History according to Chad

"It's a pretty cool story," Chad says with a grin. "And kinda creepy too, which is why I thought it would be a perfect Halloween idea. The house was built just after the First World War by a guy called Frank Thurston who made a ton of money selling munitions to the army. Apparently he wasn't the most honest guy in the world, and there were some allegations of corrupt officials and bribery, but nothing much came of it.

Anyway, by the end of the war he was a multi-millionaire, and he bought this big chunk of land and built the mansion on it. That was about 1920 or so. Frank moved in, but didn't have much to do with the town. He was kind of a recluse, and some people thought he was hiding from someone. Anyway, a couple of years later, he went away for a while and came back with a wife. A much younger wife. She was like eighteen or so, and he was fifty something. Less than a year after she arrived, she died giving birth to Frank's son.

It's around this time that all the weird rumours started. Frank was apparently really interested in old religions and cults, and had a big collection of stuff from all around the world. He had trouble keeping servants, because he started acting more and more bizarre. The only one who stayed was this young woman he hired to be a nurse and nanny to his son, Frank Jr.

Anyway, sometime in the late twenties, Frank reads some books or stories by this guy called H.P. Lovecraft, who wrote horror stories for magazines. Frank got it in his head that these weren't just stories, but they were actual history. What made it worse is that in one of these stories, the main character is called, get this, Francis Wayland Thurston. Frank Thurston, get it? Frank decided that it was a sign that he was called on, or something. People started talking about strange people showing up at the mansion in the middle of the night, and he brought in some carpenters from out of state to do some strange renovations. Nobody knew much about it, except one of the carpenters got drunk and talked about how they were building a secret temple somewhere in the house. The day after he did that, the carpenter was hit and killed by a car. The driver took off and no one ever saw him again.

Well, Frank really had trouble keeping servants now. It got so no one would take a job there, and the kid's nurse did the cooking and what housework needed doing. The grounds were allowed to go wild because there was no gardener to look after them.

Now about the same time, something else started happening that at the time no one connected with Frank and the house. From all around here, young girls started to go missing. A lot of them were farm girls, and most people figured they ran off to the city. Most of them were never seen again.

Except....about five years after this started, one of them showed up staggering around naked, right in the middle of town, She had cuts all over her arms and legs and she was raving mad, blathering about virgins being sacrificed to some insane monster gods. She died the same night of shock or something.

Anyway, this got people thinking about the old story about Frank building a temple in the house, and the sheriff went up to talk to Frank. Apparently Frank was real cooperative, showed the sheriff around the house. The sheriff said that the house was kind of weirdly designed and a bit confusing, but he was sure there was no temple in it.

Thinks quieted down for a while. A few more girls disappeared, but not as many as before, and people kind of forgot about it.

Frank died in 1935. When his will was read he left everything to Frank Jr. who was then about twelve. It appointed the faithful nanny to be his guardian, which apparently really pissed off some of Frank's relatives back in Rhode Island, but the will was solid and they couldn't do anything.

The nanny, whose name was Lisa by the way, looked after things until Frank Jr. turned twenty one. Two weeks after that, her naked body was found in some woods just off the grounds of the mansion. She'd been **** and carved up pretty badly. Some drunken drifter was caught with a bloody knife and a locket she wore. He swore he didn't do it and didn't know where the knife or locket came from, but no one believed him and he went to the electric chair.

Nothing much happened for a few years. Frank Jr. was just as reclusive as his dad, and kept to the house most of the time. He didn't have any servants, and didn't socialize with the locals, although there were stories about late night visitors going to the mansion, and some people saying they saw weird lights flickering in the windows late on some nights.

So skip ahead about ten years, to the early sixties. Some factory was being built on empty land over near the river, and an excavator turned up about six skeletons. They were all female, and as far as they could tell were in their late teens or early twenties when they died. The best guess was they'd been in the ground for about thirty years.

And get this, some the bones had marks on them like they'd been gnawed on. Some bones had been split open to get the marrow out.

Well, that got some of the older people remembering all those girls that went missing back in the early thirties, but nothing much happened. It doesn't seem like anyone gave much of a shit, although I don't know why. Maybe because Frank Sr. had been dead for almost thirty years himself.

Anyway, things went back to sort of normal. Frank Jr. kept to himself, and the locals were happy to let him. There were still stories about strange lights and visitors, and people regarded the mansion as a creepy place, but that was about it.

So, to get up to date, Frank Jr. died five years ago. His body was found at the driveway gate of the mansion and there were signs that he'd crawled all the way from the house, which was almost a hundred yards away. Bear in mind that he would have been in his late eighties at the time. One of the people who found him said that his face had a look of absolute horror on it, and his finger nails were all torn and bloody, like he'd been clawing at something.

Now Frank Jr. had filed a will with a local law firm, the one my brother works for. It left provision for the house to be maintained, but that his relatives in Rhode Island were not to have any part of the estate or the family fortune, which was placed in trust for someone who would arrive with the proper identification. I don't know what that is, neither does my brother, but he's heard rumours around the office that it's something really strange.

Anyway, the relatives have been contesting the will for five years, and no one has shown up with the identification, so there it sits. The furniture is still in it, and a caretaker comes in to check on it every other day or so. Other than that the place is vacant.

But get this. Since Frank Jr.'s **** there have been stories of strange lights seen in the windows late on some nights, and a few curious people who went up to the house claimed they heard some kind of chanting coming from inside. Others say they've heard creepy organ music late at night.

My brother has been in the place twice and he says it's full of strange statues and art, and the whole place seems slightly out of kilter, as if the angles of construction are off. He said its a really confusing place to walk around in, and easy to get lost.

All in all, it's the perfect haunted house," Chad laughs. "So what do you say, ladies? Are you in or out?"