A Spookies Compendium

by David Robinson

  Waiting for him to unlock the doors, Sceptre looked up at the forbidding front of the Ashdalean and said, “I’m not scared of you.”

  “I’m not scared of you either,” Pete responded, throwing open the doors.

  Sceptre glanced along the length of her nose. “I was talking to the building.”

  “Ah. Right. It’s gonna be one of those nights, is it?”

  She walked in with Pete at her shoulder. Raising her lamp, she gestured behind the door. Pete found the light switches and flicked the top row. One lamp in three lit up, dispelling the darkness, but there were still large areas of shadow: enough to tempt even the most reluctant of spirits.

  She felt a thrill run down her spine at the prospect of the night ahead.

  “You do get scared,” she had confessed to Mike McKinley when he interviewed her for the Ashdale Evening Chronicle, “but you have to call on your reserves of courage, and keep reminding yourself that the spirits will not hurt you.”

  It was not true. There were those malevolent spirits that would harm the living, but Fishwick’s presence gave her a feeling of security against such evil.

  Pete handed her the keys and returned to the car to help with the unloading. Sceptre called upon her butler. “Fishwick.”

  “Yes, Milady?”

  “Are there many spirits in the vicinity, Fishwick?”

  “A number, Madam. None is particularly interested in your presence, although that situation may change as the night progresses.”

  “Is your angry spirit here?” Sceptre asked.

  “No, Your Ladyship,” replied her butler, “but I do not think he will be far away.”

  “And do you have any spirit confessing to have been the Reverend James Emmet?” she asked.

  “To be truthful, Milady, these spirits are quite reserved and none is saying much to me at the moment,” Fishwick answered. “However, do not worry about them, Madam, I shall be with you through the night.”

  Satisfied that Fishwick was on duty, Sceptre ambled along the hall and into the main corridor. Her footsteps produced their own ghosts, bouncing from the walls, exacerbating the sense of isolation created by the empty building. It was almost as if she expected the terror of every childhood nightmare to leap out at her.

  She stopped at a set of double doors about half way down on the left, and after trying several keys, unlocked and opened them, and stepped into the dining hall. Flicking on a minimum number of lights again, she gazed around the room. Prior experience of such buildings had led her to expect austere wooden tables and benches set out in long rows. It came as a surprise to find them modern and laminate topped, in various colours, each surrounded by six or eight chairs. In one corner stood a Christmas Tree, the baubles and tinsel reflecting the inadequate lighting. Passing through the kitchen entrance, she flicked on overhead fluorescent lamps and was confronted with more modernity, the stainless steel surfaces of the fixtures and fittings gleaming in the light.

  Returning to the dining hall, footsteps coming from the corridor caused her to concentrate on the entrance. Their pace told her it was nothing more supernatural than Kevin, hurrying along, sweating, gasping for breath under the weight of a large carton.

  He dropped it on a nearby table, and stood back, panting. “Why … why is it always such a long way from the … the door to where we set … set up our base?”

  Sceptre smiled. A week previously, they had carried out an all-night vigil on the 17th floor of a tower block, where one of the apartments had experienced poltergeist activity. Kevin had slept most of the night due to exhaustion, a result, he said, of carrying the equipment from the van up a flight of steps and into the lobby to the lift. To make matters worse, nothing had happened that night.

  “We need to be near the canteen facilities, Kevin,” she said in response to his present complaint. “Or would you prefer to go the whole night without a cup of tea.”

  He wiped his brow. “I could have brought a thermos.”

  “Ugh,” Sceptre screwed up her face. “Can’t stand tea from a thermos.”

  He smiled. “Better yet, I could have stayed home and left it to you and Pete. He’d have liked that.”

  “We need you here, Kevin, and not to protect my honour. We need you to operate the machinery.” She ran her eye around the room again. “You’ll be setting up in the kitchen, I imagine? Most of the electrical outlets are in there.”

  Kevin took out a handkerchief and wiped his brow. “I’m not having my gear in a kitchen. All that water might blow more than a fuse. We’ll set up in here. I have enough extension cables to reach power points through there.” He pointed to the serving hatches.

  Walking back together, they turned out of the room and Pete entered carrying another carton. Unlike Kevin, he had no problem with either the weight or the distance he had carried it.

  “Beefcake,” said Kevin. “Gets on your wick.” He half turned and called back, “watch out for the man in black, Pete.” Lowering his voice to a whisper, he said to Sceptre, “that’ll put the wind up him.”

  “You watch out for him running past you when I’ve kicked him in the goolies,” Pete shouted.

  “Somehow, I don’t think he’s impressed,” Sceptre said as they wandered back out into the cold.

  It took a further twenty minutes to relieve the van of its many cartons and the four drums of mains electrical cable, and then came the task of unpacking it all. Coils of audio and video cable, PIR sensors, magnetometers, thermometers and several digital camcorders, including the professional model Kevin had acquired, along with their motorised tripods. After unpacking it, while Kevin set up the laptop computer, which would be used to drive the equipment, Pete zipped his coat up.

  “I’ll do Sherlock’s rounds for him,” he said. “Shouldn’t take longer than ten minutes. If you two wanna set up your locations down here, I’ll be back in time to help you on the floors above.

  Kevin mock-saluted. “Yes, boss,” he said.

  “You get on your way, Pete,” Sceptre invited. “We’ll be somewhere round here.”

  With Pete’s departure, Sceptre tucked two tripods, one under each arm, and picked up two video cameras. “We’ll start in the chapel, Kevin,” she suggested.

  “Wherever,” he said, and strapping on his utility belt, collected two drums, each holding 50 metres of cable.

  Sceptre led the way out, and paused in the corridor at the roll of honour. 1916, she noticed, had seen several deaths, in the service of King & Country.

  “My great grandfather and Fishwick were killed on the first day of the Somme,” she said. “A horrific miscalculation on the part of the military planners.” She sighed. “Still, there can be no greater honour than to die in the defence of one’s country.”

  Kevin stopped beside her. “How about an OBE?”

  “I’m sorry?” Sceptre’s polite words did not match her look, the same one she would use when dealing with an impertinent student.

  “You said there was no greater honour than getting shot for your country. I was just thinking an OBE’s a lot better.”

  Sceptre felt certain that Kevin was being his usual, flippant self, but there was nothing about him to suggest it. “I’ll forgive your ignorance, Kevin. It’s probably what comes of a state education.”

  Kevin eyed her. “Elitist.”

  While they continued towards the chapel, Sceptre struggled with her conscience. Kevin’s comment on OBEs may have been offside, but her response was elitist. In his own way, Kevin was a skilled salesman, as much of value to society as she.

  Once more, it took a minute or two to find the correct key before Sceptre unlocked the doors, flung them open, and marched in.

  There were even fewer lights than out in the corridor. Occasional bulbs burned in odd corners, dispelling local shadows, but creating even deeper ones where their light did not penetrate.

  Sceptre spent a moment studying the angles. “It’ll be difficult to cover every square inch so we’ll set up facing the altar. T
he tripods all have motor drives, don’t they, Kevin?”

  “They do.” Kevin slotted the first camera onto the tripod mount. “But they only turn through two hundred and seventy degrees.”

  His reinforcement of something she already knew, only irritated Sceptre. “You’d think in this day and age, we would have equipment that could turn the cameras full circle.”

  “And get the cables tangled up?” Plugging electrical and audio/visual feeds into the machine, Kevin held them up for her to see. “Turn the camera full circle, the cables would drag, wrap themselves round the tripod leg and eventually either break or burn out the motor. Do me a favour, Sceptre, and leave the tech stuff to me.”

  Sceptre accepted the mild reproof. There were times she considered Kevin indolent, obtuse, a daydreaming waster not worthy of her interest, but at times like this, when she watched him work with technologies she could barely operate never mind understand, she was in awe of him. It made her ashamed of her haughtiness.

  Happy with the camera angle, Kevin ran the cables back to a socket board, and plugged them in. When he had done that, he clipped a PIR sensor to the head of the camera, above the lens. Switching it on, he asked her to walk across its beam to test it out.

  “Working,” he said, and switched the sensor off again.

  Sceptre looked over the morass of cables. For all their complexity, none ran back to an electrical outlet. “How do you test these things without power, Kevin?” she asked. It was an idiot question and she had to wonder whether she meant it or she was just making small talk.

  Kevin was busy running cables from the PIR to the back of the camera, where, through a complex set of microchip-based circuitry, it would switch on the camera the moment the PIR was triggered. “This stately home you were brought up in, Sceptre, did it have running water, or were you still pumping it out of a well?” He pointed to the back of the PIR “Battery backups.” Again, he had her test the set up by walking through the PIR beam. When the camera moved in response to her crossing the aisle, he shut it down and reported, “Okey-dokey. We’re hunky-dory here. What now?”

  She nodded to the far corner. “The crypt.”

  “Right,” Kevin said. “You’ve seen how it’s done, I’ll leave you to it.”

  “Very good,” said Sceptre. “You can make the tea. And don’t forget and extra cup for the man in black.”

  “The crypt did you say?” Kevin picked up the second tripod. “Lead on, Sceptre.”

  The light bulbs in the narrow, stone staircase were of a lower wattage even than those in the chapel. Sceptre used her battery-powered lantern to light her way down the steps, and then held it aloft for Kevin who, she noticed, when he got to the lower level, paid close attention to his camera as he set it up. Almost as if he did not wish to look anywhere else for fear of what he might see. She recalled his scare in the cellars of Melmerby Manor and smiled encouragement at him. “They’re only coffins, Kevin. They can’t harm you. Now come on.”

  She ambled along, checking the plaques above each sarcophagus, Kevin wandering along behind her, keeping his eyes rigidly forward, refusing to look either side. Sceptre stopped and he bumped into her.

  “Sorry,” he apologised.

  “Eyes shut?” she asked.

  “I was following too close.”

  “Well come closer and shine your camera light on this casket.”

  He shuddered. “I’d rather not.”

  Sceptre folded her arms and tapped her foot on the floor. “Stop behaving like a child, Kevin and train your camera on the casket.”

  Sheepishly, he moved to her side, aimed his camera, switched the spotlight on and began recording.

  Sceptre dimmed her own torch and read the faded plaque in the light of his camera. James Kenneth Emmet: 1872-1942. Headmaster, 1917-1942. RIP. Beneath it, the coffin lid was a single stone slab on which stood three items: a metal tankard, a pocket watch and a silver coin.

  “What’s with them?” Kevin asked, bringing the camera to focus on them.

  “According to the book I picked up from the library, the Reverend Emmet had a taste for local ales,” Sceptre explained. “Before he came to the Ashdalean, he was the vicar of All Saints and chaplain to The Old Brewery where he developed a liking for Ashdale Old and Mild. You’ll understand everything I’m saying, I imagine?”

  Kevin nodded and his camera wobbled in the dark. “The brewery is the other side of town, not far from All Saints.”

  “I knew you would,” Sceptre said. “He later became headmaster of the Ashdalean and like all the headmasters, he had the right to be interred here. The Reverend Emmet was unmarried, and he made it clear that he wished to exercise that right, but he wanted to be buried with his favourite pewter tankard, which he kept behind the bar in the Wagon and Horses, his pocket watch, so he could keep his eye on opening and closing times, and a florin, which was sufficient to keep him in beer for a night in the lounge bar, where he enjoyed most Saturday nights. He insisted that the items should remain on his burial casket, and never be touched. Never.” Sceptre bent to study the items. “Kevin, bring that light closer. I can’t see.”

  He focused his light on the slab. The objects had obviously been moved. Sceptre had noticed that most of the caskets were covered in dust, but Emmet’s was almost clean and the three objects shone in the camera light. Examining the slab further, Sceptre noticed that the dust had drifted to the rear, as if someone had lifted the front of the stone.

  “I wonder what’s been going on,” she murmured and picked up the florin to examine it closer.

  A deep rumble grew from somewhere in the heart of the crypt, swelled and magnified until it was a booming growl, filling the cellar.

  “What the hell have you done, Sceptre?” Kevin asked backtracking towards the steps, panning his camera left and right.

  There came several loud bangs in response.

  “You will not frighten me, spirit,” Sceptre called out, but she made her way to join Kevin.

  The top button of her shirt popped open. Sceptre fastened it and it popped yet again.

  “Fishwick,” she said, closing the button again “can you stop this individual from playing his silly games and persuade him to go through The Light?”

  “He’s been here for a long time, Madam,” Fishwick reported, “and is very resilient.”

  Sceptre huffed. “Then throw his florin through The Light.”

  “It doesn’t work like that, Milady,” objected her butler. “I have told you many times, I cannot throw physical objects through The Light.”

  “Yes. Of course. My apologies.” It was an elementary error, brought on, she told herself, by the claustrophobic confines of the crypt. “All right, Fishwick, bounce him away from here, and stand guard so that he cannot return … at least for the moment.”

  “Very good, Madam.”

  Silence fell.

  A relieved Kevin wiped imaginary sweat from his brow. “Well done, Fishwick.”

  *****

  There was nothing about the human-esque form floating above the crypt, nothing to say it was James Emmet. No facial features, no cassock, no dog collar, not even a gown and mortarboard to identify him as a schoolteacher. But on the Spirit Plane such means of identification were unnecessary. Fishwick knew it was Emmet, and as if that knowledge were not enough, the spirit’s arrival and interaction with the mistress after she had removed the coin and called out, was sufficient to identify it as the late incumbent of the Ashdalean.

  “I’ve been here a lot longer than you, me old sparrow,” said Fishwick, making certain that he kept his presence between Emmet and Madam, “and I reckon I know the rules a bit better.”

  “We’ll have to see about that,” said Emmet. “And while we’re at it, don’t call me your old sparrow. Have you no respect for my cloth?”

  “You haven’t got any cloth, me old marrer. You’re dead. You’ve been dead nigh on seventy years as they count the time.” Fishwick gestured at the three people in the crypt. “Now wi
ll you just go quietly, or what?”

  “I’m going nowhere until she puts my beer money back on my box.” To demonstrate his determination, Emmet dodged round Fishwick, and popped open one of Sceptre’s buttons again.

  “Open the shirt bit by bit, until we get a look at one fine …”

  “Knock it off, sport,” Fishwick interrupted. “She won’t stand for it.”

  Emmet appeared to study Fishwick for a moment. “Who are you? Her father?”

  “No. I’m her butler, Fishwick.”

  “A butler, eh?” Emmet’s interest was suddenly aroused. “In that case bring me a pint of Old and Mild and a cheese and pickle sandwich, while I get to know your mistress a bit better.”

  “Now listen, pal, this ain’t doing no one any good,” Fishwick said. “Madam will put the money back, once you agree to leave her alone. And you won’t get at her without going through me.”

  “No? We’ll see about that.”

  Fishwick thought he detected a sly smile in Emmet’s final words. The late headmaster backed off, and Fishwick was satisfied that he had won the day. He was about to report to his mistress, when Emmet darted out of the crypt, then rushed back in.

  Knocked to one side, Fishwick almost slipped into The Light. Only his years of experience and lightning reactions enabled him to swerve off. In the meantime, Emmet rushed through the crypt, slammed the door shut and smashed into the wall.

  Any spirit could make the choice. Physical objects presented no barrier, but if the spirit wanted to make his presence felt, he could interact with them. Emmet’s slamming into the walls had no effect on Fishwick, but its effect on the building was almost cataclysmic. The walls shook and a huge crash echoed around the crypt.

  *****

  “I’d better put the coin back,” said Sceptre. “I don’t want to annoy the spirits.”