It was a hot, humid night in rural Mississippi. My wife and I had been vacationing all day: attending plays, shopping, and exploring towns. I had a raging 103-degree fever, and was exhausted and sick as hell. All I wanted was to collapse on the nearest motel bed and sleep-- yet my wife and I had nowhere to go.
  I poured through our various guidebooks, calling what seemed like every B&B in the state as my wife drove along, prudently stopping at every bend in the road to make sure she did not run over the groups of plantation workers heading in for the evening. After two long hours of hearing “Sorry; no vacancy” and “No rooms available, sorry”, I actually got a hopeful response from one motel, “The Summertree Plantation”. Pressing the cold cell phone to my burning, feverish ear, I asked, “You said you have rooms open?”
The voice on the other end of the phone was soft, with a subtle flavor of Southern twang. “All the rooms’re open.” The voice made the hairs on the back of my neck tingle for some reason, but I was so desperate that my instincts seemed trivial. I thanked the man on the phone and booked a room for my wife and myself.
The plantation was a few miles out of town, along a bumpy gravel road lined with ghostly Parsley Hawthorne trees. Once we pulled into the plantation parking circle, my eyes were drawn to a huge, black mansion. It was wide and long, with a wraparound wooden porch and a spike-lined wrought-iron fence surrounding it. As my wife and I pulled our suitcases through the creaky black gate, yellow eyes in the darkness startled me. I shivered when I realized it was only an owl-- it had watched me so intently.
Once my wife and I reached the door, it was instantly answered by a balding, elderly man with intense black eyes, seeming out of place in his pale, roundish face. He introduced himself a Peter Jones, owner and manager of the Summertree Plantation. I recognized his voice as the one on the phone.
“Would y’all care for a tour and cuppa cocoa? I insist,” he said forcefully as my wife and I, both exhausted from a long day of traveling, tried to decline. He quickly carried our suitcases to our room and returned within seconds, disturbingly energetic. As I stumbled feverously behind this man, I could not help but notice the ubiquitous portraits of a young and handsome man. They were everywhere: in the mansion bathroom, the kitchen, lining the walls of every hallway and room. Unable to stop myself, I questioned, “Mr. Jones, who is the young man in all the photographs?”
Mr. Jones stopped in his tracks. “Come upstairs f’cocoa,” was his only answer.
A few minutes later, holding mugs of peppermint cocoa, my wife and I listened to Mr. Jones explain how he had acquired this plantation. He began with a soft cough.
“I was a son of a pig farmer, and grew up’n this town. As a boy, I was fascinated by this plantation. It was always a town legend, and ever’one said it was haunted. I always felt it was my destiny t’restore it.
“After my wife hadda baby, her’n I moved to New York and ran a clothes shop. We had three more kids, and my job paid the bills, but I just couldn’t shake the fascination with that Summertree Plantation in my hometown. One mornin’, I noticed’n add in the news requestin’ a job for the ancient Summertree Plantation. Within the week, I took the job, moved my family back here, and fixed up the mansion into motel state. I was finally livin’ my dream.”
I took a cautious ship of cocoa. This man’s unhealthy obsession with the mansion was extremely unnerving.
Mr. Jones continued. “Shortly after movin’ back, my wife passed, and three’a my four kids went off’ta college. The only one left with me was my youngest son, Andrew.
“Andrew was about t’go to college. All payments were made, and everything was in place. But the night before he left, he was shot through the head with a .22 caliber bullet by a man he didn’t even know.”
My wife gasped and put her hand to her heart. Mr. Jones cleared his throat and leaned forward, his voice as chilling as ice down your shirt. “Before he passed, Andrew was’n a coma for a few days. My oldest daughter came to visit. Right before Andrew died, she convinced him I had shot him.
“Y’all don’t think I shot Andrew, do ya?”
My hair stood straight up. I had no idea how to reply; my answer would surely determine my life. Fortunately, my wife intervened. “Mr. Jones, may my husband and I head off to bed? It’s quite late.”
Mr. Jones seemed to snap out of a daze as he exclaimed, “Course. Why don’t y’all come into the ballroom.”
We headed downstairs and filed into the ballroom, which had been converted into a bedroom with a queen bed, desk-- and giant portraits of Andrew. As Mr. Jones pointed out our suitcases and headed out the door, he explained that the door did not lock. This did not reassure me, and he saw it on my face.
“Don’t y’all worry,” he explained. “I’m up all night walkin’ the halls, so don’t y’all worry.”
This, of course, made me worry even more, and as my wife and I nervously got into bed I placed my only weapon-- a cheap disposable camera-- on the pillow next to me. Even though I was sick as a dog, I couldn’t sleep a wink- I was honestly prepared to die tonight. I doubted I would make it out of the house alive. Every creak of Mr. Jones’ footsteps sounded as if it was right outside our door, and the eyes of Andrew in the portraits appeared to be moving.
At the crack of dawn the next morning, my wife and I-- both having not slept at all-- rushed out to our car, suitcases in tow. We peeled out of the parking circle, tires throwing gravel, and left the Summertree Plantation as fast as we could.