Real Ghost Stories Chapter 18 - The Octagon, a supernatural fanfic

ooOoo

The Supernatural characters belong to Kripke Enterprises and the CW, not me. No money is being made from this story. It is for entertainment only.

Real Ghost Stories

Chapter 18

The Octagon

Sam was driving the Impala. They were heading south out of Gettysburg after their tour of the historic and haunted battlefield. He glanced over at Dean who was, for once, quiet. His brother seemed lost in his own thoughts.

"So, what did you think of Gettysburg, Dean?" Sam asked softly.

"I think that if we had been born a hundred years ago our bones would be lying in one of those fields." Dean answered.

Sam was surprised at Dean's serious response. He had been expecting something a little less grim out of his usually flippant brother.

"Well, we're not that far from Washington," Sam said. "How about another historical haunting?"

"Gore and guts and canons? Dean huffed. "No thanks. I've had enough of blood in the fields."

"No, not a battlefield." Sam went on. "I always wanted to go visit The Octagon."

Dean laughed. "What the hell is The Octagon? Sounds like a rollercoaster."

"Jerk," Sam replied. "The Octagon is a famous building in Washington D.C. It's even on the National Registry of Historic Places. The original mansion was built in the Foggy Bottom section of Washington by a rich Virginia planter by the name of Colonel John Tayloe. He was a friend of George Washington. The house started to go up in 1799 and was finished in 1801."

"George Washington," Dean wondered. "President George Washington, that That George Washington?"

"Yes," Sam answered. "That George Washington; Tayloe was a friend of his and built The Octagon as a winter residence on land he bought from the man who was the First Secretary of the Navy, Ben Stoddert. Washington D.C. was just getting off the ground as a planned capital for the new nation and George Washington pushed his friend to build a house in the new city. The architect who designed the United State Capital also designed The Octagon.

"This place is beginning to sound like History Nerd Heaven." Dean scoffed.

Sam smiled. "The Octagon even stood as a substitute White House for six months in 1814 after the British burned down President James Madison's White House during the war of 1812. The place is an important piece of American early history."

"When the British were advancing on Washington during the war Dolley Madison, the First Lady, sent her parrot to the Octagon for safe keeping. Tayloe's wife Ann had the place declared the French Consulate during the invasion to keep it from being burned down. When the British entered the city in August of 1814 the mansion was flying a French flag."

"I'm getting a little bored, Mr. History Channel." Dean rolled his eyes. "Why do I want to see this place?"

"Shut up, Dean " was Sam's reply. "I'll get to that." Sam checked out the freeway signs passing overhead and changed lanes.

"In September of 1814 when President Madison and Dolley returned to Washington they rented the Octagon for six months since the While House had been burned to the ground. The Treaty of Ghent, which ended the war of 1812, was signed in the upstairs study of The Octagon in February 1815."

"I get why you want to visit the place, bitch," Dean sighed. "I still don't understand why I have to go."

"Because in addition to the history and the In-House Museum, the place is the most haunted of all of Washington's haunted homes. It has more ghosts than even the White House." Sam seemed to think that would settle Dean's complaint.

"So, it's a case then?" Dean asked. "Tell me about the ghosts.

Sam smoothly slid the big car into the highway traffic. "Sure, I'll tell you all about them. We've got 90 miles and a couple of hours to kill. Plenty of time."

Dean settled into the passenger chair and closed his eyes. "Ready to listen."

"You fall asleep, Dean and I'm not going to repeat all this crap." Sam warned.

"Can't promise you, Sammy boy. I've spent years learning to ignore you. You expect me to change now?"

Sam licked his finger and stuck it into Dean's ear.

"God damn it Sam." Dean lurched up in the seat and smacked his brother's hand away.

"Pay attention, jerk." Sam ordered, pleased at Dean's response to the Wet Willy.

"First of all there is this wonderful, romantic ghost story about the Octagon. It's all about how two different Tayloe sisters fell down the circular staircase in the house while arguing with Colonel Tayloe about lovers their father deemed unacceptable."

"Deemed, Sam? Really? Deemed?" Dean sneered.

"I said shut up, jerk." Sam answered back.

"The first girl wanted to marry a British soldier and Tayloe forbid the marriage. The second girl actually ran off with her unacceptable lover and came back to the house to reconcile with her father. Both girls ended up either falling down the three story staircase or falling over the railing. Supposedly the girls' deaths occurred in the same year and the Colonel died of grief."

"Sad story," Dean responded. "I suppose the girls haunt the staircase."

Sam handed over a picture of the Octagon's steeply climbing spiral stair. "How would you like to dive over one of those railings?"

"Nasty," Dean responded while flipping through the rest of Sam's file.

"Yeah, it would be except for one little problem." Sam went on. "There is absolutely no historical record whatsoever for either of those supposed deaths. The Tayloes were a prominent family. There was no way deaths like that would not appear in the historical record one way or another. No newspaper notices of the girls' deaths can be found. In those days letter writing and diary keeping were big deals. Nothing can be found in any of those chatty documents and gossip like that would be a hot item."

"You think the deaths were hushed up somehow?" Dean asked.

"No," Sam replied. "I don't think they happened at all. I think something else happened and this story was a cover up. I mean, it's not like the story couldn't be easily denied. All the Tahoe children are fully accounted for in historical records. There are no missing daughters. Tayloe himself died in 1828 at the age of 57, a respectable age for the time period. There was no suggestion that he grieved himself to death."

"So, no ghosts." Dean handed the file back. "So why are we going there? I mean, other than feeding your Nerd Factoid Habit, why?"

"Because, Dean,' Sam said seriously, "something is haunting that place. Something happened there horrendous enough to still be resonating two hundred years later."

"Look at the rest of the file. It talks about the famous "Bells" of the house. They used bells to summon slaves at that time. Tayloe owned hundreds of slaves. After all he was a plantation owner. There were at least a dozen or more slaves living in the Octagon after 1801

There were bells in every room, all through the house. Those bells would all suddenly sound at once throughout the entire house. There are many witnesses to the phenomena, time and time again. It got so bad that all the bells were moved to other locations but they still continued to ring. Finally they restrung the entire house and when that didn't work, they took all the bells down. Nothing helped. The bells still rang always at the same time in the evening. The noise of the bells still is heard faintly to this day."

"Spooky,' Dean sneered.

"There's more.' Sam shot back. "After her husband died Ann Tayloe stayed on in the house until about 1855. After that the children started to rent the place out. At one time there were as many as ten separate families living in a room apiece. The place was practically a tenement. It was rescued in 1898 by the American Institute of Architects who restored it as an important example of the Early Federalist style of architecture and named it their national headquarters for the next sixty years. After they moved to a new building and it was named to the National Register a Museum was opened and the interior was meticulously restored."

"Falling to sleep over here again, Sammy."

Sam stuck his finger in his mouth. "Just try it again, bitch. I'll bite it off." Dean grumped.

"For two hundred years people have heard a woman screaming in the night. Flashes of something white disappear around corners just in front of inhabitants. The Bells continue to ring. People occasionally see a man dressed in a dark uniform climbing the stairs. The Octagon has earned its reputation as a haunted house over and over again."

ooOoo

Just after two in the afternoon Sam pulled the Impala into the parking lot behind The Octagon. Dean looked over the oddly shaped building. They had driven all the way around the building when they arrived and had seen the tower shaped front entrance already.

"Why the Octagon, Sam? Near as I can tell it should be called The Hexagon; six sides, right?" Dean questioned.

Sam shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe they counted the ends of the building. To be a true polygon the sides should all be equal and they obviously aren't. It's called The Octagon, Dean. Just go with it."

"Are we going in, Sam?" Dean asked as Sam got out of the car.

"Bring the EMF reader, Dean." Sam instructed. "The tours are all self-guided and a hundred ghost busters have toured this place. No one's going to bother us."

The brothers toured the entire building; they walked the spiral stair from ground floor to the top. While they were sitting on the third floor landing both Sam and the EMF meter had recorded readings. Sam got goosebumps and the EMF reader spiked. The brothers decided they were going to find out what was going on with that staircase. If it wasn't the Tayloe sisters they wondered just exactly what it was.

Earlier in the afternoon they had checked with the Museum attendants. The people in the shop had been asked the same questions by every ghost hunter on the eastern seaboard and they had become bored a long time ago. No, no one had heard the bells ringing in decades. None of them had seen anything strange that they wanted to talk about. The most response either brother got was a guide who definitely wanted to tell Dean anything he wanted to hear. By the way, her name was Anita and she quit work at five, if he was interested.

Dean found an empty room at the back of the building that overlooked the parking lot. As the sun went down he watched as one by one all the cars except the Impala left the lot. By the time the stars were out there was complete silence in The Octagon and the Impala was all alone. No one swept the rooms looking for stragglers so the brothers settled in to wait for the witching hour.

ooOoo

They had stationed themselves at the top of the staircase; just sitting in the dark with their ears straining for any clue at all. There had been shuffling faint footsteps on the stairs below them but no uniformed man walked past. No bells had rung and the ever present threat of a bored Dean Winchester was hanging over Sam's head.

"My ass has gone to sleep, Sam." Dean whispered. "It's time….."

A woman's scream rang out right next to Dean's ear. "Shit," he yelled and jumped up, almost taking a header down the stairs. He swung the shotgun up and swung around in a neat little dance step.

Sam reached out to help steady his brother. "I guess there's something to the stories, huh Dean?"

There was thump from far below.

"Somebody went over this railing, Sam." Dean was more than just startled by the scream. He was breathless.

"Sure does look like it, Dean." Sam leaned over the rail. Far below he almost thought he saw a flash of white on the marble floor. "I don't know what in hell we can do about a two hundred year old ghost without a name but I'll tell you what I think."

"I've heard a different story about the woman who haunts this stair and it isn't a Tayloe sister. I heard that it was an Octoroon mistress of Colonel Tayloe that got in his face and he tossed her over the railing."

"But that's murder, Sam. How could he get away with covering it up?"

"Consider the times, Dean." His brother responded softly. "Slaves weren't people. Slaves were property. Tayloe wouldn't be charged with murder. He might have been embarrassed socially as there was an abolitionist movement growing at the time but no one would come after him for something like that."

"There's not a thing we can do about this ghost, is there Sam?' Dean whispered.

"Hopefully she'll fade away in time but I think she has the energy of a whole bunch of people behind her. She was a symbol and a hope for all of Tayloe's slaves. She possibly died for all of them. We'll never know and now everyone is gone. No more Tayloes, no historical record of the Octoroon. I really can't prove that the Octoroon story is any more valid than the story about the Tayloe sisters. They are all history now."

"Your history just about scared the crap out of me, Sam." Dean complained.

"Sorry man." Sam said.

"You know what, Sam? I'm just about done with your historical ghosts. Let's go hunting and find something we can actually do something about."

ooooOOOOoooo

References used to write this story:

The Octagon House – Wikipedia web site