Do you dare read the unsolved mystery of Carly Abbott?

Elizabeth Abbott, known as Carly as she prefered her middle name, was not your "typical" adult. She came from an upper-class family, and was rich, though she seldom spent it. Maybe it was something to do with that that led her to that dreadful night on Halloween 2006. But it was more likely that spell book in her cellar, and the unsolved mystery that had already befallen Manor House.

Carly was due to be married, and so she decided to clear out the manor, only taking the necessities to her new home. She worked her way from the top of the house to the bottom, so she could avoid the room she most feared. It took her a few weeks to do all of that. And then the only room left was the cellar.

Now, she had never been into the cellar since her mother mysteriously died there; Carly knew she must though, whether she liked it or not. She could leave something valuable behind. Like that bracelet given to her by her mother, that she lost about a year ago. She never had found that, but would not dare to look in the spooky cellar.

On some occasions, especially on the anniversary of the nights of her mother's and father's deaths - both on Halloween, in different years though - Carly could swear that she could hear movement down here. Like the old exercise bike pumping its way along, or the rustling of books as the wind whipped through the trees outside. But she always tried to pretend she could not hear anything, and eventually she would fall asleep.

The thump of her footsteps echoed on the staircase as she slowly made her way deeper into the ground, pulling away a few cobwebs every now and again. She looked down; spiders and cockroaches litttered the floor. Grimacing, Carly carried on down, not thinking about what she might be standing on.

When she reached the bottom, she tentatively looked around, keeping one hand on the hand rail of the staircase. It looked much the same as it did before her mother passed away - she supposed it would - except now it was much dirtier and unwelcoming.

Carly moved furthur into the room, making sure that wherever she went she was touching something - be it the piano or simply the wall. Glancing around again, she conceded that nothing she wanted was here. Actually, it was more probable that she did not want to be down here in the evening, all alone, on Halloween.

Quickly, she made her way to the staricase, making sure she was still touching something. That was when she heard it. A chair, sliding across the floor. She whipped around, fingers wrapped around the stair rail. There was no chair to be seen. Odd. She supposed it could have been the table, but it was exactly where it had been. Of course, if Carly had been thinking straight, she probably would have found the even stranger thing that no one but her was down here to move anything.

Now, if Carly was a sensible person, she would have walked up those stairs, locked the door and never turned back. She also would have put the chair noise down to her overactive imagination, due to being in a place she hated and was terrified of.

But Carly was not a sensible girl. She was the child that climbed rotting trees and made her mother panic and her father angry. She simply could not be sensible, for if she were she would have remember that her father had cleared out the cellar, taking anything valuable out, almost a year after her mother's death.
So Carly, being the person she was stepped forward, still irrationally holding onto whatever she could, else she felt she would not be protected. Really though, she was no safer holding than not.

The dim lights cast eerie shadows around the room. The old treadmill, the one Carly often heard during the night, sat innocently in one corner of the room, the belt threadbare, the metal rusted. Her father's old workbench was covered in thick dust, and almost everywhere she looked there were cobwebs. Hesitantly she paced the room, looking all over for signs of a chair, or something that might have moved it. Finding nothing she moved quickly passed the statues of the first owners of Manor House and towards the stairs once again, when a glisten caught her attention.

She moved slowly towards the shining object. When she was closer, she recognised it - it was her bracelet! She bent down and picked it up. Smiling she examined it. It was a bit dirty, but still as beautiful as she remembered it. Hugging it to her chest she looked up at the picture in front of her.
Carly slipped it onto her wrist, then she saw something from the corner of her eye. Fire! She stood up hurriedly.

She blinked, then looked over at where the fire had been. Her eyes widened - there was a book there now!
Slowly, she walked up to it. Her hands went up to her chest when she saw it giving off its own light. She gasped; it looked as though it was on fire, but the fire couldn't be real fire, else the cellar would be burning by now.

She touched the book, and flinched at how cold it was. She lifted the first page, and frowned at the odd language. A couple of words she recognised.
"It's all in Latin," she whispered to herself, intrigued. She turned over the pages slowly, glancing at the words, trying to work out whay they said.
Suddenly the book seemed to have a mind of its own, and it flipped to a page near the back. Carly read the long paragraphs understanding little. Except one word, which she identified as the word 'spell'. She looked furthur and read aloud:
"'Cruor effundo tollo vomica in Malum.'" She had no idea what she had just said, but started when she heard a gushing noise coming from the book.

She looked up, and saw that the room had turned red, almost blood-like. She screamed fairly quietly, and amidst the repear of the Latin words she had read out Carly flew to the stairs, forgetting her rule to always hold onto something. She heard a voice call her name from upstairs, and realised she knew that voice. It was William. She opened her mouth to answer him. But before she could reach then, a cold hand, or something to that effect, grabbed her waist - and the other was placed over her mouth - from behind and pulled her back. She let out a blood-curdling scream as the world went black...

*Earlier*
William Chappel rushed up towards his fiance's house, worried if anything had happened to her. Without delay, he ran up to the front door and knocked as loudly as possible, and then waited for a few seconds. Nothing happened, Carly's smiling face did not open the door, wondering why William had come so late for no reason, laughing as he told her he was worried she had not answered her phone the five times he had called her.
He hoped she had just gone to bed early, but he knew that was not the case. Resting his head on the wooden door frame he tried again. Still he got no answer.

He peered through the letterbox and he faintly heard a gushing coming from below him. But that wasn't possible - there was no wind, it was just his mind playing tricks on him.
"Carly?" he shouted through the letterbox. "Are you okay?" It was silent for a few seconds, and then a blood-curdling scream pierced through his eardrums.

*Present*
"Carly!" he screamed hysterically again, and swiftly pulled out his phone and dialed 999, Emergencies. After asking for the police, he turned to the road and waited. His eyes darted in all directions seeking the flash of the headlights of the police cars.

After what seemed like hours the car pulled up, and a few police officers stepped out. Most of them went straight into the house, only offering William a small smile, but two stayed behind to get as much information about what had happened as possible, as they hadn't really understood what he had been trying to stay over the phone. The two were a woman, Officer Parker, and a male, Inspector Davies. They were both friendly, but Parker was more pushy and generally overwhelming.
William began hurriedly, and neither of his company understood what he was saying. After he slowed down they knew what he was on about, and both knew they must find out what really had happened rather quickly.
"You don't mind if we go in the house do you?" Parker asked, which William found odd, as all the other officers already had. He also knew that they would go in even if he did say 'no', so he nodded and the two walked passed him.

He followed them up the stairs, but turned near the top and sat down on the step. He rubbed his forehead; this had to be the worst day of his life. He did not know what was going on; what had happened to Carly; if she was alright. He sighed, and looked up to see some stranger dressed up staring at him.

He ignored them, and inwardly he yelled at himself, for not coming sooner. If anything had happened to Carly he would never forgive himself.

The children outside the gate looked on, worried. The only other two times police tape was around that house, or so the tales said, was when the old mistress and master of the house had died, both on Halloween. They shivered, and hoped the nice lady who always smiled at everyone was alright, as today was also Halloween. Glancing at each other they ran off, decided they would much prefer to be nowhere near here ever again on Halloween.

Parker and Davies were talking in whispers just inside the door. William strained to hear, and was horrified as he heard his most feared words come out of Parker's mouth.
"Young's just told be they've found a body sir. Down in the cellar," she said.
"Ah," Davies said thoughtfully. "Isn't that the same place as the other two deaths in this house?"
"I think you might be right," the woman confirmed, and the two then faced William, who was walking to talk to them.
"Is it Carly?" he breathed, coming to a stop just inside the door. Davies nodded, and William's head dropped.
"We're fairly sure," he added.
"Can I see her?" William asked, his eyes welling up with tears. The other two said nothing, merely walking to the cellar door, and William followed slowly.

The three walked down the stairs, and William caught a glimspe of blood in a mirror. They carried on sadly down, and when William saw his beloved's body in the same mirror, he gasped. His love, all bloody, and obviously dead. Her skin? It was deathly white!
"Ca-Carly!" he choked out, rushing towards her.

"I'd advise you not to touch her sir," the Inspector said, and William pulled back just in time. Silent tears dripped down his face and fell to the floor, mixing with Carly's blood. He knelt down.
"Could you leave me alone with her?" he asked suddenly turning to face them, interrupting the explanation the police were giving him.
"I'm not sure it would be wise to leave you alone down here," Officer Parker said slowly. "But if you like we can go around the corner...?"
"Okay," William breathed, looking back at the dead woman before him. He noticed the bracelet her mother had given her, the one she had lost, on her wrist. So she had found it before she died.
"I'm so sorry, Carly. I should have come the moment you didn't answer my second call," he sobbed quietly, wishing he could touch her, but knowing her could not. "I'm sorry." He could not take it any longer. He stood up, closed his eyes and walked away, not looking back. "Goodbye, Carly," he whispered before her moved to go up the stairs. The police followed.

"Oh my god," William burst out suddenly, tears falling freely down his face. "Wh-what happ-ened to h-her?"
"We not sure, but the post-mortem will probably give us a better idea," Davies explained.
"Right. Why was her skin so... white and, bloody?"
"We don't know. She hasn't been dead all that long, not enough for her skin to go so pale. She's still very warm. And about the blood: it's very strange that. She has no wounds, just has shed a lot of blood. At least, we presume it is her's," he told William. Some people went down into the cellar and a few minutes later carried out the body. William took one last glance at her, and his breath caught.
"Um, lo-look th-th-there you two," Parker stuttered, pointing towards the ceiling above the cellar door. The men slowly looked up.

A man's face was floating in the ceiling, like a ghost. Eyes wide, the three backed up as the face suddenly started booming out in Latin. William only heard bits of it, he was in total shock about Carly's sudden death, and then to see this ghastly face?
"... Nunquam vivo.... iterum. Subsisto cassus.... revolvo of vicis!" The voice contined to rant, but William and the police officers stayed not much longer. They ran out of the door, jumped into the police car waiting for them, and never ventured near there again, silent the whole way to William's house. None of them wanted to relive the horror of the ghost in the ceiling.

The post-mortem would follow, but no one would find anything about the cause of Carly's death, and all there was were links to the Abbott family deaths, and more mysteries to add to Manor House.
Over the years the Manor House tale would be told every Halloween, in nearly every house. There would be varying retellings of it, but the basics would be the same. Everyone would have their different theories for the deaths, some involved a spell book, some were less spooky. Some had the ghostly face, some said it was the three's overactive imagination, some would leave it out altogether. But the stories would become a worldly known and spoken of legend.

William would go into therapy, after his fiance's horrific appearance and the face he would eventually believe was just his mind making things up, to be more scary than they actually were.
No one would ever know the truth, because the only ones who had witnessed anything that had happened believed it actually hadn't. Maybe it had not happened.

Many years later, some historians would want to open the house to the general public, but each time it was declined, as no one wanted to enter the house, else whatever had happened those three nights on Halloween was to strike again.
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Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it. I don't know how spooky this was, but when I was working on it late at night I sure would not have the lights off for a bit after. Then again I had many spooky ideas in my head, and I'm not sure if I made it sound spooky in my writing. I would love to hear your theories about what happened to Carly, maybe it is obvious, but I have loads of different theories myself. Anyway, that is my entry for Halloween 2006! Again, thanks for reading!