The Montgomery Estate by Samantha Alis

Chapter 1

A scream rips a woman from her sleep. She whips her head around in the dark, searching. A dim lantern on a nearby bedside table casts bulky shadows around the room.

Another scream throws the woman from her bed. She kicks away damp sheets tangled around her feet. Trembling legs hold her upright as she straightens her cotton nightgown.

The quarters are empty. Each abandoned bed is a mess of bundled sheets on bare mattresses or blankets strewn underneath metal frames.

The woman wraps clammy fingers around the handle of the lantern. Oil lies in a shallow pool along the bottom, nearly dried out. The light won't last much longer.

Her bare feet are silent as they descend a spiral staircase into a narrow hallway.

More screams pierce the silence. Each one farther from the first that woke her. Each a different pitch and tune.

Each more harrowing than the last.

Each cut short.

Fast footsteps slap against the floor from the other end of the hall, muffled by long, thin navy-blue rugs resembling deep chasms in the darkness.

The woman presses herself against a wall as the steps grow near. She wraps a shaking hand along the warm glass of her lantern. Slivers of light slip between slender fingers.

A girl, only a few years younger than the woman, emerges from the darkness of the hall, fists pressed against her mouth as thick tears escape her lashes. Her head swivels back and forth as she runs, searching for something in the dark.

A silk robe wrapped around her body billows behind her like a white flag begging for peace. Or a beacon in the dark. A target.

The crying girl freezes when she notices the figure pressed against the wall, hand failing to conceal streaks of yellow and orange dancing on the carpet.

The crying girl presses a finger to her trembling lips and slips into the shadows of an open doorway.

The lantern flickers, the waning flame jumping and twisting as it begins to spurt out the last of its life. The woman peels herself from the wall. Her hand moves on its own accord, directing the lantern light to follow the crying girl into the dark room.

The flame duplicates, reflecting off several mirrors to bounce around the room.

The woman jumps back against the wall again as new footsteps emerge from the dark hall. The lantern light shrinks, leaving only a small halo around her shaking body.

A new figure steps in front of the woman hiding out in the open, pressed against a wall. The figure is dressed in a thick black coat that reaches the knees. Light brown trousers and a white button-down shirt are pressed, but stained with splotches of red. The figure watches the woman, eyes glowing black against popping orange.

The woman steps back. Then steps back again.

The lantern dances up and down as she grips it tight.

The figure waits. Its breath rises and falls in quick, loud gasps.

The woman steps back a third time. She lifts a finger to point to the room the crying girl entered only a few moments ago.

The figure nods once and turns, silently slipping into the doorway.

As the lantern fizzes out in a puff of smoke, a scream shakes the walls of the house. The woman presses her hands against her ears and runs.

Darkness swallows stale air in the house of the dead.

Light feet fall on worn wooden steps. A fading square of light glows halfway down the stairs. Spots of dust float in the streak of illumination like gnats on a freshly watered lawn. The house is old, run-down, and empty, but peaceful.

The video zooms away to focus on an upcoming hallway at the base of the stairs. Static crackles across the screen before revealing dark, unpainted wood walls with vertical paneling every ten feet. The video catches a glimpse of a narrow navy-blue rug, running from the base of the stairs and around the right corner.

The camera whips to the right, facing a darkening hall. A flash of white dashes across the screen for a frame, moving toward the stairs, and disappears.

I hit spacebar on the keyboard as I reach for my phone to text Lizzie, my best friend. All it says is:

I need to show you footage from last night! I was right!

I try not to bother her during cross-country practice. She once told me about a time when Coach read a teammate's text message out loud after her phone dinged and interrupted practice. It was a flirty message with heart-eye emojis and questionable language. The victim of Coach's shaming quit the next day out of embarrassment. But I'm not worried. This text is important.

I've been studying the Montgomery Estate since I could read. I probably subconsciously studied at birth now that I think about it. The macabre has always fascinated Mom, and she passed it down to me. She recounted countless stories-well, the same story countless times-about Maria Montgomery, the last living resident of the estate.

Maria was the reclusive gossip of our town of Mossy Ridge. She walked around with a black veil to hide her face and never spoke. She preferred to carry a pencil and paper wherever she traveled to notate her words.

Nobody knew how old Maria was, or what her exact status or relation was to the Montgomery family. Was she a family friend that witnessed the murders so many years ago? A distant relative that inherited the house after the rest of the Montgomerys had passed?

My theory? Maria was a maid at the Montgomery Estate. She committed the murders to take the land and money for herself. I'll admit, my evidence is scarce. Fine, my evidence doesn't exist. But there isn't any proof of much else that happened in that house. And Maria died a month ago, so now the entire town gets to speculate with our amassed amount of zero evidence.

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