The Haunted Castle

The castle had been built upon the site of two separate tragedies. Early in the seventeen century a shipload of French settlers had been slain there and devoured by native Americans. The French had shunned the area ever since. In the eighteen thirties, a slave insurrection had killed forty whites. The negroes were hunted into the swamps and wiped out. The land became a hideout for a few squatters, voodoo priests and minor criminals -- apparently vacant and forgotten.

Ten years after the Civil War had ended, the land was purchased by Ian Mac Neill, a Scotsman who had made millions during the war in munitions and more millions after the war as a railroad tycoon. He married Miss Cecily Stevens of Vicksburg and built the castle to be one of the family homes. Many indigent rebel soldiers and displaced former slaves found work building and maintaining the castle which became known as “Mac Neill's Folly”.

Chapter one:

Alex stared across the lawn into the sycamore and cypress woods. People or creatures moved within the woods, shadows framed for an instant by branches. Unable to distinguish whether the shadows were people or something else, and sure they were not approaching the castle, he returned to bed. When he awoke, the incident seemed to have been merely a dream brought on by the strange maunderings of his patient and the weirdness of his surroundings.

Alexander Lucien A.K.A. Lucien Edwards, a former medical student, now an amiable and handsome con artist, had just lost his shirt in the stock market crash. Leaving New York and his creditors, he had answered an ad for a young doctor to care for a wealthy and elderly man in Louisiana. His forged medical degree and letters of recommendation had been accepted without question. Alex got the impression that there were no other applicants for the position and that his employers were desperate to find anyone willing to take the position. Alex knew nothing of the cursed history of the lands upon which the Mac Neill family had built their castle. If he had known, he would have simply laughed.

In his mind was a plan to stay at the castle until his creditors and the police in New York ceased looking for him, and then to leave with a considerable portion of his patient's wealth.

Mac Neill's Folly stood along on a patch of higher ground about a mile from the river. The traveler first reached a tiny settlement consisting of a dozen houses, a tavern, and a combination livery stable and auto repair garage. There he found his two seat sports car, bought but never paid for, that he had shipped south. The villagers were the descendents of the rebel soldiers who had come to work for Ian Mac Neill when the castle was built.

Further out of town dwelt the descendents of freed slaves who also worked there. Out in the swamps the squatters, who had been evicted from the better ground, lived out their lives with mosquitoes, alligators, voodoo and moonshine.

The squatters hated the negroes who had taken over their cabins. Both groups hated the white villagers who lived in comfortable cottages with indoor plumbing. Only the voodoo priests and their followers in the swamp hated the Mac Neill family. So far, their curses and prayers had had no effect on the family that remained healthy and wealthy.

The family patriarch, riding in a coach with his daughter Anne, had met a band of voodoo worshippers, both whites and blacks, on the road. They had seized the horses, then cast rattlesnakes into the conveyance. An old voodoo priest pronounced a curse upon the entire family, vowing that Baron Samedi, god of the dead, would soon visit the castle in person and take a long overdue revenge for the eviction of the voodoo priests and their followers. Master Robert had drawn his pistol and fired at the priest, but the wild trembling of the coach horses, spooked by the snakes, had spoiled his aim. The voodoo men disappeared back into the swamp.

Robert's heart, never strong, had collapsed along with his mind. His lovely daughter, once the belle of the lands around, had developed a melancholic condition.

Robert's son, named for his grandfather, assumed control of the family estates and finances. He also moved his common law wife and their five year old daughter into the castle, thus defying the unwritten code of the deep south that bastard children should never be acknowledged publicly. The woman, Diana, proved a competent nurse, and the child was a charmer.

Alex parked his car in the stables and met the family. That afternoon he fell in love with mint juleps and the daughter Anne. He administered sedatives to the old master and leeches to drain away excess blood. For Anne he prescribed more exercise, riding in his car and shopping for some new clothes. Both patients appeared to be slightly better after his ministrations. Master Donald was slowly dying of dementia caused by lack of oxygen to the brain. The best doctor in the world could not have saved him. So, Alex's lack of a real medical degree mattered not in the slightest.

Chapter two:

First came a sending of serpents, like unto the plagues of ancient Egypt. They hung in dozens from the rafters and stalls in the livery stable, and all the horses died. Snakes entered every cottage; two children died. The villagers gathered within the tavern and clubbed or shot over two hundred snakes trying to get in. Alex drove the children back to town in his car, making four trips. He also informed the sheriff, who came later with dogs and deputies with shotguns. The dogs all died, two of the deputized townsfolk were bitten and the rest went back to town.

Alex drove Sheriff Anderson out along the back roads to check on the negro workers who lived in hovels scattered along the back roads. They found four families dead of snake bite, and the others had vanished.

Alex drove to the road's end at the beginning of the swamp. All was quiet except for the splash of a ‘gator scared by the motor. “If there were some drums beating far off in the swamp,” remarked the sheriff, “this would be just like a story out of one of those pulp magazines.”

“ I read a story in Weird Tales,” Alex responded. “In that story the voodoo princess calls up drowned men out of the water to do her killing. Hope you've got silver bullets for that forty five sheriff”. They walked a short ways into the swamp without seeing anything out of the ordinary, then turned back when the water started to get deep and muddy. There were snakes in the sports car when they returned.

In the swamps that night, creatures were created. The voodoo priests placed five of their strongest followers under hypnosis so deep that many doctors would have pronounced them dead. When they awakened they were told that they had been summoned back from the grave. Given the black drink (nothing more than blood and gun powder mixed) they were sent to do murder.

Chapter three:

The Mac Neill family had hired guards from the county chain gang, rough burly men used to enforcing their will. They were armed with clubs and knives. When the five zombie men appeared, walking slowly out of the trees, the guards attacked, knives aimed for the traditional belly thrust. One guard felt his arms grabbed, his wrists snapped like twigs, and teeth sinking into his throat. He fell, unable to scream since his windpipe had been ripped out. The other guards fought with more success and eventually their knives and clubs destroyed four of the unnaturally strong creatures.

The creature who had ripped open the guard's throat passed into the castle. Inside, it moved with stealth, managing to avoid the wakened people who rushed to see what was happening outside. Finally, it found and entered the master bedroom. Seizing the screaming invalid out of the bed, the creature threw him down the stairs, to fall broken upon the floor of the main hall of the castle. Then the creature turned and saw the little girl watching him.

Snatching up the child, the creature crashed through the bedroom windows to land upon the lawn. Seemingly unhurt, it tucked the child under one arm and ran off towards the swamps.

--

Troops from the Louisiana militia searched the swamp for weeks. A dozen squatters were arrested and questioned. Part of her night gown and a bandana such as her abductor wore were found near a ‘gator hole. No trace of the little girl was ever found.

Alex and Anne eventually married and moved to California, where he opened a lucrative practice in cosmetic surgery. He died off Guadalcanal when the hospital ship on which he served was shelled by a heavy cruiser.

Ian Mac Neill and his wife moved to Vicksburg, but never stopped searching for their daughter. They had two other children, a boy and a girl, but never stopped grieving for their first born.

The haunted castle was leased to a New Jersey hunt club whose members flew in for hunting and fishing. None of the club members ever experienced anything paranormal during their stays in the castle.

Yet there persist unconfirmed rumors of a white voodoo princess being raised in the swamps by an old voodoo priest, who is teaching her the darkest secrets.

The End.