Estimated reading time 7 minutes
Jack of the green, A couple of years ago, we lived in a town that was just a few meters away from the city. It was called Fall Haven. It was a small urban town similar to Sleepy Hollow, New York that prided itself in preserving old houses from the Civil War era as well as other colonial periods. Like any other normal kid, I pretty much went to school at the local elementary school, made some friends and even had after school activities like the school paper. A typical normal kid, wouldn’t you say?
I mentioned about having friends. We were a group of four. There was Billy, the designated leader; Eugene, the somewhat sensitive guy; whom I discovered in our high school year that he was gay; myself the average kid and the last Kim, the smart Asian. We shared many hobbies and interests, which was quite the norm for a group of friends. One of our interests was the horror genre. We loved horror so much that we called ourselves the Losers Club; after the kids in Stephen King’s IT.
There was no questions asked when it came to Halloween. It was like Christmas in October. It was the one other holiday, besides Christmas, that we looked forward to the most. The one night of the year where we would dress up in whatever character we wanted, run around asking for candy and doing fun like joining hunts, attending parties and even doing random pranks during Mischief Night.
On one particular year, we decided to do something a bit cliché, but strangely exciting. Now, Fall Haven had a lot of colonial houses preserved. That being said, it was safe to say that we had our fair share of so called haunted houses and buildings. On a normal day, we weren’t allowed to visit these houses unless it were festival or holiday tours; like Halloween.
We decided, in the spirit of Halloween, to go inside one of these houses and we knew just the right house. I wouldn’t call it a house, per se’. It was a huge colonial mansion with white wooden planks and large emerald green shutters. There were large white columns on the patio and sprawled across the grounds of the estate were large overgrown oak trees. In front of the mansion was a small island and in the center was a stone fountain with a peculiar gray green stone statue of a gentleman dressed in fine clothes.
Because of the abundance of green as well as the opulence of the mansion, it was called Jack of the Green. And the statue? He was called Jack.
I often found Jack of the Green and the statue super creepy, even as a kid and more often than not, whenever we pass the house on our way to school, I would beg my friends that we take a longer route just to avoid seeing Jack. I often felt that Jack was staring at me with its gray stone eyes.
But it was different this time. This time, we were going to explore this old mansion and see if it really was haunted. Bill, Kim, Eugene and I would spend the next couple of weeks reading about Jack of the Green’s history and the story is quite interesting to be honest.
Jack of the Green was the home of the prominent Ashford family back in the early 18th century. The family consisted of Brigadier General Clarence Ashford, his wife Elizabeth Ashford and his sons, Joseph and Benjamin Ashford. They were quite wealthy, thanks to Mr. Ashford’s role as a decorated hero of the American Civil War as well as his sons being two of only ten doctors in the town. Elizabeth Ashford was famous for her incredibly green thumb and had dedicated most of her free time in creating the mansion’s vast garden. They were pretty much well loved and led respectful and comfortable lives……
Until the Brigadier General decided to have Jack sculpted.
No one knew why he decided to have a sculpture made. But he was a man who wanted the best. He hired a lot of sculptors to sculpt Jack and it irritated him to see one tiny mistake. He was obsessed with sculpting Jack that he spent most of his time and fortune on Jack. It affected the family so much that his own sons had him committed to an insane asylum. One day, he came home and using a walking stick, began to beat his wife to death in her sleep and taking a hunting rifle from his cabinet, shot both his sons point blank before shooting himself.
“Wait.” Kim said. “What happened next?”
“That’s pretty much it.” I replied as I finished reading the news clipping on the microfilm. “The house eventually went to Mrs. Ashford’s sister whose granddaughter eventually donated it to the Historic Society.”
“So what makes it haunted?” Billy asked.
“Well….isn’t it strange that Mr. Ashford was obsessed with the statue?” Eugene asked. “You don’t suppose the statue is cursed?”
“Could be.” I said. “After all, Mrs. Ashford’s sister didn’t stay long in the house.” I pointed to another news clipping. “It says here she only stayed for a year after complaining about strange sounds and moans in the night.”
“Definitely haunted.” Kim said. “I mean what else could it be?”
“But, why haven’t there been any encounters from others?” Billy asked.
“Dunno.” I said. “But if it really was haunted, I wonder who’s haunting it?”
We all had varying theories on what could possibly make it haunted. Some were the usual such as the ghosts of the Ashfords walking the halls or the Brigadier General’s phantom walking around the grounds to even farfetched ideas that the house was built on Native American grounds.
While it was all exciting and fun, nothing would prepare us for that night. And just talking about it sends shivers down my spine.
It was finally Halloween and Fall Haven was surrounded by kids dressed in costumes ranging from superheroes to classic Halloween monsters to us. Since we liked Stephen King, we decided to dress up as iconic characters from his novels. Billy went as Pennywise the Dancing Clown, Eugene went as Georgie, Kim went as Jack Torrance and I dressed up as Cujo the Dog. We walked around the town getting treats and compliments for our costumes. After an hour or so, we decided to head over to Jack of the Green.
As we approached the vine covered gates, we noticed how bright the moon was. We weren’t expecting a full moon, but I guess it was just good timing. We slowly opened the gates and walked along the stone driveway. I was hesitant to approach Jack….until Billy reminded me that it was just a statue and nothing more. We passed Jack by and I couldn’t help but feel as though someone was watching me. Then again, it was probably an overactive imagination.
We climbed the steps and slowly opened the large oak doors. We stepped into a large hall, presumably the foyer. There was a grand staircase that led to multiple halls and despite the fact that it was completely abandoned and dusty, the walls and paintings looked as though they were well preserved.
We took out our flashlights and turned them on. We flashed them around as we walked through each hall.
“You know, if it weren’t for all the cobwebs and the dust…” Eugene said. “This place would be awesome.”
“I doubt that.” Kim said. “It’s too big. We won’t be able to find our way around here.”
He had a point. I thought as we walked. The place was big and anyone can easily get lost in here. But, there were lots of places to hide. We passed by a large window which overlooked the front driveway. I could see Jack standing in his usual spot at the stone fountain. Still gave me the creeps.
We walked around, inspecting every room we encountered. We entered a massive dining room with a large 10 seater dining set, an equally grand living room with sofas that were gilded with oak carvings, a study with a massive collection of books and finally the bedrooms. So far, nothing out of the ordinary, it was just a large old house full of-
We suddenly heard a sound that made us jump. We looked around wondering what that sound was. We heard rustling from behind us. Billy focused his flashlight on a pile of cloth and rubble. We saw movement! We held our breaths in anticipation as we prepared ourselves for whatever was under.
A squirrel emerged from the pile and scuttled away. We all let a sigh of relief. The environment and the paranoia was getting to us. I thought to myself. We laughed at ourselves a bit, thinking how silly we were to be afraid of a little squirrel.
“Jack of the Green isn’t haunted.” Kim said “It’s just an old house with a really sad history and a lot of hype.”
As much as we wanted for proof that this house was haunted, there really wasn’t much. Sure we had the thrill of entering a mansion that scared a lot of folks, myself included, and there really wasn’t anything that made Jack of the Green scary. All the rumors about the haunted house was hyped.
It was getting late and we were pretty much satisfied with the adventure. I looked out the window to see if the moon was bright enough for us to walk when something strange and terrifying caught my eye. I lowered my gaze to the stone fountain. Jack was not there.
“Hey guys.” I said. “Either I’m getting exhausted from all this or Jack isn’t in his usual spot.”
“What are you talking about?” Billy asked
“I’m saying the Jack statue isn’t at the fountain.” I said, still staring outside.
“Okay, very funny bro.” Kim said walking to where I stood. “It’s a stone statue. You’re probably just-“He stopped midsentence and I knew right there and then it wasn’t just me. He could see it too. He could see it plain as day that Jack was not there.
“Okay, that is freaky.” He said. Billy and Eugene joined us and all four of us were gawking out. There was no way that the statue would be gone in an instant. It was made of stone. There is no way unless someone purposely carried the statue. But it was bolted down. And it was heavy.
“You don’t suppose the statue came to life?” Eugene said.
“That is impossible.” I said. “Statues don’t come to life. It’s physically impossible.”
Suddenly, we heard a loud sound. Like stone being dragged across stone. It sounded big. We heard go up the stairs and we heard it drag across the floor. “We’d better hide.” Eugene said. “It could be the groundskeeper or something.”
WE all agreed and dove into one of the rooms and partly closed the door. We hid behind the door and held our breaths. We could hear the sound grow louder and louder as though it were by the hallway. We were sure there were no groundskeeper around. At least, that’s what we know. We then heard what sounded like foot steps. Really heavy footsteps. Was it a big man? We heard it drag closer and closer to the door.
“Who’s out there?” Eugene asked in a strained voice. We didn’t want to consider looking through the door slit to see. But there was so much panic and fear in our being that if we didn’t figure it out sooner or later, we’d go nuts.
“I’ll look.” I whispered. “But everyone shut up and don’t say anything okay?” They nodded and I took a deep breath. I was thinking to myself. What am I getting myself into? I thought to myself as I cautiously crossed over to the other side of the room and stood in the shadows of the door. Taking one deep breath, I slowly leaned forward to peek through the door slit.
I suddenly covered my mouth as my eyes widened with fear and disbelief at what I saw. It was impossible. I couldn’t believe it…..
It was Jack!
But that’s crazy! Jack was an 18th century stone statue incapable of moving and walking. And yet here he was, standing and walking. He shouldn’t move. He shouldn’t be moving at all.
“What’s out there?” Kim whispered
I couldn’t keep it from them. Not when I was looking at it with my own eyes. “Look outside.” I whispered back.
All three leaned in to look and covered their mouths in horror. They were seeing what I was seeing. There he was. Jack the statue. Walking along the halls of Jack of the Green as if though he owned the place. We did our best not to make a sound as we stared at the moving golem. We suddenly scuttled back into the shadows as we saw Jack was now by the foot of the room’s door. We covered our mouths and tried very hard to not be seen as we could see the stony face of Jack pass by the door slit.
Don’t let him see us. Don’t let him see us. I kept begging in my head. For what seemed like forever, we waited until we were sure Jack was gone. The dragging sound was growing fainter and fainter and then it was gone.
“Let’s get out of here.” Billy said. “Before that….thing comes back.”
I couldn’t agree more. We were completely terrified and baffled at what we had seen and we had no plans of staying any longer. We quickly opened the door and got out of the room and started to walk down the hallway. We quickly made our way to the stairs when we suddenly heard the dragging sound again coming from behind us. We turned around to see Jack was walking straight at us with his stony face glaring at us.
It only took that sight for us to bolt out as fast as we could. The four of us ran down the stairs towards the main door, taking care not to look back even if the dragging steps of Jack were closing in. We jumped out into the lawn and ran towards the gate.
We must have ran 5 maybe 8 blocks away from Jack of the Green as we found ourselves back onto the busier side of Fall Haven. “Tell me that didn’t happen.” Eugene begged, completely horrified and for lack of a better description, in complete denial that the impossible….was possible.
“No way!” Billy said. “We all saw that thing. And we all saw it chase us!”
We were in such a frantic state that we ended up going to the police station. We told the police what had happened. They just stared at us and as soon as we finished our story, they immediately dismissed it as a Mischief Night joke. We were then reprimanded for trespassing and were ordered to go home as they were feeling lenient about locking us up for the night. The four of us didn’t want to go home right away, because that would mean passing by Jack of the Green. And we certainly didn’t want to see the statue or that house.
Our parents arrived at the station twenty minutes later and after a few scolding words or two, we were on our way home. Fortunately, we took a different route. At least, I wouldn’t have to pass by the house again.
We pretty much agreed not to talk about what had happened the next day. After all, Halloween was over and it was back to another regular day at school. I saw the gates of Jack of the Green. I let out a heavy sigh as I carefully walked past the iron gates. I could see the mansion and grounds looking as ominous as ever. I could see the stone fountain in the center of the island and the stone statue of Jack, where he ought to be
I thought about the story of the Ashfords and the Brigadier General’s obsession with creating Jack. I wondered if his obsession was what brought the statue to life. Perhaps, Jack was the true cause of the Ashford’s demise. I personally couldn’t explain what happened that night.
But if I were to think about it, that was the first and only time that we were genuinely terrified about the old houses here in Fall Haven. Because if Jack of the Green and Jack could do that, what more with the other houses? The thought of it terrifies me to this day. At times…..I could see in the corner of my eye Jack’s eyes following me. I don’t even want to think of it right now. I don’t think the others want to think of it…..
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