Free Rhayven House by Frank Bittinger Page A

set up.
         No, he loved living in the old house, surrounded by the woods and the peace and quiet. It would take more than what could have been nothing more than an errant shadow or a trick of the eye to make him paranoid or to make him move out. Not after only one night.
         Now if the place turned out to be another Amityville, then he'd pack up his stuff and head for the hills. But on second thought, as far as Ian was concerned, Amityville was a big old fraud perpetuated by greed so he changed his mind about using that as an example. He tapped the eraser-end of the pencil against his teeth and tried to come up with a better scenario.
         The Borghese family mansion up in Meyersdale, PA, was a perfect example and it was only a forty-five minute drive away. That's a story Ian could use as a basis for a great haunted house books. The mystery claims the whole immediate family—father, mother, two sons, and a daughter— went missing way back in 1899 and no one knew anything about what had happened to them. They simply vanished one day. The ensuing investigation went nowhere. Nothing had been taken from the house—no furniture, clothes, or other personal items such as pictures—to indicate the family had suddenly packed up and moved away. Bank accounts weren't touched in the weeks that followed, not even in the following years. No secret graves were uncovered on the property or in the surrounding area.
         With no evidence to suspect any sort of foul play, law enforcement at the time had no choice but to list the family as missing and, as far as Ian knew, it remained an open case. A cold case.
         He thought about the old Borghese mansion and it's now-crumbling brick walls overgrown with climbing vines and ivy clinging to the house, shrouded by large trees and standing abandoned, bearing mute testimony to whatever happened to the family one night over a century ago. A strange mystery.
         No one ever moved in after the Borghese family vanished without a trace. Ian did a quick search online and couldn't find any listings for the property ever having been on the market after the family went missing. Personal items   like pictures still hung on the walls, clothes still in closets and drawers. All silently disintegrating as time ticked on, until more than a century had passed.
         Looming as an omen, telling the world no one was safe, not even in their own home, the mansion wasted away quietly and matter-of-factly.
         People in town swear they still see the faces of Borghese family members staring out the windows from time to time, even in broad daylight. And a lovely singing voice has been known to come floating upon the air some days. Lights have been seen flickering in the house.
         Ian made a note to start researching the case and to take a drive up to Meyersdale, if only to take pictures for his own inspiration.
         The whole thing was not only strange, it was unsettling. Somebody, somewhere had to know something or be involved somehow.
         It made Ian wonder. If a disappearance like it happened today, an entire family mysteriously vanishing overnight, would the case remain unsolved for well over a century? Probably not in the day and age of such forensic technology. There most likely had been trace evidence in the case of the Borgheses, but the law enforcement officials of the time understandably lacked the necessary forensic technology to gather it.
         Unless the whole town had been in on it, like in Ira Levin's Rosemary's Baby —a plot to get rid of the one family. But for what purpose? The evidence, if it was to be believed, stated none of the bank accounts were ever touched and money would have been one hell of a motive or incentive, depending upon how you looked at it.
         Yawning, he decided he needed caffeine. The lack of sleep, coupled with being awake at a time he normally never saw, made him feel heavy and fuzzy. He might break his