The Chapel
Page 58
“Good, Rob. How’s Carol?” Tara asked as she took off her coat and gave it a shake, casting the melting snow to the hardwood floor of the hall.
“Better every day,” Rob answered. “She’s upstairs taking a bath; she’ll be down later.”
“And Henry?”
"He doesn't remember a thing, wondered what all the fuss was about in the weeks after, why everyone recognised him. Thankfully by late October, it all started to die down."
“It’s for the best he doesn’t remember,” Mike said. “And Ellie, how is she?”
Rob's smile dropped a bit, "Still sleeps with the light on," he said, and Mike wondered just how long she would, maybe for the rest of her life. "Other than that," he continued, "pretty good. She’s been excited about your visit all day, was worried you wouldn’t make it due to the snow.”
“Four-wheel drive power,” Mike said with a smile. “Gets you through.”
“She is in the lounge. Can I get you guys a coffee? You look like you could use a hot drink.”
"White with one and white with none," Tara said. "I'm sweet enough already, he's not quite there yet but I'm working on it."
Rob chuckled and took them through to the lounge where Ellie was vegged out on the sofa in baggy joggers and a red GAP hoodie reading a well-thumbed copy of The Shack by WM Paul Young. On seeing them she put the book down, stood and treated them both to a hug. “I’ll give you guys some time,” Rob said and left the room.
“Good book that,” Mike said, looking at the tatty cover now face up on the sofa’s middle cushion.
“It looks at religion and life from an interesting perspective,” she said. “The author is quite the theologian. I’ve read it like five times. Seen the film twice, too. The book is better.”
"How's you holding up, Ells?” Tara said as they sat.
"Getting there," she said with a smile that said differently. "I still sleep with the lights on."
“Your father tells me that you’re taking a year out before you go to Uni,” Mike said, sitting forward. “Is that right?”
She nodded, “I just felt I needed a little time to take stock of things. Maybe psychology isn’t such a hot topic to study when you’re a little fucked up yourself,” she chuckled. “How about you guys?”
“Getting there,” Mike said. “Time heals as they say.”
“After all the media interest in what happened we have had a stock of offers to get the show back on the air,” Tara said.
“You should do it,” Ellie encouraged. “Your show was great, much better than that Haunted Happenings shit.”
“That’s kinda the reason we came to see you,” Tara replied. “We are a member down since events at The Old Chapel, and rumour has it that you might have a touch of the old psychic gift.”
Ellie smiled, “Turns out I have," she said. "Always had a bit of it, but after that place, it's stronger. I don't know why, just another thing it's left me with. I thought you didn’t endorse that kinda thing?”
“Times change,” Mike said with a melancholy smile. “Beliefs change, too.”
“What are you offering here?” Ellie asked, her eyes now wide with excitement.
“They want us to do a new series, not SwitchBack TV, this is Channel 4, mainstream and nine PM on a Sunday. Not just the UK, we are going to the States, too.” Mike replied. "The first episode is St Augustine Lighthouse Florida. Filming starts in April. What I’m saying is, if you want a place on the team it’s yours. I think Scotty would have wanted you to have it.”
Ellie sat in silence for a moment, looking between them both and for those few seconds Mike couldn’t read her, he was starting to think that it had been a bad idea, that maybe she wasn’t ready for it, that maybe she was still too broken from the events of the summer. After all she still couldn’t sleep in a darken room, maybe a show exploring the paranormal wasn’t the best idea and would make her worse.
“Yes,” she said excitedly.
"Are you ready for this?" Tara asked as if she'd read Mike's mind. "There is no pressure, say no if you want. It just felt right that you took the place, if you want it. We spoke to Morgan, that’s Scotty’s brother, he said the same.”
“Of course, I want it,” Ellie beamed. “What else am I going to do for the next year, sit around here sponging off my parents? And you know what they say? Kill or cure! Sitting around here is doing me no good anyway. Maybe this is just what I need to help me get my shirt in order.” And with that she leapt forward and hugged Tara so tightly she fell back into the chair, both of them giggling.
When the laughter finally stopped and Ellie, now smiling more than she probably had since the relief of escaping The Old Chapel, had taken her seat Mike said, “We can sort out the legal and contractual stuff over the next few weeks, but for now allow me to give you a warm welcome to the team.”
THE END
From the Author
Well, here we are, you made it to the end! If you want to know a little about me, and my inspiration for this book then read on.
As a writer, albeit a small time and pretty much unknown one, I still get asked the question that all writers get – Where do you get your ideas? Now I’m not blessed with a mind swimming with inspiration like some of the greats of our time. Honestly, I really don't know how they do it. However, I thought, and wanted, to take a little time to explain where my idea for The Chapel came from.
Having finished the two Watchers books, I thought I was about done with writing. It's not that I don't enjoy it, it's the time it takes. Time, I don't always have with a full-time job and a young family. The thing with writing is, it's a bit addictive. Once you know you have the commitment to write a novel, and you've had some good reviews you feel compelled to write more. So, being a glutton for punishment I soon found myself yearning to write again and this time I wanted to write horror. I was a big fan of horror novels growing up and still am now. My main literary diet to this day consists of books by the master of horror himself, Stephen King, and the beautifully written works of Dean Koontz, and of course the great British master of horror, the late James Herbert. The trouble with the horror genre, both literary and on the big screen, is that it’s been done, done, picked up, revived and fluffed up and done again. The point I’m trying to make is, it’s really hard to be original. That aside I was determined to have a go. I’m not sure how well I accomplished that, I will let you, the reader, be the judge.
I’ve always thought that the scariest horrors, the most disturbing works, are the ones that could be real. Ones that take a perfectly plausible scenario, (the vanishing of a brother and sister whilst on a family holiday), and then introduce the paranormal. I’ve tried to live by this rule for The Chapel and I hope you agree.
Now here is where my inspiration came from.
Back in the late 2000s and early 2010s, I helped to run tech for a TAPS Family paranormal investigation team, Southern Paranormal UK. Now those of you familiar with your ghost hunting shows will know The Atlantic Paranormal Society, or Ghost Hunters as the program is called. We didn’t have the pleasure of being on the big screen like the front runners of the organisation, or like Mike, Tig and Scotty in the novel, but we did investigate some pretty cool places. Many of which feature in the book. Places such as East Drive, Jamaica Inn, Leap Castle, and Moot Hall are all places I've experienced first-hand, and even the “I hear you,” EVP that introduces Scotty’s character is something I really recorded. The scenario around that chapter is actually based on a real event.
Now you’d think that as a former investigator of all things that go bump in the night, I'd have a myriad of ideas spinning through my head worthy of a novel, well you'd be wrong. Annoyingly for me, those little sparks of inspiration don't come easy, they have to be worked at, nurtured and grown. So, during my long daily commutes to work the ideas began turning over and over in my head, the cases I’d worked with the team, the things I’d experienced. One place above all the rest kept coming back to me, one location wouldn’t budge, an
d that place was The Old Chapel. Yes, it really exists, it’s real and I can honestly say that in the numerous places I’ve investigated, and the hours I’ve spent trying to find the answer to that unanswerable question, nowhere scared me like that place did.
I have applied a certain amount of artistic licence and changed the name of the village and the outer description of the place, however, it seemed kind of fitting for it to retain some of the original detail.
So, let me tell you a little about the real place that inspired this book. Back in 2010 it really was a holiday home, a converted chapel that had been beautifully transformed into a multi-bedroom let. The Southern Paranormal UK Team rented it out for a weekend, treated it as a busman's holiday you might say. A little R&R and some investigating. Obviously, the majority of this book is a work of fiction, but things such as the banging on the bathroom door of the Altar Room, as experienced by Carol Harrison in the book, really happened. So did the dryer jumping off the radiator and crashing to the floor. We had a ton of other strange goings on there that we struggled to explain. Just moments prior to the radiator dryer incident I heard on my own Sonic Ear Amplifier rig someone or something in the room with us. I heard raspy breathing as they, or it, passed me by. I can say without any embarrassment that it scared me, and when you spend your nights searching for the unexplained you don’t tend to scare easy! If you do, then you need to find another hobby.
Lastly, and before I sigh off I’d like to say a big thankyou to our friend Kim, who worked her way through this manuscript, asked the questions that needed to be asked and went to work with an HB pencil and highlighter on many of the pages.
Anyway, I’ve bored you enough and this is where I will leave you. I sincerely hope you’ve enjoyed the book, if you did please leave a review, if you didn’t then tell me why. We are nothing without a little honest feedback.
S.T Boston
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Watchers by S.T. Boston
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