"Don't you just love a Halloween-themed tour and a meal at an English country house?" Kate said to her friend as the minibus they were in pulled into the grounds of Mablethorpe Hall.
"Yeah, these old places have a real atmosphere!" Chloe replied.
"I've wanted to do something like this for like, forever. Stay overnight in some old place, pretend I'm lady of the manor. I'm so glad I booked this trip."
"Kate you are such a history nerd. Lucy Worsley has a rival."
"My heart is in the 18th century. Seriously. I just love anything from that time."
Kate had often been described as an atypical millennial.
They got off the bus and collected their luggage.
"Come on, the tour is about to start. Let's dump our luggage. Apparently this place is haunted."
Kate smiled. "All good English manors should have at least one ghost! Three hours in a minibus. I'm stiff from sitting so long."
They collected their room keys. The Hall had not yet upgraded to the modern electronic key cards. Kate liked that. A traditional brass key was more in keeping with the decor. The receptionist looked worried.
"Are you ok with having Room 13?" she asked.
"Sure. I'm not superstitious. Don't tell me it's haunted?"
"Well...some guests have reported that really strange things happen in that room. And the wi-fi doesn't work in there."
Kate just assumed the woman was joking. "In that case, it sounds like my kind of room! Think I can last a few hours without wi-fi."
The room was large and splendid. "Seriously? I get a king-size four poster bed?" Kate exclaimed as she gazed in awe. "This is so fantastic! I feel like Queen Anne."
The bed looked so inviting, Kate couldn't resist just flopping back on it and spreading out.
"Bliss!" she sighed. So much better than the single bed back at her cramped one-bed flat. She closed her eyes...
Abruptly, Kate was overcome by a bizarre horniness, and masturbated more than she'd done in a long time. She was getting so wet, so hot and in a rush to give herself the release she so desperately needed. She hitched up her dress and pushed her panties down just a bit, then shoved her right hand down to her pussy. She used her left hand to push up her nightshirt and play with her breasts, pinching her nipples hard, making her moan with pleasure. Kate's right hand was busy with her cunt, alternately slipping down between her pussy lips and inside her hot, wet core, fucking herself with fingers, then pulling out to rub her clit. Back and forth, over and over. She was moaning, fantasising about being pounded...pounded by an unknown uniformed man. Begging him to fuck her harder and send her climaxing in ecstasy...
Kate was screaming. Suddenly her orgasm peaked and hit full force. She stopped all movement with her hands momentarily then began again, at first very fast and hard, then slowing as her orgasm began to subside.
She lay there as her breathing slowly returned to normal.
"Jesus..." she muttered, when she could finally catch her breath again. "What the hell just happened?"
The tour had already begun when Kate arrived to join the others.
"What took you so long?" Chloe asked. "Thought you'd got lost."
"Oh I just...er...oh wow, check out that tour guide!"
"Mablethorpe Hall, one of Berkshire's finest country estates back in the day," the tour guide began. He was dressed in early 18th century period costume, with a long wig, frilled cuffs and breeches.
"He looks just like John Hurt did in Rob Roy. I love the costumes in that movie." Kate whispered to Chloe, who rolled her eyes.
Kate listened intently as every detail of the building's history was described.
"But the most fascinating story of Mablethorpe," the guide continued, "is that it's said to be haunted by Major Robert Wolfe, a British Army officer."
The was a chorus of "ooooh!" from the assembled tourists.
"The Major is said to return to Mablethorpe every Halloween night, in hope of seeing the woman he once loved."
"So the poor sod just wants to get laid?" a middle-aged bloke at the front said, and everyone burst out laughing.
The tour guide evidently took this old legend extremely seriously and did not see the funny side.
"As I was saying, the Major was in love with Lady Annabelle Barrington-Smythe. That in itself was a scandal, for she was married to William Barrington-Smythe. Rumour has it that the Major was actually a notorious highwayman known as The Fox..."
Later, the guests were treated to a Halloween-themed meal in the Hall's grand banqueting room. There were the usual things adorning the tables - Jack o' lanterns, candles everywhere, fake cobwebs. In the background, a string quartet dressed as witches played a medley of Bach and Handel.
"Not as spooky as I was expecting," Chloe said as she sampled the pumpkin pie and spiced rum. "I was hoping the lights were going to go out and there'd be a jump-scare or something. Like two years ago when we went to that zombie-themed night at Castle Howard. That was creepy as hell!"
"This is nice though. Lots of atmosphere. I like it here. I'd like to...get married in a place like this. Have a historical-themed wedding. That is, if..."
"When, Kate. When you meet that ideal guy. And you will. He's out there. Plenty of fish. Steve was a complete arsehole, but he's ancient history. A bit like this hall."
"True!"
After the meal concluded, there was more live music and dancing.
"Think I'm going to call it a night," Kate said.
"Oh you lightweight," Chloe replied, already tipsy. "Aren't you going to stay up for the midnight ghost walk in the grounds? You might see a good-looking highwayman."
"No, I'm totally exhausted. Really. You can tell me all about it in the morning."
"Fine, whatever. I know you're too afraid!"
Kate headed up to her room, surprised at being overcome by such tiredness. She hadn't drunk that much, and it had hardly been an energetic evening. The glorious king-size bed and it's luxurious blankets beckoned...
Some time after midnight, Kate was in a deep slumber, but also in the throes of a nightmare.
He's coming...
Kate did not dream often, and she was even less often plagued by bad dreams. Several times she stirred, came half awake, and heard herself gasping in panic. Once, drifting up from some threatening vision, she heard her own voice crying out wordlessly in terror, and she realised she was thrashing about in the bed.
Suddenly the air was oppressively heavy--hot, thick, as if it were not air at all but a bitter and poisonous gas of some kind. She tried to breathe, couldn't. There was an invisible, crushing weight on her chest. The unmistakable smell of gunpowder. Hoofbeats...many horses. Some kind of battle?
A murderous barrage of lightning crashed like a volley of mortar fire, seven or eight tremendous bolts - and woke her from sleep in an instant.
"Holy shit." Kate gasped as the storm made her sit upright in bed. She remembered what Chloe had said earlier, about the tour not being scary. Evidently, nature had now delivered a jump-scare of its own.
Already her memory of the nightmare had begun to dissolve; only fragments of it remained with her, and each of those disassociated images was evaporating as if it were a splinter of ice. All she could remember was that she'd been in a battle of some kind, and there had been many men - soldiers on horseback. They'd been pursuing her. Firing guns.
As the nightmare receded, Kate became uncomfortably aware of how dark the bedroom was. Before going to sleep she had switched off both the bedside lamps. The curtains were all closed, and only thin blades of moonlight were visible between the gap she'd left. She had the irrational but unshakable feeling that something had followed her up from the dream...there was another presence in the room...oh God! She fumbled for the lamp switch...damn, where was it? Groped around, switched it on. Relief as golden light flooded the room...
And then she saw him. Stood at the side of the bed. He was dressed in a Redcoat uniform, just calmly standing there.
She gasped, but was so shocked, she couldn't utter a sound for a moment. Then her initial shock turned to anger. Was this part of the Halloween tour? Having re-enactors actually enter the guest bedrooms was completely unacceptable.
"What the hell are you doing?" Kate yelled.
