The Haunting of Thomas Gardens

Chapter 1It was Saturday, 11th May 2019, eleven forty-six in the morning, when Joe Thomas and his wife Cynthia stopped their Nissan NV 350 minibus in front of the wrought iron gates of Thomas Gardens. Joe had picked up the keys to the family estate from his uncle Samuel three days ago.It had been a long journey for him and his family, especially for his four kids. Nadine was twenty and was about to head back for her second semester in college when Covid hit. Brian was eighteen and working hard to be the rugby squad captain, but all sports and all the schools were closed and were going to be for who knows how long. Joe looked into his rearview mirror, his youngest two boys, James, aged sixteen, and Luke, aged fourteen, was still fast asleep in the last two rows of the bus.“Get your brothers up please Brian? The truck should be here any time now.” Joe said to his oldest son and got out of the minibus to unlock the rusted padlock on the gate.“Damn Dad, when was the last time anyone

The Thomas family was up and getting ready to go at 8. 30 am the next morning. The cleaning company had promised they would be ready to start at 9 am.“Can’t I just stay here Dad?” Luke had begged his father as he rushed them to the minibus.“I’m sorry Luke but no. I need everyone’s help with this, you are going to have to help your brothers outside. You do understand that the gardening services are not open yet.” Joe told him.“Neither is the cleaning services but you got them out anyway,” Luke argued. “We need to move in, I need to get back to work by Tuesday, and by then, everything needs to be done. Are we clear?” Joe said to his youngest impatiently.“Yes, Dad,” Luke said and very reluctantly got into the bus.The ten-minute drive to the Thomas Gardens seemed to take only a few seconds. Luke’s heart was pounding in his chest. He had seen a lot of people the previous day, and all of them had signaled him to be quiet before they vanished right before his eyes. None of the

The cleaners took two rooms at a time, but even with all their equipment and with the family’s help, there was no way they were going to make the two days deadline that they had been set. Every single piece of furniture in the house needed to be deep cleaned, and that took a lot of time. The boys carried the furniture outside the house; to the patio they had cleaned up, where the cleaning team tackled them with steam cleaners and anti-deodorants.Sky had finally convinced the rest of the team to join them on Monday, but so far, they had only been able to do the first two bedrooms, the bathroom in the hall, and the living room. Not to mention the other bathroom that was discovered in the first bedroom when they had removed an old closet from the room.The carpets had dark rust-colored stains in most areas of the house. Sky was about to say it looked like they were cleaning a crime scene but she saw the fear in her cleaner's eyes as the Thomases worked around them, so she kept her thoug

Joe felt like he had barely slept when the alarm went off on his phone. Cynthia took her arm off her husband and looked at him. The two of them had a chat the previous night when they had come back to bed.Now she looked at him, the strain was evident on her husband’s face.“Did you know the extent of the hauntings?” she asked him carefully as he turned to look at her.“No. No one told me anything at all, just that there were rumors, but if we stuck together, we’ll be all right. I don’t even think they knew that the main house was an issue.” Joe replied thoughtfully.“What do you mean the main house?” Cynthia asked with a frown.“I’ve overheard conversations between my mother and uncle when I was younger, they wanted to demolish something on this property, so I’m guessing there are other houses here too, somewhere on this property. Uncle Samuel never went back to any of the other houses. He tried to sell the property a few times, but no one stayed for very long. Now I know why.” Joe r

Slowly but surely the left portion of the property started showing its true colors. Brian could hardly believe that under all those branches was a tiny circle, set out in stone, that had concrete benches all around the perimeter. And around the circle were actual flower beds, old, overgrown, rock hard, but flower beds, and dotted in the flower beds were old concrete bird baths, the basins completely covered in moss. None of the boys knew how long it took them to clear the area that led to the first house. But all of a sudden there was the boundary wall, set out in stone. Brain came to his senses and looked around him. They had cleared everything around the boundary, all the grass was mowed, and the edges were clean, how was it possible that they did not see the house all this time that they were working? Brian turned towards Luke, who was wiping sweat off his brow with the t-shirt that hung from his belt. “Do you think we have permission to go in?” Brian asked Luke carefully. “Yea