• Jonathan Gardener stood in front of the old bed and breakfast hotel clutching a briefcase to his chest. He held his coat tightly around him as the cold December wind cut through the black cloth. A small wooden sign that said “Orlane Manor” in faded letters, groaned quietly on rusty hinges. The building was a menacing figure that stood within the chaos of the Manhattan streets. John stepped up to the heavy steel door and knocked.

    “Hello Mr. Gardener, we have been expecting you.” A tall, lean man answered the door and waved John into the foyer. “We have you reserved for room seven on the second floor, I’ll take your bags and lead you to your room.” The butler reached over to take the briefcase from John, but he refused to let it go.

    “No, no sir, I’ll be fine. Just lead me to the room please?”

    The butler looked questionably at the briefcase wielding man. “As you wish sir.”

    As Jonathan was led to his room he caught glimpses of the rest of the manor. Rooms one through five were on the lower floor and none of the black carved doors were open, nor showed any sign of people housed there. The stair leading to the second floor was made of creaking, wooden boards with an intricately designed iron banister winding upwards. The top floor was much the same as the lower but the door across from his own was ajar. John caught a glimpse of and old man sitting in a chair just staring through him. He blinked and instantly the man was gone. Shaking it off he went into the open door offered by the impatient butler.

    Jonathan turned to the butler, as he was about to leave the room and said:

    “Sir, is this place possibly haunted?”

    The butler looked confused. “No, this manor has been a bed and breakfast always and no one has died here to my knowledge.” He shook his head at John’s inquisition to the possibility of apparitions housed in the manor. “Why do you ask?”

    “Oh it’s nothing. I think I may have been spooked by the other residents.”

    “Sir, there are no other people here tonight.” With that, the butler turned and shut the door as he left.

    With his briefcase safely packed away in the closet, Jonathan settled down to sleep. He was roused by a soft thud outside of his door. His sleep disturbed, he threw aside the covers and went to the door to investigate. Slowly easing the door open, he poked his head out the door and looked down the hallway as a small red ball slowly bounced towards him. It made a taunting pulsing sound as it came closer to him and he began to feel anxiety. The ball’s owner was a small child, a girl. She sat at the end of the hallway opposite of his door. She was clad in yellow pajamas decorated with little daisies. Long blond hair splayed out behind her defying all rules of gravity. Despite the cheery look of the girl, she was terribly haunting. What terrified Jonathan the most was her eyes…or the absence there of.

    Where her eyes should’ve been, were just empty sockets gaping at him. She gestured to her eyes and back at him.

    “Oh…oh…my god…” Jonathan croaked. He flew back into his room and locked the door. Hands pressed firmly against the wooden door he waited, desperately trying to even out his erratic breath. When he was finally sure that the little girl wasn’t going to bust through the door, he collapsed into a heap with his back against the cold wood. His breathing finally slowed and he touched a shaking hand to his brow.

    “What, what was that about?” He said tentatively, “It… couldn’t be… could it?” He glanced at the door of his closet where the briefcase lie, mocking him. “No.”

    Dismissing the events that just happened he crawled into his bed and pulled the covers over his head like a scared little child. He lied there for some time and eventually was lulled off to sleep.

    He awoke again in the dead of the night.

    The sound of a broom bristle being dragged across a wooden floor had wakened him up from his fitful sleep. Reluctantly he slowly ventured to the door, pausing as he reached for the doorknob. What lies right across the threshold of the sturdy, protecting door? Letting his curiosity get the better of him he pushed the door open and stepped into the hallway, to be surprised yet again by another ethereal encounter.

    A woman stood at a window at the far end of the hallway. She was looking out at the night sky with the moon shining brightly down on her, yet no shadow was cast onto the wooden planks behind her.

    To her side was a broom. Jonathan slowly crept along the wall until he could see the shaft clearly. Just as he had suspected, it was covered in dried blood all the way down to its bristles. He shivered and hugged himself as he looked back towards the woman.

    She was clearly the mother of the little girl he had seen earlier. She also had long blonde hair and she was a splitting image of the child, just older. Sensing Jonathan’s presence she looked towards the terrified man and took a step forward. Fear washed over him and he was frozen in his tracks.

    You… She whispered in an ethereal, wispy voice. Her eyes, like the child’s, were empty sockets. But hers were bloody and seemed freshly cut out. Faded outstretched hands reached for his throat as if she were blind. Jonathan stood there in terror, gaping at the oncoming apparition. As her hands passed through his throat, she’s a ghost mind you, he felt so cold, that he could’ve been convinced that hell froze over. That was his cue. He jumped back from the ghost of the woman and ran away as fast as he could teetering dangerously at the top of the stairs before jumping down three at a time. At the foot of the steps he ran through a freezing cloud and swiveled around in his steps. Looking at the ‘cloud’ behind him, he discovered a shape of a man hovering by the banister.

    It was the husband and father of the other two ghosts.

    Jonathan fell to the ground in an effort to back away from the third ghost. A glimpse of white spirit showed at the corner of his eye and he found the grandfather he had seen earlier. Both the father and the old man were eyeless as well, groping madly at Jonathan’s awe-stricken form.

    Jonathan began to scream.

    Hearing the bone shattering screams from the foyer, the butler roused from his bed to sleepily investigate. He was struck awake by the sight before him.

    There, on the ground below the stairs, was the man he had let into the manor that evening. Jonathan. He was shrieking and rocking back and forth, seemingly teetering on the edge of insanity. The man was jabbing the air with his finger, as if he was trying to point out something.

    “You! You stay away from me! Don’t kill me!” He threw a fleeting glance at the butler and began to stammer, “Help… help me! They’re going to kill me!”

    The butler was clearly confused and flustered. He had no clue what the crazed man was talking about.

    “There is no one in this room! What are you talking about?” He rushed over to the now sobbing man to try to calm him down. “Tell me…what’s going on?”

    Jonathan threw his hands up trying to avoid the butler’s comfort. He resumed sobbing and spearing the air with his finger.

    “The ghosts! T-t-they’re going to kill me! The whole family…. missing…eyes… help me!”

    “Sir…sir! You are talking crazy!” He’s going insane, he thought, I should’ve never let him in the manor! “Sir! I’ll take you to a safe place, where they’ll take care of you. You’re not going to get killed!”

    “No! They’re here! In this room!”

    “I don’t see anyone! There is no one here!” He grasped the flailing man’s arm in an attempt to settle him down, but that was a grave mistake.

    “I’m not insane…they are here!”

    The butler choked and blood spurted from his mouth raining upon the man below him. A knife was planted in his stomach and its owner was Jonathan.

    “Leave me alone!” He said as he bore the knife deeper. The butler thumped to the ground, his eyes lifeless and cold.

    Jonathan…what have you done?!

    He frantically looked back up at the threatening ghosts, and fled out the door.

    Next Evening- CSI- Orlane Manor (After the ordeal)

    Devon Summers, CSI investigator, led his team of detectives up the stairs after inspecting the body of a murdered butler. He had obtained a search warrant to look for evidence of the suspect. Before opening the door to room seven his foot knock against a broom lying on the ground. Examining it closely he noticed the bloodstains and winced as he handed it over to the evidence investigator. Back to his work, he nudged the door inside and walked into the semi-normal room. Everything seemed normal except for the askew covers on the bed and the closet door was left slightly ajar. A weird feeling crept up the cop’s neck.

    “There’s got to be something in there.” He pointed to the open closet, “I can feel it.” He slowly pushed the door aside with a boot, his gun at ready. With the door wide open and nothing jumping out at him he bent over to unlock a briefcase lying on the ground in the closet. What he saw practically knocked the breath out of him.

    Four pairs of human eyeballs neatly wrapped in separate plastic baggies sat cushioned in ripped newspaper. On top of it all was a bloody penknife, with freshly dried blood on it.

    “Oh. My. God.” Devon whispered. “He has murdered more”