Chasing Ghosts

by Dean Cole

  My heart pumping with excitement, I waved my hand in front of the lens. The orbs didn’t flee, instead flying around it, curious and playful. I watched in awe at the spectacle before me, which was as beautiful as it was unnerving. Hilderley Manor really was a hotspot of paranormal activity and I was seeing it with my own eyes, not hearing about it from haunted tales. Where the orbs of energy had come from, why there were so many, especially down here in this dank place, I could only wonder. My aim was getting evidence of their existence. I began to snap away, the camera’s flash making the orbs scatter away. But they flew back immediately, resuming their dance in front of the camera, a swarm of luminescent-green fireflies.

  I lowered the camera, smiling with the thrill of what I was witnessing. To my naked eye the orbs appeared like glittery dust motes dancing in the window light. But something else was now in the room that wasn’t there a moment earlier. My smile faded fast as I stared at it. There was a person standing in the corner.

  They stood there, hunched, their naked back, the brown mop of hair at the back of their head, facing me. The slim shoulders were shaking, as if they were freezing cold. No, not cold. Crying. I could hear the sobs. Strangled, male, sobs of terrible anguish. The fear ruining through me was so strong it paralysed my body. I wanted to scream out, but my vocal cords had abandoned me. The person stopped crying suddenly, as if they had sensed I was behind them. The head turned. My eyes widened with surprise. Because the face, half shadowed, half lit by the window light, was my face.

  I didn’t waste another second. I spun and bolted up the stairwell, taking each step two at a time. But with a misjudged leap my shoe caught the hard, slippery edge of one of the steps and I fell forward, concrete rising up and hitting me in the face. The sound of the impact on my skull, the pain and the shock — it was like I was in some awful nightmare. As if I was outside my body, I watched myself roll onto my back, the DSLR still around my neck, my glasses askew, my hand touching the bleeding gash on my forehead. I saw myself glancing up at the chink of light coming from the hallway, hoping Mrs Brown or Kat would spot the open door and find me, pull me to safety. And then my eyelids closed, blackness cloaked over me and my senses faded to nothing …

  Hearing the turn of the door handle, my eyelashes flutter open. My head is pressed against the pillow, one ear muffled, the other listening so intently I can hear a pin drop.

  A floorboard creaks.

  My heart picks up a pace.

  I feel strange. Not like myself.

  The floor creaks again. I blink and more of the dark room blurs into focus. There’s old furniture around me. A clock by the bed. It tells me it is past midnight. I recognise this room. It’s the room I am staying in for the weekend.

  But there’s someone else in it now.

  A tall hooded figure is walking up to the bed.

  I glimpse the face beneath for a brief moment. It is vaguely familiar.

  He stares down at me and I feel sad all of a sudden. I can’t understand why. Is it because his face, partly lit by moonlight, glistens with tears? Or is it rain?

  I lift my head off the pillow. I’m about to speak. But I see something in the man’s arms that stops me. He raises it until it’s pointing at my face. I freeze. It’s a shotgun. And I feel even sadder now. Because I know he’s about to pull the trigger.

  - CHAPTER ELEVEN -

  Revelations

  I KNOCKED ON Will’s room then waited for a response, my nerves jingling, my chest rising and falling from the run up the stairs. The door opened after a beat and I was surprised to find myself momentarily speechless at the sight of him standing there. In jumper, black jeans and thick socks he looked straight out of the pages of a good living magazine. A pen was tucked behind his ear and two blemishes on the bridge of his nose indicated he’d just removed a pair of glasses. It was as if the wine guzzling, tobacco puffing man who slunk about the manor past midnight had been kidnapped and replaced with someone new, this stranger who looked, dare I say it, refined. Even lamp light was gilding his combed hair and the aroma of brewed coffee wafted enticingly over his shoulder — the opposite of the straggly haired man who stank of alcohol as he stubbed his toe running down the stairs to rescue me from the cold. Were the recent full moons bringing out the Jekyll and Hyde in him, like a sort of alcoholic werewolf?

  ‘Can we talk?’ I asked, still breathless.

  He sighed and raked his fingers through his hair, glancing over his shoulder as if something more pressing awaited his return. ‘If it’s about last night …’

  ‘It isn’t,’ I said, feeling a stab of rejection at the look on his face, the one that said last night was an event he’d rather forget, even if it meant he had, at least, remembered it. I knew now why he’d fled out of the dining hall, and I was getting the clear message again that broaching the subject would be unwelcome. ‘There’s something you need to see.’

  Distracted, his eyes drifted to my forehead. ‘Is that blood?’

  The sound of approaching footsteps interrupted us. Kat was coming down the corridor, her head buried in her phone, but her stride brisk and purposeful. The second she caught sight of me it became clear why she was in such a hurry.

  ‘There you are. I’ve been searching all over.’ She got close and her expression faded from relieved to concerned. ‘God, what happened to you? Looks like someone dug you out of a grave.’

  Her observation wasn’t far off the truth. I felt as near to death as I think I’d ever felt. But I was in no mood for standing around in the corridor having my appearance nitpicked for the umpteenth time since arriving at the manor. Not now I had evidence, something tangible to show my companions. I grabbed Kat by the arm and, jostling past Will, dragged her into the writer’s bedchamber.

  I got as far as the middle of the room, which looked markedly tidier than it did last night (even the bulb in the lamp had been replaced), before Kat stopped me, snatching her hand back. ‘Easy, that’s a seven hundred pound Gucci watch!’

  I faced her, unapologetic. She scowled indignantly, rubbing her wrist. If this was the ‘dragon’ part of her personality she’d warned me about upon our arrival, it was not having the desired effect. Nothing was going to deter me from revealing what I’d just witnessed.

  Will, too, wasn’t looking best pleased at the abrupt intrusion. He closed the door and swept over with a look that threatened to bring me aggressively under control if I didn’t explain myself in the next five seconds.

  ‘You said I should only believe something when my eyes are able to back it up,’ I said in a conciliatory tone, unhooking the DSLR from around my neck. I gestured to the corner where a laptop, e-reader and thermos flask were sitting on the surface of the writing bureau. ‘Well, you need to see what’s on this.’

  Still wary but with his curiosity pricked a little, Will plucked the camera from my hand and carried it over to the desk. Kat and I watched him as he disconnected the e-reader from the laptop and plugged its USB cable into the camera. While we waited for the laptop to recognise the device, Kat threw me a murderous scowl.

  ‘Just wait until you see,’ I said.

  The laptop pinged an alert sound. Will clicked up a folder filled with hundreds of thumbnails of the photographs stored inside the DSLR’s memory. I rushed over to the desk and tapped the computer’s screen.

  ‘Look at the last few photos I took. Those, there, on the top row.’

  Will double clicked one of the thumbnails and it expanded to fit the whole of the laptop’s screen. Both of us stared at the photo. It was the last shot I’d taken in the cellar before I fell and hit my head trying to get out of there. You could see the spherical, transparent orbs floating in midair. A mixture of excitement and panic was coursing my veins. There was some evidence, at least, of the supernatural things I had witnessed. But I wasn’t sure my companions would believe what else I had to share with them.

  Kat sidled into my periphery, peering nervously at the laptop from behind Will’s shoulder. Will opened his mouth to
speak.

  ‘It isn’t dust,’ I said, sensing his thoughts before he had chance to speak them. ‘The camera has night vision. I was watching them. They were moving in unpredictable patterns, as if they had intelligence. Go back a few more.’

  Will shrank the photo and clicked on another thumbnail. The next photo that appeared was one of the shots I’d taken at the exterior of the estate, the house standing tall and formidable against a slate overcast sky.

  ‘There, at the top of the steps,’ I said. ‘There’s an apparition.’

  Will leaned closer, scrutinising the misty figure I’d just pointed out. My body tensed uneasily as I remembered standing before it, remembered walking up the steps and feeling the icy cold temperature where it had stood.

  ‘Hmm. Doesn’t look like a lens refraction,’ said Will. ‘Could be flash photography. When the light reflects off particles in the air. It’s been raining all morning. It’s not uncommon for mist to rise from the ground if the conditions are right. The flash would have reflected off the water particles giving the appearance of —’

  ‘No,’ I interjected. ‘When I looked through the camera lens it wasn’t there. When I looked with my eyes it was. But it’s there, captured in the photograph. It had nothing to do with the weather. And you can clearly see the shape of a person’s body — the legs, the shoulders, the arms, the face.’

  ‘He’s right.’

  Kat had spoken, even if it was barely a whisper, reminding me there was a third party in the room. Her long lashed eyes looked like a child’s as she stared at the screen.

  ‘It does look like a person,’ she said. But a reluctance in her voice gave away that she was struggling to believe it as much as she could see it.

  Will squinted at the photo, stroking his chin. ‘You’re sure there wasn’t any foreign material on the lens?’

  I resisted the temptation to clout him around the ears. Hadn’t he heard what I had just said? He really had drawn the inspiration for his protagonist Jack Reid from himself. As much as he denied otherwise, he was blinded by the same scepticism that afflicted the burly Scotsman depicted in his books.

  ‘I told you, I saw it with my own eyes. And if it was a mark on the lens it would have shown up on the subsequent photos, wouldn’t it?’ I shrank the photo myself and expanded another. It was an almost identical shot, except zoomed in a little closer. ‘See, a fraction of a second later and it’s disappeared.’

  Will contemplated this for a moment, chewing his lip in deep thought before rising to his feet. ‘They’re interesting shots,’ he conceded, retrieving cigarettes from his pocket and skirting around me to the window. He used his palm to push open the stiff latch and the crisp midday air flooded into the room. He popped a cigarette in his mouth and lit it. ‘It’s a digital camera, so there’s no issue with a scratched film, double exposure or a developing issue —’

  ‘You’re saying that thing is actually real?’ said Kat.

  ‘Spirit photography has been around for hundreds of years. There are fakes and there are some images that are more difficult to explain. Images like that one.’ Will blew out smoke, then gazed at the glowing tip of his cigarette. ‘Wasn’t there some early photographs of the manor on the walls in the lounge?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, remembering the framed paintings and photographs on the walls. The misty figure — or was it a smudge? — standing in the window before it had vanished.

  ‘Investigators describe residual energies from spirits like a film loop, repeating the same action over and over,’ Will replied. ‘In the same way the energy imprints itself on a specific location, cameras capture the energy as a photograph. If older photographs taken at the back of the manor show something similar it’ll help to corroborate the authenticity of your photos.’

  ‘You’ve studied this?’ I said, feeling simultaneously relieved and impressed.

  Will frowned. ‘Why do people always assume authors don’t research the subject of their books?’

  ‘This is too much,’ said Kat, shutting her eyes and inclining her head as if in silent prayer.

  She hadn’t even heard what else I had to tell them. Noticing the trepidation in my face, Will narrowed his eyes at me shrewdly. ‘What is it? What are you not telling us?’

  I swallowed. My companions wanted answers. Yet despite being so keen to divulge my secrets on the way up here, with their expectant eyes trained intently on me I didn’t feel so forthcoming in giving them. Once the words were out of my mouth there was no taking them back.

  ‘There’s more,’ I said quietly. ‘When I was in the cellar I saw someone. I’m convinced it was a ghost. I legged it out of there and fell on the stairs. That’s how I got this graze. Then I blacked out.’

  I didn’t tell them what had unsettled me the most, that the face in the cellar looked so much like my own. My mind was busy trying to reason this. It had been dark down there, dark enough to make me think I had seen something I hadn’t … and yet … the face appeared in my mind’s eye once again …

  ‘I knew it,’ said Kat. ‘That fall has broken his head.’

  ‘I’m perfectly lucid,’ I said defensively. ‘But when I blacked out I had a vision. I’ve been having similar visions for weeks. They’re like dreams, but they’re not. They’re memories, events from my past, exactly as they happened all those years ago. Except, the vision I had in the cellar wasn’t from my past. It was from the future.’

  The cigarette froze a few inches in front of Will’s mouth. He didn’t blink as smoke snaked upwards from the burning tip. Kat went to speak, but he held out his hand to silence her. He continued to stare at me for a long moment. I could almost hear that logical mind of his working — ticking, whirring, spinning. He must have read my reluctance, because an uncharacteristic note of worry entered his voice when he next spoke.

  ‘What happened in this ‘vision’ you had in the cellar?’

  I hesitated before answering. ‘I dreamt that I woke up in bed to find Stan Crouch standing over me with a shotgun. Just before he pulled the trigger.’

  * * * * *

  ‘It’s crackers. Insane!’ Kat, striding back and forth in front of me, making me dizzy, complained moments later. I couldn’t recall if the threadbare patch on the rug under her feet was there before or after we’d entered Will’s room.

  Watching her from my position at the foot of the fourposter, I said, tentatively, ‘I know how it looks. Believe me, no one has questioned my sanity over the last few months more than I have. I even went to the doctor. I was given pills. But I stopped taking them because I had a feeling the visions had something important to tell me. And they did. This proves it.’

  ‘You stopped taking prescribed medication?’

  The question came from Will, who was sitting astride a ladderback chair in front of the bureau, forearms stacked against the backrest, chin resting on them. There was a studious look in his eyes.

  ‘The conversation we had the other night made me question their efficacy,’ I replied.

  He straighted up, shaking his head disapprovingly. ‘Not wise, squire.’

  ‘I feel fine. I was only taking them for a few weeks and I haven’t had any withdrawal symptoms.’

  ‘Oh, this just gets better,’ said Kat. She had halted her pacing and was staring reproachfully at Will. ‘See what you’ve done? Those pills were probably the only things keeping us safe from a raving madman. He’ll be out of control without them. You’ve unleashed a monster.’

  ‘Hello! Still in the room!’ I protested. ‘And I am not a madman.’

  ‘There’s no way you’re sleeping in the same bed as me tonight,’ she said, crossing her arms vehemently.

  ‘Katrina, hear the man out,’ Will interjected.

  ‘My name’s Kat!’

  Kat stalked to the desk, seized Will’s packet of cigarettes and his lighter, then, giving me a wide berth as if I was Jack the Ripper, retreated to the open window to get a much needed hit of her poison.

  Will remained unruffled b
y her theatrics. But I did detect a grin playing at the corner of his mouth as he continued to stare at me from across the room. ‘So let me get this straight,’ he said. ‘You’ve been having dreams from the past. But they’re not dreams, they’re memories. And you reckon the one you had about old Lurch, which obviously isn’t from your past seeing as you’ve never visited the manor before, must be from the future?’

  Hearing it spoken aloud by another person made it sound all the more unbelievable. But unbelievable was a word that was fast losing its meaning in my vocabulary. ‘It sounds ridiculous, I know,’ I said. ‘But it’s no more weird than everything else that’s been happening.’

  Will raised an inquisitive brow.

  I drew in a weary breath before shambling over to the Chippendale. I moved Will’s motorbike helmet to the chest of drawers, sat down and started raking my fingers up and down my temples to ease my burgeoning headache. Depressed is a word I would use to explain how I felt. The opposite of how I expected to feel after releasing my burden. Even one of the lenses in my specs was scratched from that fall on the stairs. And these were my best pair.

  ‘Quentin?’ Will prompted.

  ‘I’ve been experiencing weird things for months,’ I said, too tired to hold back any longer. ‘Hearing, seeing, sensing stuff. Ghostly stuff. At first I imagined events happening in the future, and then they happened for real. I thought it was a coincidence. But then anomalies started appearing in my photographs, when they never have before. It’s happening here in the manor, too. I’ve seen other apparitions, not just the one in the cellar.’ I glanced from Kat to Will, my faith not mirrored in their faces. I added, ‘Esther Hill told me that spirits can have unfinished business, such as needing to help a loved one they left behind or give them a message. The dreams from my past are always about the same person, someone I lost, someone who would have done anything to protect me. I think he’s communicating with me through my dreams. If he is, and the vision I had in the cellar is really from the future, then I think it’s a message. A warning.’