Far Horizons: Tales of Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Horror. Issue #20 November 2015 | Page 66

religious man, and the sight of a dead man hanging
on a cross triggered my brittle nerves. However, I
was unprepared for what I saw next. Despite my
logical, upper-class educated brain telling me it was
impossible, I saw her—the ghost—and I couldn’t help
but believe my own two eyes.

“Oh, Devon, sir… I’m sorry, I swear I
wouldn’t lie about such a thing.”
“I’m not saying you’re lying, Melinda,” I
said as I exited my room and began slowly limping
down the large staircase. “I just think there’s more to
this phenomenon. In my experience, there’s always a
logical explanation. One just has to find it.”

The ghost turned to me, showing her pale,
sunken-in face. She was an eerie, hazy image of white
and grey, and she had the expression of someone
who had died in torment. As I stood in shock, I was
instantly hit with a dread I had not felt since the war.

My young maid followed behind me,
intermittently apologizing. It was annoying, but I
was determined to discover the truth of the terrible
sound. Heading for the abbey, I felt the windy and
cold air, for it was the middle of the night in the
season of autumn. Both of us were underdressed for
our midnight excursion, and as we went past the large
trees in the night, I noticed the wailing grew louder,
and my determination grew as well.

After she looked at me, she let out a shrill
scream. It pierced through my very soul.
“Run!” yelled Melinda as she grabbed onto the
right arm of my robe. “She doesn’t want us here! We
need to go!”

“How can anyone deal with this?” I
rhetorically asked as I entered through the stony doors
of the church.

I could not think. I could not move. The ghost
had locked on to my eyes, and my already wobbly right
foot refused to function.

It was pitch-black, save for my candelabra.
“Are there other candles we may light?” I asked my
dutiful maid.

Once again, the ghost let out an angry shriek,
and then came right at me. Luckily, my young maid
pulled my arm again, and this time, it was strong
enough to force my legs to move. I found myself
running with her, despite my old injury.

“Yeah,” she replied in a whisper, as if fearing
the wailing woman would hear her. “I’ll go light ‘em.”
As Melinda lit the rest of the room, my eyes
slowly adjusted to the bookcases and shelves of the
church. It was the study area where the monks and
nuns used to read and write. My heart felt a slight bit
lighter as I recalled my days as a youth, reading the
many works of my favourite poets and Greek myths.
The memory was broken, however, when we heard the
screaming once again.
“It’s coming from the west side of the abbey,”
I said as I hurried the best I could toward the location
in question. Hobbling through the halls of the church,
I made my way to where I heard the wailing clearly.
In the candlelight, I barely made out the prayer
room with its large crucifix and stony benches. It
was frightening enough, for I was never much of a

We ran all the way back to the mansion and
shut the large doors tight.
“What the devil is that thing?” I nearly yelled
at Melinda.
“No one really knows, my… I mean, Devon.”
“Is it a woman who died here perhaps? Did
someone die in a terrible manner on the grounds? Has
no one researched this?”
“Well,” said Melinda, still out of breath, “me
mother, God rest her soul, told me when I were young,
that a nun died here a long time ago, and she could
have died in a bad way. I don’t really know though.”

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