by G L Davies
He took a deep breath and there was a long silence. This was better than being hung up on, at least I knew he was thinking about it. He asked what was in it for Lisa. I explained there was no monetary gain, just for her to tell a story that for all we knew maybe affecting people all over the world, people afraid, ashamed and confused by their ordeal. Then he began to cry, to sob down the phone. I listened in silence, my heart telling me to suggest I call back when he is more composed, but part of me, the investigator, hung on.
This was a man who had a deep emotional hurt and to openly display it as such, to a complete stranger on the phone, intrigued me. This was not the charming and confident man that Lisa had described; this man seemed unsure and broken. Was this due to the severance of the emotional umbilical to Lisa or was there something more? I needed to talk to him. He stopped sobbing and I gave him my assurances that his identity would remain secret, he would remain anonymous and if he still had an attachment for Lisa then this would be his chance to help her story to be told. He left me wanting more.
There was a log interminable silence and he quietly agreed. He agreed that he would talk to me, not today, but at a later date. I would have to provide signed documentation, not just from me but from Lisa also, to keep his identity secret. It was agreed and the investigation was to embark on a new path. I was now able to speak to someone other than Tyler who witnessed the paranormal transgressions bestowed upon Lisa.
I met with Dan at a coffee shop on the riverside of Haverfordwest. I sat there anxiously awaiting his arrival. He was late and I began to doubt whether he would turn up, maybe he had second thoughts. Then he arrived. I imagined Dan was a tall man, confident, tanned, immaculate, but I was greeted with a man with round shoulders, almost hunched as if he was trying to remain inconspicuous, ashamed of his height. He had grey hair and crow’s feet around tired bloodshot eyes, he looked nothing like a man approaching thirty should look like. He was shabby and shuffled when we walked. He looked like a man who had surrendered his pride and esteem some time ago. This was a man who had lost interest in love and relationships.
He sat down nervously; he looked around as if he was expecting to see an unfriendly face, to attract unwelcomed attention. He was pre-occupied with the notion of being discovered talking to me. Anonymity is almost like an addiction for him. I asked him if he wanted a coffee or tea and he said no, he stated, sensibly, that he wanted to see the signed documents before we were to proceed. I produced them, he milled over them, studying each word in depth. Satisfied he looked at me and said he was happy to talk, but not here, not in public where there was the risk of eavesdropping. He recommended we walk to a quiet spot up the river. We sat on a bench overlooking the River Cleddau on a warm and sunny May morning. Satisfied we were alone and after some small talk he began to tell his account.
Daniel: It is sad to think of what could have been, how life would have gone if things had been different. I think we take so much for granted. When something is good we don’t value it enough or appreciate it enough. Maybe some people do and I was really happy, I mean really happy and you have these daydreams, these fantasies about being with someone for the rest of your life, till your dying day. I guess you should just take it one day at a time, not that it would matter with what happened with her. I admit I was a romantic and I would have been happy to have settled, maybe got married. She didn’t want kids, she was in her mid-thirties then and she said as much as she loved her son she didn’t want to go through the nappy changing, not going to work and not sleeping at night again. She had done all that and just wanted a quiet life. I think in hindsight she just didn’t want to have a baby in the house or around her. Maybe she feared something terrible would happen to it if she did. It’s not worth thinking about.
The fact that she didn’t want kids didn’t bother me at all, I was just happy being with her. I didn’t feel the need to have a son or daughter or a legacy. I just imagined us together, on holidays, snuggled up in bed, watching T.V together. There would be no responsibilities just us together. Having fun and being happy. Some of the lads I know always say I’m a big softie and I should just shag ‘em and bag ‘em or fuck ‘em and chuck ‘em. I’m not like that at all; it is not about how many times I can get laid but how happy I can be with someone.
Now I can’t be bothered with any kind of relationship at all. I just don’t want anyone. I would rather be alone for the rest of my life. Before all of this I was confident in my own way and I had girlfriends, even got engaged once but it never worked out. I didn’t really care too much, I just thought there is someone out there for everybody and sooner or later you meet the right one and settle down and then I met Lisa.
I know men who have been cheated on. Some are crushed and destroyed, some angry and others see it as an excuse to just get on with it and enjoy single life again. No man can understand how I feel. It’s not like I came home one day and there was some guy fucking her on the bed or discovering a text or catching her out when she’s been lying. At least with those situations you can confront someone, question them or look for a resolution. You can ask what was lacking. Was it me? Was it the sex? The way I look or did they just get bored? Did I not stimulate them enough? or did I not pay them enough attention? Could I have been more appreciative or loving? Maybe it’s that you didn’t respect them, didn’t encourage them to grow and enjoy life. Whatever the answer is, there is always a reason to stem back too. You can always find a cause. I just think if you are so miserable that you feel the need to have an affair then you should just put a bullet in the head of the relationship. I don’t think it’s fair, I think it’s selfish and cowardly but then I guess every situation is different. It is such a mind fuck figuring out what happened to Lisa and me. I think I did the right thing, how can you knowingly share a bed with someone you love who is sleeping with someone else?
My mate from work discovered his girlfriend, who he was living with, was cheating on him. He told me this just before Lisa and I got together and I said he must have been raving, he must have been livid. I remember him looking at me with calm and knowing eyes and saying it wasn’t her fault. It was his. He said he drank too much got wrapped up in his own insecurities and the pressures of work and a mortgage and he just fell into a self-made abyss of depression. He blamed himself and held no grudge against her at all now and wished her every happiness in the world. It’s mad as that conversation started with him talking about ghosts.
I wish I could blame myself or someone else but it really isn’t like that at all. Since the day I walked out over two years ago I have not slept with anyone, kissed anyone or even flirted with a girl by text or anything. I only keep in contact with my Mum and sister, they nag me to move on and settle down but they have no idea what happened. I was emotionally and mentally castrated and I can never take the chance of falling for someone again. I never want to take the risk of it happening again.
I saw things that I can’t explain; I experienced things which frightened me so much that sometimes I can’t sleep at night. I left my old job so I work nights now and sleep in the day. You have no idea what it’s like to see what I saw. People like you and people that read your investigations think it’s a bit of fun to have a scare or a fright. They may kid themselves and say it’s not real or they hear a few knocks in the night and suddenly it’s time to call Ghostbusters. It’s not like that at all, it’s fucking terrifying. Imagine a burglar or a rapist in your house. Imagine reading this and then you hear a smash downstairs and you hear someone in your house. Are you laughing now? Is it fun and games. Maybe you’ll be fine; maybe the police come in time. Maybe you have a big dog or a weapon but your home is being intruded. You are being threatened. There is something in your home that wants to hurt you or take from you. How does that make you feel? Does it make you feel vulnerable? Imagine that and then think it doesn’t matter if you call the police, or have a weapon or how fucking big your dog is because the thing in your home shouldn’t even exist. Science can’t prove it so it can�
�t exist so you can’t get any help. Yet billions of us believe in Gods we never see and we all sit around with popcorn watching horror movies and thinking this is not real and having a good time. It is real! It fucking is and it’s not a good fucking time!
What I want people to really understand is how these things are in your home and they are doing things to you, to people you care about. There is no happy ending. There is no secret and magical way to get rid of them. They keep coming and coming and they wreck lives. They ruin everything.
I didn’t particularly want to talk to you about this. I don’t want to rehash the memory of it, but if it helps Lisa then I guess I will. Why do I want to help her? What is happening to her is not right in any way humanly possible. Maybe there is help out there. I don’t know how that would be though. When you called me it all came flooding back in a huge wave of sadness and anger that I had hoped was over. I get so tired and emotional and it is hard for me to make sense of it all. I can’t blame her, I shouldn’t blame her. How can you still have feelings for someone who is doing what they are doing? Part of me wishes I had never met her that night. You can’t turn back the clock but if there was a way then I would.
Back then I was so different. I had a great job which I was good at. I worked Monday to Friday, nine to five and rented a small flat up by the castle in Haverfordwest. It was good. Friday after work I would pop out for a few pints with the boys from work. Saturday, I would nip into town, do some shopping, pop into the bookies and put a few bets on the football, maybe nip into the pubs on castle square for a pint or two, pop home watch some football and then get ready and go out. I look back and think how golden life was back then. Ignorance is indeed bliss when the only thing you have to worry about is who Man United are playing and what shirt to wear out. You don’t ever imagine that someday you will be too frightened to go to sleep.
I remember that night. I went out with some of my mates. Kev was there, he was a nutter. He got thrown out of another place for doing the thriller dance on the bar. The bouncers were raving with him. I don’t think he was even that drunk by then. The man just loved to dance. It was because of him that I met Lisa. We were in this club and we were dancing around a group of women, just being a fanny. I have to say that I didn’t find any of these women particularly attractive but then I saw one and she was so beautiful. She had sullenness to her but not in an angry or miserable way. It was just something in her eyes. I introduced myself. We talked and we got on really well. I learned that Lisa was older than me, she had a son and was single. I liked her. I fancied her so much. She was easy to get on with and not full of herself like some of the younger girls I’d see out. At the end of the night I asked if she fancied doing something next weekend, maybe we could hook up again. I waited with her and her mates at the Castle Square, we were waiting for taxis and we just chatted away, Kev was steaming and was snogging the face off the fattest woman you have ever seen. She was even holding a plate of chips and curry sauce in one hand and her handbag in the other. Lisa’s mates were teasing her, saying to just go home with me and get a good shagging. I was a little embarrassed to say the least so I just stood there smiling. Lisa asked where I lived, I said just around the corner and I asked if she fancied a drink at mine. She took her time replying but one of her friends just decided for her and said she would.
She came back to mine and we opened some wine and we sat on the sofa just chilling and chatting. I remember having a chill out album on in the background and we smoked some weed. Lisa had never smoked weed before and she was so funny. After her coughing fit she just had the giggles. We stayed like that all night, I didn’t even make a move on her, and I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to ruin it.
We spent the next day together then she stayed at mine again and we ended up in bed together. I thought she would be more experienced in that department, more assertive but she just let me carry on. She was very affectionate. Lisa is a very beautiful woman and it was such a good feeling to wake up next to her the next morning. I even took a sick day on the Monday and we just stayed in bed.
We started seeing each other properly. We would see each other maybe once in the week and then more over the weekend. We both loved movies and we would happily snuggle up and watch a movie together. Not horror’s though, she wasn’t keen on those, which given what was happening in her life makes perfect sense. If you ever date someone and they don’t like horror movies I’d find out first if there is anything strange going on in their lives, seriously, you never know do you?
Lisa always came to mine. I never went to her house for close to a year. I didn’t mind as it was easier for me, I worked in Haverfordwest so I didn’t have to rush off as much in the morning. Lisa worked shifts, so some days she didn’t have to be there till noon or later in the afternoon.
Time passed on and it was good, really good. I liked to cook back then and she was happy to eat and we would pop down the pub and have a few pints or just have some wine at home. One weekend I had been invited to a party down her neck of the woods so I invited her and she was happy to come. She laughed and asked would people think that I had brought my mother along? I didn’t care about the age gap, besides she was only in her mid-thirties and she looked great. My mate commented that I had bagged a M.I.L.F., Lisa was fine about it though. I asked if perhaps we could stay at hers after the party. She went white as a sheet and looked away. She couldn’t look me in the eye. I was concerned, you know? You automatically begin to think the worst sometimes. Years before I had really fallen for this girl I had met in work. We had gotten on so well and we ended up together. There were a few people who were a bit funny about us seeing each other but I didn’t care as I was so into this girl. It all makes sense now; I wish they had just told me. This girl and I were out all the time, she said she loved me and we were even going to move in together. She went away for Christmas to see her family and on Boxing Day told me it was over between us as her boyfriend was back! I was shocked. She’d had a boyfriend the whole time, he’d been travelling Europe for a year. I wasn’t sure who I was sorrier for, him or me. The crazy fucker even asked if we were still going to get a place together and could he move in with us. I was gutted.
I took a deep breath and I asked Lisa why? I was beginning to dread that maybe she was married or was with someone. A million things whizzed through my mind, maybe she was ashamed of where she lived or maybe her son didn’t know about me. She started crying and I just held her so tight and she felt so weak and fragile.
I calmed her down and we sat on the sofa, she told me it was complicated and that I wouldn’t understand. I asked her to tell me, whatever she had to say, I would listen, and I would try to understand. You think of the most berserk things imaginable. She looked me in the eye and she told me she loved me and never wanted to lose me. I told her she wouldn’t and I would be here for her, forever. Then she told me. She told me her house was haunted.
I almost laughed. I’m not laughing now, obviously, but I remember my reaction was to just laugh and tell her not to be silly. I shut up though and she told me it had been really bad and how several times she’d tried to get a new home. She told me that terrible things had happened there. She wouldn’t go into detail and she said nothing had happened in the last few years. She was scared that if I went there it would all start again. I was intrigued and a little excited, I liked the paranormal, I wasn’t massively into it but I liked hearing about it and watching T.V programmes and films about it. It started to make sense as to why she always stayed at mine and how she never liked horror movies.
I reassured her and told her that I wouldn’t force the subject. I said that I didn’t have to stay but I would look after her, I loved her and I wouldn’t let anything happen to her. She didn’t say anything, she just hugged me and I hugged her back. I whispered into her ear that everything would be ok, everything would be fine.
God, I was wrong, I was so terribly wrong.
Uninvited
As I sat by Daniel by the river I real
ised just how damaged he was. Here was a man who had witnessed something incomprehensible while trying to suppress the feeling for a woman whose circumstance have made it impossible for them to ever be happy together. Lisa was a woman who still resided in his heart. Lisa has designated herself as the perpetrator of the wrong doing but really what choice did she have in the matter? Some may argue that she connived and concealed the truth from Daniel, but at the time of their meeting the haunting had subsided greatly. One cannot label hope as a crime, the hope that the supernatural intrusion was over, never to return.
I believe Lisa did not perform some masquerade to entice Daniel into her life, pretending she was something she wasn’t. She and Dan settled into a warm and loving routine and she simply, as many people do, had a dark and terrible secret. Who would you tell if this happened to you? Would you be confident that you could broach the subject during the early stages of a blossoming relationship? Would you take the risk of having questionable mental health? How would you choose the words to describe what had happened or would you simply blurt out, I have been a sexually assaulted by a ghost?
It is an undesirable position to be in and hopefully many of you reading this will never have to concern yourself with this dilemma. The only time I wish for this subject to ever be a part of your life is while indulging in this account and while maybe posing the question to your friends and family. I think we all need to try and empathise with Lisa and those close to her who have been affected so we can understand the emotional complexity of the situation. As stated we are all investigators of her account and nothing more. For that I am thankful and you are blessed.
This next section presented is the fusion from Daniels account and Lisa’s testimonial. This will give a much more comprehensive insight into the events that eventually dissolved the relationship between the two. The events to be described leave me asking how Daniel still has a functioning mind. He claims to have been part of something which was loathsome and depressing yet he does not detest Lisa, he simply cannot fully assimilate the events into a fashion that makes sense to him. It is beyond my comprehension that he is even able to speak about the abhorrence which follows.