The Story Collection: Volume One

by Matt Shaw

  “Let’s do it,” said Josie - determined to prove she did hear crying.

  * * * * *

  “If you knew all this before, why didn’t you say something?”

  Joel was talking to Claire who suddenly remembered the correct way of using the ouija board. She was probably worried we’d rip into her for knowing rubbish like that. Always did think she was a bit of a witch. Probably spent hours, in her bedroom, trying to contact the other world - hoping one of them would appreciate her ass-kissing. That’s quite funny actually, might share that with the group later.

  “I thought you two knew what you were doing,” she said. A fair statement, both Joel and Adam were quick to take charge. Adam because it was his board and his idea and Joel because... well, because Joel’s Joel. The Number One man... cough splutter cough... etc etc...

  “So what do we do?” asked Adam.

  “The board would work better if it was resting on our laps as it would get more energy but we can rest it on the floor....”

  “And then we hold hands....” said Adam.

  “No, then we each put a finger lightly on the glass. If we put too much pressure on the glass - it won’t be able to move. Sometimes the spirits aren’t strong enough. Any disbelievers.... it won’t work either so if there’s anyone who doesn’t think this is real - you’re probably best off leaving the room....”

  Claire stopped and looked at everyone in the group. I smiled at her when she looked at me. No one made signs of wanting to stand outside whilst all this was going on.

  “Okay,” said Adam, keen to finish off, “and then we all just ask questions...”

  “No,” Claire cut him short, “only one of us should ask questions - it’s easier to keep control of the situation.”

  “Okay, so I’ll ask the questions,” said Adam. A recipe for disaster.

  “Actually,” said Tracy, “I think Claire should ask the questions...”

  James concurred, “She seems to know what she’s talking about.”

  “That and she’s a complete kiss-ass so, if we did get a bad spirit....” finished Tracy.

  With the exception of Claire, everyone laughed.

  “I’ll ask the questions,” said Claire. “So... anyone got any questions before we start?”

  “Let’s start,” said Josie. She was still annoyed no one believed her about the crying noise she had heard. I didn’t have the heart to tell her I didn’t think a spirit would come and chat to us, only to admit it was the one who was crying like a girl in a room somewhere.

  “Does anyone have any white candles?” asked Claire.

  We all just looked at her. Not the sort of item your average teenager carries around with them.

  “Okay, sure it won’t be the end of the world,” she said. “Incense?”

  Again - no one said anything.

  “Tell me one of you has a pen, at least.... to write down the letters it points to?”

  “I have a pen in my bag,” said Hannah, jumping to her feet in order to fetch her bag.

  “And a piece of paper,” Claire said. Better to point out the obvious when talking to Hannah. “Oh and by the way,” Claire turned to Adam, “it’s supposed to come with a pointer....”

  “What?”

  “The board is supposed to come with a pointer - otherwise known as a planchette....”

  Adam shrugged, “Glass looks like it’s okay and, like I said, I’ve already given negative feedback.”

  Claire shook her head....

  “Okay, everyone ready?” she asked.

  We all sat around the board and each of us placed a finger on the glass - lightly, as requested by Claire. I won’t lie, I felt a surge of adrenalin. I didn’t know what to expect from this - having heard mixed results - and it was exciting. Scary too. Not that I’d admit being scared to any of the group.

  Claire started moving the glass in circles around the board - again and again and again...

  “What are you doing?” asked James.

  “Warming it up. It’s best to always warm it up.”

  She stopped moving the glass.

  “Okay.... here we go.... Let there be no evil forces or demons.... Let there be no evil forces or demons....”

  I wonder if that actually works. Be a very polite demon, or evil force, who decides to stay away just because you politely requested it to, at the start of the session.

  Claire went silent and lowered her head. A bit over dramatic, I thought.

  “Are there any spirits in the room with us?”

  I looked around, at the rest of the group, some of them were looking down at the glass. Others were looking directly at Claire. All of them, myself included, looked apprehensive.

  After a slight pause, she continued, “If there are any spirits in the room - please move the glass and make yourself known to us........”

  Would it be out of place to move the glass? No, don’t be stupid. Let’s give this a shot - see if anything really does happen. Although, how will I know it’s not one of the others moving the glass?

  “It’s fucking broken,” moaned Adam.

  “Ssh!” order Josie. It appears she was willing to give this one hundred percent. Claire also shot Adam a stern look. He simply pulled a ‘fuck you’ face and looked back to the glass.

  “Are there any spirits in the room? Please make yourself known to us....”

  There was another long pause.

  “Are there any spirits in the room......”

  The glass twitched.

  We all looked to each other to try and see if we could tell who was moving it but we all looked just as shocked as the other. Could this be for real?

  A few seconds delay before the glass slid across to ‘yes’.

  Claire looked at me. A worried expression on her face. Was this the first time she had ever made contact? Did she even know what she was doing...

  “What’s your name?” she asked - a slow, steady tone of voice as though the spirit was too retarded to understand her had she spoken normally.

  The glass slid to the various letters on the board - stopping above each one it meant to select for a couple of seconds, as though to let us know this was the letter required... Hannah set about jotting the letters down onto a piece of tissue, taken from her bag when she found her pen.

  S

  E

  T

  H

  “Now what?” Claire whispered to the rest of the group.

  “What do you mean now what?” asked James. “I thought you knew what you were doing.”

  Claire shrugged in response.

  This was new to all of us.

  Joel whispered, “Ask it if it has a message for us.”

  Claire nodded, “Do you.....”

  Before she could finish her sentence the glass started sliding from letter to letter - Hannah scribbling them down each time the glass stopped. At first the glass started moving slowly but, as the time went on, it gathered speed.

  T

  H

  E

  P

  A

  T

  H

  I

  S

  S

  E

  T

  The glass stopped.

  “Is that it?” asked Tom. “Has it finished, do you think?”

  “Maybe it’s taking a rest.... could be quite tiring....” said Josie.

  “What does it say?” I asked Hannah who was looking down the piece of tissue, trying to string the letters together to form a normal sentence. Probably would have been better had someone else taken control of the note-making. Too late now.

  “I think.....” she said, “the path is set.”

  “The path is set?” I confirmed. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means of all the spirits we contacted - we made contact with one who is worried about his driveway. The path is set... what the fuck? The concrete is dry? It’s safe for the rest of his family to walk on now? I won’t lie - of all the messages we could have re
ceived, that was probably the lamest....” Adam ranted, “I’m fucking glad I left negative feedback... I was hoping for a Demon, or something.... this was bullshit.”

  “Ask if it was the one crying in the corridor,” Josie told Claire - ignoring Adam’s ranting.

  Again, Claire didn’t need to ask the question. The glass slid, quicker this time, to ‘no’.

  “Then who was it?” Josie asked. I don’t think she meant to actually ask the spirit but, I guess, you’re always connected to them all the time your finger is on the glass.

  The glass slid over to the letter ‘u’ and stopped dead.

  “Do you know who my friend heard crying?” asked Claire. The glass didn’t move. “Spirit - can you answer the question....”

  “A name starting with a ‘u’ sounds as though it’s going to be foreign... maybe it’s looking the correct spelling up in a dictionary, or something,” I offered, trying to ease some of the tension as opposed to actually being a smart-ass... this time.

  The glass didn’t move. Instead it started to shake from side to side - again, starting slowly and then shaking with more and more force. James was the last to take his finger off the glass and not a moment too soon as, no sooner had he removed his finger, the glass exploded into small pieces. We all screamed.

  “Is everyone okay?” I asked.

  A small piece of glass had hit me in the face and nicked my skin open. Another piece had caught James’ hand as he was moving it away from the glass but, other than that, not much damage done, luckily.

  “I guess he was bored with talking,” said James.

  “I think I’ve actually shit myself,” whimpered Tom who had somehow made it to the far side of the room. He must have moved at some speed when the glass exploded for I hadn’t even noticed him.

  “We’re supposed to say goodbye,” said Claire - visibly shaken.

  “What do you mean?” asked Josie who was also shaken from the abrupt ending.

  Hannah wasn’t saying much. She was just sat in the same spot - her face white from shock.

  “I’m getting a drink,” said Tracy. A sound idea. I think we could all use a shot of something to help calm our nerves.

  “Now that’s the reason I bought the fucking board!” whooped Adam - the only one of us who was actually impressed by the exploding glass.

  “We were supposed to say goodbye,” said Claire. “The Spirit might be stuck here!”

  “We’ve trapped a spirit in here with us?” asked Hannah - fear kicking in.

  “No, no we haven’t,” Joel said as he walked across the room to Hannah’s side. The perfect Hero running to the ladies side in her hour of need. He’ll get man-points for that. “It’s fine... they always end like that?”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  James turned to Josie, “You okay?”

  She shook her head and he put his arm around her.

  Adam was in the far corner of the room, now, swigging from the vodka bottle. Hannah was being comforted by Joel. Josie was with James. And Tom had seized his opportunity to get close to Claire by offering her a shoulder to lean on.

  As I sat, by myself, I wondered whether it would be inappropriate to invite Sarah over....

  4.

  I’m not sure about the others but I didn’t sleep much, after we said goodnight to each other. The girls even swapped rooms, for fear of sleeping in the same room as a trapped spirit. Can’t say I blame them - not that I admitted this to anyone.

  The whole experience was freaky, to say the least. When the glass first started moving, I wasn’t sure if it was one of the others moving it.... playing around. My first guess would have been Adam, of course - keen to prove the money he spent on the board was money well spent.

  The glass exploding frightened all of us and served as good proof it wasn’t being moved by one of the group. All night, though, I kept wondering what the message meant. And the glass exploding - why was it so angry with us? And then there was what Claire had said.... was she right? Were we supposed to have said ‘goodbye’ to the ghost before stopping with the board? She had gone onto say we were meant to wish it rest in peace and the fact we didn’t say it.... well, now the spirit is trapped here - unable to rest in peace.

  I don’t know.

  Could all be bullshit.

  I can’t say for definite though and that’s the problem - my mind kept playing out the worst case scenario. You hear ghost stories about people being haunted by the spirits they’ve raised whilst playing on ouija boards. The spirits torment the guilty parties until they can take no more and take their own lives or meet a grisly end in some careless accident. A careless accident which happens when the person is trying to escape the latest tormenting they are receiving.

  Nothing much happened during the night, though. Certainly nothing to make me think we were being haunted anyway. I don’t know, maybe playing around with the board wasn’t a good idea. Maybe we were best off leaving it alone. Too late now.

  An ear-piercing scream snapped me from my thoughts. Quickly followed by another female scream - I sat bolt upright, in my sleeping bag... bed head hair all over the place.

  “What was that?” asked James from his side of the room, his head buried under his pillow.

  “Wait a minute,” I said.

  James sat up too.

  The bedroom door swung open revealing Hannah in her underwear. Joel and Tom sat up.

  “You hear that?” she asked.

  “I did,” I replied. “What was it?”

  “Claire.... one of you want to come with me?”

  “Me!” shouted both Tom and Joel - jumping out of their sleeping bags. So predictable, guys. So predictable.

  “I’ll come,” I said. After all, nothing else to do and it was one hell of a scream. I threw a tee shirt over my head and climbed from my sleeping bag.

  “Where is she?” I asked Hannah.

  “She wanted a bath - we found a bathroom at the far end of the room. Josie and I were brushing our teeth and left her to it after we finished.”

  Tom’s ears perked up, “So she’s in the bath?”

  He quickened the pace.

  I couldn’t help but smile. You best be quick, Tom, I said, “Just in case she falls in and drowns....”

  “You think?”

  Tom’s quick pace turned to a run and he ran in the direction pointed by Hannah. At the end of the corridor we watched him disappear into the bathroom.

  Seconds later, another scream - Claire again.

  Okay, might be serious - we all quickened our pace.

  Joel was the first through the door, followed by myself and Hannah. Claire and Tom were by the bath. It was hard to see who looked more embarrassed out of the two between Claire and Tom. Claire was desperately trying to cover herself with a towel.

  “I’m sorry,” said Tom, “I’m sorry!”

  “Seriously does anyone ever fucking knock anymore?!” yelled Claire.

  “We heard you screaming!”

  “What’s with all the screaming?!” asked Adam as he too stepped into the room with Tracy - unlike the rest of us they were actually up and dressed. Funny, I would have thought they were the two most likely to spend the weekend in state of undress.

  “Brilliant, yeah... great... come on in... the more the merrier...”

  “We heard you screaming!” said Hannah. “Was it you screaming?”

  I looked around, Josie wasn’t here. Could have been her, I suppose.

  “Yes... I screamed.”

  Or it could have been Claire as first suspected. Wonder where Josie is.

  “So don’t get all shitty when we come running to see what’s wrong!” said Hannah. Definitely a fair point, I thought.

  “I didn’t see anything, I promise!” said Tom.

  I bet he’s gutted. To be fair, I would be.

  “What were you screaming for?” asked Joel, “Could have woken the dead!”

  “We did that last night,” I muttered. The tho
ught of the ouija board shenanigans still fresh in my mind.