wasn’t going to sit around with you in the hospital. This is good for us, trust me.”

  Mary looked out the window with a slight uncertainty in her gut. “It’s just… it looks so old from the pictures you showed me. And it’s so big. What are we going to do with all that space?”

  “Whatever we want,” he said, flashing a smile as sunlight reflected against the dark lenses of his sunglasses. “They’ve been renovating all week. It’s going to look a lot better now.”

  “I was reading about the people murdered in there,” Mary said. “At first I thought you were crazy to even consider moving here, but I feel drawn to the place. It’s hard to explain.”

  Curtis waved her off. “You know a good deal when you see one, that’s all. Besides, those murders took place forty years ago.” He looked up, thinking. “Ancient history.”

  “It’s still creepy,” Mary said. She released his hand, brushing her blonde hair to the side and looking back out the window.

  Curtis slowed at an empty intersection. They hadn’t seen another house for miles. It was all forest, and Mary loved the stark contrast from the busy streets of Chicago where they had resided for years.

  “Don’t tell me that you’re softening up,” he said. “I thought you loved crime stories and the supernatural.”

  Mary shook her head. “I don’t know anymore. My mother thinks we’re crazy for doing this.”

  Curtis turned to her as they continued through the rural terrain. “It’s a ten-acre mansion, Mary, for nearly the same price we were paying for a two-bedroom apartment in Chicago. This is a miracle.”

  “I wonder why it’s priced so low,” Mary said with a tinge of sarcasm.

  “I don’t care,” Curtis said. “I feel good about this. After all we’ve been through, we deserve it. A small town with a clean slate. It’s perfect.”

  Mary turned to him, half-convinced. Before their marriage, she had never gone into great detail about the visions she would have. Half the time she didn’t understand them herself. They came in spurts, starting as far back as her childhood. Then again, she was an artist working as a freelance illustrator for children’s books. Having “visions” was part of the job.

  Curtis began to speak of their future with sheer optimism. “I’m looking into setting up my own practice out here. You’ll have all the room you need to work. We’ll have everything we need. He stroked the surface of her jeans above her knee. “We’re going to be okay.”

  She looked up at him with a faint smile, struggling to find the right words. “I know. It’s a great deal. It’s just… something feels off now. Maybe I should have come out here first.”

  “You were in no condition for that,” Curtis said, looking into her blue-green eyes. “I told you I would handle everything. We’re out here now and that’s all that matters.”

  Mary nodded, holding her emotions in. It was hard to believe how quickly things had fallen apart over the past year, but she did love him and felt committed to their future together.

  Curtis slowed as they neared a faded traffic sign on the side of the road that said, Redwood 5 Miles. They were close. The moving truck behind them followed, headlights filling the rearview mirror. She wondered if there was still time to return to their former lives before it was too late. But there was no turning back now. This was their new home.

  The moving truck was filled with everything they owned, packed and loaded in haste. One day they were in their apartment eating dinner, the next day movers were loading up their things.

  They passed over bumpy railroad tracks, just as a long semitruck, the first vehicle they had seen in miles, roared past them from the opposite direction. As they neared Redwood, Mary still had questions. She should have asked from the get-go but didn’t.

  “How did you first find out about this place? It’s so… out here,” she said to him as they passed a small gas station and country store. There were a few people in the parking lot and a car at one of the two pumps.

  “I told you this, remember?” Curtis said. She didn’t, so he continued. “A buddy in real estate, put me in touch with a realtor in Redwood, Bob Deckers. Bob told me all about it. Mansion has been sitting dormant for over a decade.” Curtis laughed to himself, then continued. “Lots of superstitious people out there, I imagine.”

  “Can you blame them?”

  “We got lucky, Mary,” he said. “And we should be grateful for that.”

  Rolling prairie fields and lush forest encompassed the surrounding area. The rural isolation was disquieting but comforting at the same time. They had truly escaped. Up ahead on their right was an old wooden billboard. It overlooked a deep, watery canal. Etched on the sign were giant letters: Welcome to Redwood Est. 1826. A small wooden sign hung below the big one on small links of chain: Population: 1,600. Mary wondered how accurate the numbers were. Perhaps she could adjust to life in the country after all. She would have to see the mansion first. Not in some kind of dream or vision but right in front of her. She would make up her mind from there.

  ***

  Curtis turned onto Main Street, an old-style brick road along the so-called “historic” district. He slowed as Mary took in all the quaint shops and buildings around them. There was an old theater with a marquee that read, Autumn Celebration VC Fairgrounds OCT 15 & 16.

  Next to the theater was a green building, three stories high, with two American flags flapping from its midsection. A red canopy
hung over the first floor of a furniture store that was open for business. As they continued, Mary took notice of a grand mural sprawled across the side of the building, detailing a herd of frontiersmen journeying up a hill of bare pine trees.

  There were other historical markers along the way, including some statues set among benches and trimmed bushes. They passed a deli and a crafts store—both resembling mom-and-pop shops. They certainly weren’t in Chicago anymore.

  The police station was a small brick building with a sloping teal roof. To the left was the town square, where a large fountain sprayed water, mushrooming out on all sides. Across from the fountain was a domed stage with several rows of empty benches. Past the dome, Mary could see a park with fading grass and fall leaves strewn across the ground. Because the weather was still warm, people walked about wearing sun visors and shades, pushing baby strollers or walking their dogs. There was a serene quality to the town unlike anything Mary had felt in some time.

  Heads glanced in their direction, young and old. Their mini-convoy did not go unnoticed. It was a Saturday afternoon, and there were plenty of people visiting shops, having lunch, or just out for a stroll. There was an old village vibe to the town, slightly modernized but still steeped in the history of old buildings and roads. The brightness of the town resembled nothing in Mary’s own visions, and for the time being, she felt at peace.

  “Nice little town,” Curtis said.

  Mary nodded along, observing shops on her side among bike racks and newspaper stands. Aside from its humble and welcoming aura, the town so far looked like something out of an amusement park. Though Mary kept such thoughts to herself. The intersections ahead had old-fashioned traffic lights on each side of the street, attached to poles. Their light was green, but a young boy on a bike rode across right in front of them, not even looking.