Page 42 of The Haunting of William Thorn

First his hands, then his snapped neck and bloated torso. Then another sound joined that of the clicking – it was the creak of the frame as the half-free body of Robert Thomas began to drag himself towards William.

It got so close to William that the rotten stench of death invaded his nose. Like dead fingers, it climbed up his nose, down his throat, only adding to the suffocating fear that immobilised him.

He was dreaming. That’s what this had to be. All this time, he thought he was conscious, but it was yet another bout of sleepwalking.

Dead fingers clasped the base of his foot. Real and cold, like brittle twigs but with the force of stone.

This was no dream. Nor was it a nightmare.

It was real.

In a blink, William could move again. He kicked at the hand, making the vision of Robert leech a sodden scream out across the room.

Scrambling to his feet, William turned and ran.

He held his breath, refusing to breathe in the stench of death and decay.

All it did was make his chest ache and his head light.

He bolted out of the drawing room, hyper aware that the portrait was following. The sound of nails against wood and the wet gasp of ruined breath followed him, keeping him moving.

Edward . He needed to get to Edward.

William beelined for the stairs, ready to throw himself up. But as he reached the bottom step, another figure blocked his way.

Features unclear, outline looming so great it obstructed the way up to Edward – to safety. William came to a skidding halt before the shadows engulfed him. He blinked gritty eyes, opening them to find that one detail of this new being became clear.

A gleaming red coat. Archie’s coat. Its material was slick as though sodden in blood, the gleam as bright as a balloon.

Hanbury didn’t think one ghost was enough to taunt him, so it gifted William with another.

“Archie?” William sobbed, the name bursting out of his mouth. Arms arched to lift out, fingers grappling air for purchase.

Was this his old love finally coming back to punish him?

The entity didn’t reply. It didn’t make a sound. But it did move – straight towards William, coming down the stairs slowly, one agonisingly slow step at a time.

All William could do was turn and run – run until this horror was behind him, that this reality was no longer his to bear. He would leave Hanbury now and never return.

Robert Thomas’s portrait had dragged itself into the corridor. It blocked the front door. Escape. He was caught in a web, wedged between one horror and another.

William didn’t think. It was impossible to when the world around him was a living hell.

All he could do was move. Turning on his heel, he shot right through the kitchen.

In the reflection of the window to his left, he saw the glint of red and gold-painted wood.

Two hauntings emerging as one, chasing him, taunting him.

He almost reached for something – like a glass or a dirtied bowl.

Anything he could use against the terrors chasing him.

But then he thought about Edward. Perhaps a noise would wake him…

alert him to what was happening so he could be saved–

“ Will …”

The nickname carried on stale air, so powerful it could’ve carved the skin from his bones.

William dared not turn around, nor did he need to. He knew who’d said it, who’d called for him… a voice he’d once loved, then hated and now missed.

Reaching the end of the kitchen, there was only one place to go.

Down. Down into the cellar, where the dark was so thick no horror could find him.

Entering the shadowed space, he spun and slammed the door closed behind him.

The latch he’d noticed on his first day quickly snapped closed, William’s hands shaking so violently it took two tries to get it to fit and lock.

Time paused for a brief moment. All he could hear was his heart beating, his heavy breathing echoing in the narrow stairway down into the dark. His torch flickered over damp walls, patches of damp, and the spiders that congregated out of cracks to witness the drama.

William had no plan. Not until the door trembled beneath his back.

Finally, a scream broke out of him. His body shuddered against the force as something heavy slammed over and over into the door from the other side.

The noise was accompanied by the scratching of nails – long, dead, impossible nails – scoring the wood as though Robert Thomas could gouge his way through.

Or was it Archie, trying to reunite them together once again?

William shouted with all his might. He screamed until his throat frayed and the tendons in his neck snapped.

But no matter how loud he screamed, the dark belly of the basement swallowed all sound whole.

The thunderous banging of the door only grew harsher and more damming, forcing William away from it.

His focus was split. He didn’t pay mind to the rotting wooden stairs as he ran down them. Adrenaline buried the pain in his ankle, enough for him to keep running. William remembered stories of mothers who discovered super-strength in times of need, lifting cars off babies or something…

William wasn’t focusing on reality. He didn’t remember, in his panic, the weakest step near the bottom. Not until it cracked beneath him, crumbling beneath his weight.

For a moment, William had a weightless sensation as though he floated in the dark, held up by nothingness. His phone slipped free of his pocket, tumbling away from him. He heard it crack against stone – no, that wasn’t his phone.

It was his skull that hit the unrelenting cement floor.

There was no pain, there was no panic – only relief.

Then, the peace and quiet he’d longed for, came swiftly, devouring everything .