by Matt Shaw
He walked over to the front door and pulled his umbrella out of the stand where he stored it for days when he needed to take Roald out for a walk in the rain. With one hand on the handle he brandished it as though it were a baseball bat. If it wasn’t him who had stacked the bits up and it wasn’t Emily - the only thing he could think of was that someone else was, or had been, in the house.
“Hello?” he called out. “I know you’re in here!” A lie. He wasn’t sure of anything. “If you come out now...We...We don’t have to call anyone...It can be between the two of us...” He started to make his way down the hallway - opening the various doors to the rooms so he could ensure they were empty of intruders. “Won’t even have to call your husband...”
His heart was racing. He half expected to find the woman, from yesterday, standing in one of the rooms with that look on her face - the look which suggested as though the lights were on but no one was home...Other than a deranged murderer hellbent on killing Jason and his family for daring to move into the house that she loved.
It wasn’t long before a glance revealed that all the downstairs rooms were empty. Much to his relief. He looked back up the stairs and wondered whether the woman had got upstairs without Roald bothering to alert either Emily or him. He cast his mind back to yesterday - Roald was hardly the best guard dog when the woman, and her husband, first made an appearance.
“Come on, this is ridiculous,” he told himself - not that he believed what he was saying, “she isn’t here - no one is. Yeah? Then how do you explain the box? Oh great, and now you’re talking to yourself too. Brilliant!”
Slowly, with his heart in the back of his throat, he went up the stairs. The same process followed from downstairs - each of the doors pushed open and a quick look into the room to ensure there was no one lurking within. All the rooms were as they should have been - empty.
“Getting paranoid in my old age,” Jason joked to himself as he stood in the final room; the spare room which overlooked the front garden. “Just because the woman was crazy - doesn’t mean she is about to break in and start moving stuff.” He shook his head, “She’s just the local village loon - they all have them.”
Before he even finished saying the derogative sentence, the bedroom door slammed shut, with some force, directly behind him - making him nearly jump out of his skin in the process.
“Fuck me!” he shouted with fright. “What the hell is causing that?”
He walked over to the door and opened it. A quick look at the hinges, not that he really knew what he was doing, and they looked fine. He turned his attention back to the windows and ran his hand around the edges to see if he could feel a breeze coming through - nothing out of the ordinary other than the fact they looked as though they’d never been cleaned.
“What’s that?” he noticed one of the glass panes had a small hand print on it - as though someone had been standing there, not long ago, looking out of the window. The glass pane next to that also had a hand print, as did the rest of the glass panes - as though someone had purposefully been pressing their hands against every available bit of glass. He tried to rub them off but they didn’t disappear. “That’s weird,” he whispered. Roald barked from the doorway making him jump once more. He turned to see his dog, “Seriously - please don’t sneak up on me - especially today. I can’t take much more of this...” He walked over to Roald and gave him a pet on the head - ignoring the stubborn hand prints on the window. “Come on, boy, I think I need a coffee...”
8.
Jason was standing in the kitchen, looking out of the window above the silver sink, waiting for the kettle to boil - lost in deep thought. A quick look around the house had revealed it to be empty but he knew someone had to have stacked the contents of the box up. And if it wasn’t Emily and it wasn’t him - who the hell was it?
The kettle clicked itself off, once it had reached boiling point, and snapped Jason back to the present. He reached over and took a mug from the side. A little bit of milk in the bottom and a couple of tea-spoons of sugar. He glanced over at the coffee pot, a silver cylinder complete with lid, and went to pick it up when, without warning, it slid across the kitchen work-top right to where he was standing.
Jason jumped back.
“What the...?”
Slowly he reached across and tentatively took hold of the coffee pot. A few quick pokes with his index finger first as he half expected to get an electric shock.
Nothing.
He held it up into the air and inspected it in the light, which spilled in from the kitchen window. There was nothing unusual about the coffee pot. Certainly nothing about it which hadn’t been the same every other time he had used it. He put it back down on the counter and took a few steps away before turning back to it.
“Okay,” he mumbled, “let’s try this...”
He held his hand out to take hold of the pot, despite being a good couple of feet away from it, and concentrated as hard as he could. Within seconds the pot slowly slid across the kitchen work-top directly to his hand. He jumped back with a little boyish shriek of delight.
“I’m a fucking Jedi!”
Without any hesitation he placed the coffee pot back on the original spot and, once again, watched with delight as it slid back across to his waiting hand.
“Ah, this is awesome...Okay...What else?” he looked across the work-top to see if there was anything else he could make move towards him. “Ah-ha! I think I fancy some SALT!” he held his hand out and, seconds later, the salt shaker slid - from next to the gas hobs - across to the palm of his hand. “Did I say salt? I meant...Pepper!” Again, the pepper pot - which had originally been next to the salt - moved across the work-top to Jason’s hand. “Holy shit!” he laughed. He put the salt and pepper back where they belonged whilst still sniggering to himself before he suddenly realised that, despite his childhood wishes, it probably wasn’t him that was moving the items around.
As it dawned on him more, and more, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up and a chill ran through his body.
“It’s okay,” he said to himself, “it’s fine...” He kept mentally telling himself that, if the presence was bad - it probably wouldn’t be offering to pass him things. “Is there anyone in here?” he asked out loud. He didn’t know whether to expect a voice to make itself heard or not but he was pretty sure he didn’t want to hear it anyway. Much to his relief, the room remained silent - with the exception of his own breathing. “Might not be able to talk...Okay...” he looked back to the salt shaker on the side, “...If there’s anyone in here - can you make the salt shaker move again?”
His heart was beating fast and hard as he watched the shaker intently. Not even a couple of seconds went by before it suddenly moved towards the edge of the work-top.
“Fuck...” Jason mumbled; lost for real words for a change. “Okay,” he continued after a couple of seconds, “...Think...”
He walked over to the fridge - stuck on the front was a magnetized clipboard with a few sheets of paper; a pen holder, complete with pen, attached to the side of it. He ripped the whole set-up off the fridge and placed it on the work-top before he took the pen from the holder and placed it on top of the paper - with the lid off.
“My name’s Jason,” he said out loud whilst looking around the kitchen in the hope that, at least on one occasion, he met the spirit’s gaze. “What’s your name?” He pointed to the pen and paper, “You can use that, if you want.”
He held his breath, in anticipation, as he looked at the pen. For a second it stayed perfectly still and then it rolled to the left. A pause. It rolled to the right. A gentle rocking motion. Suddenly the pen, and the clipboard, flew off the work-top with such force - as though they were shoved out of frustration - they landed on the floor at the other side of the kitchen. The sudden show of violence made Jason jump back with shock.
“It’s okay,” he said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. You don’t have to tell me,” he said. He backed away towards the kitchen door with his han
ds raised in a defensive manner. “We can try something else, if you’d prefer? Do you want to or would you rather I left you alone?” He realised the spirit couldn’t communicate and quickly suggested, “If you want to keep talking to me...Move the salt again...” A tried and tested method of communication.
Almost immediately, the shaker moved across the work-top.
* * * * *
The letters of the alphabet, scruffily written in black ink on torn up scraps of paper, were placed on the kitchen floor in a semi-circle formation. The letter ‘A’ right the way through to ‘Z’ with the numbers one to nine - including zero - after the ‘Z’. Before the letter ‘A’ were the words ‘yes’ and ‘no’. Jason wasn’t sure whether this was the correct set up to use, to communicate with whoever was making the shaker move, but he thought it better than the paper and pen idea which had failed so miserably.
It was stupid of Jason to think the pen and paper would have worked so well. All those wasted hours watching television shows where the presenters went around famous - supposedly haunted locations - trying to communicate with the dead...Not once did they attempt to use a piece of paper and a pen.
He stood up and admired his handiwork. It wasn’t the most professional looking Ouija board he’d ever seen but at least it looked practical - even if it was on the kitchen floor. Jason had chosen the kitchen floor due to the fact it was laminated and not because that was where the items had been moved. He presumed that, if something was in the kitchen, it was more than capable of ‘talking’ to him in any of the rooms. He just thought it would be easier to make things move on laminate as opposed to the thick carpeting in the rest of the rooms - with the exception of the toilet and bathroom which were tiled.
“Okay,” he mumbled to himself - happy with the layout. He walked over to the work-top and picked up the salt shaker. Small and light - it was obviously easy for the spirit to make it move. He placed it down next to the letter ‘A’ and sat down in the middle of the formation with his heart beating hard.
He paused to gather his thoughts and calm his nerves - both easier said than done as his mind was racing in a million and one different directions thinking of all the things which could go wrong; thoughts brought about from watching too many horror films. In the films, the professionals always managed to release an evil spirit and these professionals knew what they were doing. He didn’t have a clue about what he was doing - as was evident by the paper and pen fiasco - so the chances of him releasing something truly evil were, he thought, pretty damn high.
He took a deep breath.
“Are you still there?” he asked. His voice was shaking giving away his fear and lack of understanding of what he was doing.
Instantly the shaker shifted over to the word ‘yes’.
Part of him was excited. Part of him was filled with dread as, this tiny piece of him, couldn’t help but wonder whether it would have been better if the spirit had gone.
The next question was obvious to Jason but he worried about asking it. Another deep breath and he asked regardless of his concerns, “Friendly?”
The shaker moved away from the word ‘yes’ before moving back to it.
Jason let out an audible sigh of relief.
“What’s your name?” he was going to ask if he was talking to a boy or a girl but he figured the name would give that away for him.
He watched as the shaker moved from letter to letter before finally coming to a standstill to signify it had finished spelling.
“Josh?”
The shaker moved to ‘yes’.
A male then.
“How old are you?”
The shaker moved to ‘8’.
A tinge of sadness rushed through Jason. He knew someone was in the room with him, and that they had obviously died, but he had no idea it was someone so young.
“I’m sorry,” he said - not knowing whether sorry was the right thing to say or not. “How did you die?” he asked after a couple of seconds.
The shaker didn’t move.
“Are you there?”
Still no sign of movement.
Seconds later and the kitchen door slammed shut, causing Jason to jump.
“Josh?” he called out despite knowing, deep down, he was alone.
9.
Jason pulled the computer tower unit out of the packaging surrounding it, and placed it under the table in his office. He had purposefully left the computer in the box until it was one of the last things which needed unpacking. Not because he didn’t want to use it - he just found it too much of a distraction. If it wasn’t the social media networking sites which took vast amounts of his time up, it was the endless surfing of pointless websites whilst daydreaming about purchasing anything from blu-ray films, to books, to clothes and even action figures from his favourite television shows.
Not only did his Internet surfing annoy Emily, it also annoyed his agent who was still waiting for the next masterpiece novel to be completed. He’d often find himself sitting in his office, with the best of intentions, wasting hours and hours going from site to site. His bad habit of getting suckered onto the Internet was one of the reasons he had switched over to working on a typewriter instead of working on his books using an office document.
He ripped open a second box and pulled out a knotted mess of various cables needed to make the machine work - all of which had been dumped on top of the wireless mouse and keyboard which he also pulled out and placed on his desk where he had already dumped the large flatscreen monitor.
It didn’t take long for Jason to plug in the cables. Certainly not as long as it would have taken Emily. She was always useless at sorting out the computer despite Jason’s instructions of putting ‘the right shaped lead in the right shaped hole’ she still managed to get it wrong.
With the cables in place and the monitor switched on, he turned the tower unit on and patiently waited for it to load up - an action which, today of all days, seemed to take an age.
His idea was simple. He wanted to put his home address and Josh’s name into one of the many available search engines to see what came up. Had something happened here - he felt sure he’d find a news related story somewhere on the world wide web.
If it ever loaded up.
“Come on,” he mumbled.
Roald walked into the room, behind him, and let out a little bark to know he was there. Jason turned to him, “Did you know about the boy?” he asked.
Roald let out a little whine.
Did the whine mean ‘yes’?
Finally the computer was loaded and ready for action. Just as he had planned to - Jason typed in his address, along with the name Josh, and hit enter on his favoured search engine.
Instantly the screen changed to show a list of results and his eyes were drawn to the top one. It hinted at his address, showed the name Josh, and mentioned some kind of accident. He followed the link and was greeted by a picture of an eight year old boy in a school photograph - smart uniform, combed hair and a beaming smile of intelligence. The boy’s name was clearly written underneath the photograph for all to read.
Jason sat back in his chair and read all about Josh. A young boy who dreamed of being a professional footballer. A young boy who was making good, steady progress at school with the promise of a bright future. A young life cut short by a tragic accident, seen by his parents, when he chased his ball into the road next to their house.
“Jesus...” he mumbled to himself.
He wasn’t sure what to expect when he first learned of the spirit. Especially having met, who he presumed to be, the mother yesterday. She seemed so crazy he couldn’t help but wonder, in the kitchen, whether she had murdered her own son. A harsh thought but one that wasn’t so out of place in a world this damaged where people go missing and are killed on a daily basis.
He had immediately felt bad for Josh when he found out he was eight. Eight years old is, after all, no age at all. To be murdered would have been terrible. Of course it would have. But, as crazy as it
sounds, at least it would have been someone’s plan. Someone wanted it to happen. The fact Josh died by accident...A tragic accident witnessed by his two parents - Aimee and Ian...Three people must have died that day. Their son literally and the parents metaphorically. Truly sad.
He looked up, out of the window which overlooked the back garden, and sighed, “What a waste. I’m sorry, Josh.”
With no warning, or words, the fresh face of the eight year old boy - sad and tearful - appeared in the reflection of the window directly next to Jason’s own face. Jason immediately jumped out of his chair with a little scream and turned to what he thought was going to be the little boy.