The Death House

By Adrian Scott

In the early days of rail, a shack was built on railway property to house the bodies of those killed on or near the rail. It became known as the Death House.
this collection of short stories features mysteries all connected to the death house in some eerie and evil way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Adrian Scott
• Release date: Oct 10, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465711403

Adrian Scott

I have been writing short stories since 9 years old, changed to writing novels 4 years ago. in that time, I've written 69, now working on my 70th; thirty-one of which have been published in the US by Renaissance ebooks and Publishing by Rebecca J Vickery. I am also publishing on Smashwords. Society of Vampires volume 1, published by Rebecca J Vickery, Publishers, US; has also been forwarded by Rebecca to Francis Ford Coppola for consideration as a movie. So it's all go at the moment. I have three daughters, all of whom I regularly see. My wife of 31 years, Penny, passed away on March 17, 2011. I live in a retirement village in Caboolture Queensland with my dog, Scamp. He is my main critic and friend.

Book preview

The Death House

By

Adrian Scott

Smashwords Edition

Copyright © 2011 by Ian T. Foster, M.A.

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

First Publication Rights Only

Ian T Foster, M.A;

Unit 73/130-132 King Street

Caboolture Queensland 4510

Phone: [phone]

Email: [e-mail]

http://www.adrianscott.info

Cover Design: Laura Shinn

Table of Contents

A SPOONFULL OF HISTORY

A DREAMER BECOMES A SCHEMER…

DISASTER BORNE…

CASE #1:

CASE #2:

CASE #3:

CASE #4:

CASE #5:

CASE #6:

CASE #7:

CASE #8:

CASE #9:

CASE #10:

SUMMATION

A SPOONFULL OF HISTORY…

The station stood deserted, unused for over sixty years since the rail service had been discontinued to the small hamlet it once served.

Six decades ago, the hamlet had been a thriving gold town, its wealth coming principally from the bright shiny ore that came from the ground embedded in lumps of quartz. It was then washed in the creek nearby or crushed by machines to extract the ore from its hard bed, and bagged in hessian sacks to be loaded aboard the Cobb and Co coaches that plied the area between Lithgow and Bathurst in the colony of New South Wales.

With the coming of the rail in the late 1850’s, Cobb and Co slowly yielded their governance of the roadways and transport system, and the huge roaring steam-driven locomotives pulled carriages and vans and boxcars to various destinations around the colony and into neighbouring colonies as well.

The day of the horse as king of the road was over.

Yet the old station still stood, its weatherboard façade faded and dried by the hot summer sun and warped by the driving winter rains. Its paint flaked until only traces of the original colours remained, and on the roof, iron showed through where once had shone red chromate and paint. The board across the front of the station building bore the title: Station Number 3. It had never been known by any other name.

The steel rails still ran past the station, half-buried in grass, paspalum, and other types of weeds, and bugs of various genera crawled over and under and between the rails, unmindful of the gangs of men who had laboured in weather both hospitable and inclement to lay the lines of track that would carry the freight to its destinations.

Tea-cups still sat lined up on the bench in the station’s small dining-room, where once a cup of tea and a hot pie could be bought for ninepence or even less. Chairs still sat mutely around tables that once accommodated waiting passengers and their guests, and the ticket office now stood as empty and as unused as the tickets it once sold.

To one side of the station building stood the house given to the Station Master, whomever he happened to be, where he dwelt with his family during his time of service to the railway. His children played in the front yard where soot from the roaring engines blew over the grass and plastered itself to wet washing hanging on the clothes-line in the back yard.

Further down the station from the ticket-office and canteen was a separate building where the gangers worked, men who kept the lines and hardwood sleepers in good repair so the trains might be as safe as modern technology could make them. Often these men would be seen camped out by the line miles from any station, living in small brown tarpaulin tents. As trains passed by, they would line the track and yell ‘Pay…pah! Pay…pah!" to the passing passengers, who would obligingly throw used newspapers and magazines and the occasional paperback book to the gangers so they might have something to while away the few free hours they had from their tasks.

Further down the line, set by itself, and ignored by all except those who were forced to make use of its hospitality, was a small, square, iron-roofed building with one window and one door. Both window and door were always kept locked, the window nearly always protected by steel bars. This building was known as the Death House.

The Death House was for the exclusive use of any worker or passenger who died whilst using the rail, train or station. It was where the coroner would come to carry out his initial examination of the body to determine if there had been any suspicious circumstances in the death, and precisely what caused it to happen.

The Death House was not used often.

It was not a popular place in which to be found.

But there was one station near Lithgow where a terrible accident occurred, an accident that resulted in the deaths of seventy-nine men, women, and children – an accident that was spoken of for decades after as the Lithgow Tragedy.

It happened one fine sunny day, when nothing so hideous or so sad should have had any business taking place; it could have been prevented, for the authorities were forewarned, but it was not. And because of this, those who had used the Death House on that hot January day in 1859, could never rest.

And neither could the Death House, for it needed blood. Blood was its lifeline, its claim to its continued existence. If it did not receive its quota of blood from time to time, then it would cease to exist and collapse like a flimsy deck of cards caught in a breeze, and the weeds and shrubs would overgrow it and obliterate its memory from the face of the earth.

But the Death House had no intention of ever letting this happen, for it wanted to live, to go on doing its job as it had always done since the day the first sleeper had been laid.

For the Death House had found a way of ensuring its existence was eternal, never-ending. And it had no intention of allowing Man or Technology or Time to interfere with its grand plan; and neither did the lost voices and disembodied souls that inhabited the dark shadows within the walls of that lonely place.

To them, the Death House was alive .

A DREAMER BECOMES A SCHEMER…

January 1st; 1876: A certain Mr William Tipple Smith discovered the presence of gold in an area known as ‘a Sheep Station in the vicinity of Lewis Ponds Creek’ in the year 1847¹, although the-then Colonial Government, represented by Sir Charles Fitz Roy (Governor) did not make the information public until after an announcement by Edward Hargreaves in 1851².

This area later became known as Ophir, near the town of Bathurst, and was the subject of a massive gold-rush – the very thing the government seems to have been trying to avoid by delaying the announcement of the discovery.

Eager miners rushed from all quarters of the nation, from overseas, from as far away as California, USA; and other points, with all manner of tools and equipment in hand, including swags-full of dreams surrounding great wealth and riches…many of those dreams still remain right where they last were laid to rest, in the ground that yielded no more than that to so many hopefuls.

With the hopeful miners came shopkeepers, cobblers, butchers, grocers, clothiers, tool-merchants, all those trades and people so necessary to