The Angry Ghost and Other Stories
Page 24
At five-two, even Rosie looked down on me. And Mikey – well, Mikey had done everything including the ‘sex’ thing although he seemed pretty cagey about the names of his apparent conquests when in earshot of Rosie.
So, I often just sat and listened – unless the topic moved on to comics when they couldn’t shut me up – even if they wanted to.
Rosie used to be more fun but now she seemed to spend her time swanning around in a short skirt and a low-cut top. Poor Mikey didn’t know what to do – every time he looked at her, Jamie would give him a ‘careful’ stare.
I liked Jamie; we would spend hours discussing the latest action films while Mikey would use the distraction to move closer to Rosie.
I had just covered the last stretch of road when I stopped, suddenly dumbstruck – they were leaving the pub; the three of them were leaving – I recognised Mikey’s black jacket and Jamie’s rucksack.
They hadn’t even waited for me!
I looked down at my watch. I was only five minutes late but I knew what sticklers they were for timekeeping.
All three of them marched out of The Anchor’s entrance but instead of glancing up the road in my direction – seeing me – and smiling, the three of them gave me a single unhappy glance and proceeded in the opposite direction.
What’s up with them?
I ran up and after a minute tagged on to the back. “Hey guys, what’s the rush? I can’t believe you didn’t wait for me.”
None of them answered; in fact, they didn’t even look round.
So, I continued a little way behind them wondering what could be wrong.
Then I thought I understood. Mikey and Rosie were holding hands, and Jamie didn’t seem bothered; indeed, he seemed quite blasé to his sister’s intimacy. That must be it; Mikey was always hitting on her and maybe he – and perhaps Rosie too – had finally told Jamie how it was going to be.
Yep, that must be it.
After a quarter-mile or so Jamie spoke. “So what’s up with little Davey?”
All three of us looked up; when had he started calling me that?
“I’m sorry I was late, Jamie,” I said defensively. “I guess I should’ve set off earlier.”
I think Rosie defended me but I wasn’t sure. “Well, he’s young, that’s all – he’ll grow up.”
“I sure hope so,” Mikey replied, “I really need a break.”
I looked at them in disbelief. “Hey, what’s your problem, guys? I thought you were my friends!”
I wasn’t sure what to say after that but they all looked pretty down so I said nothing more.
It’s got to be said that my generally irrepressible upbeat disposition was taking a knock too.
After an unusual period of silence Mikey spoke up. “Which edition did you bring?”
I looked up.
“The one where Johnny Storm finds he can fly for the first time,” Jamie responded.
“That was a good one,” replied Mikey.
“Good one – that was the best!” I said excitedly trying to offset Mikey’s rather downbeat response.
I saw Rosie lean her head towards Mikey’s shoulders – for some reason she seemed quite upset.
On reaching the bridge we stopped. This was where Jamie would often read to us from one of the comics.
I took up my usual position sitting on the wall opposite and waited with increasing anticipation – this was going to be good.
As usual Jamie opened his rucksack and offered a beer to Mikey and Rosie but oddly I was excluded.
Rosie and Mikey took the cans and looked up at Jamie for several moments. Clearly something was going on here which I was barred from.
Jamie looked up at me once but didn’t smile.
He opened the comic and read one of my favourite stories.
I had listened so many times to Jamie, and on rare occasions, Mikey, read from one of the editions but I had never heard the story told so sadly; Jamie paused several times and there were moments where I wondered if he was going to continue – there was very little fun in it.
When he had finished, he looked up at me. “That was great, Jamie,” I said, “but it could have been a little more… upbeat.”
Jamie once again looked over at Mikey whose eyes had been fixed on me throughout the story.
Rosie continued to stare at the ground.
“I hope you liked that, Davey,” Jamie said quietly.
“I told you, it was great!” I said.
Rosie looked up and I could see tears on her cheeks. “Can we go now?” she said barely above a whisper.
Jamie spoke again. “I know I’ve said this before but… if only we hadn’t got him so drunk.”
“We didn’t mean to,” Mikey said in a hushed tone looking at me. “We were all drunk and in high spirits. We were not to know he would react like that.”
Probably due to my still jaded head, I was having some difficulty following this and then Jamie spoke again.
“He was out of his head with superheroes flying around inside it! We should have seen it coming.”
Rosie still clung to Mikey. “He was always so nice; never showed off or shouted his mouth off about anything; always so upbeat – I know we always felt better when Davey was with us… and… strangely… I’ve felt better this evening. I guess it’s because we’re talking about him…”
Rosie stopped and Mikey gently stroked her hair.
Then, as I watched, two crazy things seemed to be occurring simultaneously. I started feeling a sense of remoteness and not a little confusion from the proceedings – I really needed to cut back on the alcohol; and secondly – and more alarming – my friends were changing.
I looked at Mikey; he was no longer wearing his cool black leather jacket; in fact, he appeared to be wearing an old grey cardigan like my granddad used to wear – surely, he wouldn’t be seen dead in that.
“Hey, Mikey, you wearing that for a bet?” I said sniggering.
I knew he must be embarrassed for he didn’t answer.
But then I noticed Rosie; she was wearing glasses and her hair was no longer auburn – why would she have dyed it… white? It was crazy.
I looked over at Jamie and gasped; he was bald – how had I missed that? Had his ponytail always been part of a wig? Surely not. Then I noticed his left hand shaking slightly as it rested on… a walking stick.
None of this made sense; they must be playing a prank on me – it was all mad. I laughed and shook my head and climbed up onto the bridge wall and spread my arms as I had done once before.
Like Johnny Storm from the comic, I ejected from the bridge, but this time rose into the air flying higher and higher.
Epilogue
Michael patted Rose’s hand and carefully helped her up. James stood up with the aid of his stick and gingerly walked over to them. He picked up their coffee mugs and returned them with his Thermos flask to his rucksack.
“I’m glad we did this,” Michael said. “I almost felt I could see Davey sitting in his usual place over there while you were reading the story,” he said nodding to the other side of the bridge.
“Me too,” agreed Rose.
“Well,” started Michael, “I guess Rose and I had better get back to the babysitter before little Davey becomes too troublesome. You really need to experience grandchildren, James.”
James smiled, “No, I’m quite happy being little Davey’s great-uncle,” he said.
The three of them looked over once more at the wall on the other side of the bridge. “I can’t believe it’s been fifty years…” Rose said.
Then, after a moment, they turned around and proceeded back down the lane to the little hostel that was once a pub called The Anchor.
Number Eight
Alex followed the group further into the tunnels. After a couple of minutes her eyes had beco
me adjusted to the darkness and she could just make out the guide up at the front which gave her some comfort.
She passed the third warning sign of a low rock ceiling and recommendations to ‘watch your step and use the handrails – where fitted’. But Alex was blind to the signs; she was more afraid of the monsters.
Monsters were scary – monsters were bad.
Alex’s parents were always telling her that monsters didn’t exist except in the minds of nine-year-olds with over-active imaginations.
But Alex knew otherwise.
Among the seemingly inexhaustible number of myths, legends, fairy tales, and sightings – they couldn’t all be fiction – there must be some basis, some foundation to the stories.
Alex read a lot but she did find it hard to separate what was written to ‘entertain’ from what might be the truth and reality.
Despite all of these stories, she had found little that would actually educate the reader on how to avoid these grotesque and deadly creatures.
They were in the films, the comics and the books. They hid in remote places; dark places; like caverns and tunnels ready to suddenly snatch the unwary and eat their flesh.
Alex looked around at the black hollows and increased her pace slightly. She had been unlucky with the numbered badges that had been handed out at the tour entrance to the caves; she was Number Eight in a group of eight and so furthest from the guide and likely to be first to be attacked by something lurking in the shadows; picked off while the rest of the group walked on and probably eaten and digested by the time a search party was initiated.
The guide made another mental count of the group and found eight again. He had argued that six should be the limit with so great the potential for accidents.
He thought of those hazards. Ahead and to the left, ‘The Fall’ was a thirty-foot slide of water that rushed down the nearby rock face and under a bridge that they were to walk over. There were rails on either side but the downward steps were steep and slippery. Beyond that were the ‘Stalags’ where you needed to look out for low-hanging stalactites while at the same time keeping an eye on the uneven ground where the occasional stalagmite could cause a stumble or badly grazed leg. He recalled with horror the health and safety inspector’s incredible recommendation that some be removed. Some of them were hundreds of thousands of years in the making and a man with a clipboard had the audacity to propose that ‘some may need to be removed!’
The guide shook his head and took a deep breath.
There were other hazards but the guide just needed to take it – literally – one step at a time. Not that he was lacking any confidence in his own safety. He had been down here for more years than he could accurately judge.
He looked around while he waited for Six and Seven to finish looking in awe at a nearby rock face that appeared – with the help of some cleverly arranged lighting – to show the face of some hideous creature.
He noticed Eight was not looking where she should be. She appeared not to be enjoying the surrounding formations or looking carefully where she was going. She seemed to be trying to see beyond where the light stopped.
The guide decided that if anyone was going to get lost it was Number Eight.
He felt a little frustrated by the attitude of those on the tours; there was so much to see and appreciate but most seemed blind to the true beauty of the tunnels. He felt it was like calling a Turner or Waterhouse a picture! Walking through the tunnels was like walking along a gallery of masterpieces; so beautiful was the strata that flowed through the rock faces in multicolours; each rock was different; each line of sediment varied to a point of the uniqueness of fingerprints. So breathtaking were the shallow pools of water that reflected the cathedral-like vaults above.
The guide’s knowledge of the tunnels was as vast as the tunnels themselves. Along with his uncanny ability of sure-footedness he was a major asset to the tour company; neither of the other guides knew the tunnels like ‘The Guide’ as he was rather unimaginatively known.
Alex realised suddenly that while she had been looking out for monsters the two girls in front of her had moved on and so she quickly caught up. It was comforting to notice the guide waiting for her to rejoin the group before moving on.
When she was once again tagged on the back she took a closer look at the guide. She had noticed that while the other guides were short and lean, this chap seemed quite a bit rotund around the middle; maybe a medical thing she thought remembering how her fat auntie had always complained about something glandular.
Alex was suddenly distracted by something misshapen moving to their left; even the others were pointing at it. Then she realised it was only the effect of a moving light source at the base of the rock face.
She relaxed and moved on.
As she moved further through the tunnels and into the realms of shadow and darkness a new horror presented itself – she had to pee.
Unfortunately, the more she tried to ignore it, the more uncomfortable she felt until she decided she couldn’t hold it any longer – why had she drunk so much squash earlier?
Waiting for the guide to turn his back on them she turned and scampered back and behind a large stalagmite that they had passed only a minute earlier.
A minute or two later Alex emerged and ran to catch up with the rest of the tour.
She reached the point at which she had left them – a junction unfortunately – and so she looked anxiously at her options. She heard the echoes of voices but they sounded like they were coming from all three diverging tunnels.
Although there was some lighting along the designated tour route, she could see none down any of them.
Alex looked around at the darkness and wondered. Should she stay where she was? Try one of the tunnels? Or try to find her way back to the entrance?
She knew the longer she thought about it, the further away the group would be.
Deciding that the echoes in the first tunnel sounded marginally louder than the others, she moved towards its entrance and with her arms out to the sides she proceeded down the tunnel feeling her way with the ends of her fingers sliding along the cold, wet rock walls.
And then the ground fell away.
The guide looked around and counted seven.
Halting the small group, he looked at each of them and determined that Number Eight was missing.
He pulled out the radio from his belt and called for support. Reporting his current location, he told his small group to stay together and not to move until another guide reached them in about twenty minutes.
He then headed off to look for Number Eight.
Alex started to slip further over the edge and despite her scramblings, she knew she would fall.
Just then, her foot connected with something that grated against her ankle, and then leg, and then stomach as she slid down along the now almost vertical rock face. With both hands, she gripped the rounded stone projection no bigger than her hand such that she had to hold it with one hand over the other.
There she hung while her feet tried unsuccessfully to find purchase.
In her predicament, her mind was still telling her – warning her – of the creatures that were probably, at this very moment, lurking below her and slowly crawling up the rock face to eat her.
She heard movement above and felt several small pebbles rain down on her. Looking up she saw the guide looking down at her.
“Don’t move,” he said with some urgency, “I’m coming down.”
But instead of unreeling a rope as she expected, he got down on to his stomach and started to slowly descend, head first, over the rounded edge.
He was almost level with her and very nearly vertical… when he started to slip and suddenly disappeared from view beneath her.
Alex’s shoulders were now beginning to hurt and her leg and stomach were hurting where the rocky peg had scoured along them
.
Then she heard the monsters coming.
She could hear a skittering or scampering as if dozens of crabs were making their way up the cliff below her – and it was getting progressively louder. She closed her eyes tightly and waited for mandibles and pincers to tear into the flesh of her legs, when she felt a pressure under one of her trainers. Immediately she kicked back – an action that was quickly responded to by a voice.
“Hey, stop that!” said the voice.
Alex couldn’t see who it was but recognised the voice of the guide though she couldn’t figure out how he was gripping on to the vertical rock face, but with each upward lurch he pushed Alex’s foot higher until after a minute or so she was able to scramble the last couple of feet.
She looked back and saw the guide edging up, still on his stomach, over the edge. He looked tired as he shuffled his limbs this way and that to haul himself up. Finally, he lay prone and breathing heavily.
Alex looked up at the sound of shouting from nearby. She knelt beside the guide and gave him a hug.
“Thank you; you saved me from the monsters,” she said.
“The what?” he said.
“The monsters; I heard them coming up the rock face behind me.”
The guide managed a smile. “That was probably me dislodging small stones as I made my way back up; silly of me to lose my grip but there’s a ledge about twenty-foot down – fortunately.”
Alex saw some illumination becoming brighter further down the tunnel.
“That’ll be Davis, one of the other guides. Go to him; I’ll just catch my breath,” the guide said.
Alex looked at him one last time and decided she never needed to worry about monsters again with this guide around, before dashing off to the light and the other guide. She was not surprised he was tired; he had a lot of weight to drag up the cliff and then to push her up too.
The guide heard some commotion as Number Eight found Davis and the rest of the group. Then it was quiet and so he stood up. The front of his shirt gaped open and as he looked down at the two-dozen claw-like appendages that sprouted from his torso, he watched them fold across themselves and flatten to his body. He then buttoned up his shirt.