Haunting Tales of Old New Orleans, Volume One by Alyne Pustanio

Author:Alyne Pustanio
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: vampires, gothic horror, haunted history, legends and folklore, hauntings and paranormal, ghosts and hauntings, ghosts and zombies, supernatural and occult, classic supernatural, haunted new orleans
Publisher: Alyne Pustanio

***

“He’s coming around.”

Truxille heard the soft voice of Dumiot fall into the fainting darkness that had engulfed him. That darkness was slowly retreating, fading to a luminescent grey which he perceived through tightly-shut eyes; then, sunlight. He found that he was laying on a long chaise lounge in the parlor of dead Barbazon’s house. Sunlight streamed through the open windows, shooting into the room like spears; a hot, humid breeze tossed motes of dust in and out of the glare, and fluttered in the gauzy folds of the window curtains.

“Thank God!” The nervous pitch of Sósthene’s voice jarred Truxille’s throbbing brain.

“There you are!” Dumiot said with a heavy sigh. He smiled. “I don’t hesitate to say, you’ve had us more than a little worried.”

Truxille rubbed his eyes, and tried to sit up. Dumiot reached to help him. “Careful,” he said. “That was quite a blow to your head, Maxim.”

The pounding in his head compelled Truxille to agree: it must have been quite a blow. Slowly, the events of the night came back to him. He grasped Dumiot’s arm. “Barbazon?” he said hoarsely. Dumiot shook his head.

“Then it is true,” Truxille sighed.

“Yes,” Dumiot replied. “I am afraid it is all true.”

Just then, Sósthene, who had stepped out of the parlor, returned carrying a decanter of brandy and a glass. “I am of a mind to think,” he said, as he poured out a good measure and handed the glass to Truxille, “that we have been the victims of an awful phantasm.” The other men looked at him incredulously. “Well,” he replied, “it has been known to happen, to individuals as well as to whole groups of people.”

Truxille coughed at a swig of brandy. “What I saw happen to Barbazon was no phantasm or fevered delusion!” he said at last, and instinctively glanced down at his blood-stained clothing.

“Yes,” Dumiot added thoughtfully, “there can be no doubt but that something extraordinary has occurred, some . . . thing reached into this world – maybe, indeed, a product of heathen magic – but something came alive and into our reality, bent on murder and destruction. And like it or not, we have had a very close call, a very close experience of something unexplainable and preternatural.”

While Dumiot was speaking, the realization stole over Truxille that he still clutched in the fist of his hand the noisome bag that he had pulled from the golem’s mouth; despite all that had happened, he never let it go. He held it up for the others to see. “This is no phantasm,” he said.

Dumiot nodded that he agreed, and Sósthene’s eyes widened. “What are you going to do with that?” he asked nervously, and perhaps a little eagerly.

“I will see it destroyed,” Truxille replied flatly, eyes flashing with the terrible memory of the horror of the previous night. He stuffed the awful pouch deep into a pocket of his breeches. “But now, we are getting out of here!”

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.