Haunted House Collection (12 Book Box Set) Read online

  Contents

  The Haunting of Yellow Sulphur Springs

  Prologue

  Josh and Kylie Come to Town

  Everybody’s Working for the Weekend…Well, Almost Everyone

  Josh's First Day...

  Can Curiosity Actually Kill the Cat?

  Save Us, Kylie...

  I’m Sorry Officer…Did You Say I Am Under Arrest?

  Paging Perry Mason...

  Who You Gonna Call?

  Epilogue

  The Haunting of Cleeman House

  Prologue

  A New Start for Nadia

  The Cleeman House is What???

  Sophie Goes Rogue

  Sophie's New Friend

  Sophie's Bombshell

  What Was That You Said About Cleeman House?

  Epilogue

  The Haunting of Glass Mansion

  Prologue

  Bye-Bye, Overdue Rent

  Let the Games Begin

  The Real Haunting of Glass Mansion: An Appetizer

  The Real Haunting of Glass Mansion: The Entrée

  The Real Haunting of Glass Mansion: Could I Clear Your Places and Maybe Show You the Dessert Options?

  Hasta La Vista, Henry

  Kristen's Last Stand

  The Haunting of Ashley Mansion

  Prologue

  Dr. Myranda Black In Arizona…But Not For Long

  Dr. Myranda Black In New Orleans

  Blondie’s Intuition

  Myranda’s Sense of Rationality is Shaken

  Myranda Loses Her Skepticism

  Myranda and the Boy: An Introduction to the Other Side

  Myranda and the Boy: The Finale

  Epilogue

  The Haunting of Drummond-Evans Mansion

  Prologue

  Halloween Plans in Savannah

  Halloween at the Drummond-Evans Mansion

  So Much for Peace and Quiet at the Mansion

  The Benign Mansion Goes Malignant

  Josh's Fears Realized

  The Legend Lives

  Epilogue

  The Haunting of Harmony House

  Prologue

  When One Door Closes, Another One Opens…Even If It Is A Squeaky One…

  Let The Games Begin...

  Harmony House: The Waiting Game

  Harmony House: Work In Progress

  Harmony House Ghost Hunters Is Launched

  All Of A Sudden A Minimum Wage Job Does Not Seem So Soul-Crushing…

  Whoever You Are…You Sure as Hell Ain’t Jack Sawyer…

  Harmony House…Harmonious Once Again…They Hoped

  The Christmas Eve Haunting

  Prologue: The Cabins at Atsion Lake

  New Friends

  Holidays in New Jersey

  The Wilderness Women Arrive at Atsion Lake

  More Than Friends

  I Thought You Were This Wilderness Expert!

  For an Abandoned Cabin, This Place Sure Is Busy

  When I Said “Only and Final” I Meant “Only and Final”

  Epilogue: “Are You Sure About That Cabin, Miss?”

  The Christmas Haunting of Robinson Mansion

  Prologue

  A Christmas Gift for Paige

  I Warned You About Tyler

  Tyler, The Ghost Hunter

  Tyler! We Are Not Amused!

  Christmas Day and All Is Well…Or Is It?

  Maybe Tyler Was Onto Something After All…

  Wonder If Sigmund Freud Is Available for Ghosts?

  OK…So Freud Washed Out…How About Father Merrin Then?

  Father Thomas Gerrard: Modern Day Ghost Buster

  The Haunting of Abberfield Church

  Prologue

  Leaving Las Vegas...Oops...I Mean Sheffield

  Trying to Make a Church a Home, Part 1

  Trying to Make a Church a Home, Part 2

  Abberfield Objections and Lawyers

  Weirdness Abounds

  Louise Goes Snooping

  Louise vs. Darren

  Rescue and Resolution

  Six Months Later…

  The Pet Store

  Prologue

  Help us Make a Difference

  Like We’re in a Cop Film

  Have You Found What You Need Yet?

  We May Be Here for a While

  Not in the Past Anymore

  That Feeling on the Back of Your Neck

  A Growl from the Corner

  Retribution

  The Cat Clairvoyant

  Prologue

  New Beginnings

  On the Edge

  Discoveries

  Leaving Our Troubles

  A Normal Day?

  Desperate Times

  Epilogue

  The Haunting of Sprucewood Mansion

  Brodie

  Ashley

  Ted

  Carol

  Julia

  Jeremy

  Morgan

  Annie

  Miss Faye

  Samuel

  Connect With Riley Amitrani

  Books By Riley Amitrani

  Copyright Notice

  The Haunting of Yellow Sulphur Springs

  By Riley Amitrani

  Prologue

  Yellow Sulfur, Virginia

  June 1965

  In southwestern Virginia, life had gone on unremarkably for years. It was a quiet and bucolic little wide spot off route 460 just south of the more populated Blacksburg, known primarily for being the home of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, which had thankfully come under the guise and more palatable name of Virginia Tech. Despite its proximity to the university and the large and more prosperous Blacksburg, the residents of Yellow Sulfur could not have been more pleased. It was not like Blacksburg was some massive, bustling metropolis, but it was still more than the people of Yellow Sulfur cared to endure on a daily basis.

  Yellow Sulfur had been mostly an agricultural enterprise for as long as anyone could remember, with its main thoroughfare having remained virtually unchanged for decades. It was as typical as any small town in the country, with the main route that ran through the middle of town hosting all of what might be considered Yellow Sulfur’s commercial district. There was Jimmy Gordon’s barber shop, a post office, a hardware store, Sarah Beltran’s café, the Yellow Sulfur Eatery, a combination clothing and appliance retail store, and a smattering of other places that seemed to change owner and offerings annually. Oh, yes…and of course, Larry Evan’s butcher shop that was on the corner of Spruce and Larchmont. Without The Virginia Meat Emporium, there would be no reason to be writing this story.

  Larry had inherited the butcher shop from his uncle, Myron when he was just twenty-five. Myron had taken over from his own father who had done the same. It had been a family business going back generations dating from the founding of Yellow Sulfur. When Myron had taken ill, he came to Larry in hopes that his floundering nephew would take over so that he would not be the last link of the Evans clan to operate the butchery. Larry had helped out at the shop since he was a little kid, so he knew the operation well. That was not the issue. The real concern to Myron was that Larry, even though the boy was not in his mid-twenties, just seemed unfocused and had no real ambition or goals for his life. However, to his great surprise and relief, Larry seemed to be transformed when the opportunity was presented.

  In fact, The Virginia Meat Emporium had never seen such success in all of its days as those in which Larry came to be in charge. It had always had a steady stream of customers who came from the few small towns and villages surrounding Yellow Sulfur, as well as the locals themselves, but as Larry took the reins, he was able
to spread the word about the shop and soon he was serving Virginians traveling from an hour or more away. He even boasted that people from as far away as West Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina were beginning to be regulars as well. Most locals rolled their eyes at this claim, as they knew it was in Larry’s nature to exaggerate wildly…had been this was as a kid and they just figured it was the same now with him as an adult. In any case, they kept coming knowing that the quality of what Larry had to offer was still unrivaled in the area.

  Larry Evans, however, in addition to having a popular butcher’s shop, had a dark side that he kept well-hidden for years. It was not until the police were closing in on Larry and he shot himself in the back office of his business that a lot of the truth about Larry came to light…as well as some more lurid and salacious rumors from Yellow Sulfur tongue waggers. Let’s see…better to begin with what little was actually proven following his death before proceeding to the folklore of Larry Evans that arose later. What was proven by the police at the time was that Larry had a serious psychological pathology and had for years been killing locals in his shop. It had not been something that might have fallen under the label of a mass murderer, but for sure Larry was a serial killer.

  The forensic science of the time made it difficult to link Larry to all the killings. Plus, the fact that he performed the murders in the butchery, made the evidence a bit more muddled than if they had occurred elsewhere. However, after years of non-stop investigation and a dedicated detective named Howard Stovall, it soon became obvious as to what had been going on. Due to the vile nature of the situation and the unknown nature of what he might be walking into, Stovall took a team of six other county officers with him to confront and arrest Larry. Stovall did not give any advance notice to his arrival, simply kicking in the back door of the shop where they suspected the crimes had occurred.

  However, as soon as they burst through the rear entrance, Stovall and his team discovered they were just a few hours too late. There was nothing to see in the room they found themselves in but Larry Evans slumped in a chair at the desk where he kept his business records. There was a single bullet wound to his head and enough gray matter sprayed from the shot, that there was no doubt as to Larry’s suicide…the handgun responsible was still clinging to the curled fingers of its owner. Stovall never figured out how Larry had known they were coming for him. All he was left with was a closed case…he supposed it should have felt satisfied to him, but even though Larry Evans’ reign of terror on Yellow Sulfur had ended, it left Stovall with many unanswered questions. These hanging unknowns are what led to speculation, rumor, and wild tales of folklore about the man…

  Since Larry had done most of his “handiwork” in his place of business, and since many of the victims were never found, it was immediately passed off as a matter of fact among locals that Larry had been passing off the human meat as part of his regular offerings. From this basic premise, the locals were then off and running to create a story and legend most likely much more insidious and sinister than what actually might or might not have happened. As was mentioned previously, Yellow Sulfur was a small place, and this type of fable, true or not, often pervades small places like this to become generally accepted as truth. However, what did follow Larry’s death were a number of inexplicable and eerie sightings and sounds in and around the old shop.

  From time to time in Yellow Sulfur, odd sounds and eerie lights had been reported by various residents in town. The shop was officially closed after Larry’s suicide. He was the last of the Evans clan, and no one anywhere around was even mildly interested in continuing on with the business, despite very generous offers from various real estate agents in town. The history and legacy of Larry Evans were apparently too much for any of the locals to want to be associated with the business. As far as Yellow Sulfur was concerned, the shop was officially closed for good and no one seemed to be too upset. New players entered the butchering business close enough by to satisfy the locals. Though some, if you asked them, might have missed the quality of meats from The Virginia Meat Emporium, it was not such a hard loss to accept.

  However, the intermittent sights and sounds that still emanated from the old boarded-up establishment fueled a whole new round of rumor and innuendo. The most prevalent of the various tales that sprung up was that Larry still haunted his old place of business. That he had died angry and vindictive at having been thwarted in his psychopathic pastime there. The most far-fetched of the stories, but one that gained great traction just around Halloween, or when the older kids in town felt a need to terrorize their younger peers, was that Larry Evans made special efforts to lure unsuspecting passersby to the shop so he could continue on in his old ways. As the story went, it was most often visitors to the area, not well known to the locals, as their disappearance was not much noticed.

  In fact, the only time anyone went near the old shop was out of mere curiosity. Some locals, but more often out-of-towners who had heard the folklore about Larry and the Emporium and wanted to say they had been there or wanted a quick photo or two to show off to friends at home. Like a lot of so-called haunted places, it was just the call of the place to those interested in such things. And like many of these places, the claims from the curious were often more enhanced and exaggerated than the truth would actually bear out. One would wonder why the old place was never torn down so that a suitable replacement might be erected in its place based on the gruesome nature of its history and that no one anywhere seemed even mildly interested in re-opening the enterprise?

  This question has been posed to many elected town officials and chamber of commerce members over the years by various reporters who have come calling when doing human interest pieces on the old shop for various magazines and papers. And in all cases, the answer, given with a sly grin, and sometimes a laugh or two, is that the old place had become a tourist draw. Everyone realized that draw was a bit on the macabre and ghoulish side, but it was, they all said, bringing in visitors to Yellow Sulfur that might otherwise have just passed them by for other options in that part of the state. Yellow Sulfur remained just as unremarkable as ever, other than those coming to visit the resort of Yellow Sulfur Springs just up the road. But the publicity and notoriety that had come with the Larry Evans legend was a source of revenue they were not wanting to turn away.

  It was as the current mayor, Laurie Broadshank, told the most recent reporter who had interviewed her about it:

  “It may sound awful, but as a community, we are making more money now on the tourist traffic in and around Yellow Sulfur from the curious than Larry ever did as the proprietor of a supposedly simple butcher’s shop. Why would we want to stifle that source of revenue?”

  Josh and Kylie Come to Town

  Yellow Sulfur, Virginia

  May 15, 2005, 12 PM

  Josh Jackson and Kylie White had just finished their freshman year at Virginia Tech and neither was too keen on going back home for the summer. For Josh, a native Virginian, this meant Manassas, just outside of the Washington, D.C. area. His father was a career Army colonel and he had lived all over since he was very young. It had been unsettling growing up to have to pick up and move every year, sometimes multiple times within a year. It had been impossible to make friends of any substance and never a real chance to get adjusted to a new school before new orders came in for a new base in a new country. Col. Jackson’s latest gig at the Pentagon had lasted longer than most deployments, but as far as Manassas was concerned, Josh would have opted for being more transient.

  When he had first come to Virginia Tech out of high school, Josh had been amused at the barbs from his fellow classmates who had grown up in parts of Virginia that they proudly referred to as “the real Virginia”. This was often from the bucolic and scenic mountains of central Virginia where the Shenandoah National Park and Blue Ridge Parkway and other memorable charming environs were plentiful. Blacksburg, the home to Virginia Tech was no exception. After a few months there, Josh had to agree with his mates that no
rthern Virginia was only geographically and technically in Virginia. When the spring semester ended, he had zero desire to return to Manassas for the summer.

  His new girlfriend, Kylie was in a similar boat. She was not a native Virginian, having come to Blacksburg from just south in Sparta, North Carolina. But traveling back to Sparta was hardly what Kylie had in mind either if she could avoid it. It was not that she had the same type of aversion to her hometown that Josh had for Manassas. Sparta was, in fact, just as attractive and alluring to the senses as the parts of Virginia Josh’s mates had been raised in. It was, however, for Kylie, anyway, not exactly a hotbed of excitement. And to top it off, she did not want to be away from Josh for the entire summer, having to rely only on phone calls, e-mail, and perhaps an occasional get together. They had talked it over and decided to try their hand at total self-reliance for the summer near the university.

  On one of many exploratory jaunts that the couple had taken since meeting back in the fall, they had come across the small town of Yellow Sulfur just eleven miles south of Virginia Tech. The town was quiet and close to the resort of Yellow Sulfur Springs. It was just the opposite of what Manassas held for Josh and eerily similar to where Kylie had grown up in Sparta. As the spring semester’s end was approaching, Kylie blew the idea of them spending the summer together there. There were certainly more employment opportunities in and around Blacksburg, but neither of them relished being stuck flipping burgers or some other such dreadful job. The proximity of the resort just south seemed intriguing, and Josh readily agreed to her proposal.

  On a final trip to Yellow Sulfur about a month before the semester ended, they felt this was the perfect choice to live until the fall semester cranked up. The cost of living was definitely much lower than in and around the university and it seemed as if procuring summer jobs would be a snap. After all, they would not be competing with thousands of other students in Blacksburg. Josh and Kylie were sure they would be the only ones from the university there. Somehow the striking similarity of Yellow Sulfur to Sparta was not bugging Kylie. With Josh around, she was sure it would be a completely different situation than if she returned home. They secured a small apartment for the summer during their most recent trip to town and headed south with great expectations of a summer together exploring, being together, and getting a real taste of true independence.