The Haunting of Ashburn House Read online

  That tied in with her next two priorities: food and infection. Both the dwindling pantry and her ankle were ticking countdowns to death. Adrienne finished the second noodle cup, got up, and hopped back into the kitchen to check the pantry’s stock. It was enough to last a day and a half, or a little over two days if she rationed it. She could probably last another couple of days after that before weakness from hunger became a serious concern. At least water was unlimited, provided Jayne didn’t cancel her account.

  Jayne didn’t want to come back here. And Sarah listens to Jayne, even down to what she should wear. I can’t count on Sarah to visit.

  Adrienne sighed and rubbed a hand over her face. She needed the bathroom, but that involved navigating the stairs to the second floor. She hopped into the laundry behind the kitchen and found a broom. The bristles were soft from decades of use, but the wooden handle was worn away and rough. Adrienne took one of the smaller tablecloths from the kitchen and twisted it around the handle before tying it off tightly. The result was a silly-looking walking stick that worked surprisingly well, and Adrienne used it to get upstairs and into the bathroom.

  While she washed her hands, she stared at her pale reflection in the new mirror and let her mind wander. The second major worry, besides food, was infection. She’d done a poor job of cleaning her leg and was limited in how much more she could do. I’d need disinfectant or at least some clean bandages—

  An idea struck her, and she opened the cabinet below the sink. Like the rest of the house, it had been kept immaculately clean. Adrienne found a large wooden box behind a stack of handtowels and pulled it out. It hadn’t occurred to Adrienne before but now seemed obvious: Edith had lived alone at Ashburn for more than eighty years. She would have been an idiot to not own any emergency medical supplies. And Edith definitely wasn’t an idiot.

  Adrienne looked inside the box and exhaled in relief. It was overflowing with bottles, bandages, and little vials of pills. Most of the packaging looked modern too.

  As she lifted her head, a flash of motion in the mirror caught her attention. As soon as she tried to fix on the shape, it disappeared. Adrienne turned to examine the room over her shoulder. She was alone. Frowning, she hoisted the box and turned to the door.

  She was grateful for the makeshift crutch on the climb downstairs. The kit was heavy and threatened to overbalance her, and she had to lean on the railing and the wall a few times to keep herself upright. She put the kit on the lounge room’s small, round table, returned the kettle to the fire, and opened the box.

  The only thing missing was a guidebook. A few of the bottles were unlabelled, and Adrienne discarded them, but most of the other packages had instructions on them. There were unexpired painkillers, so she dry swallowed two of them then took out bandages, a bottle of antiseptic, and a pack of swabs.

  Adrienne then returned to the problem of escaping Ashburn while she watched the fire lick at the kettle’s base and waited for it to boil.

  She couldn’t count on Sarah or her three friends visiting, especially not within the first few days. The only other person who would miss her was the vet nurse, Peggy, and she was a complete wild card. She’d been interested in Adrienne and seemed to enjoy being helpful, but would that helpfulness extend to visiting Ashburn if Adrienne was a day or two late picking up the laptop?

  Probably not.

  The kettle whistled. Adrienne chewed at her lower lip as she poured the boiling water into the bowl. Sarah’s group of friends and Peggy were long-shot chances but nothing she could count on.

  The pain tablets had started to work when she began cleaning her leg, but it still hurt like crazy. The swelling hadn’t gone down, but at least Adrienne was able to bathe the cuts in antiseptic and wrap them in clean bandages. The old towels were crusty with dried blood, so she put them to one side to throw out.

  She was starting to piece together the puzzle that had been growing since she’d moved into Ashburn. Almost certainly, Edith was responsible for the sunset phenomenon, Adrienne’s torment over the previous two nights, and the power cutting out—all events that had happened after nightfall. Even that day’s encounter hadn’t started until after the sun went down.

  Adrienne repacked the kit carefully then glanced towards the window. The early-afternoon sun was bright and warm, though precious little of it was allowed into the house.

  I promised myself I wouldn’t take unnecessary risks. But if Edith is dormant during daylight hours, it would be insanity to stay here and give her another night to hunt me. Even carrying Wolf in the cat case and with my leg like this, there’d be plenty of time to walk to town before nightfall.

  Wolfgang had jumped onto the windowsill to watch the outside world. His silhouette was almost perfectly still except for the occasionally twitching ear, and he was the cutest, fluffiest sentry Adrienne had ever seen. She blew her breath out and went to join him.

  “Whatcha think, buddy?” She scanned the forest. The dark trees rustled in the breeze, but she couldn’t see any unnatural motion amongst them. “Take a risk and run to town, or stay put and hope for rescue?”

  True to form, the cat ignored her. Adrienne scratched behind his ears while she thought through the choice. Running to town was almost painfully tempting. Once she was outside the property’s bounds, there was nothing that could bring her back. She would never have to face Edith or the house again.

  But it also carried the greatest risk by far. She could picture herself running through the woods, cat carrier clasped to her chest, as Edith hunted her, snagged her foot, and toppled her to the ground. She would be eaten, or worse. And then what would happen to Wolfgang? Would he be left in the case—mercy forbid—to starve, or would Edith carry him away to add him to her simmering witch’s brew?

  No, don’t get carried away. Edith is a ghost, and that tall man in the café was adamant that covens of witches were distinct and separate from fraids of ghosts.

  She snorted and buried her face in her hands. Wolfgang, blissfully ignorant of the horrific fates he’d been doomed to in his owner’s mind, flicked her an irritated glance.

  No matter how much I want to get out of here, and despite the evidence that suggests Edith may be harmless during the day, the risks are far heavier than the rewards. I can’t leave. At least, not today.

  But that doesn’t mean I have to stay inside the house.

  Adrienne couldn’t see the front yard from the lounge room’s window, but she could picture it: the weedy patch of dirt just ahead of the porch where she’d dropped the torch.

  It was close enough to the house that she could run back inside if Edith tried to leave the forest. And the torch would be an invaluable boon during the night.

  Ten steps past the door. It should be safe enough. Adrienne limped into the hallway and faced the front door. Right?

  33

  Sortie

  No matter how small the risk of the brief sortie, it was still a risk, so Adrienne prepared herself as thoroughly as she was capable of. The mace had been useless against the corpse, but she figured a knife would be able to chop bits off it as well as it could with a regular human, so she took the large, wickedly sharp blade out of the kitchen drawer. She also brought the broom-turned-crutch, partly to make the trip faster and partly to use as a weapon if it came to it.

  She pressed against the door’s narrow windows and scanned the yard. Everything was still and quiet. Slowly, moving with care in case noise attracted Edith’s attention, she turned the handle and nudged the door open.

  It groaned on its hinge, and Adrienne cringed. She waited in the opening for several minutes, one hand on the doorknob, prepared to pull it closed again if a shape burst out of the forest. It didn’t. Nothing was out there except still, quiet solitude.

  Adrienne took a quick breath and stepped onto the porch. Her footsteps sounded unpleasantly loud on the aged wood. She left the door open, in case she needed to run for it, and approached the porch’s edge. Her nerves were buzzing and her senses on high
alert as she followed the steps one at a time until her feet landed in the weed-clogged yard.

  She felt vulnerable with the stairs separating her from the door, so she increased her pace as she retraced her path from the night before.

  I was facing the house head-on when I came out of the forest, which means the attack would have happened in line with the door. It wasn’t far away. It should be somewhere around—ah.

  Dried blood stained a clump of weeds. The area around was scuffed up from the fight, brief though it was. Adrienne gave the treeline a final scan then bent and began hunting amongst the weeds.

  A minute of searching revealed the torch. It was small, but its black plastic stood out against the natural browns and greys. She picked it up, pressed its button, and wasn’t surprised when the light didn’t come on. The battery would have drained during the night. Hopefully, Edith will have spares somewhere.

  Adrienne lifted her eyes to the forest edge. It would take less than a minute to cross the yard, and the burial site was only two minutes past the treeline. Her shopping, including spare batteries and food, waited on the forest floor. She swallowed the saliva that had built in her mouth. It was too risky; if Edith didn’t return, she might risk a trip into the woods when her supplies ran low. But not before.

  She tucked the light into her pocket and turned back to the house. A second temptation struck her as she thought of the power box waiting on the building’s side. A short walk and a handful of flicked switches would give her light, a hot shower, and a working kettle. She knew better than to think it would last; Edith was capable of nixing the electricity with just her presence. But Adrienne was tired, stressed, grimy, and sore, and a hot shower promised to solve all of those problems.

  Adrienne took a step towards the house’s corner. She could reach the switch box in less than a minute, even hobbled with a bad foot.

  But a lot can happen in sixty seconds. And you promised you wouldn’t take risks.

  She wrinkled her nose in resignation and turned back to the front door. Fine, fine. Stupid conscience. We’ll just have to deal with another day of cold showers.

  Movement caught her attention, and she raised her eyes. Suddenly she was very, very grateful that she hadn’t tried to turn the power back on.

  Edith crouched on the roof.

  She was only a silhouette against the overcast sky, but the twisted body was unmistakable. She held completely still, crouched like a predatory animal on the spire near the chimney. Her thick hair ran like a river onto the roof tiles, and her eyes flashed as Adrienne met them.

  “Oh—oh, crap—”

  Adrienne dashed towards the door in the same instant as Edith threw herself forward. The woman scraped over the roof’s slates, half running and half plunging towards the gutter, her lips peeled back from her teeth.

  Climbing the stairs would waste precious seconds; Adrienne threw herself over them. She hit the porch hard and rolled, trying not to scream as her injured ankle buckled.

  A heavy, crunching whump told her Edith had flung herself off the roof and impacted the ground. Adrienne flipped and gasped at the sight. Edith’s body, already contorted, had been broken by the collision. Her skin hadn’t torn, but the bones inside were jarred to unnatural angles and created sickening tents in the flesh. Her skull was flattened, as though it had broken like an eggshell, and her ribs poked towards the sky. She looked like a jumble of bones held inside a fleshy bag.

  A brief spark of hope lit in Adrienne’s chest. Could she actually be dead? But then Edith shifted, and the hope was drowned in sickening terror.

  Edith rose from the yard as though propelled by something other than muscle and cartilage. As she stood, the bones twisted into their correct positions, the rippling and adjusting clearly visible under the skin. A skull plate popped back into place to round out her head as she turned to face the porch.

  Adrienne scrambled backwards, trying to crawl inside the house before Edith could collect herself, but the other woman was shockingly quick. She scuttled forward before her body had fully righted itself, her grasping fingers stretching towards Adrienne’s face.

  They were both through the doorway, sprawled over the threadbare runner as they grappled. Bony, chilled fingers dug into her skin as Edith tried to crawl towards her throat. Adrienne still held the knife and thrust it forward from instinct more than intention.

  It pierced Edith’s face, slipping into the space between her nose and her left eye. Momentum forced Edith and the knife together, and the blade crunched through fragile bone as it imbedded itself hilt-deep. Putrid, thick black blood splattered out of the cut, dribbling onto Adrienne’s hand and spraying her cheek.

  She screamed and kicked at the corpse. The force knocked Edith back through the entryway. Adrienne tried to slam the door, but Edith’s arm stretched through the gap, keeping it open, and it twitched as the wood crunched into the fragile forearm bones. Adrienne opened the door an inch and slammed it closed again and again, squashing the limb and sending cracking noises echoing through the hallway with every impact. Edith’s long, bony fingers flexed, twitching and twisting like a dying spider, then withdrew through the gap. Adrienne slammed the door so hard that her ears rang.

  Please stay down. Please stay dead.

  She rose onto her knees and turned the door’s lock with shaking hands. Then she huddled there, ear pressed against the wood, as she sucked in panting breaths and listened.

  There was the slow, distinct sluicing sound of a knife being pulled out of flesh then a spattering noise as congealed blood fell to the porch. A low, slow hiss of anger was expelled through rotting teeth.

  Adrienne didn’t stay to listen further but crawled back from the door until she could use a table to pull herself up. Her ankle throbbed, and her limbs were shaking. She’d lost the knife and the makeshift crutch in the yard, but in its place she’d gained two valuable gifts: the torch, and confirmation that Edith wasn’t night-bound.

  I’m a fool. She staggered down the hallway and into the lounge room that she’d grown to think of as her safe refuge. Wolfgang crouched in the corner, his ears flattened and tail bushed as he stared at the door. Adrienne closed it firmly behind her. I thought it would be safe. It was only ten paces from the front door, and I thought she’d retreated to the forest. I didn’t expect her to be waiting for me on the roof, of all places.

  Adrienne slumped into her chair and gave Wolfgang a bitter smile. “It was so quiet, too. I should have realised that meant she was nearby. Not even a cricket chirping. I was such an idiot.”

  Lesson learned. Even the safest gamble is still a gamble. And Edith is more cunning than I expected. I’ve got to give up any hope of walking out of this house. She chewed on her thumb as she stared at the dying embers. This means my only escape will be if someone comes to check on me and I can get a ride to town in their car. But even that’s going to be dangerous for everyone involved; there’s nothing to stop Edith from attacking them when they try to get out of their car.

  And that’s only if someone comes, which isn’t very likely.

  A piece of wood collapsed in the fireplace and sent up a little burst of sparks. Adrienne sucked in a breath and leaned forward in her chair. She’d had an idea. It was ridiculous to the point of being laughable, but she thought it might just work.

  34

  Spark

  Adrienne shoved two new logs onto the fire to build it. She was running low on wood—what she had left wouldn’t last through the night—but that wouldn’t matter if her plan worked.

  She tipped the remaining kindling out of the fireside bucket and looped its handle over her arm then limped through the house, searching for any rubber or small plastic items. In the kitchen, she found three packs of rubber gloves, two drain plugs, and a tin of rubber bands, all of which went into the bucket, followed by the last tea towel.

  There were surprisingly few plastic items in Ashburn. At Adrienne’s old home, cheap plastic bowls, chopping boards, and watering cans had been c
ommon, but Edith seemed to prefer wood, glass, or metal. Adrienne eventually found a thick roll of plastic bin liners in a bottom drawer and a rubber mat in the laundry and dropped them into her bucket.

  This’ll do.

  She hobbled back to the lounge room and knelt in front of the fire. The new wood had caught and was starting to burn nicely. She added a third piece, then all of the kindling, and waited for the flames to build.

  The heat coming off it was incredible, and Adrienne had to shed her jacket. Sweat beaded over her forehead, but the heat evaporated it almost as soon as it developed. She took the newspaper off the top of the fireplace and pulled the solid metal fireguard close.

  “You might want to keep back for this part, buddy,” she told the cat, who was sauntering up to see what she was doing. “It’s not going to smell very nice.”

  Adrienne took the tea towel out of the bucket, tied it around the lower half of her face as a crude mask, then crumpled the last dozen pages of the newspaper and threw them into the inferno. The rubber and plastic went straight on top, then she shoved the fire guard against the fireplace’s opening to block it as much as possible.

  Tendrils of black smoke began to spill out around the guard almost immediately, and with it came the smell of burning rubber. She’d become very familiar with the stench when her neighbours had decided to start a tire fire in their backyard one autumn morning. She’d never forgotten the gag-inducing scent of burning rubber or the way the smoke, thick and black, had poured across their property and stained the bricks.

  This house is visible from town. Everyone could see the light Edith lit every Friday. I’m sure they’ll see the smoke too.