The Ghosts and Hauntings Collection

by Cat Knight

  But listen, what was that? She was wrong, James wouldn’t kill her, not just yet. He would be wait until she was ready. There was work he needed her to do.

  Her phone began to ring. Rushing to it, Noah’s name lit the screen. Gulping sobs tore at her throat.

  “Noah?” she rasped the name out.

  “Keira?” His voice was a healing balm to her afflicted spirit, even over a layer of static.

  “Keira, are you there?”

  “Yeah,” she spoke under her breath.

  “Are you okay? You sent me a text a few hours ago but I was working.”

  A text? She had completely forgotten about sending him anything, truthfully she couldn’t remember it doing it at all. It must have been a few hours ago when she first saw the shadowy figure.

  There was a long pause before Noah interrupted it, “Keira, talk to me.”

  “I'm seeing things. I'm hearing things. I just want it to stop and I don't know how.” Keira cried with her cheek pressed against the phone's screen.

  “What are you seeing? What's going on?”

  “A shadow. I see him. He speaks to me. I don't know what's going on, I'm sorry. I just.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “What?” She shook her head, confused.

  “I mean, I'll go to your home if you'd like.”

  Keira was silent.

  “Sorry, I just wanted to help.”

  “Please,” she interrupted him. “Come here.”

  In her tattered pyjama bottoms and oversized t-shirt, she sat on the living room sofa. Her hair was a frizzy mess and bags hung under her eyes.

  After turning every light of the flat back on, she waited patiently for Noah's arrival, picking at her nails. There was a degree of numbness around her mind.

  If only it were possible to sleep, just a good night’s sleep might make it all seem better. Every moment she had to spend alone filled her thoughts with a persistent dread.

  Will I ever be free of this? Will Noah hate me if I tell him? What if he doesn’t make it here? Will James kill him? What if he changes his mind? She was certain that James would find some-way keep her alone and scared. It made no difference either way. Her life as she knew it was over. Keira believed she could never be the same again. Not after the things she had felt. A timid knock on her door sent a jolt through her body. Springing up she ran and hurried to unlock the door for Noah. He was dressed in his work uniform again.

  “Hey.” Noah seemed sheepish.

  Keira stared at him with a blank expression. “I’ve only ever seen you wear that, it seems.”

  “Likewise,” he smiled. “May I come in?”

  “Of course, of course.”

  Noah stepped inside and looked around. “Quite nice for a haunted home. Much nicer than the last one I went to.”

  “I should hope so,” she nodded. “I take care to keep my rubbish in the rubbish bin.”

  “Yes, I can see that.” The two stood quietly.

  “Would you like to sit down? Care for something to drink?” Keira spoke quickly, embarrassed for her awkwardness.

  “I’m fine but I will have a seat. You should have one too.”

  “Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

  She glanced quickly at her jittery hands, the nails were bitten to the quick. Noah sat down, Keira stood there, uncertain where to begin.

  “Please Keira, sit.”

  Sinking into the sofa, the backrest cradled her and she lay her weight fully into it and closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them, Noah was watching her. Worry was etched into his eyes.

  “How’ve you been?”

  “I’ve seen better days, honestly.” She shrugged, “And you?”

  “Do you want to talk about it?” He asked, ignoring her question.

  Keira took a deep breath and nodded. “I’ve had a rough week. Ever since that night, I’ve had nightmares that won’t let me sleep. I hear strange whispers wherever I go. I see things in the corners of my eyes. I feel cold hands grabbing my arms and face sometimes. Once I found random stuff strewn about my room like someone came in and had a hissy fit.” She went on to recount the events of the most recent night and the shadowy figure that appeared in her flat.

  “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if it will ever leave. The things that are going on have only gotten worse and I don’t know how much more I can take.”

  Noah occasionally nodded as she spoke. “I understand,” his voice was more confident than it had just been a few moments ago. Keira looked into his eyes, and she saw it there. The knowing. He did understand. “I haven’t told anyone this.”

  He paused for a few seconds.

  “When I was a child, I saw people who looked like shadows. They stood silently in my room and stared at me. I was only nine or so. When I told my ma, she thought I was just making stuff up.”

  “Is that why you’re so interested in ghosts?”

  “I suppose that’s where it started. I had to figure out if I was the only one. Sometimes, even as a kid, I thought that maybe I was just crazy. Ma used to say those kinds of people just need medication and therapy.”

  Keira cringed at the thought. Was she simply out of her mind?

  “I refused to believe it. I knew what I saw was as real as anything else. I just had to know everything I could about them. ‘Know your enemies,’ as they say.”

  “So what happened to them? The shadows?” Keira leaned closer to him.

  “We moved a year later. Hopefully they’ve left this sphere by now. Otherwise they’re haunting people to this day.”

  Her heart deflated a bit. “How do you help them move on?”

  “Sometimes they attach themselves to objects. Sometimes they attach to people. Those kinds don’t usually want to move on.”

  Keira began to feel sick to her stomach. “What if that’s me? What if it’s attached to me and won’t leave?”

  Noah looked at her and bit his lower lip. Eventually he said “I don’t know… But if it won’t leave you, then neither will I.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I know what it’s like. I know exactly how you feel. It wants to isolate you. It’s the easiest way to torment you. You can’t let it do that.” He took a nervous breath, “If you don’t want to be isolated, then I can be here for you. I can be with you through all of this.”

  Keira paused to think. Her greatest fear was being left to fight alone. The gates of hell seemed set against her, but the one sitting next to her had vowed to stay.

  And he had already fought against something like this and was willing to fight again. Just for her. It was more than she could have asked for. Thank-you Noah. Thank-you God.

  She slid her hand underneath his and wrapped her fingers around his palm. His skin was smooth and warm, despite the coldness of her home. She felt his warmth in waves through her body and spirit. Noah looked down at their hands and back up at her. They looked at each other for a long time. His face looked flush and his lips were slightly open but no words came out. Keira leaned in and pressed her lips against his, only for a moment and then pulled away. It was all she needed for a sense of peace to wash over her.

  Her life from this point onward looked as though it would be entrenched in darkness. But she didn’t mind as long as Noah was there. He stood as a beacon of light, reminding her that beauty could be birthed even in the darkness.

  Chapter Ten

  22nd March 2017

  Marks Alley West

  South Dublin

  United Kingdom

  Keira stared into the half-empty glass of red wine that sat on her kitchen counter. She had finished a full glass just moments ago and the portion in her cup was beginning to remind her of blood. With that reminder came the feeling of nausea and slight vertigo. It was that same shade of red that coloured every dream she had the past few weeks. She couldn't close her eyes without ghoulish imagery and she couldn't sleep without a nightmare pulling her away from rest.

  Keira
wanted to be drunk. She was never much of a drinker but she was certain that inebriation would be better than reality. As she reached out her hand to grab the bottom of the wine glass, small ripples formed in the liquid as a chilling sensation passed through her fingertips. She retracted her hand as if her skin had touched a hot stove.

  Her whole body shuddered as the presence had passed her by. It wasn't the first or last time she had felt it, but her senses never numbed to it.

  He was an unnatural force that her body disdained. Her mind could never accept him, no matter how long he stayed. He is what remains of James O’Doherty and she had evoked his lingering spirit somehow, to live by her side.

  Sometimes she saw him and other times she couldn't. This one was one of those instances where he was more like the wind, showing evidence of his presence but without a form to be seen. Her eyes tried to follow what wasn't visible, only to see loose silverware and dirty dishes rattle. Her ears focused in on the presence and could hear footsteps. The sound of bare skin sticking to ill kept kitchen tiles could be heard walking away from her, fading into the distance until she could hear nothing at all other than the sound of her heart pounding against her rib cage.

  Where the nightmares ended and reality began was nearly indiscernible to her. For all she knew, she'd wake up any moment now in a cold sweat in the middle of the night like she did every night. The experiences seemed so real. Every-thing that happened in her dreams seemed so life-like that she felt as if the consequences would follow in the waking world.

  In her mind, she knew that was ridiculous but she was no longer guided by logic and reason. Part of herself was lost to her and all that remained was a troubled heart that followed every unbalanced thought and whimsy she could find. Anything that provided her the tiniest glimpse of escape.

  The setting sun began to cast shadows through the living room Her eyes bounced around the small flat to see any traces of movements or abnormalities. Her red hair fell over the side of her face, quickly she pushed back it behind her ear fearing that it might blind her to something present in her peripheral vision. The moisture in her tank-top from the sweat made her itchy, but she didn’t have the energy to change it. Nor would it matter. The sweat would be back in a few minutes anyway.

  Nothing felt worse to her than having an enemy in her own home. A man's scream roared around the room, or was it her head? It sounded powerful, beginning like angry thunder and ended in a deathly wail.

  It was the kind of horrifying sound that gave her a mental picture of bloodshed and murder. Shortly after the sound ceased, a loud thud was heard. She could feel the impact in the cold ground beneath her bare feet where the floor boards shook. After that was silence.

  Nothing in her intended to find the source of the noise or the thud on the floor. Keira knew already. It was him, she felt him making his presence known and his intention to own her. She positioned herself with her back against the kitchen sink, and she dare not move away in case it came for her. Her eyes scanned the room looking for it. Her feet were rooted solidly on the floor while she grappled toward the edge of the counter.

  Slowly, slowly she moved her hands and clasped the handle of a large kitchen knife. It wouldn't do her any good, but holding it made her feel safer, and Keira wanted to feel safe, just for a moment.

  But logic told her - she was not. Probably not ever again. Standing stoically in position, back against the bench, Keira refused to move. Whether she was there for an hour or just a few minutes, she couldn't tell, time seemed irrelevant to her, the very concept clouded by her fear. Though her bones and muscles felt the weariness of her sleep deprivation, a paralyzing terror held her tired joints in place.

  She always had been one who had taken risks. ‘Steps of faith’ is what she usually called them, without being certain of what she was putting her faith in. These days she was faithless. Any bravery she once possessed was swept away by James' foul spirit.

  Her vision began to wane and blackness took her. Her body drooped. The knife clattered to the floor. Keira clutched the kitchen counter trying to stay upright but the sick dizziness enveloped her and pulled her down, down, into a whirling pit of black. Fragmented images flitted through her mind. Noises rushed through her head and she floated in another realm. The one where James lived.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  The cold and gloom of the sky had always put James in the worst of moods. The cold sapped his strength and the skin on his knuckles and lips often cracked to bleeding. He ate the bowl of porridge before him in furious silence. A child's cries echoed off of the kitchen tiles where she lay curled up in the corner. Her face beet red with the effort of screaming. The horrific disturbance pierced his ears and was only interrupted by her coughing and gasping for more air to scream with. Aileen was not a pretty girl. Perhaps it would have helped if she was.

  But she wasn’t and she looked even more ugly with her missing front two teeth. And she didn’t play like a girl should with cooking toys and the like. Most days she was dressed in blue overalls which were stained with mud and grass.

  How could he have begotten such a whining screaming un-comely child. It was Cait’s fault for indulging her whims. If the child had been born a boy, maybe he could have stood the dirtiness easier.

  Each day he was descending further from happiness. It was slow and gruelling, and he couldn't imagine that he would ever recover from it. He shot a quick glance at his wife sitting silently with reddened eyes and a set face, impassive. Her shirt was buttoned high to the neck and her sleeves were long. She wore heavy makeup these days. James didn’t like her wearing it, but better that she cover the bruising.

  Heavy bags weighed under her eyes her face looked dead and devoid of the beauty he once knew her for. Cait glanced at him for a moment, her gaze dead except for a hint of fear. He hadn’t the heart to care. A throbbing headache was coming on as his daughter's screams echoed around the room. He often imagined his house well-furnished with collectables and comfortable seating, but every quid he earned was spent on a

  slow crawl out of debt, with his wife and child acting as two anchors on his feet.

  The wailing grew louder. His muscles tensed up and he slammed the table with a clenched fist, the anger in his eyes twitching and his teeth grinding. Cait jumped visibly and the kid bawled louder. If only she would have an accident. It wouldn’t be that difficult –they happen all the time.

  Cait wouldn’t have to see it, he would make sure she didn’t. Before she got pregnant Cait was everything a wife should be. He relied on her to pull him out of his dark moods jollying him with her good humour, although that was long gone since the kid arrived.

  But now whatever love his wife felt, was all for Aileen. He missed Cait pampering him, doting on him, giving him all the attention a man was entitled to. When they married, he curbed the violent tendencies and sickening thoughts, hoping that he had finally found his peace. But it had only lasted for a while. They came back in full force when she had gotten herself pregnant. He’d told her to be careful, but she had ignored the instruction.

  Things got worse after she started vomiting and couldn’t cook the food, then she was tired, and she couldn’t clean house. He’d had to come home and take care of Cait. And his husbandly rights? Cait said she worried that it would hurt the babe.

  And that’s when those twisted feelings took him over completely. It was all the fault of the baby and it wasn’t going away. He wanted to be rid of it and make things the way they were again. James finished his last spoon of porridge and pushed the bowl aside, slamming the door behind him, thankful to leave the house for the day. Now he hadn’t been home for but a minute when he heard the kid bellowing for her mother and screaming like a banshee.

  Looking over at Cait, he saw the kid wasn’t with her, the noise was coming from her bedroom. Cait must’ve put her in there. It wouldn’t stop him – a good beating is exactly what she needed. It would teach her to shut up. But Cait always stood in his way. Not tonight she wouldn’t.

&nb
sp; “Get yer hands off of me.”

  Cait had grabbed his shoulders. Before he knew it, he’d swung and hit her in the face. She fell against the kitchen sink. Her eyes fearful. He knew he shouldn’t but, the familiar desire to possess her rose in him and he moved in close.

  There would be no excuses about her being tired, or her time of the month. It was his right, a man was king in his own home, and the kid was out of the way for the minute. When it was over she went to getting the dinner ready, cutting up chicken. He hadn’t thought the knife was for him.

  The searing sting was muted momentarily by shock and then ungodly pain ripped through his neck. Cait’s eyes were wide with horror, but she couldn’t take it back.

  He grabbed at her hands and half pulled at the knife. She’d got him in the artery and blood spurted. Dizziness over-came him and he was losing vision. Her face was a maze of fear. He let go of her hands holding her for support as he fell. Then he felt the knife go in again and again, screams formed in his throat but the metallic taste of blood filled his senses. Blackness enveloped him for a while giving way to a strange lost and lonely feeling. A short distance from his body he watched Cait roll him up in the kitchen carpet. Now he understood, she had it planned all along. It had all changed because of that kid.

  Chapter Eleven

  Keira gasped as she woke from another nightmare. Her sweaty palms lay flat against the cold tiled floor. A groan came from her as she pushed herself up and looked around twisting this way and that. Once she was sure she was in her own home, she then looked down at her body to make sure she was still herself.

  Relief soared through her, as she fell back down breathing deeply for a moment taking comfort in the familiar surroundings of her own flat and that she was still Keira, wearing her favourite black tank top, along with her denim shorts.

  That dream, oh my God. That dream…

  Of all her dreams in recent memory, this one felt the most real, and yet it was the only one that she was not in.

  But the pain of betrayal was real and the smell of the blood that bathed the horrific scene was in her nose and on her tongue. While she was in it, Keira felt she could have reached out and touched those people. She knew who they were, it was Aileen, Cait and James.