The Haunting Within

by Michelle Burley

  “I could do with something a bit stronger than that mum!” joked Aiden half-heartedly.

  “You’re under age so you’ll have to make with this young man” Debbie said smiling at her son as she scalded him lovingly, pleased that the silence had been broken and some of the tension along with it. She made them all a cup of coffee and brought them over to the table where she placed one in front of each of them.

  “I can’t believe he’s dead” said Lisa hacking away with a spoon at the hard lumpy sugar before stirring it into her coffee. The sugar had not been used for months by the look of it.

  “I know! I don’t know what to feel. I don’t really feel anything but relief to tell you the truth.” Debbie told them. She actually felt guilty about this; after all, he was her father, well, biologically anyway. He had never been a father to her in all of her life she thought with an aching heart.

  “What are we going to do about the house mum?” Debbie looked over her steaming coffee at her beautiful daughter, relishing the searing heat coming from the mug that covered her face giving her a not unpleasant sensation of prickly heat. It was the only thing so far that seemed remotely every-day to her.

  “We’ll have to phone an estate agent and put it on the market. I don’t want it. It’s bad enough having to sit here now.” The kids agreed with her on that one. “I don’t know who would possibly want to buy this place though. It’s awful” she said as an afterthought. “But I suppose when people see the history of this house they might decide to use it for something else.”

  Debbie knew that neither Aiden nor Lisa had any clue as to what she was talking about so she explained; “My father used to be a psychiatrist, had his own practice in Birmingham where he was born. He met my mother when she was there on a family holiday. She was just sixteen, he was twenty-nine and she fell madly in love with him.” Seeing the shock on the faces of her children Debbie insisted “Age didn’t matter so much back then. It wasn’t frowned upon like it is now. It was quite acceptable for a girl of sixteen to be married to an older man. He wasn’t always like you and I knew him otherwise my mother wouldn’t have given him the time of day. She was so beautiful and caring; she could have had any man she wanted. As it turned out she wanted him. They started dating, but when her family found out they made her choose; them or him. Of course she chose him. Her parents couldn’t get over the age gap so she left. They bought a small house near Liverpool and stayed there for three years. They didn’t have a lot of money or a lot of space in their home but they were happy. My father took a job at a local hospital and he earned enough to keep them going. They thought they were set up for a life in Liverpool until my father learned of his uncle who had passed away. He was a doctor and he owned this house. My father was the only living relative to him so he left him this place in his will. So my mother and father moved their lives here and as it was already pretty well set up as a surgery from when his uncle owned it, my father just adapted it a bit to make it a psychiatric hospital. My mother told me at first she didn’t like the idea of living here when it was a hospital for the insane but she got used to it and it was practical. It kind of killed two birds with one stone. They lived in this part, but through that door” she motioned to the heavy wooden door that stood solid and domineering at the end of the kitchen “is a passage that leads to the other part of the house were the patients lived.”

  After a pause to take a sip from her coffee she continued with her story, all the while subconsciously twisting her hands round the mug as though trying to banish a chill from deep inside. “My father fell in love with the house. He never considered selling it. It has a rich history going back centuries. It used to be a courthouse and a prison at once stage. In the nineteenth century I think it was. I’m surprised my parents wanted to live here.” The thought of them living in the house gave Lisa a cold shiver that ran the length of her spine.

  Pausing again to sip her coffee she gave them both a sad smile as she added “Those parts were never used. They’re locked off. Anyway,” she continued, wanting to finish what she started saying and be done with the whole subject “everything was going well for a few years until my father started to act strangely. I remember hearing him talking to my mother so horribly, which, she said he had never done in all their married life. She was so shocked she begged him to go see his doctor but he wouldn’t have it saying there was nothing wrong with him. She wanted to believe him but it became more difficult when he started being violent towards her. She was scared and so she kept quiet and tried to keep him happy. She read in one of his medical books about a person acting strangely may be suffering from a brain tumour. She was scared she would lose him so she kept making that excuse every time he did something to her. It went on like this for a while until things started happening to his patients. A lot of them were dying from causes that could not be explained.” She hesitated, not wanting to scare them but knowing she had to tell them.

  Taking a deep breath Debbie continued. “They were found to have died from heart attacks even though the tests my father and his staff did showed no heart problems. No one knew what had caused their deaths so there was an investigation into it. They came up with nothing but because of that my father’s hospital was condemned and closed down. I think a lot of people suspected father for the deaths, but he was adamant it was not him who killed them. My mother believed him. She loved him, as if that was some kind of proof for her. If she loved him then he couldn’t have been responsible. What she seemed to forget is what he did to her and I know domestic abuse doesn’t mean he would be capable of murder but he was a very cruel man. Even if he had been allowed to keep his practice running I think he would have lost most, if not all of his patients. Their families would not have let them stay when their doctor, a murderer or not, had lost every ounce of respect from the community in which he was once an upstanding and extremely well liked member. Mother told me things happened that couldn’t be explained and as we know, we can all vouch for that.” They were nodding in agreement and before they had chance to think of what had gone on that day Debbie began speaking again. “She believed it was the unexplained occurrences that had terrified the patients to the point of heart attacks. She felt and heard things that she could find no rational explanation for. She wanted to move but my father said he wasn’t going anywhere. It was like the house had a hold on him. He loved this place, more than me or my mother it seemed. My mother used to tell me that he belonged here when I’d plead with her to leave. She said it would destroy my father if we left. I have always hated this house and I always will, but at least we can sell it. Maybe a doctor will see the potential and want it for a practice.” Debbie finished her coffee and got up from the table on shaky legs. Talking about him always seemed to take its toll on her and she realised how exhausted she was. Still, she had things to do. The house wouldn’t sell itself. She put her mug in the sink and headed out of the kitchen calling over her shoulder as she went that she was going to ring an estate agent.

  14

  She walked into the large hall to the phone stand at the bottom of the long winding staircase. Her shoes scuffed the worn and tattered rug that adorned the floor. Stepping off the rug and onto the tired and dull wooden parquet floor she instantly tip-toed without giving it a second thought. As a child she was always made to walk silently across hard floors because it riled her father if she made a noise and she would be punished. Her mind flitted back to the time when she was about three years old. She knew a lot of people believed memories from so early on in life could not possibly be remembered, but Debbie remembered it well because it was the first time she had been locked in the closet under the stairs. She had been playing with a toy and had accidentally dropped it from her chubby little baby fingers. He had been so angry he snatched her up roughly from the floor and locked her in the tiny room. She had been beyond terror there, alone in the pitch blackness, a frightened three year old with a snotty nose and bloody lip from her fall to the floor as he threw her in. When her mother
was finally allowed to unlock the door she found Debbie curled in a little ball, fast asleep from sheer exhaustion and terror, her tiny body still heaving from her sobbing. Her mother had rocked her all night, crying into her child’s soft downy hair that smelled of sweat from her panic.

  Wiping a welling tear of anger away, she walked to the phone and took a moment to compose herself. Just before picking up the receiver she glanced up to the top of the stairs. The window that over looked the stairs was very long and very wide. It let in dusky light that seemed to get swallowed up in the deep green velvet drapes that hung around it. The dreary sunlight that fell through the window picked out the particles of dust swimming in the air above her and it seemed that the dust was dancing; parading in a strange but peaceful sort of performance that was just for her. She felt relieved that she saw nothing, although, what she was expecting to see she wasn’t entirely sure, and she felt silly about thinking the dust was dancing for her, but she couldn’t help gazing at it for a little longer. She had to pull her gaze away, so relaxed was she just looking at the dust. It captivated her so much so that she could hardly bear to take her eyes from it; she wished she could just stand and watch the dust all day. The particles were like tiny creatures, maybe fairies, and the more she thought about them being like fairies the more she believed they were fairies. Minute but perfectly formed. Weaving around and about each other as though in a parody of courtship. It felt to her like she was an intruder, some sort of trespasser, spying on a sensual act between the fairy-folk. So lazy was the dust that she found her eyes starting to feel heavy as she observed their private dance. Slowly she picked up the phone and turned her back to the stairs, fretful of losing her concentration whilst she was on the phone because of the dancing dust.

  While Debbie was on the phone to the agent, Lisa and Aiden were still in the kitchen sat at the table making small talk, attempting to take their minds off the fact they were in the house which had caused most of their nightmares when they were children. It seemed to be working as they chatted away about nothing in particular, nothing that was of great importance, yet that seemed so vital to them now to keep their minds from returning to their fears. After a half-hearted conversation about how the weather been recently and how Lisa needed some new summer shoes, their chat was abruptly cut short by an ear shattering scream from the front of the house. Their chairs scratched along the tiled floor and Aiden’s tipped back and landed with a crash as they both ran into the hall. They rounded the staircase and came to a halt, their hearts beating a violent rhythm in their chests, beside their mother who was crouching on the floor at the foot of the stairs crying and trembling. Taking an arm each they helped to get her to her feet and guided her into the lounge and led her towards a large hard backed chair upholstered in crimson velvet. As they tried to get her to sit down she twisted and jerked until she broke free of them and darted away from the chair.

  “Neither of you must sit in that chair!” she screamed hysterically, oblivious to the mucus that ran from her nose over her lips.

  “It’s alright mum; we won’t” said Lisa gently.

  Debbie looked up at her with wide red-rimmed eyes that contained a terror which Lisa had never seen in them before and never wanted to again. “You really mustn’t. It’s his chair and he will go mad if he sees you sat in it.” She let out a heart wrenching sob and put her head against her daughter’s chest. Lisa and Aiden’s eyes locked as they silently feared for their mum.

  To them she looked like a sad, defenseless child not their strong mum who had raised them all by herself and dealt with the usual trouble teenagers put their parents through. To him, the unseen spectator to Lisa and Aiden, yet who Debbie knew was there, in the room with them, trying to sit in his chair, she looked like the stupid, pathetic, horrid little mummy’s girl he knew her as and she knew he was loving every minute of her fear.

  15

  Once her sobs had subsided and she had calmed down a bit - with a little help from the large whisky Lisa had poured her - she was able to tell them what had happened.

  “I was on the phone to the estate agent and we’d arranged for someone to come tomorrow to value the house and bring the paper work. After I put the phone down I turned to go back in the kitchen and I…” she trailed off as she began to weep again.

  They gave her some time and when she had control of herself she carried on. “As I turned around I glanced up the stairs, I didn’t want to but felt I had to and there he was standing there glaring at me and for a second I…I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. Then he started walking down the stairs towards me…” Debbie broke off again to sip her whisky with shaky hands, the glass banging against her teeth.

  They sat in silence for a while until Lisa said “I think we should all stay together from now on.” But they knew it didn’t need saying; that was the way it was going to be. In a strange way, Lisa and Aiden knew that it was irrational to be thinking of ghosts and such, but after all their mother had told them and after what they had witnessed in this very house all those years ago it seemed there were such things as ghosts. At home the idea of things that go bump in the night could be dismissed, put down to over-active imaginations which is what they had been doing for as long as they could remember. But being in the house where it all happened, it wasn’t so easy to think like that. The fear that oozed from their mum crept over them like a swarm of tiny insects until it had them in its hold.

  The night was drawing in when Debbie looked up at them. “We’re going to have to stay here the night.” She had said their worst fears out loud and knew what their reactions would be.

  “Why are we?” asked Lisa unsure why her mum thought that and already feeling the panic rising in her chest.

  “The estate agent can’t get anybody out here until tomorrow morning.”

  “Well what time in the morning because we might still have time to go home and be back here for then.” Lisa waited for her mum to reply, hoping they would have time to make the four-and-a-half hour journey back to their home, catch a bit of sleep - if they possibly could - and get back here in time for the estate agent arriving.

  “He didn’t give me a time love, just said sometime after eight o’clock. We won’t have time to go home. We’ve got no choice but to stay here tonight.” Debbie replied with a sigh, aware that she had just shattered her children’s hopes but not knowing any other way around this dilemma.

  “No way! I’m not staying here all night!” Aiden shouted, feeling close to tears which shocked him as he wasn’t one for crying and hadn’t done so since he was thirteen and their beloved dog Benji had to be put down because of his arthritis which was caused by old age the vet had said. Near the end the poor thing could hardly walk. They kept him as long as they could without being inhumane, but in the end they realised it just wasn’t fair to keep him suffering for their own selfishness. Aiden had often wondered if he was to blame. He used to play with Benji and get him to chase him and do tricks for hours on end. Surely that couldn’t have helped his arthritis. His mum always told him of course it wasn’t his fault but he had never been so sure. He questioned if maybe it would have been better to let Benji laze around all day doing nothing like old Mrs. Connel who lived next door to them did with Shep. Shep was a boring dog. Aiden tried every time he saw him to get him to play but he was never interested. The most Aiden ever saw him do was give a pathetic wag of his tail whenever he was petted. Even when they got Benji and he first met Shep, Shep barely even opened his eyes to look at him. Benji had wanted to play but the old lazy dog was having none of it. No, that wouldn’t have been any life for a dog. Aiden took solace in knowing Benji had a full and happy life.

  Debbie had driven him to the vets while he lay in the back seat with the children. They cried all the way there and back. It was like Benji had known what was happening because, for the first time in weeks he perked up slightly. He had a little roll around on the floor with the children that morning, as though he was giving them the last precious memories of hi
m before they were left alone; one family member gone. Benji was a beautiful black Labrador with soft, shiny fur and the biggest brown eyes they had ever seen. He had always been so loving and playful and they had all adored him - still did, if the truth be known. He was a ripe old age of fourteen when he was put down; he’d lived a good life with a family who had worshipped him like he was a tiny baby.

  “We’ve got no choice love.”

  “Yes we have! How about if we go find a B&B? There must be one round here somewhere.” Aiden pointed out, too anxious to feel silly at his over the top outburst.

  “Well we’ll have to drive into town because there isn’t any round here as far as I know. There’s never been any point in building one round here. This is the only house for miles. It’s worth a try though so come on, let’s go.”

  Their spirits rose as they shut the doors of the manor behind them but soon came crashing down around them as Debbie delved into her handbag to retrieve the car keys only to realise she must have left them in the house somewhere. They all went back into the house and began searching frantically, desperately for the missing keys. After half an hour of searching every place Debbie had been in the house they had still not found them. She knew who had done this. She knew he wanted them in the house with him. And know she had to face the fact that they would have to spend the night in the house they hated so much.

  They gathered at the front room window just as dusk was setting over their part of the world giving everything an unholy glow. Debbie hugged her children close as they were silhouetted against the darkening sky. As they turned back to the room they knew something was getting ready to unleash itself on them and they were absolutely terrified.

  16

  Lisa took her mother through to the kitchen, flicking on the light as they passed and sat her at the table. As she moved over to the kettle she felt better, more comfortable, as the long light overhead switched on with a faint hum of noise from the surge of electricity. It gave the whole kitchen a friendlier glow, even if it did make everything seem a little imposing and sterile. The light was shining on the stainless steel kettle and the taps at the sink and it appeared to bounce off everything, giving the whole room the appearance of being twice as bright as it actually was. If it wasn’t for the rustic worn wood dining table and authentic stone floor, Lisa thought that it would look almost surgical with the coldness of the appliances and the harshness of the light. As it was though, it was very welcoming to them. The only thing was with the light being reflected off all the surfaces, everything seemed to loom at them like over-sized jack-in-the-boxes. Their sizes distorted and their shapes in chaos. But that was a small price to pay for light and peace of mind.