Cumbrian Ghost Stories

by Tony Walker

  John attempted to change the subject. “How’ve you found the medication this week, Robert?”

  “Fine, doctor - just fine.” Robert was still smiling to himself.

  “Good, I’m glad, because I remember you said it was making you feel sick. I hoped that would settle down. A lot of these side effects do.”

  John looked over at Billy. “Did we send his bloods off?”

  Billy nodded. “Of course.”

  “Good.” He turned back to Robert. “Anything else you’d like to ask, Robert?”

  Robert shook his head. Then he sat forward. “I see something’s moved into your house.”

  John felt a chill between his shoulders. “What?” he said.

  “Not that it’s really a he or a she.”

  “Come on Rob,” said Billy. “Time for lunch,” and he and Frances got up to take Robert from the room.

  When John got home, Sarah had prepared his dinner, and they sat round the table with Jessica. Jessica did not like Boeuf Bourguignon so she had spaghetti. She chattered about the fish she’d seen and the bath toys that her mother had bought her.

  “Where’s Timmy?” asked John.

  “Haven’t seen him,” said Sarah.

  “He’s scared of the thing,” said Jessica. “He’s hiding.”

  “Don’t be silly, Jessica,” said her mother. “There is nothing. You’ll be giving yourself bad dreams.”

  After dinner, Jessica enjoyed her bath time and then about 7pm went to bed. It was John’s turn to read her a story from the Magic Faraway Tree. He tucked her into bed and told her tales of Moon-face and Silky and then, when her eyes grew heavy, he kissed her and retreated quietly, switching the light off as he left.

  Sarah had poured wine again.

  “We need to be careful with the wine, Sarah,” he said. “It could get to be a habit.”

  She came and sat next to him on the sofa and cuddled into him as they watched TV. She said, à propos of nothing, “I’m scared of this house now.”

  Though it irritated him, he ignored her irrationality. He said, “I love the house. I thought you did too.”

  She sighed heavily and laid back, head on his lap, looking at the ceiling. “I did,” she said. “I do. Just the scream, then the blood…”

  “Those occult phenomena?” he said.

  “Don’t mock me, John,” she said. “They were pretty weird.”

  “We’re just stressed and tired.”

  “What have we got to be stressed about?”

  “Well, you’ve given up your job.” She had loved her job as a solicitor, but she had given it up so she could spend more time with Jessica while she was little. He knew that she missed the company of adults and the feeling of usefulness that work gives.

  She said, “You said we could afford it.”

  “It’s not about money. Of course we can. It’s about priorities. It’s about life choices.”

  She looked as if she was about to argue, but, suddenly, the door to the living room burst open as if someone had kicked it. They both jumped up, terrified. She gripped onto his arm so tight her nails drew blood. John knew Jessica was the only other person in the house and she didn’t have the strength to open the door so violently.

  Sarah said, “What was that?”

  Warily, he walked up to the door. He felt a slight draft from the hall. He heard the clock ticking; otherwise nothing. “There’s no one there,” he said. ‘Must be the wind.’

  ‘There is no wind.’

  And it was true. The night was eerily still.

  Sarah was wide-eyed. “What’s happening in this house?”

  He turned round, trying to reassure her. “Don’t worry.”

  “There’s something awful here,” she said.

  “Nothing like this has ever happened.”

  “Maybe it’s just awoken?”

  “Awoken?” he snapped. “What could possibly have awoken?” His own anxiety made him irritable, and he felt instantly sorry.

  She looked at him like he’d punched her. “I know you’re very clever John, but don’t talk down to me.”

  He stepped over and sat to hold her gently. “Sorry. It’s freaking me out too, but there are no such things as ghosts. You must remember that. Maybe it’s a change in air pressure?” He knew how unconvincing he sounded.

  “It was a hell of a change in air pressure.”

  And then there was a slam from upstairs.

  John was instantly alert.

  “Jessica’s up there on her own,” said Sarah.

  John ran out of the living room into the hall, Sarah behind him. “Ugh, there’s that smell again,” he said.

  Sarah said, “It smells like rot.”

  John said, “It smells just like gangrene. I remember it from my days as a junior doctor. I’m going up.”

  He mounted the stairs two at a time. Above, the door slammed again. This time, he knew it was their bedroom door, not Jessica’s. Sarah’s fear was forgotten as she got scared for her daughter. She ran to her. As she did so, there was a gust of warm air from below them — an air that had the smell of sulphur — like matches struck then snuffed out. He stopped on the stairs and turned. Was there something down there behind them?

  Sarah was ahead of him out of sight. She screamed. She sounded hysterical. He yelled to her, but she didn’t answer. His own panic mounting, he ran to Jessica’s room, but his daughter wasn’t there. “She’s gone,” screamed Sarah. She was frantic.

  “What? How can she have gone? Where?”

  She was sobbing and gasping. “I don’t know. She’s gone!”

  He grabbed her shoulders and spun her to face him. “Sarah, what’s going on?” For an instant the only explanation seemed to be that Sarah and Jess were playing some sick joke on him. But he saw from her face it wasn’t a joke; Sarah broke free from his grasp and looked around the room - in the cupboards, under the bed. She was shrieking - beside herself and incoherent. John grabbed her. “Maybe she went into our room?”

  “That’s where the door banged,” said Sarah.

  They both ran through. Their room was in disarray - shelves pulled out and the contents dumped. The bedclothes were ripped up. Helen’s walk-in wardrobe was standing open, her dresses pulled and tangled over the floor.

  “My God, what’s been in here?” she said.

  He didn’t answer. He ran quickly around the room, looking for Jess. All he found was the cat, Timmy, pressing himself into a corner, terrified. “Come on boy,” he said. “It’s ok.” He took Timmy, unwilling to leave even the cat in the room where this had happened. Timmy allowed John to pick him up.

  Sarah was weeping openly, pulling at her hair. “Where’s my daughter? Where’s my little girl?”

  “Maybe she went downstairs?” John’s voice was shaking. The cat didn’t try to get free — as if too was frightened and wanted some kind of safety from his grip.

  Sarah’s face twisted with fear. “How could she? We were on the stairs?”

  They went down again. There in the hall, everything seemed normal. Everything was now quiet in the house except the loud ticking of the grandfather clock. Then Sarah stood back in horror.

  “What?” said John.

  She pointed. “The clock’s running backwards.”

  As they watched, John saw the second hand was winding backwards, faster than sixty seconds a minute. The weirdness of it built a terrible sense of dread. He tried to challenge the irrationality. He held onto Sarah’s arm to comfort her. The cat struggled to get away from him. He let it go. His mind was screaming for him to find Jessica. And then he heard her. He heard her little girl’s sobbing.

  Sarah heard her too. “That’s her crying. I can hear her crying,” she shouted.

  “Where?”

  “Somewhere near.”

  And then John realised where she was. He ran over to the clock and pulled open the cabinet door where the pendulums and their chains were suspended. In there, huddled in the bottom like a heap of rags was Jessi
ca. He took her out, gently.

  Sarah tried to take her from him. Her voice was coming in gasps. She said, “How did she get in there?”

  “She must have got in herself,” he said.

  Jessica clung to him. “Baby, what are you doing in there?” he said, trying to sound comforting and calm.

  Jessica wailed. “He put me there.”

  Sarah stammered. “Who? Who’s he my darling?”

  “The thing from the forest. He’s like a bat, but he has man’s legs and a head like a horse.”

  “This is some kind of nightmare,” said Sarah.

  “A nightmare couldn’t put her in the clock,” said John. “And how does the clock keep ticking when she was stopping the weights working? It’s working now, and they’re not moving at all.”

  “It’s moving backwards. Backwards means evil,” said Sarah.

  John sighed. “Please, you’re not helping.”

  “Is that supposed to be there?” asked Sarah, pointing at a small copper seal that was screwed into the inside of the clock’s cabinet. It was engraved with lines and circles and looked odd.

  “I don’t know,” said John. “Maybe something to do with the clock’s maker.”

  “It looks more recent than that,” said Sarah.

  Just then, as if to mock him the doors upstairs began opening and shutting, first one, then two, then it sounded like all of them were banging in a hellish cacophony. The smell came — stronger this time: a smell of sulphur and gangrene.

  “We’ve got to leave,” said Sarah. “Please, John.”

  “This is crazy,” said John. “I’m not being chased out of my own house by some mumbo-jumbo trickery. I don’t know how this is being done, but I will find out.”

  “Jess and I are leaving. It’s not safe here. I want you to come with us; you can’t stay here on your own,” said Sarah. Without waiting for his answer, she went to get her coat and pulled Jessica’s coat on over her pyjamas. She took the car keys. “We’ll stay at the Mill in the village,” she said. “John, please come.”

  John listened to the doors banging on their own. “This can’t really be happening,” he said.

  And then they heard the boards creak from the floor above their heads, as if something heavy was walking over them.

  “It’s him!” cried Jessica.

  Sarah grabbed at John’s arm, dragging him towards the door. He allowed her to pull him. But he still looked up the stairs, as if waiting for what was up there to descend. He put on his coat. He took the car keys from Sarah. They went out of the door, all the time he was cursing himself; there had to be some rational explanation for this, though he could think of none. And if he dared admit it, he was frightened himself.

  John opened the car door. Above them the sky was overcast and dark. It was hard to see until the car cabin light flicked on. Sarah put Jessica in her seat and fastened the strap, Then John said, “Timmy.”

  “Oh God, where is he?” said Sarah.

  “He’s in the house with the thing with the horse’s head,” said Jessica.

  “Leave him. Let’s go,” said Sarah.

  John shook his head. “I’m not leaving my cat. I’ll just be a minute.”

  Sarah pleaded for him not to go, but he went back inside the house. He tried to turn on the light switch, but something had happened to the electricity and it wouldn’t work. He thought the fuses must have blown. He had no idea why they would but at least the doors had stopped slamming.

  All was quiet apart from the infernal ticking of the clock.

  From the front door, he shouted. “Timmy! Come here, you stupid cat.”

  But Timmy did not come. John used the flashlight on his phone to light the way into the living room. He caught Timmy’s startled eyes in the beam and the cat skittered past him in a blind panic, going upstairs. “For God’s sake, Timmy,” he hissed.

  John looked upstairs. The lights didn’t work. The cat had vanished. And maybe something else was up there too; something with the wings of a bat and the head of a horse. But how could that be? John knew it couldn’t. And with the strength of his fundamental belief in science and rationality, he began to mount the stairs.

  The filthy reek filled his nostrils when he was only two steps up. Something heavy moved in the darkness above him; it sounded man sized or bigger — no cat. His heart began to thump.

  “Timmy,” he called. He heard a yelp and then a scream. The animal was in pain. He jumped up the stairs, desperate to save his cat. And then Timmy appeared from the darkness, terrified, his eyes wide. He looked as if something had ripped half the fur from him. Timmy ran with adrenaline of an animal that doesn’t know it’s already dead. John had seen a cat hit by a car ricochet around like a pinball, alive but so broken that it would be dead within ten minutes.

  The cat flew past him and tumbled down the stairs. Then John heard the thing in the dark in front of him. He peered forward. Something was there — but what? His rational mind struggled and came with the only answer it could - it must be a robber; some kind of sick sadist who had hurt his cat and who had put his daughter in the clock. What was more absurd, a story like that, or the truth he could not assimilate with what he knew of the world?

  It had to be a man. He shouted, “Who the hell are you? Come down here!”

  Then in the shadows, he saw the shape of something he knew was inhuman. It was too big; the shape was wrong, and he saw its yellow eyes without pupils. It started to move towards him, fast as an insect, flowing like an eel.

  It was too much. John turned. He half fell down the stairs. Timmy was already dead at the bottom. He fell over him and barged forward into the wall in his hurry. The knock winded him. He thought he’d done something to his shoulder; his pain shrieked at him, but his fear wouldn’t let him stay there. The thing of darkness was there already — the thing with the head of a horse came down the stairs for him.

  John picked himself up and threw himself at the front door. In his terror and pain, he could hardly open it. And then pictures started forming in his mind — pictures that that did not belong in his head; things put there by the thing on the stairs. They were images of fire and burning sulphur — pictures of creatures cobbled together from all manner of broken beasts, feelings of dread and memories of cruelty; broken jaws; hanging eyes and forked tongues.

  He vomited as he wrenched the door open, falling out into the soft rain, but doubled over and retching as he stumbled to the car.

  Sarah screamed in terror as he snatched at the door. “The car won’t start. The motor won’t turn over,” she said.

  He fell into the driver’s seat and she turned the key. The engine didn’t even cough. He turned to Sarah, and she held him, shivering and shaking. Then they sat bolt upright as the car was lifted by some inhuman force - lifted, then dropped, jolting them in their seats.

  She said, “What’s happening?”

  He said, “I don’t know.”

  Sarah started praying. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me…“

  Jessica was in the seat behind. He heard her say something. But it wasn’t Jessica’s voice; it was the rough guttural voice of a thing, not even a man. He turned aghast. Her eyes rolled up showing their whites, and she drooled. She spoke in a language he didn’t know and the words coming out of the mouth of his five-year-old daughter were old and evil.

  Sarah prayed fervently. John reached back and grabbed Jessica. With both his hands on her small shoulders, she grinned lopsidedly and in her evil old voice she said, “Submit to me or I will hurt her.”

  Sarah turned and seeing her daughter with her twisted face, screamed. Her mother’s despair shocked Jessica out of her trance, and for a second she looked dazed, more like her normal self. John grabbed her again, half to protect, half to shake out whatever had possessed her. He snarled. “Whatever you are, leave my daughter, now!”

  The thing looked at him again through Jess’s eyes, then it snarled “Su
bmit to me or I will take her.”

  As he held her, Jess’ body slumped. She fell into a deep, sudden slumber. It had gone. At least for now. Sarah reached back and unstrapped Jess. She moved to the passenger seat and John swapped to the driver’s seat. Sarah said, “Go, go. Please John, let’s go.”

  John tried the car again, power had returned. The engine coughed and German engineering kicked in as it started. Though the night had felt eternal, it was not late. It was only 10pm by the time they got to the Mill. John explained to the landlord that there had been a flood in the house — something about a burst pipe, and that they would need the room for two nights. He couldn’t think any further ahead than that.

  They went to bed; John and Sarah in the Inn’s best bedroom with Jessica between them. Jess was in her nightdress anyway and Sarah was sleeping in her underwear. John lay awake, and he knew Sarah was wakeful too, but Jessica slept as if nothing had happened. Finally, when he could tell from their breathing that both his wife and his daughter were asleep, he got up and went downstairs. The landlord was just cleaning the final glasses up before he switched off the light in the bar.

  “Can I get a drink?” John asked, surprising the man.

  He turned. “Of course. You can drink all night as you’re a resident,” the landlord laughed. “But I hope you won’t ‘cause I need my sleep!”

  Somehow the ordinariness of the man and the setting reassured him. He ordered a pint of bitter and then asked if the Inn had Wi-Fi. The landlord gave him the password and John sat down beside the dying fire in the bar and looked up addresses on his phone. As he did so, he realised that if anyone had told him that morning he would be doing this he would have laughed at them. Not only laughed at them, but mocked them for their soft minded incredulity.

  Science had been king then but now its reign was overthrown. John realised he was surrendering to the black tide that Freud warned about, but he had no choice: The scientific sun was eclipsed by the pale fire of the occult moon.

  He needed to find aid from a source that understood things of the soul. But no New Age crank with theories about lizard people and the healing power of crystals would satisfy his intelligence. John needed someone whose intellect he could respect - someone with a philosophy and a basis for their belief. That was what he was searching for - and the only person he could think of was a priest.