After the exhausting departure, Erw Lon and its remaining occupants, breathed a sigh of deliverance and slumped on the comfy lounge furniture.
Elin had tentative plans for a short walk to clear her head and try to release the toxins built up in her muscles after yesterday. Instead, she realised when called for dinner that she had fallen back asleep. Probably just as well. She must be more tired than she’d appreciated. Going out again might have been insensitive to her mum’s apprehension.
They managed an affable family meal of typical hearty country food. Elin helped, as best she could, with the after-dinner clear up and promptly fell asleep during one of the evening’s earliest television programmes.
“Why don’t you go up to bed if you’re so tired?” Elin snapped awake to her mother’s irritation. Doing as she bade, still guilty for the worry she’d caused, Elin hugged Emyr and Glenda goodnight. Hurrying up the stairs before she could identify anything untoward in the hall, she was soon asleep again.
Chapter Eighteen
“We definitely need a priest,” Neil concurred vehemently with the expert of the group. “I am not going anywhere near that house again until we get one!”
Collin shrugged, looking skywards, giving the impression he considered his son might be overreacting, but he knew he wouldn’t want to go back in either.
“Where will you all stay until this is sorted out?” he asked, trying to be practical.
“A park bench would be better than in there!” Neil huffed. “Or you could bring my car. I’ll sleep in it until I learn to drive!”
The rest of them ignored Neil’s pitiful protests but agreed they needed a practical solution. Aeron came up with the best idea when he suggested a room at The Railway. “Me and Bronnie don’t live too far. We could commute for a couple of days or so.” Bronwyn agreed.
Neil almost mentioned Aeron’s alarmingly similar tale of weirdness at the pub. He stopped himself, keeping quiet until who would take the room was established. It was decided Josh should share it with Matthew (who insisted he wasn’t scared to stay at number twenty-four, and was only doing it to keep Josh company.)
When they arrived at The Railway Tavern to book the pair of them into its spare room, and have a nerve settling stiff drink, they were greeted by an uncharacteristically meek Jon, who looked delighted at the prospect of extra company.
Their real motive for refusing to stay at number twenty-four should be omitted it had been decided; not wanting to alienate Jon if he was a sceptic. But he didn’t question their reasons, and offered them the room straight away.
“Welcome aboard, shipmates,” he enthused in an idiotic pirate voice. They agreed a very reasonable rate whilst Neil arranged to share a Travel Lodge with his mum, dad and Auntie Sylvie.
Sitting in the snug enjoying a few medicinal tipples, Sylvie began making calls to local chapels and churches to ask for help with the aid of smartphone searches from Neil. She had no luck finding anyone to answer their phones, so left messages instead.
“I’ll make one more call, and then I’ll admit defeat for today.” Dialling the number, her look of frustration transformed to surprise, and she stumbled over a greeting. “Ah, Hello. Is that… Father Jenkins?”
A deep, stern voice answered. “Yes, that’s right.” She estimated him to be about thirty. His dour tone unsettling, she struggled to describe eloquently their situation. The priest tutted and she could almost hear him shaking his head. “You really shouldn’t dabble in things you don’t understand,” he rebuked. “If you play around with Ouija boards and the like, what do you expect?”
After some pleading, and Sylvie’s reassurance that the trouble had started well before the introduction of the Ouija board, Father Jenkins grudgingly consented to at least consider helping.
“I will have to speak to my Bishop before I can agree to assist, and I am extremely busy. But I shall endeavour to give you an answer tomorrow.” The frown gave way to a grin as Sylvie ended the call. “He’s in!”
Father Jenkins’s gloomy timbre had been clearly heard from the phone’s earpiece, so Sylvie’s optimism gave scant assurance.
It made more sense for Aeron to take the room at The Railway, given his bar work there. But Matthew and Josh lived much too far away to travel. He’d regretted the suggestion as soon as it came out of his mouth. There was no way he’d consider staying there himself after recent incidents. So it was with relief he had nobly relinquished the convenience of living above his job in favour of Matty and Josh.
He justified his guilt at not warning them with convenient false cynicism. Away from the evidence, it was almost easy to doubt the supernatural explanations. Although Bronwyn’s scepticism had waned since the séance, he couldn’t help but be embarrassed at his own wussiness. At least with accommodation arrangements settled, he wouldn’t have to admit to being scared of the pub as well as of the house.
He and Bronwyn were the first to leave as they were governed by train times. They said their goodbyes to the group and walked the steep descent to Swansea Central Station. They then set off on their respective tracks home to hole up until it was safe to return. The Hedges family and Auntie Sylvie left shortly afterwards, as though they had waited for the excuse to leave.
Matthew and Josh, once alone in the pub, had no plans to leave the comfort of the bar. Living in a pub had obvious advantages they were well prepared to make the most of. They proceeded to try every beer available until last orders were called.
A look of annoyance was shared through hazy inebriation as the cretinous Jon joined them at their table. They tolerated him, now seriously drunk. And because he brought the promise of yet more drinking with him.
“It’s a shame your house is… ” Jon frowned, puzzled, “What is wrong with your house?” he asked for the first time. Before giving it any thought, Josh blurted his answer.
“Poltergeist,” he stated, matter-of-factly.
“No!” protested Matthew. “It’s not really. The others think there’s something strange going on, but well… I don’t believe in that nonsense.”
“You believed it well enough when you were running out of the house!”
“I was just caught up in the moment, that’s all. Wait. You don’t believe we’ve got a poltergeist, do you?”
Josh gave a scathing look which Matthew chose to ignore. Glancing back at their host, they noticed he’d gone a very quiet shade of pale. Before they thought to ask him what was wrong, he pushed himself up from the table and made an excuse about washing glasses. Matthew and Josh accepted without care and returned to their drinks.
“We’d better go up to bed soon,” Matthew suggested sensibly. “We’ve got lectures in a few days. Gotta take it seriously.” He pointed his beer bottle indiscriminately to something, failing to emphasise his point at all. Josh nodded along anyway.
“Yeah. You’re right,” he slurred. “One more?”
“One more,” Matthew agreed, aiming his bottle in the air again. “Bar keep? Two of your finest beers from around the world, if you please.”
He wasn’t heard, so struggling to perch higher on his seat, he scanned the room for Jon to serve them again. An old man sat nursing an inch of warm beer two tables down, whilst a girl slouched on the end barstool hunched over the bar.
“What’s that guy’s name?” he whispered loudly, leaning conspiringly towards Josh. Josh shrugged and burped vociferously.
“Can you run that by me again? I don’t think that was it!” The two of them found it immensely humorous and laughed raucously, spraying their mouthfuls of beer in an alcohol and saliva mist across the table.
Aeron and Matthew’s talk of ghostly happenings shook Jon. Nothing had happened over Christmas and he was starting to get his confidence back and forget about it. Standing out of sight in the kitchen, he tried to regain his composure. Trembling fingers poured a generous shot of whiskey which he threw down his throat, pouring another before it hit the sides.
The fiery liquid warmed in his stomach s
ending a shudder up his spine which rested as a broad grin on his sallow face. Fear abating, he washed some glasses. Pressing a bar towel into the annals of a long pint glass, he planned his clearing of the pub. It was something he hadn’t done for ages, leaving the duty to Gareth whose size seemed well-suited to the job.
He had given more and more duties to Efa and her horrendous thug of a brother. He would be in danger of losing his role as manager if the brewery knew just how much. The pair had lost interest after New Year’s Eve and its associated double and triple pay time shifts. They still worked whenever they wanted, but Jon had been forced to retake the reigns.
He asked the patrons to leave in the order he’d like them to go. Obviously, the old man was first. Nodding, he glugged down a centimetre of very warm beer, scooped his coat and rose from his chair in one seamless movement, hailing a hearty goodbye to the others as if they were good friends.
Matthew and Josh convinced their host for ‘one more.’ Leaving the girl to her drink, Jon hoped the uni lads would drink up quickly so he’d be alone with her. From behind at least, she looked extremely attractive. How had he missed her all evening? Not like him at all.
He pushed himself past a moment of nerves to walk towards her. As he did, he realised she was perhaps familiar. Yes. The closer he got the more convinced he was that he knew her.
The unmistakable uproar of drunken spewing suddenly assaulted his ears, followed by the offensive effluvium which fresh beery vomit emits. Jon had no choice but to react.
“Lads! Go to bed, for fu…” he didn’t finish his profanity. His beating from Gareth had made him more of a coward than ever. He tried to disguise it by demonstrating his generous spirit. “Go on. I’ll clear it up.”
As the two helped one another, Jon went to the cleaning cupboard and fetched the necessary tools for the job. He noted with disdain that the girl from the bar had made her departure in the commotion so he swabbed the disgusting mess with extra loathing. “I should have made you two clear this up, you ignorant plebs,” he muttered under his breath, carefully inaudibly, even though there was no chance they could have heard.
Time and again, he smeared the disinfectant soaked cloth hatefully across the brimming with vomit table top and wrung it out until he was as convinced as he could be that it was clean. Walking away with the disgusting slop filled bucket, he noticed some sick trickling its way down the table leg onto the floor. Retching at the sight, he swallowed hard.
After a brief examination of his bucket’s contents, he deliberated how revolting it might be to use the water one more time. “Shit,” he said, realising the rancid yellow soup was too disgusting. Turning, he stomped off to the sink, bucket slopping from side to side threatening to spill the vile fluid. With every slosh, bile odour assailed his nostrils.
Finishing clearing, he made a final trip back with a clean cloth and bucket to wipe the bar. Glancing up from wringing out the new cloth, he almost fell over at the sight of the same girl sitting back on the same barstool, seemingly nursing the same drink, stooping, head down over the bar again.
Standing rigid with surprise, scrutinising the figure, he was unable to clearly see her face, her hair obscured her features. But not enough to disguise her breath-taking beauty. Or, that he was all the more certain he knew her. Didn’t she used to come here a while ago, and didn’t they..? As his loins stirred at the memory, the girl swept golden curls away from huge, piercing blue eyes and looked up.
At once, upon seeing Jon, her face distorted. Eyes blazing with intense fury, a deep scowl furrowed her formerly flawless forehead. Leaping to her feet, what was left of her drink flew across the bar. The heavy bar stool thudded to the floor as an ear-splitting shriek erupted from her snarling lips, becoming an almost primal scream.
“Youuuuuw!” The cry rang from every corner of the room. Jon quaked open mouthed, desperate to move but petrified to the spot.
The girl lunged for him across the bar. When the distance proved too far to reach him, grabbing spirit bottles on the shelves and in the optic dispensers sufficed. One by one, she sent them toppling to an explosive demise on the hard pub floor.
He didn’t see her leave. She didn’t walk towards the door, didn’t open it and exit to the street. She just vanished. Jon, alone with his thumping heart, his trembling legs struggled to support him as he stood on the shards of glass and a puddle of liquid, not all of which was from the broken bottles.
Chapter Nineteen
“What will we do if we can’t get a priest to take us seriously? Is there someone else? I mean, does it have to be a priest?” Carole was asking her friend.
“Maybe not. I’d certainly look at getting one of my friends to help, or at least recommend someone,” Sylvie responded. “We can’t just leave such a malevolent spirit without doing everything we can to help; for the spirit’s sake as much as for Neil and his friends.”
They were freshening up in their room at the Travelodge before meeting Collin and Neil at the Little Chef attached to the motel.
“Do you think Neil will be happy to go back?” Sylvie asked, rubbing a cream onto her haggard complexion in the vain hope it would offer the miracles the blurb on the jar promised. “He looked pretty scared.” Her voice strained, compromised by the open mouthed gurning necessary to give the cream its best chance.
“As long as you can assure him it’s safe again, Sylvie, he’ll be fine. But over dinner, we should talk about anything but ghosts. It’s going to be hard, considering we’re staying in a hotel explicitly because of one, but hey, we can try!”
Sylvie agreed. “It will be hard, but we need to try to calm him down. There really is nothing to be afraid of anyway,” she smiled, but her credibility had been somewhat dented when she’d been the first to run terrified from the house.
When they arrived downstairs at the Little Chef café, Neil and Collin were already there, and had been for a while judging by their peeved faces and number of tea and coffee cups and beer glasses littering the table.
“What kept you?” Collin demanded.
“Have you been waiting long?” Carol asked, genuinely surprised. “We just had to freshen up, that’s all.” Collin chuckled, seeing the lighter side and relieved he would at last be able to fill his grumbling stomach.
They ate heartily, being sure to leave room for dessert. Just as Collin settled the bill, Sylvie’s phone rang. Everyone held their breath.
“Yes. Yes. Mm Hm. Okay.” ‘It’s Father Jenkins’ she mouthed, affirming things through the mouthpiece. She gave the address and handed the phone over to Neil to give directions to his house.
“I have agreed to help because you’ve had problems since before you chose to dabble with the occult. But I don’t want to hear of any more playing with spirits. It always leads to trouble. Do you understand?”
Neil didn’t have courage for anything but complete compliance. “Yes, of course. We’re really grateful.”
And so, it was on. The exorcism of number Twenty-four, Rhondda Street, Swansea, was to take place tomorrow at seven.
Bronwyn and Aeron were both dubious yet relieved when they received their phone calls that their student lives could resume relative normality again so soon.
Josh and Matthew weren’t answering their phones, which wasn’t too much of a surprise. They were most likely taking advantage of their residence in a public house. Neil left voice messages for them, but was sure the exorcism could take place with or without them.
They all tried their best to gain a worry free night’s sleep and put out of their minds what they might be expected to do tomorrow. Or, perhaps more poignantly: how the spirit might react to them.
No-one ended up sleeping well at all. But it was a fact they kept to themselves for morale, instinctively acting as one, like a colony of insects, each putting their own fears aside for the group in their conquest of the perceived enemy.
It all felt a bit melodramatic now they were away from the malevolent poltergeist activities. In the cold of night,
each of them confessed to themselves they felt foolish, even after the undeniable presence of something supernatural. So it was with false nonchalance they met Father Jenkins outside number twenty-four.
Matthew and Josh picked up Neil’s message with relief. Staying in the pub hadn’t been the relaxing home from home they’d hoped. From scant memories of their drunken night, things were not what they should be at The Railway Tavern.
Jon had been very jittery serving the cooked breakfast Matthew insisted should come with the room price.
“Yes, yes, of course,” Jon had agreed with a nervous laugh and a tilt of the head.
“That went better than I thought it would,” Matthew winked. “And a couple of strong coffees too,” he called out, before adding as an afterthought, “please.”
The sausages arrived singed and charred, but succeeded in being the best part of the breakfast as burnt was as good as it got. Fried eggs managed to be both crunchy yet runny. And the bacon was so crisp it could be constructed into a tee-pee of on-end rashers which thankfully entertained Josh sufficiently to pardon the catastrophe.
Matthew picked round the least grotesque food and glugged down the coffee. Fortunately the portions were generous, so there were enough bits of edible bacon, sausage, and baked beans to stave off the worst of their hangovers.
When they asked for the bill, Jon stammered his assent.
“You can’t be leaving ‘Chez Railway’ so soon?” he tittered timidly, wiping a line of sweat from his brow. Matthew and Josh exchanged glances. They couldn’t be sure that whatever Neil and his crazy aunt had cooked up would actually work. They might need to come back again tonight, and for perhaps many more nights. It wasn’t worth upsetting Jon unduly.
They left with vague arrangements that they might return later. And, without paying their bill. A barrier Jon seemed unwilling to pose.
Blurred Lines: A box-set of reality bending supernatural fiction (Paranormal Tales from Wales Book 9) Page 46
