Cherry Hill Manor is a gray stone mansion in Glastonbury Connecticut; it is rumored to be haunted. Over the years townsfolk and city officials alike called for the house to be torn down. The two attempts at this ended with tragedy: one contractor went mad, killing his entire family before turning a gun on himself; another contractor had his head crushed by a forklift.
Cherry Hill Manor seemed to take great pride in surviving. On a clear day, they said, you could hear laughter in the wind.
One Halloween night twelve teenagers decided to defy the spirits, they snuck in through an unlocked window enjoying a party at Cherry Hill Manor. They were young and not afraid; the house had no real power. The evening was fun, uneventful. Afterwards, the group boasted they had beat the spirits, if such things even existed.
The attendees thought they were safe; however, a few weeks later, Peter Monroe died from an aneurysm right on the field during the big Thanksgiving football game; six months later, Debbie Watson was killed in a car crash. Through their tears, people began talking, drawing conclusions and waiting.
Over the years misfortune would visit the rest: Bobby Derrington was killed during a carjacking; Jill Hawkins died from leukemia; James Spiller died in a plane crash; Royce Martin died from carbon monoxide poisoning; Dawn Cadell was murdered by her boyfriend; Robert Nolan drown in his swimming pool; Penny Wallace was stung over her entire body by a swarm of hornets; Oliver Lake was tragically killed by a friend during a deer hunting expedition; AnnMarie Evans fell through ice while skating, freezing to death. It took over twenty five years for these events to transpire.
Robert McLeod was the last of them; the instigator of the party, the one who boasted the loudest. He became a successful District Attorney in Los Angeles with a beautiful family; known as a good, honest man and a great legal mind. Yet with AnnMarie Evans death the nightmares began for him. His old friends visited Robert at night, saying they were waiting for him, the party could not start without him.
Finally, Robert could take it no more, telling his wife he had business back home in Connecticut; packing a small suitcase and taking a red eye flight out.
Robert McLeod went missing. The Connecticut State Police conducted an interview and found he had checked into his hotel, leaving one afternoon never to return. The mystery became a public sensation, everyone having a theory.
Once a month, caretakers for Connecticut Parks Services came by Cherry Hill Manor for routine maintenance: mowing the lawn, tending to whatever needed fixing around the manor. They found Robert McLeod in the living room, he put a gun in his mouth, pulling the trigger.
That was thirty years ago. With Robert McLeod’s suicide the house took on a melancholic atmosphere; a warning from the spirits for the foolish to stay away, they could find you.
Catherine Cahill was born in East Hartford Connecticut. She worked for the State of Connecticut for thirty-one years, retiring in 2017. Since then, devoting her time to training in Mixed Martial Arts and writing stories.