The Legend of Cresthill

The Cresthill Plantation was the most beautiful place in town at the time. Huge shade trees dotted the front and back lawns which were flawlessly green and thick. Nary a bare spot could be seen. Even so, there was an eerieness to the place. The silence, which pervaded it most of the time, was suffocating. Sometimes though, the silence would be shattered by a piercing scream from somewhere inside the house.

The entire place, though owned and occupied by two frail old sisters, was frightening to any one who happened to be passing by, for the townsfolk all knew the story of the man-beast who was said to occupy the top floor and who was suppose to be the owner of the piercing screams which rent the air.

Legend has it that the man-beast was actually the deformed younger brother of the two sisters, and that upon his birth the father, noting the two clubbed feet and the missing hands of the child, took the child away, telling the mother and the two sisters that the child had died.

After everyone else had gone to bed the night of the birth, the father then went to where he'd left the baby, retrieved it and placed it in a room on the very top floor of the house, forbidding his wife and two daughters to venture up to the top floor, claiming that he had important things up there that he didn't want anyone into. He secretly nurtured and nourished the child, for though his son was deformed, he loved him but was ashamed of him and wanted everyone to believe the child had died at birth. He, being a doctor and the one to deliver his son, was never questioned by anyone at all.

Time rocked on and as the child grew, even learned to walk on its clubbed feet, the father became afraid the child would get out of the room so he chained him like an animal and this is the way the child lived his entire life. When the child was about eight years old, the mother died, never knowing of her son's existence. The father, knowing he would not live forever, finally told the two sisters about their brother, forbidding them to ever tell anyone. He made them promise to take care of the child but to keep him chained in the room. Two years later, when the child was ten, the father died and it was left up to the sisters to carry out his wishes.

The sisters were very good to the child, even better than the father had been, for though they never let the child out of the room, they did go up and let him off the chain for an hour or so each day, and when they would chain him back up, he would scream like an animal. As he grew and his voice matured, the screams became louder and soon, they could be heard from the street. People began to wonder what it was. The police even went there several times questioning the two sisters about it. They never told anyone about their brother. Knowing that they would soon be found out, the sisters made a decision. They agreed to dispose of their brother, by this time fully grown. Besides, they were getting too old to have to climb the stairs to the top floor everyday to take care of him.

That night the both of them went up to his room and killed him, burying him in their backyard. This did not, however, solve their problems. Many times passers by could hear otherworldly screaming coming from the house. The sisters, unable to face what they had done, and unable to live with the awful screaming, agreed to drink a glass of water laced with enough cyanide to kill them. When their bodies were discovered, there was a note found which told all about their little brother and where he was buried. The spot where he was supposed to be buried was dug up. The body was not there. Finally, the entire backyard was dug up. No body was found. It was decided that the sisters, having always been peculiar anyway, had just been totally crazy and there had never been a younger brother, for there was no record of his birth anywhere.

The plantation was bought and turned into a funeral parlor. Legend has it that on certain nights, if you walk by the funeral home, a blood-curdling scream can still be heard coming from inside. Could it be that the man-beast still lives? Or are the screams, still heard from time to time, those of a tortured spirit who never had a chance at life?.............