‘The Stay At Darkwood Manor’ by Eva, Year Seven

I’ve only stayed in Darkwood throughout my childhood once. We had gone through some of our family’s heirlooms and history to find that most of our ancestors were citizens of Darkwood since birth, causing us to go find out more about them. It was an eerie and spine chilling village, where every person kept to themself and was very scarce. After approximately 15 to 20 years, I had returned – without my mother and step father as they were sadly deceased – due to an advertisement offering nearly £20,000 to stay the night at a place called Darkwood Manor. It was meant to be on the outskirts of Darkwood, but I had never seen it before in my life; I could only assume it was hidden by the trees from passers by on the road. 

A week later, the landlord arranged a meeting at the Dark Cedar Inn. What happens at the meeting, I knew, would be my fate.  I was already debating if I should have done this.

Mr Brown, the creepy, old man who has owned Darkwood Manor all those years before, was looking for somebody to stay overnight. It seemed everyone knew of him but not about him. There was something that felt … wrong about him and the house, like something had occured there but no one knew. It also felt like something was hiding inside, something strange, something paranormal, something unable to be explained. 

“What happened at Darkwood Manor?” I asked a couple of people. The answer was the exact same every single time I asked. 

“Nothing.”

That’s what they all said to me. Every time they said it, their faces went red and they ran away, implying that they had been lying each time they told me…

At the meeting in the Dark Cedar Inn, I eventually gathered up all the courage I could muster to ask Mr Brown. 

“Has anything… happened at Darkwood Manor before?”  he replied after ruminating for a while.

“Indubitably not. Where on earth would you get that thought from?”

“Nevermind. I’ll take your offer.”

All he said was: “Good.”  And then, he got up and left the weird, cramped building.

Whilst walking up towards Darkwood Manor, I realised it had an ominous aura surrounding it. It was weird. Really, really weird…  

I had not entered one room in particular. The room looked warm but felt malignantly cold. I tried to relax, although I could not forget the things I had already seen like the doll laid on a pouffe in one of the bedrooms. I wasn’t sure whether I was really going to immerse myself in any more of these terrors. I could feel my eyes growing heavy. I started to drift off to sleep. 

But as the dusty, grandfather clock struck three AM, I heard something that seemed to be coming from the  depths of the ‘haunted’ house. At first, it was a slow, faint knocking that built up to a heavy, repetitive thud. I sat bolt upright and realised that the noise seemed to be getting closer and louder as if it was a lusus naturae coming for me.  Fear washed over me. 

Just then, a large amount of heat came from the kitchen area and one of the 37 bedrooms in the manor, causing me to become intrigued and walk down the creaking floorboards and down the stairs covered in thin, ragged fabric. I felt a mysterious atmosphere surrounding the hallways scattered around the building as I cautiously got closer and closer to the kitchen.

Then, it happened. A doll, with black pits for eyes, crying blood and oil mixed together materialised from the roaring, flickering flames slowly rising each and every second. She looked ready to kill. Kill me…

I quickly made the decision to jump out the broken window, always looking behind me making sure the girl wasn’t following me. I thought to myself:   

“Oh, there’s a shed there with a blanket and sofa, I should try to sleep on that.” 

I got two hours of restless sleep before going back to the Dark Cedar Inn which was at least three miles away, causing me to get there at exactly 8:25 am to ask the crippled bartender:

“Where’s Mr Brown?” 

He could only reply with:

“Gone… he.. he’s gone,” before somebody broke the news to me. 

“Turns out, he died yesterday evening exactly two hours after your little arrangement you had together.” 

So I got up and left. I decided to go back to Darkwood Manor but there was only a small estate house. There was nothing to be seen of the Manor itself. It was like it had never existed.

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                 Featured image by Michal GADEK on Unsplash