#Thriller Thursday: The Haunting of Chatum House

It's Thriller Thursday, and I'm doing something different. Here's a little paranormal suspense flash fiction for you. Enjoy and feedback is appreciated!

This had to be one of the stupidest things Nari had ever done. The chilly fall wind whipped her hair and goose flesh erupted over her cold skin. She gazed up at the night stars as she tromped through the overgrown yard lugging her equipment. What was she doing, coming here alone? She should have gone to bed when her partner cancelled. But like an idiot, she'd moved forward with the mission.

Nari had investigated hauntings throughout the southeastern United States, but she’d avoided the Chatum place the same way she avoided committed relationships. Her best friend had been murdered here. What if her ghost waited to greet Nari? What if a residual haunting played out the murder in gruesome detail?

She couldn't avoid the house any longer. Her dreams were full of dark scenes: a terrified woman running through dark halls and screaming for help, sinister laughter, and the awful, gurgling sound of a victim as she bled out.

Her best friend was trying to tell her something, and Nari had to find out what it was. That's why she was standing on a rickety front porch of an old Victorian at midnight and freezing her ass off.

The hulking, abandoned Victorian loomed before her. The Chatum place had been empty for the last five years, the hundred-year-old house crumbling beneath the rumors. They had started as soon as the bodies were wheeled out of the old house.

Six months after the murders, a family with two young children had moved in. They lasted less than three months. Neighbors reported hearing terrible cries in the middle of the night. A man walking his dog insisted the lights in the house turned on and off despite the fact the power had been shut off.

She hefted the bag onto her shoulder and slid her lock picking kit out of her pocket. Nari hadn’t bothered to get permission to enter the Chatum house. She didn’t want anyone in town to know what she was doing. Cape Charles, Virginia was a sleepy town that enjoyed the status quo. Hearing that Nari was searching for her best friend’s ghost would send them into a gossiping frenzy.

The door opened without fanfare. Darkness greeted her. The fine hairs on the back of Nari’s neck flared up, and her pulse raced. She always got an adrenaline rush the first time she entered a place with supposed paranormal activity, but as she stood on the threshold of the home she’d spent so much time in as a child, a new kind of chill went through her. There was no turning back now.

Nari flicked on her Mag-Lite and cast the beam around. The foyer was just as she remembered, its oak floor coated with dust. To her right, a narrow, spiral staircase waited. Hannah had been murdered in the upstairs hallway, the last family member to lose their life to John Chatum. The prodigal son had turned out to be a psycho with a knack for gutting people.

She stepped forward and then stalled. A whisper ran through the air. It could have been the wind or something far worse. A heavy stillness settled over Nari. The miserable feeling was one she knew well, and it took her breath away.

This house wasn’t empty.

What do you guys think? Should I continue Nari's story for Thriller Thursday?

#FridayFlash - The Gathering

Stuck somewhere between deep sleep and grogginess, Sarah could feel the atmosphere in the room changing. The air thickened until it felt heavy. She shivered beneath the blanket. Every breath she drew was strained and loud. Silence popped in her ears.

The sense of unease prodded her subconscious, forcing her to wake up. Sarah didn’t want to. She knew what the gathering tension meant. She put her hand over her eyes, determined to ignore the pressure.

The dark room wouldn’t be ignored. An invisible presence rushed over Sarah, its energy skimming across the blankets and wrapping itself around her head. Its weight pressed her down, and she couldn’t move. The thing she could never name hovered, unintelligible words ringing in Sarah’s ears.

Then she was released. Sarah sat up and screamed. She fumbled for the light switch, her heart hammering and her stomach turning with nausea. Light flooded the room, and she searched for the source of the intrusion.

There was nothing. Her mother’s quilt rack, laden with colorful quilts that were never used, sat in one corner, a rocking chair in another. An antique school desk served as a bedside table. A glass lamp sat on a top, along with the book Sarah had discarded hours ago.

“What’s wrong?” Her father’s voice called from across the room. Her parents lived in the country, surrounded by farms and kind neighbors. An intruder was the last thing her dad would be worried about. He was used to Sarah’s ‘episodes,’ as he called them. They happened every time she visited.

“Something moved across me,” she answered. Her voice sounded ominous in the quiet guest room.

“Probably the cat,” her mother answered. “You know he roams around all night.”

Sarah glanced at the bedroom door. It was open an inch, nowhere near big enough for her parent’s eighteen-pound black and white cat to squeeze through.

“Little Bit?” Sarah called. “Come here, kitty, kitty. Come snuggle with me.”

No answer. The cat wasn’t in the hall. The only thing Little Bit liked to do more than eat was talk. He would have chattered back.

“He’s probably downstairs,” her dad said. “You scared him. Go back to sleep.”

Sarah kept her mouth shut. The cat wasn’t downstairs. He would have been lounging in the hallway, complaining about Sarah making so much noise.

She pulled the blanket up to her nose. The room was still, benign. That meant nothing. Whatever visited her came and went as it pleased.

Sarah had sensed the presence of spirits in the old farmhouse since she was a child. It was nothing to feel the bed sag as though someone were sitting on it only to find there was no one. During a miserable bout with the flu, a woman wearing an old-fashioned gray dress had sat with Sarah. She didn’t speak, but her company was calming. Sarah’s mother insisted the woman had been a fever-induced dream.

But this was different. Whatever this energy was wanted Sarah’s attention. It grew bolder with each visit, gathering more energy and leaving the room a suffocating tomb.

Tonight was the first time it had touched Sarah. She knew it wouldn’t be the last.

**based on true experiences**

Comments welcome!

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Thriller Thursday: The Haunting of Stacy Green

Dedicated to my brother, Kevin Messenger. 1959-2005. We Miss You.

I debated about this post, especially the title. This is a personal story, and I don't want people to think I'm making light of it or using the story to gain attention. That's not the case. I really just want to share it with you because it's a part of who I am.

I've always 'sort-of' believed in ghosts. I grew up in an old house and had all kinds of experiences my parents brushed off.

Throughout the years, I heard footsteps in the house and felt the smothering sense of the air growing heavy around me until I thought I would explode. I’ve felt the bed move as though someone were sitting on it (I convinced myself that was just me until my parents mentioned years later they’d had similar experiences in different rooms). Last but not least, one night about seven years ago I was asleep in the guest room (my mother has taken over my old room) and out of nowhere something rushed over my face bringing with it a gust of air. I felt it move over me.

I jumped out of bed and ran into the hall. Mom chastised me and said it was the cat. Not bloody likely. That cat was a wailer and would have been in the hall yelling at me for scaring him.

My friends say I’m sensitive. My husband says I’ve got a big imagination. I never knew what to believe until the night after my brother was killed.

I have to give you some back story here. In June of 2005, I was 12 weeks pregnant. We’d tried for five years, and due to a genetic issue that increased my chances of having a Downs Syndrome baby, we had only conceived once, which ended in miscarriage. That devastated me, and I lived in a deep depression for weeks. So when I got pregnant the second time, only my parents and one of my brothers knew. On June 7, 2005, my husband and I went to the University of Iowa for prenatal testing to would narrow down the odds of our unborn child having Downs. That day, my brother Kevin called my mom to see how I was doing and to ask when we’d get the results. He was worried about me.

He died in a car accident that night.

I didn’t find out until the next morning. I was stunned. You think something like that can’t happen to your family, and then it does. I won’t go into to details, but he never stood a chance. It was horrific and could have been prevented.

I rushed to my parents home two hours away and went to the funeral home with them. I sat in stunned silence while they made arrangements along with my sister-in-law.

You can imagine the grief of the rest of the day. I went to bed—in the guest room—exhausted. Empty. Worried about my test results and feeling guilty for thinking about something other than my brother’s death.

I became trapped in a horrible dream. My brother stood at the foot of my bed staring at me with an expression I’ve never been able to fully describe. He wanted to tell me something. He leaned forward but didn’t speak. In the dream, I jumped out of bed and ran out of the room. He followed me room to room, the same pleading expression on his face. I couldn’t think straight. I’ve never been so scared—not even in real life.

A terrifying sound woke me. It was the weather radio signaling an upcoming storm. My mother and I both woke and went down to the kitchen. She could hardly talk; I was shaking. The dream had been so vivid, so real. It was like nothing I’ve ever experienced.

I told Mom about it, and I can still see her sitting there in her old nightgown, pain radiating from her.

“He didn’t look like himself, though,” I said. “His face was puffy, and he didn’t have a mustache. And he was wearing that burgundy shirt and khaki pants he wore at Xmas.”

My mother turned white. “That’s what he’s going to be buried in.”

After an hour of talking, I explained it away as coincidence. The last time I’d seen him he’d been wearing that shirt. My mind just filled in the blanks. Still, I couldn’t shake the realness of it all.

The next day was the viewing. Nothing could have prepared me for the pain of that experience, let alone what I saw. I remembering stumbling to the casket and nearly collapsing. Not only was Kevin wearing those clothes, but his face was swollen and puffy from the trauma, and he didn’t have a mustache.

Kevin was eighteen years older than me, and I’d never seen him without a mustache. Ever.

Barely able to stand, I asked his poor wife about it. Why didn’t he have one?

“He was trimming it a few days ago and messed up,” she said. “I told him to shave it off.”

There’s no way I could have known that. The mustache sealed the deal for me. For whatever reason, Kevin had come to me the night before. I was convinced he was trying to tell me something, but what? He and I weren’t that close. He knew about my pregnancy because he shared the same genetic condition and Mom had told him. I hadn’t seen him in months. Why me? Why not my older sister? The two of them were very close.

I got my answer later in the day. While sitting at Mom’s kitchen table going through pictures and trying to decide which ones to share at Kevin’s funeral, I got a call from the U of Iowa. Our tests results were back. The Downs screening isn’t absolute, but our odds had drastically narrowed. Our baby was very likely fine.

And then it hit me: that’s what Kevin was trying to tell me. He’d asked about the test the day he was killed, he’d told Mom how worried he was that I wouldn’t be able to handle bad news. I don’t know how, but he was trying to let me know that everything was going to be okay.

I know this in my gut. No one will ever convince me otherwise. The clothes, the mustache, the test results—too many things to be a coincidence.

All the years I joked that I wanted to have a “real” ghost experience, and it’s my own brother. My family will never get over his loss, but I am so grateful to him for coming to me the way he did. After the experience, I believed in the test results. My anxiety about the baby went down, and I was able to relax and enjoy my pregnancy. I wouldn’t have done that had Kevin not visited me.

You don’t have to believe. Most never will until they have their own experience. I just wanted to share mine with you.

My daughter Grace was born 12-26-05. She’s perfect☺

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Thriller Thursday Murder In The Midwest: Two Adults And Six Children Found Dead

On June 10, 1912, the sleepy little town of Villisca, Iowa was changed forever. Josiah Moore, his wife Sarah, their four children (Herman, Katherine, Boyd, and Paul), and two friends were found murdered in their beds, their skulls crushed. Lena and Ina Stillinger had gone to church with the Moore’s and had been invited by Katherine to spend the night.

The crime has never been solved.

The bodies were discovered when a neighbor realized the Moore’s hadn’t started their outside chores. Josiah’s brother was called, and he found the broken bodies of Lena and Ina Stillinger in the Moore’s parlor.

The Villisca Axe Murders may be one of the most mismanaged crimes in history. Word of the bodies spread like wildfire, and police soon lost control of the scene. Historical accounts claim more than a hundred people walked through the house to gape at the bodies before the National Guard arrived.

All hell broke loose in the town. Residents took up arms, suspecting one another. Reporters and private detectives flocked to the town while law enforcement agencies from neighboring counties and states assisted in the investigation.

Here are the facts, as stated by the official site of the Villisca Murders:

• Eight people had been bludgeoned to death, presumably with an axe left at the crime scene. It appeared all had been asleep at the time of the murders.
• Doctors estimated time of death as somewhere shortly after midnight.
• Curtains were drawn on all of the windows in the house except two, which did not have curtains. Those windows were covered with clothing belonging to the Moore's.
• All of the victims faces were covered with the bedclothes after they were killed.
• A kerosene lamp was found at the foot of the bed of Josiah and Sarah. The chimney was off and the wick had been turned back. The chimney was found under the dresser.
• A similar lamp was found at the foot of the bed of the Stillinger girls, the chimney was also off.
• The axe was found in the room occupied by the Stillinger girls. It was bloody but an attempt had been made to wipe it off. The axe belonged to Josiah Moore.
• The ceilings in the parent's bedroom and the children's room showed gouge marks apparently made by the upswing of the axe.
• A piece of a keychain was found on the floor in the downstairs bedroom.
• A pan of bloody water was discovered on the kitchen table as well as a plate of uneaten food.
• The doors were all locked.
• The bodies of Lena and Ina Stillinger were found in the downstairs bedroom off the parlor. Ina was sleeping closest to the wall with Lena on her right side. A gray coat covered her face. Lena, according to the inquest testimony of Dr. F.S. Williams, "lay as though she had kicked one foot out of her bed sideways, with one hand up under the pillow on her right side, half sideways, not clear over but just a little. Apparently she had been struck in the head and squirmed down in the bed, perhaps one-third of the way." Lena's nightgown was slid up and she was wearing no undergarments. There was a bloodstain on the inside of her right knee and what the doctors assumed was a defensive wound on her arm.

The murderer—or murderers—left behind a load of forensic evidence. Had the crime happened today, perhaps it would have been solved. Fingerprinting was in its infancy, and DNA testing unheard of. Even if the scene had been properly processed, authorities probably wouldn’t have been able to use the evidence.

Still, there are suspects. Many point to Frank F. Jones, an Iowa State Senator, as the murderer. Victim Josiah Moore had worked for Frank Jones for years. When he left and started his own implement company in 1908, Jones was furious. Moore had stolen the John Deere franchise from him. Rumors also floated around that Moore had an affair with Jones daughter-in-law, and his son was accused of being a co-conspirator. They were never arrested.

Sounds like great motive to me. Big financial loss and dilly-dallying with another man's woman? Never gets a good reaction.

William Mansfield from Illinois was suspected of being hired by Frank Jones to commit the murders. One investigator put together a case to bring to the grand jury, pinning not only the Villisca murders but several other axe murders on Mansfield. Insufficient evidence was found. He was released.

Rev. George Jacklin Kelly was also a suspect. He was a traveling preacher and had settled in Macedonia, Iowa. In 1917, he was arrested for the murder of ONE of the victims (but experts argue they were committed by the same person). Kelly attended the church and children’s program the day before. He left town early on the 10th.

Kelly confessed, but it was withdrawn before trial. The Villisca site calls his confession a “mockery of law enforcement practices at the time.” Kelly’s first trial was a hung jury; he was aquitted in the second.

This one makes me wonder. Sometimes it's often the least likely people who turn out to be the bad guys. Confessions are still coerced, and I can only imagine how easy it was to do back then with no video equipment and a town out for blood. But why did Kelly leave so early in the morning the day of the murders? Combined with his seeing the family the day before, that's suspect.

Murders like this are usually rage killings. Was Kelly angry at the Moores? We'll never know.

The third school of thought is that someone unknown to the area killed the Moore’s and Stillinger girls - a serial killer. The case against Mansfield actually supports this theory. 22 other murders had been committed in the Midwest around the same time. A federal officer assigned to the Villiscia murders believed Henry Moore (not related) was the killer.

He’d been convicted of the murders of his mother and maternal grandmother in Columbia, Missouri just months after the Villisca murders. His family was killed in the same manner. Other axe murders were also being investigated: family in Colorado Spring, Colorado was bludgeoned to death. A family in Monmouth, Illinois was killed, and then a family in Ellsworth, Kansas. A week before the Villisca killings, a man and his wife were murdered in Paola, Kansas. The similarities in the cases were undeniable. The case against him was never proved, however. Perhaps modern day science could have solved it.

Others were investigated, but again, no charges.

Another strong possibility. But are the similarities really the same? Were the nuances of the crime committed? Did the investigators look past the bludgeoning and look at the details of the rooms? Were the windows covered? Were the victims faces covered?

By the way, that's usually done by someone who knows the family, a sign of remorse. Even if Frank Jones hired Mansfield, the guys didn't know the family. Reverend Kelly did. He knew all the victims.

Of course, covering the bodies could have also been part of some weird M.O. Or perhaps the murderer couldn't stand to see what he'd done. The time taken in the house suggests callousness, something I'm not sure the Reverend had. And was this the murderer's first killing? His only? Behavioral analysts of today might be able to tell, but the details are lost to history.

The Villisca House is a now a tourist attraction on the National Registrar of Historic Places. Stories about it being haunted abound. The official site of the murders says paranormal investigators have gathered visual and auditory evidence of a haunting. Objects move, psychics claim to have seen spirits.

If ever a place was likely to be haunted, the Villisca House would be it. The only surviving witness to a terribly tragedy, it alone knows the murder’s true identity.

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The Villisca Axe Murder House