“I think it’s best you don’t come over any more,” he said with a slight tremble in his voice.
“I think so too. But I’ll have to go back over with you now because I’ve left my bloody handbag there.”
We sat drinking for a moment or two in silence.
“Exorcism’s probably the best thing.”
“Moving is probably the best thing.”
“I can’t just move. You can’t just pull out of a mortgage.”
“You could say that the owner concealed information about the place from you.”
“And what? Sue them for not saying there’s a ghost living there? We’ve got to get rid of it somehow.”
He finished his coffee. “At least we’ve both seen it. No one can just tell me I’m crazy.”
I walked with him back to the flat. He said he’d bring my handbag out to me, but, and I don’t know why, I suddenly felt defiant – I would come in and get my handbag. Whatever this thing was, I wanted to show it I was not afraid. Though my fearlessness didn’t take me beyond the landing at the top of stairs.
“Where’d you leave it?” he asked.
“On the sofa I think.”
He walked into the living room. I stood nervously waiting.
“Are you sure? I can’t see it.”
“Definitely,” I was about to go in there and get it myself, but I heard the floor creak behind me.
I turned and saw it – an old man, grey-skinned and bony, walking into the library. He was stick-thin, bald, with liver spots and totally naked. But not just naked, clammy, almost sticky looking – he had almost no colour at all. Just faded, slimy and grey.
“Craig!” I screamed. Terrified and repulsed, I still ran towards the library after it. But as you might guess, when I got there, there was nothing. Craig thundered across the floor after me, arriving in the library as I went around the bookcases trying to see it.
“What was it?”
“It’s here, I saw it. It’s an old man. A disgusting old man!”
I didn’t stay long after that. I made him promise that he’d call someone, anyone who could help, first thing in the morning, Monday. But I should’ve known that that was far too sensible a thing for him to do. When I called that evening, he excitedly told me that he’d visited his local electronic store and bought himself a whole bunch of recording equipment.
“Are you crazy?” I yelled.
“Look, I need proof. No one is going to believe me if I go and tell them I’ve heard bumps in the night and that my mirror has jumped off the wall. But if I record something, then I can be taken seriously and, I dunno, maybe get some proper researchers around.”
I almost slammed down the phone.
But then I wondered if I’d been watching too many movies too. It hadn’t really done much before, why should it suddenly mind or care if cameras were put up in the house? Life isn’t like Paranormal Activity – he could just leave the house if things got bad, couldn’t he?
It was all just guesswork; nobody really knew anything.
There seemed to be only one thing that was certain – it didn’t like me. All the worst things had happened when I was there. Perhaps if I just stayed away, nothing would happen. I shuddered at the thought of it. To be desired by a disgusting old man from beyond the grave. It made me want to have a shower.
I didn’t feel like being in the house alone that night. Milly, my housemate, was out touring Faust with her opera company, so it felt uncomfortably quiet. I put on a series of the Sopranos and started on some red wine to help myself relax.
I fell asleep at some point; I don’t know what time. I woke up with a start at around 3:30 am; the TV had turned itself off, but my mobile was still on and it was vibrating its way towards the edge of the coffee table. I picked it up – it was Craig.
“Hello,” I groaned.
“I’m coming over!”
“What?”
“It’s gone fucking mental!” He was out of breath.
“What?”
“It’s gone mental; I think it’s going to kill me!”
“Craig, are you running?”
“I’ll be there in a minute… I need somewhere to stay. I can’t go back there.”
He was on my doorstep dripping wet with rain and sweat just minutes later. He could barely talk; he was struggling so hard to catch his breath. I took his coat, but had no dry clothes to give him. He was wearing slippers; he must’ve just thrown on whatever came to hand. I put his slippers and coat in the dryer. I gave him a towel for his face and hair and sat him next to a fan heater in the kitchen while I put on the kettle.
“It went beserk!” he said, shivering.
“What do you mean, beserk?” I asked with a lump in my throat.
“I set up three cameras; one in the hall, one in my bedroom and one in the living room. Just cameras on tripods, nothing special, set to record for as long as they could.”
“You wanted it on video – for fame and glory purposes?”
“I wanted proof! You don’t understand; I went online, I looked around. People, nutters, they say stuff like this all the time. No one takes you seriously unless you’ve got video or the word of an expert; and any expert requires that you get cleared by a psychiatrist first before they’ll even consider anything you say to be true. Catching it on tape would’ve shown anyone that I wasn’t lying!”
His eyes were red and his face pale – he looked desperate and terrified.
“I went to sleep. Nothing was happening, I just dozed off. Slept for a couple of hours and then BANG! I don’t know what it was, but it was loud, like someone hitting a steel container with a hammer. I jumped out of bed and then it started. Rhythm of six: Tap-t-t-t-tap tap, faster and faster, louder and louder until the floor started to shake. The doors rattled on their hinges. The pictures began to fall to the floor.”
“It was insane; I couldn’t take it, so I screamed: Stop it! Stop it! Please stop it! And it did. Just for a moment there was no sound. Nothing at all. I walked out into the hall. All the lights were on – you know what I’m like; I never forget stuff like that.”
“So I’m seriously freaked out. I’m thinking, what the hell’s going on? I looked at the camera, set up on the landing and suddenly it leaps three feet in the air, like someone just kicked it. And then it happens behind me to the one in the bedroom. And then the lights go out – they blow out one by one.”
“I run back into my bedroom. God knows why, I swear to you, like a child, I tried to hide under the bed. I don’t know why there; I just wanted to take cover. But then everything was quiet again for a moment. Just a moment, before it started up again: tap-t-t-t-tap tap, tap-t-t-t-tap tap.”
“It was hurting my head. The sound of it! But then after a moment, I realised something. That it hurt my head because it was in my head. The rhythm of six was in my head, beating away like a headache, throbbing in my mind. It wasn’t in the flat any more, it was in my brain. I swear to God it was in my head.”
“I believe you…”
“I couldn’t tell where it was coming from – because it was in my mind.”
“Craig, I believe you – you’re doing it now!”
His left hand was on the kitchen table; while he was speaking he’d started to tap against it. Without even thinking, his hand had been tapping away: tap-t-t-t-tap tap.
He lifted his left hand straight away and put it in his right hand to examine it, almost as if it was something foreign.
“I was, wasn’t I?” He put both hands over his mouth. “Jesus Christ, it’s in me. It’s inside of me!”
I went to him and put my hands on his shoulders. “It’s all right, it’s all right. You can’t hear it now can you?”
“No, my head’s clear,” he was almost in tears.
The kettle had boiled. I walked over to it and tried to think rationally.
“What am I going to do? What am I going to do?”
“You can’t go back there. You just can’t.” I made his tea and br
ought it over to him. He took it with his hands shivering, like he’d been out in the cold for hours.
“We need to get you a doctor.”
“I’m not mad!”
“You’re hearing things in your head, never mind the state this has got you in. See a doctor; I don’t think you’re crazy, but you’re not well are you?”
After a moment’s silence, he said: “Fine”. I don’t think he had the will to argue.
I sat with him for half an hour but I was keen to get him to sleep. He needed it and we needed to calm down and think more sensibly about the problem. You have a home you can’t go back to, what would you do? Assuming it was a normal problem and not a fucking ghost.
I put him to bed on the sofa, next to a hot chocolate. I took the duvet from Milly’s room; she wouldn’t like him sleeping in there, but probably wouldn’t mind him using the duvet. Despite the stress he seemed to fall asleep quite quickly – far quicker than I did. I remembered going to see him part way through the night, just as the dark was starting to brighten. He was sleeping but not soundly; he was wriggling and shuffling.
As I went to the bathroom I even heard him mutter something, something unintelligible. I wondered if it really was in there with him? Something supernatural, something rotten and cruel.
I watched him for a little while after. He was unsettled, but he didn’t seem to be distressed or having a nightmare, at least not that I could tell.
I fell asleep not that long after climbing back into bed. I slept soundly till about ten-thirty, when I shuffled myself out from under the sheets and went to check on Craig.
To my horror, he was gone. The duvet was lying on the floor; his coat and slippers were gone. I shouted for him, but there was no answer. I tried his mobile – again, no answer.
I suddenly felt an overwhelming feeling of dread – he’d gone back, hadn’t he? Why? For some of his things, or worse? If this thing was in his head, had it made him go back? Forced him?
I didn’t know, but I knew I had to get over there. I threw on some clothes, grabbed my keys and phone, and made a run for it. The air outside was damp and muggy; I was dripping sweat by the time I reached the end of the road. The distance to his had never seemed so long before, and every part of the journey conspired to make it take longer: roadworks, traffic lights, old people, no one stopping at the zebra crossing – I just ran out and took my chances. I had to get to Craig’s.
As I reached his street, I knew something had gone badly wrong. As I ran towards his doorway, I could see it hanging open. I ran into the inside hallway, where I found Craig slumped against the door frame at the bottom of the stairs.
“Craig!” I screamed.
To my relief he heard me; his eyes arose slowly and he tried to shuffle into a seated position.
“What happened?”
“I tried to leave,” he said weakly. “I tried to leave and it wouldn’t let me!” A tear fell across his cheek. “It’s in my heart!”
“We’ve got to get you out of here.”
“No, don’t, don’t!” he cried. “It’s in my heart Laura. I tried to leave and it stopped my heart. And then all I could feel in my chest was the rhythm of six; I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t breathe!”
“I’m calling an ambulance.”
“No, I’ll be fine. I just have to get back inside.”
“Stay there!”
“He won’t hurt me if I go back inside.”
I dialled 999 hurriedly, walking outside to get out of the cramped hallway.
“Hello, this is emergency services. What service do you require?”
“Ambulance, now please.”
“And what is the nature of the emergency?”
“My friend, his heart’s failed or something. He collapsed, and now he can barely breathe, says it’s his heart.”
“Ok, I’m going to need your name and address?”
“My name is Laura ______. I’m at…” I had to look at the door. “45 _________, Clapham South.”
“Ok Laura, and what’s the name of your friend?”
“It’s Craig, Craig ______. Please hurry, he’s – Craig!”
He’d moved. He wasn’t at the bottom of the stairs, but had started to crawl his way up again.
“Craig, come back!”
“It’s all right,” he said, while pulling himself to his feet by gripping the bannister. “I’m going to be ok.”
“Get back down here right now.” I ran into his flat and up the stairs without thinking – without seeing.
When I reached the top, I threw out my arms to grab him. But something swept me aside; a great arm came from nowhere. I’m not even sure I even really saw it, or whether I just imagined I had.
It struck me in the chest and sent my head back and my feet forward. I went head over heels down the stairs, tumbled all the way down.
My world went spinning; I hit the door as I smacked against the floor at the bottom, pushing it closed. I landed leaning against it, my head just about propped up.
I tried to lift myself up, but I was too dizzy; I felt part of me was still turning.
My vision was distorted, blurred, but I could see Craig; he was on his knees.
“Please!” he wailed. A figure was stood before him, grey and long, arch-backed. Its long-fingered hand grabbed him by the shirt collar and forced him flat on the ground as it bent down over him. With the other hand, it stroked its fingers across his cheek.
I can still remember the shape of its face, grinning, stretched and narrow; its broken and brittle teeth like shards of glass. It wrapped its arms around him in a disgusting embrace and lay down on top of him.
That’s when I passed out.
A broken wrist and a sprained ankle – all things considered, I got off lucky. I woke up probably just a few minutes later, as they were pushing me on a gurney into an ambulance. I cried out for Craig, but they didn’t want to tell me anything at the time. It was an hour or so later when I learned that he was dead.
I didn’t know what to tell the police. Of course they were called; his flat smashed up, all the bulbs broken. I couldn’t tell them the truth, the truth was ridiculous. I edited it down to say that last night he had come to mine complaining of words in his head. And that then I had found him at his home in a state. They didn’t believe me, but it didn’t matter since heart failure is considered a natural death; it’s only suspicious in men of his age. Apparently his heart just stopped.
I felt terrible about not telling the truth, especially to his parents. But what good would this story do them? That’s why I’ve put it all down in writing, so that I can tell the truth, just once. Tell it just how it was, without a single lie.
But now I think this will have to be my epitaph too. I can hear him. Hear him in the walls tapping away, playing his little game. You see, I know what he is now – he’s a hunter. A man who likes to stalk and torment his prey, before making his move, springing his trap.
It started straight after the funeral, just a little tapping in the distance. Barely noticeable, but noticed. He likes to play games. I’m going to have to try and out-run him. He’s not in my head yet. I’m going to leave here and see how fast he can travel, how far he can go.
I feel bad for Milly. Maybe he’ll wait here for her. But I don’t think so. I think once he’s found his mark, I don’t think he lets go.
Then I’ll be number eight. You see, I know exactly how many he’s killed. Because now he makes a rhythm of seven, instead of six.
KNOCK DOWN GINGER
Nan was a difficult person; always complaining, always moaning. I’ll be honest and say that I never really liked her very much. That might sound harsh, and I wouldn’t want to speak ill of the dead, but Dad would probably agree. He was upset when she died, but he was relieved too. I remember her being awkward and uptight growing up, but since Grandpa died, she’d gotten worse.
On the night before her funeral, Dad was telling me how he thought she had gone mad. She hadn’t changed her life at all aft
er Grandpa died. She did all the things that she’d done when he was alive, she didn’t make any changes. Sometimes she’d even wait or call for him, forgetting that he was gone. But if you asked her about it, she’d deny having done it.
She just got more difficult; becoming more obsessive about her routines and insisting everything be done just right or else she’d complain, shout, grumble, get angry… Nothing was allowed to disrupt her routines.
That was why I hardly ever saw her in those last few years. It was difficult to talk to her; she never had the time. If you called her, you were always interrupting her. She couldn’t cope with spontaneity. If you phoned her, out of the blue… She couldn’t understand that impulse. She’d always ask “What have you called for?”; you couldn’t just feel like it, there had to be a reason why you were interrupting her precious routine. She wouldn’t talk to you then, she’d tell you that she was too busy to talk and get all agitated, tell you to call back later but she wouldn’t be any more welcoming then either. She just didn’t have time for anyone else; you were always in the way.
Once I wanted to stay over, I had an interview at Falmouth College in Cornwall, and she lived close by in Penryn. I asked her and it left her all of a fluster, almost in a panic. She was busy, this wasn’t a good time, why hadn’t I called earlier? I called a whole month ahead but she was already fretting about not having enough food in the house or it being the same day as she was supposed to go shopping or something. I just didn’t go in the end; it was too much of a headache.
I didn’t go to college that year anyway; I took a gap year and went travelling. It was on my travels that me and Alan met. Our groups started travelling together and one thing led to another, and well, we’re settled down now, married. Nan didn’t make it to the wedding; I remember Dad being quite upset about that. More than I was; Alan’s parents were enough of a challenge and I hadn’t spoken to Nan in years at that point.
She made it to the christening at least, although she didn’t seem happy to be there. I think Dad might have literally dragged her. She muttered a lot, kept saying what a distance it was and how much she’d been put out. She didn’t stay long after the lunch. That was the last I saw of her, or heard from her. She died four of five years later, in her sleep. The cleaner found her – Dad was upset, but hardly devastated.
Eleven New Ghost Stories Page 3