A House in the Country: A Tale of Psychological Horror

by Matt Shaw

  He broke her grip and pulled away. “I don’t even know where to start in here!” he said - trying his best to act ‘normal’. There were boxes all around the room with very little with regards to built in storage space; just a single, narrow cupboard in the corner of the room. Dean walked over to the cupboard and opened it; empty. Plenty of room. “Probably just dump what I can in here,” he said.

  Jess knew he was trying to act as normal as he could; a way of distracting himself from the various frustrations. She played along. “Do you have to?” she asked.

  “Yeah look…” Dean started shifting the boxes from the room and into the cupboard - stacking them as high as he could, “Look at that, much better in here already,” he teased her. If anything, teasing Jess was the best way of making things appear more normal. Previously - before the move - there hadn’t been a day go past without a gentle bit of teasing here and there. Jess didn’t mind. She knew it was his way of showing he loved her. Jess had a thing for cluttered cupboards and wardrobes. Nothing annoyed her more than opening a door just to have the contents spill out across the floor because someone was too lazy to put them in place properly and Dean knew this - hence the gentle teasing. He wasn’t going to leave the boxes in the cupboard, he was going to empty them and find proper homes for the contents. But, for now, it gave him room to move about a bit without constantly bumping into things. When the cupboard was full, he closed the door. “See - perfect!” he said. There were still a few boxes on the floor but not nearly as many as there had been. “Now - we just need to never open this cupboard again, okay?”

  “You’re funny.”

  He smiled at her. Already he was starting to feel better. They both were.

  “So what do you want to use this room for?” he asked. “Study? Playroom for the girls? Generic spare room what posh folk, like you and me are, tend to have?”

  “Generic spare room what posh folk tend to have? Not the best use of English right there, honey. How about a nursery?”

  Dean coughed, “Now who’s being funny?” He changed the subject, “Right - I best get to town and see about getting a ladder. If you have any serious thoughts about what you’d like to do in this room - you can let me know when I get back…” He started to make his way out of the room and towards the top of the stairs.

  Jess followed, “I was being serious actually. What about it?”

  Dean stopped at the top of the stairs and turned to her, “You’re serious? You want…” he looked around to see if the children were within ear shot before whispering, “another baby?”

  Before Jess could answer a loud bang and crash came from the spare room. Loud enough to make them both jump. Dean frowned and walked back into the room, passing by Jess in the process. Again, she followed a few steps behind. The cupboard door in the spare room had opened and the boxes had toppled out across the floor.

  “Shit!” Dean muttered.

  “So who do we blame for this? The ghost or your dodgy stacking skills?”

  Dean gave her a look; a simple look which seemed to simply say ‘fuck you’. He smiled and walked from the room, “I’m going to town,” he said.

  Jess hurried after him, “And when you get back we can continue our conversation,” she said, smiling. Dean looked at her from the bottom of the stairs. A look of disbelief on his face. Of all the things Jess could have said, that was probably the last thing he expected to hear. “What are you looking at me like that for?” she asked.

  Dean smiled, “You never fail to surprise me,” he said. He crossed to the front door stepping into his shoes on the way.

  “Surely that can’t be a bad thing,” Jess said as she followed him towards the front door. Dean opened the door, turned around and kissed Jess goodbye.

  “We’ll talk,” he said - still unsure whether she was even being serious.

  Sophie slowly opened the door to her room, soothed by the voices of her mother and father. Her eyes were drawn to the spare room. The open cupboard. She watched, wide-eyed, as a hand reached out of the cupboard and shut the door. Sophie slammed her door again and dove back onto her bed, hiding under the duvet.

  Day Five

  When Dean pulled into the driveway, the car was crammed with bits he hadn’t actually intended to buy. He had the ladder, which was an intended purchase, laid out across the back seats of the vehicle (only just fitting) but the boot was also full of goods; paint in particular. A shade of magnolia with which to decorate the spare bedroom. It was not something that had previously been discussed between himself and Jess - he just bought it on a whim when he walked down the aisle in his quest for the ladder. The house was fairly neutral with its colourings and it looked as though it must have had a fresh coat in recent months. Perhaps after the original owner decided to sell up? Dean certainly didn’t feel as though the house actually needed decorating at this stage but, at the same time, he figured it might be a good idea to put their own stamp on the spare room at least. Make the room their own. Help eradicate the past memories from the house. He figured it would help bring the girls closer together too. Since moving into the home they seemed to be growing further and further apart. He figured that maybe it was something to do with them no longer sharing a bedroom. Give the girls a paint brush and let them paint on the walls - the only time in their young lives when he’d make such an offer - before he and Jess went over it properly. He knew it would also encourage Sophie into the room; help her see that she was allowed in there and that whoever had told her to stay out was wrong to do so. That comment had irritated him for most of the day. He couldn’t understand who would have told her she wasn’t allowed in the room. Jess wouldn’t have cared if she was in there or not, he certainly didn’t and - no matter how hard he tried - he couldn’t picture Caroline saying she wasn’t allowed to venture in either. In the end he put it down to being in her head. She was a sensitive girl so maybe she was picking up on the bad vibes both he and Jess had about the room. He’d made a mental note to himself to have a word with his wife when he got home. They would both need to be more careful with regards to what they said in front of their daughters.

  Jess had come out of the house and helped him unpack the car when she heard him pull into the driveway. They’d carried the ladder up to the top of the stairs, where they laid it flat across the landing floor (and told the girls not to touch it) and they’d carried the paint through to the spare room where they’d stacked it up against the wall - Jess very much in control of the stacking after the incident with Dean’s packing of the boxes into the cupboard earlier in the morning.

  Jess smiled when she initially saw the paint. She knew Dean hated decorating - which in turn meant she knew she’d be doing most of it - but it was the fact he had bought it which made her happy. Clearly he was thinking of the family when he did so; an effort to try and make them feel more at home. She also liked the idea of disguising what had happened in the room by putting her own mark on it. She just wished she had been consulted as to the colours purchased. Magnolia was safe. Magnolia was boring. She would have liked to paint it a funky lilac colour, or something similar - which Dean would never have bought without being told to do so. Men just don’t choose colours very well - it needs a woman’s keen eye. She did not mention this to Dean when she saw the colour of the paint. She just smiled and thanked him. No sense rocking the boat. He was obviously quick to temper at the moment and that would have only annoyed him; the fact he’d tried to do something nice just to have her moan at him for his colour choices. Magnolia for now and then - in a year or two when they came to decorate the rest of the room - she’d choose something a little…brighter.

  With the ladder on the landing and the paint neatly stacked in the corner of the spare room - Jess had asked Dean where he wanted to start. He had told her he wanted to start on the sofa with his favourite ladies and a hot cup of tea - perhaps, even, a chocolate digestive biscuit or two to dunk into his drink. She knew - at that point - he had no intention of doing more work that day. Not that sh
e minded. They’d all had a crappy morning so it was probably a good idea to bring the family together and relax for what remained of the afternoon. Especially given the fact the girls had both been in their own rooms not speaking to each other and playing on their own.

  By the time Dean had returned home on the previous day it had gotten so late that he wanted nothing more than to crash in front of the television with his wife and children - a Disney cartoon playing through on the blu-ray player. It was moments like this he cherished; all of them together and the sounds of the girls laughing at the antics of some cartoon character they had grown to love. In this instance the character in question was Olaf from ‘Frozen’ - one of the few cartoons Dean didn’t actually mind watching repeatedly although he did wish he could skip through the songs. He wished, even more, that his daughters didn’t feel the need to keep singing them out loud for the following week. By the time they had stopped singing them, they were ready to watch the film again and so the process repeated itself.

  The rest of the day and early evening had very much been what some would consider as a lazy day. They watched ‘Frozen’ (Sophie wanted to put it on for a second time), they’d had dinner, they’d played a game or two of Operation - a kids’ game which featured the picture of a man on an operating table. On various points of the picture there were holes and - in those holes - there were different shaped pieces which represented the man’s internal organs. The game was simple enough - you had a pair of tweezers and each player took it in turn to remove one of the man’s organs. If you weren't careful the man would make a buzzing noise and his nose would light up. When Dean first played the game, when they bought it for the girls last Christmas, he’d said it would have been a better game if the had tweezers emitted an electric shock if you weren’t careful enough. A point Jess disagreed with.

  At the end of the day the girls were bathed and sent to bed whilst the adults settled down on the sofa, snuggling in close together, with something more age appropriate on the television. A glass of red wine each in their hands. A peaceful evening to what had started out as a shitty day.

  The following morning did not start as the previous night had ended and - within five minutes of waking up - tempers were already high.

  “Someone must have done it!” Dean shouted. He was standing in the spare room with Jess. Both Sophie and Caroline were standing in the doorway - nervous looks on their little faces. The paint, which had carefully been stacked up, had been spilt across the room. Not in a way which suggested they had, somehow, toppled over just as the boxes had but a way which suggested it had been done on purpose. Some of the paint had splashed up the walls, most of it on the carpets. Some of it had even managed to find its way across to the other side of the room - marking both wall and carpet there too - and that was what really bothered Dean. There was no way it could have made it across there by accident. Someone had to have done it on purpose. Dean (and Jess to some extent) had woken up and both been happy. They’d had a great day and evening together and managed to get through the whole night without being disturbed by anything or anyone. Dean had even turned round to Jess and pointed out that things were already starting to get better and they hadn’t even painted the room yet. Jess - helpfully - told him not to jinx it. And yet here they were standing in a mess of spilt paint. Dean looked at his two daughters but neither of them would admit to it. Both were looking down at the floor. Dean turned to Jess. “Anything to say? Any suggestions?”

  Jess turned to the girls and went down to their level - a less intimidating approach than the outburst Dean was currently experiencing. “Did either of you come in here last night?” she asked. They shook their heads. Even if they had - they wouldn’t have admitted it to their parents now. Not after seeing Dean’s reaction.

  Dean turned back to the room to survey the damage done and to try and formulate a plan on how best to deal with it. By doing so, he accidentally kicked one of the half full tins over, causing more of the magnolia paint to spill across the room. “Shit!” he shouted. Had his foot not connected with the tin he might have seen the hand print on the carpet, behind one of the boxes; a hand print that was clearly too big to belong to either of the young girls.

  “It’s fine,” said Jess, “this is why we have house insurance.” She turned to the girls, “Why don’t you two go downstairs and I’ll be down in a minute to prepare your breakfast.”

  “Sorry, daddy!” Caroline said before she turned and ran from his sight. He wondered whether that was an admission of guilt, and that she’d spilt the paint, or whether she was just sorry because he was upset about it. Dean went to call her back but Jess stopped him.

  “You said we could have a fresh start in this room,” she reminded him, “shouting at the girls now, before we decorate, probably won’t help with the happy memories in this house.” Jess was upset about the spillage - of course she was - but she also knew that there was nothing they could do about it now, even if they did know who was responsible. What was done was done. All they could do now was fix it.

  “Not sure whether the house insurance would cover this. Not sure how it works - what with moving house and everything. I mean I told them, I’m sure I did, but…” he sighed, “…guess it’s complicated.”

  “Worst case we phone them and ask the question. If you want - I’ll do it.”

  “The boxes splashed with paint, we’re going to need to go through them and make sure it hasn’t gone through. Might have damaged whatever was in the boxes.”

  “And there’s no sense fretting about that until you’ve actually seen…”

  “Well - whatever - the paint was clearly a waste of money.”

  “I’m sure there is enough in here to at least do a corner of the room,” she laughed. Dean didn’t laugh. His nice gesture, at sorting the room and making it their own, was now dripping down the walls and staining the carpet. In his eyes - there was nothing to laugh about in this room and probably wouldn’t be anything to laugh about for a long time.

  “Do you think Caroline did it?” he asked. “Maybe upset because you told her off yesterday morning for not looking out for her sister? This is her way of dealing with it?”

  Jess shook her head, “She’s never done anything like this before. Fine she can be…hard work sometimes….But she’d never do this. Even if she did - she won’t admit it. Neither of them will. They’re not stupid.” Jess looked around at the mess in the room, “Least we have an excuse to pull up the hideous carpet,” she said. “Come on - smile - no one got hurt, we’re probably covered under the house insurance…It’s fine. In the great scheme of things it is fine.” Dean knew she was right but it still didn’t take the immediate sting off. Yes the room would be sorted and yes no one got hurt but it just meant more stress and more hard work to fix it all. “Come on, I’ll go and get us all something to eat. We can just shut the door on this room for now and deal with it later. It’s not going anywhere.” She took Dean by the hand and pulled him from the room. She closed the door behind them. “See - gone!” She smiled at him. He still didn’t smile back.

  “I’m going to go for a walk,” he said, “just need to cool off a little.”

  “Okay.” Jess knew it was probably for the best; when Dean was angry the best thing you could do was give him the time to calm down. They rarely argued but when they did - it was usually because she didn’t give him this necessary space. A few arguments later (and it was a few) and she’d learned the lesson - a lesson she also shared with her daughters when she found herself, from time to time, telling them to leave daddy alone for a while. “I’ll get you something to eat when you’re back,” she told him. “If you’re good, I might even make you a bacon sandwich. I think we have some left.” Dean smiled at her and headed off to get ready for his walk.

  * * * * *

  Dean’s walk took him to the edge of the large garden. He didn’t plan on going much further - he just needed time away from his family and, specifically, that room. The whole business of what had happe
ned there, and what was happening with his youngest daughter, was starting to get to him despite his best intentions not to let it. The girls hadn’t put their hands up to the incident with the paint (not that he really expected them to) and, if they didn’t do it, not many other scenarios were left to explain it. At least - not many scenarios which didn’t point towards the home’s tragic past. He didn’t believe in spirits. That was one of the many reasons why he found himself able to move into the house in the first place. So a woman had killed herself there, so what? It didn’t mean a vengeful spirit would be left behind to harm all those who dared move in. This wasn’t the movies. This was real life and - in real life - things like that didn’t happen.

  Dean found himself thinking about the woman who had lived there previously. After the estate agent had told him about what had happened, he had gone home and Googled the story. Good old Internet has everything hidden away on there somewhere and the suicide was no different. He remembered how he felt when he read about it; the feelings the owner must have felt when he found his wife hanging by her neck. He put himself in his shoes and wasn’t sure how he’d have gone on living had he found himself in the same position. Seeing your wife dead, knowing she had killed herself because she felt so desperate, so lonely. Had that been Dean, he knew he wouldn’t have been able to go on living - at least, if he were in the exact same position as the previous owner. They didn’t have children together, unlike Jess and Dean. With the children to look after he knew he’d have found the strength, from somewhere, to stay alive and ensure they were okay. But, definitely, if Jess and Dean were living in the same conditions as the previous owners - he wouldn’t have wanted to go on. He might not have killed himself immediately but he knew it would have only been a matter of time before he gave up. He wondered whether the man had found any sort of happiness by moving out. Part of him feared the previous owner had managed to steal a part of his family’s own happiness and that they, in turn, had inherited some of his sadness. Previously, he had never been a pessimistic person but - recently - he felt as though that was all he was and it consumed him despite his best efforts to remain positive. The trouble is it was hard being upbeat about everything when you were surrounded by so much stress and anxiety. He cast his mind back to the weeks leading up to the move, when he was at work, and how he wanted nothing more than to be at home with his family; helping to prepare for the next stage of their lives. Now he was at home he found he wanted nothing more than to be back in the office. The amount of time he ‘wasted’ there when he should have been at home with his family, he hated himself for wishing to be back behind the desk. And thinking of his family, he knew he had to get back to them soon. Let them know that he’d calmed down and that everything was fine. After all Jess was right - it could all be fixed with a little time, patience and - unfortunately - more money.