by Amy Cross
“Alice?” I whisper, as I stare down at the gloomy hallway. “Are you there?”
A moment later, as if in response, something creaks in one of the downstairs rooms. It's not a loud noise, but it's just enough to make me feel as if I received an answer. Maybe, just maybe, she heard me earlier and realized it's okay to haunt me.
“Alice,” I mutter, hurrying down the stairs and then through to the dining room, which I think is where the creaking sound originated.
I know I should stay calm and rational, but I can't help myself; I want to see her again.
“Alice! It's me! Alice, where are you?”
There's no sign of anyone, of course, but I keep the light off as I step over to the dining room table. Looking around, I watch the shadows in case there's any hint of movement, but so far my arrival seems, if anything, to have calmed the room. I don't know why Alice would want to play these games with me, although deep down I can't stop hoping that perhaps her little ghost is going to stay in the house, playing happily forever and ever. I know the whole idea is morbid, maybe even unhealthy, but I'm overjoyed by the prospect of having her around in one form or another.
The ghost of Alice would be better than no Alice at all.
“Are you here?” I whisper, stepping around the table and over to the next doorway, which leads into the kitchen. “Alice? It's Mummy. If you're here, give me a sign.”
I'm not scared.
I want to hear her, or to see her, or just to know somehow that she's here.
After waiting a few more seconds, I head through to the hallway, where the black gloves are still resting on a table next to the door. Hurrying to the front room, I stop again and listen for any hint that she might be nearby, but now the house has fallen silent and I'm starting to worry that I imagined the whole thing. Then I wander to the hallway and stop in front of the door that leads into the cupboard under the stairs.
“Alice?” I call out, daring to speak a little louder this time. “Alice, are you here? If you're here, just give me a sign!”
Saturday
“Do you want strawberry or raspberry jam on your toast?” I ask the following morning, as I grab some jars from the cupboard. When there's no reply, I glance over my shoulder and see that Dad's still sitting at the table. “Dad? What kind of jam do you want?”
He stares down at the table for a moment, before finally turning to me.
“Dad,” I continue, trying to stay calm and patient, “what -”
“I heard her last night,” he says suddenly.
I pause for a moment, trying to figure out exactly what he means.
“Who did you hear?” I ask cautiously.
“Didn't you hear her?”
“What are you talking about, Dad?”
“I heard her sobbing.”
I swallow hard. Dad is usually so confused and out of touch with reality, it's difficult to know when I can take him seriously. At the same time, he has little peaks of clarity and I can't ignore anything he says.
“What do you mean?” I ask finally. “Who did you hear sobbing? Are you sure it wasn't just me, getting up for a glass of water?”
“It was the middle of the night,” he continues, “and I got up to use the bathroom. I was right outside the door to the loo, right at the top of the stairs, when I realized I could hear someone sobbing down in the hallway somewhere. I thought I was losing my mind at first, but the sound was as clear as anything, as clear as I can hear my own voice right now. I stood there for a few minutes, just waiting for it to stop, but it kept going until...”
I wait for him to finish the sentence.
“Until what, Dad?”
“Well I had to come down and take a look, didn't I?”
“And then what happened?”
Again I wait, but I can see the fog of confusion starting to fill his expression.
“Focus, Dad,” I continue. “Tell me what happened.”
“What happened when?”
“No!” I grab him by the shoulders, holding him firmly. “You don't get to drift off right now. You have to tell me what happened after you came down to check. After you heard the sobbing.”
“I did come down,” he mutters, as if he's surprised by the realization. “How did you know?”
“What happened, Dad?”
“I could still hear her while I was coming down the stairs, and even when I got to the bottom. Then all of a sudden I heard her running. I didn't see nothing, but I heard her running right past me, like she was almost close enough to touch. She ran into the living room, I reckon, still sobbing the whole time. And then...”
His voice trails off, and his mouth trembles for a moment as he stares at me.
“And then what?” I ask.
“I heard her voice.”
“You can't have heard her voice, Dad,” I reply, trying to keep my feet on the ground and not let him lead me off into some kind of fantasy. I don't dare believe in ghosts. Not yet. “You must have been dreaming.”
“I was wide awake,” he continues, “and I'm telling you, I heard Alice. I heard her sobbing and I heard her whimpering about someone chasing her. She was saying she wanted to be left alone, and then she kept saying the same thing over and over, like. I think she was hiding from someone!”
I pause, not wanting to ask the next question but quickly realizing that I can't hold back.
“What was she saying?”
“I'm not yours,” he replies. “You can't have me. That was it, over and over. I'm not yours, you can't have me. She sounded frantic, but I'm sure it was Alice. It can't have been, though, can it? 'Cause Alice is gone. She's dead.”
I pause again, before crouching down and looking up into his fearful, milky eyes.
“And you heard the brushing sound, didn't you?” I ask. “As if someone was brushing a hand against the wall behind you as you walked.”
“Eh?”
“You must have heard that.”
He pauses, before shaking his head.
“You have to have heard the brushing sound,” I continue, starting to feel a little desperate. “That's part of it. If you didn't hear the brushing sound, then...”
My voice trails off.
He's staring at me, as if he doesn't have a clue what I'm on about. Almost as if...
“Are you okay this morning?” I ask cautiously. “What's my name, Dad?”
“Eh?”
“What's my name? Do you remember?”
He hesitates, and for a moment I think he might not be able to tell me.
“You're Debbie,” he says finally. “I know my own daughter.”
“And where are we right now, Dad?”
“Don't ask daft questions.”
“Where are we?”
He sighs. “We're at the farm, obviously.”
I feel a shudder run through my chest as I realize that while he might sound reasonably coherent and together, he's not having one of his lucid moments. He thinks we're on the farm where he grew up, which means I can't take his claims seriously at all. The sound of someone sobbing was probably just some half-remembered memory from his childhood.
I can't deny that deep down, I feel disappointed.
“Do you want strawberry jam or raspberry jam?” I ask, getting to my feet and heading back over to the counter. “Or do you want marmalade?”
“It was Alice's ghost,” he replies, stopping me in my tracks with those four simple words. “I know it was. It was like she was hiding from something, right here in the house. She was scared.”
***
“Alice, are you here?” I whisper later that day, standing at the top of the stairs and looking around at the empty space. “If you're here, give me a sign.”
I wait, but there's no reply.
“Alice, are -”
Before I can finish, I look down at the stairs and remember something that Alice said to me the other day when she was in bed.
“I tried to hide,” I hear her terrified voice whispering, “but I cou
ld hear it coming closer and closer. I was hiding in the cupboard under the stairs.”
Hurrying down the stairs, I make my around to the door that leads to the cupboard. After lifting the latch, I pull the door open and look inside, but all I see is the vacuum cleaner and the ironing board and various other items that I've shoved under there over the years. There are some black bags filled with clothes on the floor, and there's just about space for a little girl to sit, but there's no sign of anyone. Still, if a little girl needed somewhere to hide, this wouldn't be a bad spot.
“Alice?”
I wait a moment, before gently shutting the door and looking back across the hallway. I spot the black gloves on the table, and I make a mental note to put them away some time, and then I head back to the bottom of the stairs as I remember another thing that Alice said to me when she came back after dying, when she was in the bed. When I was imagining her, or...
Or maybe she really did come back.
“Every time I go to sleep,” I remember her saying, “I dream it's chasing me through the house. It doesn't run. It walks. And sometimes it touches the wall while it walks, and it bumps its fingers. I always know what that means. It means the thing is coming again. That's when I'm most scared.”
Suddenly hearing a creaking sound, I look up toward the landing. A moment later I hear the sound again, so I hurry back up and head toward Alice's bedroom door. After just a couple of paces, however, I stop as I realize that I can hear the sound of something brushing against the wall. I turn and look over my shoulder, and the sound stops, but it wasn't in my imagination, not this time.
The sound was definitely real.
“It says it wants me,” I remember Alice whispering, “and that I belong to it. It says it won't let me go.”
Sunday
“If you hear anything,” I say as I tuck Dad into bed the following night, “you have to tell me, okay? Anything at all. Use your phone to call me, or come and knock on my door, or just shout out. I probably won't be asleep anyway, so just come and let me know. Do you promise?”
I wait for him to reply, but he's simply staring at me with that same old confused, lost expression. Sometimes, I think he struggles to remember who I am.
“This is important,” I continue, taking his hands in mine and giving them a squeeze, hoping to focus him a little. “It might be nothing, but please, you have to tell me if you hear anything that makes you think of Alice. Or anything that makes you think someone else might be in the house.”
“Like a burglar?” he asks, with fear in his voice.
“No, not like a burglar. Like a...”
My voice trails off as I realize that I still don't quite know what I think. I've been constantly replaying everything Alice said about her dreams, but all I really remember is that someone was trying to 'claim' her, whatever that means. I know it sounds crazy, but I'm starting to think that maybe even though she was dead, she was somehow dreaming about still being in the house, and that what was a dream back then is now some kind of reality. I haven't straightened the whole thing out in my head yet, and I'm not sure I'll ever quite manage. All I know is that if there's a chance that my little girl is being tormented by something in this house, I have to help her.
“Try to get some sleep for now,” I mutter, leaning down and kissing Dad on the forehead before turning and heading out of the room. “One of us should.”
I gently bump the door shut before hesitating for a moment on the landing, listening out for any hint that Alice is around, or that maybe something else is here in the house with us. There's nothing, of course.
Only silence.
***
The crashing sound is immense and sudden, waking me with a start and sending me clambering out of bed before I'm even fully awake. By the time I get to the door and out onto the landing, I can feel the floor shaking beneath my bare feet as the sound continues to ring out from somewhere downstairs.
“What the hell?” I whisper, hurrying to the top of the stairs. “Where -”
Stopping suddenly, I see that the front door is shaking violently in its frame, and that the handle is twisting as if some unseen hand is trying to get outside. Frozen by the sight for a moment, I finally muster the courage to start walking down the stairs, although when I get halfway one of the boards creaks loudly beneath my feet and the door suddenly stops shaking as if something has become aware of my presence.
The house falls silent for a moment, and then there's the sound of footsteps running through to the kitchen.
“Alice?” I call out, hurrying down to the hallway just as the back door starts shaking. I head over to the kitchen, and sure enough the door to the rear porch is shaking frantically in its frame, although this too stops after a couple of seconds and I hear the footsteps again.
It's her.
I swear, I recognize the way she's running.
“Alice!” I yell, trying to follow the steps through to the dining room, only to realize that they've fallen silent again. “It's me! Alice, where are you?”
“What's going on?” Dad shouts from upstairs. “What's all that din?”
“Stay up there!” I shout, heading to the front room and then back out into the hallway. My heart's pounding and I can't make any sense of what's happening, but a moment later I realize I can hear a faint whimpering sound from nearby.
I look around, but it takes a few seconds before I spot the door to the cupboard under the stairs.
Somebody's weeping in there.
I hesitate, telling myself that I must be imagining the whole thing, but the sobbing actually seems to be getting a little louder. More real.
“Alice?” I call out finally, hurrying over and pulling the door open. I half expect to see her inside, but the whimpering stops as soon as I'm able to look, and there's no sign of her. Still, I know what I heard, and I swear my little girl is being chased around the house by some unseen force. She's hiding from something.
Stepping back, I look across the hallway, but I don't see anyone.
“Who are you?” I whisper finally, as I think back to Alice's claims about a figure that was pursuing her through the house. “What do you want with her?” I yell angrily. “Whatever you are, leave her alone! If you want something, you can damn well come to me, okay? Leave my daughter alone! Don't go chasing after a little girl, you goddamn coward! Come and -”
Suddenly a door slams upstairs. Looking up toward the landing, I spot a shadow on the wall, but a moment later Dad comes shuffling into view.
“I told you to stay up there!” I shout.
“What's all the yelling about?” he asks, tying his dressing gown shut as he starts making his way down to join me.
“Dad, go back to your room!”
“What's all the kerfuffle?”
“Everything's fine. Please, just go back to bed.”
“You were shouting. Why were you shouting?”
Realizing that I really can't explain the situation to him, I turn and look back into the cupboard. There's no sign of Alice, but she said that this was where she hid in her dreams. If that's the case, even if I can't see her, I can't discount the possibility that she's aware of my presence. And if Alice knows I'm here, then maybe the thing that's chasing her can also hear me.
“She's just a little girl,” I say out loud. “This is her home and I'm her mother. You have no right to be here, and you have no right to torment her. She's not yours, she's mine, so leave her alone!”
I wait, but all I hear is the sound of Dad shuffling down the stairs.
“She's mine,” I whisper, feeling a slowly-rising sense of anger at the thought that anyone would come here and chase my girl after her death. I know the whole idea sounds crazy, but I also know I've heard these noises in the house, and they definitely seem to correspond with the dreams Alice told me about. “You can't have her,” I continue. “I won't let you hurt my daughter.”
“Is it Alice?” Dad asks. “Are you talking to Alice?”
“No, Dad,�
� I reply with a sigh, taking hold of his arm and starting to lead him back up to his room. “I can't explain. Maybe I'm wrong. Hopefully I'm wrong. Hopefully I'm out of my mind crazy.”
“Alice doesn't live here anymore.”
“No, she doesn't.”
“Alice is gone.”
“I know that.”
“So why do you keep saying her name?”
As we get to the top of the stairs and I lead him slowly toward his room, I try to figure out whether there's any way I can make him understand. Then again, I don't understand, not really. Sometimes I worry that his dementia has somehow become contagious.
“It's complicated,” I tell him finally. “You -”
Suddenly I realize I can hear the brushing sound over my shoulder, as if something is once again following us through the house. I turn and look back, but the sound stops and there's no sound of anyone. Still, that sound is exactly the way Alice described it, and I can hear her voice echoing in my thoughts.
“Sometimes it touches the wall while it walks,” she told me, “and it bumps its fingers. I always know what that means. It means the thing is coming again.”
Whatever this thing is, it seems to delight in following me about.
“Did you hear that a moment ago?” I ask, turning back to look at Dad.
“I'm tired,” he replies helplessly. “I just want to go to bed now.”
There's something here. And as I lead Dad back to his room, I realize that I don't dare go to sleep, not when my daughter's ghost is being pursued by something malevolent. Even if it means I never sleep again, I swear to God I'm going to stay up and keep her safe. And sure enough, as I head back to the stairs, I hear the brushing sound once again. Wherever I go, this thing is following me through the house. I think maybe it thinks I'll lead it straight to Alice.
Monday
“Come on,” I mutter as I pinch my arm again, trying to use the pain as a means of staying awake. “You can't fall asleep now.”
