The Complete Greyminster Chronicles

by Brian Hughes

  “All with the intent of destroying the last usurper Hobson!”

  “Y’re a bit of an anorak really, aren’t y’?” choked Jess, a cheesy sock attempting to climb in his mouth and disintegrate his teeth.

  Foster suddenly stopped. This sent a shock wave through Jess. Somehow the profound calm bothered him more than the fight had done.

  “Time has just run out, Jess Hobson.” A familiar bloodstained frying pan appeared in Samuel Foster’s hand. Not a frying pan that would be familiar to Jess, of course, but one that might be recognised by the more observant reader. Foster raised it above his head, concentrating on the back of Jess’ whiskered skull.

  “Goodnight,” he said softly, the phlegm cracking menacingly in his throat. “Goodnight, forever, you vicious bastard!”

  Chapter Nine: The Ghost of La Mancha

  1:35 a.m. November 16th, 1998. The End of the World draws another step closer.

  Number 32, Old Bridge Lane. Home of Donald Keith Oakseed, a retired bank clerk of little notability.

  This house is also the discharge point for paranormal activity.

  The cellar was dark at night. Shadows from the grills fell across the stone floor. Amongst the long forgotten junk something stirred. It was barely perceptible to the ear. Just a scuffling noise. A glass orb the size of a baseball rolled into the dim light. A yellow orb with a purple stripe round it, much as you might imagine a fat lollipop to look.

  It started to spin. Faster and faster until its edges became blurred.

  Then it stopped. Suddenly. With a jolt it rolled across the floor, the glass grating on the stone. It rolled around the useless paraphernalia then slowly headed for the stairs, where it was lost amongst the shadows.

  Okay, let’s take a look at Donald Oakseed as he’s about to play a significant part in this book. Donald was a balding man in his middling-fifties with the sort of short stature that either results in world dictatorship or total apathy. Unfortunately, for him perhaps, he filled the position of the latter.

  His skull was shaped like an upended light bulb. Coupled with the glasses permanently squeezed around his nose, Donald looked a bit like a stereotypical mad scientist.

  As he studied his reflection in the television, Donald thought about how pathetic his life had become. Peevishly he invented put-downs that he ought to have used on Mr Wagstaff, his ex-boss. Deep down inside, however, where his private laughter couldn’t penetrate, he knew he’d never use them even if the opportunity arose.

  Donald was one of society’s weaker links. He’d been made redundant right at that awkward time of life. Too young for a pension. Too old for a new job. Now he sat and watched the banality of the television, his untidy lounge strewn with a dozen TV Dinners. The Body Form advert drowned out all the other sounds in his living room. Except for one, which, had Donald heard it, might have served him as a warning. An agitated grunting from the cellar steps as something gently pushed the door ajar.

  The ball trundled in, a crown of light winking off its surface.

  Moments later it collided with the armchair. Defying the laws of gravity, it climbed the chair’s back. Seconds later it watched the television over Donald’s shoulder.

  Donald caught a glimpse of something from the corner of one eye. He snapped his head around, a puzzled expression creating stitches along his brow.

  There was a blinding flash. It was followed by a scream. Then the glass ball appeared to evaporate.

  Unsure about what had just happened Donald checked himself over. Discovering all of his limbs accounted for he looked around the room apprehensively. “What’s going on?”

  Suddenly his lips took on a life of their own. Desperately Donald tried to stop the spasms in his lower jaw. Very much in keeping with his life so far, he failed miserably.

  “I am the ghost of Miguel De Cervantes.”

  Donald’s voice had become deeper, more commanding. He crossed his eyes, attempting to focus on his independently operating mouth. The lips grew pale and started to crack like mud.

  “I now have possession of your body!” he declared to himself, enthusiastically.

  “Oh no y’ don’t,” he added in a mild squeak.

  An unusual scuffle broke out. Donald struggled around the rug, grappling with his arms and kicking with his legs. Several wine bottles were dislodged from the table.

  The clock tumbled down the wall with a humorous cogwheel and cuckoo noise. It landed, corner down, on the top of Donald’s head.

  Unconscious, he slumped against the television. Several seconds bowed their heads as they crawled Donald’s lifeless corpse.

  Then his eyes jumped open. Eyes now wild and bloodshot. In a low-pitched voice he muttered menacingly, “Betcha life, Bogie?”

  Mrs Prune’s boots clumped along Applegate, steam rising upwards from the metal toecaps. They were accompanied by Father Wordsmith’s more sensible lace-ups. Both pairs ground to a halt in front of 114.

  A pause for breath. A doubled up, wheezing sort of pause, during which the two of them concentrated on the tall Victorian building.

  A sudden crash shattered the stillness from the window above.

  “Oh, bugger it!” Mrs Prune hitched up her knickers. “Now we’re in trouble. If you ’adn’t stopped t’ put on y’r best drawers, y’r ’onner...”

  Mrs Prune was having difficulty with the priest’s proper title and instead used anything that happened to be at hand. “Then we might ’ave saved the poor bugger’s life.”

  “Oi assure ya, Mrs Prune,” came back the soft Irish voice. “Oim wearin’ only me pyjama bottoms beneath me cassock. There’s no call for using that sort of language.”

  A shrieking light ripped the clouds apart as though they were made from tissue paper, engulfing the two figures before disappearing again.

  A copper-bottomed frying pan clattered to a halt in front of them. Following tradition it span for a moment, creating a circular rut in the gravel. The pan was stained with blood.

  “By the great glistening gonads o’ the fat holy Pope!” Father Wordsmith exclaimed. “What the shit was that?”

  Mrs Prune lifted her skirts with no apologies for the lack of dignity. From some concealed pocket she produced an empty Lucozade bottle and handed it to him.

  “If y’r gonna piss y’self, y’r majesty,” she said with sagacity. “Then stick this up y’r wimple. We need all the ’oly water we can get.”

  She slammed the key into its lock and thundered over the doorstep eith the energy of a small steamroller.

  Jess Hobson’s flat resembled a crèche after a 400 strong party had been through it. The sort of party that would have left anybody having to clean it up desperately phoning the Samaritans.

  The door burst open and Mrs Prune charged in with Father Wordsmith close behind. Both were confronted by a scene of such chaos it took them by surprise. In the centre of the destruction was Jess Hobson on all fours, lambasting the smouldering carpet. His tongue hung out, his hand clutching his painful throat.

  “My God, Jess ’Obson! ’Scuse me blaspheemy, y’r ’Oliness,” Mrs Prune said. “W’at the ’Ell ’appened ’ere? ’Ave y’ been attacked?”

  She was well aware as the last word tumbled from her mouth it had been the wrong thing to say. Jess snarled.

  “No! I’ve got a date wi’ that bird from Mulberry Crescent ’oo breeds Dobermans f’r Crufts. Thought I’d brush up on some foreplay techniques.”

  Mrs Prune had been expecting some sort of response along those lines. At least it confirmed that Jess was behaving normally.

  “W’at the bloody ’Ell ’appened?” She looked around in a slow, analytical circle. “’Ow did y’ see off that Foster character?”

  “He didn’t, you fraudulent old frump.” A figure that no one had noticed before unwrapped itself from the darkness.

  It drew up alongside Mrs Prune. Thomas Hobson. Still not dead! At least, not back amongst the others who had departed this mortal coil.

  “If you had any powers of p
recognition at all,” Hobson leaned in on her persuasively. “Then you’d have known that it was I who sorted Samuel Foster out. I sent his ghost packing with its tail between its legs.”

  Hobson gave a short demonstration of how he’d produced the thunderbolt that had finished off his colleague. Then his voice became darker. His teeth winked so keenly they didn’t just refract light, they neatly sliced it into points.

  “And you would have predicted this as well.”

  Hobson lunged, his fingers reaching for Mrs Prune’s scraggy throat. A crackle of blue electricity danced around his fingertips.

  Mrs Prune’s umbrella came up smartly between his legs, ending with an twisted sort of snap.

  Hobson froze; then lurched forward in agony, his mouth puckered.

  “Looks like y’ want t’ watch y’r crystal balls more carefully, Mr ’Obson, ” Mrs Prune snorted. “Father? Go on.”

  She nodded at Hobson whilst winking at Father Wordsmith. Priests are not renowned for their understanding of human deviousness and Mrs Prune’s clandestine message failed to be enough to spur him into action. On the third attempt, however, when the nod had become more of a headbutt and the wink had become more of a frustrated snarl, Father Wordsmith produced a full bottle from his cassock. Unscrewing the top, he poured the contents onto the ghost.

  The result was more explosive than he’d expected. Everyone staggered backwards in disgust as gases fizzled from Hobson’s clothing.

  “Sorry,” Father Wordsmith turned crimson. “Oi ’ad sprouts for me supper. Must ha’ bin off.”

  “Don’t think you’ve seen the last of me, thou warty and haggard old...” Doubled up in agony, Thomas Hobson searched for the most fitting insult. “Old...” Bugger it! “Old cow!” he ended feebly.

  His crooked finger prodded Mrs Prune on the end of her nose. “I’ll be waiting for you, you vicious old bag! In the shadows where you least expect to find me. Underneath the bed at the turn of midnight, where you’ve forgotten to check. I’ll be the bower of the tree that raps against your window in the dead of night. I’ll be...”

  “Oh, bugger off!”

  And with a second snap of gristle Mrs Prune’s kneecap connected with his supposedly incorporeal groin. A moan rose in pitch until it passed beyond earshot as Thomas Hobson faded. Moments later he was nothing more than a distant memory. A nightmare confronted by the pale light of winter’s dawn.

  Chapter Ten: The Haunting of Wellington Hall

  Spool back the reels of time again. October 31st, 1991. It was, by tradition, a dark and stormy night. Clouds hung like mattresses across the sky as five silhouetted figures struggled against the wind, along the drive to Wellington Hall.

  Benjamin Foster and Jess Hobson were amongst them. They were already regretting having agreed to spend the night in Greyminster’s most famous haunted house. Mrs Prune had put them up to it. To raise funds for the Albert Finney Memorial Hall scouts...or so she had said.

  A flash of lightning lit up the belly of the sagging heavens. As it did so Wellington Hall stood out in detail. Then it faded once more into a gothic silhouette, leaving nothing but a chill in their bones.

  Beneath his arm Ben carried an old fashioned tape-recorder. It had two large reels on the top and a microphone that resembled a brick.

  The hunch-backed butler showed them to their quarters. It was here that the reels began to turn. It was difficult to tell whose voice belonged to whom, but the ensuing conversation ran something along the following lines:

  “Just get ’old of the damn thing.” This might have been Jess’ voice. It was hard to tell.

  “What are you going to do?” This might have been Ben’s.

  “Just ’old the bloody microphone. I’m gonna break wind.”

  Another voice joined in on the conversation. “Are you indeed, Jess Hobson of 114 Applegate, Greyminster?”

  And another. “What are you running around the room with no clothes on for, Angela Derry of Rubble Lane North, Devils’ Crevice? Telephone 8759201.”

  The sound of flatulence at close range distorted the recording.

  At length the occupants of the room could be heard muttering indistinctly amongst themselves.

  “You smelly, stinking sod!”

  “Don’t waft it about. I don’t want your germs.”

  “No, don’t, Greg Monks of 49 Merlin Road West. Telephone 8944351.”

  “It isn’t Greg Monks actually, is it Angela?”

  “Stop suckin’ me willy, Dawn Holbern of 29 Runnywart Row, Greyminster. Telephone 8770123.”

  “I wouldn’t suck your willy if you paid me, Jess Hobson of 114 Applegate, Greyminster. Telephone 866692. Besides which, it’s so small it’d get stuck in my teeth.”

  The voice that followed was altogether louder than the others. It was also much too close to the microphone for comfort. It sounded remarkably similar to Jess Hobson though.

  “This is w’at me willy sounds like.”

  There followed a muffled rustling noise.

  “Get the bloody microphone out of your undies!”

  “Urgh! Look at the big skidmarks on Greg Monks’ undercrackers. Telephone 8944351.”

  Here the machine was apparently turned off. After several seconds of static it was switched back on again, a raucous belch being aimed into the microphone.

  “W’at’s happened to all the beer?”

  “You’ve drunk it all, slap head!”

  “Shut up and go to sleep.”

  “God, ’oo’s let off?”

  “It was Greg Monks of 49 Merlin Road West.”

  The discussions continued along the same lines for several more minutes. Adults, regardless of age, when locked inside a tense situation regress to the realms of bickering childhood, especially when high spirits and alcohol are combined.

  After some time, the conversations subsided. Then the only sounds to be heard were the occasional hiss of a poor quality recording-head and the odd grunt from the background. Occasionally somebody giggled through a sleeping bag. Or somebody else made a childish noise.

  Eventually, a worried voice broke the silence with the precision of a scalpel.

  “Shut up! Everybody shut up!”

  “What’s that noise?”

  “W’at noise?”

  “That noise!”

  “Listen!”

  “It’s comin’ from Greg Monk’s sleeping bag.”

  For several moments the charitable ghost hunters listened. The silence was intense and embarrassing. What had initially sounded like a muffled bat’s wings was now gone. It became apparent that it wasn’t about to return.

  “It’s stopped now.”

  “Oh my God! Who’s blown the candle out?”

  “What’s that?!”

  At this point the recording became confused. Anybody paying attention might have just heard the sounds of a heavy chain being dragged across the floor. Unfortunately for those concerned this was a minor detail amongst the thunderous chaos. All the voices had now become one indecipherable clutter.

  “Come on then. Stop buggerin’ about! Who’s that?”

  “I want to go home now, Gregory.”

  “Bloody ’Ell!”

  “The doors are opening!”

  “Gregory! TAKE ME HOME NOW!”

  A loud crash managed to confuse matters further, tying up the shouts into knots. Several baritones had now become tenors with fright. It was almost as if the atmosphere was swamped with helium.

  “Buggerin’ Nora!”

  “CHRIST!”

  “It’s coming through the window!”

  “AAARGH!!”

  “Help ME!! MUMMMY.”

  “Bog Off, Jess! BOG OFF!!”

  “LET GO! LET GO!”

  “Greg Monks’ of Greyminster has done a dump in his trousers! Telephone 8944351.”

  And at that point the recording ended. The concluding few moments were filled with what sounded like Mrs Prune’s laugh.

  At some point afterwards the contents o
f the reel must have been transferred onto normal cassette. The rest had been filled with the current top forty.

  This recording is a most important item. It belongs back in the box where it might be better for all concerned if we left it undisturbed. Let’s close the mottled lid once more, the gateway to events that filled the past, and fast forward back to where we left off before the chapter began.

  Chapter Eleven: The Ghost Ventures Out

  The following morning dawn never actually arrived. It rarely did at this time of year. The world just became less dark, the weather rolling down from the fells and spreading out across the rooftops.

  In the sanctuary of Mrs Prune’s kitchen Jess’ palms smouldered around a chipped mug. Trinkets littered the tablecoth. The insides of a 1930’s radio jostled with wires that had turned brown with age. Jess was holding a screwdriver and a piece of toast with a bite taken from it.

  Mrs Prune took her seat opposite, digging into a slice of gammon.

  Benjamin Foster stared longingly at the steak and drooled a phantasmagoric ectoplasm drool. He figured thus; it was unlikely that ghosts would have the metabolism for meat. And a half-digested lump of pig floating down the street might frighten people anyhow.

  Mrs Prune added a boat of gravy to her breakfast. There was the rumble of spectral gastric juices.

  Jess picked up the screwdriver and started to tinker with his machine.

  At length Mrs Prune belched loudly, apologetically patted her lips with a dainty fist and leaned across to Ben. “Somethin’ big an’ threatenin’ is comin’, Ben Foster. ’Ow come you don’t know w’at it is, bein’ dead an’ all?”

  She was under the impression that being dead somehow let you in on the secrets of the universe. Benjamin thought of the steak and heard his stomach growl.

  “It’s probably one of Jess’ rumblers,” he replied facetiously. “They’re pretty big and menacing. The last one I saw rearing up at me from the ‘U’ bend had fangs!”