The Spinetinglers Anthology 2010

by Неизвестный

  So the years, decades and centuries passed by and George, only occasionally glimpsed, usually by customers of the hotel too drunk to worry, was content with his lot as a non-paying guest of the establishment. Then came disaster. The Mitre finally closed its doors at the turn of the second millennium and its oldest and largely unnoticed guest watched silently as workmen started knocking walls out and changing the old place into a totally different building. Now, instead of being just one hotel, it was being converted into several smaller and very different commercial premises. George’s favourite saloon bar was set to become a hairdressing salon.

  ***

  Nigel looked around at the work that was being carried out in his new salon and sighed happily. He’d built up a successful business in rented accommodation just down the road, but this was his big chance to own his own place and he couldn’t wait for the work to be finished.

  All his customers, well aware of his plans, were keen to follow him, his staff also looking forward to the move. Life was good and seemed to be getting better.

  At the same time, George was inspecting Nigel. He’d listened to the men working on the project, and on hearing the word ‘salon’ had imagined that the place was still going to be a place where men would gather and beer would be sold. In George’s lifetime, the word hadn’t been in common usage, and he was totally unfamiliar with it. He was slightly puzzled by Nigel’s appearance; he somehow didn’t seem the type who would be successful behind a bar.

  A couple of days later he was reassured slightly when Nigel brought in a couple of wenches to have a look at the place. One, the one called Heather, had the looks and confidence of a born and practised bar maid. The other, Emma, seemed more interested in the sinks installed at the back of the room. Presumably she would be employed as a pot washer.

  George felt more cheerful. Maybe things wouldn’t be so bad after all.

  A few weeks later and George discovered his mistake. Far from being another saloon bar, he found to his dismay that ‘salon’ actually meant that it was a female barbers shop. Not a place where a man could be shaved or bled, or even have his hair cropped so his wig would fit snugly, but a meeting place for women to be primped and pampered and for gossip; gossip however about the latest modes and fashions.

  George himself had never visited a barbers. He’d never been bled or even had his hair cropped for a wig, having followed the latest fashion of pulling his own hair back and tying it into a queue. He decided that he would avoid this room…at least for a while…and spend time instead in the solicitors office which lay through the wall next door. Walls within the confines of the old inn presented no problems for George; he simply went through them where the original doors had been.

  His resolution lasted but a few weeks; the conversations he listened to were dull and dry, (lawyers had always been dull, dry and rogues) so after trying the gents outfitters on the other side and then the ladies fashion shop, he wandered disconsolately back into his old haunt, the saloon, or as it was now, the salon, once again.

  Now it’s a well known fact that in many cases of hauntings, the ghosts involved have been detected by people with a sense of smell. There have been cases where female spirits have left traces of perfume whenever they were present in a room, and in other cases, male ghosts have caused concern by the lingering smell of tobacco in houses occupied by non-smoking families.

  George had never smoked or worn perfume, but unfortunately in life had suffered greatly from flatulence, perhaps caused by the quantity of beer he consumed during his final years. After death his spirit retained all his living characteristics; his looks, his placid temperament, and unfortunately his propensity for passing wind. This had never been a problem in the beery male environment of the saloon bar. There had always been others in the room who suffered from the same weakness, so the occasional blast had gone without comment. Not so the case in the salon however. George himself would perhaps not have described the girls working there as ladies, but they tried to avoid doing certain things even if only to avoid upsetting the clientele, or at least the occasional one or two who probably were ladies.

  It was on the first Tuesday after George returned to the salon that he gave Heather a hint he was around. She’d been the first girl in the salon to arouse his interest, perhaps because of the favourable impression she created when visiting the place with Nigel all those weeks earlier. He was still of the opinion that she would have made a marvellous barmaid and because almost the only girls that he had contact with over the past couple of centuries had been barmaids, George found himself drawn to Heather and the time came when he made a start on becoming known to her.

  She was cutting and shaping a regular customer’s hair at the time. Nigel was taking a break, as were the girls opposite. George was hovering around and taking an interest more in what Heather was doing than listening to what was being said, when his internal gasses decided to take a break as well.

  It wasn’t a large escape by George’s normal standards, but what it lacked in quantity it made up in the quality of the full bodied stench. Heather, rather surprised, thought that her client, a lady in the best sense of the word had sneaked a ripe one out. She on the other hand twitched her nose and thought that it was very unfair of Heather to have inflicted something like this on to her while she was virtually a captive in the chair. George however was completely oblivious to the discomfort that he had caused.

  A week later and George had made his presence felt on numerous occasions, but it was noted that the odour wasn’t connected to any particular time, or to any one customer. The obvious answer was that one of the girls was the culprit, but given the fact that different staff members were around on each of the occasions this particular odour exploded onto the scene, it was difficult to put the blame onto any one of them.

  Nigel was beginning to get worried about losing valuable customers and initially couldn’t put his finger…or his nose… On to anyone in particular. Eventually however he noticed that Heather was usually in the vicinity when the stench struck. He didn’t want to believe that she could produce such a vile smell, but evidence seemed to be pointing her way. George himself was blissfully unaware of the….pardon the pun…stink that he was causing, and by this time had definitely decided that of all the girls, Heather was the one for him.

  The girls had started discussing the mysterious miasma and had jokingly started referring to it as the work of ‘the phantom farter’, not realising how close to the truth that they were.

  To Nigel however it was anything but a joke. Customers had not surprisingly started commenting on the sudden smells too and he could see disaster striking his business. Perm lotion, hair colour agents and other chemicals associated with the hair dressing trade all had their different odours and customers were familiar with them; felt comfortable around them, but this….this was different. It was even suggested that possibly a rat had crawled into the foundations of the place while it was under construction and had died there, but it was generally felt that a rotting rat would smell far sweeter than the sudden blasts that were now regularly affecting the salon.

  Nigel eventually admitted defeat in his quest to find the culprit. He still reluctantly had a suspicion that Heather could be the odious one, but couldn’t bring himself to confront her on the subject. Heather herself knew she was innocent, but was well aware that everyone else in the salon had started smelling more than a rat where she was concerned. She felt even worse when Nigel came in one morning with a basket full of deodorant sprays and after distributing them among the girls along with instructions that they must be used at the first hint of a smell, pointedly gave her one and placed another two by the side of her chair.

  So it was an uncharacteristically miserable Heather who took on the task of putting out the lights and locking the premises up that evening. Normally a bubbly person with a ready laugh, she had been silent and withdrawn for most of the day. This had an unsettling effect on George who still had no idea of the trouble that he was caus
ing.

  He silently watched as Heather moved around the now deserted salon, making sure that everything was secure and turned off, when she herself suddenly had the feeling she wasn’t alone in the place. Checking the French doors that gave access into the garden, she had a clear view of the illuminated salon reflected in the glass against the darkened view outside.

  Despite the feeling that someone or something was close behind her, she could see in the reflection the salon was empty. Suddenly however and without warning the stench hit her. George had dropped one of his best yet. Gasping for breath, Heather groped by her chair for the nearest aerosol air freshener and finding the pair that Nigel had thoughtfully placed there that morning, took one in each hand and blasted the salon full of spray. George was completely taken by surprise by this performance and his normally invisible shape showed itself momentarily in the mist filled room.

  Heather, completely shaken at the sight of the ghost, gave a muffled shriek and fled from the room leaving the main lights on. She still had the presence of mind to lock the door behind her and she fled to her car before fumbling for her mobile phone, then with trembling fingers dialled Nigel’s home number.

  Nigel, not surprisingly, found it difficult to believe Heather’s story. It sounded very much like a story that Heather has trumped up to cover her own sins. Either that or her brain was becoming as addled as her posterior. He listened quietly to her however and advised her to go home, take a hot bath and get good night’s sleep. “We’ll talk about it in the morning.” He promised her.

  Heather arrived slightly late on the following day. Nigel had told the rest of the girls what she had told him the previous evening, but no one in the salon felt like discussing the matter with the unfortunate girl. George had listened to Nigel briefing his staff and although he still didn’t realise he was the primary cause of the fuss, did know that in letting Heather catch a sight of him, had caused her a lot of trouble. He wandered through to the solicitor’s office and then into the ladies fashion house deep in thought.

  The salon was well into its regular routine and Nigel listened once again to a slightly calmer Heather re-telling her story. Still unbelieving, he nevertheless pretended to take her seriously and she attended to her first client feeling a little better. The morning passed by without a hint of anything even slightly niffy and Nigel was feeling optimistic that his little talk to Heather had maybe put an end to, or at least created a more discreet atmosphere in the smelly saga. He was now fully convinced that Heather was the culprit.

  Walking to the desk to collect the fee with his newly glamorised client, he returned to his chair and turned to greet his next customer. The smile died on his face as he looked at the young man sitting there. Unless there was a fancy dress party that he hadn’t heard about (and there weren’t many parties that Nigel didn’t hear about) he knew he was looking at Heather’s ghost. George had decided he must make the supreme sacrifice and show himself to help Heather out, so as Nigel’s jaw dropped onto his chest, George lifted his left buttock and let out a rasper. There was no doubt now that Nigel was looking at the real phantom farter.

  The vision only lasted a few seconds and strangely no one else in the salon saw a thing. The smell was something else however and within seconds whole batches of aerosols were blasting out in an effort to sweeten the atmosphere.

  Two days later, after the salon had closed for the evening and all the staff had departed, a Roman Catholic priest, Father O’Brien entered and shook Nigel’s hand. Nigel wasn’t particularly religious, but the priest had been in the habit of having his hair trimmed by him for a good number of years and although very sceptical when Nigel had visited and related his tale of woe, he’d looked up Canon Law and discovered that he was able to perform an exorcism ceremony even though Nigel could be considered to be none too faithful.

  Heather, feeling that something odd was about to happen, watched from her car, parked on a scrap of waste land across from the salon and saw Father O’Brien enter the place. She quietly moved back to the salon and listened at the door.

  Watched also by an increasingly uneasy George, the vestments were donned, the salt and wine produced and the ceremony got under way. Nigel had to suffer the ‘laying on of hands’ even though he protested it was the salon that was possessed; not himself personally.

  Eventually the good Father reached the part when he demanded that all uneasy spirits ‘be gone’.

  George felt a powerful force like a great wind forcing him away. Suddenly he was propelled through door, like a cork from a champagne bottle, to the great outdoors for the first time in over two hundred years. Heather was blasted to the floor when the door flew open, and both Nigel and the priest ran to her aid when they heard her squeak with fright.

  An odourless week later Nigel and Heather were drinking coffee during their break. Neither had mentioned the ghost or the exorcism to the other staff members, so the secret was theirs alone. “I wonder what happened to the smelly devil?” Nigel asked quietly.

  Heather sipped her coffee. “Dunno,” she replied. “Heaven or Hell, I expect.”

  Across the road in the ‘White Hart’ pub, the domino school was just getting under way. The first hand was shuffled on the table top and the four players selected their tiles. “Bloody Hell,” roared Martin, the biggest and loudest man there. “I wish that somebody would lay off the vindaloo… the smell’s just about killing me!”

  The other three looked mystified and failed to notice pages of a discarded newspaper turning over by themselves on the next table.

  Filming with Lucifer

  By Sarah Jane

  The charred grey storm clouds engulfed the rich ambience of the midday sun causing a lingering claustrophobic heat to fill the air. Michael Mortimer standing tall, peered out through the immaculate, spacious French windows upon the murky scene that fell beneath his gaze. Sheltered from the spearing raindrops that pelted the glass and blurred his vision, his pale, etiolated face remained never phased, yet cynical. His luscious green sanctuary that spread for acres encased by close set evergreens, was being subject to media attention at the rear of his aged estate. Such magnitude the house possessed it had submerged him in his own isolation. And now the tranquillity had been intruded.

  There before him his eyes fixed gaze hypnotically like a wolf’s on a lamb, despite the flock of busying figures compromising his view; scurrying about the scene with cameras, equipment and large material bags. A naked corpse being born from his own passive river that lead to the nearby swamplands. Michael noted it was a woman of not much an age. Her hair fell lengthy, muted black and matted; definitely suit’s the phrase a drowned rat he quipped to himself.

  Michael was desensitized from images of death and corpses in their macabre form; especially the film set that wrapped up before him. To create a magnificent film he knew a realistic essence must be captured to turn the audiences stomach to the core. His lean emaciated fingers ran calmly through his fine russet hair, as if to wash away the despise he had towards clichéd settings and the killing of a surprising element in a murder. He had given up feeding the false passions of film audiences and had passed his directing legacy on. The oak door flew open jolting Michael into remission. “Speak of the devil and he appears” he uttered under his breath.

  ***

  Walking hurriedly along the deserted corridor I rehearsed in my mind a short direct conversation I could have with my Uncle. He wasn’t exactly impressed by company. Nor did he express this or any other emotion for that matter. I proceeded into the hollow room and once more it looked like I had disturbed Michael’s thinking. But it was a necessity if I was to be fulfilling my dreams and deep down I really longed for him to deem me worthy of his gift he had bestowed on me to continue his work.

  “The location shots are over now, leave you in peace?” I casually asked hoping for him to engage me for a while with his wisdom. Let’s put it this way; I had the charisma, the passion a thirty-something needed to make it and network in this in
dustry, yet Mike had the intellect I longed to discover.

  “Glad to be of assistance. It should be an art piece when you’ve finished Flynn”, he replied. I could see the grin of sarcasm fighting to sit on his aging face. It made me feel uneasy him using my name. It seemed an unnatural effort, as if his insincerity was aiming at me. Why could I never be entirely sure what to make of his comments? A fear, I suppose, most people had about his character.

  To be honest I wasn’t doing well I hadn’t even got a home any more after my last break up with an evil bitch, so I feared asking him this question whether I could stay for a while. I knew he didn’t want to know about my life but…Take advantage of that house I thought! It was luxurious even though the lacings of dust indicated a lack of cleanliness. But then again a house of that scale…

  I went in for the kill “Oh before I go, one of the actresses is having a hard time finding a place to stay. Their hotel double booked, don’t suppose, you know, just for the night?”

  “Mm,” Michael murmured nodding vacantly. I could tell he didn’t like the unexpected intrusion and I suffered asking my next line about a place for myself. But barely in to the question he knew what I was asking and cut in. He agreed to me staying and that I was to take my time. Great, I thought only my social life was going to be compromised considerably. There seriously was not a bar or club in sight; at least a few hours drive away. A definite favourite past time of mine, passing time into the early hours of the morning with soul searching conversation entwined in an atmosphere hazed with smoke and heady intoxication. But if I was to delve into creating a masterpiece and continuing the success of the family name, this could be the blessing in disguise. The learning curve I needed, I quickly reassured myself. And Samara. The talented fierce, actress that I intended to keep the centre of my filming, continued to stay. And by my side as we had planned. Her long dark mane complementing her ever flowing determination and her character like that of a chameleon.