The Ghosts of Sleath

by James Herbert

  Ash returned his attention to the house, craning his neck to examine the upper levels and the remains of the ornate stone balustrade that ran along the length of the rooftop.

  ‘You can almost imagine how it must have been,’ he said distractedly, feeling her presence next to him.

  ‘I don’t want to think of it, David. I don’t like this place. When I come here I always have the impression that it’s brooding, resentful of its destruction. It’s strange, but I get the same feeling when I look at the painting back at the house.’

  ‘You’re letting your imagination run away with you,’ he admonished her mildly. ‘There’s nothing here.’

  ‘You don’t feel anything?’

  He peered into the opening, his gaze sweeping the stained walls, the ruined staircase. ‘It’s just an empty shell.’

  She hugged herself as if suddenly cold. ‘I wish I could believe that. Even as a little girl I hated the place. I’d never come here alone and fortunately my mother didn’t seem to like it here either. Only Father used to visit and sometimes he insisted that I came along. I remember him walking through the ground floor, moving from room to room, and often, if it was safe, his eyes would be half-closed as if he were imagining how it used to be. He’d even hum a tune, one of those old waltzes, and describe to me the social occasions that generations of Lockwoods enjoyed in this house. Holding his hand, I’d imagine them myself, the long gowns, the powdered wigs, music played on a harpsichord. I’d almost hear the laughter, the conversations, the tap of shoes on the marble floor of the ballroom as the guests danced. Romantic, I know, a young girl’s idea of how it must have been; but I could almost see them …’

  She stopped as if surprised by her own recollection, and Ash moved closer to her. Her voice faltered as she went on. ‘I could imagine other … occasions here, too. Dark things happening … things I couldn’t possibly understand as a child … things I don’t even understand now …’

  He put his arms around her and she stiffened before relaxing into him.

  ‘How did you imagine them, Grace?’ he probed gently. ‘Do you recall if you actually heard music and voices? Were they that real to you?’

  ‘I don’t know - it was so many years ago. But I couldn’t have, could I? It must have all been in my mind, just childish fantasies.’

  ‘But you remember them quite vividly.’

  ‘Today I seem to.’ She left him to go to the high doorway.

  Ash followed and when he stood alongside her he saw that her eyes were closed and her head was tilted slightly upwards as if she were still recalling those childhood memories. He didn’t disturb her; instead he surveyed the gutted building’s interior. It was easy to imagine Lockwood Hall’s past grandeur, even though the walls and half-walls now were grimed black, with moss and lichen abundant in the shadier corners. The floors were littered with fallen debris, charred beams scattered here and there, masonry dust thick and clogged like mud from years of rainfall through the open roof. There were large holes in the flooring whose darkness the bright sunshine seemed unable to penetrate. He peered up at the remnants of the upper floors and was surprised to detect no birds or nests settled in the broken timbers or wall crevices, for such abandoned places usually provided ideal sanctuaries. He searched and listened for sounds, but could find no trace of wildlife at all. There was only silence and the swirl of dust motes inside this huge, empty shell.

  He took a step forward so that he was just inside the doorway.

  ‘Don’t, David.’ Grace had felt him move past her and had opened her eyes immediately. ‘It isn’t safe in there.’ When she saw his uncertainty, she added: ‘The floor - it isn’t safe anymore. And some of the ceiling rafters are quite loose.’

  He nodded, glad of the warning. ‘When were you here last?’ he asked, moving back to her.

  ‘I’m not sure. A year ago, perhaps, when I returned home because of my mother’s illness. After the funeral I just wanted to get away from the Lodge House, so I took a walk along the old road and found myself back here. I remember Father was angry when he learned where I’d been.’

  Ash raised his eyebrows questioningly.

  ‘Nothing sinister, David. He was concerned that the whole place might decide to collapse in on itself one day and he didn’t want anyone to be near when it happened.’

  ‘Why not have it demolished if he’s so anxious?’

  ‘It would be too costly. Besides, it’s on private land - no one’s allowed to come close.’

  ‘I didn’t see any warning signs.’

  ‘They’ve never been necessary. Nobody seems interested enough to visit the place.’

  ‘Not even the person who bought the rest of the estate?’

  ‘Carl Beardsmore? He knows it’s off limits. It was my grandfather, Neville Lockwood, who sold off all the lands to pay off his debts and he stipulated that the Hall was always to remain as family property, despite its condition. I suppose he wanted us to retain some kind of tradition no matter how our wealth had been diminished. The new estate owner built his own property on the southern side of the land and it was Beardsmore - I’m told he used to own a collection of engineering magazines and sold them on for millions - who took it over twenty-odd years ago. He approached my father at the time, and several times since, with offers to buy up the rest of the estate, but Father turned him down. I think Beardsmore has given up the idea of being total lord of the manor by now.’

  Ash could understand the millionaire’s past ambition for, rebuilt, Lockwood Hall would have made a superb residence in a fine setting, and no doubt he would have paid a very healthy price for the property. Still, in a way it was refreshing to see family tradition take pride over market forces. The Lockwoods were a dying breed.

  A sudden flutter of wings startled them both and Grace quickly stepped back from the doorway as if expecting a fall of loose debris. Only dust, a million glittering specks in the sunlight, drifted down from the open roof.

  Ash looked up and saw the bird that had just alighted on one of the beams high above in the cavernous interior. So I was wrong, he thought, there is life here, and as if to answer him the black crow released a sharp, jagged cry, a sound made harsher by the emptiness inside those damaged walls.

  ‘David.’ Grace had moved even further away: she was almost by the top step. ‘Let’s leave.’

  He glanced back at the crow. It was silent now and seemed to be staring down at him. Ash shivered and suddenly realized that, despite the sun’s unhindered entry, Lockwood Hall - or what was left of it - was as cold as a mausoleum.

  21

  AH NOW, SO THIS is the place. Pleasant. No, more than pleasant: a beautiful little village. Such a pity, such a great shame.

  The diminutive man on the bench crossed his legs, cupped his hands around his knee, and rocked backwards and forwards for a few moments, the movement slight, his narrow shoulders barely leaving the back of the seat. He tapped his thin, silver-handled walking cane on the grass thoughtfully.

  Someone passing through might think the place was ordinary enough - well, much too pretty with its olde worlde inne and quaint houses, its village green with pond, to be described as ordinary, but to be sure, they’d imagine it was tranquil and certainly uneventful. Oh yes, and the casual visitor might assume that the villagers themselves were perfectly nice and without any special cares other than those that normal everyday living dreams up, and they’d never notice the distant but - if you looked ever so carefully - telltale disquiet behind the polite smiles, a kind of spiritual discomfort in their evasive eyes.

  This is the place, without doubt. God in His great Heaven, you can feel the trembling of the very air itself, you can sniff the sour stench of trepidation. These people - look at them walking by, barely nodding to each other, avoiding eye contact - these people suspect something is terribly wrong with their village, but right now they don’t know what. They’re waiting for something, but they haven’t a clue as to what that something could be.

  Seamus P
helan scratched an itch inside his nose then, his mind on other things, wiped his finger on the red-with-white-spots handkerchief that flopped from the breast pocket of his hairy tweed jacket. He studied the ground in front of him for a little while, contemplating the dark stains in the grass, a deep frown corrugating his forehead, a shadow temporarily veiling the usual merriment of his grey-green eyes.

  Now that’s nasty dried blood tainting the grass there (how rank life’s liquid becomes when spilt so recklessly) and spoiling the peace with its implication. Something has happened here on this very spot and very recently, something horrible and violent. Death has had its bony fingers in it, but its grip was not quite enough. Yes, yes, I can feel it. Death has not had its way here, but it stands sulking close by. There will be other opportunities.

  He craned his neck to watch a red Ford drive by the green, his interest in the driver rather than the vehicle itself. His little eyes, almost merry once more, narrowed as he tried to discern the man’s features, but the sun was high and there was too much shade inside the car. Nevertheless, he caught a glimpse of profile.

  Hmn, strong face. Full of uncertainties, though. Now why should this man attract my attention so? Ah yes, he’s part of it. Mercy, the sensing is strong. Look now, he’s caught it too. He’s glancing this way, searching. He sees me, but he’s not sure. He looks away again, watching the road. The man’s full of confusion.

  The little Irishman watched as David Ash pulled into the last remaining space of the small parking area on the other side of the pond. He watched him lock the car and cross the road to the Black Boar, walking around the police car parked at the kerb, to reach the inn’s entrance. Ash stopped and looked around once more before going inside.

  He doesn’t belong here, that’s for sure. He’s a stranger like meself. Yet he’s part of what’s going on here. Called by these terrible vibrations, I wonder? Are they what brought him to this place too?

  Phelan became still on the bench. He gazed at the door of the inn.

  No, this man’s power was not that strong. Or, to be precise, his power was far too repressed. Still and all, we must get together before too long. Before it’s too late, I mean. For the moment though, let’s just sit here and absorb whatever it is I can absorb. The pond there, for instance. Horrible stagnant thing. And it’s deep beyond any earthly depth, and I’ve decided I don’t like sitting so close to it. Perhaps I’ll take a walk up to the church I can see in the distance. Always a good place to start and nobody pays any attention to strangers snooping around such old places of interest.

  Seamus Phelan stood and shook each leg in turn as if dislodging creases in his own flesh. Then he lifted his jaunty narrow-brimmed hat just enough to sweep a hand over silver strands of thinning hair. This done he snapped the hat smartly back into place, picked up the cane again, straightened his shoulders with a brisk jerk and prepared to move off towards the church on the hill. But something else caught his attention, something he was surprised he hadn’t observed earlier. He had noticed the whipping post and stocks even before he had settled on the bench, but then there had been nothing untoward about them. At this moment, though, a dark fluid - as dark as the stuff on the grass - was running down the ancient, scarred wood of the whipping post.

  He wandered over to the old monuments of torture and torment and touched a finger to the slick wetness. His finger was coloured red when he brought it away again.

  Now would you look at that.

  He examined the post once more and then his finger. He shook his head in wonder.

  Sweet Jaisus, why would the wood be weeping blood?

  22

  ASH DREW UP outside Ellen Preddle’s tiny terraced cottage, pulled on the handbrake, and sat there for a few moments staring through the windscreen. He felt weary and wasn’t sure why. Certainly he’d had a bad night, for the dreams had been vivid, distressing; yet he’d become accustomed to such dreams over the years. So maybe the weariness was physical, rather than mental. The long walk to the ruins of Lockwood Hall in the heat of the day had been tiring enough and then, on his return to the Black Boar Inn he had been interviewed by the local police. And lying was always a little wearing.

  To protect his client’s confidence, he had told the two policemen that he had been engaged by the vicar of St Giles’ to help collate the long-neglected church records (this inspired by Grace Lockwood’s remark that she had been hired by the Musée de Cluny to chronologize its exhibits) and to restore them where possible, omitting the word Psychical when he’d mentioned he was from the Institute of Research. It was a small lie only, in the best interest of his client, and he doubted they would bother to check it out, for their enquiries were ‘routine’: because of last night’s murder of a gamekeeper, any visitors to Sleath, as well as locals, were being questioned.

  The whole interview had taken no more than ten minutes and had been conducted in the privacy of the inn’s empty dining room, away from the prying ears and eyes of a couple of provincial journalists who had arrived in Sleath to cover both the murder and the appalling act of violence that had occurred on the village green only the afternoon before. When Ash had retired to the bar for a quick drink and a sandwich before tackling the first part of his report to the Institute, he noticed the journalists were being given short shrift by some of the inn’s lunchtime patrons. Curt grunts and the occasional monosyllabic response seemed to be the order of the day, and when he, himself, was approached to be asked how he felt about the spread of urban violence to quiet rural communities like Sleath, he had brusquely explained he was a visitor, downed his drink in one and taken the sandwiches up to his room.

  The rest of the afternoon had been spent there, going through his notes, listening to the taped conversations between himself and Reverend Lockwood, Grace, the farmer Sam Gunstone and, of course, Ellen Preddle, transcribing them onto paper by hand before typing them up on the compact but efficient typewriter he’d brought with him.

  That completed, he’d rested on his bed smoking a cigarette, occasionally sipping vodka from the hip flask he kept on the bedside cabinet, and reflecting on what he’d learned so far from his investigations. Time and time again, though, his thoughts returned to Grace Lockwood.

  It was foolish, he told himself, foolish to get involved with a client while an investigation was in progress. It was a distraction and, in a way, almost as unprofessional as a doctor or psychiatrist becoming involved with a patient: it could lead to unnecessary complications. Besides, the last time it happened had proved disastrous in every way.

  Nevertheless, he was attracted to Grace and he knew she was attracted to him. This rapport, this odd but potent frisson between them, could not be denied. And this time, unlike before, the woman was real, she was not a deceit.

  These thoughts passed swiftly through his mind as he sat there in the car and he pushed them away, aware that Ellen Preddle was probably watching him from behind lace curtains - she and possibly one or two of her neighbours - waiting for him to come to the front door. Would she allow him to set up the equipment as she’d agreed yesterday, he wondered, or would she be having second thoughts, frightened by what had happened to Grace in her kitchen? Would she tell him to leave her alone, or would she welcome his help? One way to find out.

  He opened the car door and went round to the boot. Some of the fatigue left him as he unloaded equipment for, as ever, the prospect of detecting genuine paranormal activity sent a rush of adrenaline through him.

  Carrying two cases, one large, the other smallish, he pushed through the squeaky gate and walked up the short path to the cottage. The door opened before he was even halfway there.

  He glanced at his wristwatch. Nearly eleven. Dark outside and as quiet as the grave inside. Ash checked the small television monitor screen that was set up on the table a few feet away from the staircase and saw only the monochrome image of the empty bathroom on the floor above. He watched the picture for several minutes, searching for something - anything - out of place. All was perfec
tly normal

  He picked up the half-smoked cigarette from the tin ashtray he’d found in the kitchen earlier and inhaled deeply. The burning end glowed brightly in the semi-darkened room. As yet boredom had not set in, even though he had been keeping watch for hours, and that was odd, for long surveillances, no matter what the circumstances, invariably led to tedium after the first two hours.

  Wires from the monitor trailed up the stairs to a video-camera on a tripod situated at the open doorway of the bathroom. Opposite, inside the bathroom itself, was a tripod-mounted Polaroid camera with automatic flash, fitted with a capacitance change detector which would trigger it off at the slightest disturbance. The camcorder had a similar device attached to it. A sound-activated cassette recorder had been placed by the bath and a light layer of talcum powder had been sprinkled on the floor and inside the bathtub itself. A greenhouse thermometer was balanced on the back of the sink and there was another outside on the stairs, this one smaller and capable of registering the highest and the lowest temperatures recorded during the surveillance. More fine powder had been sprinkled on several of the steps and thin black cotton stretched across the third one from the bottom. An ordinary camera, loaded with infra-red film, stood on its tripod by the front door, facing the stairs. On the table in front of Ash were two torches, yet another automatic camera using ordinary fast-film stock, various transparent envelopes and clear plastic containers, a spring balance and strain gauge, as well as pens, pencils, chalk and willow charcoal, notebook, and paper on which he had sketched floor plans of the cottage, both upstairs and downstairs. Other equipment was packed away in the larger of the two cases he’d brought in with him, and there was still more in the boot of the car.

  Ash studied the floor plans by the light of a small table lamp while he smoked. Ellen Preddle was in her bedroom, hopefully asleep by now, under instruction not to leave the room until he called her, no matter what she heard. If anything disturbed her inside her own bedroom, then she was to call him immediately. The bathroom was not to be used during the night and Ash hoped she had made her own arrangements regarding toilet facilities. All windows were shut tight and the house had felt uncomfortably stuffy for most of the evening although it had gradually began to cool as the hour grew later.