The part that disturbed Dale most was that if intelligent earthbound spirits existed and were able to communicate, then it probably meant they were around all the time. Hovering, lurking, hidden in plain sight. Watching you sleep, watching you eat, watching you... do everything else.
“What's up?” Lucy asked, evidently reading the discomfort on his face. “This is exciting! It's why we came here.”
“I know that. But I didn't expect some kind of paranormal entity to just pop up and introduce itself. I don't think stuff like this happens much, Lucy. If EVP's were commonplace we'd be reading about it everywhere. There'd be books, investigations, TV shows.”
“There are,” Lucy said. “It's just a bit niche, isn't it? Maybe they need a certain set of conditions in order to make themselves known. Look at the history of this place, all the horrible things that have happened here. There has to be a reason for it. What if this thing really wants us to record it? Maybe it has something to say and thinks it can communicate with us easier that way. It obviously can't write for toffee. Let's try it, we don't have anything to lose.”
Dale was reluctant, but what were the alternatives? It sure seemed as if something was trying to communicate with them and Lucy was right, they didn't have anything to lose. A reporter's career hinged on taking risks. Recording in an empty room didn't seem like the most constructive use of his time and resources, but much stranger things had been done in the name of a good story. “Okay,” he said finally. “How do we go about it? Just hit the button and wait for the voices?”
“Well yeah, basically. We can say 'hello' and tell it we're recording, in case it doesn't realize. Maybe ask it a few direct questions. I don't think there is an official protocol we have to follow. We'll try a few different techniques and see what works.”
“How confident are you? Of getting some EVP action, I mean?”
“The voices are there, that's for sure. There are literally thousands of recordings on file. Just surf the net. You can see for yourself. The debate is not over whether they exist or not, but where they come from.”
“Sounds to me like you're trying to turn an ordinary piece of reporter's kit into a modern-day Ouija board.”
“There's nothing wrong with being resourceful. You of all people should know there are a million uses for paper. You can write on it, or you can make a fire.”
“But aren't Ouija boards... dangerous? Isn't it like opening a doorway to hell or something? I don't want to end up with a haunted Dictaphone.”
“But this isn't a Ouija board, Dale. You're a sceptic, right? How can you be scared of something you don't even believe in? And besides, if you ended up with a haunted Dictaphone you could write one hell of a follow-up article about it.”
Dale sighed. When Lucy was in this mood it was sometimes easier to just let her have her own way. “Okay. Let's go.”
Lucy immediately sprang into action. “How much recording time do you have left?”
“Just over three hours.”
“That 's more than enough. We'll record for fifteen minutes or so, then play it back and see what we find.”
She hit the RECORD button, and some multi-faceted emotion Dale couldn't quite identify stirred. Something within him sank a little, while something else sprang to life. There was a chance, however remote, that he might capture something that changed his whole outlook on life. “You stay here and monitor the recording, while I nip out to get some snaps in case there really is a storm later.”
“Excuse me?”
“What's up? Not scared, are you?”
“Of course not,” Dale tried not to sound as offended as he was. “It's not like I have anything better to do, is it? You go off and have some fun on the beach, while I stay here and try to communicate with the dead. Sounds like a great plan.”
Lucy winked at him and strolled out, leaving Dale sitting at the desk clutching his Dictaphone. He cleared his throat a little louder than he needed to, checked the machine was recording, and said, “Hello? Is there anybody here?”
Chapter 18:
A Storm is Coming
Ruth and Izzy Watkins drove on the narrow cobbled roads winding through quaint little Nottage village, past the solitary Gothic-style church with its tiny graveyard and wrought iron fence, and past dozens of tiny detached cottages with thatched roofs. Soon, they joined the dual carriageway that took them towards the coast. Throughout the entire journey, they encountered only a handful of other vehicles.
As small and secluded as Nottage was, Ruth remembered that not so long ago it had been a jolly and vibrant place, especially on Saturday mornings. Market day. She didn't appreciate them at the time, but she missed the dozen or so unglamorous pitches selling fresh meat, vegetables, and the odd case of beer or bottle of spirits straight off the back of a lorry as Dennis used to say. Her pillar of strength, he was still a source of comfort even this long after his death. Together they often lamented the passing of the small village business as modern shoppers migrated towards the more convenient and cheaper supermarkets with car parks the size of football fields. She was perceptive enough to realize this was a wider trend not confined to Nottage, but it still sent a stab of regret through her heart. Where would it end? Some rebel spirit within told her to fight, not to let the big faceless corporations win, but every weekend she still did her weekly shopping at ASDA. She just couldn't buy everything she needed in the village.
As she drove, Ruth craned her neck and looked anxiously up at the dark clouds gliding in from the sea. The weather forecast didn't say anything about rain, but the weather forecasts were wrong at least half the time. At best it was educated guesswork. She trusted her own forecasting abilities much more implicitly than those of some sparkly perma-tanned minor celebrity on Sky News, and today she predicted that although the day had started brightly those clouds, some of them an ominous dull grey, would soon be upon them.
She increased her speed slightly, nudging up towards forty-five, looking forward to getting some work done at the allotment before rain stopped play. It rains a lot in this part of the world Ruthy, and you better just get used to it, she heard her dead husband's voice like a refrain from somewhere deep in her memory bank. Dennis had a saying for most occasions, and Ruth was able to call on them as and when she needed. It was his legacy. A head full of words and a heart full of sentiment. Like her, Dennis was a product of a simpler time. Post-war babies, they were brought up grateful for peace, freedom and the little things. The hardships they endured in their early lives as war-torn Europe recovered from the war instilled in them both a steadfast resolve and unshakeable sense of duty, which seemed strangely out of synch with the modern view. Now, people wanted everything. She glanced at Izzy in the passenger seat. Her daughter's face was a picture of discontent. “Alright, love?”
Without even turning to face her mother, Izzy answered in the affirmative, retrieved her phone from her handbag and proceeded to punch buttons, her thumbs moving over the keys at a furious pace. She was miserable. Not just today, but in general. Ruth felt bad for her daughter. Unless she left the village and went away to college or university, she would never have a fulfilling life. Nobody aspired to a career washing linen and pulling pints at Sker House. It was hard for kids these days to find direction, something that really interested them. In Ruth's world you had fewer options. If something needed to be done, you did it and persevered, staying strong for the people you cared about. Like the rest of her generation Izzy faced an uncertain future, and she masked the resultant anxiety with a belligerent attitude and resigned indifference.
But something else was troubling her. Something more profound than boys or a rubbish job. Something more even, than having her father taken from her at such a young age. A mother knows. Since taking the job at Sker House, Izzy had become increasingly sullen and withdrawn. It was as if something were systematically sucking the life out of her. Whatever influence she was under was also having a physical effect. Her appetite was non-existent, she always looked tired
and strained, she used concealer to cover the acne that plastered her cheeks and forehead, and the weight was falling off her. A small part of Ruth actually wanted to believe that her daughter was into drugs. At least that was a problem you could face, understand and overcome.
Just before ten, they pulled up outside Sker House and parked in their usual spot. Ruth was still waiting for the time when she would have to park on the road because of all the customer's cars.
Fat chance.
Through the dirty windscreen the old structure, with its one remaining tower reaching up toward the sky like a fist of defiance, looked more intimidating than ever. Something indefinable squirmed in the pit of Ruth's stomach and she tightened her grip on the steering wheel as she fought the familiar urge to slip the car back into gear and go straight back home. She was aware that she always left the engine running a few seconds longer than was necessary while she and Izzy sat uncomfortably together.
Was the money really worth it?
No. The money couldn't even be described as 'good.' But this was about more than money. This was about showing Izzy how to flourish in the face of adversity. It was a life lesson for them both. She would never admit it, but too often that sense of duty was the only thing preventing Ruth from following her instinct and driving back home. Now, even that most noble of causes was beginning to lose its allure.
“C'mon, miss. Another day, another dollar!” Ruth urged, as much to motivate herself as her daughter.
Izzy let out a deep breath, exited the vehicle without a word, and sauntered off ahead, disappearing into Sker House and leaving Ruth to collect her tray of shrubs and saplings from the back seat. As she locked the door behind her and hurried up the path, she risked one more glance at the sky. A storm was definitely coming. Foregoing the main entrance, she took the path that led around to the allotment hoping to get fifteen minutes gardening time in while Izzy made a start on the housework. Machen wouldn't mind. Technically, she was still working.
The allotment, or more accurately, the little patch of land at the side of the house sectioned off with rope, was just as she left it. Nothing had changed. It was still as barren and lifeless as ever, despite the generous helping of fertilizer she'd spread yesterday to hopefully encourage the newest additions to the garden, runner beans, to take root. None had sprouted yet. She didn't know what she had been expecting, miracles didn't happen overnight, but the disappointment compounded the uneasiness that filled her.
Wait. What's that?
There was something new, after all. But it was no cause for celebration. Lying on its side in the middle of the enclosure, exposing its pristine white belly, was a tiny animal. A vole or a field mouse.
Frowning, Ruth prodded it gingerly with a gloved finger. It was still soft, meaning that it had been dead only a few hours, and unmarked, ruling out an attack by a predator. It appeared to have found it's way into Ruth's garden, then simply keeled over and died. “What happened to you, little fella?”
Grimacing, she picked up the dead animal by the tail and debated what to do with it. It seemed disrespectful to just throw it away, but she didn't want to go through the trouble of burying it only to inadvertently dig it up again at some point. Holding the dead animal in her rubber-clad hand, she peered into its glassy, unseeing eye. Suddenly, a feeling of intense revulsion came over her and she decided to throw it, after all. Get it as far away from her as possible. The tiny carcass arced through the air to land with a soft plop a few metres away, and Ruth whispered a silent apology.
*
As the demoralized duo of Ruth and Izzy were pulling up in the car park, Lucy was beginning her walk, idly picking her way along the overgrown little path that wound away from Sker House down toward the beach and enjoying the feel of the sea breeze on her face. After a few minutes lost in thought, she became aware of a strange sensation settling over her, its approach so stealthy that it barely registered it until it was too late.
There were eyes on her. Like she was being followed, or watched. What she felt was a combination of both those things and more, similar to the sensation she had felt whilst taking pictures in the bar. It was the feeling you got when someone was standing directly behind you, so close you could feel their breath on the nape of your neck.
Or is it just the breeze?
She stopped dead and whirled around, convinced somebody was sneaking up on her.
The path was empty. Behind her lay only Sker House. Yet she couldn't overcome that awful creeping sensation. Icy fingers trailed down her spine. For a moment, it seemed that the house itself possessed the power of sight, that its eyes were at that moment burrowing deep into Lucy's soul. Her eyes flicked to the window where she saw the woman's figure the previous evening, but the window was now empty, a revelation which left her feeling strangely deflated.
She still had no proof that she hadn't hallucinated the whole thing. Between that and last night's alleged sleepwalking episode, it was a wonder Dale wasn't already running for the hills. He must think she was a psycho, if he hadn't thought so before. At first she thought he must have been winding her up about the sleepwalking, but then she began to see images. Grainy visual representations of what she had first assumed were remnants of a dream, but could just as easily be hazy snatches of memory. She saw herself in a dark, unfamiliar corridor. Dale was there and they were talking. The thing that impacted upon her most was an overriding sense of urgency, of looking for something. Desperately seeking... what?
You know there's more.
Now she remembered the biting cold seeping through her flesh, and the terrible moment of realization when she came to her senses for just the briefest of moments before retreating back into her twilight world somewhere between asleep and awake. The place where everything is possible and everything makes sense. During that moment of clarity, even as the panic and bewilderment began to engulf her, she remembered a doorway. A doorway to a very special room.
She inched forward, heart swelling with anticipation, and then...
Nothing.
Just a bottomless black abyss. She couldn't remember anything else.
It was as if what occurred the night before was so traumatic, so damaging, that her subconscious actively sought to block it out. She shuddered as a gust of wind stronger than those preceding it tried to blow her over. To her left, separated from where she stood by only a thin strip of sand, the sea was beginning to churn and bubble, while to her right stood a scraggly, hip-high steel-mesh fence. Beyond that lay a few acres of dry, barren land interspersed with receding sand dunes eventually giving way to lush green hills. As she gazed across the fields, she noticed a bird of prey circling overhead, and stopped to fire off a few snaps. It was a challenge trying to get good action shots of wildlife at work. Nature played by its own rules and didn't adhere to anyone's whims, least of all a student with a camera. But the challenge was not without reward, as the industry recognized how difficult the task was and paid accordingly. It was rumoured that Maggie Tilburn from her media law class once helped herself to an opportunistic snap of a couple of dolphins doing some cute dolphin thing on holiday somewhere, and sold it to a specialist magazine for a couple of hundred quid. It was that easy. All you had to do was be in the right place at the right time and take the chance when it came. A bit like life, really.
Lucy watched the bird swoop down into a field of long, swaying grass a short distance away, and noticed for the first time an almost perceptible line cut clean across the countryside. On one side, the vegetation grew freely as you would expect in an area like this. But on the other, the Sker House side, there were only scattered patches of withered greenery strewn over coarse brown earth. She put the effect down to the actions of an over-zealous farmer armed with weed killer, but felt compelled to investigate further. She didn't have anything better to do.
What did Machen say about a secret garden?
She looked around again. If there was a secret garden it was pretty damn well hidden. She had virtually unobstructed view
s for miles around and there was no sign of any garden. The wind was picking up now, and the sky darkening. She was torn between curtailing her walk and heading back to the sanctuary of Sker House, and allowing herself to be lured away by the prospect of capturing a bird of prey on the hunt. After the briefest moment of consideration, she hopped over the steel-mesh fence and set off across the open field. She had an idea she might be trespassing, but didn't see anyone in the immediate vicinity who may object.
Chapter 19:
Skeletons
Once he got used to the fact he was having a conversation with himself in an otherwise empty room, Dale threw himself into the task of trying to interact with the ghost, if there was one. The first few questions were hesitant, his voice sounding strange and detached, but he persevered and kept the recorder rolling. Soon he was firing off questions on a whim, sometimes repeating the same one several times in different tones in an effort to provoke a response, mimicking the ghost hunters he saw on TV.
Alone with his thoughts, he couldn't help but be dragged back to the past, where the real ghosts were. He had started frequenting the local pubs when still in the last year of comprehensive school. Some of the landlords used to let him and his two best friends, Simon and Barry, play pool in the afternoons, even if they were wearing school uniforms. As long as one of you bought a glass of coke to share, there was never any problem. There they would talk about girls and sport, catching the balls before they went down the pockets to make their lunch money stretch further.
Having grown up within three streets of each other, the three boys were bound together most of their lives, but couldn't be more different. Simon was the studious one and destined for a life on the council, a feat he duly achieved around the same time Dale started work in a local factory the summer they left school. Barry, on the other hand, was always a bit 'dodgy,' as Dale's parents put it. And they weren't wrong. It wasn't that he lacked intelligence. Far from it. Barry was smart enough to turn his back on the rat race early-doors and explore alternative ways of making a living. He had his plump little fingers in all sorts of pies. It didn't make him a bad person, he just chose a different path. Unfortunately, it was a path that frequently landed him in trouble with the police.
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