Quarter to Midnight: Fifteen Horror Short Stories

by Darcy Coates

  I clicked open my case and pulled out my notebook. “How soon after you moved did the spirit disturbances start?”

  Anne laughed. It was a rich, throaty noise. “You’d better talk to Paul about the ghosts. To be honest, I haven’t had a problem with them. It’s all focussed on Paul. He’s in the back garden, doing some work with Steven. Head on out there whenever you’re ready. I’ve got a few chores to finish before the fun begins.”

  As Anne had promised, I found Paul in the backyard garden, planting a sapling with the help of another man. I cleared my throat as I approached, and they both startled.

  “Damn,” Paul said, wiping his hands and jogging up to greet me. “Sorry about that. You must be Cheryl, right? I wasn’t expecting you until later.”

  I shook his hand and smiled. “I finished my morning job early.”

  That was a white lie. No one had hired me for a legitimate job in nearly a fortnight; funds were tight, and I was eager to start a new case. If I was lucky, the Mallory house might have a genuine haunting, which would require multiple sessions of contact before we could make a decision about expelling or appeasing the spirit.

  “Well,” Paul said, “I’m glad you’re here. I hope you don’t mind, but I asked Steven to stay overnight, in case things get hairy. We used to be neighbours.”

  “Not a problem. Now, why don’t you tell me what’s been happening?”

  Paul gave me detailed descriptions of the paranormal events he’d experienced as he led me through the building. “Sometimes, late at night, lights will turn on and off in the hallway—and for three nights in a row now, the door of the dresser in the corner has opened and slammed closed. It always happens late at night, regardless of whether I’m in bed or not.”

  I examined the dresser, opening both doors and bumping them gently to see if gravity or a breeze could be to blame. To my delight, the doors were heavy and stuck on their hinges. Slamming either of them would require force. If the event repeated itself that night, it would be substantial proof of a haunting.

  “Curtains open and close themselves through the day,” Paul continued. “The first time it happened, I thought someone had broken in–how else would the blinds be opened during the eight hours the house is empty? But nothing was stolen, and it happened again, day after day, until it became a regular occurrence.”

  “Have you heard any voices or unaccountable noises?” I asked.

  “Yeah, if I wake up in the middle of the night, I’ll sometimes hear noises in other parts of the house,” Paul said, grimacing. “I’m pretty sure I heard singing last week. But I’ve searched the house countless times, and I can never find anything.”

  I jotted details in my notebook. “Well, that’s plenty to start with. Let’s get some equipment set up.”

  Paul and Steven stood behind me as I fiddled with the audio settings on my laptop. Anne sat in the bay window with a book, apparently content to watch from a distance.

  I’d set up a temporary surveillance area in the spare bedroom—one of the few parts of the house where Paul hadn’t experienced paranormal events—to monitor the cameras, audio recorders, and EMF devices I’d arranged throughout the house.

  The equipment was my pride and joy. Not only did it look impressively complicated, but I’d also caught some amazing stuff on it.

  Everything fed back to the laptop. Its split screen carried footage from four cameras I’d set up: one in the master bedroom, one in the kitchen, one in the living room, and one in the hallway. It also recorded audio from six microphones, and a bar along the bottom showed EMF readings from the hallway.

  “We’re ready.” I plugged the final cable into the splitter. “The rest is up to your ghost.”

  Paul knelt next to me. “What should we look for?”

  “Ghosts manifest in a range of styles. Some are white mists–like a reverse shadow. Some look like glowing orbs. Others are transparent versions of their human forms, and if they’re strong enough, they can even manifest to look exactly like they did when they were living.”

  The night dragged on. I stayed alert, watching the monitors, while Paul and Steven alternated between chatting and sitting in silence, and Anne dozed in the corner. Every few hours, I got up and inspected the house.

  Sometimes, spirits will manifest for me but refuse to show themselves on cameras or to anyone else in the room. They can be fickle like that, so checking each room in person can pay off.

  Our night of ghost hunting was a complete failure.

  Dawn broke just before six, and I had nothing to show for my vigilance. The EMF meter had stayed dead, and I hadn’t seen or heard a single thing that could be considered paranormal.

  I was disappointed on so many levels. With the number of events Paul claimed had occurred in his house, I’d been convinced we would see something. It also meant I would have no repeat visits to the house—and very little chance of a referral. Who wants a ghost hunter who couldn’t find the ghost?

  Anne tapped me on the shoulder as I shut down the computer. “It’s been a long night. I’m heading off to bed. Sorry we didn’t see anything.”

  She slipped out of the room before I could reply, leaving me with Paul and Steven. They looked exhausted.

  I hid my dissatisfaction and tried to offer some comforting parting words. “Just because we didn’t see a spirit, doesn’t mean there isn’t one here. They can tell when they’re being watched, and sometimes, they’ll hide. There’s some good news, though–the events you’ve described lead me to believe your spirit is harmless. Friendly, even.”

  “I guess that’s something,” Paul said as he helped me carry my equipment to the car. “But if I’m being honest, I’d be happier if it weren’t happening at all.”

  “I’m sure.” I felt both exhausted and disheartened, but put on a cheerful smile for Paul’s sake. “Sorry I couldn’t be more help, but thank you for the opportunity to investigate your home. I’ll mail you my invoice next week.”

  “No problem. Thanks for coming out.”

  “Say goodbye to Anne for me.”

  Paul froze at my words. “How do you know about Anne?”

  I was confused. “What do you—”

  “She’s the reason I moved out of my old place.” His voice was shaky with still-fresh grief. “Anne died last month.”

  CRAWLSPACE

  There’s a tiny door in my room.

  It’s been covered with hideous blue-patterned wallpaper, but I can still see the outline of its frame and the little bump where the keyhole sits. It’s only about two feet high and just as wide.

  It’s probably just a pokey storage hole.

  I bet I could fit into it if I tried.

  It was our first day in the new house. My parents were downstairs, fighting over how much to unpack. Dad was a borderline hoarder, but at least he was an efficient one. He believed that leaving most of our belongings in boxes would make it easier for next time we moved. We had at least a dozen cartons that were sealed nine years ago, when I was still too young to appreciate the insanity of his logic.

  Mum also had hoarderish tendencies, but she preferred to have her clutter on display, decorating the house like her personal thrift shop. I was the polar opposite—anything that wasn’t absolutely necessary for our comfort or survival could be thrown out. I didn’t even have much furniture, just a bed, a wardrobe, a desk, and a chair. My small book collection sat atop my desk, but they were the only decorations I owned. Compared to downstairs—which Mum continued to fill with trinkets, vases, miniatures, and paintings—my room was spartan. I liked it that way.

  The lack of furniture meant there was nothing to cover the door in the wall, though. It sat in the area between my bed and my desk. It was barely noticeable unless I was looking for it, but once I’d seen it, the door was hard to ignore.

  It’s probably empty, I repeatedly told myself as I made the bed and hung my clothes–five shirts and three pairs of pants–in the wardrobe. It’s not like there’s some great big secret h
idden in there.

  My unpacking took less than ten minutes. I could have gone downstairs when I finished, but I knew I would get roped into helping Dad squirrel away boxes marked “Don’t Open,” or mum would ask me to help arrange dozens of her miniature horses and squirrels along the mantelpiece. I’d already done more than my share to help pack them, and the four-hour drive had exhausted me. If they want clutter in their house, they’ll have to deal with the consequences, I decided and flopped onto the bed.

  My window had a view of the large oak tree that grew beside the house, and I watched its fluttering leaves brush against the glass, mesmerised, until I drifted off.

  I woke to the sound of tapping. The sunlight was hitting my face, so I rolled over to block it out and mumbled, “I’m coming. Hold on.” When the noise didn’t stop, I sat up and rubbed my palms into my eyes.

  It wasn’t Mum knocking at my door, as my half-asleep brain had assumed. I glanced towards the window, where the motion of the tree leaves had lulled me to sleep. The wind had died down, and the boughs were still.

  I mussed my hair out of my face as I looked about the room. The tapping was quiet but, like a dripping tap, impossible to ignore.

  “Hello?” I called.

  Mum answered me from downstairs. “Dinner’s almost ready! Come help me find the cutlery.”

  As the sound of her voice died away, silence rushed in to fill the space. The tapping had stopped, at least.

  It was probably the tree, after all.

  “Do you want to know what I found out today?” Dad asked.

  Our real dinner table was crowded with half-unpacked cartons, so we sat our paper plates on a large packing box while we ate. Neither of my parents seemed to appreciate the irony.

  “What?” I asked, scooping up pasta with a plastic spoon.

  Dad swelled with excitement. “Apparently, this place used to be an orphanage during the Depression. They had up to sixty children here at a time.”

  Mum paused, her fork halfway to her mouth. “How did you find that out?”

  “Oh, well, I was setting up the office. The computer turned itself on–you know,” Dad blustered.

  I smothered a grin. I hadn’t been the only one slacking off that afternoon.

  “The real estate agent said it was built by a lord.” Mum put down her fork and smoothed her cotton dress. I was sure she’d been born in the wrong decade. Necessity had forced her to work a part-time job most of her life, but she would have been much happier as a housewife. She even wore dresses and styled her hair as if she were living in the forties. Dad thought she was adorable.

  “It was,” Dad said, leaning forward. His enthusiasm was contagious, and both Mum and I mimicked his movement to hear him better. “When he died, he left it to a local church, and they converted it into an orphanage. It stayed that way until the eighties, when it was sold and renovated.”

  “Orphanage, huh?” I asked, glancing about the pokey kitchen. “It’s not really built for it.”

  “Well, when you’re desperate, you make do with what you’ve got,” Dad said. “There were a lot of homeless children back then, more than any of the orphanages could keep up with, so they crammed the homes to capacity and had the children work–sewing clothes or running errands or whatnot–to help pay for food.”

  The house was big, much bigger than our last place had been, but it still seemed far too small for sixty children. Though, I guess, for a parentless child during the Great Depression, you’d call yourself lucky if you had a roof over your head and enough food to keep yourself from starving.

  Mum looked uncomfortable. She’d left her fork in her half-eaten meal and was rubbing at her arms. “I’m not sure I really like that.”

  “What’s not to like?” Dad asked. He had shovelled so much pasta into his mouth that I could hardly understand him. “We get to be a part of the town’s history!”

  Mum seemed to be seeing the house in a new light. Her eyes darted over the stone walls and arched doorway, and her eyebrows had lowered into a frown. “I just hate to think about all those children… they must have been so lonely…”

  Dad’s whole body shook as he laughed. “Lonely? When there were sixty of them? I don’t think so.”

  Mum pretended not to hear him. “That must be why the price was so low. It was even cheaper than that house half its size in Cutty Street, remember?”

  “Their loss,” Dad said, spearing more pasta onto his fork with a satisfied grin.

  The tapping woke me in the middle of the night. I lay in bed and watched the opposite wall, where moonlight filtered through the tree outside my window and left dancing, splotchy shapes on the blue wallpaper.

  The noise seemed to bore into my skull and knock directly on my brain. I squeezed my eyes shut, willing it to be quiet so I could fall asleep again.

  tk tk tk tk tk tk tk tk…

  I groaned, rolled over, and pulled my pillow over my ears. It muffled the sound but didn’t extinguish it.

  tk tk tk tk tk…

  If anything, the noise grew louder and more insistent, like a fly that was getting closer and closer to my head. I glared at the shadows cast on the wall, watching as they twitched and swirled, mimicking the infernal tree’s movements. Maybe I could convince Dad to cut it down…

  tk tk tk tk tk tk tk tk tk tk…

  “Shut up!” I yelled, unable to tolerate the tapping anymore. I sat up in bed, feeling flushed, frustrated, and a little ashamed for yelling at a tree.

  My room was quiet.

  I held my breath, waiting for the noise to resume, but I heard nothing except beautiful, sweet silence. “Huh,” I muttered and carefully lay back down. The shadows continued to sway over the wall opposite, but I didn’t mind them as long as the noise had stopped. As I closed my eyes and let tiredness claim me, I wondered at how incredible it was that the tree had quietened at the exact moment I’d told it to.

  Mum used a hot tray of muffins to bribe me into helping her unpack the next morning, and I spent the first half of the day unwrapping, dusting off, and arranging her miniature collection. She fussed behind me, moving the animals and ball gown-wearing ceramic women into new arrangements, quirking her head to the side constantly to admire her work.

  Finding out she lived in an old orphanage seemed to have shaken her; she was putting even more effort into turning this house into her domain than she had at our last place. She’d rescued her set of doilies and crocheted tablecloths from one of Dad’s “Don’t Open” boxes and flung them around the sitting room until it looked like a winter wonderland. Even more boggling, she’d brought out some of the Christmas decorations, including our fake wreath, holiday-themed trinkets, and bowls of plastic apples.

  “Christmas in May?” I asked sceptically as I poked at one of the glittery apples.

  Mum shrugged while she rearranged the miniatures on the fireplace mantel. “I think they look nice. Don’t you want our house to be pretty?”

  I didn’t tell her, but I thought it was bordering on garish. I escaped back to my near-empty room, a pair of hedge clippers clutched in one hand.

  Once I’d had a chance to think about it, I’d realised there was a simple way to stop the tapping noise without having to cut down the entire tree. I opened the window, pulled out the screen, and began snipping off all of the branches that touched or came near to the glass.

  “I’m going to the shops,” Mum called from downstairs. “Does anyone want anything?”

  “Thanks, I’m fine,” I called back at the same moment Dad hollered, “Beer!”

  As I leaned farther out the window to prune branches that were nearly out of my reach, I saw Mum’s car reverse out of the driveway and turn towards the town. Just past that, on the other side of the road, an elderly couple was standing on the sidewalk. They watched Mum’s car pass them, then both looked back at our house. They’d inclined their heads towards each other and seemed to be talking animatedly.

  About us?

  Mum would probably get to meet
them later when she went up and down the street to introduce herself. The elderly couple didn’t look happy, I realised, and I paused my cutting to watch them. The woman had her arms crossed over her chest and was shaking her head, while the man scuffed his boot on the sidewalk. They exchanged another brief word then turned and disappeared into their house.

  I found out what my mother’s trip to the store had been for when I came down for dinner that night. At least two dozen fat candles had been spaced about the house, shoved wherever there was room between the miniatures. They were scented and lit, and their conflicting odours combined into a horrifically pungent smell.

  “What’s this?” Dad asked as he followed me through the doorway. His moustache bristled in disgust. “Smells like a perfume salesman died in our bleeding lounge room.”

  Mum sniffed as she dished up plates of fish. Our dinner table was clear of boxes, at least—but now four fat candles were clustered on a doily in its middle. “They’re aromatherapeutic,” she said. “They’ll spread nice vibes through the house.”

  “This is a horrible fire hazard,” I said as I watched a flame lick dangerously close to the wallpaper.

  “Well, I’m sorry, but someone has to make this place feel like home,” Mum said. She looked offended, so Dad and I dropped the subject.

  “I’m going to visit some of our neighbours this evening,” Mum said as she placed the plates of steamed fish and greens in front of us. “Does anyone want to come with me?”

  Maybe I felt guilty for complaining about the putrid smell of her candles, or maybe it was curiosity about the odd couple I’d seen watching our house, but I found myself saying, “Sure. I’ll come for one or two of them.”

  Mum looked delighted. “Well, I’m glad to see you’re taking an interest in your new town, honey. Your father and I are hoping his work will let him stay here for at least a few years this time, so it would be good to make some friends.”