Home > The Haunting of Hilltop Mansion(7)

The Haunting of Hilltop Mansion(7)
Author: Carrie Bates

“Maybe he went out past the garden. He does have a bit of an exploring bone in him.”

Linda nodded, thinking the same thing. She wasn’t going to give up on finding Sebastian. She needed to know where her beloved retriever was. If he had left the property, they needed to know about it so they could prevent future outings such as this. Losing Sebastian felt like a blow Linda couldn’t survive right now. She was already dealing with enough.

They ventured on past the courtyard to where a line of bushes separated their property with the next. Jeff peered through them to see what lay beyond.

“That’s strange,” he mumbled and made his way through the thick greenery.

Reluctantly, but curious at the same time, Linda followed him. On the other side, there was a large gate blocking them from going further. It was mostly made of iron and stood taller than both of them, probably around seven feet in height and five feet wide.

Jeff stepped up to the gate and pressed his face against the cold iron. Beyond it, he found a tunnel that stretched for a way before ending at the highway on the other side. Another gate blocked the exit.

“I didn’t know this was here,” he remarked. “It wasn’t in the plans.”

Linda shrugged, uncaring. All she wanted to know was where Sebastian was. Could he have fit through the iron bars and escaped to the street on the other side? Her heart raced at the thought of dog catchers getting him and taking him back to the pound. Or worse, another person snatching him up and taking him to a mill to sell for breeding. She’d never see him again.

When Jeff turned around, he discovered the worry on Linda’s face.

“Don’t worry. We will find him. Let’s go look around the rest of the property and if we don’t find him, we’ll go for a little drive. Maybe he wondered too far and can’t find his way back.”

Linda highly doubted that, but nodded in agreement anyway. While they searched, Jeff called the realtor to find out more about the tunnel they had discovered. She had sounded displeased to hear they had found the hidden passageway. She arranged for a meeting with them and promised to explain everything.

A knot set in Linda’s stomach. Whatever the woman had to tell them, she knew it wouldn’t be good. Otherwise, she would have told them over the phone.

Linda needed her dog for comfort, now more than ever.

They searched for hours but did not find Sebastian. It was like he had vanished. Linda called the police and the pound, hoping someone had found him and turned him in. But he wasn’t there.

With an aching heart, they had to stop searching as night fell. Linda was up all night, waiting for Sebastian to come home. He didn’t.

“I told you to leave but you wouldn’t listen. You couldn’t even protect your dog.” The evil laughter sounded out in the room but no one was there.

“Shut the hell up! Shut up! Leave us alone! If you’ve hurt Sebastian, I…I’ll kill you!” Linda was shouting like a crazy woman but she didn’t care. The place was making her go mad. Crazy mad. She had no doubt that whatever had happened to Sebastian would happen to her and Jeff if she didn’t get answers. And soon.

 

 

Chapter Six

 

 

Linda and Jeff waited for the realtor in the lounging area. Linda’s fever was back, but she could care less. Her dog was still missing, and she hadn’t slept a wink last night thinking about him lost and scared. Thoughts of whatever lurked inside the place also kept her from sleep. What if something came for them while they were resting?

Linda looked at Jeff, lounging. His shirt was covered in red splatter from the still wet paint on the walls. He had said he had been walking down the corridor when a strong gust of wind hit him and the paint splattered onto his shirt. She couldn’t help but think it looked as if someone had sneezed or coughed up blood all over him.

Again, she wanted to confide in him about what had been happening around there. The lady in the west wing on the third floor. The creepy nurse and doctor. The children laughing. The warning in the basement. How about their missing dog, who only days before, had been growling at air?

But she still felt like she didn’t have enough evidence. She didn’t believe paint splatter would be enough to convince Jeff a ghost had possibly had a run-in with him. It seemed crazy to her to even consider it.

“The place is coming together nicely.”

They both stood as Melissa, their realtor, stepped into the room.

She reached out and shook their hands with a kind smile. “I mean it. You two have been quite busy. The red and golds really bring this room alive with the dark wood.”

“Thank you,” Linda said, having spent a lot of time considering the paint scheme.

Jeff gestured for Melissa to sit down across from them. She did and placed her briefcase between them on the coffee table. She pulled out several documents, one of which Linda noticed was a cream-colored print of the grounds.

“You both know this place was once a hospital, when it was first built.”

Linda and Jeff both nodded.

“This place was supposed to be a sanctuary for those who were suffering.” Melissa looked down at her briefcase. “But as we all know, not everything ends as planned. The tunnel you discovered was built years after the hospital was opened. The death toll…” Melissa shook her head at the thought, at a loss for words. “It was horrible. And an embarrassment to the hospital. They were supposed to be saving people, not carting them out of there by the hundreds. The advisors at that time had the tunnel on the back of the property built to transport the dead from here, to a waiting panel wagon, that would then take the bodies to a field far from the city to be burned.”

Linda gasped. She couldn’t believe those people had been treated so coldly. Were their families ever notified? What about the city for public records keeping?

Jeff noticed Linda’s distress and placed his hand over hers for comfort. “What happened after that?”

Melissa grimaced. “The hospital went into deep decline after 1932. The intent of the hospital was to find a cure while tending to the sick. They never did.”

Melissa scooted closer to the edge of her seat and crossed her ankles to keep her balance. Linda knew whatever she was about to tell them, wasn’t something many talked about, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to hear it. Her stomach tightened with dread when Melissa continued.

“There were also rumors, bad rumors. People could hear the screams of patients as they begged for their lives. One woman said she was out for a stroll with her son when they heard the pleas. She said it sounded like someone was begging to die, for them to please leave her alone. I don’t know if there are any truths to the stories, but many people were taken daily through that tunnel, many with markings that didn’t coincide with the disease. Some claimed it was because of the treatment experiments. But tell me, what kind of treatment leaves a person disfigured?”

Linda and Jeff looked at one another, shocked. They couldn’t understand why someone would do that to another person, especially a person who was already sick and dying. Linda was now beginning to understand the whimpers she often heard. And the visions she’d had. The people who had been there before had been tortured and suffered. No matter how pretty the bow on the outside, the potential on the inside could still rot. And that’s what this place had been. It was beautiful and offered hope to people who came there sick. But the potential was stuffed aside by those who thought it’d be fun to be cruel.

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