Alice had found adventure before through the local free newspaper which was, much to her distaste, pushed through the letter box of her neat and tidy suburban townhouse on Thursday each week.
Unrequested, it landed on her spotless polished wood floor and invaded her domestic world. With lips pursed in disapproval, she would primp her tightly curled fair hair and toss it straight into the bin.
This week, however, Alice was feeling restless. John, her husband, was preoccupied with his work at the Bank and the local Rifle Club hadn't met for weeks. She needed something to make her pulse beat faster and newspapers had opened the door to adventure for her in the past.
It was an advert in the free newspaper for a job with the possibility of personal danger that had led to weeks of exciting travel, social excursions and some very nice deposits into her bank.
When she replied to an advert for a fidelity investigation agency, romance had reared it's intriguing head. Memories of the hotel swimming pool still made her tingle.
An item purchased from a new shop in the high street, advertised in the free newspaper, had not only brought great discomfort to some unwanted visitors but also put a smile on the face of her husband for which Alice had been justly rewarded.
Adventure had found Alice in other ways too. She still had a very special photo stored in a secret place on her computer, received from a rather scurrilous forgotten flame that still gave her goose bumps.
But it was the headline of a national newspaper that led her to investigate the death of her school friend, Estelle, perhaps her greatest adventure to date. She still shuddered at the thought of how Estelle died at the hands of that tight knit West Country rural community.
The free newspaper duly arrived and Alice seated her diminutive figure at the kitchen table of her three bedroom townhouse - and read on.
One advert immediately caught her attention.Romance, adventure, thrills and spills
the advertisement proclaimed.
The front door bell rang, suddenly, making Alice jump.
She dealt with the door to door salesman without discussion. Her thin high voice very firm.
"Not interested. Thank you. Goodbye!"
But the advert had made her edgy. So she brewed up a cup of tea to delay finding out more. Perhaps the whole idea of an adventure was really silly. After all, the world was a very bad place populated by some very dangerous people. Adventures were fun, but only after they were over and life had returned back to normality and safety.
But she knew in her heart that a dash of excitement ultimately made the security she valued so much even more appealing.
So she read on.
Join your local Writers Circle and you can share in the exciting stories and experiences of other authors. Make new friends and improve your skills as a writer.
"Oh!" thought Alice. Second hand adventure was not really what she'd expected. However, the Writers Group was meeting that lunchtime.
"Why not?" thought Alice. "Perhaps I'll go along and say hello. I could write about some of my personal experiences - but I'd probably have to tone them down a bit to make them believable.
It was a bit of a rush but, an hour later, Alice was seated in a very draughty local Church Hall, surrounded by several very earnest amateur writers, each clutching a story which they proceeded to read out. Each story brought brief applause and then some discussion about the characters, how the plot flowed and how it could be improved.
Alice had never before realised that the process of creative writing was so painstaking. However, she found she liked the precision. Everything about a story had to add up. It had to be neatly finished with all the threads resolved, even the twist in the tail. This appealed to Alice who liked her life to be that way too.
However, there was one story that an author, called Caroline, admitted was unfinished. Indeed, she'd brought it to the creative writing group in the hope of getting some pointers about how the mystery in the story could be resolved.
Intriguingly, it was also a true story and it was quite scary. It turned out that Caroline had recently bought a house locally to be used as a foster home but, after she'd moved in, strange things started to happen. Late in the night, and well after midnight, knocking and other strange noises could be heard downstairs, as she tried to sleep in her bedroom.
She'd called in a medium and the medium had described scenes of horror and carnage that had taken place in different rooms so that Caroline could hardly dare go back into her home again. She certainly couldn't bring vulnerable foster children to live in the house.
Things then became even worse with strange intermittent noxious smells occurring in many of the rooms.
It wasn't as if Caroline was of a nervous disposition. She came from a farming background, had a ruddy face, was a member of the local Equestrian Club who had done very well at the National Horse Trials, and, in contrast to Alice's diminutive frame, was well built, hale and hearty.
Yet, when she recounted the events in her new house, she completely broke down in tears. Her dismay was deepened when the writing group were not able to make any suggestions about how to 'solve the mystery'.
Alice hadn't liked to speak out at the meeting. At heart she was very shy, but she made sure she approached Caroline afterwards.
"I'd like to visit your house," said Alice abruptly, in her clipped quiet voice. "It's such a shame that you've had such bad experiences. It's a lovely area. I particularly like how the flowering trees come out each spring all along your street and your large garden is very much a rarity these days around here."
"It would be my pleasure," sniffed Caroline, who was still tearful. "I bought the house because of the garden. It was always my dream to grow organic vegetables and take part in competitions. The Horticultural Society here is particularly strong and I'm desperate to pit my green fingers against theirs. Also the front living room has space for my grand piano and I'm not likely to offend the neighbours because the house is so detached. My dream is to foster some kids and the bedrooms up stairs and large grounds are ideal. I love the Victorian elegance too and the large Victorian greenhouse at the end of the garden adjoining the road is a perfect quiet place for my passion of writing. It's all so ideal. I fell in love with the house as soon as I saw it. To me, the price didn't matter. It was my dream home and now my dream seems shattered."
"You know," said Alice, with a far away look in her eye. "I think your dream may yet come true!"
"But first I need to be able to talk to the medium to hear about the scary events in your house, first hand."
Caroline promised Alice she would drop by later with the leaflet that contained the medium's contact details.
A week later, Alice checked the newly delivered free newspaper and smiled when she saw a particular advertisement with a post office box address.
After a further week, she visited Caroline in her home, taking with her a herbalist friend from the Rifle Club and a number of letters.
A further week later another advertisement appeared in the local free paper announcing a writers circle party to be held at Caroline's house two days later to celebrate a successful exorcism of spirits by pagan ritual.
The following week, the free newspaper ran an editorial
Property Development Skulduggery Exposed.
A local property developer and his wife were discovered lurking in the bushes of a house which they had been trying to persuade the new owner was haunted so they could develop the land.
Their attempt at fraud was discovered by members of the Equestrian Club and the Creative Writing Circle who lay in wait and caught them red handed.
It is understood that a substantial payment has been made to the owner of the house by way of compensation for injury caused.
Six months later, Alice and her new friends at the Creative Writing Circle were enjoying the opening of their new Creative Writing Club premises in Caroline's newly refurbished old Victorian greenhouse. Everybody agreed the new club premises, paid for by the Property Developer, were hugely better than the draughty old church hall.
Caroline's eyes were brimming but her face was smiling as she passed to Alice a certificate making Alice an honorary member of the writing circle for life.
"I really don't know how you worked it all out, Alice, and so quickly."
Alice smiled as she accepted the certificate. It would look nice on her mantelpiece.
"It was quite easy," she said tranquilly.
"It was obvious that the land with this property was ripe for development. All we had to do was to find out who had been disappointed because of Caroline's love of this house and her willingness to pay any price."
"When we published the first advertisement offering the land for sale privately, the Property Developer was forced to show his interest. Once we had a name, we could do more checking. When we compared his address and telephone number with that of the medium and found it was the same, the case was pretty well proved."
"It was obvious that Caroline was the only person ever to receive a leaflet through her door advertising this medium's services. However it was also interesting that the Property Developer's wife ran an aromatherapy business and had access to a variety of scents."
"It turned out that the smells in the house always happened in the hours after visits by the medium. My herbalist friend at the Rifle Club was even able to identify the chemicals and products used to create the smells."
"Hiding in the garden and banging on windows in the dead of night were an easy way for the Developer to scare Caroline, when she was alone in the house."
"The celebration party in the second advertisement in the free newspaper was an easy way for us to tempt the Developer to try one last time to scare Caroline out of the house before her foster children arrived."
The presentation was rounded off by one of Caroline's foster children who made a speech thanking Alice for saving their new home.
As Alice walked home, she resolved to commit this adventure to a short story or flash fiction of her very own."
"It was all so neatly wrapped up with no loose ends, and, for all the good people, it had a really happy ending!"
The End
Rob Hopcott
(On-line author - fiction - news)
Copyright Rob Hopcott 2007. All characters in this haunted house mystery short story and other free on-line short stories, flash fictions, micro-fictions or short short stories on this site are fictitious and no reference is intended to any person living or otherwise.
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