Dead Scared

by Curtis Jobling

  Dougie took a step toward the top of the staircase, the boards creaking beneath his feet. That was all it took. Goodman spun, the pick in his other hand rising high to strike him.

  ‘Look out!’ I screamed, alerting Dougie to the headmaster’s intentions. My friend leaped forward, crashing into the teacher’s middle and wrestling with him for the pick. The two of them collided with the banister, the wooden rail splintering as it gave way beneath their combined weight. I looked down, two lofty storeys to the ground far below. The sound of rending wood echoed through the House as rail, spindles and newel post were ripped free, and the struggling figures both tumbled into thin air. Towards their deaths.

  ‘Leap!’ I screamed, barging my friend free of Goodman’s grasp and propelling him further out into space. Dougie collided with the great chandelier, its cobweb-covered crystals rattling as he was snared within its ornate arms and finials. The brass column lurched, grinding against its ceiling housing as Dougie’s weight threatened to tear it free, but somehow it held, turning on its bracket and dislodging an avalanche of dust. I remained on the broken balcony, staring the short distance across to my friend where he was suspended, safe from harm. I peered over the edge, expecting to see Goodman far below.

  The head of the pickaxe was embedded into the floorboards on the edge of the landing, while the shaft hung down over the landing’s edge. Goodman hung from the end of it, both hands gripping the wood as his feet struggled for purchase against the wall. Digging the toes of his boots into the thin cracks of crumbling mortar, he looked across to Dougie with a grin.

  ‘Well, boy,’ he snarled, ‘sitting pretty there, aren’t you? Hang about and I’ll be with you momentarily.’

  With horror I watched Goodman raise one hand over the other, slowly hauling himself higher and walking up the wall. The axe head creaked where it was buried in the landing, the tool straining under the weight of the advancing headmaster. He grunted as he climbed, his eyes wild with murderous intent, his comb-over stuck to his sweat-slick bald head.

  ‘Couldn’t stay away, could you? Meddling little oik. Well, you like the ghosts so much, you can join them.’

  The chandelier jingled as Dougie nervously shifted. He was a sitting duck. Once Goodman got back on to the landing, it would be the end for all of us. With Dougie gone, what would happen to me? We were joined at the hip, inseparable. Would he join me in limbo – or something worse?

  Goodman’s fingers scrabbled over the edge of the landing, their torn and bloodied tips struggling for purchase. I stared at the hand, a killer’s hand. He needed to be stopped. Reaching forward I gripped the ring finger and focused, prising it loose. It pinged free, followed by the little finger as I looked over the ledge and glared down at Goodman.

  ‘You’re done hurting people,’ I whispered as his terrified eyes finally focused on me. I don’t know what it was that suddenly allowed him to see me. Perhaps having seen Phyllis, his mind was now open to the possibility of ghosts. The same had happened with Dougie, after all, once I’d first visited him.

  ‘Underwood,’ he burbled, spittle foaming on his lips. ‘Think of what you’re doing, lad!’

  I hesitated, my hand wavering over his straining thumb, index and forefinger. Could I do it? Could I take someone’s life? Would that make me any better than him? Before I could decide I felt a cold presence at my side, turning to find Phyllis had joined me. Her phantom black hand closed over mine, drawing it back.

  ‘Let me do this,’ she said. ‘You shouldn’t have to.’

  ‘But you can’t move things in the physical world, Phyllis, remember?’ I said. ‘It has to be me.’

  ‘You’ve a good heart, Will. You couldn’t take a man’s life, no matter how evil.’

  My shoulders sagged, the tears welling in my eyes as I looked across to Dougie. My friend stared back, a terrible understanding and realisation on his face.

  I heard Goodman’s low chuckle. ‘Well isn’t that a shame? One of you can harm me but won’t, and the other wants to but can’t. Stand aside, children. Let me show you how this is done.’

  His other hand came up, seizing the head of the pick axe where it joined the shaft, Goodman’s face rising above the landing’s edge. The blade bit the board even deeper, twisting position with the sudden movement, the spongy timber crumpling around it. The sound of groaning wood made all three of us look back as the floor began to buckle, nails and screws uprooted as the ground began to lose its integrity. The gleeful look was washed off Goodman’s face as he let go of the pick, the tool tearing free from the splintering timber flooring and tumbling into space behind him. It landed on the ground floor with an almighty thunk, embedded into the soiled lobby carpet, the other end of the axe head pointing skyward.

  The floorboards were tearing free around Goodman now, crumbling as he grabbed them and clattering from the landing. He slipped back with a screech, his sweaty hands snatching at the exposed joists, sliding ever closer to the drop, palms full of splinters.

  ‘Help me,’ he wheezed.

  I threw my hands forward, ignoring my darker instincts. I snatched at his forearms as he continued to lose his grip, his fingers now leaving furrows in the disintegrating wood. I focused all my energy on Goodman’s wrists, holding on tight, willing myself to halt his progress. Even Phyllis wrapped her arms about me trying to help. It was all in vain. Goodman tumbled back, his fists full of decayed timber, screaming as he cartwheeled backwards through the air. Dougie, Phyllis and I looked away, unable to watch the headmaster’s descent. Goodman plummeted to the ground two floors below, his scream cut short as he landed on the pick in the centre of the lobby.

  THIRTY

  Goodbyes and Hellos

  In the moments immediately after Goodman’s death, the House, and all within, appeared to be in a state of shock. A deafening silence had fallen over the building, every noise muted as if heard underwater. Ghost though I was, my ears felt like they’d popped and my vision wavered. I was at ground zero in the aftermath of a bomb attack. I collapsed onto the top step of the staircase, holding my head in my hands as I tried to fix my gaze upon Dougie in the chandelier. Goodman’s wasn’t the first horrible death Red Brook House had witnessed, but we had to pray it was the last.

  The aftershock lifted, the dust slowly settling across the stairwell and entrance hall, and the world returned to normal. Well, the normality that one expected when one was a ghost. The grating jangling of the chandelier brought me out of my daze as it swung suddenly, Dougie at the heart of it, looking to leap across to the staircase. More dust came down, followed by plaster, as the elaborate light fixture groaned under his weight.

  ‘Stay put, Dougie, for God’s sake!’ I said as he dangled from the ceiling, surrounded by crystals and cobwebs. ‘That thing could give at any moment.’

  ‘You don’t say?’ he said sarcastically as the chandelier groaned.

  ‘Are you hurt? You OK?’

  ‘Never better,’ he replied through gritted teeth. ‘Would now be a good time to mention my vertigo?’

  ‘I never knew you were scared of heights.’

  ‘Neither did I until I ended up hanging on a rickety chandelier that might send me crashing to my death.’

  I tried to smile, tried to laugh to show him I was with him, but it caught in my throat. After all the night’s events, all I now wanted was to see him safe again. But what could I do? I couldn’t run out of the door and fetch help. I couldn’t open a window and shout for someone. I was tied to Dougie, already at my elastic limit, sat watching him, fearful of his ongoing predicament.

  I glanced over the edge of the broken banister, turning away instantly when I saw Goodman’s busted body far below. To my relief, I found Phyllis sat beside me, no more the blackened banshee from moments ago. She was her ghostly self once again, the torment lifted with the passing of Goodman. She rested her head on my shoulder and breathed a sigh of relief.

  ‘It’s over,’ she whispered. ‘It’s gone. I could leave here now.’

&
nbsp; ‘Do you want to?’ I asked.

  ‘The House has been my home for ages. I’ve roamed the corridors, stared out of its windows and sat in that classroom for longer than I care to remember. More than a home, it’s been my prison. I don’t . . . feel I need to stay here any longer.’

  ‘This sounds an awful lot like a goodbye,’ I said.

  ‘It doesn’t have to be. You could come with me.’

  I smiled. ‘I don’t think I could do that. You’ve grown tired of your un-life. I get that: I understand it. If you’d have lived you’d be well into your sixties by now, like Goodman and Borley. Ghost I might be, but I’m also still a teenage boy. This is new to me. I died before my time, with so much more that I wanted to do in life. I’ll never get the chance to achieve those things now, but who knows what I might be able to do in death? There are other ghosts in this world, all stuck here in limbo. Why are they here? What terrible thing has stopped them from moving on? There are mysteries that I can solve, I’m sure of it, just as we solved your mystery, Phyllis.’

  ‘Just as you solved mine?’ she smiled. ‘You got the wrong bloke arrested!’

  I laughed. ‘Yeah, but we got the right guy in the end, didn’t we? I can do some good. There’s a life I can live even though I’m dead. I’ve an opportunity here, alongside that muppet over there,’ I said, pointing to Dougie as my friend waved back.

  Phyllis glanced back over her shoulder and I followed her gaze. At the end of the corridor a light shone from her classroom, bright and brilliant as it spilled out of the doorway.

  We both stood, Phyllis straightening her pinafore. Sniffing back a tear she called across to Dougie. ‘You look after him, you hear?’

  I peeked past her down the corridor, toward the bright light. I wondered if I walked down there now and stepped through the doorway whether it would all be over in a blink of an eye . . . She squeezed my hand.

  ‘Goodbye, Will Underwood,’ she whispered, kissing me on the cheek. ‘Don’t let death hold you back. Go out there, my friend. Live.’

  I reluctantly released her hand, our fingertips lingering until the last moment, as she turned and departed along the corridor. I turned away when I saw her reach the open doorway of her classroom, bathed in the warm, golden light. I closed my eyes as I heard the door close shut behind her.

  We were alone until dawn. That was when the first squad car pulled up at the head of the drive to Red Brook House. They’d spied Goodman’s car beside the open gates, left there by the headmaster the previous evening. Once Dougie’s dad had reported his disappearance, the word had gone round the neighbourhood like wildfire, with every able man, woman and teenager searching for his whereabouts. A crowd had soon descended – including the local press – as the grim discovery of Goodman’s body was the first thing to greet the police upon entering the House. The second was the teenage boy suspended from the ceiling two storeys overhead.

  As if the town wasn’t already aware that something big was happening at the House, by the time the fire engine drove by to extricate my friend from his chandelier, the grounds were teeming with life. By this time the police had already asked Dougie plenty of questions about what had happened that night. The discovery of Phyllis Carrington’s remains, plus the ribbon and photos Goodman had brought with him, only confirmed my friend’s account. Led out into the light with a blanket wrapped around him, Dougie looked every bit the survivor of a terrible ordeal, straight out of the headlines.

  Mr Hancock was there, waiting for his son. The poor chap was distraught and looked older than ever, his eyes wet and bloodshot as he spied Dougie. I stood to one side, leaving the two to their reunion, son holding nothing back as his father enveloped him in his arms. When they finally parted, the flashbulbs began to go off as the photographers from regional rags tried to get their shot. I even spied a television news van pulling up behind the fire engine, their film crew trying to find their way through the crowd. The lady journalist who led the way seemed most dismayed when her own celebrity failed to part the mob.

  ‘Looks like you’re famous now,’ I said to Dougie as his dad stepped up to talk to the police and press on his behalf.

  ‘For fifteen minutes,’ he muttered. ‘It’ll be a skateboarding parrot they’re talking about next week, just you wait and see.’

  ‘Dougie!’

  Her voice was breathless as she burst through the line of police officers and fell into his arms.

  ‘Lucy?’ said Dougie, as amazed as I was to see her. She hugged him hard.

  ‘We all thought you were dead, after what happened to Stu.’

  ‘No, I’m . . . I’m very much alive,’ he replied as another volley of flashbulbs went off. He smiled nervously as one of the photographers asked the two of them to look his way.

  I watched with befuddlement as Lucy whispered to Dougie.

  ‘I’m so sorry I never listened to you before, when you came to me to talk about Will. I didn’t take you seriously, what you were saying. I thought you were being cruel. If I said anything to upset you, I can only apologise. I just wanted to let you know, if you need someone to talk to, ever: I’m there for you.’

  ‘You might want to call your attack dog off,’ he mumbled. ‘Vinnie Savage is quite protective of you, if you weren’t aware.’

  ‘I heard what you did to him on Danger Night, Dougie. It was very brave of you. Besides, you might just have put him in his place. He’s gone into hiding since you punched him in the knackers.’

  ‘Why come to me now, Lucy?’ he said, aware of my close proximity. ‘Why the sudden interest in me?’

  ‘Will was a friend to both of us. If you genuinely think he’s a ghost, I’m all ears.’ She glanced over her shoulder at the cameras and crowds. ‘And besides, you’re a bit of a rock star now.’

  Dougie frowned and looked at me. Dead and unbeating though my heart was, it broke a little more at that moment. I looked at Lucy on Dougie’s arm and saw her for what she was. She might be attracted to some rum company (present gormless best mate excepted) but that didn’t make her a bad girl. And yes, she was still by far the most beautiful girl I’d ever clapped eyes upon. The memory of cherry upon my lips would remind me for ever of what it meant to be alive. But I didn’t know her, not truly. I’d been infatuated with her. She was fond of me – of that there was no doubt – we were friends and mischief makers. I had always been there for her, to listen to what she had to say, to go light-headed when she flirted. I had to ask myself though: did our friendship mean as much to her as it did to me? I’d never know. I’d never got to tell her how I felt, and I never would. I shivered as I thought of Goodman and his own obsession, how he’d allowed it to eat away at him, devour him and lead him on to terrible acts.

  ‘Tell her you were lying,’ I said with a heavy heart. Dougie arched an eyebrow my way. ‘Tell her you were in mourning, that it was a passing madness. Tell her whatever you need to, mate, but don’t let her think I’m a ghost.’

  Once again, I stepped away from my friend, this time affording him some privacy as he spoke to the girl I’d loved. I couldn’t hear the words, but I could see he was earnest, almost shamefaced as he tried to put her off the scent. Lucy frowned, shaking her head and looking about them. Did she believe him? Was she looking for me, even now after he’d denied my existence? Stop looking, Lucy: you won’t find me. As the press clamoured to get Dougie’s attention and his father fielded their questions, I stepped a touch further away from them, into the snow-banked shadows before Red Brook House.

  Winter could no longer touch me – I was dead after all – but I’d never felt colder in my life.

  THIRTY-ONE

  Lives and Loves

  After the drama at Red Brook House, the school had granted Dougie a leave of absence. This was time for my friend to convalesce, seek counselling from mental health experts, unload whatever demons were haunting his nightmares after his awful ordeal. Dougie had different ideas, though: here was an opportunity to kick back and have a holiday. His boxed set of
The Walking Dead was duly hammered, the XBox took one hell of a beating, and he found himself strangely addicted to watching The Jeremy Kyle Show. The latter confirmed one thing: Dougie needed to get himself back to school, pronto.

  It was the day before he was due to go back, and we’d been to the hospital to check in on Stu. He was recovering well, back to his old self, and the wheelchair they’d put him in was now his favourite toy. Stu insisted the other kids in the hospital – and certain members of staff – referred to him as Professor X. He’d even mooted the idea of shaving his head in true homage, although Dougie was quick to suggest from personal experience that this wasn’t a good look. Doctors said Stu would be home by Christmas, although the nurses on the children’s ward would’ve preferred him gone sooner.

  We decided to walk home from the hospital, the day crisp, the weather clear and the snow crunching under Dougie’s feet. The fur-trimmed hood of his parka had been stitched back on – badly – by his father, but my mate wouldn’t have it any other way. We were in no hurry, the day was ours. We strolled past Brooklands High, our eyes lingering on the headmaster’s office. Miss Roberts, the head of the sports department and the most senior teacher in school, had taken temporary charge as interim head teacher. It was she who had signed off on Dougie’s sickness leave permission letter, admittedly begrudgingly. She was still convinced he wasn’t right in the head. She was only half right.

  We came to a halt outside the familiar iron gates, now with fresh chains and padlocks securing them shut. Red Brook House loomed in the distance, down at the end of the gravel drive, a fresh layer of snow sitting atop its crooked roof like icing on a cake. The tall dark windows looked like sightless eye sockets, its double doors a wailing mouth. It already seemed like a lifetime ago.

  ‘They can’t pull it down soon enough if you ask me,’ said Dougie. ‘The place is a graveyard. They should bury it underground.’