Page 50 of The Haunting of William Thorn

Tears streamed down William’s face, blinding him as he read the final line of Robert’s journal. And it really was the final line. He cleared his eyes with the back of his cold hand, focusing on the harsh stroke of the pen that stretched across the journal’s page connected to the final word.

William turned to the next page, searching for more words, but there was nothing. Looking back at what was the final entry, he drew his finger across the final word and then to the scored ink that trailed from it, coming to a harrowing conclusion.

Robert was never able to finish this entry.

Something, or someone, had stopped him. William looked up, sodden eyes lingering on Robert’s desk, picturing the young man hunched over it, quill in hand.

In his mind’s eye, he could see Robert turn towards his bedroom door as someone barged in – the shock of the intrusion knocking his pen hand to the side.

The bedroom door was wide open.

Discomfort speared through William, making his skin itch beneath the heavy press of the duvet. He kicked himself free, clutching the journal to his chest and moved cautiously to the landing. He couldn’t bear being there a moment longer, and Hanbury seemed to agree.

“Edward?” William called out, wondering if he waited in the yawning dark of the landing. “Are you there?”

Silence replied, answering that question for William.

There wasn’t even the question as to who opened the door. Deep down, William knew. Nor was he scared anymore.

From inside the wall to his right, there was a strange, misplaced sound. A scratching, coming from beyond the peeling wallpaper. William paced closer, oddly at peace, and lowered his ear to the wall.

Something was either inside it, or beyond it. A shuffling of feet, followed by the tapping of something methodical and slow. William tapped on the wall, waited and listened to the sounds stop.

He stayed like that for a moment, ears stretching to pick up something else misplaced. But whatever it was had stopped.

His need for Edward was so strong that he couldn’t ignore it. He told himself it was to show Edward the entry he’d read, but the louder part of him, the deeper part, revealed that it was the comfort Edward could offer him.

William pushed off the wall, satisfied nothing was amiss, and moved for the stairs. When he reached them the hollow vibrating began. The rhythmic buzz of a phone was coming from above him. As the buzzing continued, William paused, all other sounds from the manor fading to nothingness.

William knew without a doubt that his phone was what made the noise.

Because it was originating from the attic, calling to him.

Except how? There was no signal in Hanbury, at least nothing as of yet.

And yet the noise continued, growing louder until the floor and walls seemed to shake.

There was only one way to find out, and as he took the stairs one at a time, it was the first time that fear evaded him.

The darkness enveloping the attic was almost comforting. The thick velveteen black of a blanket swaddled him, welcoming him in. Beneath his bare feet, the wooden boards creaked, but the constant buzzing drowned out the sound.

Deep down, William recognised that he should’ve been frightened. Scared. He had been during every other moment here. Except he had woken up changed, or perhaps it was the diary entry that altered his brain’s chemistry.

Either way, he didn’t care about the dark belly of the attic, or the possibilities of what lurked in the corners.

He only cared about finding his phone and getting to Edward.

It didn’t take long to locate it. The mobile lay, face down, shivering as though it was possessed. The screen was lit up, casting the floor in a stark light. William bent down, knees creaking, and picked it up. It was no surprise the buzzing stopped the moment his palm touched it.

Odd wasn’t even the word for it. Everything about his stay here had been abnormal.

More so that there was a notification waiting for him on his screen.

He briefly noted the time as half past midnight on Friday morning.

That only mattered because the notification waiting for him was timed from hours before, not recent.

No one had been calling him, and yet his phone rang like something possessed.

What waited for him was an email response from his solicitor.

William could only read the first couple of sentences without the need to click to open it.

The email started with a formal greeting followed swiftly with an apology regarding William’s call and the time that’s passed since.

Something about her trying to call during the week but not getting through.

Wanting to continue reading, William clicked on the banner and opened the email.

It didn’t load. Low and behold, there was no signal.

Only the continuous spinning bar as the phone struggled before flashing with a ‘sorry, try again’ notification.

He wasn’t about to give up. If the email could be received in the attic, there had to be some sort of service. Hyper focused on his screen, William paced, lifting the phone into the dark corners of the room, hoping that a bar would ping to life and the email would load–

Ice cold agony sliced up his leg. “Shit!”

Hopping on his good leg, William lifted his foot to find the cause.

A shard of glass glittered, pierced in his sole.

Without hesitation he plucked it out, the wet sap of flesh and blood made him feel faint.

Luckily the wound was superficial, but the pain certainly made up for it.

It hurt like a bitch, but there wasn’t much blood.

He just hoped this wouldn’t be the start of an infection; it would only add to his list of bad luck since stepping foot inside Hanbury.

William flashed the screen down to reveal a bed of broken glass scattered across the floor. The glass from their makeshift planchet.

He backed up, the halo of light sweeping over the entire area.

The floorboards had been carved away beneath the scattering of shards.

Scratched over and over until the grain had come up, and wood shavings hid amongst the broken glass.

But that wasn’t all his torch revealed. There was blood smeared alongside the markings.

It was a violent red – fresh blood. Droplets led away from the scars on the floor, a trial leading back out of the attic.

William checked his foot again, making sure it wasn’t his. But his wound still wasn’t bleeding enough.

Then whose blood was it?

The answer came as sudden as summer lightning.

Edward .

The thought fuelled him to get up and hobble out of the room. Now that he was looking for more blood, he found it. Not on the floor, but smudged across the dark banister, half-dried but still vibrant in its colouring.

Out of the corner of his eye, William noticed something else wrong. Different. The already peeling wallpaper, its once royal blue colour now faded to a musky grey, was ripped in places and torn more than it had been. And like the floor upstairs in the attic, it had been scratched repeatedly .

William ran shaking fingers over the markings, noticing so many more the further the stairs led down. More blood, more gouges in the plaster. But this time, he recognised something else. A word, or at least he thought it was the beginning of one, hidden beneath the scratches.

Tell .

It was the same in the next patch of wall. And the next. And the next.

The more panicked the scratches became, the more blood was slathered on the wall. Handprints pressed beside the scratch marks as if someone had leaned in, using the full weight of their body to remove whatever had been there.

“Edward, can you hear me?” William called out, aware he couldn’t hear anything and hadn’t for a while.

If Edward was downstairs, he was surely ignoring William. He didn’t call back.

William shouted again, his voice cracking with panic. His feet moved quicker down the stairs, taking two at a time until he landed on the ground floor. “You need to see this!”

Still no reply.

William searched the kitchen and then the back living room, but both were empty. As he rounded back into the corridor, he heard something – scratching, faint and distant. But that wasn’t it.

Someone was crying.

For a moment of seizing horror, William was transported back to the night he heard the same sound from the attic. But this time, he wouldn’t run from it. He ran towards it. William kept thinking of the blood, the countless patches of scratch marks across the walls, and then Edward.

Had he hurt himself? How… why?

William followed the noise, the entire manor seeming to tip and sway like it moved over water. William had to lean into the wall to steady himself, his head pounding the closer he got to the source.

It was coming from the drawing room – the room that displayed Robert Thomas’s portrait.

The closer William got to it, the more he knew that Edward was inside.

The door was ajar, warm light spilling out of the crack.

He reached for it, noticing more russet blood smudging across the handle and the faded-white frame.

Slowly, he opened it. William half expected to find Robert himself standing in the middle of the room, ready to torment him more. But what he found was far more horrifying than any ghosts.

A scream tore up William’s throat, but as he opened his mouth to lose it, no sound came out.