Eleven New Ghost Stories

by David Paul Nixon

  Nils wasn’t good at playing hide and seek, despite living there. Oscar kept pestering him that it was because he was afraid of the dark. Nils was getting upset by this and even Lance was starting to tease him too. Peter was trying not to tease him, but he didn’t want to defend him too much because he didn’t want to look bad in front of Oscar or his brother.

  After a while of teasing him, Nils said he could find somewhere to hide, somewhere where no one would ever find him. So Oscar told him to go; it was supposed to be Nils’ turn to go look, but Oscar would let him have another go at hiding if he had such a great place to hide. So off he went, but instead of Peter and Lance going to hide too, Oscar thought it would be really funny if they just left him. That they’d pretend he’d found a place to hide so good, that they just couldn’t find him.

  Lance thought it was hilarious but Peter thought it was harsh. But then Oscar starting laying in to him, telling him he was a baby and that it was funny. Peter went along with it, but after a while, when Nils didn’t show up, he went looking for him. He went all over the house looking, but he couldn’t find him.

  At one point he went into Nils’ father’s office. None of them had hidden in there, because they thought they might get in trouble. Nils’ father was a lawyer and his office was full of paperwork and case files and in there was this chest. And Peter wondered if Nils was there inside. But when he went to the box he noticed there was a latch on the front and that it was on really tight.

  He couldn’t open it, so he thought Nils couldn’t possibly be in there because it couldn’t be opened. So eventually he gave up too and went on playing with the others. He had no idea something terrible had happened. So when, after more than half an hour, no one had seen Nils, their parents started to ask about him. And when they started shouting and he didn’t answer, they started tearing the place apart looking for him.

  Peter said it was almost an hour before they found him. He suffocated to death in that chest. They pulled him out and he was bright blue and ice cold.

  His parents blamed it all on Peter and Oscar and their families were no longer friends. Nils’ father started to drink heavily and he would shout and yell at Peter and his brother in the street. He and Peter’s father got into fights. Nils’ father said he’d take them to court but he never did. Eventually they just moved. But it drove a wedge between them and Oscar’s family too. While Nils’ family blamed both of them, Peter’s family blamed Oscar’s. He never saw them again after they moved.

  Peter told me all this with tears flowing down his face, obviously he had buried these memories away deep and hadn’t thought about them or faced them in years. He was less than ten when it all happened.

  I listened sympathetically, held him as he cried. But while he told the story one question burned deeply in my mind. A question that had me all in a panicking through what he was telling me. When he told me everything and he’d pulled himself back together a bit, I asked him about Nils’ name. I asked him whether anyone had ever called Nils Neil?

  “All the time,” he said. People didn’t get that it was a foreign name and people often called him Neil by mistake.

  Apparently I fell off the bed and fainted. I don’t think I was out very long; I woke up on the bed with Peter standing over me with his concerned face on. Peter wanted to know what had happened, was I alright?

  I wasn’t alright and I told him. I started to tell him everything about Neil and Benjamin. He didn’t believe me at first. He started ranting and raving again about how there was nothing wrong with Benjamin and how he thought I’d got over all this. So I lashed out back at him and told him about the chest, and how I’d found Benjamin inside; threw it in his face to show him I’d been right all along. That our son was acting strange, that he was lost in a world of his own, that there was something else in the house with us!

  I mean, what kind of kid has an imaginary friend called Neil? It’s not very imaginative is it? And Benjamin had a wonderful imagination.

  We argued all night. Peter kept trying to escape the truth; that the ghost of his dead friend had come back and now he was trying to take Benjamin away from us. I know that sounds crazy, but there was no other explanation. It all added up; insane though it sounds, it all made sense.

  That next morning, the two of us sat Benjamin down and Peter asked him about Neil.

  But Ben said he didn’t know anyone called Neil; that he didn’t have an imaginary friend and that he didn’t know what I was talking about.

  I practically screamed the place down; how could he lie like that? And straight away my loyal husband started to doubt everything that I had said. I shouted at Benjamin; he started to cry, tears pouring down his face. The perfect little manipulator.

  I was livid, I was screaming the place down. Peter took Benjamin away to his room and then came back down to me and all hell broke loose.

  He said I was going insane, that I wasn’t the woman he married, that I was making it all up, that I was delusional. He couldn’t see that Benjamin was lying to him. That his perfect little son wasn’t so perfect. How would he know anything about him; he wasn’t even there half the time.

  But they’d played it so beautifully – I could prove nothing. Everything I was saying could be disputed. My word against Benjamin’s; against the perfect little angel who did nothing wrong when Peter was there. Not a damn thing.

  We argued for hours. Peter said I was the one who needed help, not Benjamin. And what’s more, I if didn’t get it, he was taking Benjamin away from me. He was going to take away my son because I couldn’t be trusted with him any more.

  I exploded; he said that there was nothing I could do about it. I said I’d call the police, he said he would tell them everything, about all the lies and delusions and about how unstable I was. I had a choice, either I could seek help voluntarily or he would report me to social services.

  He was going to call his parents and take Benjamin there while I made up my mind. I was a wreck, bawling with tears, prostrate on the floor. How could he do that to me? My own husband, my own husband!

  That bastard. He made me doubt myself again. Could I be imagining it all? Could I be making it all up? Was I really ill? Was it really all my fault? I just didn’t know any more. I just didn’t know.

  All I know was that I didn’t want to be alone. That I didn’t want to be without my family. They were my life – I didn’t have anything else. Without them I had nothing. I was nothing.

  Peter couldn’t get hold of his parents; that bought me some time. He could hear me crying my eyes out and I think finally he began to feel guilt, and shame, and horror. He came back into the kitchen and sat down with me and he tried to say sorry. Said that this was his fault, he should’ve known earlier that I was breaking down. He shouldn’t have left me alone. He had plenty of warning signs and he was too stupid not to have acted on them sooner.

  He didn’t know what he was talking about, but I was so near suicidal that I would’ve taken anything. Any small sign of affection, from anyone.

  We sat on the floor crying together for more than half an hour. We were going to get help together, we were going to get through this. Fucking idiot; he couldn’t see what was staring him in the face.

  After a while he said he was going to go upstairs and see if Benjamin was alright. I wasn’t crying any more, I was fatigued and barely able to stand up; I had been that emotional. I washed my face and tried to look normal in the vain hope that Benjamin might be convinced that everything was going to be alright, that I was going to be alright.

  Peter came back downstairs. He said he couldn’t find Benjamin.

  We both started shouting. Loud, at the top of our lungs, we yelled his name. We screamed his name. We couldn’t find him. He was nowhere to be seen.

  We both panicked. Frantically we started tearing the place apart. Opening cupboards, searching under beds, wardrobes anywhere. Peter searched upstairs, I searched downstairs. But there were only so many places to hide. I looked down behind the sof
as, behind the television. I opened all the kitchen cupboards, under the table, behind the curtains. I searched under the stairs, pulling out all my canvases; he wasn’t there.

  I heard Peter pulling down the attic stairs. I checked my phone; he’d already been missing for more than ten minutes! I rushed to the stairs to help Peter.

  As I put my foot on the bottom step I got that feeling. Cold shivers up my spine – I was being watched. I threw my head around. There was no one in the corridor, like always, there was nothing there.

  But this time, I wasn’t so sure and I was desperate, and in a state of panic, I yelled, “Benjamin” knowing, deep down, there was still no one there.

  Then I saw it. Just the tiniest of glimpses of a foot, a child’s shoe, just protruding from behind the kitchen door frame.

  “Benjamin,” I screamed.

  A child peered from inside the kitchen; he stood half behind the doorframe, just his left side visible to me.

  His hair was blonde, his eyes were brown, his clothes were old and faded – it wasn’t Benjamin!

  He was smiling at me, malevolently, and then disappeared.

  “Benjamin” I screamed and ran into the kitchen. The back door to the garden was wide open. It was pouring with rain outside. The boy was nowhere to be seen, but as I stood in the doorway I saw the door to the shed was not closed either.

  I ran across the soggy wet lawn towards the door. I pushed it open and staggered inside. The shed was empty, except for all the tools and sacks of compost.

  Compost – I looked towards the windows, below which stood the two compost bins where me and Benjamin used to toss our leftovers and vegetable peelings.

  The lid of one of them wasn’t properly closed; it was propped up like it had been over-filled.

  I ran to it, threw open the lid – two feet pointed out at me from the soil.

  I screamed and dug my hands in and pulled at Benjamin’s feet. He was dug in so deep I couldn’t even pull him out. I dug more, screaming, crying. I tipped the bin over; as it spilled out I was able to get my arms in and pull him out.

  He was already cold, my poor little boy. His eyes were closed tight, I couldn’t get them open. I tried to resuscitate him, but his mouth was full of soil. There was nothing I could do…

  I picked him up and held him to my chest. He was already gone. I fell to the floor in tears, holding my beautiful boy so tight. I was in so much pain, I could barely even see, my eyes were so flooded with tears. The pain – my poor boy, my precious boy. Benjamin, why did it happen? What did he ever do to deserve this? He was so young…

  Peter came. He saw me on the floor distraught, debilitated, in pain. That mother-fucker; he screamed at me and wrenched Benjamin out of my arms. He ran back across the lawn. I went after him but I got to the kitchen doors and found them locked. He locked me out to get me away from my son.

  I banged on the doors, banged on the windows. He tried to resuscitate him. He beat his chest, tried to clear his mouth, but he could do nothing. He brought death into my home and now he could do nothing.

  He called the police and ambulance on his mobile. He ignored me, didn’t even look in my direction. I beat so hard on those windows that I shattered one of the glass panes but it was too late. Too late. I fell to the floor, onto the soaking wet doorstep.

  I picked up a small piece of glass and tried to cut my wrists. I couldn’t even do that properly. All the big shards of glass had fallen on the inside.

  He did nothing to stop me. He just left me there. And when the police came he told them I’d done it. The mother-fucker told them I’d murdered my own son. My own husband told them I’d killed my own son.

  They locked me up for a while. There was a trial, an inquest. That liar told them he’d done nothing, and when I told them it was all his fault, all his fault because he killed that boy all those years ago he flat out fucking denied it. Denied that he’d ever told me about Nils and that that boy had never existed.

  They wanted to pin it on me; they all thought I was mad too. But they couldn’t prove I hurt my boy. There were no marks on him. I’d have to have incapacitated him to get in there, but there were no marks on him. He’d just climbed in on his own. He just got in by himself and let himself be buried.

  I’ve never seen that mother-fucker since. And I hope he rots in hell.

  My beautiful little boy…

  THE CALL OF THE SEA

  When I think of her, the first thing that comes into my head is her staring out at the sea.

  Thinking back, that seemed to always be the first place I’d see her; sat atop the high wall just above the beach. I never found out if she meant it like that, whether she meant for me to always find her there, or whether she was just always there; listening and watching the waves, both transfixed and terrified. Drawn towards the water, but petrified at what she might see beneath the surface. Did she feel it call to her? It’s so hard to know what’s real any more. What happened and what didn’t…

  I’ve romanticised the past; I probably used to meet her in the dining room or at the arcade, perhaps just around the hotel, in passing. But that’s just how I remember her; looking out to the water, always half in this world, half… somewhere else.

  We used to take all our holidays in Morecambe. Dad was a man of habits, that’s how we ended up going there eight years in a row. Before then, we’d gone to South Wales and stayed at this caravan park, but for some reason we’d stopped going there. Dad probably fell out with the owners; he had a habit of doing that. Morecambe was where his mum used to take him when he was a boy, so it was still old habits again.

  This was the late 80s but the rot had not entirely set in. The era of the British seaside resort was coming to the end, but it was not over just yet. I can track the decay back in peeling paint and steel shutters. Each year we’d arrive and there would be more paint peeling from the walls, more concrete patches on the art-deco Midland Hotel; the crazy golf course looking that little bit less crazy; more shops closed and encased in metal. Even Dad, with his entrenched habits, was beginning to turn against the place in those last few years. If it wasn’t for Lily we’d probably have stopped going.

  Describe her? Her hair was black, over-long, past her shoulders – she just liked it that way. Her eyes were a deep chestnut, large and expressive. Her skin was white, but not pale or sickly; it had a luminous, vibrant quality. I’d go on to talk about her lips and body, but let’s keep this sensible. As sensible as possible.

  Of course, that was later. When I met her, she would’ve only been seven or eight. Hard to picture her now as a child, I only remember her as I knew her in those last few years. She always looks like that to me now, whether we’re sneaking away to the changing rooms for a snog or building sand castles on the beach with buckets and spades.

  I don’t remember how we first met; we just became friends with her family. My dad would’ve met her dad in a pub or something. My dad and her dad, Steve, must’ve enjoyed drinking together because the following year we were at his hotel, The Bay Star. Quite a big place really, five stories, 40-ish rooms. Not the most attractive building: a square post-war concrete block, but painted a summery cream to fit amongst the seafront pastels.

  My mum always used to tell me that whenever we went anywhere on holiday I was always guaranteed to come back with a friend. It’s always puzzled me how this could be; I hardly had any friends at school. Yet vaguely it seems to be true, I have scattered memories of companions on camping sites and in playgrounds and in amusement arcades. And sure enough, I was quickly friends with Lily.

  Hard to know when or how. There was a games room for kids at the hotel and there were sometimes other children around to play with. But we’d come up for potter’s fortnight, which would be earlier in the summer before most schools broke up, so it was usually just me and her at the hotel. And I think her father offered to have me looked after so my parents could spend time together.

  She was a bit spoilt at that time I seem to remember; prone to throw
ing strops when she didn’t get what she wanted. I suppose it’s natural she might be that way; her mother had died a few years before and her father was pretty protective of her. And he ran the place with her grandmother, and you know what grandparents are like…

  Even then she always seemed to have her head in the clouds. Always so deep in her own world. That’s when she was really bad tempered, when you disrupted her from one of her little dreams. She’d get really aggravated. But that would change as the years went by. She’d mellow, or sort of keep the dream going while you were around. Singing and humming to herself while you were talking to her or out walking with her, as if she wasn’t really paying attention to you.

  And I’d ask her, what are you thinking about? And she’d say something like, “I don’t know” or “Nothing in particular.” And if I really pressed her, she might say “It was just a feeling” or “It was just a moment.” It was like she could tune in to a different wave-length to the rest of the world, and just feel it, live in it.

  As the years went by, we got on better and I started to look forward to seeing her. It was what I looked forward to about going on holiday. My parents seemed perfectly happy to have me looked after, and by the third year we were going off on excursions to the beach accompanied by members of the hotel staff who weren’t needed for an hour or two.

  We’d play down by the beach, build sand castles, play beach ball, fish amongst the rocks – but we’d never go in the sea. Never go near to the sea…

  She was terrified of water. The rock pools were fine, but she refused to go even close to the sea, or the swimming pool at the hotel. I loved the hotel swimming pool, because at that age that was my idea of class – we were at a classy hotel because they had a swimming pool. But Lily didn’t like it; she wouldn’t even come poolside.

  It was so strange because she always seemed so fearless. You know what little girls can be like, screaming and crying at anything. But not her; I never saw her afraid. Not when climbing the rocks, not when riding her bike down the hill. Me, I could get terrified. I was putting on the brakes all the time, but she’d zoom along like nobody’s business. She used to terrify the staff at the hotel with her climbing. They’d go blue in the face at her as she scaled the heights of the rocks or the trees.