Worthington Manor - 1. Chapter 1

The Moore family pulled up to the driveway of their new home. It was an older home in the middle of nowhere. Their closest neighbor was two miles away. It was winter and the old Victorian house they were now moving into was covered in snow.

Their four kids got out of their sports utility vehicle and laid their eyes on the old three story house for the first time. It was not necessarily the most desirable hours to live in to them, but to their parents, it was their dream house. To them it was a nightmare.

The children of the Moore family consisted of three boys and a girl; in order of age there was Kevin, Justin, Ashley and David. The youngest, David, was six years old. Kevin was seventeen years old, Justin was fourteen and Ashley was ten years old. They were currently being raised by their mother, Julie, and their Stepfather Mark. Their father had passed away about five years earlier.

“Mom, look at this house. It’s so old. Who in the hell would want to live here?” asked Justin.

“Now Justin, this is a beautiful home. Wait until you see the inside, you’ll love it, its beautiful.” said Julie.

Justin rolled his eyes after his mother had looked away. He grabbed the one bag of essentials that he had brought with him and headed into the house. Justin got a very negative vibe from this house. He didn’t want to go in, but knew that he had no other choice. The rest of his siblings followed him into the house. They each spread out throughout the house to pick their rooms. After Justin and Kevin had settled into their rooms, they went to explore the house.

They first headed into the basement, as any teenager might have done when moving into as old a house as they did. As they got lower and lower into the basement, the chill that they felt throughout the house became colder and more noticeable. The brothers brushed it off as just a normal chill for this time of year and took the heater not being on in consideration for that decision.

“This place sure is creepy.” said Justin

“You can say that again.” said Kevin

“This place sure is creepy.”

“I didn’t mean that literally.”

“Ha, ha; come on lets get out of this creepy basement.” said Justin

“Come one, don’t be such a puff.”

“Kevin, you know that I hate it when you call me that.”

“I know, but how can I resist with you coming out and all that.”

“Can we just get out of here? I hate spider webs.”

“Come on, this the biggest basement I’ve ever seen. We should at least check it out.” said Kevin

“We just moved in, we have plenty of time to check it out.”

They heard the moving trucks pull up on in the driveway.

“Come on, we have to get our stuff.” said Justin

“That’s what the moving people are for.”

They were a fairly wealthy family, but Kevin was always acting as if they were royalty and that was one of the only things about Kevin that ever bugged Justin. Justin went back up the stairs and Kevin followed. Justin was the only one in the family that offered to help the movers, but they insisted that they would take the right boxes to each of their corresponding rooms.

“You see J, let’s got back down to that basement.” said Kevin

“You go; that place creeps me out.” said Justin

“You’re such a…”

“Don’t say it!”

“Okay, okay; when did you become so touchy?” asked Kevin

Kevin went off to more exploring while Justin went to go unpack all of his boxes. He was in the middle of getting his room situated when his little sister Ashley walked into his room. She looked extremely bored.

“What’s wrong Ash?” asked Justin

“There’s nothing to do in this house. There isn’t even any cable.” said Ashley

“I know, I know, but you’re just going to have to wait a few days when the electrician comes and sets up our house for that.”

“But what are we supposed to do in the mean time?” asked Ashley

“I don’t know, you have an active imagination. You think of something.” said Justin

“Like what?”

“Come on, we live in this creepy old house that has three stories not including a huge multi-roomed basement; I’m sure you can think of something.” said Justin

“Will you play with me?”

“Why don’t you go play with David?”

“He’s too little.” said Ashley

“Well I’m too old Ash, besides right now I can’t.”

“Why not”

“Because I’m taking the bus into town”

“Why”

“Would you quit asking so many questions? It’s none of your business.”

“You used to tell me everything.”

“Well things change. Now can you get out of my room?”

“Fine”

She turned around and stomped away. Justin immediately felt bad and tried to call her back, but that didn’t work. He shouldn’t have taken his anger about moving out on her. The truth was that he was going into town to find at least one fun thing to do in this place. He didn’t want Kevin to come either because he knew that he would surely tell the whole town that he was gay within the first five minutes and that was the last thing he needed in a new town.

He let his parents know where he was going to be and they reminded him of his ten o’ clock curfew and he was out the door. The air was chilled and fresh, not like the stuffy chill inside of his new house. He walked the whole half a mile to the nearest bus stop and waited for about twenty minutes before the next bus arrived. The bus was empty except of course for the driver.

“I haven’t seen you around here. Are you new?” asked the driver

“Yeah, we just moved into that old house about a half mile down the road.”

“You moved into the that house?” asked the driver

The driver was about mid-sixties in age and had all white hair which was scattered scarcely about his head. He was dressed up as if he lived in Antarctica.

“What’s wrong with my house?”

“Oh nothing serious; there just have been some pretty nasty rumors going around about that hours ever since even I was a kid.”

“Oh really and what are these rumors?”

“Oh you know the drill; haunted and all of that.”

“Oh and I suspect that the last people who lived in there were all murdered a violent and bloody death.”

“Well you know kids nowadays milk these kind of rumors for all that they’re worth.”

“Well, I haven’t experienced anything supernatural yet.”

“That’s probably because they’re just rumors is all.”

There was a brief pause between the two individuals.

“You know with all of this gossip talk, I’ve lost my manors. My name’s Bud Avery.” said the old man

“Well, it’s been a pleasure so far, Bud. My name’s Justin Moore.”