The Bride of Ashbyrn House Read online

  “Sorry,” the driver replies from the front seat. “There's works on the motorway, so I figured we'd take a shortcut. It'd be slower usually, but I reckon we'll actually make up some time doing it this way.”

  “What's this town called?” I continue, still looking out and feeling more and more certain that I've been here before. I want to believe that I'm merely panicking, but the buildings look awfully familiar, even if they've changed a little over the years.

  “Turthfeddow, according to the computer,” the driver tells me. “I reckon -”

  “Stop the car!”

  “But -”

  “Stop right now!”

  He brings the car to a halt, right outside a very familiar pub. The Hanging Man .

  “Is this a joke?” I ask.

  “I'm sorry?”

  My heart is pounding, but I open the door and step out. Sure enough, I find that I'm finally back in the one place I swore I'd never visit again. Turthfeddow has changed over the years, but I swear this town is burned into my memory. I spent so long in prison, protesting my innocence and swearing that I didn't kill Vanessa, and now – just nine months after my sentence ended, fate and roadworks have conspired to bring me right back to the scene. Maybe I was wrong to think I could ever get away.

  “Do you mind if I nip to that gas station down the road?” the driver asks, leaning out of his car. “Just to top up?”

  “Meet me back here,” I reply, already stepping toward the pub's front door. As the taxi creeps away, I head into the building and find that the place has changed a lot, with the bar having switched to the opposite side of the room. Still, I remember coming in here and adopting Bob late one night, all those years ago, and I can't help smiling as I see another dog curled in the corner.

  “It's alright,” the barman says as he wipes some more glasses down. “He won't bite.”

  “I'm sure he won't,” I mutter, heading over to pat the dog before making my way to the bar. “I have one at home. Just got him last week, as it happens.”

  “You're never alone with a dog.”

  “That's true.” I pause for a moment, feeling a little lost. I hope nobody recognizes me. After all, most of the country still believes that I murdered Vanessa on that fateful night at Ashbyrn House. At the trial, even my lawyer warned me to drop all the talk of ghosts and mysterious bells, but I insisted on telling the truth. Nobody believed me, but I had no choice. I couldn't lie, even if my only evidence was a battered old bible that had once belonged to the lady of the house. And I ended up serving a sentence for manslaughter, even though I was completely innocent.

  “Drink?” the barman asks, not unreasonably.

  “Water, thank you,” I stammer. “Just a bottle.”

  “We're going out!” a girl says suddenly, as she and her friend come running through from the pub's back-room. “Seeya later, Dad!”

  “Where exactly are you off to?” he asks.

  “Don't worry, we're not going there . We're just gonna hang out. We're not crazy enough to climb the wall and go to Ashbyrn House.”

  “Does anyone ever go there?” I ask, turning to her.

  She hesitates. Clearly, she's been warned by her parents that she shouldn't talk to strangers. “Sorry?”

  “Ashbyrn House,” I continue, trying not to panic. “People don't... They don't go to the house, do they? It's private property, I mean... No-one should set foot past the gate.”

  She seems nervous, but finally she shrugs. “Nah. Sometimes people go near it, though. That's when they hear things. It's haunted.”

  “Nonsense,” the barman mutters as he sets a bottle of water on the bar for me.

  “Haunted by who?” I ask the girl.

  She pauses. “Well, everyone knows the story. There's some woman who haunts the place. There's this legend that her husband jilted her after their wedding. Apparently, if you go late at night, sometimes you can hear her screaming and wailing and sobbing. If you ask me, I can't say I blame her. What kind of arsehole runs out on a woman after marrying her?”

  “That's the legend?” I ask, shocked that so much seems to have changed. “An abandoned wife who wants her husband back? Not a woman who died before her big day?”

  “It's probably bollocks,” the girl adds, before turning and heading out with her friend. “You still wouldn't catch me dead out there, though. Not even during the day. Everyone knows to leave that old dump well alone. It's just a story people tell to scare themselves.”

  “Don't pay too much attention to my daughter,” the barman tells me, as I turn to him. “Most people in Turthfeddow just leave Ashbyrn House well alone. It's empty and deserted, so why go near the place? No-one really believes the ghost stories. If you ask me, they should tear the house down and be done with it all.”

  I pause for a moment, genuinely shocked to find that so much has changed.

  “The bells,” I whisper finally. “Do people ever hear bells ringing out from the grounds of the house?”

  “Bells?” He furrows his brow. “I don't think so. Why would they?”

  “It's changed,” I mutter under my breath, as I feel a tightening sense of fear creeping through my chest. “ She's changed. She wants something else now.”

  ***

  Thirty minutes later, the taxi slows to a halt at the side of the road, and I find myself staring out at Ashbyrn House's main gate. Whereas some things in Turthfeddow had changed, here beyond the edge of town it's as if time has stood still. Glimpsed through the gate's bars, the house looks exactly the same as before.

  “Should I keep going?” the taxi driver asks. “We're running a bit late now.”

  “Just one moment,” I reply, opening the door and stepping out.

  As I make my way across the road, I can't help noting that Ashbyrn House looks rather tame and cold. Dead, even. The house has remained under my ownership for the past quarter-century, and I am the only person who still possesses a key to the front door. In all that time, ever since the police completed their investigation into Vanessa's death, nobody has entered the house, and even the grounds have mostly been secured thanks to various high-tech solutions. The walls cannot be climbed, nor can the gate be forced open. Every precaution has been taken, in order to keep the curious away.

  I can just about make out the ruined church beyond the trees, and it's strange to think that those ghostly bells no longer ring out across the property. Then again, I suppose they're no longer needed. The bells were a call, a signal that a bride was awaiting a husband. Now that she has a husband, evidently her focus has changed.

  Stopping at the gate, I look between the bars and see the house at the far end of the driveway. For a moment, I find myself wondering whether – even after all these years – there might be some reasonable explanation for what happened. Lord knows, during those years in jail, I often wondered whether the bride of Ashbyrn House was another hallucination, something I imagined in order to cover up my real actions. Deep down, though, I know that's not true.

  She was real.

  Reaching into my pocket, I take out the key, and I actually start considering the possibility that I could open the gate and walk along the gravel driveway, and that I could then unlock the front door and step back into Ashbyrn House. I could face the ghosts of the past and prove that they're not real, and I could begin to unravel the truth about what happened within those walls, all those years ago. I even look down at the lock, where I spot a spindly-legged spider lurking as if it's watching me.

  But then I look back toward the house, and that's when I see her.

  Katinka Ashbyrn's pale, gray face is at one of the windows, staring out at me from the study. Even from here, I can see the anger in her eyes. It's the anger of a spurned wife, of a woman who finally got what she wanted and who then had the prize cruelly snatched away from her. Betrayed and furious, she glares at me, waiting for me to return to the house and sit at my desk, and for me to be her husband. I know there's still a laptop in the house, containing millions of word
s of a book I would dearly love to get back. Nothing, however, could make me cross the threshold and return to Ashbyrn House, so I slip the key back into my pocket.

  Still making eye contact with the distant figure, I take a step back.

  Although I know she's real, in my heart of hearts I still retain a flicker of hope that she might suddenly vanish, and that I might be able to sleep easily at my hotel tonight, knowing that her ghost is no longer waiting for me.

  Suddenly Katinka Ashbyrn screams, while remaining in the window of the study. Her scream is filled with anger and rage, but I turn my back on her and walk back over to the taxi. Though the scream continues, I've now put aside any thoughts of ever going back into that house. I could send in the bulldozers, of course, and tear the place down, but then perhaps she'd be set free. After all, I saw her twice in London, so I know she can reach beyond the house in certain circumstances. Better, I think, to just leave her trapped within those walls. Even as the taxi pulls away, I can still hear Katinka's scream in the distance, but it will fade soon enough and I will certainly never come near the house again. Even if, ultimately, I cannot end the madness.

  “Did you hear anything just now?” I ask the driver.

  “Come again?” he replies.

  “While I was at the gate. Did you hear a noise coming from the house?”

  “Sorry, I didn't hear anything,” he mutters. “Then again, I had the radio on, so I don't suppose I could've. Why, what was I supposed to hear?”

  “Nothing,” I reply, leaning back in the seat, although I know my answer isn't true. It wasn't nothing. It was something very real, something that still lurks in that cold and empty house.

  One day, someone else will make the mistake of unlocking the front door and going back inside Ashbyrn House. One day, someone else will walk through those rooms. One day, someone else will decide to make a home there, oblivious to the presence that watches them from the shadows. One day, someone else will wake up in the night, hearing a faint scratching sound that they quickly dismiss as restless beams. And one day, someone else will sit at that desk and write, and for a while not notice the presence that arrives to watch them.

  But not me.

  For as long as I draw breath, that house will remain locked and abandoned. And the ghost of Katinka Ashbyrn will be left to scream alone.

  Also by Amy Cross

  B&B

  A girl on the run, hiding from a terrible crime.

  An old B&B in a snowy city.

  A hidden figure lurking in the streets, waiting for his next victim.

  When Bobbie takes a room at the rundown Castle Crown B&B, all she wants is to get some sleep and make a tough decision about her future. Unfortunately, the B&B's other guests won't give her any peace, and Bobbie soon realizes that she's stumbled into a world with its own rules. Who is the mysterious bandaged woman? Why is there a dead man in the bathtub? And is something deadly lurking in the basement?

  Before she can leave, however, Bobbie learns that the city of Canterbury is being terrorized by a mysterious figure. Every time snow comes, the Snowman claims another victim, leaving their blood sinking into the ice. If Bobbie leaves the B&B and ventures out into the empty streets, she risks becoming his next target. But if she stays, her soul might be claimed by something even more deadly.

  B&B is a horror story about a girl with a secret, and about a building with a past.

  Also by Amy Cross

  THE BODY AT AUERCLIFF

  “We'll bury her so deep, even her ghost will have a mouth full of dirt!”

  When Rebecca Wallace arrives at Auercliff to check on her aged aunt, she's in for a shock. Her aunt's mind is crumbling, and the old woman refuses to let Rebecca stay overnight. And just as she thinks she's starting to understand the truth, Rebecca makes a horrifying discovery in one of the house's many spare rooms.

  A dead body. A woman. Old and rotten. And her aunt insists she has no idea where it came from.

  The truth lies buried in the past. For generations, the occupants of Auercliff have been tormented by the repercussions of a horrific secret. And somehow everything seems to be centered upon the mausoleum in the house's ground, where every member of the family is entombed once they die.

  Whose body was left to rot in one of the house's rooms? Why have successive generations of the family been plagued by a persistent scratching sound? And what really happened to Rebecca many years ago, when she found herself locked inside the Auercliff mausoleum?

  The Body at Auercliff is a horror story about a family and a house, and about the refusal of the past to stay buried.

  Also by Amy Cross

  PERFECT LITTLE MONSTERS

  AND OTHER STORIES

  A husband waits until his wife and children are in bed, before inviting a dangerous man into their home...

  A girl keeps hold of her mother's necklace, as bloodied hands try to tear it from her grasp...

  A gun jams, even as its intended victim begs the universe to let her die...

  Perfect Little Monsters and Other Stories is a collection of short stories by Amy Cross. Some of the stories take place in seemingly ordinary towns, whose inhabitants soon discover something truly shocking lurking beneath the veneer of peace and calm. Others show glimpses of vast, barbaric worlds where deadly forces gather to toy with humanity. All the stories in this collection peel back the face of a nightmare, revealing the horror that awaits. And in every one of the stories, some kind of monster lurks...

  Perfect Little Monsters and Other Stories contains the new stories Perfect Little Monsters , I Hate You , Meat , Fifty Fifty and Stay Up Late , as well as a revised version of the previously-released story The Scream . This book contains scenes of violence, as well as strong language.

  Also by Amy Cross

  ANNIE'S ROOM

  1945 and 2015. Seventy years apart, two girls named Annie move into the same room of the same remote house. Their stories are very different, but tragedy is about to bring them crashing together.

  Annie Riley has just broken both her legs. Unable to leave bed, she's holed up in her new room and completely reliant upon her family for company. She's also the first to notice a series of strange noises in the house, but her parents and brother think she's just letting her imagination run overtime. And then, one night, dark forces start to make their presence more keenly felt, leading to a horrific discovery...

  Seventy years ago, Annie Garrett lived in the same house with her parents. This Annie, however, was very different. Bitter and vindictive and hopelessly devoted to her father, she developed a passionate hatred for her mother. History records that Annie eventually disappeared while her parents were executed for her murder, but what really happened to Annie Garrett, and is her ghost still haunting the house to this day?

  Annie's Room is the story of two girls whose lives just happened to be thrown together by an unlikely set of circumstances, and of a potent evil that blossomed in one soul and then threatened to consume another.

  OTHER BOOKS

  BY AMY CROSS INCLUDE

  Horror

  The Body at Auercliff

  B&B

  The Disappearance of Katie Wren

  The Horror of Devil's Root Lake

  The Haunting of Blackwych Grange

  Perfect Little Monsters and Other Stories

  Twisted Little Things and Other Stories

  The Printer From Hell

  The Farm

  The Nurse

  American Coven

  Annie's Room

  Eli's Town

  Asylum

  Meds (Asylum 2)

  The Night Girl

  Devil's Briar

  The Cabin

  After the Cabin

  Last Wrong Turn

  At the Edge of the Forest

  The Devil's Hand

  The Ghost of Shapley Hall

  The Death of Addie Gray

  A House in London

  The Blood House

  The Priest Hole (Nykolas Fre
eman book 1)

  Battlefield (Nykolas Freeman book 2)

  The Border

  The Lighthouse

  3AM

  Tenderling

  The Girl Clay

  The Prison

  Ward Z

  The Devil's Photographer

  Fantasy / Horror

  Dark Season series 1, 2 & 3

  The Girl With Crooked Fangs (Vampire Country book 1)

  Grave Girl

  Graver Girl (Grave Girl 2)

  Ghosts

  The Library

  Thriller

  The Girl Who Never Came Back

  Other People's Bodies

  Dystopia / Science Fiction

  The Dog

  The Island (The Island book 1)

  Persona (The Island book 2)