The Haunting of Ashburn House (8 page)

The car’s headlights were still on. They sent twin beams around the tree the vehicle had crashed into, and acted like spotlights through the swirling fog. It would have been beautiful if the implication weren’t so horrifying.

Adrienne struggled to breathe. She slowed her descent as she neared the car, grabbing at the trunks to steady herself. The voice in the back of her mind was yelling that she should stay away, that she could be tampering with a crime scene, but the car’s door was hanging open, and Marion could still be inside. Adrienne couldn’t leave her there. What if she was in pain or—

Some kind of ground-bound bird shot out of its hiding place in the weedy grass and crashed through the underbrush with a cackling, indignant cry. It startled Adrienne so badly that she stumbled, overbalanced, and hit the forest floor. She grunted, tried to roll into a sitting position, and slipped farther down the damp slope until she came to a stop beside the open car door.

The driver’s seat was empty. She began to breathe again.

“Adrienne? Addy?” Jayne was still at the top of the hill. Adrienne could see her coral-blue jacket between the trees.

“Did you call the police?” Her voice was muffled by the mist, but it still seemed too loud for the reverential hush surrounding them.

“No. Can’t get through.”

“Keep trying. I found her car.”

“What? Is she hurt?” Jayne began racing down the slope, crashing through the same trees and bushes Adrienne had plunged through a moment before.

Adrienne rolled onto her knees then gained her feet. The area where the car had crashed was mostly flat, but the wet leaves were still treacherous, and she supported herself on the door as she looked in at the driver’s seat.

The keys dangled from the ignition, and the internal lights were on, though Adrienne suspected the battery would be close to dead. A covered basket rested on the passenger seat. Adrienne scanned the headrest, seat, and windshield for any signs that her friend had been injured but couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Then she caught the dull glisten of dried blood on the steering wheel. There wasn’t much, but its presence tightened her stomach.

She drew back a little to see the front of the car. The bonnet had crumpled where it had hit the tree but not as badly as in some of the crashes she’d seen on the news. The force had evidently been enough to injure Marion—possibly a broken nose or a scabbed forehead where she’d jerked into the steering wheel—but the windshield was intact, and the airbags hadn’t deployed.

Jayne skidded to a halt beside her and leaned through the doorway to examine the scene. Her breathing was ragged as she first locked onto the blood then peered around the front seats to check the back. “We need to look for her.”

“Yeah.” Adrienne turned to scan the woods around them. “She might have tried to climb up to the house. Or she could have stumbled downhill if she was disoriented… which is kind of likely. We’re close enough to the house that I would have heard the car horn or loud yells, but she didn’t make a peep.”

“I’ll go uphill,” Jayne said, already turning to begin the climb. “You search downhill. Call if you find anything.”

“Okay.” Adrienne wrapped her arms around herself. She wished she’d had time to get a warmer jacket, but she wasn’t about to go back for one. If Marion were still in the woods, every minute she remained outside increased the risk of hypothermia. So Adrienne set her teeth, huffed in a frosty breath, and rounded the tree.

The headlights blinded her as she stepped into their beams, and she had to feel her way through the trees for the first few paces. That part of the woods was largely made up of tall, thin-trunked saplings and scrubby grass, though she still caught glimpses of the occasional collapsed forest giant. The mist wasn’t clearing as she’d hoped it would, and it made her exposed skin sticky and damp.

“Marion!” Jayne’s voice floated to her, sounding almost like a wraith amongst the trees.

Following her friend’s lead, Adrienne inhaled deeply and called, “Marion!”

She held still, listening, but nothing reached her except erratic, muffled drips and irritated bird chatter.

If I’d just been in a car crash, and it were pitch-black, which direction would I walk in?
She turned in a circle, scanning the bushes and trunks surrounding the car, hoping the other woman might have huddled close to the accident. The fog played tricks on her, turning rocks and fallen trunks into humanoid shapes. She tried to remember what Marion had been wearing the day before. She thought it had been orange; that would make her easier to see, unless, of course, Marion had changed after her shift at the vet.

“Marion!”

Please be okay.
Adrienne swallowed the lump in her throat and began following the car’s headlights. She was working off the idea that a disoriented and lost person would follow the course of least resistance, which was directly downhill. She zigzagged her path as she descended to cover as much ground as possible, peering into hollows and around shrubs and staying alert for any freshly broken branches or crushed grass that would suggest a human had tumbled through them.

“Marion!”

What happens if we can’t find her? It would take fifteen minutes for Jayne to drive to town, at least twenty or thirty minutes to muster a search team, and fifteen minutes to come back. That’s a long time when the temperature’s this low. But is it less of a gamble than what we’re doing now?

“Marion!”

A shape caught Adrienne’s notice, and she hurried forward, hope blooming through her, only to be disappointed as the mist cleared to reveal it was a stone. She scrunched her face as panic, which had been growing slowly in the background, rose to the surface.

What if she’s dead? She only came here because you said you were low on food. You even heard her car go off the road but didn’t recognise what it was. If she’s dead… it’s probably your fault.

“Marion!” Her voice was hoarse and sounded dulled by the mist. She was shaking, and not just from the cold. “Marion!”

She dropped her gaze and saw she’d stumbled onto a little dirt path that snaked through the trees. The scuffed impression of a sneaker lay just past where she stood.

Adrienne frowned and bent low to examine it. The mark was smaller than her own foot, and she doubted Edith had ever worn sneakers.

It could be a child’s. Jayne said they sometimes came through the forest as a dare.
She raised her eyes in the direction the footprint pointed and saw another just ahead of it.
Or it could be Marion’s.

“Jayne?” No one answered. She’d come farther than she’d thought; even the car lights had faded from view.

Adrienne squeezed her lips together. The footprint was a poor clue but the only one she had, so she followed it, doubling over while she jogged so that she could see the erratic prints. She kept her own feet clear of the marks, knowing that they might be needed for evidence—
Please, please don’t let it come to that
—as she followed the dirt trail through the woods.

The path was leading upwards in a slow, meandering course. It seemed to have been designed as a hiking trail rather than a direct route of access to anywhere, and Adrienne struggled to keep track of her location relative to the house. She suspected the building was about a kilometre to her right, higher on the hill, but wasn’t certain she could find it if she needed to. The hill was half joined to the mountain behind it, and it would be very easy to climb the wrong slope and end up lost in the deep forest.

Even though it wove and looped erratically, the trail seemed to be curving to the right. It was badly overgrown, and more than once, Adrienne thought she’d lost the footprints before finding them again several metres farther on. The trees were changing. They’d been tall and thin around the crash site but were growing bigger, darker, and uglier the farther she walked. Trunks that had once been straight were gnarled and full of whorls and jagged branches, and although the boughs had fewer leaves, the larger sizes made them more efficient at blocking out the sun. The mist took on a luminescent glow in the few beams of anaemic light that made it through.

Adrienne was so focussed on tracking the footprints that she didn’t notice the path was opening up until she was no longer hemmed in by thick trunks. She stopped and straightened, breathing in raw, panting gasps.

She’d arrived in a small, unkempt clearing. The trees grew tightly around its ragged perimeter, creating a natural wall, but the clearing itself was free of plant life; all that existed inside it was a layer of dead leaves and a strange, hulking shape in the centre.

That’s not… it can’t be…

Only the silhouette was visible through the mist, but the outline was strongly reminiscent of a gravestone. It rose out of the ground to waist height before curving into a rounded top and cast a long shadow ahead of itself. Adrienne, hugging her chest tightly and holding her breath, crept closer.

The mist swirled around her legs, creating little vortexes and eddies as she pushed through it. As she drew closer to the shape, she began to make out the headstone’s terrible details, the little chips along its top, the stone’s rough texture, and the words carved into its front.

But that was nothing compared to the nauseating squeeze of terror she felt as she saw the woman lying in the tombstone’s shadow like a corpse put to rest six feet higher than it should have been.

“Marion,” she breathed. The word escaped in a small plume of mist.

The lanky brunette was curled on her side, head turned so that her open eyes could stare at the trees above her. Long hair fanned around her face, which was a ghastly, waxy white save for a smudge of dried blood at her hairline.

She’d dug herself a little indent in the grave. Rich, dark dirt was scattered over the leaves surrounding her, and her fingers were blackened with grime.

Adrienne clamped her hands over her mouth, fighting against a scream that she couldn’t completely contain. It came out as a gurgling wail, catching in her raw throat and echoing in her ears.

No, no, not Marion; she can’t be dead, please, she can’t—

The body twitched, and Marion drew in a single slow, rattling breath.

Adrienne was at her side in a heartbeat. She took the other woman’s hand, not caring about the grave’s dirt caking it, and rubbed at the fingers. “Marion? Can you hear me?”

The eyes stayed wide and blankly staring. The skin was waxen, and the hand Adrienne held was ice cold. She looked like a corpse.

Please no, come on, breathe again, please—

Adrienne lowered her ear to Marion’s chest. She thought she could hear a heartbeat, but it was faint. She dropped the hand and struggled out of her jacket then wrapped it around Marion’s torso as well as she could. “Hang on. You’re going to be fine. We’ll get you back to the house. Just hang on.”

“Addy?”

Adrienne turned. Jayne, shivering and pale, stood in a gap in the trees.

Adrienne felt as though she were moving through a dream as she closed Ashburn’s door. She held a basket in hands that were still smeared with the dirt from Marion’s fingers. The peace that had fallen over the house felt entirely incongruous with the previous hours.

The clearing had turned out to be only a few hundred metres from Ashburn. It had been so near, in fact, that Jayne had heard Adrienne’s scream from where she’d been searching the brush on the other side of the house. That had been a mercy; Adrienne didn’t think she could have carried Marion on her own even if she’d known which direction to take.

They’d had a brief debate when they reached the yard. Adrienne wanted to bring Marion into the house, where she could light a fire while Jayne went for help, but Jayne said it would be safer to take Marion directly to town. Ipson had a doctor’s practice but was too small for any kind of hospital or ambulance service. Jayne said her friend would need to be taken to hospital in the next town by car, and the sooner she started the drive, the better.

In the end, Adrienne bowed to Jayne’s judgement and helped load Marion into the car. The brunette’s eyes fell closed, but she was breathing evenly at least, and Jayne promised to put the heater up as high as it would go. Adrienne had then stood back and watched as the car disappeared down the driveway in a swirl of mist.

She couldn’t help but feel that Jayne would have brought Marion inside if the house had been any other than Ashburn.

Adrienne had waited at the head of the driveway for a long time just in case the car returned, but it didn’t. She’d turned to enter the house but couldn’t get the abandoned vehicle out of her mind. She knew it was a silly thing to worry over, but she hated to think of the seats being ruined by water damage.

The car was easy enough to find; the headlights had gone out as the battery drained, but the sun had risen by that point, dispersing the mist and improving visibility. Adrienne had turned the car off, taken the keys, and closed the door. The bonnet was dented where it had impacted the tree, but it wasn’t an especially deep dent. Adrienne hoped the car wouldn’t be a write-off.

She was climbing back towards the house when a rumble of engines announced new visitors. A police cruiser and tow truck rolled into Ashburn’s yard. It seemed Jayne had stopped off in Ipson to tell people what had happened.

Charles Mackeson was a pleasant, jovial sheriff who slapped Adrienne’s shoulder every few minutes and kept laughing at his own jokes. “Nasty accident,” he said several times. “She must’ve lost control of the car.”

“Yes.” Adrienne’s head was filled with a high-pitched ringing noise that made it difficult to think.

The sheriff rolled on the balls of his feet as he tilted his head to look at the house behind them. “Well, this is a treat, anyhow. It’s been… oh, nearly two decades since I last saw this place. Was just a rookie back then, scared out of my socks. Can you imagine!” He laughed and slapped her shoulder. She thought she managed a smile in response, though it felt more like a grimace.

The interview passed in a blur. By the time the sheriff tucked his notebook into his pocket, Marion’s car was out of the woods and being hoisted onto the back of the truck. Then the sheriff was pressing a basket into her hands and saying, “I think this was meant for you.”

“Oh.” Adrienne stared at the basket. It had a little tag tied to the handle with her name on in.
The food Marion was bringing me.
“Thanks.”

Then both the tow truck and the police cruiser were disappearing along the driveway, leaving Adrienne standing alone on the porch with the basket clasped in her muddy hands.

She threw up. Then she went inside.

Adrienne rested her back against the door and closed her eyes. It was early afternoon, based on the shadows, and she felt exhausted. An irritable mewl came from near her feet, and she blink down at Wolfgang. “Crap. Oh, buddy, you haven’t been fed yet, have you? Jeez, I’m sorry.”

She staggered into the lounge room, placed the basket on the round table, and took the cat food off the shelf. Wolfgang waited by his bowl, his magnificent tail standing upright like a flag marking Adrienne’s destination, and she poured out an extra-generous portion.

“Sorry, buddy.” The cat planted its head into the bowl as though he planned to drown himself in food. “Didn’t mean to leave you hungry.”

Adrienne stood and returned the food to the shelf. She wished she could turn her mind off, but it refused to be silenced.

She looked so much like a corpse. And lying there under the tombstone like that…

Her fingers ached, and Adrienne realised she was squeezing the edge of the shelf as though it were a life buoy. She made herself let go.

Why is there a grave on this property? Who’s buried there?

She left the lounge room and crossed to the kitchen. She wasn’t hungry, but she hadn’t eaten that morning, so she put the kettle on to make some tea and a cup of instant noodles. Then, on impulse, she took the last tin of sardines out of the cupboard, tipped its contents onto a plate, and brought it back to Wolfgang.

“There you go,” she said. The cat’s tail twitched happily as he switched his attentions from the kibble to the fish. “I’ll be more careful from now on, I promise.”

Are there other graves around Ashburn? Or was it a cemetery for one?

Adrienne went to press her hands over her eyes then recoiled. Most of the dirt had brushed off, but her fingers were still coated in a layer of grime.

“C’mon, Addy, pull it together.” Back in the kitchen, she washed her hands thoroughly, using hot water and scrubbing until the skin was raw and pink. Dirt was dirt, she tried to tell herself, but it didn’t feel right to be touching the ground above where a body rested.

The kettle finished boiling and turned off with a quiet click. She poured some water into one of the dainty fine-china cups and went to fetch the instant noodles from the cupboard.

Why did she crash? It couldn’t be a coincidence that it happened at the exact same time as that… I don’t even know what to call it. That phenomenon.

She picked one of the containers that promised shrimp, pulled the lid off, and managed a chuckle at the two lonely dried prawns sitting on top of the noodles.

It was some sort of pulse. Invisible but powerful. Strong enough that it frightened both the birds and Wolfgang. Sudden enough to make Marion swerve off the driveway. And localised enough that Beth, the expert on this house, must not know about it—otherwise, she would have said something yesterday.

Adrienne retrieved one of the heavy silver forks from the drawer, sat down, and poked at her swelling noodles while she waited for them to soften.

It’s happened twice now, just after sundown. Will it happen again? Is it dangerous? Is there anything I can do to stop it?

Her head ached, and Adrienne abandoned the noodles to sip at her drink. She’d forgotten to add a teabag but didn’t care. She was thirsty enough to gulp down the scalding cup of hot water and pour a fresh one.

The noodles were ready, and she made herself eat them. They tasted like cardboard.

Will she be okay? She wasn’t talking or moving. I thought people shook when they had hypothermia, but maybe she was beyond that point.

Her mind built a picture of Jayne driving to the next town, recklessly swerving around traffic, oblivious to the fact that her friend lay dead in the seat beside her…

Stop it.
Adrienne stabbed the fork into the container and leaned back in her seat.
She’s going to be okay. She’s
got
to be okay.

She let her eyes rove over the kitchen, trying to ground herself by paying attention to her environment. It wasn’t exactly a sunny day, but the light that flowed through the window was warming and comforting.

IS IT FRIDAY

LIGHT THE CANDLE

Adrienne’s stomach gave an unpleasant lurch. She’d accidentally sat in Edith’s chair, and the scratched words were immediately in front of her, just past the cup of noodles. That was a problem. She’d covered the carvings with a tablecloth the day before.

She rose slowly, hyperaware that the chair’s legs were scraping through the well-worn grooves in the floor. The off-white cloth had fallen in a crumbled pool behind the table. Adrienne picked it up, shook it out, and gave it a quick once-over.

It’s too large to slide off accidentally. There’s no wind here, and I’m sure I didn’t bump it off myself.

A wet, smacking noise brought her attention to the kitchen doorway. Wolfgang, finished with his meal, was licking his lips and looking very satisfied. Adrienne glanced from him to the cloth and sighed.
Wolf must have jumped on the table and skidded the cloth off. Well, no harm done.

She threw the covering back over the message, making sure it was centred and balanced, then took her noodles and hot water to a seat at the table’s side.