Part 1 | An Ethereal Encounter

It all started when…I could feel that I was no longer alone in the abandoned house. Nothing stirred, nothing breathed, nothing touched me, yet it quickly became fact that the upstairs room of the old house was now occupied by two beings; myself being one such unfortunate soul.

First came the smell travelling on cold air that was out of place on a warm summer’s night. The smell was so putrid my eyes began to water and even sucking in air through my quickly drying mouth didn’t dampen its potency. It was the scent of ripened death.

I saw from my fluttering flashlight beam that I was beginning to shake rather violently. In my short time as a researcher of the paranormal I had yet to be in the presence of my much sought after target. This was the closest I had ever been to the evidence I needed to prove the existence of another plane of reality that parallels our own. But I was prepared for this experience. In my other hand I had a recorder with fresh batteries and as soon as I could work my trembling fingers I clicked the button to record. After a few steadying breaths I had the courage to turn around.

The moment my light met my target I immediately wished it hadn’t. I wished more than anything that I had stayed home tonight with my wife and let the things of my bizarre fascination stay in my dreams. The thing was tall and black, but not with skin, it was more like congealed darkness then a solid form that one could touch; though I had no such intensions. In fact I could faintly see the beam of my flashlight splashing on the wall behind it. The shadowed wraith had no face, but it had a head that lolled from side to side as it seethed with what I could only describe as shuttering breaths.

After what seemed to be an eternity I finally spoke to it, loud and clear so it would be picked up on the recorder. “Hello?” I did a terrible job of keeping the fear from my voice.

In response the beast hissed in a way that would remind someone of a large and dangerous feline. With the vocalization came another rush of rot and I fought away the heave that wanted desperately to escape my stomach.

Without warning a storm of questions erupted from my mouth. “Who are you? Why are you here? Can you say something for me?”

My storm of questions was interrupted there with a second storm, this time of screams from the creature; though I don’t feel such a description does it justice. The screams came from everything, the being, the walls, the floor boards; the house itself was alive with the tortured screams of souls that I couldn’t even fathom.

The hurricane of screams knocked me flat and sent the recorder and flashlight skittering away. I flailed about until my hand met the heated metal of my flashlight again and I whipped it around to where the phantom stood.

But the moment I placed the beam where the creature was the howls stopped and I was met with an empty room.

I blinked and took a few long seconds to catch my breath before searching for my recorder. Excitement took place of fear when I finally came across the little box in the corner of the room. I bent to grab and hit the rewind button, letting it spin for a few moments until I stopped it again. My place was where I began asking it questions, but my fear ridden queries were not met by the screams I had heard. Instead my recorder picked up what sounded like whispers. I turned the volume up all the way and listened hard as I played it several times over. I sat down on the aged floor and concentrated hard on the whispers. After another several plays I finally caught what was being hurriedly hissed.

“It wasn’t me…”

There was the deafening sound of wood giving way and I felt myself going into a free fall.

Part 2 | The Bottom

I hit the floor with a sedated thud. While on my back stars swam in front of my eyes and the creeping tendrils of whiplash began to nag at my neck. I could faintly hear myself moan as I tried to move, gripping at the carpet I had landed on; its color long since faded away between sun bleaching from the large windows and the smaller rodent inhabitants.

I had barely the time to regain my footing before the ground beneath me began its groaning redundancy of the floor above. I tried to move away from where the floor was going to give way but the shock of impact had made my limbs numb and unresponsive. With a jerk my body was thrown into the cellar with the debris from above and the aged rug.

I came to blurrily and with fresh aches and pains in every bit of my body. I opened my eyes and all was black. For a moment I panicked, thinking that maybe during the fall something had happened to leave me blind, and then felt rather silly when I became aware of the feeling of fabric on my face. The rug had wrapped around me in the fall.

I had no intentions of moving for a good long while. My body was sore and my head was beginning to pound. I felt that maybe if I were to lie there for a short time the pain would subside enough to allow me easily escape from my throw rug and floor board prison. I wasn’t too terribly uncomfortable and to the best of my knowledge none of the splinters had cut me or pierced into my skin. There was no real harm in me lying there and regaining myself.

That thought was abruptly pushed to the side as I felt a hand, cold and silky; slide its knuckles across my cheek. With a yelp I threw the rug to the side and scrambled to the nearest solid vertical surface. Blindly I reached what felt like a stone wall and I immediately pressed my back to it and met the face of my attendee.

Moonlight shone faintly from the windows above, but I felt that the little girl did not need its light to shine with an ethereal glow. She was small, maybe four feet at the very most, and her long silky black hair was tucked behind her little ears, allowing her perfect complexion to be shown unimpeded. All in all the little girl was particularly stunning. The thought made my heart patter uncomfortably. She would have become a beautiful woman if she had lived passed such a young age. And I was quite sure she was a specter, for in my line of investigation little girls don’t spend their time in the cellars of abandoned houses. They also tend to keep their powder blue dresses and shiny black shoes clean, while this little girl was spattered with blood.

What unnerved me more than the blood or the basic presence of a spirit were her eyes. Her eyes were alive with torture and disdain and wide with an almost insane weariness.

She just stared at me, completely motionless and without sound.

In the last few moments of hectic misadventure I had lost my recorder and flashlight. I mostly regretted the loss of the recorder, since I was here for research and anything that happens in the next couple minutes or so would go undocumented. I wasn’t sure what it was about this tiny spirit, but I felt of her more as if she were a scared and forgotten child and less of another subject for my investigations.

I felt it wise to try to make contact while I had the chance. Documented or not evidence is still evidence in a field where all the proof in the world wouldn’t change the minds of skeptics.

“Hello.” I tried feebly. I was still in a bit of pain from my fall.  “What is your name?”

She had a pained expression on her face as she tried to communicate. For the being from beyond the beyond it can sometimes be difficult to create speech.

“It’s ok.” I conveyed to the child. “You don’t have to hurt yourself.”

The little girl grimaced and tried again. This went on several times before a low grumbling gutter wheezed from between her lips. She seemed somewhat satisfied with herself and she spoke the best she could; her voice very reminiscent of a sickly smoker. “He won’t let me go.”

“Who?” I asked rather excitedly. “Who’s keeping you in the house?”

She never answered my question. She opened her mouth to reply, but with the speed the human eye could not catch, she whipped her head behind her and I now became aware of a darkened doorway directly behind her. She hissed like an old cat and vanished into the wall closest to her in a blue white blur.

Then came the screams. The familiar screams of the wraith from the upstairs room. They grew loud and pounding in my ears and the creature shambled through the doorway; appearing from it like a shadow disconnecting from the eternal blackness of night. The being looked around the room the best it could with its dilapidated head before pressing into the wall that the little girl vanished into, without ever taking notice of me pinned in fear against the wall. The screams died away shortly after the two vanished; sounding more and more like a train departing down a tunnel.

I let the silence press against my brain for a time before getting shakily to my feet. After some searching I found my recorder, but no flashlight. Again the flashlights importance was diminished by the evidence at hand. I decided to retire my search for the equipment and, recorder in hand, made my way from the basement and back out the front doors of the old plantation house.

Part 3 | The History of the Howl House

The drive back to my home was, in light of the last hour, rather dull. Though my travels were unimpeded I still felt my mind buzzing with wonder, excitement, and a troubling tension in the nape of my neck that had nothing to do with my multiple falls. Something about the sweet ethereal child made me yearn for more information. Who was this little girl? Why couldn’t the spirit of this child leave our mortal coil to travel to her next destination? Who was the black shambling figure? Many other questions pressed on my senses and made them ache.

I pulled into my driveway and went about my usual routine after coming home from a ghost hunt. I let my dog out to sniff around the yard while I showered. I fed the fish in their aquarium and picked algae from the filter. All this was so routine in fact that my brain never left focus with those startling deep eyes and the tortured words on my recorder. Every bit of me ached but the call of exploration and the hunt for information became too much for me.

I quietly opened the door to my bedroom as to not wake my wife. The moon poured across the hardwood floor, stretching its lunar fingers across my bed where she lay. On the other side of the room was my computer; a simple machine I used for perusing the internet and recording anything I catch on my recorder or camera when it is available to me.

I stared at my sleeping machine for a long time before making up my mind. I needed more. There was no telling without further investigation how long this child’s spirit has been held in her dark purgatory and how I might be able to help her find peace. I turned on my heels and went back down to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. My hound bumped my legs while I crafted, almost as encouragement to keep up the pace. I reached down and rubbed the dog’s flanks and pet his belly until a cheerful noise from above told me that my brew was done. I gave the dog one last pat before filling a large mug and heading back upstairs.

I decided it was in poor taste to sit in the bedroom with strong smelling coffee while my wife slept, so I gathered up my computer and power cord and searched for a place to work. Finally I settled myself down at the dining room table; my back to the large paned windows with a view to my dark backyard.

I rubbed at my eyes fighting sleep and pain while I tried different keywords in search engines such as my home town, ghost stories from the area, abandoned houses in the area, and then finally history of the previous categories. The last of those found me what I was looking for. A small collection of new reports from something the local paper called “The Howl House Murders”, a police report under the same name, and a brief history on the origins of the plantation home.

I poured myself another cup of coffee and settled down to read.

Sylvester Howl built the plantation with what he had made serving the US government during wartime as a soldier. He quickly became one of the top distributors of cotton for states around, with over a hundred slaves to his name. Almost as quickly as his success in cotton arose he found a lovely young woman by the name of Christine Ardus and, after a short stint across the country, they were wed and she bore him a son.

Octavious Howl was born and raised on the plantation and never wanted anything more. He could play out in the fields with some of the slave children when his father wasn’t home, he would go out at night to hear the African stories told by candle light, and most of all he loved working in the field and helping with the crop. Octavious never grasped the old fashioned ideals that these people who worked for his father were less than people or why they were never even thanked for the work they did.

Sylvester and his son fought time and time again over the treatment of the black men and women who worked for the family. After Sylvester’s mysterious death in 1842 left Octavious in charge he liberated the people who worked the fields; even giving them money to go into town with and gave them hospitable shelter in a second house he had built.

Many eyebrows were raised in Octavious’ direction once it became common knowledge that any black man working his fields was a free man. The idea was enough to make most of the townsfolk think he was possibly courting one of the ebony girls who worked in the kitchen or as a maid. It was even questioned if it was Octavious that was the true cause of his father’s untimely death. Despite all accusations Octavious continued on with his house parties and his charity funds for the local law enforcement and fire department. The man who had everything he could dream of had nothing to fear of these people who were just jealous of his success.

A short trip down the road of time, however, Octavious found himself lonely and ready to have a family of his own. It was shortly after this declaration that he came across a woman named Marie, last name unknown, and the same whirlwind of love swept him off his feet much like it had done to his father. Within a year of their marriage came one Ophelia Christine Howl. Finally Octavious had found peace in his life once again and, with a baby in his arms, he continued to live the dream.

That dream was shattered in 1852 with the death of his wife Marie by unknown causes. People began to wonder if it was Octavious who had done the deed and this rose attention again to his father’s death ten years prior. The town even launched an investigation into the possibility of Octavious being the culprit.

The pressure of the investigation drove Octavious to extreme action and, upon the arrival of police at his door, they found one of the men who worked in the house by the name of Samuel dismembered in the kitchen. Octavious was found with the hatchet in Ophelia’s room and holding the limp form of his little girl; her windpipe crushed and her neck fractured. Octavious wept over the body of his murdered child and mumbled to himself. During his incarceration and trial the man said nothing. He only stared with what was documented as a man paying for his misdeeds.

The town found it suitable to hang him from the tree out in front of the Howl House. It wasn’t until they were about to end the man’s life that he finally spoke. Not outright and loud for all to hear, but to a young reporter close enough to hear him whisper as he fell through the hatch and to his death.

I stared at the last line in the article about Octavious Howl’s trial and execution; my mouth becoming dry and my hands shaking as I tried to hold my cold cup of coffee. I scrambled to the kitchen, tripping over the dog as I went, and pulled the recorder out from the bag I had slipped it into on the way home. I ran back to the dining room and skid the chair across the floor in my haste to connect the device to my computer.

There it was, running across my screen in black and green wavelengths of absolute truth. I heard myself franticly ask the shambling specter questions and, at the point where I heard screams beyond the realm of logic and reason, I caught what I was looking for.

A male voice, shaken and weary and troubled, tortured even, muttering quickly with his last breath.

“It wasn’t me.”

Part 4 | The Sleeping Mind

My wife’s footsteps came from above then were shortly followed by the sound of creaking stairs. I did not look up as she walked down the hallway and into the dining room.

“Working late?” She asked as she ran a hand over my shoulder.

“Yeah.” I couldn’t hide the hollow tone to my voice. My throat wasn’t capable of anything else.

“Do you work today?”

“Day off.”

Her hand tightened on my shoulder, partially I felt from frustration. Too much was on my mind for me to manage much more than one to two word responses. “You should get some sleep.” Her voice was flat; evidently she had tired of me already.

I nodded and closed the computer that I had been staring into for hours. Hours that seemed to go by in only a few short minutes. My mind was so wrapped around the mystery of the Howl house that I had lost my perception of time and its normal ebb and flow. My body roared its disapproval as I got to my feet and trudged my way forward down the hall. The stairs were the worst. Every muscle screamed in pure malice with every step. My body had never been put through so much and it was ready to retire for a good long time. My brain, on the other hand, was still buzzing with activity as different ideas met and created new channels of thought for my mind to flow into and encompass my every bit of psychological strength.

Was it as simple as that? Did Octavious really kill his daughter? All the evidence seemed to point to this conclusion, but something about it didn’t sit right. If it wasn’t for my recorder I never would have questioned the facts in front of me. Something in the ghostly voice spoke truth louder than the truths written by men long since passed. Something in those pleading words made me rethink all that I had read and all I had experienced the night before.

My bedroom was calm and quiet and dark and just the perfect thing to help me think more upon my conundrum. My intention was to lie back in bed and let the calm and quiet and dark ease my body while my brain pushed feverishly along. I never felt sleep press down upon me until I was far beyond fighting its grasp.

I awoke with a start and found my room to be wrapped in the darkness of night. I sat up in bed and felt my contours of my wife’s body move against mine as I did. I looked to her and saw her dark flawless skin was bathed in an eerie lapis blue and, as my eyes adjusted, I began to notice the underlining hue that was somehow hidden within the darkness of shadow.

A cold familiar presence ran its way up my arm and I yelped in surprise. I turned wildly to see Ophelia Howl standing next to my bed. She looked up at me, her large eyes as sad as ever before. With her head now upturned I could see the outlines of fingers around her throat.

“Ophelia?” I stammered. “What are you doing here?”

She had no trouble talking now, though her voice still was low and raspy. “I need you to save me.” She grabbed my arm as she spoke. Not in a threatening manner; more like a child would if a dog behind a fence were to bark and race for the boundary. Ophelia was afraid. And if Ophelia was afraid then I felt I knew what she was afraid of.

Out of the far wall across the bedroom came the unearthly howls of the shambling black wraith. But instead of the figure that had previously followed these terrifying screeches came a man. He was young faced, yet not so much so to be mistaken as a young man. His sharp handsome features were accented by his blazing blue eyes that seemed to shine like radiant jewels and his sleek untidy black hair. His suit was a black pinstriped number with a blue handkerchief sitting tidily in the pocket.

Octavious Howl looked from me to his daughter. In the few moments he met my face I began to gag. The same smell of rot and decay from the house filled my nostrils and the deafening screams filled my head. Those feelings ended abruptly as his scorching eyes passed from me to his daughter. Those same eyes seemed to cool like ice water thrown upon burning coals.

The little girl put my arm between her and the slender man and hissed.

“Ophelia…” Octavious murmured in the same voice I had heard on my recorder. “Why do you hide? You’re my shining star.”

The child only held tighter to my arm. Chills shot from where her limbs touched as waves of anger and fear reveled in my brain. Ophelia was afraid of him. She blamed him for her death. She didn’t know her father wasn’t the killer. And that fact I was sure of now. Seeing his face coupled with her reaction made the whole mystery open itself like a child’s closet to reveal the true monster inside.

I stared across my bed at Octavious and spoke to him like I would any other confused individual. “She doesn’t understand. She doesn’t know the truth like we do.”

For the first time since this strange encounter started I felt that Octavious was actually seeing me for who I was. I was not merely someone who disturbed their purgatory, or another who wanted him hung; but as someone who, like him, wanted the truth to come forth.

He nodded to me as the screams started around the room once again before vanishing in a flurry of swirling wind.

“Baby!” my wife’s voice came from so far away.

I grumbled and strained to open my eyes. They didn’t move.

“Answer me!” I could hear her screaming in panic and the sound of wood splintering filled the room as I sat upright.

My wife was strewn across the floor, looking up at me and weeping. At first I was baffled at her reaction, until I looked around my room. It was utterly ransacked. Papers were strewn about with the care of a tornado and the window, now letting in the soft glow of sunset, was broken.

I got to my feet and went to my wife, who pulled me to the floor and wrapped her arms around me. As she wept into my chest I stared at the destruction around my room. I understood now what I had to do to save not only Ophelia, but also her tortured father. I now knew what had to be done to stop this cycle of fear and rage they both held onto so tightly that they could not go on.

Part 5 | In Flames

Ophelia held my hand while we watched the Howl House burn to its foundation. The tree Octavious hung from so long ago creaked and groaned as the flames licked at its ancient wood. The smell of fires’ destructive forces filled my heart and soul as I watched. Somewhere in the house a window shattered under the intense heat.

“Your father loved you.” I said after a long silence. I never took my eyes of the flames enveloping the house.

“I know he did.” The girl said with that same simple nonchalance that any child would.

I turned my gaze from the fire. “You do?”

Ophelia looked up at me and her hand in mine now felt surprisingly warm. “I know that now.”

“What else do you know?”

She turned her head back to the flames that engulfed the place that was her prison for so long. She watched the bright tongues of fire lap at the home for a long time before she answered. “I know who killed me. But I don’t know why.”

Then another voice spoke from out of the darkness, passed the light of the burning building. This voice was husky with the droll tone to it that I felt I had heard imitated in old Civil War documentaries. “It was because I loved you, child.”

I turned my head to face the newcomer who now moved out from the shadow. Unlike Ophelia or Octavious this spirit could have been mistaken as a fully mortal being. He was solid looking and still carried all the outward appearance of a life not yet passed. His skin was dark and glazed with the sweat of a hard day’s work. He wore denim pants with red suspenders over a white cotton shirt. The look of the average working man. It was Samuel.

I acted before Ophelia could. I put myself between the two shades and stared defiantly at the man. I felt the words leave my lips but I had no control over their pattern. “Get away Samuel. Now!” I barked the last order and made him cringe.

Samuel looked from me to the little shape under my arm and continued forward. “I didn’t want to hurt ya child. Honest I didn’t. But I couldn’t have you tellin’ Daddy Oct about our love. I would lose my home because them folk don’t understand what we have.”

Ophelia growled like a feral cat and held fast to my jeans.

“You gotta understand child I only did what I did because I had to keep it secret. You promised you’d keep it secret!” Samuels face was no longer the same slightly puzzled farmhand now. It was ugly and filled with a bitter rage.

I moved forward in effort to protect the child. Something inside me told me that no matter what happened, it was worth keeping Ophelia safe from this monster. We met after a few short strides and with a rush of cold like ice water Samuel passed through me and onto Ophelia.

I turned to watch in horror as the big man reached for the girl, who was frozen in place in fear. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a shadow pass from the burning tree and into the ground.

Then came the screams. Those screams no longer filled me like they had such a short time ago; but now filled the air like a furious twister. I watched as Samuel, who had stopped to stare around searching for the source of the noise, began to sink into the ground. The man screamed and tried to grab Ophelia, but I had already made my way to her and had pulled her away. We both marveled as black phantom hands reached around Samuel and dragged him down farther and farther. With one last imitated breath Samuel screamed Ophelia’s name.

Then all was quiet aside from the home crumbling to its foundation.

In silence Ophelia and I stood watching the last of the burning building and her being began to let go. She had found peace at last. I felt the tears roll from my eyes as the warm sensation in my hand faded away to a cold emptiness. I was alone in front of the Howl House. Completely alone.

It’s been five years since I torched the Howl House, but of course no one but my wife knows it was me. I still go ghost hunting from time to time, but my job as an investigator for the local police department takes up most of my free time. That and my four year old daughter who just loves when Daddy tells her where her name came from.

I still see Ophelia every so often. Sometimes when I read my daughter a bedtime story I feel her listening in from the closet. Sometimes I catch her watching me out of the corner of my eye and, I will swear by it, I even see her smile.