The Haunting Within

by Michelle Burley

  Of course, John was no help to her. No support whatsoever. He didn’t understand, never missed Lisa like she did. For her it was like a constant physical ache in her chest. When she tried explaining that to John he mocked her, said she was exaggerating but she wasn’t. She knew how she felt and it hurt her being away from her baby girl. John just got on with it like nothing was different. She didn’t like thinking of him. He was an unspoken chapter of her life. The tears she shed when he left were for herself and her children. Not for him. Never for him. He was a means to an end as far as she was concerned. She had gotten all she wanted from him. It just galled her that yet another supposedly dependable man in her life was proven to be anything but. Anyway, she wouldn’t let him encroach on the memories of her children.

  Aiden on the other hand was completely different. The very first day he almost pulled her to school so eager was he to get there and explore and have an adventure. At the classroom door Debbie held her breath waiting for the onslaught of emotion from her youngest child but it never came. He bounded into the classroom looking back only to shout “See you later mummy” before joining in with a group of children who were playing with a puzzle. With his ease of separation from her came a new emotion. Although relieved she couldn’t help but feel sad that he didn’t mind being away from her. She missed him terribly for the first few weeks. It just wasn’t the same not having him running round the house playing superman and jumping off chairs and getting under her feet constantly.

  Aiden enjoyed collecting different types of leaves and sticking them into his scrap book at home. He was always coming home from school or from playing out with his pockets stuffed full with leaves and stones. The amount of times Debbie had to throw his school uniform in the wash and get it dried and ironed before the next day! She was always telling him to be careful not to get dirty, but, as always, he would see something “really great!” in the playground or park and just have to fetch it home. He was so inquisitive and energetic. It amazed her that he loved life so much. Children had the ability most adults lacked, and that was to find pleasure in the most simple of things. Since the tender age of two, he had never been able to resist clawing through dirt and touching every pebble in sight because he loved the smoothness of one and the roughness of another. The older he got, the more interested he became in the outside world. He begged Debbie to buy him the weekly magazines about nature and wildlife from the shop and he had built up quite a collection. He wasn’t a greedy child and he would often sacrifice his sweeties on the way home from school just so he could have the latest installment of his beloved magazine. He would take it home and bury his nose in it, taking in all the facts he could find, then he would take it into the garden and look for the spiders it described, or the flowers he had read about. He would be out there for hours at a time just investigating the natural wonders his own back garden had to offer.

  The older he got the further his expeditions would take him. Now at the age of seven he was allowed to go to the park just down the road from them but he would rarely go to play on the swings and the slides; he would go to look for strange creatures and new plants he had never seen before. He had to touch. She learned very early on in his life to make sure she always checked his pockets before washing his clothes. A proper little boy, he would often tear a hole in the knee of his trousers and Debbie would be up late into the night sewing them for him. He hardly ever tore his school clothes though, she now noticed. It was like he knew she wanted him to look presentable for school so he tried his hardest to be careful, not that there weren’t a few accidents though. His fingernails were always dirty with mud and she would have to give him a good scrub every night in the bath before putting him to bed clean and fresh, knowing he wouldn’t stay that way for long. But that was how little boys were supposed to be.

  They could not have been more different. Lisa hated getting dirty and if any of her clothes were ruined she would get very upset. She hated when her brother would chase her round the house with a spider or a worm in his hands. But they had such tender moments together which far outweighed the bad.

  5

  The car was silent as they started their long journey to visit their grandfather. Debbie tried making small talk with the children to break the tension she felt.

  After a while Lisa asked the question that had needed to be asked all morning. “Why are we going to see granddad now mummy if we’ve never been before?”

  “You must always remember to call him grandfather; never granddad!” said Debbie as they turned from the smooth surfaces of the city roads and on to the harsh, unforgiving tarmac of the motor-way. Speeding over the uneven surface she immediately scalded herself for sounding so harsh. “I’m sorry darling. Mummy didn’t mean to shout at you, it’s just so important that we try our hardest to keep your grandfather happy, okay?” she had to raise her voice to be heard as the tyres raced over the noisy road.

  “Okay mummy” they chorused innocently from the back seat.

  “We have to go today because your grandmother, my mum has gone to heaven now and we need to be with your grandfather for a little while in case he needs us for anything. You must be very good while we’re there and sit quietly. Only speak when someone speaks to you and always be polite. We shouldn’t be there for too long and on the way home we’ll stop and get ice cream!” she smiled in the mirror at her children with more enthusiasm than she felt.

  Silent in the backseat, Lisa contemplated her mother’s words and when she spoke it was with a quiet voice full of sadness “Are you upset your mummy has gone to heaven?”

  A little taken aback by this, Debbie chose her words carefully. “Yes sweetheart, I’m very upset, but when you’re grown up there are times when you need to try and not be as sad as you feel”. Seemingly satisfied with this reply Lisa sat back and resumed staring out of the window.

  God she really hated this but not half as much as she hated herself for putting two young and naïve innocents into this awful situation. One thought constantly flitted through Debbie’s mind as she drove them into the nightmare - what kind of mother would put her own children at risk? What kind of mother would take away their childhood innocence - an innocence every child has the right to - just as hers was taken away all those years ago?

  As hard as she tried she couldn’t muster enough courage to turn back and leave the horrible old man to live and cope alone with his grief - if he had enough heart to grieve at all. He didn’t deserve the company of her children; he didn’t even deserve to lay eyes on them and that was the plan - that he would never see them. Up until now the plan was a success; if only she was strong enough to tell him to go to hell.

  6

  As the car raced down the busy motor-way passing vehicles of all colours and sizes, a thought came to Debbie. She was thinking that maybe she could “accidentally” lose control of the wheel just as an HGV came up behind them. The car would swerve and hopefully - with a little help from Debbie, it would skid directly under the wheels of the lorry, killing them all instantly without her children feeling any fear or pain. She knew it was an extreme measure but it was the only way she could think of to protect her children from him and his poison. At least they would all be together and the children would be none the wiser. Her head felt clearer than it had since she got the call that had brought them here and she herself felt energized by the idea. But the more she thought about the “great plan”, the more she went off the idea. How could she possibly kill her own children for goodness sake? She wouldn’t; she couldn’t. They would just go to the house and get the visit over and done with.

  With that decided she cleared her mind of the morbid thought and concentrated on the road ahead. As she did so she glanced out of the rear view mirror and saw a large sixteen wheel lorry closing in behind them. She knew this was her chance to save them all and as she waited for the lorry to indicate it was going into the next lane she wrestled with her conscience. Glancing in the mirror she saw her children happily looking out of the windo
w in awe of their surroundings. They were having a wonderful time playing eye spy with the new sights. She knew they wouldn’t feel a thing so she tightly gripped the stirring wheel and slowly began to turn it. The car was gently pulling out in front of the lorry when she heard an almighty beep from its horn. The driver had seen what she was trying to do! There was no way it would work now, he was already beginning to slow down and drop back a little. Shook up and disturbed by her stupidity she changed lanes and swerved onto the hard shoulder on the side of the motor-way. The driver of the lorry shouted something inaudible to her as he passed and finished off with a rude gesture using his middle finger. She couldn’t blame him though. She leaned her pounding head on the steering wheel and felt a single warm tear roll down her cheek and travel to her lips. How could one visit to an old man make her so dangerously irrational? The children undid their seat-belts and moved forwards so they were nearer to their mum. Their concern for her was plain to see and she wiped the salty tear away before she looked at them.

  “Don’t worry. Mummy’s alright, I just felt a bit poorly, that’s all” she lied.

  After a couple of minutes Debbie had gained enough composure to carry on their journey. With her emotions under as much of a control as she could manage, she turned the key and taking a deep sigh, continued the long drive knowing with fearful certainty that it was all about to begin again.

  7

  The journey was a long one filled with apprehension for her. She had a lot of time to think about her childhood whilst driving the long distance to her former home. Or should that be former hell? The only distraction for her was the children who were becoming restless and bored in the back of the car. She tried to amuse them by singing songs with them and playing games like “I spy”, but her heart wasn’t in it and they sensed that. A number of times Lisa had asked her if she was alright and every time Debbie lied to her daughter by replying that she was fine. She hated lying to them but consoled herself on the fact that the truth would harm them much more than a little white lie. She was immensely relieved that she didn’t go through with the stupid idea on the motor-way. What the hell was happening to her? She would never put her children’s lives in danger! But did it constitute as harming your children if it was to protect them? Why did it matter? She wasn’t going to do it. She didn’t have the nerve to.

  As the car pulled off the motor-way after a few hours the whole view changed. It was as though they had driven into another world. The traffic had almost instantly disappeared and the farm land was replaced by dense forest on either side of the road. There was hardly any noise apart from the occasional tweet of a bird or scampering of deer. It was so peaceful. Debbie always thought that a horse and cart wouldn’t look out of place on the long stretch of road. It was full of views that could be on postcards, or in the winter when the snow had settled lush and crisp on the ground (and that didn’t take long here with the infrequency of traffic and pedestrians) and when the branches of the trees were bare apart from the icicles that hung daintily from them, it would be a lovely sight to put on a Christmas card. Lisa and Aiden were clamouring to look out of the back window at all the forest wild-life. They would inform Debbie every time they saw an animal and she would humour them with surprise. The children were amazed at all the different types of trees they saw and how the wild-life seemed so unfazed by the noise of their old car as it chugged down the road, the deer and wild rabbits stopping their grazing or their journey to stare at the car and its occupants as if they were as interesting to them as the animals were to the children. She allowed herself a small smile as she watched them in the back seat. Hearing their delighted cries she thought it would be nice to slow down and let them have a proper look at the animals but she dared not be late for her father; she knew better than that so she carried on at the same speed not wanting to be late, but terrified at the thought of arriving.

  8

  The car turned at the only corner on the long stretch of lonely road, so narrow only one car could fit down it at a time (luckily for her there were no other cars on the road - there hardly ever was) and was almost immediately confronted by large wrought iron gates that were painted black and had once been shiny and proud but over the years had been left to rust and now had paint peeling from them showing the cold unforgiving metal underneath dotted with brown roughness. The rust did little to soften the appearance of the gates that were at least ten feet high. Her father certainly liked his privacy. As the car approached the gates Debbie got out of the car and walked over to them on shaking legs. With a lift of the rusty handle and a hard push they swung open with a shrill groan, coming to an unsmooth stop just before they hit the walls. Loudly announcing their arrival.

  Aiden leaned as far forward as he possibly could to get a better view. He was expecting the driveway to be pleasant-looking like the road that had led them here, but it wasn’t. Enormously tall spindly trees lined the edge of the drive on both sides, but the trees were not covered with thick green foliage like the ones in the forest, they were bare; their long, spiny branches poking out in all directions, sharp and menacing, like blackened bones. They almost joined branches overhead, appearing to form an eerie kind of arch-way. Debbie had always been reminded of a frighteningly black tunnel that led straight to hell whenever she saw the arched branches of the drive. They looked evil, like a cat ready to pounce, unnatural as though someone had teased them into that shape. There were no birds singing, nor any animals in sight. The only sound they could hear was the gravel on the surface of the driveway crunching beneath the cars tyres as they slowly rolled forward and occasionally, bouncing off the frame-work as it plodded along towards the house. The faint sound of the wind rustling through the bare branches of the trees making them crack and move about like they were alive could be heard from inside the car. Although muffled, the sound was still harsh as the wood snapped and creaked. It sounded like the branches would snap and fall on the car, maybe impale them or trap them so they had no escape. The air under the archway of trees was a lot cooler than the air that had, just a few seconds earlier been sweeping in through the open windows. It felt very dry too, not like the cool refreshing air that normally comes with shade. This air seemed to move around them like dry ice, touching every uncovered body part and bringing them out in goose bumps. The tunnel continued all the way down the lane to the drive-way, which took another couple of minutes’ drive. Debbie had always wondered since she had been old enough to really understand, why whoever had built the house in God knows what century, would want it to look so uninviting. Why had they set it so far back from the road? It was secluded enough as it was without the long lane leading on to the huge rectangular driveway. From the back window of the little car it looked as though the branches of the trees were turning inwards towards the house so it seemed like they were watching the journey of the car menacingly, almost as though they were standing guard, making sure they didn’t turn back and try to escape. Irrational though she knew it was, Debbie had the uneasy feeling that the trees' would stop their progress by swooping their long, gnarled branches to the floor if they decided to turn around and go back.

  Finally the car emerged from the shadows and into the warmth of the sun’s rays. The warm air circulated freely through the cars open windows once again and swamped the passengers with its heat, erasing all traces of the goose bumps that had covered their arms and legs only seconds ago. Straight ahead of them standing huge and proud in the middle of the vast drive was a large water fountain that had long since dried up. Moss and algae was growing on the face of the cherub that would have one time spurted fresh, clear water into the fountain where birds used to drink from. There were chunks of concrete missing from the once serene and angelic-looking cherubs face so it now looked diseased and the urn that the cherub held in its chubby child-like arms was now spouting yellow weeds instead of the water that should have gushed from it. There were topiary hedges around the main part of the drive and although these let in more daylight than the trees, they still
seemed threatening somehow. Beyond the hedges were rows and rows of bare branched trees, tall and ominous, looking like guards that surrounded the house so no-one could escape from its cold walls.

  As the car pulled up in front of the house there were gasps of awe from the backseat. “Wow mummy! Did you live here when you was little?” asked Aiden with amazement in his voice.

  “Yes, I did” replied Debbie, already beginning to feel the old panic rising inside. She tried to push it away but it wouldn’t let go of the hold it had her in. It was like a cold fist wrapped around her spine, slowly uncurling its tendrils up towards her neck and lathering her insides with iciness.

  Stepping out of the car Debbie heard a small voice. “Are you alright mummy?” She looked down to see the wide questioning eyes of her little boy.

  She managed a smile and in the most normal voice she could muster, said “Yes sweetheart, I’m fine. It’s just been such a long time since I’ve been here, I forgot what it looked like, that’s all.”

  Lisa came to her mother’s side and took her hand. Her little eyes were looking up at the intimidating old house which towered before them, almost as if it were daring them to enter. Lisa thought it was such a strange shape. There was a square bit that jutted out where the front doors were and two large windows either side, then it was set back a little on both sides and there were another two windows there, and then, once more there was another part either side that were again set back and that also had two enormous windows. Like a three tiered cake lying on its side. It was a very ugly and unwelcoming sight to behold indeed. With all of its sharp angles that jutted out imposingly it seemed threatening and the symmetry was almost over the top. The two huge double doors had four stone steps leading to them that were cracked and worn smooth in the centre of each one, making them dip slightly in the middle. Around the edges of the steps grew moss that had, over the years, slowly wound itself up the stone and into its cracks and crevices making it appear like mouldy old grouting. That part of the house actually looked quite nice, rather quaint and cottage-like. The mullioned windows were made up of many squares of glass, which had ivy that had long since died clinging on to the frames of most of the downstairs ones. The glass reflected the sunlight in each separate square bouncing it in all different directions, yet it did little, if anything to soften the image.