Truths, Half Truths and Little White Lies

by Nick Frost

  The house at 9 Busby Place had a garden that we couldn’t access. We could see it but we couldn’t get to it. The only access was through the downstairs flat. We’d been told that the place used to belong to our landlord’s father who’d sadly died there. I can’t really remember our landlord but I remember a feeling of dread if we knew he was turning up. I feel like I want to say he was a mean skinflint who never wanted to spend any money on the place but he had it in his power to let us have the key to downstairs and in turn the garden, so we played the game. Smiley, our working-class hardnut and spokesperson in residence, put the shit eye on him and the landlord tentatively agreed. We were thrilled. It meant we could have a garden for the summer.

  There were a few of us at the house that morning when we first decided to use the key to the Dead Man’s flat. We’d heard noises drifting through the floorboards before but I put that down to the ’erb I’d been smoking. We used the Dead Man as a thing to frighten us, he was a cautionary tale, a fishwives’ yarn. We knew it was rubbish and stuff we’d say just to freak each other out but standing there at his old front door making a spooky ewwwwwwwhhhhhheeeeoooohhhhhh noise I couldn’t help but feel anxious.

  The door stuck and we all pushed it open, our noses assaulted by the whiff of things old and foul. It was day and the sun struggled to make a dent through the brown net curtains. As we stepped inside the yellow-dark room our eyes strained to focus on the horrors within.

  The Dead Man’s flat was exactly as it was left the day he died. Nothing had been cleared. It was a mausoleum, a memento mori covered in a thick layer of dust and it was fucking creepy. There were still plates in the sink, food in the fridge, clothes, cutlery, pots, pans, dusty hats, furniture.

  Poor bloke. We walked around for ages like CSI: Kentish Town, we looked in every drawer and every cupboard, on a calendar he’d marked dates well into the future when he’d be taking his pigeons to their next race.

  We’d forgotten all about the garden. Our focus had turned to a very dusty but completely functioning La-Z-Boy recliner. Smiley was brave and gingerly sits and uses the sturdy lever to recline, fully. Simultaneously our minds link and we all accepted that in spite of its creepiness this would be a great addition to our house. This was the green light for low-level looting to begin. It felt like a bad idea, I could feel the dusty spirit fingers of a pigeon fancier jabbing his bones into my eye. We survey the garden for a second and all hastilly agree on what needs to be done to make it nice and went back upstairs.

  The chair was dusted and hoovered and it was good as new. We had a fucking La-Z-Boy recliner! This was the best day ever! The chair though had the last laugh, the chair and the Dead Man. The malevolent spirit of that old pigeon keeper sadly haunted the chair, we should never have taken it. People who slept in that chair, and there were many, all shared a similar dream. They awoke in our front room in the chair, unable to move, the Dead Man would be on them, over them, moving and looking into their eyes. If it was a girl asleep in the chair he would often rub himself off on them; once he finished the spell was broken and the girls could finally wake up. Weird and horny shit I’m sure you’ll agree.

  Over the years Simon and I had many other brushes with the occult, it was something we loved to flirt with. We loved the fear. We loved the spirit world. Often the pair of us would head into the wilds to hunt for ghosts and ghouls.

  The first time we did this was deep within the Essex countryside. We pulled up outside a thirteenth-century Saxon church he’d read about. The church sat in a freshly ploughed field and we switched the engine off and sat in the cold dark, our breathing, shallow and quick, the only thing that could be heard. We got out of the car eventually after winding each other up a lot and tried the door to the ancient church. It was locked. Lights from a slow-moving vehicle on a nearby lane and my terrible overwhelming urge to wee forced us to run back to the car and drive away at high speed laughing like idiots.

  When we lived in Highgate our house had a massive garden that bordered on a piece of woodland. For months we didn’t really pay it much mind other than it was a nice thing to look at and the busy comings and goings of the cheeky European Jays was most cheery.

  Simon and I were alone one night drinking litres of strong cider. It was dark and drizzling and having discovered a hole in our fence earlier in the day we decided to go through that hole and see what was in the forest. It was a mistake that almost cost one of us our life.

  The forest was dense and the ground covered in a tangle of logs, vines and slippery ivy. We could see the lights of the cars on the Archway Road and hear the clickclack of the pedestrians streaming out of Highgate Station. It was exciting to be an unseen watcher, it pushed us deeper into the woods.

  Eventually we find ourselves alone in the rain in a forest in the middle of London. We’d left the noise of the road behind. It felt like we were the only people left alive. It was a feeling we liked.

  That house in Highgate was where we talked about what we’d do, how we’d cope during a Zombie outbreak. It took us a while to refine our plan but eventually we settled on this:

  Using the backs of the houses we’d garden hop down the Archway Road until the houses became terraced with balconies along the front. We’d take to the balconies fifteen feet above the undead horde and silently make our way to a place called Pax Guns. A shop we’d reccied many times. It sold high-powered air rifles, optical scopes, ammo etc. but we suspected it had tastier stock out back for naughty little bastards like us. Climbing down through their extension skylight we’d raid the shop for whatever they had and arm ourselves with shooters.

  Our plan has changed and evolved slightly over the years to include the use of edged weapons and pieces of pointy metal. The last thing you need when you’re facing a gang of bitey fucks is to run out of ammo, then you got wampum big problem. A knife does not run out of bullets. That said, using a rifle as a club or stabbing a long blunt barrel through the eye bulbs and into the brain would also do the trick.

  Once we’d secured our weps (weapons) we moved on to stage two of the plan. Heavy weps. (Heavy weapons.) You can’t have too many heavy weps. (Heavy weapons.) I’d heard of a British army base in Enfield, which was essentially a giant arms cache. This was our second destination. After finding a truck or large van we’d head there to raid it hoping we were the first. Other desperate survivors will kill you just as quick as a mindless Z-Bag.

  With the guards either changed or long since gone, it would be easy to break in and upgrade to the standard British Infantry L85A2 assault rifle in 5.56mm, its troop support version the L86A1 LSW and a long-barrelled .50 cal sniper’s rifle for weekend field clearance. Then our plan changed gear. We needed to think about friends and family and a long-term solution for living the rest of our natural lives in relative comfort.

  The answer was an easy one. We’d use one of London’s many stadiums. As we were closer to Arsenal this is the one we chose. Once inside it gave us everything we needed. The stadium was a circle of lockable gates. Security was assured. The many hospitality boxes gave us somewhere to set up a kind of home, there’d be supplies, food and plenty of bottled water. More importantly for our long-term survival, half the pitch could be turned into fields for the cultivation of fresh food, wheat, corn, potatoes, apples, pears, plums, tomatoes, and the other half could be used for the grazing of the livestock we’d need for fresh meat. Easy.

  However, this plan was a long way from needing to be utilised (2029) and right now we were soaking wet, pushing through an urban forest looking for goblins. What we found was a tad more exciting.

  The forest clears slightly and we see the big brick arch of an old tunnel. It was caged and gated but in the far distance we could see a tiny speck of light. An entrance or exit depending on which end you’re standing. We turn and follow what used to be the train tracks deeper into the woods. After a couple of minutes struggling through the forest we both stop, our mouths fall open. We have just unearthed the find of our lives. An old abandoned t
ube station. The remnants of the old Highgate High-level station, closed in 1954.

  We stood in silence not quite believing that this had been here all along and we never knew. After a moment we climbed up off the tracks onto the old platform. It was amazing and perfect in every way. We patted ourselves on the back, finished our big cider and opened the back-up we’d brought in case we ran out, which we had. Good fucking times. Running around that place peering into the locked rooms and rattling the old platform dispensers selling things long forgotten like Hutchinson’s Original Phlegm Pastilles and Miss Cunty’s Titwax felt like heaven to us.

  The rain began to lash down and fearing we’d soon run out of back-up cider we turn and head for home. It’s heavy-going on the way back, muddy, slippy, very treacherous indeed. I lag behind with the dwindling cider rations. I could hear Simon in front telling me to hurry up. I pick up the pace and seconds later I slip on some wet ivy and smash my head on a log. I’m out cold. I think I’m unconscious for thirty seconds or so. When I wake I can hear an angry Simon calling my name. He thinks I’m fucking about. I can hear him shouting.

  ‘I’m not fucking about, Nick! You better answer me!’

  I couldn’t speak or move.

  ‘Nick! Fine! I’m going home and I’m ordering Chinese because I’m really hungry and I will see you later.’

  He pauses . . . Nothing.

  ‘Okay, I’m going. Seriously.’

  I hear him tramp off into the woods towards our house. I cannot move. I’m badly injured and slump into unconsciousness again.

  When I come to it’s raining heavily still. I’m drunk and hurt and wet, this is a very dangerous triumvirate. I could kill or severely maul someone to death in this fragile state. I pull myself up into a sitting position and from there the next thirty minutes is spent dragging, tumbling and crashing my way through the forest towards home. Falling face first again I sleep for a while. A hundred metres or so in front of me I can see the welcoming lights of our front room burning in the darkness. I compel myself towards them. Finding the hole in the fence I crawl through and I’m in my own garden. I roll onto my back, relief floods through me. The wolves turn back, afraid to pursue me any further.

  I hoist myself up onto my feet and stagger, jaeger-like, up the garden and towards the house. I can’t believe he left me. He bloody left me. Could this be revenge for Piegate? I fill the window soaked and covered in leaves and mud and shit and blood. Eventually Simon tears his eyes away from the TV and cheerily waves me in. I’m speechless and stumble into the front room, Simon sits happily watching telly and eating a massive Chinese. I’m angry and try to tell him as much but I’m stammering badly.

  ‘Sorry bud, I thought you were joking. I was really hungry.’

  I wasn’t joking. I was also really hungry, hungry for medical assistance. Next day at the hospital it was revealed that as well as the massive lump on my head I had suffered a heavy concussion and a light hypothermia. This was the penultimate time we ever hunted for ghosts. Like Piegate, my near woodland death is a section of our lives we rarely talk about.

  The last time we ever messed with the occult was in December 2002. We’d read about an old abandoned stately home in Surrey called Tilford Manor. It was the seat of the Duke of Guildford until a fire gutted the place and killed the fifth Duke’s wife and his six children. After the tragedy the house was left to fall into disrepair.

  This sounded perfect for us. We drove down late in the afternoon and arrived just as the sun was beginning to set. The main gate, at one point a fine structure, now dilapidated and dense with weeds and brambles, had a space large enough for the both of us to push through.

  The forest on both sides seemed untouched and completely overgrown, no birds sang, no wind blew, this was the perfect storm for both horror and the desperate need for me to do wee wee.

  We walked up the drive, now pierced by grass and weeds, until we got our first glimpse of the shattered remains of Tilford Manor. I felt a surge of cold from my feet up to the top of my head and we stopped, briefly unable to move. It was the creepiest place I had ever seen. Me and Simon discussed just going home but eventually, laughing like drains through terror-nerves, we decide to push on. I’m not sure we were ever going to go in, I think we were just going to walk around the outside and look through the windows, shit ourselves up a bit, that’s what we enjoyed.

  The windows on the ground floor were boarded up. We made our way around the back through a tangle of overgrown hedges and trees. The back of the house stops us in our tracks. It was absolutely beautiful, with a half decent gardener this place could be knocked into shape in no time at all. A vast, overgrown lawn spread out downhill from the house to a lake now covered in weed. A frog and newt haven for sure.

  We walked down the lawn a little and turned to look back at the house, it was only now we see the place in all its glory. In its day it must have been fabulous. Now it’s remembered only as a house where six children died.

  I began to feel we’d done enough on this ghost hunt, we should go home, my almost constant need to wee was beginning to change into a solid yearning to make a plop. If push came to shove I could dump in one of the outhouses and use my pants to make clean and it’d be blamed on a loose-bowelled junkie.

  Hidden in among the bushes was a set of stone steps leading to a battered old door. Simon pushed at it and with little effort the thing shuddered open. We deployed our head torches. Paul anyone? When ghost hunting we’d always have our head torches, it was a great way to leave both hands free if you needed to punch an amorous hobo.

  The wind howled and the door slammed behind us. Inside that room was freezing cold. We stood in what I believed to be an old servants’ kitchen or pantry with stone floors, butler’s sinks, hooks for cloaks and on one wall, high up near the ceiling, a long row of bells. Underneath these shiny brass flowers were little handwritten notes to tell the old maids what room was ringing what bell. Down here, this place seemed untouched by the fire.

  I assumed it had started in one of the bedrooms and spread, sparing the lower levels. Our fear was briefly overwhelmed by our curiosity about this piece of forgotten history we found ourselves in. Pushing through another door and up another set of stone steps we arrived at the foot of a great wooden staircase, ahead of us was the old front door, massive and boarded up with planks. On the left double doors leading to who knows what.

  Here, there were signs of both Mother Nature’s seizure and the fire which had taken six young lives. The ornate plaster cornices above the great staircase blackened and charred, had cracked. The wooden balustrade wrapped in long tendrils of ancient ivy. At this point one of the kitchen bells tings. I piss and we spend an age looking at one another. This is a shared aural hallucination, right? We wait. The fear subsides and we begin to theorise in whispers. It rings again, this time it’s slightly more insistent. We hold hands and drops of sweat pitter patter fear all over our trainers.

  We sprint back into the pantry and look at the panel of tiny bells, willing it not to ring. It rings again. This time it is long and angry and sustained. The sign beneath the bell reads Miss Emma’s Room. It honestly feels like we’re possessed because we both make the decision to go and find her room. To this day I wish we hadn’t. We should’ve run there and then. We should’ve run away.

  We creaked up the stairs. Branching off the first floor landing there are two corridors leading to the back of the house. Each corridor has five or six doors. We walked down the first corridor, downstairs the ring of the bell, angry, insistent, continued. Every door is locked. Turning back we hear a loud creak coming from upstairs. We feel compelled to go up. We find charred wood, smashed brick and plaster; here half the house had given up and slumped in on itself.

  Trees and bushes spring out of the brickwork making this part of the house look like Shockheaded Peter. We see the clouds racing by. Peering down into the hole we see what must be a hundred dolls and teddies littering the rubble beneath. All are headless.

  To
wards the back of this burned and broken corridor we see a door. As we approach it we see it has a cracked chalkboard hanging off the black door handle; in spidery, faded writing we see the words, Little Miss Emma. Simon and I look at each other and the bell downstairs stops ringing. I know what we shouldn’t do but we do it anyway. My hand, trembling, reaches out to the dented and smoke-stained knob. I turn it and the mechanism inside the lock clicks and the door swings open.

  The room inside is black with soot, the remnants of a fierce fire evident. There is a cupboard, a bed, burnt and charred, and a small dressing table, its combs and brushes melted and warped, its mirror cracked. We enter the room and kick and stand on what must be a hundred dolls’ heads. The fear shakes itself loose and jangles up my spine and into my brain. We shouldn’t be here. Once again the bell begins dancing down in the pantry. Whatever, whoever, is pulling that cord is in this room with us.

  I turn to look at Simon. His eyes are wide as saucers, his mouth is agape and he trembles. I cannot see what he sees. I don’t want to see what he has seen but I must. I have to see what he’s seen. I turn and look at the spot on the wall where the bell pull dances and after a second I see it. It is black on black. The burnt wall here is not flat and it is not a wall but it is burnt and black, her nightie is black, charred, her face is black, her hairless head is black, her hands are tiny and black. She stops pulling the cord and the distant bell falls silent. Her face crinkles and her burnt, brittle eyelids spring open. She looks at us, right at us, her eyes, white as box fresh cue balls, are the signal for us to go. Flee now . . . RUN!!! And we do.