by Andy Morris
well-seasoned community psychiatric nurse. Regarding her over the top of his glasses with a look of infinite patience that was somehow tinged with private regret he said quietly “I can’t hear any tapping, Jade. But perhaps it is time we looked at moving you on?”
“I can’t stay in this freezing flat on my own for much longer” Jade complained. “When I saw him there I thought I was being robbed. Then I realised it was Stan Silver’s ghost. I actually screamed! But I couldn’t get to my chair; he was too quick”. Jade’s hand rested tenderly on her belly as Peter took a long thoughtful look around the cluttered bedroom taking in all the details. Peter was a good one, he’d come straight round after receiving Jade’s call. But his silent scrutiny was like a heavy blanket and she felt the room pressing in around her.
“This is where he murdered his wife” Jade explained unnecessarily, trying dispelling the sudden claustrophobia now threatening to overwhelm her.
“I’ve said before I believe in ghosts” Peter reassured her. “They’re a real interest of mine. But…” he paused as Jade became aware of the hammering becoming louder, more urgent in tone.
“Most of the time there’s perfectly rational explanations for things that go-bump-in-the-night. I want to show you that there’s nothing to be scared of. Now, watch this…” He ambled over to the window and struck a match, passing it around the window frame. The orange flame flickered and danced, sputtering in a draft from an unseen gap.
“No wonder it’s cold in here, Jade” he said evenly in that tone of voice that she couldn’t get mad at, no matter how frustrated she felt. There’s no way a mere draft could make the temperature drop as much as it did sometimes.
“But he came to get me” Jade persisted as the strange thudding from the walls grew steadily nosier. Surely Peter could hear it now? But he didn’t comment. Instead, he picked up the Stephen King novel that was lying on the bed next to her Wellbeing and Recovery Plan, and offered her an I-told-you-so expression.
“It wasn’t a dream!” Jade fought down the urge to hit the armrest of her wheelchair. “The ghost of Stan Silver was here and he’ll come back for me”. Jade felt her voice breaking as she dug her fingernails painfully into the palms of her hands.
Peter studied the room as the disembodied thudding quickly rose into a thunderous pounding; its tempo increasing with its volume making it sound more desperate, more critical.
“I can hear that” Peter admitted. “Sometimes small pockets of air get trapped inside water pipes and it can make clattering sounds not unlike this” he rationalised, while glancing warily at the walls.
“No” Jade protested. “It’s Winnie Silver, banging on the walls for help just before her husband murdered her”.
“Jade” Peter gently challenged over the racket that now filled the room. “What evidence do you have that Winnie Silver actually died here?”
“You’ve got to help me”. Jade ignored him, raising her voice over the frantic din. Her cold arms tingled with goose bumps, as if she were locked inside a giant freezer with no way out.
“Stan Silver didn’t just appear last night” she shivered uneasily. “He also did this”. Lifting her t-shirt Jade revealed a painful latticework of angry scarlet lacerations. Criss-crossing wounds zigzagged over her pale body. A jagged blade had torn her skin apart, far more severely than she could ever do herself, even when she was self-harming.
The hammering was louder than ever.
There’s no way this was faulty plumbing! Something was coming. She needed to go: To hide somewhere, fast! Jade put her wheelchair into reverse. Its tyres squeaked on the laminate floor.
“Jade wait” Peter called urgently. “Listen to me very carefully...”
The noise abruptly stopped and the flat was plunged into total silence. Neither of them moved in the brittle stillness that followed. Somehow the absence of sound was even more thunderous than the banging itself. Jade’s panicked breath curled upwards like smoke in the sudden wintery chill that had descended and she wondered, for a moment, why Peter was staring at her. But then she realised, Peter was actually focusing on something over her shoulder. Unable to turn around in the narrow passageway, Jade felt a presence loom over her from behind.
He’d come back for her!
“It’s not real, Jade” Peter whispered as if from a distance. “Stan Silver doesn’t exist; you don’t need to be afraid of him. I know you’ve been scared for a long time Jade, even before your suicide. But if you trust me I can help you move on, and finally find the peace you deserve”.
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Five - Tape Worm
As a semi-retired GP Doctor Adrian Barns hadn’t quite found the spur to give up his practice in the rural Lake District. He now mainly worked as the on-call doctor when the main surgery was closed.
Doctor Barns had been looking at retirement with wary eyes for some time but as he knew most of his patients personally he couldn’t quite bring himself to leave the practice altogether. It wasn’t the case that he’d have nothing to do if he stopped working because there was always plenty to do on the family farm.
His wife Carol mainly ran Grizedale Farm but he helped out whenever he could. By way of holding onto their former hippy days, Grizedale was a purely organic farm with no trace of artificial pesticides, fertilisers or plant growth regulators.
Adrian had had to reconcile his professional preference for synthetic medicine and the evidence of its effectiveness with his passion for the natural organic ethos that underpinned all the work on the farm. At times he felt a little hypocritical as he prescribed medicines to his patients in surgery while at home he and his wife campaigned against the use of man-made materials.
Bella Marcel, one of his patients who shared his passion for organics and conservation, was unwell and he was making a home visit tonight. Outside the cloud cover was hiding the moon and starts and without any streetlights at four am in this part of the country it was like driving blindfolded. Adrian had lived in the area off his life he knew the roads like the back of his hand but habit and respect for the countryside made him drive slower than perhaps he needed to as he made his way over to the village of Satterthwaite.
Bella had come down with a mystery infection following a trip to South America and Adrian couldn’t help but feel a little uneasy about symptoms she had described. Doctor Barns was gifted with a sixth sense. He had an intuitive understanding of patients’ symptoms from the moment he met them without even having to ask them any questions. He was quite accurate and on more than one occasion he had diagnosed an illnesses or condition that the patient hadn’t even been aware they had. But with Bella, the GP was unsure whether the unease he was feeling was due to his talent or because of the rumours circulating in the media South America.
Bella had returned home a couple of weeks before the outbreak hit the news but very little was known about it yet as the authorities were trying to keep a lid on it. All he knew was that there was area in eastern Peru where there had been of some kind of nasty outbreak of gastrointestinal intestinal infections, not far from where Bella had been travelling and it was likely she may have picked it up.
Doctor Barns had known young Bella all her life. He had treated her mother before she passed away a few years ago. When Bella was younger she used to work on the farm helping out at weekends in the nursery. She was a hard worker and he predicted she would go far in life. She was currently reading fashion at university with the aim of being a designer and she appeared to have some talent.
Last Thursday when he had first visited her she had shown him sketches of the organic baby clothes collection she was working on. At the time she had looked tired and complained of low energy. She also reported symptoms of vomiting, loss of appetite, feeling cold and had cramps in her stomach. Stroking his grandfatherly beard in a thoughtful manner Doctor Barns had considered her symptoms and wondered about a possible gastroenteritis but he had observed the recent suntan and Bella told him a
bout her traveling.
“Yes, my boyfriend and I were travelling around Peru about a month ago” Bella’s face had lit up slightly as she relived memories of the holiday. She continued in a queasy voice: “We spent two amazing weeks trekking around Puerto Maldonado, it was fantastic Adrian; you would have loved it”.
Doctor Barns let most of his patients refer to him by his first name. It was a close community out here and there was no point in distancing oneself with professional titles. He asked her about the food she had eaten over there and if she had had any water that wasn’t pre-bottled; as his sixth sense had hinted at the cause of her illness.
“Well, on one expedition we did run out of water” she had admitted with a guilty glance. “We found a freshwater river but we used water purifying tablets and only drank a tiny amount. Oh god, do you think I picked something up there?” she had asked nervously.
“It’s likely you may have picked up some kind of parasite”. An image of a tapeworm had flashed into his mind. “Tapeworms can be quite common in under-developed countries such as South America. But most of the time they’re relatively harmless so you’ve nothing to worry about”, he had tried to reassure her with a sympathetic smile as he saw the look of disgust cross her face.
It had been too early for any
