AUTHOR'S NOTE
DEAR READER.
I SINCERELY HOPE YOU ENJOY READING THIS AS MUCH AS I ENJOYED WRITING IT. IT IS A YEAR IN THE MAKING OF THIS STORY.
PLEASE DROP ME A COMMENT WITH SUGGESTIONS, OR EMAIL ME AT anya1989louw@g***l.com.
ENJOY!!
PROLOGUE
In the town of Buttershire the surname of Thomas was not uncommon. They were the founding fathers of the town after all. Everyone knew the Thomases, as with most founding families, they were hot topics to gossip about.
The town hall had mementoes of the Thomases, but only of those that did not make scandal. For those that did, they were kept hushed behind the wrought iron gates of the property on the hill. Since the nineties, no one had lived on that property for longer than six months, and rumors floated around that the place was haunted.
The property on the hill was huge, and said to have been a wonderful sight to see in the twenties. But things started going downhill after the Spanish flu had gotten hold of Old Man Cornelius. As a matter of fact, it is said that the Spanish flu had wiped out not only the man, but his wife and their youngest daughter and her four young babies, born only a year apart. After the first child died, their father had scampered, fearing for his own life, and not caring about his family, or the fact that the young girls’ mother was to take care of her dying daughter and her grandkids.
They had a son too, but he was taken to war, and not a fan of living with the family. He came back in time to bury his father in 1921 and brought his children with him. Roger had ambitions, stronger than his father’s will, and had extended the property, adding three more houses within walking distance between his father’s house and the one that his sister and her children had died in.
The carefully tended garden had almost gone to waste, had it not been for the then ten-year-old James who had taken an interest in the garden. Without his father’s knowledge, James had created stone paths between the houses and by the time James was sixteen, had retransformed the garden into something magnificent.
But then world war two happened, and twenty-eight year James was called away. His father Roger had tried to re-enlist but was too unwell to be considered. Enraged, Roger uprooted the rest of his family and moved away.
When James came back six years later, in 1945, he came back an old, tired, and frightened man. He moved into the house his father had abandoned, and took up with a nurse that he had met in the field hospital.
They had four children; eight years separated the oldest from the youngest. James died in 1963 when his youngest turned ten, at the age of fifty-two. He had left his love for his garden with his first son, the second-born child, named Robert, after his great-grandfather.
Robert was seventeen when his father died. He decided he was old enough to move out of the house, and into one of the other three available houses, as his sister did the year previously.
His sister Martha had taken the house that his great–aunt had lived in and between the two of them, they decided to put numbers on the houses, as part of the decorations. Martha’s house was number one, their great-grandfather’s house was number two, their mother’s house was number three, and the last house, Robert’s house, was number four.
Robert knew more about the family’s finances than his mother thought he knew, so he picked a spot, right in the middle between the four houses, and had another house built for his mother and his two younger siblings. Robert was smart with the family’s fortune, and when he voluntarily shipped out in 1970, at the age of twenty-four to fight in the American war against Vietnam, he had more than doubled the family fortune through various investments that paid off, and greatly so.
Robert came back to the house five years later, he had physically nothing wrong with him, but his mind was a mess. He brought back a Vietnamese wife, and a small child, no more than four years old, and his wife was expecting another.
Robert’s mother saw the change in him the second he walked through her front door. She gave him house number three, and took house number two, while her second youngest, Samuel, took to house number four.
The big house was finished, but no one wanted to leave their houses behind. Every last child had some form of relationship going on, but things were not well in house number one. Martha’s husband died in a car accident in 1977, and just as well he died that night, or Robert might have killed him. It had come to his attention that his brother-in-law was hitting his sister, and that caused her to have three miscarriages in so many years.
Martha decided to leave for a convent, saying she got her peace in worship. Samuel and his youngest sister both had great relationships, got married, and left their family home for the city. It was most unfortunate that Robert’s mother passed away in 1980, she was the one that had kept him sane for five years.
A year later to the date of his mother’s death, Robert lost his mind completely. In 1981, he had the worst nightmare of all time. He did not see his wife, but instead, his days in Vietnam had caught up to him. Four people died in house number three that night. Four shots could be heard from miles around, and when the police finally showed up, they discovered a nine-year boy, sitting next to his father’s body, holding his father’s gun in shaking hands, covered halfway up the arms in blood
“He killed Mama and my brothers.” The boy muttered to shocked officers as they surveyed the scene.
Bradley Thomas was released into the care of his uncle Samuel, who moved back to the property he grew up on. He chose the main house, citing the death in the other houses as the reason he didn’t want to stay in those houses.
He tried to keep his father’s garden going, but it was too big for him, and he had no time. His children were too young to help in the garden. And Bradley had no interest. He was distant most days and just wandered around the property.
He took to house four when he was fifteen, trying to hide the fact that he had started drinking and using drugs. But he was calmer on those days that he used drugs, a lot friendlier too. So Samuel just told his kids that their cousin was going through something and that was his way of coping.
The last straw that broke the camel’s back came in 1989; Bradley Thomas was a force to be reckoned with. The seventeen-year-old went on drinking and drug binges, telling his uncle the family was haunting him in house number four. Samuel did not believe him, there had been no deaths in house number four, and it was number one to three that was the problem.
On Tuesday, the seventh of August 1989, Samuel’s wife went to Bradley’s home, to ask for his washing. But she never got his washing. She was in the house for only a few minutes before she came back out screaming for her husband.
When Samuel entered the house he stared in dismay. The house was a mess; there was glass all over the floor, as if a tornado had gone through all the cabinets, and smashed every last piece of glassware it could find.
Samuel treads carefully over the glass and clothes and things to walk to his nephew’s room. But the kid wasn’t there. He searched all of the rooms but found no sign of him. His guitars and things lay scattered on the floor as if he used them to protect himself.
It was the sight in the living room that broke his heart. His nephew lay on the floor next to the glass table, white powder covered the table, and a spoon with a clear liquid lay on top of a piece of foil, burnt black at the bottom. The needle was still stuck in the boy’s cold arm. Samuel knew Bradley was gone before he dropped to his knees and took out the needle from the boy’s arm and took off the belt the boy had used as a tourniquet.
He called his wife to call the services as he stood up and walked away. He went to his grandfather’s garden; behind house one, where his great-grandfather lay.
“I am sorry.” He said and cried until he heard the sirens.
Only then did he stand up, returned to house number four, and waited for the police and whoever had been dispatched.
His wife came to stand next to him.
“Gather our things and the children. We are leaving this cursed place. May god have mercy on whoever takes over this forsaken place.”
Friday, 10th August 1989, was the last time a Thomas left that property. None had returned since.
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
At three pm the containers were off loaded and secured as close to the house as the drivers could get them. The family locked the gates and headed back down the hill to the slumbering town.All of the guesthouses in Main Street were closed up. The kids were hungry and that was working on Joe’s nerves. Nadine was the only one who did not say anything at all.“Why don’t we go to the supermarket, they have food, if not, we’ll just make hotdogs for tonight.” Cynthia suggested softly to her husband.Joe nodded and drove to a supermarket close by.“Stay with the boys, Nadine and I will run in.” Cynthia said and grabbed her mask from the center console.Nadine did not say a word, she numbly got out of the mini-van and put her mask on just before she closed the door. She and her mother walked in step to the supermarket door where a security guard stood waiting with a hand thermometer and a bottle of sanitizer.The supermarket was quiet, and the two women were able to get to the deli without t
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 front lawn was massive, or it looked massive until Brian tried to mow it. He kept hearing scraping noises, and every time he glanced back over his shoulder he saw stone set in concrete. There were parts that he could mow but after the fifth scrape, he decided against the lawn mower and signaled James to shut his machine down.The two boys had split the front lawn in half, Brian was to do the part closest to the house, whereas James was to do the area closest to the fence. Brian had thought he was getting the best deal since the area he had given James had a lot more obstacles, a lot more trees, and bushes.The two met in the center of the lawn. “What’s the matter?” James asked his brother.“I keep hitting concrete,” Brian complained.“I have a lot of boulders out there, and rocks. It’s tricky.” James admitted.“Maybe we should use the weed whackers first, get the grass shorter before we ruin the mowers, and have to do the whole yard with
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
By Thursday evening the crew was glad to put Thomas Gardens behind them. They had worked harder than they ever had, it was the weirdest experience too, being instructed by a fourteen-year-old and the parents just followed along too.The family was settled in, and glad to be done with the guesthouse. The rumors were spreading from the crew and the family’s last dinner at the guest house had been most uncomfortable.Each of the children had their own bedrooms. Nadine had taken the first bedroom closest to the door with the bathroom, Luke had picked his room the day they had walked through the house, which was the second bedroom. James had the bedroom at the end of the hall and Brian had taken the bedroom that was opposite James’s and next to the old study. The room that used to be the study became Cynthia’s office. Not that she needed one, but then again, who knew when a mother needed some alone time?The bedrooms were sorted out and packed the way the kids wanted them. Brian displayed
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
Saturdays would normally be the family’s day off, Joe would not have any need to go into the office, normally the kids would rest after a hard week at school, and Cynthia would go with Nadine later in the morning for their spa session.But, they were not living in normal circumstances and even though there was no need for Joe to go into the office, he was still a week behind. The best thing about the previous night was that there was nothing going bump, there was no music played, and the temperature did not even drop the slightest.The only thing that did not change for Thomases in their new environment, was old habits. Brian started first, after making sure his entire family was up, he carried his two massive speakers outside, cranked up the volume, and let the entire town know that the Thomas household was Mayor classical country fans.The windows vibrated to the sound of Johnny Cash's baritone, but that was all right with Joe, he rather dreaded the moment it was James and Luke’s tu