The Ghost House

by Helen Phifer

  The car stopped in front of them and a familiar figure climbed out shouting, ‘Police, don’t move.’ Laura slapped a pair of handcuffs on Annie whilst Stu cuffed Jake. Annie took one look at Jake’s shocked expression and began laughing; Will stepped closer to take a look, pushing Twit and Twat out of the way, who were standing with batons and CS gas drawn, ready for battle. ‘Jesus.’

  Jake grinned at him, ‘Alright Will, fancy meeting you here.’

  ‘Would you like to tell me exactly what you two are doing in here at this time of night?’

  Annie was speechless; her laughter getting more hysterical by the second. Composing herself as best as she could she screeched. ‘Sorry officers, whatever it was it was me.’

  Will clenched his fists in anger. Annie hiccupped so loud it echoed around the graves. ‘Sorry Will. Jake and I decided to do a spot of ghost hunting.’

  Will’s voice shook as he barked at Stu and Laura to uncuff them. His cheeks were flushed red and he leant down to grab Annie’s arm. ‘Jesus Christ, I can’t leave you two alone for five minutes, you are a bloody liability.’

  Jake had sobered up remarkably well compared to Annie, who was trying to stifle her laughter and not doing it very well. Jake looked at Will. ‘Sorry, it’s my fault. I begged her to come with me.’

  Will shook his head and grabbed Annie’s arm much more roughly than he’d intended, instantly regretting it as her face became a mask of fear. She pulled away from his grip. ‘I can manage on my own.’ Annie sobered instantly; she knew that Will would never mean to harm her, not like Mike used to, but still her feelings were hurt.

  ‘Sorry to interrupt your little party Sir.’ She spat the words out. ‘Come on Jake, let’s go back to your house and finish that tequila. Oh and Will, don’t bother coming round after you finish whatever it is you’re doing in here. I’ll be far too busy holding a séance.’ She stormed off, making Jake jog to catch up to her. Neither of them spoke until they reached the gates where they looked at each other and started laughing once more. The wind carried the sound up to the chapel where Will was standing shaking his head and trying to figure out what had just happened.

  Stu and Laura waited for Will to tell them what to do. ‘Right, since those two have almost certainly messed up any chance of catching our grave robbers tonight, I think we should leave. I can’t see anyone coming in here now after all that racket.’

  The two specials looked relieved to be able to escape the boredom; they wanted to be out where the action was, although judging by what jobs had been passed over the radio in the last hour – a group of kids throwing stones at a taxi and a pensioner who had fallen out of bed – they wouldn’t get much excitement working ‘response’ either. Will was just glad to get rid of them; he’d had enough for tonight. He waited for them to get in the car and then muttered, ‘Come on, first round’s on me. If I get drunk I may just find all of this slightly amusing.’

  Stu smirked. ‘It was kind of funny Will. What are the odds on those two deciding to give Most Haunted a run for their money while we were on observations in here?’

  Laura laughed, she agreed with Stu. They got into the car and Will drove down to the gates where Jake was trying to give Annie a bunk up. Jake turned and saluted them. Will passed the keys to the gate to Stu. ‘Open the gates and let the stupid buggers out and don’t say a word. I’m really not in the mood.’

  Stu got out and opened the gates. Will watched as Jake and Annie giggled at something Stu had said to them. It would be all around the station tomorrow but it wouldn’t be his fault; they only had themselves to blame. He waited for Annie to turn and look at him so he could smile but she didn’t, instead she clutched hold of Jake and stumbled off in the direction of his house.

  Laura had been watching Will; she had seen the look in his eyes when Annie had marched off. He wouldn’t admit it but he was upset. Laura had never met a woman with so much baggage and even more bad luck. Fingers crossed Stu would be his normal wimpy self and leave them after half a pint of lager to get home to his wife. For all his bravado he was nothing more than a henpecked husband, it would be nice to be alone with Will in the pub. She’d had a thing for him for the past twelve months yet he’d not once looked at her in anything other than a professional capacity. She grinned to herself at the thought of what she could do for him if she was given the chance. Stu looked at her and whispered, ‘Never in a thousand years, he’s in love.’

  Laura shook her head, ‘Twenty quid says I at least get a kiss off him.’

  Stu growled, ‘For twenty quid I’d want a blow job, not a kiss. Tenner and you’re on.’ Laura smiled sweetly and nodded in agreement.

  June 25th 1984

  Sophie and Sean were playing Hide and Seek upstairs. Sean wasn’t very good at it because he was too small to climb up into any of the cupboards, which meant that Sophie always found him. She had laughed at him last time she found him behind their mum’s bedroom door, hiding underneath her long, fluffy dressing gown. This was his favourite hiding place and he felt safe there because it smelled of coconut shampoo and his mum’s perfume. He buried his head into the soft robe to stifle a giggle when he heard Sophie shouting, ‘Fee, Fi, Fo, Fum I smell the blood of an English man.’

  He could hear her footsteps as she ran along the landing, the creak of the bathroom door as she looked inside and the bang as she slammed it shut again and ran to the next bedroom. He was too young to understand that she was making a fuss so as not to make him feel bad about being too little to find a good hiding place – she was kind like that. She could be horrible to him, especially if he had taken one of her Sindy dolls for his A-Team men to rescue but most of the time she was nice. He heard her footsteps as she ran closer to his hiding place. He was staring down at his feet, so he didn’t see the dark the shadow that walked past the door but he shivered and felt his teeth begin to chatter. It was so cold; he hugged the robe tighter to him to keep warm. He sniffed and then gagged, there was an awful smell in the room – a bit like when his mum made veg for dinner and they didn’t eat it all because it was horrible. She would forget and leave the pan on the cooker for days. He wondered if his mum was cooking veg for tea and he pulled a face. He didn’t like any of it except for the green peas and he only liked them because they made good ammunition for the A-Team to flick at the bad guys. The light left the room and Sean felt the hairs on the back of his neck begin to prickle. It was sunny outside so he didn’t understand why the room had gone so dark. He wanted to peek out from his hiding place but his Hannibal voice was telling him ‘No’. He had to stay hidden then he would be safe. Sophie had stopped running about and he heard her make a funny, high-pitched noise. It wasn’t very loud at first but then she let out a really loud screech which made him jump with fright. There was a loud thud which was followed by more screaming. Sean was scared but he had to go and see what was wrong with his sister so he ignored Hannibal and ran from the room onto the landing where Sophie was curled into a ball screaming. He didn’t know what to do but then his mum came running up the stairs and bent down to see what was wrong with her. He had never seen anyone with a face as white as Sophie’s and he was afraid for her.

  ‘What’s wrong Sophie, tell me what happened?’

  Sophie stared at their mum and shook her head. ‘There was a man, he was all black and he smelled really bad.’ She let out a sob and began crying.

  ‘What man, where did he go? Did he hurt you?’

  Sean began to feel scared; he had smelled that bad smell but hadn’t seen any man. He turned his head to look around and make sure that the man wasn’t behind them. Sophie nodded her head and Sean watched his mum’s face turn the same colour as Sophie’s. ‘He pushed me over and told me to get out.’

  Sean felt his knees begin to shake, he was so scared and he needed to pee really badly.

  ‘Sophie where did he go, is he still in here?’

  His mum pulled Sophie up from the floor and then she grabbed him by the shoulder and pushed both of them behind h
er. She picked up a vase of flowers off the small table, discarding the flowers and dropping them to the floor.

  ‘Sophie I need you to tell me where he is, which room did he go in?’

  ‘I don’t know Mummy, I think he’s gone. He walked into the wall.’

  She lifted a shaking finger and pointed at the wall opposite them and whispered, ‘He went through there but I think he will be coming back, he doesn’t like me.’

  Sean watched his mum put the vase back on the table and then she turned to face both of them. ‘Sophie if you are telling me lies you will be in trouble young lady. No-one can walk through walls. Now do you want to tell me what really happened or are you going to continue telling fibs?’

  Sean wanted to tell her that there was a man who had smelled bad but he didn’t want to make his mum even angrier so he kept quiet and didn’t look at Sophie. He felt sorry for her and she would be angry with him if he knew and didn’t speak up. But then his mum picked up the vase again and walked into each bedroom to look under the beds and in the wardrobes. Sophie and Sean followed her. She even checked the cupboard in the bathroom where the hot water tank was but the only things in there were piles of towels. The only place his mum didn’t check was the attic but since there was no ladder he reasoned that the man couldn’t be hiding up there, not unless he had super powers and could fly like Superman. He felt Sophie’s hot breath as she let out a sigh of relief, she was standing so close to him clutching his arm he couldn’t move it. Their mum turned to them both, ‘Now I don’t know what game you were playing or why you are telling lies Sophie but you mustn’t do that ever again. You nearly gave me a heart attack; I thought someone had attacked you.’

  Sophie bent her head as big teardrops fell from her eyes onto the floor. Sean reached out his hand and curled his chubby fingers around Sophie’s cold, much more slender ones then squeezed hard – he believed her. Their mum went downstairs and they followed her, neither of them wanting to be upstairs without her in case the bad-smelling man came back through the wall.

  CARINA™

  ISBN: 978 1 472 01806 9

  THE GHOST HOUSE

  Copyright © Helen Phifer 2013

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  All the characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author and all the incidents are pure invention.

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