A Ghost Story (Alternate Version)
I was the first one to reach the haunted house, because I only lived a few doors away. After I had stood there for a few minutes, admiring the flaky once-white paint on the front door, the half-boarded up windows, the long grass speckled with yellow flowers, Adam came into view preceded by a long dark shadow that mimicked his movement across the patchwork tarmac.
As I watched him come towards me I thought about how, as my Dad had said when I told him I was staying over at Adam’s tonight, it had been a while since I actually had stayed over at his house, or anyone else’s for that matter. Still, at the time, I had my interest in ghosts and the supernatural to keep me wholly occupied; an interest which was vindicated that night, the night when, even if no one really seemed to believe me, then or since, I saw a ghost.
“Them lot not here yet, then?” Adam asked when he reached me. My nose twitched involuntarily as I replied,
“Not yet.” We stood and waited. High above, a large bird, a goose or something, flew lazily through the air, emitting a couple of echoing honks as it went by. “Maybe they found something better to do,” I suggested.
“I doubt it. I’ll give James a ring.” As he pulled his phone from his pocket three figures appeared in the distance. He slipped the phone back into his pocket and began walking to meet them. I stayed where I was and waited for them.
“Alright,” Gavin said curtly by way of greeting.
“Hey, Ben,” Michelle said, smiling, meeting my eyes, “thanks for inviting us over.”
“It’s fine,” I replied. It was Adam who had invited those three; I had only invited him.
“What? This isn’t your place, is it?” James asked, stupidly, cutting short the conversation he had been having with Adam.
“No,” I said, “it’s abandoned because it’s haunted.” I knew it was haunted because someone I used to know at junior school, who used to walk home with me past the building every day, had told me years ago that a man had once killed his wife there and her ghost remained to haunt the building; A vague description, but enough to spark my interest.
“So how do we get in?” Gavin asked.
“The back door,” I said, “the boards across it are rotten.”
“Have you been in before?” Michelle asked.
“Um, no.” I replied. I knew a lot about ghosts, about how they find it hard to take physical form, about how they only appear sometimes, and about how they could only really scare you and hardly ever hurt you, but that had not made me any more eager to enter a haunted house on my own.
We went round the back. There James volunteered to remove the planks that blocked the doorway, but I guess he misjudged how weak they were, because with his first kick one snapped beneath his trainer and he stumbled forwards into the higher up ones. Of these he punched one and it buckled inwards. In this way he broke all the boards, then turned to us and said,
“That’s how real men open doors.” Adam laughed. Gavin jokingly called him a dick, then stepped through the open doorway into the dark kitchen and turned around to take Michelle’s hand, presumably to help her over the fallen hunks of wood. I, then Adam, stepped through next, and finally James, who exclaimed “what a shit-hole,” when he stepped onto the dirty lino, saw the moulding cupboards with doors gaping open like hungry mouths, and breathed in the thick, musty air.
The rest of the house was like an other-world version of my own: an identical floor-plan but with all the rooms in the same festering state of disrepair as the kitchen. The living room had an ugly three piece suite in it, once of verdant green velvet but now flecked with patches of white; in the large main bedroom a sunken mattress lay naked on an old wooden frame across from a dressing table with a cracked and grimy mirror; and in the bathroom dead woodlice and spiders lay amongst miscellaneous lumps of black in the bath tub, while the toilet bowl was similarly littered with the carcasses and industry of insects. Each one of were these hallmarks of the classic haunted house, further increasing my suspicions, as I looked at each new room, that there must be a ghost in this house.
“I don’t want to stay the night here,” Michelle said after we had explored the whole house. At the time I assumed it was because she was scared, or maybe just because of the state of the place. But, looking back, I wonder if it was something to do with the ghost, if she could in some way feel it, like some people can, since some people are more sensitive to the supernatural than others. I wonder this because, apart from me, she was the only other person who saw the ghost that night, even if she would not talk about it.
After Gavin convinced her to stay we returned to the main bedroom and spread out our sleeping bags on the cold floorboards; even with the double bed in the room there was enough space to do this comfortably.
“Anyone thirsty?” Gavin asked as soon as we were sat down, pulling out a four-pack of beers from his school-bag.
James held out his hand and Gavin snapped a can out from its plastic ring and passed it to him, then offered one to Adam. Adam took it and pulled the ring, immediately causing yellow-white foam to froth up from the opening. He put this quickly to his lips while Gavin asked if I wanted one. I looked up from the notepad I was recording the evening in, surprised that he had offered me one, wondering if he was serious, and then declined. He passed the can he had offered me to Michelle and opened the last one for himself. I had not expected them to take the ghost-watch seriously, but I did not think they would be drinking beer: beer is what my dad drinks, especially, I have noticed, since mum died.
I went for a piss and watched the chunks of debris as they swilled around the toilet bowl and frothed up the water. When I returned to the bedroom I saw a flash light up the room.
“Ah, you dick,” Michelle said, “I can’t see now.” Gavin had used the camera I had left on the floor next to my notepad to take a picture of her.
“Hey, don’t do that,” I said, “I’m saving the film.” Gavin’s apology lacked sincerity as he let the camera fall into my hand and James asked what I was saving the film for.
“For taking pictures of ghosts,” I said. James snorted.
For a couple of hours after that nothing of interest happened. Nothing of interest to me, I mean; I just sat there and watched the four of them talking and laughing and drinking more beer. A couple of times I wandered off to explore the house again, to examine the mouldy furniture or the strange stains on the floors or the walls in some places, but these excursions hardly revealed anything of the supernatural to me, and I was always afraid that, when I returned upstairs, the others would have planned some nasty trick to scare me. But they seemed too intent on their beers, or on Gavin who, when he spoke, seemed like a lone candle to draw all the eyes in the room towards him.
It was a little after midnight that I suggested the séance, a suggestion I expected to be met with scepticism. Instead Gavin said, “Sure, why not? It might be fun.” I placed a candle in the middle of the room, which Gavin lit since I had forgotten matches, then turned off the two camping lights we had and told everyone to join hands, to think about the dead and the other side, and not to break the chain, even if they got scared. For a few seconds I thought they were all going to take it seriously, then James broke the silence by saying “Is there anybody there?” in a put-on deep voice. Fortunately Gavin shushed him and we continued, Michelle’s warm hand gripping hard my right hand, while Adam’s cool, dry skin rested against my left.
“If there are any spirits present,” I said, hoping the slight crack in my voice was not too prominent, “please make yourselves known to us.” My words evaporated into the still air, but were met only with silence. A strange thing happened next: James, sat across from me, tensed up, as if he had been shot, and his features distorted themselves so that the single candle on the floor caused freakish shadows to flicker across his face. So intent was I on James’ face, I barely noticed the fingers tightening around my right hand. Then the choking noises started, issuing from his throat like someone half strangled, and Michelle screamed, let go of my hand, and scrambled across the floor to the corner of the room. Gavin went after her, looking back at James to ask,
“You alright, mate?” My heart was pounding, both in fear and excitement. I leaned in close, not giving him time to answer as I asked,
“What was it? Was it a possession? Was it a spirit?” A cruel smiled darkened his lips as he responded,
“Yeah, it was your mum.” I sat back, as if punched, tears stinging my eyes.
“You twat,” Adam said to him, “you know his mum’s dead.” I wiped my face with my sleeve, impotence and anger and embarrassment burning at my cheeks.
“Oh, shit, sorry mate,” James said to me, his lips neutral but his eyes still retaining the ghost of that smile.
“You okay, Michelle?” Adam asked, now looking over at the corner where she sat half cradled by Gavin.
“Yeah, I just got a bit freaked out. That’s all,” she replied. Gavin squeezed her shoulder slightly as she spoke.
“James, man, what the fuck?” he asked, now looking over at James, who just shrugged and asked,
“How about you get that grass out?”
“Yeah, good idea” Gavin replied, letting go off Michelle’s shoulder. He then moved over to his school bag, picking up a camping light on the way, and began rooting around in it, using the camping light to see. After a few seconds he pulled out a packet of Golden Virginia tobacco and another, unmarked, plastic bag full of thick green leaves. Spreading out a finger full of these onto a rectangle of paper he began to roll a cigarette. James watched this as eagerly as I watched him. The atmosphere had definitely changed in the room; I could tell this even through my disheartenment at James’ previous comment.
When the cigarette was rolled and sealed Gavin stuck it between his lips and held a flame to it until an acrid smoke began to rise from its end. Breathing in through it he closed his eyes, then took it from his lips and held it out to me.
“Wanna try?” He asked.
“Don’t waste it on Ben,” James said. He reached out to grab it, but Gavin moved his hand away then held it out to me again, so close I could feel the smoke lapping against my nostrils, filling my nose with a smell like too many green leaves on a bonfire. I moved back and held up my hand. Gavin shrugged and passed the cigarette to James, who immediately brought the cigarette up to his lips and inhaled deeply from it.
“That’s some good shit, right there,” he said, coughing and laughing and offering it to Adam. Adam seemed reluctant to take it, but after a few seconds’ indecision reached out his hand. His inhalation of the smoke was more dignified than James’, and he seemed somehow less impressed with the leaves.
“How can you smoke that shit?” he asked, handing it back to Gavin. Gavin shrugged.
“You know it’s good,” he said, then, to Michelle, “you want some, babes?” She looked at it more warily than Adam had done before saying,
“I don’t know if I should.”
“Definitely. It’ll mellow you right out,” Gavin said, “you want me to give you blow-back?” She still looked unsure but then nodded and let Gavin lean in close to her with the cigarette in his mouth and cup his hands around her cheeks while he exhaled into the space between them. It looked unpleasant, but she smiled as she pulled away, looking at first into his eyes and then closing her own and slumping back against the wall. Gavin smiled at her, took another suck on the cigarette and passed it to James. Adam opened another beer and I watched, and said nothing. Then Michelle took the cigarette off James and put it to her lips. Again she slumped against the wall, closing her eyes as Gavin put his arm around her. This time, however, when she opened her eyes again, she let out another shrill scream.
“What?” Gavin said, jumping since she was leaning against him.
“I thought I saw something move – in the shadows,” she said, indicating with an outstretched finger a corner of the room and breathing heavily. I spun round to look where she was pointing, but the area was completely black until Adam illuminated it with the second camping light. Whatever had been there had gone by the time he did so, but I took a photograph anyway, in case, then turned back to Michelle and asked her what she saw.
“I don’t know, just…something moved,” she replied.
“You probably just imagined it,” Gavin said, his features, somehow softened by the cigarette, now becoming serious and intent.
“Yeah, maybe,” Michelle said, “I’m kinda tired actually.”
“You wanna go bed?” She nodded in response to Gavin’s question. “How about you guys?” He addressed this to Adam and I, noticing as he did so that James was already lying asleep against the wall where he had been sitting.
“I don’t mind,” Adam said, “I’m pretty knackered.” Gavin looked over at me.
“I’m gonna stay up a while later, watch for ghosts.”
“Okay.” Gavin turned back to Michelle. “Wanna go kip in the other bedroom?” Again she nodded so Gavin took her hand and one of the camping lights, as well as his bag, and led her from the room, the spherical glow of the light silhouetting them both as they stepped out into the corridor.
“Night,” Adam said to me after they had left, switching off the remaining camping light rolling over onto his sleeping bag.
“Night,” I replied. Adam seemed to fall asleep almost immediately, so for around an hour I sat alone in the small pool of light offered by the one candle, slowly nodding off every few minutes and then jerking awake again. Every time I did so the shadows in the room would shift suddenly, morphing themselves into fearsome shapes and then dissipating into formless shades of dark and darker. Once or twice these manifestations made me jump and my heart would pound and I would wonder what I was doing spending the night in a haunted house. Then my scientific curiosity would remind me and I would automatically reach for my camera and take aimless snapshots of the shadows, hoping that I might be lucky enough, as occasionally happens, to catch a ghost on film without realising it was there. As it turns out, this was exactly what happened, but had I not been blinded by the flash each time, I might actually have seen the ghost, rather than just seeing a picture of it later, and hearing it, as I did a little while after.
It was around two when my vigil was finally rewarded and I heard the ghost of the house. I jumped at first, but then just sat there, straining to hear the strange noises as well as I could and wishing that I had remembered to bring a tape recorder with me. Unfortunately I had not, so I shall describe the noises as best I can remember them: they started out quietly, as if they were coming from the walls themselves; a low moaning accompanied by a few sudden gasps, like someone being stabbed. These wordless noises continued for around fifteen minutes, becoming steadily louder, but never quite erupting into a scream then, at their apex, quite abruptly stopped, their originator apparently silenced.
I strained my ears as hard as I could, waiting for the noises to return. But they did not and in their absence I just heard the sound of the blood beating against my ears and then those of the night outside: an owl in a far-off tree, a lone car driving by. Slowly my heart-rate returned to normal as the night-time harmony stretched out and the ghost-noises did not return. I fell asleep then, planning to ask Gavin or Michelle in the morning if they had heard the noises as well.
Unfortunately I did not see Gavin that morning, but I did see Michelle, who came pale and bleary-eyed into the room, her blond waves hanging loosely across her face.
“You saw something last night, didn’t you?” I asked her, the lines sounding straight from a horror movie.
“Fuck off, Ben,” she said quietly, disappointing but not offending me. “Will you walk me home, Adam?” This second address was less hostile, so Adam said, “Sure,” and began gathering up his stuff. James was still asleep on the floor at the time, so Adam just said good bye to me and walked Michelle out the room. I noticed as she left that her usual graceful step had been replaced by a slow shuffle, and I desperately wanted to pursue her, to ask her more questions there and then, but even months afterwards, she never would talk about what she saw that night.
James woke up a little while after they left. “Has everyone else gone?” He asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Oh right, well see you then.” He made his exit as well, leaving me to wonder, as I often have since, whether his performance during the séance was just that, a performance, or whether there was something more to it. We never talk though, so I suppose I will never know. Still, there is one piece of evidence that inclines me more towards the latter: the photograph I mentioned before, a single example of ones I took at random which shows in the bottom half of the frame James lying asleep and above him some dark, murky shape. Adam has seen it, but will not admit that it depicts a ghost. I explained to him that ghosts find it hard to manifest themselves in physical forms, but he would not be swayed. I suppose I cannot expect more though, since he never did hear the noises, and he has not seen as many pictures or read as much about ghosts as I have.
Tags: alternate version, cliche, ghost story, naivity, parody, unconvincing narrative voice
