205 – Caroline

THE ACREAGE

By

Gerry Chadwick

Part 2: The Feud and the Flashlight

205 – Caroline

Caroline knew she was in trouble, that’s why she had fallen back into her old ways and had gone out drinking. She threw her last handful of bills at the cab driver, she didn’t care if it was enough, then almost fell out of the vehicle and stumble towards the east entrance of the Acreage.

She was hoping to get in and up to her room without anyone seeing the state she was in but that hope was dashed the very moment she entered the building because someone came in through the west door at the same time. Caroline just kept her head down and took the immediate left turn to negotiate the stairs.

Eventually she stumbled into her apartment, closed the door and leaned against it. She was breathing heavily.

After a few moments to recover she pushed off from the door, kicked off her shoes and wandered into the bedroom, perching on the edge of her bed she stared into the distance. This was bad, it had all gone too far and it had only started a few days ago during a conversation with the woman downstairs.

She had never spoken to her before, but, when they did speak, Caroline discovered that the woman knew more about her past than she was happy with.

Caroline was a medium, not a fake, not a con or charlatan, an actual medium. She could and did communicate with the dead. Her mother had “the Gift” too and her Gran, so she had been told. But neither of those women had been as powerful and effective as Caroline.

Her mother had coached and encouraged her up until she was sixteen, then realising her potential, she began to use her in the séances she held for paying clients.

At first it worked well, she would contact the departed loved ones and relay messages and the customers would go away happy. Then, one evening, she was in a séance for a female client of her mothers. The woman had brought her new boyfriend along and everything had been going well until, strangely, she was confronted by an apparition.

It was a woman in an expensive evening dress who pointed a finger at the boyfriend and said,

“Why did you kill me?” before disappearing up through the ceiling.

The young woman was so shocked that she lost all contact and claimed that she couldn’t go on, feigning a migraine.

Her mother had been furious because they didn’t get paid, Caroline had gone to her bedroom and searched the boyfriend on-line. She discovered that his previous wife had died by suicide four years earlier and, for a while, suspicion had fallen on the husband, now the customers new boyfriend. He had eventually admitted that he had an alibi, he had been with his mistress and she backed up his story. He said he had not mentioned it straight away to avoid the embarrassment, well, that hadn’t worked!

But now the medium knew better, or so the apparition said. However, she could do nothing, the police certainly wouldn’t follow up on information supplied by a sixteen-year-old girl saying “He did it, his wife’s ghost told me” so she stayed quiet and the woman never returned.

After that her problems only got worse and an increasing number of her séances were interrupted by apparitions who came through to accuse people of crimes. Murder, robbery, fraud, rape, all kinds of things. The person who had committed the crime didn’t even need to be present, a flood gate had been opened and she couldn’t close it again.

The young woman struggled badly for a while, her mother took over the main duties again and they lost customers as a result. Caroline’s nerves continued to suffer as, now, some apparitions would appear in the night, disrupting her sleep and terrifying her. She was prescribed sleeping pills by her doctor, which helped for a while, but eventually, the spirits would break through.

So she began to mix alcohol with the pills, she was eighteen by then, this helped although it wasn’t the best cure. Eventually Caroline overdid it one night and was admitted to hospital, at that point her mother requested that she receive psychiatric help. Caroline had agreed to this and, with treatment and medication, she wound up at the Acreage.

But now trouble had found her again. She felt sorry for the woman downstairs, she knew there was no way she would reach her husband using candles, mirrors and dope. Unless a real Medium helped her.

Over the next few days she had reduced her medication and then, one evening, had relaxed on her sofa and cautiously opened her mind to the spirit world. She figured that if she could make contact with the husband of the lady downstairs, maybe she could direct it to her, Caroline closed her eyes.

She opened them again when she heard voices, it definitely wasn’t the husband. It wasn’t her room anymore either, she looked around. She was still on what looked like a sofa, in what was obviously a living room, but there was a fireplace and windows to her left and the curtains were drawn.

The voice she could hear was that of a woman, she was seated in a high-backed chair, speaking to a man who was leaning against the mantle whilst smoking a pipe. Their clothes fascinated her, they looked like they were from a period drama. The lady was wearing a scarlet, crinoline dress and the man wore a dark blue frock coat, a high collar shirt and slightly lighter blue trousers. The woman spoke again.

“But your brother cannot decide what happens on this property Michael, it was left to you in your father will”

“Indeed” agreed the man while relighting his pipe with a taper, “But we know where his leanings lie” he puffed, “So we must be very careful, he could easily stir up trouble for us”

“Then we must ensure that our guests continue their journey as soon as possible” the woman added.

“Don’t worry my dear” the man smiled at her through a cloud of tobacco smoke as he extinguished the taper, “They will be gone this Wednesday night and then I shall deal with Robert myself”

The man, Michael, had an air of confidence but Caroline could see that his wife did not share it. In a flash the scene vanished and she was back in her own room and on her own sofa. Where had she just been?

That night she slept very fitfully and had nightmares where she was in a gloomy, candlelit place without windows or furniture. There had been other people there too, she couldn’t make out their features, some were lying on the floor, others sat on boxes. She could smell tobacco smoke again too, heard quiet voices. Then there were raised voices from above, gunshots and the sound of footsteps and fear, an overbearing sense of fear.

She awoke the next morning and took her medication, she had decided that the lady downstairs was on her own, she couldn’t take the chance that the bad spirits would return. All day she fretted, worried that her medication wouldn’t be enough. Later that afternoon, she made a decision, it could get her into trouble but she didn’t care.

She took her second dose of medication, put on her shoes and coat, took her spare money out of the coffee jar in the cupboard, caught the first bus downtown and headed for a bar she knew.

Now, here she was, on the edge of her bed, drunk. She lay back and closed her eyes, hopefully she would sleep.

Caroline awoke, she opened her eyes, she wasn’t lying on her bed anymore. She pound herself seated on a porch swing; again she could hear voices nearby.

Looking up, Caroline saw the couple she had visited in her earlier séance state. The man, she remembered his name was Michael, was standing near the porch rail, the woman, whose name Caroline didn’t know, was standing in the doorway.

It was Michael who spoke and Caroline could see that he had an old oil lamp in one hand and a pistol in the other.

“Robert” he said, “Just go home, this house was left to me and what happens under its roof is my business”

Caroline stood and looked out over the rail. On the other side stood four men, all in the same old, period drama clothes she had seen before. Their horses were tied to a rail off to one side, they also seemed to be armed, two with pistols and two with longer guns.

“Rifles or muskets” she wondered.

“If what happens under your roof is the keeping of stolen property” one of the men replied, “Then it is our business, seeing we have been sent to retrieve it”

“Not gonna happen Robert and you know it” Michael replied raising his pistol.

Immediately two of the men with Robert raised their weapons and fired.

Michael fell, hit twice in the chest, his wife screamed and ran to him. Caroline saw three of the men rush up the steps and onto the porch. Robert stood where he was, in shock. Blood ran down his cheek, a wound from the pistol Michael had fired as he fell.

“Stop this!” Caroline cried out but no one took any notice, the woman turned and ran, terrified, into the house as the men approached. Caroline tried to get in their way but the lead man ran right through her.

“Bring him” he snarled, pointing at Michael as he strode into the house, “I’ll deal with the

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Texte: Gerry Chadwick
Bildmaterialien: Gerry Chadwick
Cover: Gerry Chadwick
Lektorat: Gerry Chadwick
Korrektorat: Gerry Chadwick
Satz: Gerry Chadwick
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 05.09.2023
ISBN: 978-3-7554-5199-0

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