It was time… time to go back home… I thought to myself as I packed my last pair of jeans snuggly into my overflowing suitcase. Finally. I wonder if they'll remember me, I wonder if they'll like me. I've been gone for so long I barely remember…remem… the tragedy… I completely forgot… the haunting will begin… PROLOUGUE
My name is Micky, Micky Moore. I have a long, tragic tale to tell. It has been haunting me ever since I was just a small lass. It all started back in 1939. I lived with my mother, my grandfather, our wonderful butler, Jack, and my grandmother at the Moore Mansion. I had lived there ever since I was a baby. It was a brisk fall day, September 27, to be exact. Fall had just arrived, and my grandmother, Anne, and I were making a cherry pie to celebrate my birthday. My mother and grandfather were busy working on her latest novel, she wrote for a living. We finished putting the final crease in the crust of the pie and put it in the oven. We went out back to the stables, all of us, to see Blackie, my beautiful stallion. We weren't out there but for 10 minutes and we heard a terrible noise. It sounded like the wooden floor boards were being shredded from their territory. We ran inside to see the trouble. A terrible fire had started. We ran down to the cellar to try and save ourselves and our money, but alas, it was too late. The fire had burned through the floors and reached the cellar. I was the only one spared. I was only 7 so I was frightened, confused, and alone. All alone in the burning Moore Mansion. After 4 hours of sheer terror, it all stopped and it was silent. I had hidden in the corner of the barn stables and survived. All I had was Blackie, and the clothes on my back. I knew the fire had stopped so I went inside not knowing what to expect. I went to the cellar only to see the charred bodies of my once alive family. I hysterically started sobbing. I was scared and didn't know what to do. The fire had surrendered all the lives of my closest family, my friends. I then saw something that would scar me forever. I saw extremely pale moving figures. They looked almost see through, like plastic. The room got very cold. Chills ran down my spine. I wanted to run, to escape it all, but it was all too much for me to take in and I stood there, frozen. One of the figures stopped and turned towards me. I looked at it soon to notice that it was the figure of my mother. Her eye sockets were empty pits of black, despair. She looked at me and started hovering towards me. She told me I needn't be afraid, for she was here with the spirits of my family, and only wanted to protect me. She said to come live with her in the spirit world, with my family, and I would be happy forever. Her voice echoed and was smooth like the wind. But I didn't believe one word. One word at all! I knew what she was going to do. I knew that if I went with her, she'd have to kill me. I wasn't going to let that happen. I was a highly intelligent 7 year old. My father was a trained agent for the FBI and before his catastrophic death; he told me all of the secrets, all of the secrets of the world, of him, of the paranormal. I kept them in my diary. And I kept that in my apron. "No mother, no! You'll just take my life; you'll take it like that fire did to you!" I said as I ran away, still hysterically weeping. I ran back to the stable to find Blackie on the ground, lying motionless. He was dead from snakebite. I had now had nothing. I decided to run, run as far as possible from this wretched, haunted, disastrous, evil filled, place. The Moore Mansion had now become another piece of history, lost. But this was special, this was something different than a normal house fire, for some reason the lives of my family had been spared in the spirit world and were now living the second life in the real realm. The haunting had begun.
"Heather, time for breakfast!" I called out to my 12 year old daughter. "Coming mother" she shouted back. "Jodie you too hon!" I called to my best friend who was living with my daughter and me. I had just made a fresh baked batch of cherry pie, with perfectly creased edges. I had learned from… from… I don't remember. It was the day of the big move. We were all going to move to Tennessee, to enjoy some open country. I was about to finish my packing, I went upstairs and immediately noticed something in the vent. It was my old diary from when I was 7. I barely remembered anything from my young life so I started to read through it. To read through the tragedies, the worst moments of my life, the fire.
September 27, 1939
Today the Moore Mansion, My home, has burned to the near ground. My family died. Everyone in it. Even Blackie! I went to visit the cellar and found their charred bodies. They became spirits, the bad kind.
That was my diary entry. I then had a flashback of everything that had happened that day. The fire, the bodies, the spirits, Blackie. I remembered it all. I quickly stashed it in my apron and ran downstairs. I told the girls. "Were moving to Michigan ladies!" I told them about the tragedy quickly and told them that we'd have the truck driver relocate to Michigan, to the small town of Sterling Heights. I had to pay the truck driver extra; he knew that the town was haunted. We arrived the next day. The town was deserted. No one was there; nothing was there, except the remains of the Moore Mansion. We arrived not knowing what to expect. The sky was black and it was windy. It looked like harsh weather was upon us. We cautiously stepped out of our Jeep. We approached the mansion, or what was left of it. Heather asked me if this was my old home, I said nothing. I was too scared. I was the last one who had gone into and left the house. It had been untouched for over 25 years. The back gate made a loud creaking noise as I opened it. The first thing I wanted to see was the stable. I entered the yard and the first thing I saw was our cherry tree. It was wilted but the cherries were still edible. I picked one and ate it. It was the same sweet taste I remember. I opened the stable doors. I went inside. I flinched at the sight of a skeleton. A large skeleton. The skeleton of Blackie. I went in farther. I found nothing but some old plates and horseshoes. I left the stable trying not to cry at the sight of Blackie. I wasn't ready to enter the house but I knew it was why I came here. I took Heather's hand and Jodie took mine. We all walked in together, scared out of our wits. First I examined the study, only to find some burnt books. But one caught my eye. The Diary of Jacobi E. Moore, my father. I picked it up and it was not harmed at all by the fire. I put it in my apron. I then examined all the other rooms just to find crumbling brick, burnt wood, and the smell of fire and ash. I got to the cellar and prepared for the worst. I opened the door and smoke came wafting out. It was pitch black. I took a torch from the wall and lit it with a spare match. Light came flooding into the room. I screamed in horror. Thousands of bugs and cockroaches swarmed the bodies of my family. I waved the torch at them and they scurried away to the corners of nowhereness. I saw the bodies, the skeletons, and memory of that terrible, tragic, day came rushing back into my mind. I envisioned myself as a little 7 year old, baking a cherry pie with her grandmother on her birthday. Going outside and playing with her horse and then coming back in only to find her birthplace gone up in flames. I remembered how it started; it was caused by that cherry pie in the oven. That is what caused my entire life to take a turn for the worse and fall apart. I dreaded that pie. It ruined everything I ever had, and it ruined me. I snapped out of it. I went to the cellar. I once again got extremely cold and felt chills on my back. I then remembered the well. I looked down it and there was pitch black and it looked like ice. I tipped too far over and fell into it. I fell for forever. I then saw light, a bright light coming straight towards me. I tried to speak but couldn't. I found myself in a diverse world of terror. There were flames everywhere, people who looked like they had not eaten in thousands of years, people with no eyes, or arms, or missing body parts. On the ground were scattered patches of red and assuming that it was blood I tried to scream but nothing came out. The people turned and looked at me. I saw my family in a crowd of ranting people. They looked like they were yelling at someone or something but I couldn't hear them. I ran to my mother and she reached out for my hand. She mouthed something to me but I couldn't understand. She took me by the arm and started to drag me off to what looked like a fiery home of death. It was the mansion, our mansion. She took me inside. I saw my family. My mother threw me into the cellar and I could once again hear. I looked up and saw a bright light. "Micky, Micky, Micky wake up!" I heard a voice yell. I came to and was frightened by the strange dream. I then saw my mother's face yet again. But this time she took my head and tilted it so that my ear was by her mouth. This is only the beginning; I warned you Micky, we all did. My mother said in a smooth, yet jittery tone. Then she vanished. I was left not knowing what to do. I stood up in a daze and thought to leave but I knew I must stay, to free the spirits of my family. I flipped through the pages of my father's diary wondering what I might find. My nervous fingers touched the words in my father's diary, et niterium unus impunium sterkai nae~moonum… spirit freeing spell. I said the words and everything in my world was sent back. The house started to spin. My vision blurred. I was scared and could do nothing but sit there and wait. And then, it stopped…