The Manor Of Death

     The old woman sat up in bed, shaking. The dreams had returned… the same dreams she had every night. Someone was in the house trying to kill her; they were stalking her every night and it was the same thing every time.
     She reached out to turn on the bedside lamp, to assure herself that there was no one else in the room with her. Of course, she knew there was no one there; after all, she lived alone in this nineteenth-century mansion. She was by herself except for her housekeeper, who was asleep in the room next door. All she needed to do was call out for help and the woman would come running to see what problem her employer was experiencing.
     She lay quietly for a moment before realizing that something else was going on… the sound had returned; that odd scraping sound, as if someone was dragging something… or maybe it was people walking around on the first floor, below her second-floor room. The old woman tried to remember how long those sounds had been going on… weeks or even months? Or was she just imagining that she heard them? She reminded herself to ask her housekeeper if she had heard them; that is, if she could remember to ask her.
     I suppose when one gets near ninety, she thought, one could expect the mind to play little tricks, but these sounds are real… aren’t they?
     The woman lay awake for some time and finally the ghostly sounds faded… that is if they ever really existed, and she was able to return to sleep, vowing to call someone, anyone, first thing in the morning… someone who could help her solve the mystery of all that was going on here in Hunter Manor and at the same time, find someone who could prevent her eminent death at the hands of the unknown assassin, the person who was stalking her in her dreams.

Prologue

Hunter Manor
Near Stoneybrook, NC
Very Early Tuesday Morning