The Magickal Pen

Happy Samhain! A little flash fiction to enjoy in the spirit of Halloween Horror…

The Spector House

They say terrible things happen in the Spector House….

It was Halloween night and instead of doing all the things that an eighteen year old would do with friends for spooky fun, Halley was alone and had more solemn plans. She gasped, trying to breathe as she placed the arrow in the crossbow. Her throat hurt and her mouth was dry as dirt. She looked at her fingers as she pulled back the tension and couldn’t remember why they were bloodied and her usually perfectly manicured nails were crusted with dirt.

Halley smiled at the irony of the crossbow. Her father had taught her to hunt and made her practice until her hands were raw and bloodied to become an excellent marksman. Something he may regret, now. She looked around the living room of the small cabin and sat down in her father’s favorite chair; the crossbow straddling her thighs. Her father had placed the chair in this particular spot so he could see the front and only door. He was always very cautious, especially given his habitual pastime of hitting his daughter, just “because”.

Halley couldn’t remember having turned off the light, but the room seemed darker and more unkempt than usual. This was one of the triggers for her father and no matter how much she put into cleaning and scrubbing it was never clean enough. She took a deep breath; this thought rattling through her mind and despite her now distinctly labored breath the smell of damp soil and mold permeated the space. This was very odd. She knew she was nervous and anxious about what she had planned to do to stop the abuse, but even so, she felt that something was just not “right”.

Panic began to set in and with it a feeling that the walls were closing in around her. Her throat began to throb in pain; her neck felt pinched in the back and she realized that she had been scratching uncontrollably at the arm of the chair. Maybe she just needed to get up and move around a bit. She stood up and felt paralyzed; her whole body ached. Not even the regular slaps and shoves she received from her father caused this much pain throughout her body. She felt as though she had fallen and every inch of her had hit something hard and unforgiving.

She paced back and forth as wide and fearful eyes scanned the room. She knew that in any minute her father would walk through that front door and he would most likely be drunk and angry because of one thing or another. It didn’t take much to set him off. She turned back to sit once again in the chair and prepare herself for this final act of freedom and she was drawn to the perfectly placed newspaper on the side table. A hot dinner and untouched newspaper were what her father expected to have ready each night after work and tonight would be no different.

A stream of light fell squarely on the front page of the paper. Knowing that she shouldn’t disturb its perfect arrangement, Halley picked it up thinking that this act of rebellion would snap her back into the reality of what she was about to do. She placed the crossbow on the chair and holding the newspaper with both hands, Halley began reading the headline story…..

“ In what appears to be a murder gone wrong, the bodies of Halley and John Spector were found in the early hours of this morning in a freshly dug grave behind the Spector House. The house has been abandoned for 5 years following the disappearance of then eighteen-year old Halley and her father, John.

Rumors surfaced at that time of Halley’s abuse by her father, a secret fiancé, and Halley’s plans to leave her father’s home. A friend of John Spector reported him missing after Mr. Spector failed to report to work for several days. Concern also arose for the whereabouts of Halley after truancy officers went to the empty home after Halley did not come to school. When questioned by local police regarding the rumors and alleged disappearance of both, Halley’s older brother Steven, who had not lived in the house for two years, said these were unfounded and that his sister and father had gone their separate ways.

This morning, police declared the home a crime scene and both bodies were transported to the office of the Medical Examiner to determine cause of death. It was determined that Mr. Spector had died from a single crossbow arrow through the heart fired at close range. He would have died immediately. On examination it was found that Ms. Spector died from the fatalities she sustained when she fell into the open hole she had dug and prepared for her father’s body. These injuries would have been inflicted when the soil she was digging gave way as she was leaning forward. Ms. Spector landed on the shovel’s edge and partially severed her head from the force. Dirt was found under her nails and it is suspected that she may have been trying to move after falling.

Ms. Spector’s fiancé, Charles Axe states that he was inside of the house when Ms. Spector fell and that he was wrapping the dead body of Ms. Spector’s father in the rug after Ms. Spector shot him as he entered his home. He said he dragged the body of Mr. Spector from the doorway of the living room out to the freshly dug grave and in the darkness pushed the body into the hole. He called out to Ms. Spector and after receiving no answer went to the shed for a shovel and returned to begin filling the hole with the surrounding dirt. Mr. Axe said he called out to Ms. Spector again and since there was no answer, he thought she had fled the scene, distraught from what she had done.

He further stated that after several days of no word from Ms. Spector, he reached out to her brother, Steven, thinking that she had sought refuge with him. Mr. Axe was told that Ms. Spector was not with her brother and now worried, he told Mr. Spector about the murder, the abuse and other accusations that are now under investigation. They made a pact to create a story and alibi to keep Ms. Spector safe should the police suspect any foul play in the disappearance.

Five years to the day, Mr. Axe came into the police station this morning to turn himself in, saying that he could no longer live with the guilt and confessed his part in the murder. A warrant is out for the arrest of Steven Spector for interfering in what should have been a murder investigation”

Halley looked at the date on the newspaper. It read October 31.2012. She dropped the now crumpled and weathered newspaper. She could not breathe. She could not move. The crossbow was no longer on the chair and the room showed all of the signs of weather and a home long abandoned. Blackness, dirt and decay enveloped the space closing in tightly around her. They say terrible things happened in the Spector House, especially on Halloween….

October 31.2017…It is Halloween night and the sounds of teenagers could be heard through the aged slats of the front door daring each other to enter the haunted Spector House.

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