Hatchet House...

IT was there again. Of that he was sure. Pale and without shadow, camouflaged against the dimly lit walls of his bedroom.

Jeffrey’s breath was rapid and shallow as he peered through the small window he had shaped from beneath the cover of his duvet.

In the distance he could hear the faint drone of a radio announcer’s voice signalling that his mother was listening to the nightly radio program on ABC.

He wanted to call to her, but what good would it do? She would only do what she had done before: sit by his bed, offer a quiet, comforting word, gently replace his duvet and kiss him goodnight. But when she left, it would still be there, waiting.

So he remained alone in the darkness whilst he quietly felt for his father’s penlight that he kept tucked in his pillowcase. With a flick of his finger, his undercover world lit up, forcing darkness to retreat and allowing his breath to slow. He waited a few moments before once again reaching into his pillowcase, this time it was to retrieve his small black notebook, the one place that of late, he could voice all his fears. Directing his penlight, he opened his diary to the page dated October 5th, 1944. Two short weeks ago. Back when he had been brave, back when he did not fear darkness.

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He should have listened to Fatty Higgins.

Fatty was against going there, but what Fatty had to say didn’t really matter because nobody ever listened to what Fatty said.

Besides, what went on inside Hatchet House two years ago was just gossip. Gossip Jeffrey and his mates Fatty, Jimbo and Eddie reckon was started by Mrs Murphy who ran Murphy’s Meat Market on Johnston Street.

Sure, Hatchet House was one scary place; anyone who was anyone in Point Lonsdale knew that. But the stuff about it being haunted? Well you couldn’t always rely on gossip, which was why Jeffrey and his mates decided it was in everyone’s best interest to get to the bottom of this gossip and investigate.

Huddled amongst the overgrown bushes in the grounds of Hatchet House, Fatty Higgins had drawn the short stick. That meant he had to go in first. He couldn’t argue, as stick picking was the only way to decide who had to do something first. Everyone knew that. Stick picking was stick picking, and rules were rules.

As Jeffrey, Eddie and Jimbo waited in the overgrown weeds in the backyard of the old place on Battery Hill, Fatty Higgins wrestled with an unlocked window beside the kitchen door. Years of non-use had made it stiff, but a few good tugs released it enough for Fatty to squeeze through. The others quickly followed.

In the kitchen of the old home, unwashed dishes lay in wait in the marble sink. On a scarred wooden table in the centre of the room, more dishes lingered, along with mounds of what was once somebody’s dinner.

Throughout the rest of the house, green, velvet curtains covered the windows, turning day into night. Here and there, small shards of light filtered through, creating eerie shadows through the darkened rooms. Yellowed canvas sheets covered old furniture, while blackened logs that were once the heat source of a warm fire, lay forgotten in brick fireplaces.

The boys separated and Jeffrey wandered into what once must have been a library. Rows and rows of dust-encrusted books sat waiting on wooden shelves; some lay open, suggesting they had once been favoured by an unknown reader. He walked across the dusty room to a window covered by another green velvet curtain. Jeffrey slid the curtain to the side, revealing grounds where overgrown weeds had taken residence amongst long dead flowerbeds. Jeffrey slid the curtain to one side bathing the room in late afternoon light, and began to scan the shelves for something he might take home to read. He didn’t think anyone would mind, after all, it wasn’t stealing; he thought of it more as borrowing, besides, nobody was reading them anyway. And judging by the many spider webs that inhabited the same space, they hadn’t been touched, let alone read, for a long time.

Jeffrey selected a thin book, bound in brown paper and a frayed piece of black string tied in a neat bow. Taking his selection, he sat on the overstuffed sofa that waited alone and uncovered in the darkened corner of the room. As he tugged gently on the frayed string to disengage the bow, the string disintegrated into a course powder between Jeffrey's fingers. No longer being bound, the hard cover fell open to a yellowed, completely blank page. He began to flick through the book, yet all the pages were blank. Not one word was written. "Well that's just plain weird," he said aloud to himself. He shrugged his small shoulders before placing the book on the floor. He wiped his hands on his pants, removing the last of the black dust and began to rise from the couch to find another, more interesting book.

"Jeffrey, where are you?" Fatty Higgins yelled from the hallway.

"In here Fatty,” Jeffrey replied.

"Hey, you deaf or something," he said slapping Jeffrey across the head with his hand, “we’ve been looking for you for ages.”

“What are you talking about Fatty, I’ve only been in here for a few minutes.”

“Jeffrey, who are you kidding? Me, Jimbo and Eddie have been searching the whole house, we even looked in here. But you weren’t here. Come on we gotta go, it’s near 5 and if I’m not home for supper, Ma will be mighty angry.”

Jeffrey began to argue, but Fatty just laughed and told Jeffrey he was just doing what Jeffrey always did. Tell stories. Fatty started saying he was hungry and time to go, just as Jimbo and Eddie entered the room.

“Ah you found him,” Jimbo and Eddie said in unison.

Jeffrey opened his mouth to speak, but something felt strange, something wasn’t right. Something was here with them. And as of right then, at that very moment, all he wanted to do was run, run far away from Hatchet House.

Once home, Jeffrey tried to explain to Mother what had happened, but she waved him off before she placed a big piece of freshly baked chocolate cake, smothered in freshly whipped cream in front of him.

"Come on, eat that up, you know how those boys love to play jokes on you and besides, you know you boys shouldn’t be poking around in that old place," she said.

But everything didn’t turn out to be fine, because every night, yes, every night since that day at Hatchet House, he felt that same Something he's felt at Hatchet House in his room.

He felt it watching him. He knew when it was there, and each time it came, its presence was stronger.

And now, tonight, it was stronger than ever before.

Something was happening. Something was near. Something was very close.

His heart beat faster and stronger, his penlight flickered and faded.

He called to Mother.

In the lounge room, his mother’s radio program was interrupted by a burst of static. She waited for the program to resume, but it didn’t. Nothing but silence. "Oh never mind, time for bed anyway," she said to herself as she switched off the machine.

Without light, she walked along the darkened hallway before stopping at Jeffrey’s room.

At his bed, she gently lifted the covers, wanting to place a kiss on his forehead.

Nothing. Only his treasured small, black notebook and his penlight, which was flickering intermittently suggesting its life would soon extinguish.

She waited.

"Jeffrey,’ she said. ‘Jeffrey, where are you?"

Then she heard him there, behind her.

"Jeffrey, where have you …".

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The Bellarine Bugle

Wednesday. October 23, 1944.

FAMILY'S DISAPPEARANCE RE-OPENS OLD CASE

The mysterious disappearance of a local mother and her son has forced police to revisit the unsolved Hatchet case.

Joan Morgan and her son Jeffrey disappeared from their home on October 19th, leaving no trace.

The Morgan's disappearance is frightening similar to the Hatchet family who disappeared almost two years ago. They too left no trace.

In a sad twist of fate, Henry Morgan, husband and father, arrived home on October 20th after being found safe on a Javanese fishing vessel. The soldier and long-time resident of Point Lonsdale had been listed as ‘missing in action’ since the Japanese occupation of Singapore on February 15, 1942.

Mr Morgan had escaped from a Japanese ‘hell ship’ before the Javanese fishermen found him drifting on a makeshift dingy.

In a press conference yesterday, Mr Morgan broke down whilst clinging to what he said was his son’s treasured diary, a black notebook. Mr Morgan vowed to do all he could to ensure their safe return and would utilise his Prisoner of War (POW), ex-gratia payment of $20,000 to fund the search for his wife and son.