He turned his attention to the three men. The landlord was a dumpy, bespectacled man, probably in his mid-sixties, with a balding head and a cheery grin. The locals were both old, perhaps closer to eighty in age; the one standing at the bar getting his drink was thin and gaunt; the seated one, small and bearded. Something in the smaller man’s facial features and the way his eyes were constantly moving, darting around in his head, made Underwood think of hamsters.
Outside, he could hear the rain lashing at the lead-lined windows, and he silently cursed once more the fact that he had ended up here in the first place. For he had set out across the Peak District from his home in Preston with the intention of visiting his brother in Sheffield, a journey he had made dozens of times. On this occasion, however, he had fallen foul of an uncanny number of road diversions that had forced him out onto ever more minor roads until he had been forced into unknown territory, back roads that were seldom travelled along. Then had come the puncture.
He must have walked two and half miles or so through the rain until his weary feet had brought him to the hamlet of Stickleborough. It had been dark when he had arrived, so all he had been able to distinguish apart from the single public house on the hill had been a shadowy collection of slate-roofed houses, half a dozen or so, certainly no more than that. Neither the landlord nor the two other men inside had cars so they had been unable to drive him to a garage. There wasn’t a phone either.
Silently cursing his ill-luck, Underwood sighed and reached for his pint. At least the ale was good, some local beer he’d never sampled before. There was an opened packet of cheese and onion crisps before him into which the landlord had placed a pickled egg, informing Underwood that it was a delicacy in these parts and that, seeing as they didn’t serve food, he might as well make the most of it.
Wiping his hands on a bar towel, the landlord walked over and took his seat again. “What were we talking about? Oh aye, the ghost.”
“Before you go on, I must tell you that I don’t really believe in things like that.” Underwood took a sip from his beer. “In fact, I’d even go as far as to say I’ve never believed in anything supernatural: ghosts, flying saucers, the Loch Ness Monster. I think it’s all a load of hogwash.”
“You’re entitled to your view, of course,” said the landlord. “But there are things that go on here nobody’s ever been able to explain. In fact, there was a team from York University that came here about three years ago in order to carry out some kind of investigation.” He called to his regulars. “You remember that, don’t you Derrick?” he shouted.
The old codger looked over from where he and his pal sat, engrossed in a game of dominoes. “What’s that?” It was clear he was hard of hearing.
“I’m telling our friend here about the ghost.”
“What?”
“The ghost,” shouted the landlord.
“Are you still rabbiting on about your bloody ghost? You’re wasting your time on the wrong kind of spirits.” Derrick and his bearded pal broke into a fit of laughter and returned to their game.
A wry smile creased Underwood’s mouth.
The landlord waved a dismissive hand. “Ah, take no notice of them.” He leaned further across the table. “What them two don’t know is what happened on the last night of that investigation. Three of them, including the professor or whatever he was, chose to stay in the room at the end of the corridor. They gave strict orders that no matter what was heard, nobody was to open the door of that room, either to go in, or to let them out, until morning.”
A tiny germ of apprehension crept into the pit of Underwood’s stomach. It was a dim, nervous feeling, a very slight trembling that now crept like a rising shadow up his spine. Admittedly, he didn’t believe in ghosts, but that didn’t mean that hearing tales of them didn’t bring a certain unease. It was all to do with setting and environment, he told himself. For no doubt the story he was going to be told would be deemed laughable if related in a busy café in town; but here, in this isolated, storm-battered, virtually empty public house, its horror and indeed believability would be magnified substantially. It was all down to atmosphere, he told himself.
The landlord continued, “And so, they went in and locked the door behind them. I then left them to it. Now I don’t know what they got up to in there, and if there’s a God in Heaven hopefully I’ll never find out, but I think it may’ve been a séance or something like that. For half the night I heard nothing, my room being at the far end of the corridor, nearer the stairs. Then I was woken about three in the morning by an almighty banging. Then came the shouts. I threw on a dressing gown and rushed out, flicking on all of the lights. It was the door! They were thumping on the door, screaming to get out. Screaming they were!”
“But you said they had the key. Why didn’t they use it?” asked Underwood.
“I shouted that at them. ‘You’ve got the key’, I told them. ‘You can open the door’. They shouted back something about: ‘He’s got it now. He won’t let us out’!”
“Who’s ‘he’?” Underwood looked confused.
“The Highwayman, I assumed. The ghost.”
Despite his scepticism, a shiver ran through Underwood. Perhaps it was something to do with the level of sincerity the landlord brought to his storytelling or, more than likely, the environment—combined with the growing realisation that the room in question would no doubt be the very same one he would be staying in. A sensation of sick apprehension grew within him. He was beginning to sweat, the pleasant warmth from the fire now no longer comfortable. Before he knew it, he was feeling a little scared. Of nothing—of everything.
“I stood there, looking at the door, not knowing what to do. I’d given my word, you see, that I wouldn’t open it, and they’d paid good money up front in order to do their bit of ghost-hunting, so the last thing I wanted to do was break my promise and see if I could find the spare key in order to let them out. But their screams were becoming wild and unbearable, terrible to listen to. By this time two of the other students who had been kipping down here in the snug rushed up. Like me, they didn’t know what to do. Suddenly, it fell silent. I could see the fear on the faces of those students who were in the corridor with me. I knocked several times. Nothing.”
There was a moment’s pause. A drawn-out hesitation that made Underwood think that perhaps his informant was intentionally spinning out his yarn in order to create the right level of suspense. He took another sip of beer.
“Well, I assumed that things had quietened down, got back to normal. And that’s when I heard the key turn in the lock.”
Underwood thought that the atmosphere inside the snug changed; became colder. For whereas only minutes before he had been uncomfortably hot, he now felt a damp chill in his bones. He found it hard to relax and digest this ghost story in the way it should have been taken, with a laugh and a dismissive shake of the head. It was all nonsense, he tried to tell himself.
“I stepped back, away from the door, not knowing what was going to come out. It was the professor. The look on his face will haunt me for the rest of my days, I’m sure. He muttered something and shambled towards me, all grey and deathly and hollow-eyed. Those two students that had accompanied him came out next, and I knew then that they’d seen or experienced something in that room. Something had scared them half to death, of that I was certain. Once they were out, the professor gave me the key, told me to lock the door, and never open it again. They had packed up within ten minutes and set off into the cold and the rain, on foot, even though they had a bus coming to collect them in the morning. They refused to spend another minute here.”
Underwood finished his pint. He put the glass down on the table. “And I take it this is the room I’ll be spending the night in?” He did his best to hide any fear there may have been in his voice. The rational part of his mind tried to dominate the darker side, tried to make him believe that perhaps these psychic investigators had made a hoax out of the whole thing, perhaps in order to generate sensationa
lism to justify their own undertakings. Yes, no doubt that was the explanation—nothing more than acting.
“It’s the only spare room I have.” There was a slightly mischievous smile on the landlord’s face. “But I think you knew that anyway.”
“I had a feeling.”
“You could always bed down here. I could see about—”
“That won’t be necessary. I told you, I don’t believe in ghosts. I will have another pint though.” Underwood waited until the landlord had returned with a second ale. “So who’s this highwayman?”
“Robert Darcy, also known as ‘Black Robert’ and ‘The Devil’s Horseman’. He were a scourge of these parts three hundred years ago. A highwayman with a heart of darkness. Don’t be thinking of any of this ‘stand and deliver’, Dick Turpin nonsense. Darcy was a vicious robber and a killer. I reckon he’d be classed a mass-murderer by today’s standards, as he must’ve killed over twenty, maybe thirty people. Rumour had it he was in league with a coven of witches, and that he’d sold his soul to the Devil in order to make him uncatchable.”
“I take it he was caught though?”
“Caught? In a manner of speaking, I suppose. The authorities laid an ambush for him. They set up a decoy carriage filled with armed riflemen somewhere on the road just outside. Darcy, thinking it an easy target, tried to rob it whilst some of his gang were still in here, deep in their cups. There was a bit of a shootout, but he were clearly outnumbered. The soldiers caught him and clapped him in the gibbet that used to hang on the wall at the back of the pub. One story tells that he spent days there, pelted and abused by the family of his victims before he and his gang were taken to Sheffield where they were executed. An even weirder story, and one that that professor from York certainly believed, was that for some reason or other they dragged him into the cellar, half-beat him to death, and then bricked him up alive in a secret room. Now I don’t know for sure what exactly happened that night all those years ago, but I do know that on nights like this, when the wind howls on the moors and the moon’s full and bright, you can sometimes hear faint sounds like tortured screams from the cellar.”
“Spooky.” Underwood swallowed a nervous lump in his throat. He was beginning to think that the landlord was trying to dissuade him from staying here at all. All this talk of wraiths and spectres—it was hardly gossip conducive to make him want to spend the night here. Now if he’d said: “The bed’s lovely and comfortable, and I’ll make you a hearty breakfast in the morning as well as see about getting someone in the village to give you a lift into the nearest town.…”
Instead, he went on, his topic of conversation becoming more ghoulish: “Aye, it is that. I daren’t go down there unless I have to. There’s a chill feeling you get. As though something’s watching from the shadows, ready to pounce. And I’ve heard other things as well. A terrible horse neighing outside at all hours, day and night. But of course, when I go to look, there’s nothing there. Nor are there any horses within miles of this place. Then there’s the footsteps. Not normal footsteps, mind you, but the sound of booted feet. Jangling, spurred, booted feet that walk the stairs and corridors, treading on the boards overhead. Malcolm over there claims to have seen something out on the road one night not so long ago. A pale, fleshy thing, lit up in the moonlight. He refuses to talk about it anymore. And as for the long-haired, naked thing Derrick saw one night, dancing on the roof, howling at the moon—”
“Do you actually want me to stay here?” Underwood came right out with it. “I mean, forgive me for asking, but you seem to be doing your utmost to try and convince me otherwise. Look, I’ve told you I don’t believe in ghosts or any other things that go bump in the night, but you really seem to be trying to make me seek alternative accommodation. Are you trying to purposefully scare me away?”
“Not at all, sir.” The landlord shook his head. “I’m merely warning you. I’m also covering my own back, as it were. You see, if the worse should happen—”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m just saying that if the worse should happen, Derrick and Malcolm there will vouch for me when I say I tried to warn you. That’s all.”
“Very well, consider your conscience clear. You’ve told me and I still plan on sleeping here. It’s not as though I’ve much choice now, is it?”
“I guess not.”
Underwood checked his watch, noting that it was now ten minutes to ten. “Right. Well, it’s getting late. As soon as I’ve finished this pint, would you be so good as to show me to my room?”
* * * * * * *
Underwood waited outside in the dimly-lit corridor as the landlord fumbled with the key in the door lock. At first, he thought the man was going to have trouble opening the door, that perhaps he was using the wrong key, but then the lock clicked and he turned the handle, opening the door. It creaked on unoiled hinges, the sound grating on his ears.
For a moment, the landlord was hesitant to enter. He merely stood there at the threshold gazing into the shadowy darkness. With a deep breath, he mustered his courage and stepped inside. Reaching to his left, he found the light switch and flicked it down.
Nothing happened.
He flicked it up and down.
Still nothing.
“Great. No lights. This just keeps getting better.” Contemptuously, Underwood shook his head.
“Maybe the bulbs have gone. I’m afraid I haven’t got any spares, so I’ll nip downstairs and get some candles. I know I’ve got a box of them somewhere.”
Underwood stood, waiting whilst the landlord went to fetch the candles. He gazed uneasily into the dark interior of the room, its furnishings nothing more than barely discernible outlines in the poor light that spilled in from the corridor. Narrowing his eyes, he tried to throw his vision into the darkness, to pick out details. There was a large bed, a chair, a cabinet—
Something moved.
His heart lurched into his mouth. Paralysed by the suddenness and the utter surprise, he pulled back, his eyes wide, staring. There was nothing there, he tried to tell himself, just a figment of his overwrought imagination—a shadow phantom, no doubt brought about by all the talk of the ghostly highwayman. He jumped at the approaching sound of the landlord.
“Got some candles. Should be enough to make the place bright, and, dare I say, cheery.”
Underwood grinned. He hadn’t stayed at many places over the course of his forty-seven years of life, but none of those he had stayed at came close to being as unusual as this place. And the same went for its owner. He was an oddball, without doubt. Perhaps he had lived in this relative isolation for too long, his only company those two old codgers downstairs.
Matches were struck and then, candle in hand, the landlord ventured inside the alleged haunted room.
Now that he could see it better, Underwood was mildly surprised and pleased with what he saw. For this was no crumbling, cobweb-festooned garret with bats hanging from the beams or evil-eyed portraits on the walls. Instead it was a relatively cosy-looking bedroom. It was quite tastefully furnished; nothing extravagant, but certainly adequate for one night. And it would only be for one night, of that he was sure. In the morning, he’d sit and wait by the road and flag down another passing motorist, hitchhike into the nearest town in order to find a garage or somewhere that had a telephone so that he could contact his brother.
The landlord strategically positioned a few more candles, illuminating the room further. “The bathroom’s out the door, second on the left,” he said, lighting a further one. “Right, I’ll leave the other candles and the matches here in case you need them.”
“Thanks.”
“Well. I wish you good night. I’d ask you what cereals you’d like for breakfast, but something tells me, well—” The landlord stepped out into the corridor and shut the door.
“Good God,” muttered Underwood. That man really did think that this room was haunted and that something sinister would happen to him during the night. It was just his luck to en
d up in this creepy place with its equally creepy owner who would certainly not be winning any gold stars for hospitality. In spite of all that, of what he had been told that evening, the warning the other had been at pains to deliver, he still steadfastly refused to believe in any unnaturalness associated with this place, this room in particular.
Dimly, at the range of his hearing, he could hear the sounds of the three men downstairs in the bar. Their conversation sounded strangely muffled, far more so than when he had stood outside in the corridor, although this was probably due to the thickness of the door, he reasoned.
In his mind’s eye, he could see the landlord downstairs, laughing and joking at his expense. Yes, no doubt he and his cronies were getting real belly laughs, thinking that they had put the fear of God into him with all that ghostly talk. As a stranger in these parts, no doubt he was seen as an easy target, someone to ridicule. Well, let them have their laugh. At the end of the day, they were the sorry souls stuck out here in the middle of nowhere, whereas he would be leaving in the morning.
An unbidden and unwanted nervous fear suddenly sprang on him as he remembered that movement he thought he had seen in the darkness. In the candlelight, he tried to dismiss it further, to reinforce the notion within his brain that it had been nothing more than his imagination. After all, there was nothing here now. And if it had been something, it may have been nothing more harmful than a cat. Yes, perhaps that was what he had seen. Maybe it was now cowering in fear under the bed.
He walked over to the bed, crouched down and looked underneath. There was nothing. Ah well, maybe it hadn’t been a cat, maybe it had just been his imagination after all. Testing the bed for comfort, he found the mattress to be too hard, and it had but one rather flimsy blanket on it. There was, however, a large armchair in the corner of the room, which looked far more appealing. He went over to it and sat down, sinking into its welcoming softness.
He sat there for a while, listening to the dull sounds from below. If only he had brought a book with him from his car when he had abandoned it in the lay-by, then he could spend an hour or two reading. Looking around him, he could see no books or any other kind of reading material. Resignedly, he closed his eyes and started to doze, his chin dropping onto his chest, his tired eyes drooping. He thought he heard a door slam, probably the two locals leaving. Then he was nodding, fatigue pulling him down into a disturbed slumber.
The Chaos of Chung-Fu Page 9