There was a bunch of us and we went to the old
Hyland mansion where they're always shooting movies or TV shows, especially if
it's something creepy because Hyland is a big old creepy place.
It was built by someone who made a lot of money
about a hundred years ago in sugar or shipping or whatever; the point is he
came out west, made a pile of cash and built Hyland for his second wife. But
then she went and fell in love with one of the trapeze artists from the
travelling circus and ran off with the fellow. So the other guy, the rich guy,
he up and kills himself, .44 Colt, to the heart (back then they shot
for the heart, not the brain when it came to killing yourself).
So there's a bunch of us and we figure, hey let's
sneak into Hyland, which is owned by some charity group now, Women for a Better
Tomorrow, well that's not even close, but you get what I mean. It's something
completely useless for women with too much money who want to have an excuse to
get together and have elaborate teas.
But I guess they make some money renting the place
out, and it is a pretty impressive pile of bricks, neo-classical I think they
call it. It has that creeping vine growing all over it and big limestone
columns out front, and all oak paneling and whatnot inside.
There's not much security to the place just a big
iron gate across the driveway; there's a wall around part of the property and when I say
a wall, I mean a twelve-foot concrete wall, not a border of garden stones. But
at the back of the property there's a stand of trees, huge maples with branches that hang way out over the back lane, but no fence.
There used to be a security guard, but maybe the
Ladies' Auxiliary or whomever they are got tired of paying for him and figured
the movie/TV people should just pay for security if they needed it.
So we snuck into the place because there wasn't any
movie/TV people there that night and it was the kind of dark autumn night that
you and a few friends might get the idea to sneak into a place like Hyland if
you'd had a couple and had a pretty good idea you could do it and getaway with
it, but still have a bit of a thrill in doing so just the same.
Because besides being big and creepy it was
haunted. People were forever going on about all the ghosts residing in Hyland.
Not just the ghost of the suicidal owner, no there was several generations of
people who had died untimely and somewhat grisly deaths within the walls of
Hyland.
There was a reason the place was owned by the
Women's Tea and Crumpets Society and just rented it out for filming, I mean the
place had a reputation and because of city heritage codes it couldn't be torn
down.
So there it stood, big and creepy and haunted and we’d just snuck inside
through a second story window (they did lock the doors and yes we broke a
window pane to get in).
Well now what we thought? The girls giggled a bit
and it was dark (we at least had the sense to bring a flashlight) and after a
moment or two we felt kind of sheepish standing there in the upstairs bedroom
next to a window we’d just smashed.
But he house didn’t disappoint, it was just a short
while later that we heard a door slam somewhere down in the dark below us.
Pretty loud too, one of the girls, Kelsey I think, screamed and then we all
laughed nervously. Finally Mike goes, “well we came this far lets check it out,”
or words to that effect. And certainly none of the other guys wanted to chicken
out and even the girls were pretty game, except for Kelsey, but she wasn’t
about to head back out across that dark lawn and back through those towering
maple trees alone, so that was that and we all headed down together.
It was dark, not pitch black but darker than we
thought it would be and of course the stairs creaked like hell and we probably
all wished someone would just say, “on second thoughts let’s head back,” so we
could just agree with them, but no one did and we got down the stairs and into
the grand foyer.
At that point we had to choose, to either side of
us were large wooden archways leading to dark cavernous rooms, there were
windows but the house sat so far back from the road not much light from street reached the house.
“Okay I think that’s good, I don’t need to see a
ghost after all, said another one of the girls, Betsy I think. Then we heard
glass break above us, no one screamed this time in fact no one made a sound.
We were too terrified to make a sound. But we could
hear plenty. We’d stood still as gravestones in the dark after the sound of the
glass breaking - I think all of us hoping if we were quiet enough we could just
will ourselves out of that dark creepy house.
But no, a moment or two later we heard the
unmistakable sound of creaking floorboards, advancing in the corridor above us,
then at the head of the stairs, a slight pause, then descending, down the
stairs towards us.
That did it, we bolted but not together we split
left and right, that is except for poor Kelsey, she was rooted to the spot too
terrified to move.
Eventually she did scream and it wasn't a scream of fright but one complete terror. But we weren’t going
back for her. I dashed through the house stumbled over furniture, crashed into
doors, I couldn’t tell if something was actually chasing me or if I was just so
scared I thought there was, I do remember thinking that at any second a hand was going to grab me in the dark and then...
Somehow I found myself in the kitchen, surprised to
see I still had Betsy in tow, we had no idea where the others went, we just
wanted away from the footsteps and whatever made Kelsey scream.
I could barely make anything out (Mike had the
flashlight) but once my heart slowed a bit and didn’t feel like it was going to
burst out of my chest, I was able to take stock of the surroundings.
That’s when I noticed the door, a glass door to a
porch off the kitchen and beyond the beckoning lawn. And as if to spur me, from
somewhere back in the gloom was a loud thump, the type of thump a body makes
hitting the floor. I looked at Betsy, she’d heard it too. We expected another
scream, but worse, it was silent.
Except not quite, there was something else, it was
a slithering sound, I don’t how else to explain it, other than not only did it
sound inhuman, it sounded unlike anything even remotely animal like.
When something goes bump in the night maybe you
wake up, maybe you investigate and laugh it off. This was not that sound this
was the sound that told you to run screaming from the premises without looking
back.
Then it got worse.
We heard, much louder this time, the sound of
something cracking, the sound of something cracking that was wrapped in
something soft, like the sound of bones covered in flesh cracking for instance.
Finally Betsy screamed, loud and long, I grabbed
something, it was a pot, and threw it at the window. It bounced, I scrambled
looking for something with any weight to throw. Betsy had stopped screaming but
clung to my shirt making it that much harder to find something in the dark.
We froze, the footsteps were approaching again, it
was impossible to tell from where, just from back there, back in the dark where
Kelsey screamed, things slithered and bones cracked, and they were coming
towards us.
I scrambled again, opening cupboards, a big black
rat jumped out at me and ran off, it barely phased me, I was listening for the
footsteps, they were closer.
I felt something that had heft and pulled out an
iron skillet and flung it at the glass door. Out of the corner of my eye I
thought I saw a shadow advance on us, I jumped through the shards of the glass
door and out on to the porch, down the stairs and across the lawn sprinting for
the trees.
I swear they started to close in, the beautiful
towering maples suddenly menacing jagged black creatures. But I ran through
them, branches tearing at me, out to the lane and down to the street. Then,
panting under a streetlight, the sound of my heart pounding in my ears, only
then did I realize Betsy wasn’t with me.
Did I go back? Come on, would you?
No one else made it out and until now I’ve never
talked about it, a bunch of kids went missing, nobody knows where to and I had
nothing to add, nothing useful anyway that’s for sure.
The only thing is, I still hear the footsteps. At
night when I’m asleep I wake up and can’t tell if it was just a nightmare or if
the sound woke me up. I listen a little, but there’s nothing.
What really terrifies me is the night I wake up
from my supposed nightmare and the footsteps keep coming.
