Chapter 7 – Eternal Haunting
Jimmy paused as Tony suddenly produced a bottle of water from McGee's backpack. Tim glared at him briefly, then shrugged it off as Tony just being Tony. The senior agent handed the blue Dasani bottle to Jimmy, and the younger man gratefully took a long pull from it, refreshing his throat. He nodded in gratitude, then continued.
"Then she escalated the haunting. She began to appear to him in his dreams, until finally he was suffering from insomnia so severe that he began to lose his mind from sleep deprivation. And then, once she had him beginning to lose his grip on reality, she once again turned it up a notch," he said mysteriously.
"She began to appear to him while he was awake," Jimmy said, and glancing over at Tim, said, "in all her bloody, headless glory - her head propped under one arm, - her once radiant hair hanging limply, and caked with her own blood."
"You, um… you say this is your niece's favourite story?" Gibbs asked, suddenly.
Abby answered for him. "Oh, Lyssie is the coolest little girl. She's very mature for her age. But she likes scary stories."
Jimmy nodded affirmatively. "Lyssie does like creepy stories. Fortunately I'm not responsible for that interest. Abby, on the other hand… I'm not so sure. Anyway, rest assured, Alyssa only gets the G rated version of this one." He made a slight face at Abby as their resident Goth stuck her tongue out at him.
"Anyway, as I was saying, as the ghost's haunting of the King escalated, he truly began to lose his grip on reality. Finally, she was haunting him his every waking hour - which by now was all the time since he couldn't sleep. Driven by guilt at murdering his one true love, one damp, foggy night, he vanished from the castle. His broken body was found the next day, at the foot of the Tower of London. He had climbed to the very top of the Tower, and had jumped to his death. He had been driven to suicide by the horrid ghostly visions, and his nagging guilt. You see, even though he'd had nothing to do with his rapid rise to the throne, he'd had everything to do with the untimely death of the woman who wanted nothing more than for him to be happy - but with her as his Queen, and no one else."
The group sensed that this tale was about to come to an end, but nonetheless, their attention didn't waver.
"To this day, they say, the spirits of the servant girl and the King haunt not just this world - but each other as well, damned forever to torture one other in the afterlife, with revenge that will be played out for eternity, and guilt that will never be absolved," Jimmy concluded. He sat back against the wall again, a look of satisfaction on his face.
"Oh, that was awesome," Abby said, squeezing Tim's hand again. She was about to jump up and initiate applause, when the lights came back on.
