A Spectre in the Stones

by John Kitchen

  “Whatever,” he said, and eased himself out of the room, shutting the door quietly behind him.

  Sometime in the future, Craig would want some kind of a favour. Then would be the time to sort him out. And he would sort him out. When the time came he’d let him know Lloyd McKenzie Lewis wasn’t a pushover for anybody. There was no way he was going to be some kind of running boy for Craig Donavan.

  He made his way back to the North Wing and, when he pushed through the fire doors, he could hear moans from Caitlin’s bedroom. The ghost’s appearance in the cellar seemed to have run its course or – maybe it hadn’t happened. Perhaps the thing was too busy flashing up on the monitor down in the computer room.

  He went back to his bedroom, but, as he opened the door, he stopped and stared.

  His drawers and his wardrobe had been ransacked again and, this time, the poltergeist had really gone crazy. His bedclothes had been torn from his bed and his sheet was tied to the electric light flex. His case was hanging, unopened, from the base of the sheet, and it was swinging like some kind of corpse hanging from a gibbet.

  For a while he just stood there, and it was almost impossible not to be swamped by it. What was he supposed to do? Clamber up and untangle his sheet, remake his bed, put his clothes back in the drawers and wardrobe, and then curl up like a baby and sleep the sleep of the innocent for the rest of the night?

  The very idea of going into the room made him want to vomit.

  If he was going to unravel that sheet he’d have to leave the door open and turn the passage light on. There was no way he was messing around with the flex while it was live – and it was quite likely the light would be on its shorting gig by now. He’d have to put his clothes away with just the sliver of light from the corridor.

  Deliberately he began to undo the damage. At least the poltergeist hadn’t been so vindictive as to tie the knot tightly. Unravelling the sheet from the flex was easy – and so was releasing his travel case.

  He fumbled through the pockets of his trousers for the key so he could check for his letters and photos, and they were still safely stashed. It was as if the thing had done the sheet trick in a fit of pique because it couldn’t get to his letters.

  He locked the case again and put it back in the wardrobe along with his shirts and trousers. Then he tried the light, and it didn’t spit, so he was able to close the door and begin folding the rest of his clothes.

  When he’d made his bed, he pulled the duvet tight over his shoulders. But there wasn’t a grain of sleep in him. He just lay there, staring at the bare walls.

  He could hear the occasional wail from upstairs, and – in a way – there was a warped camaraderie about sharing this madness. It had changed his view of Caitlin. He wouldn’t ever torment her about her moods and grumpiness again. The fact that she could put one foot in front of the other and present a feisty opposition was beginning to amaze him. She never let on about this stuff – not to anyone and he reckoned she had more spirit in her little finger than he had in his whole body. She’d been in this dump for weeks, and he was heading for the mad house after two days.

  … But he wasn’t heading for the mad house, was he?

  It wasn’t in his nature to head for the mad house.

  He began to breathe deeply and steadily. Then he thought about Jean and Bill… and the days when he was a kid, living with them, and he thought about Justin. He’d find a way to get to him tomorrow, so they could start working out how to deal with all this stuff.

  He’d tell Rudi about it too – and he’d tell him about Caitlin.

  He carried on his steady breathing and let thoughts of Justin and Rudi, and Jean and Bill, swirl around his head. It was like a mental sedative and gradually, with superhuman effort, he slipped into a restive sleep.

  The poltergeist, or whatever it was, must have spent itself for the night, because when he woke up in the morning, there were no more disruptions. His clothes were still stacked and the case was secure in the corner of the wardrobe.

  He didn’t wait for Christine. He went down to the bathroom. Then he dressed and marched unescorted into breakfast. In the confusion no one noticed or cared, although Rudi had seen he wasn’t at dinner the previous evening.

  “I got gated for doing Caitlin’s head in, didn’t I?” Lloyd said. “Christine brought my dinner in on a tray, and, no messing, she was guarding my cell like a Rottweiler.”

  Rudi laughed. “Me and Martin really are going to get you out of there,” he said. He was stirring the globules out of his congealing porridge. There was a particularly obstinate glob and he tilted his bowl, pressing it against the side, squashing it like a recalcitrant pluke. Then he stared at the gluten-grey sludge and shovelled a spoonful into his mouth.

  Lloyd patted him on the shoulder. “That shows real courage, man, and, if you can do it, so can I.”

  He shovelled a spoonful into his own mouth and looked around at the soured mayhem… it was time… he was going to tell Rudi what he’d found out.

  “I got to see you lunchtime,” he said. “In the computer room at school. I got something to show you. It’s about the house, and the stuff what’s going on here. I want to Google something Justin told me and I reckon it’s going to blow your mind.”

  He kept his distance from Caitlin.

  He was longing to ask her about the old man, but he knew it would be dicing with death and he could finish up being dragged up in front of the bulbous Mrs Cherry again… and her reptilian side-kick, Dave.

  Caitlin kept watching him. She seemed frightened, and when he came to think of it, he could understand why. Delving into the sleepwalking and the old man must be like poking an open sore for her, and that wasn’t the way to go about things.

  At lunchtime he and Rudi went to the computer wing to investigate poltergeists. The idea that this stuff might be linked to the supernatural shook Rudi, but he had a level head on him. He could cope. And it was much as Justin had said. Poltergeists were paranormal disturbances – creating mayhem exactly like the stuff that was going on at Sarson Hall. Their manifestation was often brought about by the presence of a very disturbed or unhappy person – often a child.

  Rudi thought of Caitlin, but Lloyd said: “This stuff was going on well before Caitlin – and it don’t have to be caused by someone what’s still alive.”

  They looked at the screen again. It said that poltergeists could be brought about by events from the past – paranormal echoes from an upheaval in history. “The house is really old,” said Lloyd. “The North Wing especially. It goes back to Tudor times, Robin, my social worker said that, and… it could be something that happened even before Sarson Hall was built.”

  “We need to find out something about the history,” said Rudi.

  “Justin will know. He crashed out of university. He done history and archaeology. He knows loads of stuff.”

  “Could there be another reason why it’s happening?” Rudi said, but the only other potential causes they could find on Google were described as “earth forces” – disruption of the natural forces of the earth.

  “Would Justin know about them?”

  Lloyd nodded. “If he don’t, his tutor at university will. He’s into that kind of stuff.”

  Rudi looked at the screen again.

  “I think there’s some kind of ghost,” said Lloyd at last.

  “I tried Googling this stuff back at the home last night. I waited till Christine was out the way, and went down the computer room. And when I Googled, the screen went crazy and I kept seeing, like, this old guy flashing up. He had weird clothes on and his hair was grey. He’d got this long beard, like God – and he had a woollen helmet on.”

  Rudi breathed in sharply. “That is so creepy,” he said.

  “We got to put up some kind of a fight,” said Lloyd. “I mean we can’t just let the guy carry on like he is, and, if we can borrow some books on mediaeval history and stuff, we might find out when he hung out. That would be a start.”

  The
re wasn’t much time after they’d finished with the computer, but they did manage to find a couple of books in the library, and their choice impressed the librarian. She wasn’t used to kids from Sarson Hall taking out books that hinted of intellectual pursuits.

  They hoped to look at the books that evening – but they reckoned without Christine and Dave.

  Lloyd’s favourite warden was waiting for him when they got back.

  Rudi dug him in the ribs. “That’s your woman,” he whispered.

  “Yeah, she really must fancy me,” Lloyd said, but he was seething inside. “What you want this time?” he shouted. “I haven’t done nothing. I didn’t even speak to Caitlin.”

  “That’s not the point, young man,” Christine said. “You went out when you were gated and Dave isn’t happy. I told you he wouldn’t be.”

  Dave seemed to have forgotten about Caitlin, because the only topic for his rant this time was how Lloyd had left his room without an escort. And after the rant, he was frogmarched back to the room for another evening of incarceration, which really made him furious.

  He’d planned for Rudi to come up and he needed to see Justin. It also hacked him off that Dave hadn’t made a semblance of listening to his story about the suspected break-in.

  But Dave never listened to anything, and it was clear that, whatever he and Justin did about the ghost, it would have to be done behind Dave’s back. He would have to go to places and consult people – he’d have to break away from the restrictions of the home and risk Dave’s fury on a permanent basis.

  And… say they needed a priest to do some exorcising?

  Smuggling a priest into Sarson Hall… that would be something.

  He pictured some old guy in his black robes hiding himself behind bushes and darting from cover to cover, while the kids set up decoys to keep Dave and the carers out of his way.

  But, in mid-dream, he shuddered, and a cold reality caught him.

  This wasn’t the stage for a farce.

  He was stuck in this room and, last night, while he’d been out, some unknown force had messed with his drawers, with his clothes, with his travel case and his bedclothes. And when whatever-it-was got up to full momentum, it could shake the windows, create hailstones and gales, whip up pandemonium and there was nothing about it that made him want to fall about laughing.

  The sky hung, grey and menacing, and, even though it was barely five o’clock, it was getting dark. Everywhere else in Britain would be celebrating spring, but here it might as well be January.

  Christine banged on his door and stalked off down the corridor when she’d heard his growl of a response.

  “I’ll be back, Lloyd Lewis,” she snapped. “So don’t get any ideas about chasing burglars.”

  He risked the light and began to browse one of the books, but nothing even vaguely resembled the bearded figure he’d seen on the computer screen.

  He was certain it couldn’t have been something later than mediaeval times so, what came before the Middle Ages and before the Romans?

  Was it the Dark Ages?

  He shuddered.

  Even the name sounded bad. No wonder the fury was so massive. It was something that had been festering from further back than Jesus. It was almost beyond him to grip something that went that far back.

  He needed to get to Justin and describe this guy to him.

  He leaned over and laid the book on the duvet. Nothing had happened to the light so far and, apart from the chilling clamminess and smell, there wasn’t much that hinted at the paranormal.

  Christine came back with his dinner and she seemed surprised to see history reference books on his bed.

  “What’s that you’re reading?” she said, picking up one of the books and fingering through it.

  “Nothing you’d understand. Them books have got words with more than four letters in. That’s way above your head, that is.”

  She glared at him, but all she said was, “You make sure you get that food down you before I come back. I can’t be waiting around for you – and I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”

  The dig had struck home though, because, when she came back, she snatched at his tray and said, “I got an A* in English literature when I did my GCSEs so you can stop all that nonsense about four letter words.”

  “Yeah, right,” he said. “And what grade did you get in the prison warden exam? Triple A*?”

  He could see she was hard pushed not to hurl the tray at him and he felt a tinge of triumph. But she would watch his room like a hawk. There was no way he’d get to Justin.

  There was half an idea forming in his head, though, and he knew, if he followed it through, it could be the most terrifying encounter of his life… but he was beginning to think he’d do it all the same.

  He waited until everyone had gone to bed and, while he waited, he leafed through the books again, searching out the earliest people he could find; but they all seemed streets ahead of the apparition he’d seen on the computer.

  Then the disruptions began.

  As the doors in the main building slammed for the last time and night settled, his light began spitting. Winds started sweeping through the corridors with the melancholic song of a banshee. The sky began to clear for its nightly hailstone shower. For a while he just lay there, his book unread. Then he heard his wardrobe shift. It was as if some force was pushing it across the floor and, even though he’d endured this for two nights, it made his spine seize up.

  When he judged that the duty carers had finished their surveillance he crept out of bed and slid into the corridor.

  This time he didn’t wait at his own door, or head back towards the main building. Instead he made his way up to Caitlin’s room. He could hear her groaning. But he’d worked out from previous nights that, when she walked, she didn’t know what was going on around her.

  Tonight he was going to get to grips with whatever was going on down in that cellar. He was going to follow her and get down there with her. With luck she wouldn’t even realise he was there.

  He stood, shivering, waiting, until her door clicked and she emerged. She was in her own private trance again, treading out the path towards the stairs and, all the time, he stayed close at her heels.

  The cellar door swung open as she got nearer, and still he stuck with her. Then he was through, following her towards the bowels of the house.

  There was a resounding thud as the door slammed behind them and he gave an involuntary shudder, because this was the place where her “old man” had walked and, tonight, if he appeared again, he would be there to see it.

  Chapter 7

  He stood at the bottom of the stairs, and there was an icy clamminess in the air. There were whispers of sound, and groans – timbers tearing themselves apart. The electric light was on, although he couldn’t remember either of them touching the switch, and the sensations down there were stifling.

  He saw Caitlin move towards the back wall and then it began.

  Whirlpools of dust – they seemed to wander at random; but, at the same time, there was an end – a focus.

  He couldn’t move. He was staring at the invisible point where they met, and they started growing, lifting rubbish from the cellar floor, tossing it roughly into the air, thrusting up leaves and bits of wood. And he could hear Caitlin’s voice – nothing more than a whisper, but she was saying: “Don’t you come, old man. You stay away. You stay like you are – flying dust.”

  The swirls spiralled as they merged, forming a living force field. Then they melted back into the wall, sucking out the loose plaster, and there was luminosity. It made him gasp because the merging spirals were morphing, taking on limbs. There was a long, ancient beard and shocks of wild hair. A body, and legs, – then a full image emerged, crouching inside the stones, and this was different from what he’d seen on the computer. This thing wasn’t wearing the long cloak. It was naked to the waist, with just a chain of clashing stones hanging around its neck, and it was wearing rough breeches with some kind
of crossed leather thongs on its legs.

  For a moment it seemed carved into the stone, but its eyes were darting, searching the room and then groans and a spine-freezing rage echoed around the cellar. Out of the corner of his eyes, Lloyd saw Caitlin crouching, covering her ears, her face white with terror.

  He wanted to go and shield her but he couldn’t. The sight and the fury had made his muscles seize up, and even breathing was hard. He knew the whites of his eyes must be shining out of his face, and there was no logic in his thinking – just a primitive terror as the crouched figure burst into life.

  Its eyes were flashing, its teeth gnashing and, wielding some kind of axe in its left hand, it leapt out from the wall. Its face was contorted with fury and Lloyd could see all of it directed at Caitlin.

  It was darting at her, prancing on its feet, slashing the axe and, all the time, these unearthly sounds were coming from it, guttural noises that had no body to them, hissing, without any substance and they were echoing around the cellar.

  Caitlin stayed crouched, but he could see she was retreating, creeping step by step away from the thing. Then she screamed – the same desperate words he’d heard from beyond the cellar door: “Go away old man. Leave me alone. I hate you. I hate you.”

  He still couldn’t move and, all the time, the creature was leaping forward, pouncing, hissing out the hollow roar, and each time it got near to Caitlin it retreated, as if it was performing some kind of demonic dance. And it was Caitlin who was the only object of its attention. It was as if, for the ghost, Caitlin carried the evil of the world inside her.

  Time and time again it leapt, scything with its axe; and with miniscule crouching movements, Caitlin retreated towards the steps.

  At last Lloyd’s senses began regrouping.

  It seemed the ghost didn’t know he was there. It hadn’t looked at him. It hadn’t even acknowledged his existence. It was just Caitlin.