by Amy Cross
“Get out of there!” Matt hissed. “Sally, I'm serious, you don't know what she's capable of! She almost strangled me!”
“We can't leave the girl in here,” she replied, leaning down and looking under the bed, but seeing nothing except a few of Jerry's storage boxes. “Annie, if -”
The bed shuddered again, as if once more it had been hit by an invisible force. Although she was still trying desperately to spot Annie, Sally was starting to realize that the little girl was somehow just beyond the limits of her perception. She knew she had to try to keep her safe, but a moment later the bed shuddered again, this time moving a couple of inches.
Hearing a scrambling sound, Sally realized that Annie was clambering out from under the bed's other side, and then she watched as Matt stepped out of the way.
“Someone just ran past me!” he gasped. “I swear, I just felt someone run right past me and go out onto the landing!”
“She's trying to get away from Mildred Weaver,” Sally replied, before feeling another rush of cold air as something moved back across the room. “I don't know why, but it's as if Mildred won't give up until she's got her!”
“Another one just went past me!” Matt shouted, trying not to panic as he stumbled into the room and then turned to look back out toward the landing. “That one was much bigger!”
“The ghost of Mildred Weaver is chasing the ghost of Annie Ashton,” Sally pointed out, as they both heard the sound of another door slamming open nearby. “And I don't think she's going to stop until she's caught her!”
Chapter Seventeen
“Jane? Hey, what are you making so much noise for?”
Stopping at the bottom of the stairs, Bradley looked through to the kitchen and saw that Jane was sitting at the table with her head in her hands. He'd heard her getting home a few minutes earlier, and since then she'd been slamming things around with such force that he'd eventually had to make his way down to check on her. Now, as he wandered over to the doorway, he realized he could hear her sobbing.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Do I look okay?” she snapped, keeping her hands over her face. “Seriously, Bradley, do you just ask stupid questions all the time? Sometimes, if you can tell that someone's not okay, it's fine to just leave them alone and not bother them. That might actually be what they want. Do you have any understanding of how to interact with other people at all?”
“Did something happen to you?”
Finally she looked at him, and he was shocked to see that tears had left trails of black make-up down her face.
“I didn't get attacked, if that's what you mean,” she said through gritted teeth. “I just had a really shitty night, and I thought I'd fix myself something to eat, but apparently someone decided to take all my stuff from the fridge. Seriously, does nobody in this house have any respect for anyone else's property?”
“It's three in the morning,” he pointed out. “Where have you been until three in the goddamn morning?”
“That's really none of your business.”
“But...”
His voice trailed off for a moment as he remembered his earlier encounter with Jane, up in his room.
“Did you try out my friend's spirit board?” he asked.
“Yes, Bradley,” she replied, “we tried out the spirit board. We had a great old time with the stupid thing. Are you happy now?”
“What happened?”
She stared at him for a moment, before sighing as she got to her feet.
“Nothing happened, you moron,” she told him as she pushed past him and headed to the stairs. “It's just a stupid board. Oh, and by the way, I'm sorry but I didn't bring it back. It got broken. If you have an issue with that, I'm sorry, but it's not like you were looking after it, anyway. I actually did you a favor by helping get some of the garbage out of your room.” She began to make her way upstairs. “You can thank me another time.”
“Whatever,” he replied. “As long as you ended the session properly.”
Stopping, she hesitated for a moment, before leaning over the railing and looking down at him.
“What are you on about now?” she asked cautiously.
“You knew to end the session properly, didn't you?” he continued. “You have to say goodbye to the ghost properly.”
“Or what?”
“Or... I don't know, but I've always heard that really bad things can happen. The spirits are... I'm not sure, but it's like the session stays open, and that's when horror movie stuff starts going on.” He paused. “Did you end the session properly and say goodbye to any spirits you'd contacted, Jane? Did you move the marker onto the spot with the word Farewell?”
“I thought you didn't know how it worked?”
“I don't, but... I mean, that part's just obvious.”
He waited for her to reply.
“Of course we finished it properly,” she replied after a pause. “We're not complete idiots, you know. Not like you.”
“Okay, that's a relief,” he said as she stormed up to her room. “I'd hate to think that you left it open, because that's when things can get really freaky.”
***
“Idiot!” she muttered under her breath as she leaned back against her bedroom door, letting it slam shut. “Suddenly he thinks he's some kind of expert on ghosts, huh? I'm sure he is, from the comfort of his mess of a bedroom, surrounded by all those stupid books.”
She took a deep breath and tried to pull herself together, but deep down she could still feel a rumbling sense of panic. Ever since she'd stormed out of the pub, she'd been unable to shake the feeling that something was wrong; she couldn't put her finger on exactly what was causing her to feel that way, but on the way home she'd almost felt as if she was being pursued. She'd checked over her shoulder a few times as she'd made her way through the dark streets of Crowford, and she hadn't spotted anyone. Nevertheless, she'd been extremely relieved to get home, and she was disappointed to find that the strange sensation was still with her.
She looked around her room, but of course there was no sign of anyone.
As she heard Bradley's footsteps stomping up the stairs, she realized she could suddenly smell petrol. The stench quickly became overpowering, to the point that she finally pulled the door open and stepped back out onto the landing, just as Bradley was about to head into his own room. Putting her sleeve against her nose, Jane tried to keep from gagging.
“Are you okay?” Bradley asked.
“What are you doing?” she replied. “The house reeks!”
He stared at her, not understanding what she meant.
“Have you got petrol in here?” she continued. “Is it one of the others?”
“I've got no idea what you're talking about,” he told her. “Jane, are you high on something?”
“Are you telling me you can't smell that?”
He looked around.
“Forget it,” she said with a sigh, heading back into her room and shutting the door again, before hurrying to the window and sliding it open. Leaning out, she took a few deep breaths, and then she pulled back into the room and waited for the foul smell to dissipate.
A moment later, however, she realized she could feel something between her fingers. Looking down, she was surprised to see small black particles of grit on her hands. She tried to wipe them off, but more seemed to be appearing as if from nowhere and after a few seconds she realized that the smell of petrol was getting stronger. Then, as she turned to look back across the room, she winced as she felt a sudden pain on her left cheek.
Reaching up, she was surprised to feel something poking out from the skin. She rushed over to the mirror in the corner and took a look, and she saw that a thin sliver of glass had somehow become embedded in her face.
“What the...”
She began to slide the glass out, and she grimaced as she saw that it was smeared with blood.
“Okay,” she whispered, “I'm losing my mind here. Did I fall over on the way home and forget? I
didn't have that many drinks at the pub.”
Once the piece of glass was out, she set it down on the shelf, and then she stared at her own reflection. She told herself to stay calm, but after a few seconds she began to realize that another pain was throbbing in her side, somewhere down near the bottom of the ribs on her left side. She hesitated, before slowly lifting her shirt up until she saw that one side of her chest was badly bruised, with discolored purplish-yellow skin spreading almost all the way up to her armpit. Horrified, she touched one of the darker sections of the bruise, and she let out a gasp as she felt a burning pain.
Thinking back to her journey home, she knew for certain that she'd suffered no accidents. Yet as the smell of petrol lingered, and as she looked down at her left hand and saw that the palm was badly grazed, she was starting to realize that these spontaneous wounds seemed strangely familiar.
Not from that night, but from a night several years earlier.
“No,” she whispered, just as she heard a rasping sound coming from over her shoulder.
Not daring to turn and look, she stared at the mirror and told herself that she was imagining things. After just a few seconds, however, she realized that she could see else something reflected in the glass, something that appeared to be over on the far side of the room, watching her from the shadows.
“No!” she said firmly, clenching her fists, determined to not see the face that even now was emerging from the darkness. “This is impossible! You're not here!”
She heard the sound of bones creaking; dry, old bones that hadn't moved in a long time. She flinched, and then finally she turned to prove to herself that she was wrong, only to find herself face to face with the one face she'd hoped to never see again, which was also the one face that was burned indelibly in her mind.
“Why did you make me walk?” her dead sister Olivia asked, barely able to get the words out as her broken jaw clicked with every movement. “Why did you let me die?”
Chapter Eighteen
“I think she came down here,” Sally said, stepping through into the bar area and then stopping again to listen. “I'm sure I heard someone on the stairs.”
“I didn't hear anything,” Matt replied, stopping right behind her and looking out across the empty room. “I haven't heard anything since we left the room upstairs. Are they like some kind of ghostly Tom and Jerry?”
“Quiet!” she said, taking a couple of steps forward, looking around for any hint of movement.
Matt waited, but he was becoming increasingly convinced that they were on a hiding to nothing. For one thing, he'd heard none of the little bumps and knocking sounds that Sally claimed had led her downstairs; for another, he was far from convinced that – even if the ghosts were real – anything could be done to help them.
Still, they stood in silence for a few more seconds, each of them waiting for even the faintest sign that the little girl might be nearby. The pub remained eerily quiet; so quiet, in fact, that Matt began to wonder whether the hush was actually some kind of presence, as if the ghost of Mildred Weaver had somehow shut the rest of the world out and sealed the pub off in its own strange realm. Although he desperately wanted to get to the door, however, Matt knew that first he had to help Sally end whatever they'd started.
“We need to finish this,” he said finally. “Quickly.”
“What do you mean?” Sally asked, turning to him.
“You must have seen it in movies. That spirit board has the word Farewell on it, so we tape it back together and we say goodbye to the spirit. To Mildred Weaver, or to Annie Ashton, or to both of them. It's the only sensible option.”
“We can't leave that poor little girl to get chased around!”
“Yes, we can!” he said firmly, stepping over to her. “Think about it for a moment, Sally. Before we made contact with them, before we even knew they were here, they must have been up to this for decades. And Mildred has never managed to catch Annie, so why would she catch her now? In fact, what if we've actually made things worse by somehow making the ghosts more visible? The best thing to do, to help Annie, might be to get this over with.”
He waited for a reply, but she seemed unconvinced.
“What would you even do if you found them?” he continued. “Do you actually have a plan?”
“No,” she replied, “but -”
“Then the smart thing is to end the session. Let's do it right now!”
“But the board -”
“Do you have any tape?” he asked, heading over to the two pieces of the broken board and sliding them back together. “Hurry.”
Running behind the bar, Sally grabbed a roll of tape and then made her way over to join him.
“There are only two of us,” she pointed out as she handed him the tape. “Didn't we establish earlier that we need three in order to contact a spirit?”
“We've already contacted her,” he said, “that's not the problem.” He began to tape the board back together. “I don't know all the rules, Sally, but it might be possible to end this with just the two of us. And I don't know about you, but right now I'm willing to try just about anything. Unless you think it's worth trying to get Jane back, which I'm pretty sure isn't what anyone wants right now.”
“What about Annie?”
“She was fine before we did this. I really think we might be the ones who are putting her in danger.”
Sally watched as he carefully taped the board together, and then – realizing that the marker was missing – she began to look around. Spotting it in the corner, she hurried over and grabbed it before heading back to the table. As she and Matt sat down, however, she couldn't help looking around once again, just in case there was any sign of Mildred or Annie.
“We didn't check the cellar,” she pointed out.
“There's no time for -”
“I'm going to look!”
Getting to her feet, she hurried around behind the bar.
“You're dragging this out!” he called after her, unable to hide the desperation in his voice. “Sally, you can't do anything to save her! All you can do is help me to put this all right!”
He waited, and then he sighed as he heard her heading down the stairs. Telling himself that there was no need to panic just yet, he took a moment to continue fixing the board, and then – realizing that he could do with another drink – he got to his feet. He headed over to the fireplace first and threw on a few more logs, and then he made his way behind the bar and poured himself a drink.
“No-one ever listens to me,” he muttered. “Isn't it just possible, for once, that I might have a good idea?”
Glancing across the room, he watched once again in case a ghostly figure might materialize. He tried to remind himself that ghosts weren't supposed to be real, although the cold hand on his throat had certainly felt real in the basement. Reaching up, he touched the side of his neck and felt the scratches, and then he glanced over his shoulder.
“Found anything?” he called out.
“Not yet!” Sally shouted from the cellar. “I'm just going to keep looking for a moment. If she's hiding, it might not be obvious where to find her.”
“Yeah, sure,” he said as he finished pouring the pint. He took a sip, and then he carried it back over to the table. “We've messed with something we should have left well enough alone and -”
Suddenly catching his own reflection in the back door, he froze as soon as he saw that Mildred Weaver was standing right behind him. Spinning around, almost spilling his beer, he found that she was gone. He turned to look at the door again, and this time the horrifying figure was nowhere to be seen.
“Okay, I'm pretty sure she's not down there,” Sally said as she hurried up the stairs. “To be honest, though, I'm really not sure. If she's hiding, and if she's got lots of practice at keeping herself out of sight, then I don't know whether we'd ever be able to find her.”
She made her way to the table and turned to Matt, and then she hesitated for a moment as she realized that he seemed
shocked by something.
“What happened?” she asked.
He stared at the door for a few seconds, before taking his seat again.
“Let's just get on with this,” he said, taking the marker and placing it on the board. “Sally, are you going to stand there, or are you going to help me? If we can close the session, this'll all be over.”
Sitting opposite him, she reached out and touched the marker with the tip of a finger.
“I just want you to know that I'm sorry I dragged you into this,” she told him. “I -”
“Spirit!” he called out, interrupting her. “I know you're here. I know you're close. We're here now to tell you that we're leaving. We won't be communicating with you anymore, so we're saying goodbye.”
He waited.
“Now what?” Sally asked.
“Farewell,” he said again, and then he pushed the marker over to the corresponding word on the board. “Don't worry,” he told Sally, “I did that on purpose.”
“Okay,” she replied, “but -”
Before she could finish, the marker raced back across the board until it reached the word No, where it stopped.
“I didn't do that,” Matt said.
“Me neither.”
“We're leaving now,” he announced, more firmly than before. “It's not negotiable. We're saying goodbye to you.”
He forced the marker back over to the word Farewell, but it immediately shot back to No.
“I don't think she likes the idea,” Sally suggested. “Do you think it's because there are only two of us?”
“She doesn't have to like it,” he replied, before taking a deep breath and preparing to try again. “There are two of us, and there's only one of her, so this conversation is over, regardless of what she thinks.” He hesitated. “We're leaving now,” he said firmly. “You can go back to whatever your existence was like before we disturbed you. That's the final word. Farewell.”
With that, he and Sally moved the marker back to Farewell.