Haunt Dead Wrong

by Curtis Jobling

  My skin was suddenly crawling, cold dread creeping through me. It had been so long since I’d been aware of temperature I’d forgotten the sensation. My ethereal flesh rippled with impossible goosebumps as my attention was drawn back to the bridge’s arch. Trainspotting 101: trains usually make a noise as they approach. The two glowing lights that blossomed in the blackness carried no such telltale soundtrack. His eyes burned with a terrible fire, white hot coals on an ebony field.

  The Lamplighter stepped out of the darkness, peeling away from the stone archway and coalescing before me. His spindly legs carried him along the platform, long coat wrapped about his skeletal torso. He struck his staff against the floor and a flame burst into life at its head. One after another the old station lamps flared, balls of blue light rolling within them. I didn’t need any further prompts.

  I scrambled back the way I’d come, the hare having coaxed the hound into the hunt. Dougie screamed my name, pointing out the obvious all the while.

  ‘Run, Will! He’s here! He’s coming! He’s right behind you!’

  ‘Cheers, mate,’ I replied as I dashed towards him. ‘You’ll let me know if he grabs me?’

  I passed straight through the locked gate and Dougie as the two of us toppled clear of the phantom. We fell on to the footpath, a jumble of limbs both solid and ghostly. We looked back as the Lamplighter halted at the station’s threshold, his stovepipe hat adding another foot to his already towering frame. He turned his blackened skull one way and the other, up and down the long mesh fence. Craning his neck forward, dirty scarf trailing against the gate, the Lamplighter brought his lighting pole back before swinging it out, over the gate and towards where we crouched. We both gasped as it whooshed forward, a ghastly scythe looking to sever heads from stalks. The moment the staff passed over the gate and the station’s border, it dissipated, leaving a trail of black smoke in its wake.

  The Lamplighter hissed with disappointment. We sighed with relief.

  ‘Come to taunt a hungry old man, have we, children?’ His voice was the whisper of knives down our spines. ‘It has been too long between meals, young ones. So cruel. Two feasts, one of flesh, one effluvial, and both beyond reach.’

  His dark tongue flickered as he smacked his withered lips. They cracked with each movement, scorched skin splitting and falling in flakes.

  ‘Well, he hasn’t eaten us,’ Dougie whispered. ‘That’s a start, eh?’

  I cleared my throat. ‘We’ve met before, Lamplighter.’

  ‘So I recall. Your soul burns as bright as any I’ve seen.’ His voice was less harsh now. ‘What a waste, hiding behind that silly fence. Join me.’ He beckoned, long bony fingers creaking. I was drawn to him, rising from the ground.

  ‘Oi!’ Dougie stepped between us, pushing his hands through me. It did the trick. I snapped out of the Lamplighter’s spell. Once more, the imprisoned monster hissed.

  ‘Is this how you catch your victims, Lamplighter?’ asked Dougie. ‘You charm them?’

  Neither of us knew a great deal about the Lamplighter’s story, only that he supposedly snatched unsuspecting kids from the station back in the day. That was how local legend told it; the truth could be altogether different.

  ‘I make you a promise, boy—’

  ‘More promises,’ Dougie groaned. He jumped as the flames roared in the Lamplighter’s skull, teeth snapping like burned splinters in his jaws.

  ‘So arrogant! I shall enjoy you, when the time comes. For it shall come, I guarantee it, children . . .’

  We both shivered, neither of us feeling quite so cocky any more.

  ‘Why have you drawn me from my slumber?’

  I looked at Dougie. He looked back. We both shrugged as the Lamplighter watched on expectantly, awaiting our answer.

  ‘We haven’t really thought this through, have we?’ said Dougie.

  ‘You’re the one who rushed down here tonight!’

  ‘OK,’ he said, turning back to the apparition. ‘What stops you from moving on? Why are you still here, haunting this station?’

  ‘This is my curse.’ The Lamplighter sighed, the sharper edges of his dark form softening, the fires in his eyes dying slowly to embers. ‘My sins come with a cost. I remain here for eternity.’

  ‘Eternity?’ I gasped and pointed at Dougie. ‘Does that mean I’ll be cursed to follow him around until he’s an old man who can’t even wipe his bum?’

  ‘Each spirit has its own purpose, its own curse. Mine is to hunt in the dark. I may leave when another takes my place.’

  ‘Another takes your place?’ I stifled a grim chuckle. ‘I should imagine passing on the stovepipe and staff’s a hard sell for anyone.’

  ‘As I said, child,’ whispered the Lamplighter. ‘An eternity.’

  He began to disintegrate before our eyes, his body losing its integrity as curls of dark smoke broke away from his torso. The eyes were pin-pricks now as he dissipated, wisps of black mist carried away on the wind.

  ‘I’ll be seeing you, children, soon enough . . .’

  Then he was gone, the platform lamps blinking out with his passing. Dougie and I remained where we were, each chilled to the bone.

  ‘I shouldn’t need to say this,’ said Dougie, ‘but we should both agree now. We’re never coming back to this station. Right?’

  Some questions didn’t need answering.

  ELEVEN

  Memories and Masquerades

  ‘This is it,’ I said, staring down the overgrown garden path. It was good to be investigating in daylight, the Lamplighter encounter firmly behind us. The sun blazed overhead, the summer heatwave unrelenting, the bungalow’s lawn scorched dry. Brambles buttressed up against the brickwork, one enormous rhododendron bush threatening to break down the front door.

  ‘It doesn’t look good,’ said Dougie. ‘It’s verging on derelict. Are you sure she still lives here?’

  I nodded. ‘Last known address according to the census records Andy dug up. After you, pal. Work your charms!’

  ‘I’m a bit self-conscious, turning up alone like this. Should’ve brought a girl along.’

  ‘You could’ve always asked Lucy,’ I said. ‘I don’t know why you continue keeping my existence from her. There was a time when you told her you were being haunted by me, remember?’

  ‘I did, but I think she’s pushed it from her mind, dismissed it as a moment of madness.’

  ‘Madness?’

  ‘She probably thought I’d gone off the rails for a while, went a bit ga-ga.’

  ‘Aye. Losing a loved one can do funny things to you.’

  ‘Loved one?’ said Dougie, rolling his eyes as he walked down the garden path. ‘Self-praise is no recommendation.’

  Dougie rapped on the door with his knuckles and waited. There were voices within, footsteps approaching before the door swung open inwards. A squat middle-aged lady stood before us, wearing a navy-blue nurse’s uniform. Her grey hair was scraped back from her forehead, her face fixed in a suspicious frown. She looked Dougie up and down. ‘Can I help you?’

  We’d been expecting to see a frail Mrs Hershey, not a heavyset district nurse. Dougie’s cheeks flushed with colour as he failed to answer.

  ‘You’re Ruby’s grandson,’ I said hastily. ‘Scratch that – great- grandson!’

  ‘I’ve come to see Great-Grandma Ruby,’ Dougie blurted out, before smiling awkwardly.

  ‘Crikey!’ said the nurse with surprise. ‘You’d better come in then, hadn’t you? This’ll make your gran’s day, bless her.’ She stood aside, allowing Dougie to squeeze past, and called through toward the back of the house. ‘Ruby, love. It’s your great-grandson here to see you. I’m just getting my gear from the car.’

  Then the nurse was off, stomping up the garden path as Dougie crept through the bungalow. He tugged at his T-shirt collar.

  ‘God, I thought it was hot out there, it’s stifling in here.’

  ‘Old folk. They’d wear woolly jumpers at the gates of hell.’

  Rub
y was sat in an armchair in the back room beside a pair of patio doors that overlooked her back garden. Wild though the front garden was, the rear was another world. A carefully tended lawn was bordered by flowers and shrubs of every colour. A wrought-iron bird table stood on the paved area closest to the doors, seed balls and feeders hanging from its edges and eaves. Tits, yellowhammers and a solitary robin jockeyed for position, filling their happy beaks with whatever they could snaffle.

  Ruby Hershey turned to face Dougie, her expression a mixture of curiosity and confusion. ‘I may be old, but I think I’d recognise my own great-grandchildren. Who are you?’

  She was ancient-looking, shrivelled and shrunken within her chair. She wore a tartan blanket over her lap that went all the way down to her slippers, even though it was a glorious summer’s day. Her eyes twinkled, belying her years, hinting at mischief and merriment. I imagined her as a young lady, and how hard the Major must have fallen for her.

  ‘I think you’d best tell her, mate,’ I said, ‘before the nurse returns.’

  And so, Dougie did. He wasted little time, all too aware that the medical worker could be back at any moment, screwing up our plans. The story was hokum. He said he was investigating the air base for a school history project over the holidays, her name having popped up in his research. He wanted to record her recollections about the base and the Americans who had lived there. She seemed to buy it. Certain details were spared, such as the fact he knew the Major, who’d been a ghost for seventy years.

  Dougie held a dictaphone out before Mrs Hershey, catching every word she imparted. She spoke of the fleets of bombers that soared over the town, the jeeps and trucks that thundered along the cobbled streets. She sighed as she recounted the dance halls where the Yanks courted the local girls. She giggled as she recalled the thrill of nylon stockings, lipstick and chocolate bars, gifted to them by smitten servicemen. She smiled as she was transported back to happier times. We could hear the district nurse in the kitchen, singing to herself, keeping busy.

  ‘And you fell for one of the Americans yourself?’ asked Dougie.

  ‘Oh, I did,’ she said sweetly, holding her bony hands to her bosom. ‘I did indeed.’

  Dougie glanced my way hopefully as he continued. ‘I saw that you married one, Mrs Hershey.’

  Her smile slipped, the look of love shifting to sadness. ‘Josh was a good man. Too good for me.’

  ‘Too good? Why would you say that?’

  ‘Because I couldn’t give him what he really deserved.’

  ‘You were married, weren’t you?’

  She stifled a tear, her smile slack as she looked across the room. We followed her gaze to a faded photo above the fireplace. I stepped over to better see it; the American and his bride a vision in sepia, stood in front of the very recognisable St Mary’s church.

  ‘We were husband and wife for fifty-two years. Can you believe that?’

  ‘Why you would say Mr Hershey was too good for you?’ repeated Dougie, where he knelt beside her chair.

  ‘He deserved better,’ said Ruby with a peg-toothed smile. ‘I gave him fifty-two years as his faithful wife. I gave him two children. They gave us grandchildren and more. And they’re all gone now, too. My son lives in Australia, while my daughter moved to London thirty years ago. And Josh is gone, God bless him. Gone, but not forgotten. He was a good man. But I could never truly give him my love.’

  ‘Why’s that?’ asked Dougie, though we knew the answer.

  ‘My heart belonged to another,’ Ruby whispered.

  ‘So,’ said Dougie, inching inexorably toward the tricky subject, ‘what happened? The one you loved – why didn’t you marry him?’

  ‘The base took a lucky hit, or an unlucky one as the case might be,’ she said bitterly. ‘A Luftwaffe bomber on its way home from a blitz over Liverpool. They reckoned it was ditching its payload, dropping whatever it hadn’t unloaded over us. A dozen died in all. One chap held on until they got him to the hospital . . .’

  ‘That’s how he died,’ I whispered. To see this woman sat before us, clearly still hurting after all these apparently loveless years was heartbreaking. ‘We should go,’ I said, and Dougie nodded in agreement.

  ‘Mrs Hershey,’ my friend said. ‘Thank you for letting me speak with you today, I really do appreciate it. Would you mind awfully if I returned? There’s a few things I’d like to investigate further. Your story’s fascinating.’

  The nurse stepped through the door into the back room, as Dougie deftly hid the dictaphone back in his pocket.

  ‘Aw,’ she said. ‘What a lovely surprise, such a smashing kid coming round to see you, eh? You’ve got a cracking great-grandchild there! You should be very proud.’

  ‘I am,’ said Ruby, untucking a handkerchief from her cardigan sleeve and drying her eyes. ‘I’m very lucky.’

  ‘Sorry if I upset you,’ said Dougie.

  ‘Don’t mind me, lovely,’ sniffed Ruby. ‘These are happy tears. You’ve made an old lady very happy today. It’s nice to reminisce. Nobody asks to hear these stories any more. I don’t get many visitors, as you might imagine.’

  Dougie rose and said his goodbyes, keeping the charade going with the district nurse until we were out of the bungalow and earshot. Each of us was numb. We walked along the road in silence for a while, lost in our own thoughts. I finally broke the deadlock.

  ‘What do we do? Do we tell the Major that she’s loved him all this time?’

  ‘I honestly can’t say. It seems that’s what we’re supposed to do. But how can telling a friend something so cruel be the right thing?’

  I couldn’t answer his question. Who could? The sun was shining high overhead, the summer sky blue and unspoiled, but dark clouds gathered in our minds.

  TWELVE

  Pride and Joy

  It’s fair to say that Dougie and I had been on an emotional rollercoaster of late. Our friendship had experienced its ups and downs, falling apart in the face of accusation and anger. Slowly it was recovering, our trust gradually returning as we faced adversity side by side. Other friendships would have fallen to the wayside, but not Dougie and I. That said, I still wasn’t going to hang around in the bathroom while he showered. We were friends, but there were limits.

  I waited on the landing as Dougie disappeared into the shower, cleaning himself up after a hot, humid and slightly harrowing day. The encounter with Ruby Hershey had left us both emotionally bruised. We hadn’t expected the old lady’s words to be quite so touching, her tale of lost love so tragic. It had only served to remind Dougie of how important Lucy was to him. He’d called her, telling her not to make plans for the evening. And so we found ourselves at Casa Hancock, my friend preparing for a hastily arranged date as I killed time at the top of the stairs.

  I heard Dougie’s dad downstairs, re-entering the kitchen from the garage, the creaking door revealing his location. I drifted downstairs, still in easy reach of my friend but free to wander the house. The bottles clinked against one another as Mr Hancock heeled the garage door closed. More clinking as he fumbled with the key, locking the garage behind him. I watched as he pocketed the key into his crumpled corduroy pants before shuffling back into the lounge. Just how much stinking booze did he keep in there? I phased through the locked garage door to find out.

  An Aladdin’s cave of junk materialised as I stepped through the barrier. A sliver of light marked the main garage door, the sun’s setting rays cutting through the dusty atmosphere like a laser beam. Shelves crowded the walls, overloaded with all manner of paraphernalia. Half-used tins of paint were piled atop one another, jam-jars full of washers and boxes of broken timber loaded up around them. An old bed frame stood on its end along one wall, dust sheets trailing from it like hanging moss. A collection of mops, brushes, garden forks and spades made for an unusual sculpture to the side of the door, threatening to topple over with the slightest jostle. Mr Hancock’s old Bentley took up the lion’s share of the garage, his pride and joy at rest in its lair.r />
  ‘And there’s the poison.’

  The crates were stacked, bottles of ale that would keep Mr Hancock in a half-cut state for the foreseeable future. He had no intention to quit the demon; its claws were in deep. Was Dougie aware of how much booze there was down there? Grocery deliveries came in the daytime, when Dougie was at school, and the garage was the sole domain of Mr Hancock. He guarded that key like it was the One Ring, never letting it out of his sight. Such was his shame for the arsenal of alcohol he kept in the garage.

  It was so sad to see how far Mr Hancock had fallen. When I was little, he’d often looked after me, arranging play dates for Dougie and me while my folks were at work. He was like an uncle, entertaining us for hours on end during those holidays. That was the luxury of being self-employed, only driving when he had to, when clients demanded it. The Bentley always featured in those childhood memories, Dougie and I sat in the back as we travelled in style to the coast or through the Peaks and Dales, windows down. It was such a shame that it now sat in this darkened tomb, gathering dust.

  I passed through the Bentley from its rear – metal, wood and upholstery providing no obstacle – before settling into the driver’s seat. I was instantly transported back to those road trips. Dougie had lost his mother when he was little, Mr Hancock acting as Dad and Mum to his son, providing everything a growing boy needed. Two boys were stashed in the back and the picnic basket would drive up front beside Mr Hancock. Queen’s Greatest Hits would invariably be playing on the old cassette machine, Freddie and the gang accompanying us on each adventure. We knew those old songs off by heart, father, son and friend singing in not-terribly-perfect harmony as we toured the north together.

  I let my hand roll over the steering wheel, imagining its feel, fingertips lingering over the old stereo. A crack in the windscreen rode up the driver’s side from the dashboard, no doubt reparable. The walnut dash was coated with grime, long forgotten and ignored. What a waste. This vehicle was a collector’s piece. With a bit of TLC the Bentley could be returned to its former glory. What better project to bring father and son together again? In that moment I set my mind to the task. I’d have words with Dougie, sow the seed that this was something they could enjoy. How could Mr Hancock resist? The old car would be the perfect catalyst for good. As the Bentley was brought back to life, so too would Mr Hancock return to his splendour. I could see it now. I clapped my hands like a giddy schoolgirl fixing friends up on a date. I’d be their fairy godmother!