Full Disclosure

The young, hip couple from L.A. made an offer on the quaint tudor. Christa told her boss she would handle the inspection.

Kendra Evans was the picture of wealthy bohemian chic. A cashmere cardigan slouched across her delicate shoulders. Leggings hugged yoga-toned legs, UGG boots skimmed her calves. Weston Evans wore skinny jeans and shiny wingtips. A tweed vest over his white button down with the sleeves rolled up screamed retro, as did that ridiculous beard.

"We're not actually living in the 1800's, fool", Christa murmured under her breath. Instantly guilt washed over her.

The pair gushed over the house's antique trimmings. "I heard the basement was used to hide escaped slaves!" chirped Mrs. Evans.

"Yes, that's right! This house is very well known for its place in history. In fact, it was a young couple, Richard and Marjorie Talbot, who smuggled the slaves into the house from the plantations."

Newspapers of the day reported the discovery of a dozen bodies buried underneath the earthen floor of the basement after the Talbots disappeared. No one knew for sure what happened to the Talbots or the identities of the bodies buried there, but rumors passed from generation to generation that the wealthy owners were preying upon those souls longing for freedom to whom they offered refuge, only to make them suffer in the hell of that basement.

Christa wanted to tell them the whole story, but her boss would kill her if she scared them off. No one who had bought it in the past stayed there long. Christa had seen people leaving in the middle of the night, she'd seen some who had been physically removed from the property by banks and legal institutions after they became unfit to function independently. A few had never been accounted for at all. In all instances, Christa Jones had been reluctant to help sell that house from the start.

"I heard something about it being haunted? Rumors of bodies in the basement back in the day?" Mr. Evans' face was innocent query.

"Oh yeah, gossip spreads like fungus around here. Every small town needs a haunted house or it would be a boring place to live, right?" They all had a good laugh.

"You're totally going to hell," she hissed to herself.

Paperwork was signed and the Evans couple thanked her. Christa mused at how the basement gave no indication of the horrors it had witnessed. In a way, she wished it had.

The couple made the house their home, renovating and landscaping. It wasn't long before the problems began.

The neighbors called the police about the screaming and crashing coming from the house late at night. Maybe they had been fighting? Maybe there was abuse? The Evanses always said nothing was wrong, the neighbors must've been hearing things.

Kendra Evans' sister, Margot, would file a police report because she was concerned about the deteriorating nature of her sister's marriage and her behavior. She couldn't recall exactly why or when they began fighting, or where they went when one of them stormed from the house in a rage. The only thing she could say is that it was extremely out of character for both of them.

The old timers of the village knew what was happening of course, they'd seen it all before. They knew the tortured wails emanating from the house may have come from inside the bodies of the Evans couple, but they belonged to the Talbots. It's said because of the abominations they had committed so long ago, they were prisoners of the house long after their deaths, cursed to be held eternally there by the souls they had stolen.

The old timers also weren't surprised when Weston Evans was seen one stormy night nude, bleeding and furiously digging around the ancient oak tree in the backyard. They weren't shocked when Kendra Evans took to wandering aimlessly around town in the middle of the night, muttering. When a concerned neighbor woman stopped her to ask if she was okay, Kendra looked at her blankly and uttered: "They have to go in pieces. They have to go everywhere or they'll come back every time. He'll come and take your head to display in his trophy cabinet," she paused and smiled a dreamy smile, "You know how proud these men can be."

The woman backed away slowly and called the police. By the time they arrived, Mrs. Evans had come to her senses. She said she was prone to sleepwalking, and she would put new locks on the doors first thing in the morning. She was sorry for the inconvenience. As the officer gave her a ride home, Kendra Evans smiled over her shoulder at her concerned neighbor.

The old woman would later say that when she saw this smile, her blood ran ice-water cold and she couldn't move. She swore the wretched girl's teeth were sharpened to fangs, and that the girl's orange fiery eyes burned into hers. Eyes that were angry and full of malice.

As things disintegrated in that house, the Evans' extended family started to come around to help out. There were no more nocturnal wanderings, but still noises emerged from the stately structure at all hours of the night. The Evans couple had a revolving cast of family, friends, then eventually home care workers come to tend to the couple who had been officially declared mentally ill, yet somehow barely managed to function well enough to keep the house. Just well enough.

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Roughly three years after the sale of the house to the Evans couple, Christa Jones saw the article in the paper. The young couple were found dead in the basement in what had apparently been a murder/suicide.

Off the record, word was that Mrs. Evans had been found hacked to pieces with a hatchet. Mr. Evans suffered a shotgun blast to the head. There was barely anything left of either of them.

"I'm retiring. Today." Christa declared with a sigh into her morning coffee.

(Word Count: 996)