‘Please – please let me go.’
‘You must come with me. You’re under arrest.’ He didn’t sound at all sympathetic, just cold and hard.
‘My hand -’
‘You were evading the law,’ said PC Rivers grimly. ‘Your injury is your own fault.’
‘Please – please let me go,’ she whimpered again pathetically. ‘I couldn’t bear being locked up.’
‘Come down!’
‘No,’ she said wildly, and jumped from the balustrade into the sea. But the images didn’t fade; instead, like a television camera, the picture in the crystal seemed to track along the boarding of the pier, back into the hall of mirrors. There, on the floor, amongst the broken glass, was the hand. And it was pointing. Mercifully the clouds of misty vapour rolled in.
‘OK. I was hard on her,’ whispered PC Rivers. ‘She was an old woman and I could have let her go. But she’d done some bad things – very bad things – and I was strictly a law and order man. Besides, with that terrible accident to her hand I would have had to take her into custody anyway, so she could have medical treatment –’ His voice trailed away.
‘She died anyway,’ I said bleakly.
‘She died cursing me – I know she did,’ he replied.
‘Hang on,’ I hissed. ‘There’s something coming out of the crystal.’
There certainly was. Emerging from the mist was a detached hand, and in its fingers it held a sheet of writing-paper and a pen. Putting the pen down on the desert-like floor, the hand began to write:
Go now. Take him with you.
I looked across and saw the hand beckoning from the last crystal.
‘This way,’ I said softly.
‘But-’
‘Don’t you want to go?’ I stared at him in surprise.
‘I’ve been frozen in time – I could be very old,’ he replied uneasily. ‘Ninety-six to be exact, in the outside world. Or –’
‘Or what?’
He shrugged. ‘Never mind. Let’s follow the hand. Anything would be better than this.’
I suddenly felt very anxious. ‘Anything? Are you sure?’
PC Rivers nodded rather sadly. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m sure.’
We both walked to the crystal and then paused. The hand was deep inside, beckoning, and instinctively I knew what we had to do. Grabbing PC Rivers by the sleeve of his uniform, I pulled him into the crystal. There was no resistance; it was rather like walking through jelly. We were well into the crystal when PC Rivers began to hang back. ‘Wait.’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘I’m afraid.’
‘What of?’ I snapped, anxious to move on.
‘What I might find on the other side,’ he said hesitantly.
But I was hardly listening as I jerked at his sleeve again. ‘Nothing could possibly be worse than being back there,’ I said impatiently. ‘Could it?’
‘I don’t know,’ was his reply.
We came out to the sound of breaking glass, and when I looked behind me I could see that we had stepped out of the mirror I had disappeared into, but now it had shattered from side to side and there was glass all over the floor of the musty hall of mirrors. I turned round, and there, standing directly in front of me, was Ben.
‘Thank goodness.’ His eyes were literally starting out of his head. ‘Where have you been – and what happened to that mirror? You looked as if you’d almost stepped out of it, but I suppose you must have been behind it somewhere. But where? I’ve been looking all over for you – and I’ve searched this place for half an hour. If you’re playing tricks –’
‘Is that all the time I’ve been away?’
Ben looked at his watch irritably. ‘Yes – about half an hour. Now look – what the –’
‘Ben,’ I said grandly, ‘meet PC Rivers.’
‘Who?’
‘PC Rivers. I’ve just rescued –’ I turned round and stopped talking at once. PC Rivers wasn’t behind me any more. All I could see on the floor was a pile of dust.
Everyone shivered in their sleeping-bags as Debbie finished and there was a long, long silence.
‘Well?’ said Tim at last. ‘Hasn’t anyone got anything to say?’
But no one had.
Eventually, in desperation, Tim demanded, ‘Are we going to go on with this or are you lot too chicken?’
Again there was a silence. Then it was broken by Rob. ‘Maybe I should bring everyone down to earth a bit. Has anyone ever heard of a haunted council house? Well, ours is – or was.’
6
Number Nine
It all started with footsteps in the kitchen. I just couldn’t work out what was making them, and somehow it was worse because they always started up quite late at night. Mum walked out on us last year, so it was only Dad and me and he was out of work, so we were always short of money. To save fuel and light bills we never used the sitting- or dining-rooms and during those long, dark winter months, we lived in the kitchen. It was small and warm and usually smelt of frying, which was comforting somehow.
I did my homework up in the bedroom, huddled over a tiny electric fire, because Dad always had the TV going, watching videos of football matches unless there was any live sport on. We’re both football crazy, Dad and me.
Some evenings that winter Dad would do his other activity – pretty well his only alternative to watching TV – he would go down the pub. I was usually OK on my own – because I had the pub telephone number – but then I started hearing the footsteps. It was always the same pattern and always at the same time – you could set the clock by them. They began at about nine, hammering across the kitchen floor, heavy and hard as if their owner was wearing thick hobnail boots. Then they would disappear into the hallway and run up the stairs, where they’d get louder, as if the stairs were wooden. Then the footsteps would stop as suddenly as they had begun. I didn’t tell Dad about them; he’s the kind of bloke you couldn’t. I love him and all that, but he’s inclined to go on. You know, teasing. It really gets to you and he won’t stop either, not for ages. So I kept the footsteps to myself.
At first I was scared stiff and thought I’d gone nutty or something. Then because they became so regular I reckon I got used to them and curiosity replaced the fear. I could never see anything, of course – even if I stood at the top of the stairs and heard them coming towards me. I could never really make out how many people were making them either. Sometimes I thought it was two people, sometimes more. And did they have heavy boots!
Anyway, just as I was getting used to the footsteps – even beginning to ignore them – stones started being thrown up at my bedroom window. Like the boots, they were heavy ones, and somehow it was much more scary. They would start being chucked at about midnight, but when I opened the window they stopped. If I didn’t, they went on and on and on. In the end I always had to open the window, partly because I was afraid the glass would break, but mainly because I couldn’t stand the noise any longer. Whenever I looked out, though, the garden was empty and there was no one there. I used to crouch down behind the window and then spring up so I could catch a glimpse of whoever was out there, but directly I did so the stone-throwing stopped – and as usual there was no one in the garden at all.
Unlike the footsteps, the stone-throwing continued to get to me, so much so that at last I decided to confide in my dad. I felt so tired and worried that I started on him at breakfast, which was always a big mistake, particularly if he’d had a skinful the night before.
‘Dad –’
‘Mm?’
‘Someone’s been chucking stones up at the window.’
‘Mm?’ He was reading the sports pages of the Sun and he couldn’t have been further away.
‘And there’s no one there.’
‘Mm.’
‘When I look out in the garden there’s no one there.’
‘Yeah.’
‘It’s getting to me, Dad.’
‘Yeah.’
‘I don’t think I can take
it much longer.’
‘Mm?’
I paused, realizing that I wasn’t exactly getting anywhere. ‘Dad, did you hear the Martians had landed?’ I said suddenly.
‘Yeah.’
‘And they’re stealing people’s souls.’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘There’s one of them after yours.’
‘Mm.’ He turned a page. ‘Get a move on, son, or you’ll be late for school.’
Because there was no one to help me I knew I had to help myself, so I decided that I’d ignore the stone-throwing like I was beginning to ignore the footsteps. Maybe the whole thing would go away if I did that. So that night I lay quite still in bed, waiting for the stone-throwing to start, and when it did I pulled the covers over my head. But I could still hear the thumping on the glass, and it went on and on and on until I couldn’t bear it any longer. To hell with them, I thought, completely losing my temper, and I hurled myself out of bed and ran furiously to the window, automatically opening it. Then I froze: standing on our tiny strip of overgrown lawn were two men dressed in what looked like rags, but on closer inspection seemed to be old trousers and what was left of weather-beaten smocks. The moonlight was brilliant and I could see quite clearly that they were dark and bearded and between them they carried a third person. Slumped in their arms, with blood running down his face, his appearance was so ghastly that I felt quite rigid with fear. I’d never seen so much blood before; it was like a torrent.
‘You’ve got to help,’ one of the wounded man’s supporters whispered. ‘You’ve got to help – before they come for us.’ He had some kind of accent which I couldn’t make out and was gazing up at me anxiously. I was about to reply when I realized to my horror that I could see right through him.
He wasn’t that transparent, only slightly, but there was no doubt at all that there was something unearthly, unreal, about all three of them. For a moment I thought I was going to be sick, then I noticed that the man they were propping up wasn’t a man at all – he was a boy; he only looked a few years older than me. I was sure that he was dying.
‘Who are you?’ I called down, hardly able to bring out the words.
‘We’re from the Rose of Tinmouth.’
‘Where?’
‘We came up on the beach in the storm.’
What storm, I wondered, but didn’t dare to say anything.
‘They were waiting for us.’
‘Who?’
‘Excisemen.’ The man’s voice broke. ‘They clubbed my Jem. You have to help – where’s your dad?’
‘Asleep,’ I said.
‘Not expecting us?’ The other man spoke now, his voice hoarse with desperation. ‘Is he drunk?’
‘He was when he got back.’
‘Tom Tallen drunk again. I should have known it.’
Tom Tallen? That wasn’t my dad’s name. I was just about to tell him when I stopped. Something – I can’t think quite what – kept me silent.
‘You’ll be Silas.’
‘Er – yes.’ I didn’t know what else to say. This didn’t seem to be the time to start correcting him.
‘Get us inside. Fast. Jem’s bad.’
‘In here?’
‘We’ll go for Dr Vincent. He’ll be discreet. Come on, lad. Can’t you see how bad my Jem is?’
I could and I knew I had to obey. As I tiptoed downstairs I suddenly realized that I was seeing people who weren’t of my time–and they were hundreds of years out of their time. They weren’t real, they weren’t even alive, but I couldn’t bring myself to think of the word that was beating away at the back of my mind. As I fumbled with the latch I realized something else. Of course, they were the footsteps on the stairs, the hurlers of stones against the windows. They had been trying to reach me for some time – all three of them – and maybe their power had been growing every night until they were able to appear in person, not just as disembodied sounds. They must be desperate, I thought; it was their desperation that had made them come and I knew I had to help them. But I was so afraid.
When I finally inched the door open I was even more scared. They were there, all three of them, Jem still sprawled between them, and I gave a little gasping cry of horror. The blood was still flowing down his face and I could smell the sea on their clothes. What was worse, however, was that I could look straight through them and see the garden behind.
‘Don’t be afraid,’ said one of the bearded men, ‘but we have to be quick. Where can we take him?’
‘Upstairs,’ I said haltingly. ‘Upstairs – to my room.’
‘You lead the way then.’
‘Right.’
They made a tremendous noise as they crossed the kitchen and half-carried, half-dragged Jem up the stairs behind me. The sound of their footsteps was very familiar; I had been listening to it night after night as they gathered the strength to come through.
‘In here.’ I wrenched open the door and they laid Jem on my bed, the blood from his hair-line still flowing, seeping on to the pillows and sheets.
‘We’ll be off for the doctor,’ said the taller of the two men. ‘But I’ll just plug the wound first. Do you have something?’
I ran over to the chest of drawers and dragged out an old T-shirt that had Snoopy on the front. Immediately the man ripped it up and folded part of it into a pad, pressing it over Jem’s forehead and binding it on tightly with the other piece. Gradually the blood stopped coming.
For the first time I had a chance to look at Jem’s face. Through it I could see the pillow but I could also make out his dark matted hair, his closed eyes and his deathly pale face.
‘You’ll stay with him?’ the other man asked.
‘Of course I will.’
‘We’ll go for the doctor. Don’t let anyone in until we’re back.’
‘You mean – the excisemen?’
‘Them – and – and – anyone else.’ I could see stark terror in Jem’s father’s eyes and suddenly knew he wasn’t just afraid of the excisemen. There was something – somebody else.
‘Who is it then?’ I asked fearfully.
‘What?’
‘There’s someone else, isn’t there?’ I insisted. I had to know what I might be up against while they were away.
‘Well -’
‘Go on. Tell the lad.’
Jem’s father turned back to me slowly and unwillingly.
‘Don’t let her in.’
‘Who?’
‘There’s a woman. She’s blind – and black at heart,’ he added.
‘Who is she?’ I said sharply.
‘His mother.’ He paused and then rushed on. ‘I blinded her myself. She stuck a knife in my back and I threw a pan of hot fat in her eyes. It was a reaction – one I bitterly –’ He broke off. ‘I haven’t time to explain it all, but she knows we’ve beached the Rose and we’re in this trouble and that your father is loyal to us – when he’s sober. She may come here. You’ve to be on your guard, Silas. She’ll do him more harm than the Revenue.’
‘But she’s his mother -’ I protested.
‘I took him away, and she’s promised to kill him – and me. Nell’s a really black-hearted woman – I’ll guarantee you that. Be on your guard. We’ll be back as fast as the doctor can run.’
I listened to their boots clattering down the stairs and then heard the back door close softly. I was alone with Jem. The ghost of Jem. And I was waiting for other ghosts to come.
I touched Jem’s hand but there was nothing there – just the duvet – yet I knew I had to look after him. I had never been so afraid as I sat beside the ghost boy who might die – but was already dead – waiting for his murderous mother who was also dead but as alive as he was.
Even the tiniest sound made me think she was coming: the murmur of the night wind, the flutter of a bird, the sighing of the sea, which was only just down the road. A small animal crossed the gravel path, something rustled a dustbin – all, to me, were signs of blind Nell, the mother who wanted to kill her son.
‘Who are you?’ The whisper was faint and I gazed down to see that Jem had opened his eyes and was staring up at me, his pupils slightly dilated.
‘A friend.’
‘Where’s my father?’
‘Gone to fetch a doctor.’
Jem closed his eyes. ‘I can feel her coming nearer.’
‘Who?’ But I knew all too well who he meant.
‘My mother. She’s coming to kill me.’
‘She won’t get in here,’ I said sharply.
‘Won’t she? She’s stupid, but she’s cunning. She’ll get me one day. I know she will.’
‘Why does she hate you so much?’ I asked, my heart thudding so loudly that it was painful. My throat was dry and my hands shook so much that I couldn’t control them.
‘I went with Dad – I had to. She used to beat me; and of course after the accident –’
I remembered the hot fat and shuddered. But what did I really have to fear? She was only a ghost like the others.
‘I’m sure she’s near,’ whispered Jem. ‘I can feel her presence.’
‘You’ll be safe with me,’ I said, as solidly as I could.
I nearly leapt off the bed when the stone sharply hit the window, and then another, and another.
‘It’ll be your father.’
‘I hope so,’ whispered Jem.
I ran to the window and stared out. In the garden, clearly etched in the moonlight, stood a woman. She held a stick in her right hand and she was looking up at the window. I gasped with horror. All that remained where her eyes had been were dreadful sightless sockets.
I turned back slowly to Jem and he must have read what I had seen in the expression on my face.
‘It’s her, isn’t it?’
I knew there was no point in trying to conceal anything from him. ‘Yes, but how did she manage to get here, to throw a stone up at this window?’
‘She knows your father,’ whispered Jem. ‘She knows him very well.’
‘I didn’t realize that,’ I replied in total confusion. Which father? I felt like saying.
Scary Tales to Tell in the Dark Page 7
