I sat down to write, but found I had a block. The words just wouldn't come, and I wondered if the talent had gone.
Confused, I took to driving in the countryside, trying to clear my mind. And it was on just such a drive that I came across the cottage.
It was beautiful, picturesque, and it was to let. I knew I had to rent it; knew that in here I would find the peace of mind to write.
I was right about that, at least. It was a small cottage, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. Behind it was a wood, and on all other sides fields. It was reached by a narrow lane, and within its ancient confines I felt a peace I had never experienced before.
When I finally sat down to write, I was amazed how easily the words came. I got to thinking I could buy this cottage after my six month tenancy was over.
For several days the peace continued, and the words flowed.
They say all novels are autobiographical, but we go to great lengths, us writers, to hide behind our characters. But on the second night, when I decided to read what I had written so far, I was amazed to see that I was easily identifiable in the novel. Indeed, so was Annie. How that happened, I had no idea at the time. But that night, in bed, my peace began to be slowly shattered.
The footfalls on the landing were so subtle, but clearly heard. My natural reaction was to jump out of bed and race through the door, catch the intruder. And as I did so, I stopped, a terror taking me over.
The man was at the end of the landing. He had a crazed look on his face, and as I watched he seemed to merge with the air and disappear.
I never slept again that night. I'd never been in a haunted house before, but my natural writer's curiosity stopped me from fIeeing. And amazingly, the man seemed to enter my story, his features forming the husband - the husband who was eventually to attack me.
I saw him again over the next few days. And a vague essence of a woman was also there, I was sure. Not as pronounced as the man, but present all the same.
I had been in the cottage just over a week when I woke up suddenly in the night with this overwhelming feeling of pleasure. Opening my eyes, the essence of the woman was in the last fleeting seconds of visibility. Looking down, my sheets had been pulled back and I was aroused. The essence, it soon became apparent, had been straddling me.
Confusion and curiosity are an explosive mixture. My novel now seemed to be writing itself without effort, as if some outside force was invading me, dictating my words. And with little thought needed, my mind was left to wander over the supernatural events that were consuming me. And eventually I decided to find out who these spectres were.
Driving into the nearest town, I began with the estate agents who had rented the cottage. They said they didn't know who the previous occupants had been, but I could tell they were withholding something from me. Hence, I went to the local paper office, hoping to find answers in old copies of the local rag.
Did I find those answers? Oh, boy. Did I!!
It had been a terrible affair. A husband and wife had owned the cottage, but for some reason, the husband had strangled his wife one night, before killing himself with an overdose.
I recognised the man only as my ghost. But there was no mistaking a beautiful woman like Annie.
I was in a blind terror as I returned to the cottage. What fates had brought me here, I had no idea. But one thing I knew was that I had to leave. Yet as I tried to pack, I found there were barriers in my mind. This feeling arose that said I must not leave, for I had a task to perform.
It could so easily be described as guilt, this feeling I had. As if I had to complete a task before I could free myself of my ghosts. For the simple fact is, they could well be my ghosts. It was my mind that had become attuned to this cottage, and chances are only I would see them, as if they were more part of my mind, than spectral residents of the cottage they occupied in life.
This thought eased my mind and reluctantly I decided to stay.
But what about my novel? Could I really go back to it?
I sat at the table, the typewriter before me, contemplating this, when the man appeared before me. He was sat opposite me, his spectral eyes burning into me, the intensity growing by the second until I relented and began to type.
I soon discovered that was the way to keep him at bay. Type and he left me alone. Stop, and he was there, my conscience.
At night, he seemed to realise I needed sleep and only rarely invaded my world. But when he did, it was horrific. I would be awoken with female screams, with pleadings, and then his heavy breaths would invade my ears, and before me I would seen him strangle her.
The pace of the novel quickened. After all, I had decided now that I wasn't really writing it. I was merely the typist for this anarchic, overworldly mind. But as the completion drew close, I began to dread the last chapter. What did it have in store for me?
Well, tomorrow I finish the novel. But what am I writing?
AM I directed by guilt? Or are my ghosts real, and my choice to write simply a force of the supernatural?
How does the novel end? In my redemption? And what is that?
I don't know. I don't know anything any more. Except one thing. As his manifestations become more stark, more physical, more menacing in attitude and appearance, I wonder if I will be around to see my novel published.
SPIRIT OF THE TIMES
It’s a big house. Too big. It’s a big family. Too big. Too busy. Always doing this, always doing that, no time to get bored, no time to settle into anything, their habits always chaotic.
I’m a member of the family. I live in the house. But I move around and no one notices me. I can stand over any one of them, doing something, and no one notices. It’s as if I’m not there.
I’m the quiet one of the family, almost insubstantial, it seems to me. I never do anything interesting, never do anything to be noticed. Never do anything ….
‘Listen to me!!!’ I wail, but not a single head is turned. No one notices me at all. It is as if I am but a ghost, a simple spirit wandering through the rooms.
I pass through the wall to yet another room. Spy another member of the family. ‘Look at me!!!!’ I wail, but not even a twitch of recognition.
I return to my bedroom, see my body lying still. Dead three weeks and undiscovered.
‘Will someone please remember me!!!’
THE STORM
How do I explain what happened the night of the storm? Not the big one of last year – the REALLY big one – but this year; which, let’s face it, was big enough!
Lightning lit up the cliffs. Peter and I watched from the window of the house. We had been discussing him coming back into the firm after his latest bout of depression. I knew he had lost his wife in last year’s storm, and this must be particularly hard for him. The landscape, constantly crackling out of the darkness, seemed to add to the surreal nature of it all.
Peter stopped the discussion when he suddenly pointed outside and said: ‘Look!’
At first, I only saw darkness, but at the next flash I saw her, too. A woman, out there, alone. And then she began to run towards the cliffs.
I hadn’t known Peter that long, so I was shocked to see him run out of the house, chasing her, trying to stop her. I followed, shouting, ‘no!’ But it was only when he failed to return, and I made some calls, that I understood that it seemed to be history repeating itself.
Except, this time, it wasn’t his wife’s body found at the bottom of the cliffs, but his.
‘But I wonder what happened to the girl?’ the policeman said after we returned to the house.
I wondered myself – until I saw the photo on the sideboard. I guess I believe in ghosts, now. The woman I saw was his wife.
POLKA DOT DARK
It was the last time I was going to let them clobber me. Here I was, laid in the hay, derisive messages scrawled all over the wall beside me. Well enough of these bullies! I’d heard of the power, and now, as the dark descended, it was time to see if it would work.
I�
��d been apprenticed to a magician in my adolescence, when we think we know of the power of the mind, and the strength of our own character. But as that ‘thing’ appeared, I had let out a loud wail, never to touch magic again, no matter how much he would encourage me.
But now, it was time once more. I needed the power. I needed …
I knelt down, a stick in my hand – a makeshift wand. I remembered the incantations, and as I closed my eyes, they flowed freely.
I knew when the time would be close – when I was close to reaching the centre – the god-head, deep down in all our minds. The dark would be punctuated by a myriad of bright polka dot-like shapes. Eidetic imagery, I think they call it, and in a way I both feared and yearned for it to appear.
And appear it did, filling my vision, my mind, my universe, and I existed in the dark, for in the dark you found LIGHT!!!!
It exploded before me, and a single dot changed shape and soon, towering over me, was …
Myself.
I was filled with the magic now, and now it was time to approach the bullies once more.
I found them. I stood before them. I dared them.
And they scurried off, never to return, for now I was whole. I had searched my inner depths and found the secret. Found confidence!
REFLECTIONS OF ME
I could do without these conflicting emotions in my head.
Life is too short. I should be focusing on what I have got left; which is pitifully little as it is.
Here am I, just forty years of age and stricken with that!
Life is such a bitch. Yet still I want to cling to it. Still I want to experience more, before cancer takes it away for ever.
'There's always hope.'
Friends are such insincere things. He knows there is no hope; non at all. But still he says those words.
'There is!'
There is NOT!
If only I'd done more with my life; taken a different route, gone with the flow towards excitement rather than knuckling under the mundane. I could have done it all. Seen the world. Had women.
Oh, so many women I could have had. If I hadn't chickened out. Taken a standard job instead of throwing caution to the wind, and ...
Pointless. All bloody pointless.
'No it isn't.'
Oh, shut up!
'Go and see an alternative therapist. The conventional has failed, so who knows.'
Why I listened I have no idea, but here I am, waiting.
It is a strange room. The colours don't match. The walls, the floor, the ceiling, merge into a preponderance of rugs and cushions and tapestries. The aroma is sweet and makes me a little giddy. And chill out music echoes surreptitiously about the ether.
Eventually the therapist comes in, bedecked in jewellery, with long hair, and an asexual face. Is it man or woman? I do not know. Is it going to make me better? I do not care.
'Be aware of dying before death comes.'
Speaking in riddles. What is this crap!? But in the silence that follows it begins to make sense. Is that what I've done? Allowed myself to die before I actually do? Is death a psychological state as well as a physical reality?
Perhaps I've always been dead. That's why I've so many regrets.
And now the therapist's mind seems to connect with my mind.
'You can still live.'
It's too late. I'm too weak.
'Then live by proxy.'
I still don't understand; still do not connect with this merging of minds. But wait! A feeling, an impulse, alien to who I am. What is going on?
'Relax,' says the therapist, 'let it come.'
And before my eyes I appear. A new me. A younger me. A me in my prime. Is it an illusion?
It is night, and I appear again before me.
'I'm hallucinating, right?' I say.
I say: 'Wrong. I'm here to experience what you didn't.'
I'm so confused.
That therapist got into my head and extracted me from my mind, made it go out into the world. And the result is me.
I go out as I remain in bed. I feel everything I feel, see everything I see, and I'm walking down a street, a confidence in my step, and I go into the club.
The music is riveting, exciting, filling me with thoughts and emotions I've never known before. Without conscious thought I seem to rest my eyes on the woman. She is beautiful, vibrant. She is everything I had wished to have when I was younger. And I'm talking to her, putting her at her ease, and she's smiling, liking. Will she soon be lusting?
This other me is the me I should have been, and as I lay in my bed I also lie in hers and I’m satisfied. And then I turn on my side and go to sleep.
Will I ever be me again? Of course I will. It's a simple matter of willpower. I think deeply about wanting myself to appear and I'm there.
I've researched what I am since I first appeared. In the east I would be known as a tulpa; although rare in the west, I am a thoughtform; a psychic product of my desires.Am I real? I don't know. All I know is that I exist as this crippled forty year old about to die, and a young, vibrant twenty year old, hungry for experience.
And I'm going out again, wanting more of the ecstasy I experienced, so easily, the other night. But do I want more of the same or do I want sensation anew?
I go out again, meet another girl, place my charms upon her, and again I find ecstasy, but this time with more vibrancy, more violence, reaching an even higher pitch.
And later, I’m satisfied anew, even though the woman lies in her bed in tears.
I enjoyed that, I said to myself, I'm finally beginning to live. In death I am finding the ability to live for the first time in my life.
But at what cost?
It has been like this for over a week now. Each time I go out I reach for higher states, a new challenge, as if I'm trying to live forty years in such a short space of time.
When I come to myself, I begin to notice a slight change in me. Somehow, I feel more hungered, perhaps a touch depraved. Is this because I'm unbridled emotion, released into the world? Is this what happens when the mind is out?
I don't know. All I know for sure is that I want more, more, more, more!!!!
I killed a woman last night.
At the height of my passion, I knew I wanted to do it. I knew it would take the moment even higher. And as I slit her throat, I felt god-like. It was a power surge unlike anything experienced my mortal man.
Is that it? Have I risen above the mortal? Have I become as one with the gods?
If so, could I be … immortal? Could I now live forever, to do what I want to do, to live on a wave of passion - a passion that should always have been mine?
This is my hope. This is my future. I have transcended the material and reached a higher state of spirituality. I am one with the universe and the two of us will live forever.
Except for that little voice in my head.
Is this a third entity, a third me? Or is this the me that had kept me mundane all those years?
Is this what you've become, it asks, nothing more than a self-gratifying killer? Maybe you deserve to die. Maybe you were mundane so that the monster in you would remain at bay?
The monster in me? Is that what I am?
I look at myself and I see myself changing, no longer young and good looking, but ageing, with a shadow of evil upon my face.
The realisation strikes. I am my self, my conscience and my desires. And the desires are loose. Who can not do what they want with unbridled desires?
I have extinguished the part of myself that was a cancer.
I have extinguished the monster I had successfully kept at bay. I am gone. Gone from this world in which I did so much harm. And now I lie here, wanting only one thing.
To die.
I may be dying young. But until I let my desires loose, I knew the life I lived was worthy. And now, I just hope eternal damnation is a myth.
AWAKENING NIGHT
The Sun melts below the horizon, its last breath of light touchi
ng the clouds. A blood red sky pays testament to the battle as night pounds it down to another hemisphere. And soon, twilight heralds the coming victory of the night.
Shadows expand as it arrives, stealing sight, sound … safety.
‘Tis the night, and you. Alone.
Enshrouded, you exist. But what’s that you see? Surely only tricks of the dark – tricks of the mind. Nothing to explain that beat inside.
You remember: there is nothing to fear but night itself.
And the dark gathers around you, becomes …?
Substantial.
Clinging.
Smothering …….
And something else? Is this the monster of the night you see materialize, with …
(But surely it is only a dream?)
…with teeth, eyes; hot, fetid breath ….
Wanna bet?
A GOTHIC ROMANCE
To be a Goth is the most satisfying thing in the world. Oh, I remember when I first moved into the Goth scene in the early 1980s. Their parties were better than the average parties; their dress, black, chained, dark black around the eyes, post-punk.
It began in the UK, spread to so many other countries, and is still alive and well today, even though it was dismissed as a fad – something that would soon be scratched out.
Well, as I entered the party, it was clear the critics were wrong.
The music was loud, heavy, chaotic, and in no time at all I existed in a swirling mass of bodies. Many of the girls I had been with before, and they simply gave me blank stares, emotionless.
It wasn’t that I was too exuberant, or anything like that. Just … well, you know.
But it was a new girl I spotted tonight – late teens, vibrant, just finding her feet in the Goth culture.
It took no time at all to woo her – kiss her on the neck. After all, I’d had a reputation for some time. And it was inevitable we’d end up at my place, where we …
Well, a gentleman never tells. But as I took one last look at the corpse and closed my lid, I knew she’d be as everlasting as my Goth culture, come tomorrow.
STORM MOTHER
I, Horror Page 3