by steve higgs
The old fellas were doing their best to convince him that the Mill had a genuine phantom haunting it. Even Barry was playing along.
‘Oh yes, lad.’ said Roger. One of the middle-aged chaps from his shift. ‘You mark my words. You work there long enough, and you will see it for yourself.’
Samuel had heard about the phantom plenty of times before. It was a local legend, but he put no credence to the tales he heard. It didn't seem like a good idea to voice his opinion though, so he drank his beer and smiled without comment while surreptitiously eyeing up Margaret Miller who was sitting at the bar. Margaret was the shift manager's daughter and was one hot number. She was perched on a bar stool sipping a Babycham and being chatted up by half a dozen guys simultaneously. Samuel bet she never had to buy a drink.
Just then she laughed at something Barry said, then excused herself and hopped off her stool. The rumour was that Barry was already having his way with her, but Barry had admitted that he hadn't got there yet. He clearly fancied his chances though. Samuel thought it might not be worth the risk as all the lads were under threat of sack by Mr. Miller should they so much as look at his daughter. Fortunately, Mr. Miller never mingled with the lowly workers, so would not enter the working men's club and see what was going on.
That was last Friday and now it was the end of the second week and Samuel was looking forward to another night in the bar. Barry had recently bought a Ford Cortina, so the big plan was to head up to London tomorrow night. The car wasn't much, but none of the other lads had one and all the girls wanted to go to the big town for a night out. Samuel was only too happy to be included. Barry was going to invite Margaret tonight, so Samuel had to find a date as well.
Distracted by his thoughts, he missed the accident entirely. It was noisy in the Mill so he didn't hear it either. It was only when Roger whacked him on the arm that he realised anything was amiss.
‘It's the bloody Phantom.' yelled Roger, an annoyingly pedantic man in his fifties who Samuel seemed to keep getting stuck with. ‘You stay here and manage the degassing. Otherwise, the whole casting will be scrap. Okay?'
Samuel nodded, although he did not understand what was going on. Chaps were rushing past, all heading in the same direction. This seemed like a lot of effort just to play a trick on him. He was glad though that they were finally getting it over with.
‘Are you sure you know what to do?’ asked Roger. ‘Don’t mess this up.’
‘Come on.' Shouted another man on his way past. Samuel thought the man's name was Arthur but could not be certain. He had grabbed Roger in passing and Samuel was left alone. It was the first time he had been left unsupervised. He started to feel a bit nervous. He thought he knew what to do, but he had never been allowed to touch the controls before. He watched the pressure gauge on the degassing rig. The rig supplied a mix of soluble gasses to bubble through the steel. The purpose of the process was to purge any hydrogen. Beyond that, he didn't really understand what it did. Hydrogen in the steel was bad. Apparently, his education on the subject did not need to extend beyond that.
He could hear a kerfuffle of some kind around the corner. He stayed at his station watching the pressure gauge but after a minute curiosity got the better of him, he took a couple of paces to see if he could peer around the corner. He expected to see them all hiding just out of sight, but they were not. Maybe they were not playing a joke on him after all. He glanced back at the gauge, it all seemed fine - the needle was firmly in the safe zone. He took another few paces and leaned around a steel column to see what was going on.
An entire raised walkway had collapsed!
One hundred feet away, in the middle of the mill, a steel walkway was hanging down from one end. Some of the floor plates from it had come loose and fallen to the ground thirty feet below. Men were all around the accident. Through a gap, he could see prone figures. Samuel wanted desperately to see what was happening but knew he should not leave his post. They might sack him if the cast ruined.
Then he spotted movement away from everyone else. Off to the left, high up in the rafters where the walkway had fallen from, something had moved. He looked around, no one else had seen it. He stared up, squinting. There it was again. Something black moving in a shadowed background. Light from the foundry furnace? Was it just light playing tricks? Then he saw it again, silhouetted as it moved along a walkway. It was man size and proportions, only also somehow not.
He shouted to the men clustered around the accident. If they heard him, they did not react. He shouted again, this time the loudest bellow he could muster. Still nothing. Cursing the noise-absorbing machinery of the mill, he checked the gauge once more. The gauge seemed disinclined to do anything exciting. Right next to him was a cat ladder leading upwards. Should he go?
He glanced up again just as the shadow passed overhead. He could not discern what it was, but something was moving. He grabbed a rung and started climbing.
Thirty feet up he emerged onto a steel walkway. The floor was a grid of steel that you could see through all the way back down to the ground below. It unsettled his stomach. Ahead of him, the grating stretched out in both directions until it met the mill wall and became a solid floor. He had been up here, or somewhere that looked a lot like here, last week when he got lost. Near the mill wall, the shape passed under a lamp and he got a good look at it for the first time.
It was a cloaked figure, head to foot in shabby black cloth, a cowl over its head. The shape made no noise on the steel grating. As Samuel watched, it turned the corner and vanished from view.
He ran after it. Any thought of danger had simply not occurred to him. Curiosity demanded that he discover what he was looking at. He reached the corner and found ahead of him a short corridor with a door to the left. By the door, just fading to black was a burnt handprint in the brick. Of the figure, there was no sign.
He touched the handprint and snatched his fingers away swearing. He stuck his fingers in his mouth to cool them. They were all blistered. Angry, he kicked the door open and went through.
There, down a short flight of stairs, the cloaked figure was just about to go through another door.
‘Hey!’ Samuel shouted.
The cloaked figure spun around instinctively and looked up. Light from above illuminated the inside of the hood for a brief second. Then it spun away and shot through the door. Samuel heard the door lock and knew there was no point in following.
He had seen its face.
His mind whirling, he moved on autopilot back along the corridor, along the steel walkway and back down the cat ladder, taking care not to grip the rungs with the ends of his burned fingers. He was still focused upon the face he had seen when he got to the bottom and was rudely yanked from the ladder.
‘Where the blazes have you been?’ roared Roger. ‘The whole bloody cast is ruined.’
‘What happened?' Samuel asked, dazed by all that had occurred.
‘What happened? I’ll tell you what bloody happened. You wandered off, the soluble gas pressure dropped and because you were not here to switch the rig over to the auxiliary tank the last three hours work was for nothing. You bloody idiot.’
‘No, I mean, what happened with the walkway? Was anyone hurt?’
‘It was the Phantom.' came a voice from behind him. Samuel turned. It was Arthur, or whatever his name was if it was not Arthur. ‘You mark my words, lad. This will be his work. I bet when we search there will be a fresh handprint burnt into the mill somewhere. He always leaves his mark.'
‘Was anyone hurt?’ Samuel repeated his question.
‘Aye, lad. Three lads were on the walkway when it collapsed. Colin Higgins, Denis Lawson, and Barry Dunford. They are all in pretty bad shape. Broken bones and the like. Lucky to be alive I reckon.'
‘Barry.' Samuel repeated as a murmur. He wandered away then. He needed to check something. Behind him, Roger was still shouting at him for ruining the cast and threatening hell when Mr. Miller found out.
In My Bed. Thursday, 7t
h October 0503hrs
I slowly opened my eyes as I came awake. It was early still and dark outside. I stayed where I was, warm and comfortable under the covers. I glanced across at the clock to see that it was 0503hrs. This was about the time I usually came awake. My name is Tempest Michaels. I used to be a soldier in the British Army, but I left when I felt it was time to do so and decided to set myself up as a private investigator. My first advert got misread by a copy girl at the local newspaper and I was presented to the world as a Paranormal Investigator. At the time, I was incensed but before I could do anything about it the enquiries started coming and they have not stopped yet. That was a little over six months ago now and life since has been interesting, to say the least.
I receive at least one hundred emails every day, of which probably a dozen or more are genuinely interesting enquiries for my services. In pretty much every one of those cases, the person turning to me for help has come across a problem or a situation that they either cannot explain or can only find a supernatural explanation for. Mostly, in fact, they have found an explanation and have convinced themselves, or allowed someone else to convince them that they are being haunted or that their teenage daughter has been possessed or that their dentist is a ghoul practising dark magic with the teeth they extract. My clients approach me with utter conviction, knowing in their hearts that the supernatural is completely real and I charge them money to prove how daft they are. I have worried at times that I could be considered a con man or charlatan, but it is not I that has created the ruse, I am the one exposing it.
The paranormal, supernatural world of spirits, fairies, werewolves and other wonderful and horrific creatures is pure fantasy. Knowing this means that I can approach each case looking for an explanation that makes more sense than my mother-in-law is a witch and has cursed me with impotence. The answer to that particular case was that your mother-in-law is not a witch, she is just ugly, and you have impotence because you drink too much and watch porn constantly. It took me less than two hours to investigate and solve that case and I charged him at an hourly rate because he seemed too stupid to take advantage of.
The life of a paranormal investigator is not all fun and silly games though. I have encountered some people who could definitely be classed as dangerous, including, quite recently, a serial killer pretending to be a vampire. I have sustained injuries, had my life and the lives of family members and friends threatened and genuinely thought I was going to be killed by the serial killing vampire-wannabe just a few days ago. Good timing and luck had saved me in the end.
As I lay in bed thinking idle thoughts, I sensed movement behind me on the other side of the bed. Someone was coming awake. I rolled to my left to look at the face on the pillow next to me. Deep chocolate brown eyes were looking back at me sleepily. There was real affection in those eyes.
‘Good morning.’ I said, stifling a yawn as I did so.
In return, the face leaned forward a little and licked me on the nose.
I scratched my head and yawned. The face belonged to Dozer, one of my miniature Dachshunds. His brother Bull would be somewhere close by. The pair of them usually climbed into the bed uninvited at night. In the summer, when it is warm they will sleep on top of the duvet, but in the winter, they tunnel under the covers. Is it hygienic that I allow two dogs to share my bed? Probably not, but I find it comforting and no one else has been kind enough to share it since I moved into the house, so it seemed the practice was unlikely to cause offence. I rolled out of bed and sat on the edge for a moment while I scratched my head again and argued with the lazy version of myself who thought going back to sleep was a great idea. Forcing myself, somewhat reluctantly, to get moving, I found my gym clothes and bag, left the dogs where they were and headed for a workout.
Still the favourable side of forty, I was very conscious that I was beginning to feel the years, that my testosterone levels were undoubtedly falling and that to stay in shape I was going to have to work at it.
My time in the Army had been dominated by fitness training. I had been relatively athletic, so found myself selected to participate in numerous sporting events. The training for such events had been on top of the usual fitness training that all service personnel undergo weekly and going to the gym had become a routine and very regular part of my life. Now that I was no longer in the Army and could avoid such activities if I chose to, I found that I wanted to go more than ever.
I had read many years ago that the between the age of eighteen and sixty the human body loses fifty percent of its muscle mass. It just wastes away through lack of use, which is why older persons struggle to get off the sofa. It was entirely tenable though to combat the loss by building replacement muscle. How accurate the article was I could not say, but it sounded plausible and I liked the idea of maintaining worthwhile functional muscle purely from a vanity perspective.
I probably spent between three and five hours in the gym each week and did not feel that I was overdoing it. At this early hour, the gym I frequented was mostly empty but there were some usual faces I saw quite often at this time of the day. I suppose they were mostly people that liked to get their work out done before work. I had never bothered to learn their names despite seeing them most weeks. This was born of the belief that most people want to be left alone in the gym to get on with what they are there for. Having got up early, I thought it unlikely they were there for conversation or social interaction. I offered to spot for people occasionally because it was the polite thing to do but actively avoided talking to the ladies in the gym as I so often saw sweaty guys hitting on them as they rested between sets.
A little more than an hour later I was walking back through my front door, content in the knowledge that, whatever else the day had in store for me, I had a workout under my belt. The cool autumn air had reduced my body temperature, so I was no longer sweating by the time I got home. At the sound of my return, the dogs had finally hauled themselves out of bed and were now standing at the top of the stairs staring down at me and wagging their tails.
I went halfway up, leaned and scooped them, plopped them on the ground by my feet at the bottom of the stairs and let them into the garden where they promptly disappeared to chase the neighbour’s cat. Whether the neighbour’s cat was in our garden never seemed to enter their equation.
I showered and dressed in office casual work clothes, headed back downstairs to feed the dogs and set the kettle to boil because there are few things in life as refreshing as the day’s first cup of tea.
I was hungry having been out of bed for nearly two hours and had probably burned a thousand calories already. I allowed myself a filling breakfast of pancakes made with chocolate protein powder and topped them with bananas, pecans, blueberries, natural yoghurt and maple syrup. It was a breakfast of champions.
Suitably satisfied, I clipped leads to the two dogs and took them for a pleasing walk around the village. I live in Finchampstead, which is little more than a collection of houses a few miles outside of Maidstone. It is not far from where my parents settled after dad left the Royal Navy and ticked enough of my boxes for me to justify paying the price for the country cottage I had bought. Within a two-minute walk, I could find myself in either woodland or vineyards depending on which direction I elected to head. The village had a pub, which I made a point of going to at least once a week since so many village taverns were shutting down due to lack of custom, and a village store which sold everything you could imagine. The village was very green and very quiet, and I liked living there. During my walk, I amused myself by considering my options with Amanda. Amanda was a police officer I had met just a few weeks ago. She was also a goddess that I had been instantly enamoured by.
As I walked, I found myself thinking back to Friday night. Soon after I had returned from the pub that night, there had been a knock at my door. I had wondered at the time if it might be remnants of the Brotherhood of the Dead vampire LARP club, a Live Action Role Play club for people who thought it would be fun to be a vam
pire. They had become embroiled in The Vampire serial killer case, had their clubhouse burnt to the ground and had since disbanded. I had been responsible for getting several of them arrested and incarcerated, but I dismissed the notion that it might be them at my door as it seemed unlikely that anyone coming to exact retribution would bother knocking first.
So, I had answered the door and found Amanda there smiling at me. She had on a pair of tall heels, expensive looking to my untrained eye and a long, but elegant coat undone to reveal a cocktail dress inside. She was wearing her hair up which exposed the skin of her delicate neck wonderfully. It was late on a Friday night, we had just solved a case together and stopped a serial killer, so naturally, I assumed she had come to have sex with me. Perhaps the word assumed is wrong, perhaps the term should be hoped, prayed and clung desperately to the belief that she might have come to have sex with me. Amanda Harper is beautiful. Real world beautiful if that makes sense. Her figure is graceful, yet athletic, she is tall and lithe with wonderful flowing blonde hair that I expect many women would kill for. Her teeth are perfect, she has high cheekbones and sparkling blue eyes. I had no idea why she was at my door late on a Friday night, but I was utterly infatuated by her and the alcohol inside me was making me think thoughts I might otherwise quash.
A moment ticked by and I realised I was just staring at her. A voice from just below my belt yelled, “Battle stations!” Then, thankfully, a dog barked from the kitchen just behind me and I managed to get my thoughts in order.
‘Are you going to invite me in?' she asked smiling.
‘Of course, Amanda. Come in, please.' She did, stepping lightly over the door frame and into the house. I closed the door behind her.