“She doesn’t like the attention. Prefers to do it with no one looking over her shoulder.”
Ellis didn’t look convinced, but he didn’t press the matter. It had been silent since Judy had left the room to go upstairs. Those sounds she’d heard earlier hadn’t come again and with every glance at the clock on the wall, Lisa felt the room close around her as her worry set in.
“I’ll just see if she wants a coffee.”
“I’ll put the kettle on,” Ellis replied, then headed for the kitchen.
Lisa closed the dining-room door behind her and peered up the stairs. The landing light was out. She shivered at the chill that seemed to flow down the stairs like a river of freezing air.
“Judy?” Hopefully, she’d get a response and then she could go back and make that coffee and not have to go upstairs and face the darkness at all.
But Judy wasn’t answering. She can’t have left the house and not told them, could she? No. She’d have heard her come downstairs. Whilst eating her meal, she’d barely been watching the television, her ears straining to hear anything unusual.
She flicked on the light switch. The landing light illuminated. Then, the bulb began to glow brighter, the light quickly becoming too bright to look at directly. Panicked, she flicked the switch back off, but the light stayed on. What the hell? How is it even doing that? Ready to call for Ellis, she had turned her head back to the dining-room door when the light bulb popped and extinguished.
“Judy?”
Lisa took a step on the first tread of the staircase then thought better of heading up into darkness and fetched her phone from the dining room. Ellis put his head through the open kitchen door. “Everything OK. What was that noise?”
“Lightbulb went out.”
“I only put that in last month. So much for these energy saving bulbs being cheaper to run. At the rate we go through them, we’re burning through any savings on our electricity bill.”
She shrugged, grabbed her phone and turned on the torch before heading back out, closing the dining-room door behind her.
Her phone’s torch wasn’t that great, but it did enough to light up the first couple of feet in front of her. Upon reaching the halfway point, she spotted all the doors were closed. Unusual. They would normally leave the doors open so the cat could wander around unimpeded. Leaving the doors closed would risk leaving the cat locked in one of the rooms, or have him scratching at the carpet in front of a door trying to get in.
“Judy?” her voice echoed along the hallway.
Stepping onto the landing, Lisa shivered. Why was it always so cold? There were no windows on the landing, so with all the doors closed, she was reliant on the torch from her phone.
When it went out, she froze.
Her fingers gripped the phone’s casing tighter, her index finger feeling for the fingerprint sensor on the back to unlock it so she could at least use the screen’s illumination to find her way.
She turned back to look down the stairs and stifled a scream as she saw the back of a figure enter the dining room. The door closed behind it.
“Ellis!” she yelled.
Nothing. She ran down the steps. The figure hadn’t been Judy. It had been wearing a dark dress, with flecks of red in the pattern. It had been the same figure she’d seen in her bedroom the other night. And it was in her house.
Her hand trembled as it reached for the door handle to the back room.
“Ellis?”
She pushed down on the handle then opened the door.
A flame of light cut the darkness. She jumped back, startled by the ghostly face behind the flare, then kicked herself as she realised it was Ellis, using his lighter to light the room.
“I think the consumer unit’s tripped,” he said. “What’s Judy doing up there? She’s not plugged in anything dodgy, has she?”
“Hope not.” Lisa didn’t want to move. It was comforting being with Ellis, despite the disagreement they’d had the other day, she’d take his company to being left in the house in the dark on her own.
But before she could ask him to come upstairs with her, her blood ran cold. There was a shape in the kitchen. A human looking shape. The intruder must have snuck past Ellis whilst the room was in darkness. How had he not even noticed?
“I’ll check the consumer unit, but you best see if she’s OK. She might have hurt herself.”
Ellis’s lighter extinguished. “Shit.” He flicked the spark wheel again and the flame was back.
And a woman’s face was behind his shoulder.
Lisa’s scream bounced off the walls and surprised Ellis so much that he let the lighter extinguish.
The main lights came back on. The face was gone. Lisa stepped back until she felt the comforting feel of the sofa behind her legs.
“What the hell?” Ellis’s features were caught in a moment between horror and surprise. “Why did you scream?”
“I thought I saw something.”
“What?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Telling him what she’d seen seemed stupid. Whatever was wrong with her was not worth troubling Ellis over. He would only get upset and start shouting at her again, maybe even call her parents and let them know what a weirdo she was being. The last thing she wanted was for her parents to get involved in this.
“Judy?” Ellis suggested.
“What about her?”
“Perhaps check on her. It must have been a general power cut. Haven’t experienced one of those in years.”
Lisa hurried upstairs. The landing light was back on, and the doors to the bedrooms were once again open. She couldn’t have imagined that. They were closed earlier, she was positive. And the light had popped hadn’t it? She’d heard it. Ellis had heard it. That must have happened.
Her own bedroom door was the sole door upstairs that remained closed. Standing outside it, she foolishly lifted a hand to knock.
What the hell are you doing? This is your room. You don’t knock to go into your own bedroom.
Instead, she reached for the handle and after taking a deep breath, swung the door open.
The room was dark, and it took Lisa a moment to realise that the figure laying down on the bed was Judy. Her sister-in-law was fast asleep.
“Honestly, I don’t know what happened.” Judy was talking with Lisa in the front room, away from the prying ears of Ellis. Lisa had already admitted to not telling him the truth about Judy’s visit and whilst not what Judy wanted, she respected Lisa’s decision, for the time being at least.
“You were properly asleep though. It took me ages to wake you up. I thought I would have to get an ambulance.”
Judy’s face flushed at the thought of paramedics coming in and finding her asleep on the bed with no explanation as to why.
“I remember checking out the room with the EM reader, and then the door started to close, and then... it’s like I blacked out.”
“But you were on the bed.”
Judy shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you. It’s ridiculous. I know it is.”
Lisa told her about what had happened to the lights when she’d come upstairs to check on her, and then the woman she’d seen standing behind Ellis just before his flame extinguished.
“Did you recognise her?”
“Never seen her before. She looked ordinary. Dark hair, pale skin. But there was something about the eyes.”
“What like?”
“Let me put it this way, I wouldn’t want to have a conversation with her. There was something there screaming at me to keep away. A look of madness, anger, and malice.” Lisa shivered and tugged a throw from the back of the sofa to wrap around herself. “The heating in this place is rubbish. I should probably call someone out.”
“Well, unless it’s connected to this apparition.”
“And that’s what we’re calling it now?”
“A ghost, an apparition. Don’t suppose it matters what you want to call it. You saw somebody in your house that vanished as soon as the lights ca
me on. The same somebody that you’ve seen leave your room in the middle of the night. I don’t think you’ve got any reason to suspect your house is anything other than haunted.”
To her credit, Lisa didn’t try to deny it. She must have suspected that was the reason for the disturbances or else she wouldn't have called in Judy. At least this way, she had another person to confirm what she’d seen. At least Lisa could take comfort in knowing she wasn't mad or seeing things.
“What did your equipment tell you in my bedroom?”
“Only what we already know. It picked up strong signals in there. And for a moment, I thought I saw somebody as well.”
“This woman?”
“It was dark. Hard to say for certain. And then the door started to close even though I’d propped it open with my rucksack.” Judy racked her brain, thinking of the moment the door had closed on her, and that nebulous feeling of not being alone. Had there been anyone else in the room? “Maybe you should move out. Go live with your parents for a bit.”
“Not sure that’s the best idea. I don’t think Dad will want me there. And besides, what would I say? That I need somewhere to stay because my house is haunted?”
“Then come and stay at mine. We’ve a spare bedroom.”
Lisa shook her head. “No. It’s fine. This thing is annoying, but I don’t see that it can harm me. It’s had the opportunity and so far, it’s done nothing but show itself a couple of times. Perhaps I’ll not find out what it wants unless I stay.”
“And what if it wants nothing other than to scare you? Or this might be the first stage of it trying to hurt you. It might not be strong enough yet. They say that some spirits draw their energy from the people and places they inhabit. It might be building strength before it can attack.”
“God, do you think so?” Lisa pulled the throw tighter around her.
“You know I’ve not been doing this very long. I am only getting this from the internet.”
A thin smile appeared on Lisa’s lips. “You’re doing a better job than I am. What happened to you at that hospital you visited? Jemma told me you were there the night it caught fire.”
Looked like she’d be needing to have more words with Jemma about who she could talk to about Ravenmeols.
“It was an organised ghost hunt. Only there were some fanatical people behind the event. They’d tricked us to go along.”
Lisa frowned. “Oh my God. Who were these people?”
“They were part of a cult. In the seventies they were all over that hospital in positions of authority. Using the patients in their rituals.”
“Sounds barbaric. How come that wasn’t in the papers?”
Judy shrugged. “If you look in the right places on the internet, you’ll be able to read all about it.”
“And did they hurt you?”
Judy remembered that night with total recall. The night had ended with being trapped, chained in the occultists’ inner sanctum, waiting to be possessed by adherents from the Almost Realm. Suddenly, she felt cold and brought her arms together, bringing them around her front in an act of comfort.
“Yes. They hurt us.” She forced a smile, eager to change the subject. “I’ve got to get going. I promised Jemma I wouldn’t be late.”
“So, what’s next? About my ghost?”
“I’ve left the EM reader in your room, along with a thermometer and some talcum powder.”
“Talcum powder?”
“It will eliminate the possibility of a physical presence causing the interference. Dead people don’t leave footprints.”
Lisa nodded. Even though they were certain that this had nothing to do with Ellis or his girlfriend anymore, it didn’t hurt to make sure that Ellis wasn’t contributing to the problem.
“I’d also suggest locking your door at night.”
“Can’t do that. Jasper needs to get in and out.”
“You could lock him in the kitchen. Give him a bed. He’s got his food and water and his cat flap. He’ll be fine.”
“He’ll cry like a baby. I won’t get any sleep if I do that.”
Judy nodded. “OK. But maybe put something behind the door so it won’t open all the way.”
“Good point.”
“And there’s one other thing you could do. I tried to find a tape recorder that would record you throughout the night. But I couldn’t get hold of one today. How about setting your phone to record? You said you heard someone moving around in your room. Perhaps that will pick up something.”
“OK. I’ll do that.” The pair of them stood and Lisa embraced Judy. “Thank you for believing me.”
“Of course, I believe you. And you’ve no need to thank me. We’re family.”
After Judy had left, Lisa told Ellis she was off to bed. He looked ready for bed himself but was turning on the Xbox instead.
“Was she OK?” he asked.
“Yeah, fine. Nothing to worry about.”
“Great.”
And that was that. Her housemate didn’t seem concerned about anything. The strange behaviour with the lights earlier had been put down to some unknown thing that Judy had done to Lisa’s laptop—a dodgy power pack tripping the consumer unit. Lisa hadn’t bothered to point out that if the consumer unit had tripped, it would have needed resetting, but the lights had come back on before that had happened. Whatever helped Ellis cope with the oddity of the situation was fine with her. She wasn’t ready to tell him it all now. And besides, if this house was haunted, it didn’t seem to be causing him any issues. Why put the pressure on him? She needed his contribution to the rent and hated the idea of having to find somebody else to come instead. It was comforting to be around Ellis, despite everything that had happened between them.
Upstairs, she found the EM reader and the bottle of talc on the bedside table. She picked up the talc then thought better of it. If she sprinkled that on the floor, Jasper would walk his footprints across her room and out onto the landing. Ellis would notice and that would lead to more silly questions. Idly, she switched on the EM reader, and her heart raced a little as all five lights illuminated before extinguishing. Judy hadn’t even explained to her what to do with it. What good would it do to use this to detect any paranormal presence? She already knew that there was a presence. She set that device aside as well.
Recording her whilst sleeping was the least worst idea Judy had suggested. She could use her voice recording app that came pre-installed onto the phone, but that would mean having to play back all seven or so hours of her sleeping to find out if it had picked up anything interesting. She didn’t have the time nor patience for that.
Instead, she flicked through other recording apps, and came across a sleep recorder app. The rating wasn’t great, three and a half stars out of five, but they were mainly complaining about too many ads in the app. She didn’t care about that. The feature that she most cared about was that the app was sound activated, only retaining sections of audio above a certain volume threshold. It was meant to help people who talked in their sleep to understand how bad a problem they had, or those with snoring problems.
Yes, that app sounded like just the thing. She hit install and watched the progress bar fill up.
13
There was someone close. She could almost feel their breath on her neck. It smelt of all the bad things she could think of. The last bits of bin juice when emptying the bins, the stench of rancid meat left at the bottom of the meat drawer in the fridge. And the smell was all over her.
“Stop it.”
The someone was closer now.
Lisa’s eyes snapped open and she couldn’t see a thing. The blackness of her vision was darker than the darkness of the night. Her heart was beating so fast, too fast, and she could feel it, no she could hear it smashing against the inside of her ribs, like a desperate animal trying to escape its cage. She’d felt like this before. The night terrors that used to wake her up screaming as a young girl. Those nights were over thirty years ago and since leaving home, she’d not
had them since. She’d always put it down to wanting her freedom.
Medication helped.
But she wasn’t taking anything new now. Her collection of drugs had decreased this last year and she no longer felt like she was rattling around in the morning.
But this darkness. She tried to move, but it was no good. Of course, it would be no good. What was the point of a night terror that you could escape from by leaving the bed? She was trapped, immobile under her duvet, her arms pinned down by her sides.
Pinned down.
That’s what it felt like. Pressure above her elbows, right on the fleshy part of her upper arm, but not just any pressure. Not some random weight, but a real presence pinning her down. Her perception focused on that part of the terror and she discerned hands, then fingers. And that weight on her chest. It shifted like someone was on top of her.
She failed to scream.
She was still paralysed.
The entity. The thing that she’d been seeing these last few weeks. The presence that Judy had felt too, was in here now and sitting on top of her, pinning her down. And she knew only one thing about it.
That it meant to hurt her.
Lisa screamed and this time it snapped her out of the dream.
She howled and fumbled for the light switch on the cable of the lamp by her bed, failed and knocked over her glass of water. Sound was still coming out of her mouth, a loose wailing that could have been pain or laughter, but felt like the world was ending and she was the only one to realise it.
The door barged open and the main light flicked on and Ellis stood in the doorway wearing just his boxer shorts. He took in the mess of her bedside table, the spilt drink.
“What’s happening?” His muscles were taut—he didn’t stop looking around. Then he ran to the window and checked it was closed, checked all the corners of the room. “What’s happening?” he repeated, then lowered his voice as he began to realise that Lisa, the mad housemate, had just had another bad dream.
“Someone, here,” she croaked.
And he looked confused at that. He stepped out into the landing, then back into the bedroom. He bent down to pick up the dropped glass, and to right the knocked over lamp, switching it on as he did so. Then he went back to the main light switch and turned that off, leaving them with a level of light they didn’t have to blink against.
The Dark Corners Box Set Page 52