The Haunting Within

by Michelle Burley

  “For God’s sake Aiden, what you playing at?!” she demanded angrily.

  “What’re you on about?” he responded defensively, taken aback by her sudden attack.

  “You and your stupid games. I’m not in the mood and you shouldn’t be either. I swear Aiden; you can be such a fucking dickhead sometimes!” Without realizing it the tears had started to flow. Aiden had scared her more than she cared to admit.

  “Jesus Lis, calm down! I dunno what you mean. What games? I’ve been right here. I haven’t done anything!”

  “You’re a liar!” she screamed, almost hysterical in her fright.

  “I’m not lying! What am I supposed to have done?” Lisa stared into her brother’s eyes which were almost as frightened as her own and she knew there and then that he was telling the truth. He had not stepped foot inside the bathroom.

  She knew when he was lying. A small smile would start to play at the edges of his lips as he would try his hardest not to grin, but he always failed. This time though, there was no hidden smirk, only a look of confusion. “I’m sorry Aid” she said whilst wiping her nose on the sleeve of her top. “This place, it just freaks me out. I hate it here. I thought you came in here but I guess I was wrong” she looked at him with sad eyes and he rubbed her shoulder, feeling awkward at her moment of emotion.

  “S’okay sis” he replied with a half-hearted smile. He was extremely unsettled by this but didn’t say so for fear of upsetting her again. She was just getting herself under control.

  “Look, this is a big house” she heard herself saying “and she could have wondered anywhere. Why don’t you go look downstairs and I’ll carry on up here?” Lisa suggested. She didn’t want to be alone but she was scared she would have another outburst at him when he didn’t deserve it. She had to remember, she was his big sister and he needed looking after more than she did.

  Aiden was reluctant but he saw the logic in finding their mum as quickly as possible so they agreed to shout to the other when they found her so off he went back down the stairs.

  Lisa walked over to the towel rail on the wall next to the sink and wiped her hands on the old towel hanging there. As she dried her hands, every move of the towel made a million tiny dust motes float up into the air and into her nostrils making her want to sneeze. As a loud sneeze erupted from her she knocked the towel from the rail onto the floor and picking it up she saw that it was very badly moth-eaten. She wiped her nose with her hand and noticed that it smelled disgusting. Her skin smelled musty. It made her wonder how anyone could live like this. She left the bathroom turning off the light and closing the door firmly behind her.

  19

  Descending the wide staircase, Aiden had an uneasy feeling about something. He couldn’t quite put his finger on what it was that was bothering him so much.

  Must just be this house he thought to himself. As much as he was scared of this old house with its large dark rooms and long dimly lit corridors that seemed to hold a disquiet that wasn’t natural, he was determined not to show his fear because, after all he was almost an adult now and adults weren’t scared of so called “haunted houses” were they? Or were they? His mum was obviously scared of it. His mum that had always protected him and his sister from things they were scared of. His mum who would look under his bed and in his wardrobe when he was a child and had woken screaming from a bad dream. She wasn’t scared of anything was she? Except for this house and her father, but her father couldn’t hurt her any more. He was dead. But his mum had seen him and he had told her he would punish her. He believed in ghosts he realised. The thought had never really come up before because he always pushed any unsettling thoughts away, never giving himself time to dwell in case memories were stirred up again like a bad smell. He avoided horror films and scary books and if his friends wanted to go and poke around the cemetery he always had an excuse ready why he couldn’t go. Now he thought about it he knew he believed in them. He’d never seen one, but he didn’t have to see them to know they were there. His mind started drifting to when they were here the first time but he caught hold of himself before his thoughts took over. He quickly rounded the corner at the top of the stairs without giving so much as a glance to the high windows that stood tall over the stairs and looked out onto the dark drive-way and the black night.

  20

  Lisa wandered along the corridor at the top of the stairs, looking behind her every time she heard a small noise, half expecting to see… what was she expecting to see? A ghost? She was a bit too old to be caught up in such notions. How stupid. She was well past the age of being terrified by ghost stories and things that go bump in the night. Even so she couldn't help but wish she could find her mum so they could all go and sit back in the kitchen where it was warm and relatively cosy. Well, as cosy as can be expected in a house such as this, but she dared not go too fast for fear of what she might find. Had there ever been a time she had been in such a dilemma? On the one hand, she wanted to find her mum and the sooner the better. On the other hand she really, really didn’t want to go any further.

  It was like the time when she was about fifteen and the boy her friend had a major crush on told Lisa he liked her, not her friend. She’d had to admit to herself she quite liked him too. They ended up going out for a few weeks, but of course she was torn because her friend didn’t know she had gone behind her back like that. God she had felt awful about it. At the time it was the hardest predicament she had faced. Now she’d give anything to be in such a childish situation.

  The kitchen was where she would rather be than anywhere else in this house. She’d never been upstairs before and wished it could have stayed that way, but they had to find their mum. How oddly her mother had been speaking in the kitchen. She never spoke about her childhood unless she had to and she hadn’t had to, had she? All Aiden had said was that her favourite biscuits were hob-nobs. It was as though she never heard him, like she was in a world of her own where no-one else could reach. She felt selfish for wishing she wouldn’t talk to them about her upbringing. What kind of daughter didn’t want to know about her own mums’ childhood?! But then it was far from a conventional one. Maybe her mum needed to talk about it, to get it off her chest. It wasn’t like she had anybody else to talk to. But why did it have to be them? Why couldn’t it be a friend? She had friends. Ok, not close ones, but still. Why not a psychologist? That’s what they were for! She should have gone to one and told her story to them. Hell, they would all probably end up seeing one after this. This brought a sad smile to her face. They could book their appointments for after one another. Sit in the waiting room together… yeah right! She was not going to sit and be analysed by some know-it-all pompous arsed “doctor” who spoke about their own childhood and made suggestions that something had gone wrong there. No thank you! Although she had not had any previous dealings with psychologists, this is what Lisa assumed they were all like. She had seen enough films.

  Oh she really hated this. At least Aiden was downstairs where all the lights were on and he knew where he was going. It was her idea for him to be downstairs though so she couldn’t complain too much but she was in two minds about whether to call him back upstairs. She decided against it. They’d find her quicker if they split up so she carried on. It was so dark and she had no idea which rooms were which. She stopped outside the first door on the right. Slowly, she pushed it open and a gust of air rushed out through the gap, giving her the unnerving thought that it was as though the house was breathing, reveling in having new guests under its roof, eager to show them what it could do… She shivered, shook off the thought and gave a nervous laugh to try and make herself feel better but it didn’t work. She couldn’t see a damn thing so she stuck her hand round the door-frame and fumbled for a light switch. For all she knew she could be walking into a pissing morgue! Feeling the plastic switch under her palm she flicked it on, dreading what the light would uncover. The sudden brightness hurt her eyes and she squeezed them tight shut against it. Opening them cautiously she ba
thed in the warm glow that was beaming through the door and spilling out into the corridor where she stood. Relief washed over her at the sight that was very obviously not a morgue. There were no slabs where dead bodies had once been laid out, no instruments of death anywhere in sight. Rationality, if she still had the sense to think of it, would have told her that surely morgues were never on the second floor of a building, they were most certainly always in the cellar. But just as her old friend courage had deserted her, so, it seemed, had logical thought.

  It was a bedroom. She pushed the door wide and stepped inside. It was a very large room - almost as big as their own front room and dining room put together. The walls were decorated in a flowery paper with a pale pink background that had long since started peeling away, showing the dried plaster underneath. It smelled of mildew. At the far side of the room was a single bed with a flowery duvet and matching pillow. Lisa saw the corner of the duvet was rumpled, as though someone had just been sat there a moment ago. Here we go again she thought to herself with a sigh. Jesus! The slightest little thing was scaring her now. She was slowly going insane. Images of her sitting in a rocking chair by a window just staring out at the world with a slack-jawed expression flitted through her mind and she laughed in spite of herself. On the walls were pictures of horses and flowers that were covered with a thick layer of dust. Cobwebs were strung from the bulb in the middle of the high ceiling and the shade was thick with dirt. Apart from that and the impression that everything was years old it was actually really clean. The carpet was dust-free and he bedding looked pristine, if a little faded. There was a large pine chest at the end of the bed with the word TOYS carved into the front. She walked over to it, painfully aware of all the creaking floorboards she stepped on. Kneeling in front of it she lifted the lid. It opened with a loud squeak it and she peered inside. It was full of dolls and teddies. She picked up one that was at the top of the box and held it up. It was an old ragged Cabbage Patch doll in a frilly pink dress with its hair in pig-tails. On its arm the stuffing was oozing out from a split seam and the bottom of the dress was frayed badly. One eye was hanging from a thread, laying against the chubby cheek of the doll, seeming to stare up at her. The back of the dress was faded like it had been sat in the sun. This must have been her mum’s room when she was a child! Lisa had a doll just like this at home sat on her dresser. Almost a perfect replica of the one she held in her hand, same colour clothes, same colour hair, everything was the same, except for the ribbon tied around her hair, Lisa’s doll didn’t have ribbon in her hair. Her mum had bought it for her when she was seven and ever since then Lisa had treasured it. Even now, when dolls just did not suit a teenage girl’s bedroom she couldn’t bear to part with it. Her mum’s doll had obviously been worn with so many cuddles over the years. Lisa could imagine the doll taking pride of place on the bed and wondered if it had been a present from her grandfather on one of his “good” days and that was why it had been cherished so much. She felt an overwhelming pang of grief for her mother and her lost childhood and innocence.

  She wished with all her heart that she could take it all back, all the pain and suffering her mum and grandmother had been subjected to at the hands of her grandfather, wished she could wash it away like you wash stains from clothes. How different her life would have been! She would have had a granddad! A granddad who adored her and spoilt her like granddads should. She could have come here with her brother and spent the night with their nana and granddad and they could have taken them out for day trips. Oh, they could have had so much fun! She wiped away the tears that stung her eyes and scalded herself for feeling pity. She was always taught that self-pity was the devils work. Her mum had never entertained self-pity, not that she was strict or unsympathetic with her children, much the opposite in fact, she was as strict as she needed to be with them and she always had an understanding ear for them. She had just instilled in her children a quality of picking yourself up and carrying on. To make the best of what you had. Lisa wondered now if that was rooted in her having nothing in her childhood. Yes she grew up in a huge house and her father couldn’t have been poor, but the most important thing she never had was a proper loving family environment.

  For a split second she forgot why she was up here. Reluctantly she put the doll back where she found it, and saw a drawing that intrigued her. She held up the yellowed time-worn paper and looked at the strange picture. It was obvious that it had been drawn by a child’s hand; that was apparent from the fumbling lines and the colouring-in that had many times gone beyond the edges. Lisa assumed that her mum had drawn it many, many years ago and she was very disturbed by it. It showed a small girl with pig-tails and a frilly dress standing in a small room. The room looked like it was supposed to be dark from the grey colouring that surrounded the child. The girl had tears falling down her pink cheeks and she was stood opposite a tall man with no hair and he was in a straitjacket with big gold buckles on it. The tall man was staring at the child with huge dark eyes enclosed by black circles. At first Lisa thought the man was crying too, but on closer inspection she saw what she had thought to be a tear, was, in fact, a string of spittle hanging from his straight-lined mouth. The scrawl of the babyish hand seemed to make the drawing look crude and wrong, more wrong than what the picture was actually of. Lisa felt a shiver run down her spine and she quickly put the picture away and shut the lid of the toy-box slightly harder than she intended. She headed for the door, purposefully leaving the light on.

  21

  Downstairs Aiden was in the lounge. It was a dull room considering it had four huge windows. It was quite dim when they were all sat in here this afternoon but now with nothing but blackness looming outside, appearing to be waiting, pressing itself against the windows, it had become even more despondent. The blackness almost seemed to possess the power to break through the glass, to seep into the house and ruin everything it touched, so solid it appeared to be. Knowing there were no other neighbours or towns around for miles in either direction of the house bothered him. He knew there was no-one to look through the windows at him, yet he had a strong uneasy feeling that he was being watched. He was just being silly, there was nobody outside, but the house gave off such a strange presence that he couldn’t help but imagine things. At least if there were some neighbours around he would be able to see lights and welcoming glows. He might even be able to hear the odd rumbling of a car engine as it rounded the narrow lane and passed the gates - which were too far back in the drive to be seen from the house, but even so, just to know there was a car there would be very comforting. He hated the feeling of isolation. It was unnatural to him. It was ok for a few hours like when he was in his room enjoying time to himself but he was a sociable person. The more people around him the better. Well, he’d just have to get used to it while he was here that was for sure. Yes there was his mum and Lisa but in all honesty he didn’t want to spend time listening to his mum and her “visions”. Thinking that made him feel like a complete arsehole. His mum needed him and he was thinking of himself. It was just the whole talk of ghosts and whatever bothered him more than he cared to admit. He had spent so long trying to be the “man of the house” for the sake of his mum and sister he felt he should be above letting talk of the supernatural bother him. But he had heard many times from his friends about the latest horror movies that it was easy to see the resemblance of this old manor to the set of a horror film.

  There was a dingy three piece suite in the room that was probably expensive when it was first purchased but now with all the wear and tear over the years it had become discoloured and frayed in places. The cushioned seats sagged in the middle, almost to the point of being flat and there were scuff marks at the bottom from people’s shoes. What he didn’t understand was that if their grandfather was so wealthy like their mum said he was then why didn’t he have lovely furniture, it’s not as if he couldn’t afford to replace it.

  Cutting through the narrow passageway from the lounge into the dining room he subconsciousl
y noted that there were no photo’s anywhere, no evidence of the house being a home. The walls in here were covered in a deep maroon coloured paper with a paler red pattern and the finishing touch was a gold and cream leaf design border that extended all the way around the room. The wallpaper stopped a couple of feet from the ceiling and gave way to a thick coving that enclosed the ceiling. Aiden imagined the décor to of been really nice and classy at one time many, many years ago. It had a Victorian feel to the room. It tied in well with the huge, long, rich mahogany dining table and its twelve chairs. Twelve chairs! Even such a large table looked right at home in this room because it was enormous. Aiden guessed the décor would have been down to his grandmother and he thought they must have done quite a bit of entertaining before his grandfather became ill. Aiden felt disgusted with the description. It was hardly like he had a life-threatening disease was it?! The fact he had gotten away with treating his family the way he had because of his “illness” was pathetic. If he was here Aiden would have loved to tell him what he thought of him. Years ago he may have terrified him, but he was a man now. He didn’t scare so easily anymore. Yes, he had never had a father figure to speak of but he didn’t need anyone to tell him how to be a man. Something that, as far as he was concerned, his grandfather never was.