Tales of Horror and the Supernatural by Graeme R. Winton - HTML preview

II

Sarah answered the ringing telephone as Cal played on the front lawn; she had kept him off the school until she attended a meeting with the school board.

“Yeah, hullo?”

“Sarah, it's Jean from down the road, could you help me with the twins? I have to get them ready for the playschool, and I’m running late?”

“Sure, I’ll be there in a minute.”

Sarah locked the front door and asked Cal to come with her.

“I don’t want to come Mum. I’m happy playing here,” he replied.

Well, it’s okay, she thought , it was just along the road after all.

After she had gone Cal set his ‘Action Man’ figure down next to the transformer which had flown into the grass, as a shadow crept over the lawn. He gazed up at the figure of a man silhouetted in the glare from the sun. “Dad! Is that you?” he said.

“Aye son,” said the figure.

Cal stood up and hugged the figure. “I’m glad you’re back Dad!”

“Come on, I’ll take you along to McDonalds for a burger.”

“Okay Dad, but what about Mum?”

“She said it would be okay.”

They entered a grey Ford and drove away. And after a few miles Cal turned to the man with a troubled look on his face. “This isn’t the way to McDonalds!”

The daydream lifted and Cal realised that the man wasn’t his father. “Stop the car!”

He shouted.

“It’s okay we’re just going for a wee run,” said the man switching on the central locking.

“I want my mum!” Cal shouted as they headed out of town.

The man who was wearing ill-fitting clothes switched on some loud music and took a back road, which led to the sea.

Sarah was just leaving her neighbours as another neighbour shouted that she saw Cal entering a grey car with somebody. She ran into the front garden to find his toys lying on the grass. “Oh my God!” she shouted and thought: hadn’t there been a warning about a paedophile in the area. “How could I have been so stupid!” she screamed as she ran into the house and telephoned the police. She then grabbed her car keys and swore that no weirdo would harm her son.

The grey Ford pulled into a lay-by, and the man released his seat belt, opened the driver’s door and jumped out of the car. He looked both ways, and with no one coming he opened the passenger’s door and, after releasing Cal’s seat belt, he hauled the boy out. He then led him down a tree-lined path where nettles and other weeds swung their heads in the wind.

“I want my mum!” Cal cried as tears flowed down his cheeks.

The man dragged him in behind an overturned tree and threw him to the ground. He landed on his hands and knees with head bowed.

“Your mum can’t help you now,” hissed the paedophile.

“No, but I can,” growled an unworldly voice as Cal raised his head.

“Aargh!” howled the man as he jumped back from the sight of Cal’s white eyes and the saliva, which dripped from his mouth. He then turned and tried to run back along the path, but found his way blocked by an invisible force. He ran in the opposite direction until he came to a cliff top below which waves crashed onto seaweed-clad

rocks. He gazed down for a while as if pondering whether to jump before turning to see Cal walking toward him. Suddenly he rose into the air and turned upside down to gaze helplessly at the sea. An odour of excrement wafted through the air as a brown liquid exploded through the rear of the man’s trousers and fell away into the sea.

Cal looked at the creature as if he was examining a painting and was about to let him drop when he heard his name carried in the wind.

“Cal!” Sarah shouted as she ran towards the cliff edge, “Don’t do it son, I know he deserves it, but… just don’t do it!”

She let out a whimper as she caught sight of Cal’s appearance. “What’s happened to you son?”

“Why do you want this thing saved? He was about to violate the body of your son!”

Cal hissed.

“I was brought up a Christian; we value life—all life!”

Cal turned and looked at the paedophile then fell on to his hands and knees. Sarah rushed forward and caught the man’s ankles as he dropped. She fell to the ground as the man crashed onto the cliff face. “Cal, give me a hand!” Sarah screamed.

“Mum?” he said groggily. He then grabbed the man’s legs, and they both pulled him onto the grassy cliff top. The paedophile then stood up, staggered, and then ran back along the path toward his car.

Sarah hugged Cal “There’s something I should have told you: Your dad won’t be coming back - he was killed in Afghanistan.”

“I know Mum, but it was nice pretending he would come home.”

Sarah cried and gave him another hug before helping him to his feet. “Come on let’s go home.”

A few days later two men in grey suits knocked at Sarah’s door and announced that they were from the social services and that due to a complaint from the school and one from a member of the public they were to take Cal away for psychic evaluation.

Sarah looked past them and saw a police car sitting at her gate.

“Wherever Cal goes, I go too,” she said with rising anger.

“Very well,” said one of the men.

That night the paedophile switched out the main light in his bedroom and slipped into his bed accompanied by the blue glow of a nightlight which sat on a bedside unit.

As he drifted off to sleep, he was awoken by a crash from within the room. He sat up and gazed into the gloom. His big wardrobe had fallen over and blocked the door. He jumped up and ran over to lift it back into position, but found it to be unusually heavy.

He then smelled burning and turned to see his bed sheets burst into flames. The fire spread quickly to the carpet and up the walls. The man ran to the window and tried to open the lower frame, but it was unmovable. He then went to pick up his beside unit–

meaning to throw it through the window. But a ball of flames engulfed him and he ran wildly around the smoke-filled room screaming with his hair on fire before collapsing and suffocating.

The neighbours, awoken by the screams, rushed to their windows, and then realising where the noise came from, drew their curtains and went back to their beds.

RUTH

“Ruth will be a nice girl today,” said the tall, thin woman with crazy hair as she descended the stairs. She was dressed in an ill-fitting, grey cardigan under which was a purple blouse; her trousers were brown and well worn. Relief descended over the helper at Ruth’s side, a young, well-made girl with short, brown hair called Cath, when she heard the words.

“Ruth’s hungry today,” said Ruth as the pair reached the bottom of the stairs.

“Come on then Ruth let’s get you some breakfast,” said Cath.

Breakfast, any meal, in the dining-room at Turndale Nursing Home was a noisy affair. Ruth, however, sat in a small adjoining room along the passageway where there was one table and one seat. She suffered from Multiple Personality Syndrome and was kept away from the other ‘guests’ at meal times due to past trouble.

After finishing a bowl of porridge, she was given a plate of buttered toast and a mug of tea by a carer who then went off to help in the dining room.

“Can I have more toast?” Ruth asked, after a while, in her soft voice.

A few moments later when no toast was forthcoming, a harsh voice cut through the din from the dining-room: “I want more fucking toast!”

“Okay Ruth,” said Cath as she popped her head into the room.

“Hurry up, Betty’s hungry!” Ruth hissed.

When breakfast was over Ruth went out onto the patio at the rear of the building.

The trees in the garden were in full blossom and looked like large sticks of pink candyfloss. Every time a gust of wind swept in from the nearby sea there was a pink snowstorm.

A young man dressed in blue jeans and a red checked shirt sat on a wooden bench and stared at the garden. Ruth walked past him and stood at the wooden fence and watched as the wind released more blossoms from the trees.

“Hullo,” said the man in a distinct nasal tone.

“Hullo,” replied Ruth.

“What’s your name?”

She turned to face him. He had partial Downs Syndrome features. “My name's Ruth. What’s yours?”

“Ben.”

She sat down beside him. “The pink blossom - it’s pretty!”

“Yes, I like it.”

“I like pretty things.”

Silence descended over them broken only by the coo of a dove. The blossom remained on the trees.

“I haven’t seen you before?” said Ruth after a while.

“I was brought here last night, and I don’t know anyone.”

“You know me now! “She said as she stood. “Would you like to come for a walk?”

“Is it okay?”

“We’re allowed around the back garden, but not the front.”

They walked and chatted for an hour before being called back in to prepare for lunch. Betty never intruded! And for the next few days the pair walked and talked, which amazed the staff for Ruth had never interacted with any of the other 'guests'.

The area psychologist, Doctor Ann Richmond, was pleased with her initiative, which was to take individuals from one home and place them in another and see how they reacted to their new surroundings. The results had been encouraging with the

individuals benefiting from the change, and sometimes the ‘guests’ in the recipient homes also benefited from someone new in their presence.

Ruth was just another face in the system. Diagnosed as schizophrenic at an early age her mother, being unwilling to cope, had abandoned her to the social services. There had been reports of abuse at a young age due to her mother having had some unscrupulous partner, but those were unsubstantiated The Multiple Personality Syndrome had been diagnosed finally when she was eighteen. Then, after going from a mental hospital to various homes, she ended up at Turndale, where she has been for the last eighteen years.

One morning, after breakfast, Ruth found the rear doors unlocked; so she headed out onto the patio. A haze, which had rolled in from the sea softened the sun's rays. The bench where Ben usually sat was empty; so she sat down and waited.

After an hour Cath appeared next to her. “Are you okay Ruth?”

“Where’s Ben?”

“Ben's gone back to the home he came from honey.”

“Oh,” said Ruth as she got up and then headed back inside without another word.

Lunchtime came with the usual sound of loud voices; plates being scraped and chairs being hauled across the linoleum covered floor.

“Where’s Ruth?” The nurse who was administering pills from a trolley asked.

“I don’t know I haven’t seen her since she was out on the patio earlier,” said Cath as she ran a hand over her hair. “I’ll nip up and see if she’s in her room.”

The faded white door on the upper floor had a brass number eight under a photograph of Ruth.

“Ruth!” Cath shouted as she knocked on the door. When there was no reply, she tried the handle; the door was unlocked, so she pushed it open—slowly!

“Oh my God!” she cried as she ran and pressed the emergency button.

Ruth lay face up on her bed with arms splayed and palms open upwards. There were deep slashes on each wrist and red disks had formed on the duvet under her hands where blood was seeping into the fabric. A razor blade lay on the floor beside a bedside unit with blood on one edge.

“Fuck off! Betty wants to be left alone!” Ruth shouted in a deep, but faltering voice.

A male carer came running in with a green first aid box followed closely by the nurse. They pulled on disposable gloves and then the nurse opened the box and took out pads and tape. “Call an ambulance!” the nurse shouted to the Cath. “Hold her Tom,” she then said as she applied pads to the wounds and wrapped tape around the wrists. She then raised Ruth’s arms. “Here, hold the left arm and press on the pad,”

the nurse said, presenting the man with one of Ruth’s arms. “So much for Richmond’s initiative!”

The hospital ward was in semi-darkness as the nurse walked along the polished aisle between the ends of the beds on her rounds. The regular bleep of monitoring equipment accompanied the sound of patients sleeping. She was about to leave when a soft voice from an end bed, where a patient with crazy hair lay, said: “Can I come home now Mummy?”

A NECESSARY EVIL

I guess I’ve always been a pushover being so quiet and shy. Bigger boys bullied me at school. They picked on me because I was a well-dressed plump boy who wouldn’t stand up for himself. The more I didn’t stand up to them the worse the bullying became.

I hated it of course and used to dream of bad things happening to the bullies: one drowning in a river, another falling off a cliff. The worse the bullying the more intense the dreams I had of death to these people.

When I left school and started work I was still shy, but at least there was no bullying, not of the school type, anyway. The bullying in the workplace was more subtle, but essentially the same: if you didn’t stand up for yourself it intensified.

After many years of waking in the middle of the night with the bullies laughing at me, I managed to put the thoughts of bullying out of my mind and settled down to something of a normal life.

One night I took a new girlfriend, Helen, out for a drink. All was going well as we strolled up Arbroath’s West Port on a warm, autumn night. I seemed to impress her with my tales of pranks at work as tears of laughter rolled down her perfectly formed small cheeks.

We entered the West Port Bar, and I nodded to the two doormen dressed in black.

They ogled Helen and then went on talking to a group around the door area. I froze when a voice from the past shouted: “Hey Robertson, you still that spineless little shit?”

I turned and watched in horror as Jake Connors, the main bully from my past, stepped out from behind the two bouncers.

Helen tugged on my sleeve, “come on Ross!”

I shook my head as I entered the place and found a seat for Helen then headed to the bar. I ordered two drinks as the band on the stage beside a large window launched into ‘Rock ‘N’ Roll Damnation’.

After I grabbed the drinks, I sat next to Helen. “Sorry about that Helen—someone from my past I'm afraid!”

“Let’s not let it spoil our night,” she said giving me a kiss on the cheek.

But, as I took a sip from my pint, I watched as a figure strode through the crowd at the bar and then stood in front of our table. The horror of the school years flooded back into my thoughts as the menacing Connors, now with shaven head, looked down on me.

“Right Robertson, you and me outside - now!”

I saw something change in his eyes as I stood up, but he laughed as I sat down again. He poured the rest of my pint glass over my trousers before departing back to the bar.

“Come on, let’s go!” Helen said as she put her bag over her shoulder.

Later that night as I watched Helen walk away, I had reached a new low in my life and swore that I would never again allow that to happen. I had to rid the menace of the bullying from my mind and the bullies from my reality.

Unable to sleep I gazed up at the ceiling of my bedroom and remembered, as a youth, reading books on the occult by Dennis Wheatley where he stated that he would not willingly enter any ceremony. But perhaps the power from such things could be controlled and used as desired.

After work the next evening I rushed home and had some food before reading a book on the occult I had borrowed from the library. I read the chapter on invocation and

then pulled the curtain, put out the light and lit a candle on a saucer in the middle of the floor of my small living room and prepared myself.

I closed my eyes and cleared my mind, which was difficult at first, but after a while I saw the candle in my mind. Concentrating for what seemed like an eternity, I chanted the name Belianth-an angel of retribution. I didn’t want to deal with demons I thought it better to contact an angel even if he/she was far removed from God. I didn’t know where angels crossed into demons.

Out of the invocation after about forty minutes with nothing more than a slight headache I blew out the candle. Then switched the light on, grabbed the book and looked at it with doubt then dropped it on the floor.

I strolled across an open meadow in bright sunlight and marvelled at the wild flowers, all of which were in bloom. There was a smell of lavender in the air even though I couldn’t see any in the field.

A figure of a man walked toward me from out of the glare of the sun. When he came closer, I realised it was a friend from school whom I hadn’t seen for years. I struggled to say something, but nothing came out. Suddenly his eyes opened unnaturally wide, and he said: “Why do you want to contact me?”

I staggered back realising who I was dealing with and that I was dreaming. I tried to awaken, but couldn’t. The figure came closer and said again: “Why do you want to contact me?”

“Because I have need of your service.” I said in a faltering voice.

“You realise that if I do help you, I will need something in return.”

With a sinking heart I asked: “What?”

“Ah, but you already know,” he said with a cruel laugh. “I want your soul. I will rip out the good part of your soul and it will be mine every night!”

“No!” I shouted. “No….”

His eyes became red, and he came even closer; still outwardly my friend, but I could sense the inner menace. “Think of what I could do for you. Why live in fear of mortals when you could live like a king!” I was about to discard this when Jake Connors' sneering face entered my mind and I agreed.

I woke up the next morning and couldn’t remember anything of the dream I had the previous night, but that was nothing new as I couldn’t remember many of my dreams.

I showered and dressed then sat with a cup of coffee as I read the newspaper. Leaving for work I felt… different!

That night, as the dark crept over the town, I felt energy levels in my body rise and bloodlust course through my mind. I could hear the pathetic ramblings of individuals in neighbouring flats and houses. The light of the room hurt my eyes, so I extinguished it and saw what looked like to two red-hot coals reflected in the mirror above the mantelpiece. I laughed realising the red orbs were my eyes. I glanced at the digital clock read out - it was after eleven pm—time to go. I grabbed my long black coat and headed out into the night.

A mist had drifted in from the sea, and an eerie orange glow encircled the street lights. I walked along the High Street keeping to the shadows as I passed people who were leaving well-lit bars. The street ended by the dark mass that was the North Sea; I turned right along Old Shore Head, which had a river on one side, and waited in a passage just past The Caledonian Bar.

A foghorn sounded as laughter exploded from the opening of the pub door and then footsteps came toward me. I knew who was coming! Stepping out behind, after he had past, I put one hand over Connors' mouth and wrapped my other arm around his chest

and pulled him into the passage. His struggling turned to paralysis as he twisted his head round to gaze in horror at my crimson eyes.

I stuck a hand between his legs, ripped his jeans, and then twisted off his genitalia and dangled them in front of his eyes. I then pushed my head close to one of his ears and growled: “This was what you wanted Jake wasn’t it? You and me outside!”

He squealed as I watched tears roll down his creased face before I snapped his neck like a twig. I then lugged his corpse over the road and dropped it into the river. Then I disappeared into the swirling mist as the foghorn blew another sombre note.

The next morning I woke up on my settee with a headache. I couldn’t remember where I had been the night before until I found my black coat lying in the hallway spattered with blood. Then the full horror of what I did thundered into my mind and I ran into the toilet and vomited.

What had I done? I asked myself as I sat at the kitchen table and stared out at a sky where ragged clouds were being pushed along by a strong wind. Maybe it will just be for one night, I thought—hopefully. I carried on as if nothing had happened. But I had taken a life. All I had wanted to do was frighten the guy!

I stood up and took off my clothes from the previous evening and threw them into the washing machine then I got ready for work. I left the house willing myself to forget what I had done; or what the angel had done.

At lunchtime the phone on my desk rang.

“Yeah, hullo?”

“Ross, it's Helen.”

“Hi. How are you doing?”

“I’m fine. Have you heard about the body that was found in the river?”

“No.”

“Ross, the word is that it’s Jake Connors. You know? That guy that bothered us the other night. There will be a formal identification later I expect.”

“Oh,” I said, trying to feign indifference.

I watched as the last of the team left the sports pavilion in the park and the lights extinguished. Another football training night had come to a close. After a while a lone figure appeared and locked the double doors then strode through the dark park toward the street lights in the distance.

I felt myself rise into the air from behind a tree and land in front of Dave Thomas a muscled sportsman at the school who bullied me because I couldn’t kick a ball. He jumped back and trembled.

“Jesus! What’s this?”

“Hi Dave. I’ve come for you.” I said in the unworldly voice of the angel as I rose into the air. “Oh, and I’ve learned to kick,” I continued as I kicked his head clean off his shoulders, which then flew and hit the doors of the pavilion with a dull thump. His headless body then wavered and fell backwards with blood spurting from the carotid arteries.

The next day with the talk of a serial killer loose in town I handed myself into the police. I was eventually tried and convicted of the murders and sentenced to life imprisonment.

I just hoped no one bullied me in jail!

BLACK VICARAGE

Miriam’s mother, Jo, a part-time solicitor in the nearby town of Barton, turned to her thirteen-year-old daughter, and said: “Why don’t you like it here Mim—it’s peaceful and beautiful?”

The white blossom played with the gentle breeze before settling in a white circle at the base of the cherry tree, which enjoyed a central position on the manicured lawn at the rear of the former vicarage. The Bank Holiday Monday was sunny and warm.

White, puffy cumuli floated lazily by as Miriam and her mother sat on deck chairs with a small table between them, which had two empty glasses on it.

“I’ve told you before mother it’s a sorrowful place and there’s…”

“Don’t start that again!” Jo interrupted. “Your father and I have worked hard to buy a place like this.”

“Yeah, that’s why you and Dad are never here.”

“Well, that’s the way it is young lady you have to work hard for what you want.”

Miriam watched a blackbird run across the lawn. “When I grow up I’m not going to treat my kids like this.”

“We’ll see,” said Jo.

Miriam ran along a golden beach beside a deep, blue sea and laughed as she kicked a multi-coloured ball. The sunlight danced on the little waves as she then fell onto the warm sand.

“Help me!” shouted someone in the distance.

She turned and shielded her eyes from the glare of the sun with a hand and looked out to sea, but could see no one. She turned and looked along the beach, but again there was no one. In fact, it had never occurred to her before, but she was alone on the beach.

“Help me!” shouted the faint voice again.

She opened her eyes and gazed around her darkened bedroom “It was only a dream,” she told herself with the relief she would not have to save someone.

“Help me!” shouted the voice, which came through her opened window. She sat up and stared at the window as the curtains waved in the night breeze. The voice had a frail quality she had never noticed in her dream also there was something else: yes…

there was sadness, she thought.

Miriam pulled on her housecoat and left her bedroom. She crept along the upper hallway of the sleeping house and then descended the stairs, one step at a time, while keeping a firm hold of the cold banister. The lounge was still warm from when her parents had been sitting watching television. She passed a coffee table with two mugs and empty chocolate biscuit wrappers upon it. Miriam then pulled back a pair of white curtains to reveal large French windows painted white to match the woodwork in the rest of the room. Turning the key, she released the bolt at the bottom of the windows and opened one side. A cool air rushed into the room as she stepped onto the old, paved patio and gazed at the pale moonlight as it caressed the slate roof of the derelict church next-door.

“Help me!” the voice shouted from somewhere deep in the darkened garden.

She could feel the dampness of the grass through her slippers as she passed the cherry tree and headed toward the large hedge which divided the garden in two.

Stopping to gaze at the black, Gothic shape of the hole cut in the hedge to allow passage she felt the sadness of the place.

“Miriam, go through the hedge. I’m on the other side,” said the voice, which was now in her head and was different: more confident, still as pleading, but stronger.

She stepped toward the hedge, but again stopped.

“Come on Miriam. I need your help,” the voice said, but now it was not only in her head it came from the plants; it came from the grass; it came from the soil.

“Enter the hedge!”

She was about to take a step forward when a hand grabbed her shoulder from behind.

“Aargh!” she screamed.

“Mim, what are you doing out here?” Bill, her father, asked.

“Dad,” she said softly with tears in her eyes as she fell into his arms. “I heard the voice again.”

“Come on, let’s get you back into the house.”

“She’s hearing that voice again Jo, we'll need to do something about it,” said Bill as he re-entered his bed after he saw Miriam back to sleep.

“Yeah, she was about to talk about it today. I didn’t want to hear it.”

“Gives me the creeps!”

“Yeah, me too. I’ll look into it tomorrow.”

The next day, with her husband at work and Miriam off to school, Jo sat at her desk with a large mug of coffee. The solicitor’s practice didn’t need her until the next day, so she used the time to sort out Miriam’s problem.

She had given Miriam the benefit of the doubt and not phoned for an appointment with the doctor. She looked through the archives of the local weekly paper, the Barton Sketch, and the internet. After a tedious twenty minutes she came across an article from 1970 entitled ‘Church Closes after Vicar Disappears.’

Rev. Donald Crighton was reported missing by his house keeper on Thursday the 12th of May and, after an extensive search over two days by the local constabulary, no sign of the man was found. With an uncertain future the church closed.

The aroma of spaghetti bolognaise wafted around the hallway as Bill Black let himself in through the front door.

“Hello?”

Jo appeared from the kitchen and kissed him.

“Welcome home dear.”

“Where’s Mim?”

“She’s in her room doing her homework.”

They walked into the kitchen and Bill looked into the bubbling bolognaise pot.

“Smell's good.”

“I found out something interesting today.” And Jo told him of what she had discovered on the computer.

“Yes well. I stopped for a pint at the Feathers, and an old guy told me that there were rumours that the last vicar to serve the parish was taken by fairies supposed to be in the garden here; what a lot of rubbish, eh?”

Later that evening Bill yawned and looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. Half-past twelve; time for bed, he thought as he finished his whisky and rose from the settee while turning the television off by remote control.

After climbing the stairs, he pushed Miriam’s bedroom door open and peered into the dark. To his astonishment her bed was empty. He rushed to the window and gazed down on the garden, but it too was empty. Bill tried the bathroom door hoping it would be locked, but it opened on to a darkened room. He then looked in on his wife and was about to awaken her, but left her for the moment. He then dashed to the stairwell and descended the steps three at a time. In the hallway he snapped the light

on then, pulling on his jacket, he went to unlock the front door, but found it slightly open.

Outside, in the damp night air, he looked along both sides of the house, and then remembering where he found her the other night, rushed into the garden and ran through the hole in the hedge and stopped. The dark shapes of bushes and shrubs in the lower garden sent a shiver up his spine, but it too was empty.

He headed back up the garden toward the house contemplating phoning the police when he heard a noise from over the wall. There was someone in the old church!

Small pockets of mist roamed the ancient graveyard as Bill walked up the weed infested path toward the entrance. He pushed open the heavy, wooden outer door and entered the vestibule. The bang of the door closing made him jump. A musty smell filled his nostrils as he opened the swing doors and entered the nave. Pigeons flapped around the rafters, which held up a roof where stars could be seen through large holes.

The atmosphere depressed him as he walked over creaking wooden floor boards toward the first line of dusty pews. He saw a ghostly figure through the gloom standing by the dilapidated altar. He moved closer as he realised it was his daughter.

He cried out, “Miriam, what are you doing?”

She turned and stared at him with totally white eyes “Stay where you are,” she said in a deep, rasping voice.”

Bill stepped back. “But…”

“I have come to regain what was mine.”

Slowly, realization dawned on him: the priest Jo had spoken of possessed his daughter. “You… you leave my daughter alone you hear—go back to your fairies!”

“Go back to my fairies!” she thundered. “Do you think I went to them willingly?

They're the devil’s spawn; I went to the aid of someone asking for help and was captured and held prisoner in a limbo world—between everything and nothing.”

There was a rattling at the dirty stained-glass windows.

“They’re here!” shouted Miriam. “They’re here for me.”

There was thumping at the front door.

“This is hallowed ground they can’t enter,” said Miriam

“What do you hope to achieve?” Bill asked as he nervously looked about.

“I must pray and this is the only way I can do it, here in this child’s body, in my church away from these accursed things.”

“Why Miriam?”

“Because she was in tune with what happened!”

A knock rather than a thump on the front door took Bill’s attention.

“Bill, Miriam, are you in there?”

“Jo!” Bill shouted as he made his way toward the vestibule to meet his wife.

As she entered, he explained what had happened and then, as he turned back toward the altar, she picked up a broken part of a pew and, with eyes turning white, she struck him over the head.

When he came too, Bill jumped up and, while placing a hand on the gash on the side of his head and staggering backwards, gazed in horror at Miriam lying motionless on the altar and Jo about to drive a metal cross into her.

He ran down the aisle and threw himself at Jo knocking her and the cross over the back of the altar. He then gently raised Miriam’s head and hugged her.

“I must go from here. I have made a mistake,” she said, coming out of a trance.

As they headed toward the front door Jo flew over the altar and landed behind them with the cross raised above her head.

Miriam turned and held up a hand. “By the grace of God leave this woman’s body–

now!”

As Jo slumped to the floor Miriam ran out of the church. Bill then helped his wife up and out into the night.

Miriam felt herself being drawn to the hedge in the garden. A shaft of light flowed out of her eyes and then she fell to her knees with her eyes closed. When she opened them again, there was another shaft of light shimmering in front of her.

“I‘m sorry for what I’ve done,” said the Rev. Donald Crighton, “but I realize now I must stay with them for eternity. They exert a control over me, but I also exert a control over them, and stop them from picking another victim.”

“You could try again, maybe they wouldn’t be able to find another victim,” said Miriam.

“No, look what happened. I nearly destroyed a young family. Farewell all will be well if I stay with them.”

Bill and Jo hugged their daughter.

“Oh Mum, Dad, he seems so lonely; so sad.”

“Sometimes Miriam, that’s just the way it has to be,” said Jo.

“Come on you two—back to bed,” said Bill turning them toward the house while casting a wary glance toward the hedge.

BLAKE HOUSE

The granite turrets peeked over the fir trees as the grey Range Rover carrying David and his parents wound its way up Glen Coy on a warm, late summer day.

“There it is!” David shouted, pointing toward the house partially hidden behind the trees as a shiver passed through his body.

“Yes,” said his father, George, a man with a thin face and wispy, brown hair.

They had driven up to Scotland from their Hampshire home the previous day and after a night in a hotel beside Stirling were eager to view the house left to George from an aunt who had never stayed there, preferring instead her large home in Edinburgh’s affluent Morningside.

“Wow! It’s bigger than it looks on the internet,” said David’s mother, Margaret, a small woman with short, red hair as they drove up the dusty dirt track, which led to the rear of the house.

David released himself from the seat belt and ran up to the back gate after they had stopped at the top of the track. He tried the handle, and the gates opened revealing a well-kept courtyard. His mother and father followed him in and peered in windows, which looked as if they hadn’t been opened in many years.

They left the courtyard and walked around the front of the building, which glistened in the sun. Most of the windows had the internal shutters closed so a glimpse of the interior was impossible.

“Look at the front garden—isn’t it great,” said Margaret.

“Well kept,” admitted George.

“There’s someone coming,” said David as he pointed toward a white Ford van speeding up the track with a plume of dust behind it.

They left the front garden and stood by the rear gates as the van came to a halt next to their Range Rover. A man with a ruddy complexion and dark, brown eyes jumped out of the vehicle and announced himself as John the gardener in a deep Scottish brogue.

He led them through the courtyard and, after opening a heavy, green door, through the extensive but dilapidated kitchen.

“If you’re going to live here, you’ll be the first in sixty odd years. I’ve never known anyone in here. I look after the grounds for the solicitors in town,” said the gardener as he disappeared into the gloom of a long dusty hallway.

David stopped and stared up the stairway and felt goose pimples across his body; so, he ran after the others into a large lounge where stuffed stags heads and paintings of men in kilts lined the walls.

“We intend to move here and perhaps revamp the place and make a few structural changes.” Margaret was saying as she paced around the dimly lit room.

“Sounds fine, but… never mind. I expect the solicitor will be up to see you soon.”

After John the gardener left David crept up the stairs under the watchful eyes of grim looking people in old paintings. The floorboards creaked as he looked in room after room searching for a bedroom to call his own. His parents, who were opening window shutters downstairs, had told him to pick a room.

He chose one at the end of the hallway which had a view of a distant loch glistening in the afternoon sun. The bed was an old-fashioned metal frame type with dirty sheets covering a blue and white striped mattress. A teddy bear with a red bowtie sat on a faded white rocking chair in one corner and a tallboy sat in another.

He rocked the chair and then sat on the bed and stared out of the window.

“David?” His mother’s voice drifted up the stairs and along the upper hallway.

“Up here Mum,” he answered.

After a few moments Margaret poked her head into the room.

“We’re having something to eat—are you coming?”

“Can I have this room?”

“I don’t see why not. Come on let's go downstairs,” she said as she headed back along the upper hallway.

David stood up and walked toward the door, but stopped and looked around sure he had heard a giggle. He ran to the window and looked out onto the front garden, but there was no one there. Must have been the wind or something he assured himself.

That night after persuading his mother to put fresh sheets and a duvet on the old bed in his room David fell asleep with moonlight shining through the gap he had purposefully left between the shutters.

He dreamt of sitting on one side of an old seesaw with his mother on the other. He rose and then went down to the creaking sound of the counter-balanced toy. His mother shrieked with joy as he giggled.

David woke up with the sound of the seesaw still ringing in his ears and peered into the darkness amazed that he could still hear the creaking sound. Then he saw it. The old rocking chair was moving back and forward. He jumped up and gazed in fear at the moving chair. There was no one else in the room. He ran toward the door. David wanted his mother. Then he stopped. He was eleven; a man of his age didn’t need his mother. A giggle and then the abrupt stopping of the rocking chair followed by the sound of footsteps made him finally run out of the room with the hairs on his back standing to attention.

After a moment he looked back in the room—there was no movement and no sound. He crept back in and jumped into his bed then pulled the duvet over his head and didn’t sleep again the rest of the night.

“I think this place is haunted Dad,” said David the next morning as they sat on camping seats in the lounge having a makeshift breakfast.

“Now, don’t start that Davey these old houses creak and groan in the wind,”

“Yes, but…”

“That’s enough don’t scare your mother. Lord knows it took a bit of persuading to get her to come up here.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“What’s on today gentlemen?” Margaret said as she breezed into the room with some coffee.

“Let’s make a start to getting this place up and running,” said George.

“Okay.”

After breakfast David looked around the wing of the house that used to be the servant’s quarters. The rooms were even dustier than the main rooms and there were no curtains or carpets. He was about to leave the last bedroom upstairs when he saw an old book under the bed. He picked it up, blew the dust off and opened it. The book was a diary and belonged to Lesley Macmillan the House Keeper. He flicked through the yellowing pages until he came to the last entry dated 12th of April 1947 which read: I can’t stand this anymore; this is my last day. Madam screams and shouts through the night. The poor soul has turned completely mad, she even speaks to her children.

A strange thing to say, thought David, why wouldn’t she speak to her children? He then flicked back a few pages until he found a page with writing written by what appeared to be a shaky hand dated 26th of November 1946: Oh Lord! Sir has been

found up on the hills dead. He has shot himself - blames himself for the disappearance of the children.

“Davey, where are you?” shouted George from downstairs.

“Just coming Dad,” he shouted stuffing the diary under his jumper.

The creak of the rocking chair again woke David that night, so he swung his legs out from under his duvet and sat facing the moving chair. “I know who you are,” he said almost nonchalantly.

A boy’s ghostly figure appeared on the chair dressed in a grey shirt and a blue tie with grey shorts.

“You must be Charles or Brian,” said David as he realised the boy was dressed in an old-fashioned school uniform.

“I’m Charles Blake, said the ghost. “How did you know?

David held up the house keeper’s diary.

Charles looked at it curiously, “What is it?”

“It’s your house keeper’s diary.”

“Ah!” said Charles and giggled.

“Why did you, your brother and sister, Helen, disappear?”

Charles looked down at his feet as if they would supply the answer. “My father played poker with a bad man and lost. He wanted to bet the house, but the man refused and wanted us instead. We have been in this limbo-world ever since and want to be free.”

Charles faded. “I can’t hold this form long. Please don’t harm the house; it reminds us of the way we used to be. Others have tried…”

David heard footsteps and then all was quiet.

“Dad, don’t do anything to the house,” said David the next day to his father as they were clearing out a bedroom.

“What do you mean son?”

“I mean, don’t hurt the house.”

“Hurt the house!” George said with a snort of laughter.

“I’ve met a former occupant of the house—well he’s still here really –and he wants nothing to happen to the house. He said others have tried.”

“Now Davey, I’ve told you about this nonsense.”

“Oh, don’t Dad - please?”

“I’m not taking orders from some ghost, or more than likely some figment of your imagination,” said George as he rolled up an old rug.

A week later, and George was sitting at the kitchen table with a steaming mug of coffee in front of him while Margaret was washing dishes. “I can’t believe the people around here. The solicitor in town says the reason the local builders won’t come here is because of some curse: two workmen were accidentally killed, one after the other, when they started work on the building.”

“Maybe we should scrap our plans. I mean do we need to take away that wall at the top of the stairs and make that room open plan?”

“We’ll be scrapping nothing!”

George took a sip from his mug and watched the sunlight recede over the far hillside out of a partly steamed up window. “I’ve had to go to Dundee to see about getting the work done; two surveyors from different companies are coming up.

David watched from his bedroom window as the blue truck made its way up the track to the rear of the house. He then ran to the back door where his father stood with the

surveyor of the favoured building company as the vehicle pulled up and two burly men leapt out of either side of the cab.

“Jim,” said the older of the two as he nodded to the surveyor.

“This is Mr Harris - Gordon,” said the surveyor pointing towards George, “Come on I’ll show you where to start; I have the plans,” he continued.

David watched from his bedroom window as the ambulance came screaming up the dirt track. He had been helping his mother in the garden when they heard the crash.

He knew what had happened. They had rushed into the house to find the two men tangled in scaffolding at the bottom of the stairs. George was desperately clearing debris out of the way to get to the men.

The older man was pronounced dead on the scene while the other man was taken, unconscious, to Ninewells Hospital in Dundee. The police and health and safety people were in the house for days.

After they left David’s father sat in the darkened lounge with his head in his hands until he looked up at David and said, “tell me about the ghost.”

“There are three. They are children. Their father played poker with the Devil and gambled with their lives. He lost, and the kids were trapped in a limbo-world.

“Okay let’s say I believe you. I think I know someone who can help.”

Thomas Schaller looked around the room. He was a tall man with fair hair swept back from a large forehead dressed in a black suit with a light blue shirt open at the neck.

“This will be fine,” he said with a slight German accent. “Are you sure about this George?”

George looked at David and Margaret, and said: “Yes, let’s do it!”

They closed the shutters and Thomas laid out a red velvet sheet with the symbol of David in black and lit several candles. Margaret grabbed his arm. “You know what you're doing? I want my husband unharmed.”

“Yes, I know what I am doing. I am called a medium in the west and a shaman in many eastern and primitive cultures.” He held Margaret’s hand with both of his, and said: “Fear not, I will look after George, but you and David must stay in this room.

There will be some strange things, but remain strong and all will be fine.”

Thomas asked them to sit around the table. He then asked George to close his eyes before he closed his and hummed. He then placed his hands, palms down, on the table.

David grasped his mother’s hand as his father sighed and his eyelids flickered. She placed her other hand over his and gave him a reassuring look through the gloom.

A thump made the two of them jump. Then they heard a scraping sound and realised something behind them was moving across the floor.

“Keep looking at me David,” said Margaret.

“I’m frightened Mum.”

“I know, so am I, but we’re going to get through this.

The humming from Thomas increased as George sighed again. Then someone knocked on the door. “David, it’s me, it’s Charles. Come out and play,” said a faint voice. David rose, but his mother pulled him back onto his seat. “What are you doing?” she hissed.

“That’s Charles at the door,” whined David.

“It’s not. You mustn’t open the door.”

Then the knock came again and David gripped his mother’s hand with greater pressure. He closed his eyes and tried to dream of good things like Christmas presents and Easter eggs.

The old chandelier above the table swung as Margaret's mobile phone rang. She looked at her screen and then answered, “Hello Mum!”

After a moment she stuck the phone in her pocket and turned to David, “come on Davey, Gran's outside,” she said standing up.

“No Mum!” shouted David pulling her back onto her seat, “they're trying to get you to open the door now.”

“Oh! Well done Davey... you're right.” Margaret said adjusting herself on the seat.

David closed his eyes again and prayed for an end to the event.

Then, after a while, Margaret said gently: “Open your eyes Davey; someone wants to speak to you.”

Slowly he opened his eyes and was amazed to see a bright shaft of light beside the table with a figure in the centre. “Charles! Is it you?”

“Yes. And thank you David. We’ve been released. Now I must join my family.”

The light disappeared and David looked around the table. “Oh, what about Dad,” he said.

Then there was a groan and his father and Thomas came out of trance.

“Dad!” he shouted and ran round to give him a hug.

“Davey!”

“What happened?

“Well, I never told you and your mother how I acquired our house in England. In fact, I won it in a poker game. I was a college poker ace. I vowed never to play again, but this was necessary.”

“So, you beat the Devil, and he released the Blake children.”

“Well-yeah!”

Margaret gave George a rueful look as she rose to open the shutters.

“But Dad, what did you have to gamble?”

“Eh! Well, better not go there–eh Davey!”