‘No, leave them, let them rest,’ Neil whispered. ‘We can carry on ourselves, and if anything happens we’ll wake them up. Now let’s start in Sarah’s room.’ Neil opened the door and glanced around. Sarah shared with Alice and the age gap was apparent. Rock band posters adorned Sarah’s side of the room while Alice’s side had a distinct Barbie princess feel. They sat on the beds and minutes passed. ‘What time is it?’ Neil whispered.
Chris squinted at his watch in the dim light. ‘We’ve been in here ten minutes. Want to try another room?’
‘Yeah, we’ll try Joe and David’s room next.’ Neil rose from the bed and stretched his legs. David’s red racing car bed took up the furthest corner under the window.
Chris sat on the edge, gazing at the blank television screen in front of him.
Neil and Lee lay top to tail on Joe’s bed on the other side, near the door. The quietness lured Neil into a false sense of security and he began to feel drowsy. He lay his head down and placed his hands behind his head. A five pence piece hurtled in his direction from the other side of the room. Neil took a sharp breath and sat up. This was the signal things were about to begin. ‘I’m going to get Mike.’ Neil rose and trotted down the stairs.
Still sleeping, John and Trevor did not blink an eyelid as Neil shook Mike into life. Neil recalled John telling him earlier in the day how exhausted he had been from little sleep the night before. Groggy and yawning, Mike followed Neil upstairs to the bedroom. Mike clicked the light switch off in the hope of a reaction.
The streetlight outside cast an eerie orange glow in the room as it filtered through the window blinds. Joe’s bed creaked as Lee sat beside Neil, legs outstretched on the mattress.
Mike and Chris lay on David’s bed, and a hush descended.
Neil was the first to hear dragging noises on the carpeted floor. He raised his hand in a silent gesture. ‘Did anyone hear that?’ He realised the dragging sounds were slow heavy footsteps. Worse still, they were coming in his direction. Neil’s keenness for paranormal activity drained away. He wished the footsteps would stop. They dragged eerily, one before the other, to the base of the bed in which Neil and Lee lay. Neil froze in fear. He struggled to slow his breathing, not wanting to make the slightest noise for fear of attack. He pointed to the end of the bed and mouthed the words, ‘It’s here,’ to Mike, who was now wide-awake. A malevolent presence surrounded Neil like a dark cloak. He was cast adrift, in the knowledge his attacker could pounce on him at any moment. Unseen hands hit the mattress with three loud thumps where his legs lay. Neil bit his lip hard as the mattress vibrated from the force. He slowly edged away to the other side of the bed. ‘Look!’ he whispered to Mike, pointing to the mattress, still vibrating.
‘Hang on, I’ll take some pictures.’ Mike slowly reached for his camera and set the night vision button. Mike pressed the camera shutter button as he made his way towards Neil.
‘It’s stopped,’ Neil said, as he got up and turned on the light.
‘I felt it too,’ Lee whispered in agreement.
Neil took a few deep breaths as Mike reached to turn off the light.
‘You OK to continue?’ Mike asked.
Neil nodded, returning to the bed. The night fell silent. After a while Mike spoke. ‘Maybe if I leave the room it will start up again. I’ll sit on the landing. Call me if anything happens.’ Neil took a few deep breaths as Mike reached to turn off the light.
Mike made his way to the landing and sat outside the bedroom door on the soft carpet.
Bang. An upstairs door slammed with force. Neil, Chris, and Lee jumped in unison. Neil checked on Mike. ‘Did you hear that?’
Mike looked at him with a puzzled expression. ‘Hear what?’
‘I don’t understand. There was this massive banging noise. How could you not have heard that?’ Baffled, they settled back to their former positions.
The heavy footsteps resumed, shuffling, one after the other until they reached the end of the bed where Neil and Lee were lying. Neil held his breath as the footsteps stopped. Rather than feeling a hand thump the mattress, it violently sprang upwards as if punched from underneath. ‘Shit,’ Neil whispered. ‘Do you feel that?’
Lee croaked ‘Yes.’ He looked ready to alight from the bed at any second.
Chris sat up, staring in their direction. ‘I saw it move.’ The mattress abruptly jumped upwards, projecting Neil and Lee forward.
‘Grrrrhhh,’ a hellish growl pierced the air. ‘Fucking hell, let me out of here,’ Neil shouted, jumping off the bed. The growl set off a chain reaction as the men clambered from the room at speed, narrowly missing Mike, who sat totally unawares on the landing.
‘What’s going on?’ Mike shouted at Chris, the last to leave the room. Neil and Lee had not waited long enough to explain, and made a quick departure out into the landing, almost toppling down the stairs.
‘Bloody growling,’ Chris said. He clasped a hand to his chest as he fought to catch his breath. ‘It was really loud, didn’t you hear it?’
Mike had not, but the men’s reactions were evidence enough. After a calming cigarette, Neil, Lee, and Chris returned upstairs with Mike in the same room. They sat on the beds and Neil steeled himself as the thumps and movements resumed. Bizarrely, every time Mike put his hand on the bed to feel the vibrations, they stopped. It was as if the entity was playing a game with him. The group noticed a green light glowing in the room. It was not uncommon for lights to glow in the boy’s room due to the amount of toys and game consoles. They checked the room thoroughly and could not find the source.
Mike’s attention was drawn back to the green light glowing beside Chris’s face. Chris looked unwell, as if in a daze. ‘Are you OK mate?’ Mike asked.
Chris blinked and looked at Mike, his thin face expressionless. ‘Huh? I feel a bit funny,’ he said, his voice trailing away.
Neil and Lee both watched as Mike took his camera out and began to photograph Chris.
‘I don’t mean to scare you Chris, but your face is changing. I need to photograph it.’ Normally such a statement would be enough to scare anyone, but Chris was staring into the distance and did not seem to hear.
Neil observed Chris’s face as the camera flashed.
Chris slowly turned his head and stared at Neil and Lee. As he did so, his features changed.
The flash lit up the room once again, and Neil drew a sharp intake of breath. The person he was looking at was not Chris at all, but an old man with a craggy face, his features lined in a sinister grimace, staring at them intently. The reality of what was happening sunk in.
Neil and Lee shouted in terror. Both men scrambled towards the front door onto the landing in a state of sheer panic.
Mike quickly turned on the light switch, checking Chris was alright, which he was, if a little confused at what just occurred. Mike spoke in calming tones to Neil and Lee, who were shaking with fright. They were genuinely terrified that the entity tried to possess Chris.
‘I know what I saw,’ Neil gasped trying to draw breath. ‘That wasn’t Chris. That was horrible. Evil. And it was staring right at me.’
‘That frightened the life out of me, look at my leg, I can’t stop it from shaking,’ Lee said, struggling to control his jerking limbs.
Mike also appeared shaken by what he had seen. ‘It’s OK mate, I saw it too. Unbelievable.’
Trevor came upstairs to join them, having been awoken by the commotion. After some time to calm down, they all returned to the room.
Neil sensed a presence at the end of the bed. The mattress depressed as if an invisible presence was sitting down.
‘Look… look at that,’ Lee stuttered pointing to the end of the bed.
Neil braced himself to stay where he was, however uncomfortable he felt. The entity was trying to frighten him, and he was determined not to give in.
Mike rushed to take a photo. He aimed the camera, and the bed sprang up to normal. Mike reviewed the photos and noticed something strange. ‘Come and look
at this.’ Mike signalled to them as he squinted at the camera display.
‘I don’t understand it.’ Neil looked over his shoulder to see a photo of himself on the bed. The odd thing was, the lower half of his body appeared to be covered in a black blanket. ‘It looks like one of those cow hide rugs, except it’s all black,’ Neil observed.
Mike called John upstairs to take a look, and he noticed it too, except for one thing. The ‘rug’ was ebbing away. After a few minutes it disappeared from display completely. Mike shook his head; he had never come across anything like it. What was the black shape that appeared on the camera display? Was it a camera malfunction or could it have been the entity that lay across Neil, in a dark mass. There appeared to be no fault with the camera, and the pictures later uploaded with no problems at all, no dark shadows in sight.
The group gathered downstairs to discuss the night’s events. It was well into the early hours, and Lee and Chris decided to go home. Neil and the others dozed on the sofa downstairs until early morning.
The next night carried on the same as before. Embarrassed, they slept through the previous night’s activity, John and Trevor wanted to experience the phenomena for themselves. Hours passed with no occurrences. Mike and John discussed tactics to try to lure the entity into further activity.
By two o’clock in the morning everyone was growing tired. ‘We’ve decided that everyone should retire for the night,’ John said with a wink.
Neil smiled to himself. He doubted the entity would be so gullible to fall for his tactic, but it was worth a try. Neil, Chris and Lee went upstairs to Joe’s bedroom while the investigators stayed downstairs in the living room. Neil tried to recreate the previous night and switched off the light. He sat back on the bed, his eyes growing accustomed to the dark shadows. Ping. What sounded like a coin rolled across the bedroom floor, followed by a cluck… cluck… cluck. ‘I’m going to tell the others,’ he said. He didn’t need to. They had guessed something was up and were making their way upstairs. ‘I think it’s started,’ Neil said as Mike and John opened the bedroom door to join them. Cluck… cluck… cluck… the sounds continued.
‘Maybe it’s a toy,’ John said, rummaging through the toy box.
‘I doubt it,’ Neil replied. They continued to search for the source of the sounds, but it proved fruitless. Five minutes later a loud thudding noise filled the room, followed by a female voice uttering unknown syllables in the darkness. They strained to decipher the words, but it did not make any sense.
‘I need a cigarette,’ Neil said. Neil, Lee and Chris went downstairs while the investigators returned to the room. Then it happened. ‘Grrrrrrrrh,’ a menacing growl belched from thin air. The investigators froze, waiting to see if the noise would repeat itself, but it was not to be.
They joined the others downstairs in the living room. John sniffed the air, ‘Do you smell something?’ he asked. Mike was talking to Mark, engrossed in the call.
‘Smells like burning,’ Neil said, rushing into the kitchen. They opened the kitchen door and were met with thick smoke coming from the oven grill, which had erupted into flames.
John coughed as he opened the back door.
Neil grappled to extinguish the flames, all the while hearing the taunting noises, cluck… cluck… cluck.
###
Later that night Neil and Lee stood outside, spirals of smoke rose up between them as they smoked another cigarette. Lee shook his head, ‘It’s crazy isn’t it. Chris’s face… it shit the life out of me.’
Neil nodded. ‘Yeah, I know. I didn’t like that either. Still, at least Mike witnessed some action.’
Lee looked up at the sky thoughtfully and returned his gaze to Neil. ‘Have they said how they’re going to get rid of it yet?’
Neil shrugged as he stubbed out his cigarette. ‘No, I think they’re trying to figure out what it is first.’
A small blue object landed at Lee’s feet from above. He bent down to pick it up. ‘It’s a lighter. Where’s that come from?’ he said, putting it on the window ledge. ‘That reminds me, I’d better give Mike back the one I borrowed from him before I forget.’ Lee took Mike’s lighter from his pocket. Right on cue, Mike and John walked over to join them. ‘Thanks mate, here’s your lighter back.’
Mike looked at him with a puzzled expression. ‘That’s not mine. You never borrowed that from me.’
‘Yes he did,’ Neil said. ‘I was with Lee when he asked you for it.’
Mike replied, ‘No he didn’t.’ He pulled the red lighter out of his shirt pocket that he’d been given by Neil earlier. ‘There’s this one, which Neil gave me before…’ Mike then fished another out of his trouser pocket, and said, ‘… and here’s my other lighter, it’s blue’.
Neil pointed at the object, ‘That’s not blue, Mike, its green.’
Mike checked, and, sure enough, the lighter in his hand was pale green in colour. It was also different in design to his own, which had a chrome top. Mike scratched his head in bewilderment.
Neil looked at Mike, ‘Well if that’s not yours, who does it belong to?’
‘Err… It’s mine,’ said a voice to the left. It was John. ‘But I've actually got someone else’s…’
The evening took a surreal turn as members of the group announced the colour lighter in their pocket and swapped back with their rightful owners.
The night moved on, and the group sat downstairs chatting. Given the location of the lighters there was no way a light fingered trickster in the group would have known which pocket they were located in. From shirt pockets, jean pockets, to combat trouser side pockets, even Fagan would have found it impossible to locate, take, and then plant the roving lighters.
Mike suggested the group go back to bed. Ignoring the entity seemed like the best way of getting a reaction.
‘Sure, I’ll just bring out these plates to the kitchen first,’ Neil said, cleaning up after their night-time snack of hot buttered toast. He walked into the kitchen with Lee and noticed something on the kitchen counter. ‘I’m sure that wasn’t there a minute ago,’ Neil stared at the blue lighter standing upright.
Chris and the investigators followed through. Just as they were about to speak, a loud thumping noise came from upstairs. Mike conducted a head count and confirmed everybody was downstairs. The group climbed the stairs to investigate and split up. Mike and Trevor looked on the landing while the others looked in Neil’s bedroom.
Chris switched the light on and noticed it straight away. There on the bed was a blue cigarette lighter. ‘Will you look at that,’ he said to Neil, ‘it made the noise so we would come upstairs and see it.’
‘Do you think that’s the same one that was in the kitchen?’ Neil examined the lighter. ‘There’s only one way to find out,’ Chris replied, making his way back downstairs. Sure enough, when they returned to the kitchen, the blue lighter was gone.
The rest of the group busied themselves searching the other rooms. A few minutes later they found another lighter on David’s bed, and another one under the pillow. It felt like a very strange game of treasure hunt, and Neil wondered what they would uncover next. He waited with Lee on the landing as the group continued their search, chatting about what occurred.
Lee stopped mid sentence and strained for breath, his eyes wide.
‘What is it?’ Neil asked as Lee looked down at his hand. Lee uncurled his fingers to reveal a lighter and colour drained from his face.
‘What’s wrong mate?’ Neil asked again.
‘That… that wasn’t there a minute ago… it just appeared in my hand.’
Open-mouthed, Neil was lost for words as his gaze met Lee’s.
A while later the group made their way downstairs. Entering the room, Neil asked Mike, ‘Have you got your blue lighter on you, Mike?’
‘Sure,’ Mike replied, ‘it’s in my pocket.’ Mike inserted his right hand into his trouser pocket – but it wasn’t there.
‘I think this is it,’ Neil said handing it to Mike.
Mike put his hand back in his pocket and felt not one lighter, but two. He pulled them out to see a green lighter had accompanied his own.
‘How on earth did you get that?’ John asked. There could be no rational explanation. ‘Search me,’ Mike shrugged, patting his shirt pocket where he had placed his blue lighter. ‘But it won’t take it out of this pocket without me knowing about it.’
As Mike turned to leave the room, Neil and John looked at each other and grinned. They both noticed it at the same time. A blue lighter sat neatly on the white tablecloth of the dining room table. ‘Err… Mike…’ John said, ‘have you got your blue lighter on you?’
Mike stopped halfway through the door. ‘You know I have, you’ve just seen me put it in my shirt pocket.’
Neil sniggered as John said, ‘Can you check it again please?’
Mike sighed, putting his hand in his shirt pocket to pacify them. Nothing. He opened the pocket with his fingers and gaped into the empty space.
John pointed to his lighter on the table. John and Neil couldn’t help but laugh at the expression on his face. For the first time since they’d met him, Mike was speechless.
The lighter incidents continued until the early hours. The entity played with money too, throwing coins. At differing times, Neil and Lee picked up a thrown two pence coin, and upon opening their hand to show it to others, discovered four pence in the palm of their hands. Neil noticed his coin jar in the kitchen appeared to be diminishing.
He was pleased with how the night had progressed, and the fact the investigators witnessed so much activity. He was also grateful the entity was in a playful mood that night, and nothing more sinister had occurred. His fingers crept to the memory of the scratches at the back of his neck where he was attacked weeks before. He was very grateful indeed.
Everyone settled down by dawn. John, Mike, and Trevor snoozed downstairs in the living room while Chris, Lee, and Neil lay on the beds upstairs. Downstairs, John was disturbed by a faint scratching noise emanating from the sofa.
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