He’d only achieved three things so far that summer: a personal best on Countdown, a short self-inspired poem entitled ‘Bored’ and having a tasteless joke he’d written re-tweeted by one minor celebrity. In short, it had been an unproductive summer.
Having grown tired of endless streams of half-hearted jokes and captioned pictures that streamed past his eyes, Scott decided to visit the website of his local newspaper. Yes, boredom had driven him to check out stories of drunken teenagers falling in lakes; post arriving thirty years later to an address to someone who had passed away years earlier; and complaints about the council. But amongst those was a story that did grab his attention. “Building Haunted by Grey Lady” it said, next to a photo of a man staring towards an old building complete with crumbling brickwork, rusting iron gates and gnarled trees. If a child was to draw a picture of a haunted house that would be what it looked like.
Scott scrolled down the story, skim reading the words and taking in the accounts. Mysterious creaks... drops in temperature... strange phantom seen over the last three weeks. It turned out the owner of the house – a Mrs Atherton – had passed away a few years previously and since then the building had fallen into disrepair and become the picture postcard for a visit by the Most Haunted team.
Normally Scott would have dismissed such a story as a bit of light-weight summer filler or an estate agent advert masquerading as a press release to try and shift the property, but as mentioned before Scott was bored and he wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to explore a haunted house, especially as it was a mere five minute stroll from where he currently lay slouched.
Closing the web browser with as much effort as he could be bothered to muster, Scott lifted himself from the desk chair and sauntered out of the room and to his bedroom, where he scratched his chin in mock contemplation and considered what he’d take to investigate a haunting. His only experience of ghosts were from cheap b movies and a few television shows he’d stumbled across whilst channel surfing in a moment of even larger boredom. They often had everything from handheld devices that measured all sorts of frequencies and temperatures and such like, ranging up to full ghostbusting equipment that would involve futuristic looking satchels, tubes and computers. All Scott had to hand was a smart phone, a torch and a cheap camera his auntie had bought him several Christmas’ earlier. But that was all he needed, he figured, and frankly with a smattering of apps available on his phone he could probably just get away with that.
But it was approaching late evening so a separate torch was probably a good idea.
With his jean pockets filled with the phone and torch, plus his keys and wallet –he planned to stop off for an ice-cream on the way back – and the camera hung loosely around his neck, Scott headed out of the house and down the road, watching as the sun started to dip below the horizon. It was still, warm though, so his ragged t-shirt and jeans were enough to keep him comfortable.
It wasn’t long before Scott reached the building mentioned in the article, the old place staring back menacingly at him. It looked like a haunted house so perhaps the journalism in the local paper was correct.
It also wasn’t long before Scott got into the grounds of the building as the heavy iron gates that stood in front of the house were rusted and unlocked. They creaked as they were pushed open – so far, so cliché, he thought – but otherwise put up little defence allowing Scott to breach the grounds. It was twilight now and the shifting light gave the garden an eerie look with shafts of orange light passing between the overgrown trees and shrubbery, creating areas of glow but also areas of ghost-concealing shadow. It was eerily quiet with only the distant sound of traffic and a few rustles puncturing the silence. Scott could feel his heartbeat speeding up, which was absurd as he knew the place wouldn’t be truly haunted, but he was, after all, here to break the boredom so a little tension wouldn’t go a miss. And what was wrong with letting his imagination loose a little?
Scott began to circle the perimeter of the building, carefully placing his feet as he walked to avoid branches and loose parts of the flooring. The windows of the house were dirty and covered in cobwebs and the house, which must have already been a little run down when occupied, was now fully on the way to being worthy of demolition.
Finally coming to the front door of the building, which was ironically at the back of the house, Scott tried the handle but it was firmly locked. A few envelopes poked out of the letterbox having been delivered a few days earlier. Somebody was obviously checking on the house periodically: the handle was clean compared to the soiled door, but still nobody had been through it for a few days.
Continuing his trip around the building, Scott found one of the downstairs windows to be slightly ajar. He placed his fingers underneath the rotting wood and gently pulled it open, giving him enough space to squeeze his, thankfully, lanky body through. Slithering through the space he’d created, Scott landed awkwardly on the floor of what he deemed to be the kitchen, before getting to his feet and brushing down his jeans.
Scott took the torch from his pocket and switched it on, the bright beam illuminating the walls as he moved it around. The insides of the building were as dull as the outsides, not helped by the dark colour of the wallpaper and tiles. He began to explore the house, the carpet sodden in places from leaks in the roof from when it had been a more rainy part of summer, and a strange draft was circling around his legs. Was this the drop in temperature expected in a haunted house? With a quick load of the thermometer app on his phone it certainly was cold but that was more down, Scott considered, to the on-set of night and the fact that, on exploration upstairs after scaling the creaking staircase, the large window of the master bedroom being open and letting in cold air, leaves and, as he found when accidentally standing on its tail, a stray cat. The screech it let out was scarier than any grey lady and Scott stumbled back as he watched the cat dart across the room and through the open window. His heart was now racing. He caught a glimpse of himself in a nearby smashed mirror and smiled. He was generating the excitement now.
Satisfied that there was no grey lady within the walls of the house, Scott glanced out of the back bedroom window to the unkempt garden below. It was truly a mess.
And that’s when he saw her, moving slowly across the garden, a young girl, probably about Scott’s age, dressed in a grey top and lighter trousers, with an ashen face. She passed smoothly behind the tree and disappeared behind some bushes.
“The grey lady,” he noted, almost tripping over his feet in charging down the stairs and out of the window through which he’d entered. But on arriving at the spot between the two large bushes he’d seen her vanish there was no sign of her. Scott cursed under his breath, switched off his torch and placed it back in his pocket. His thoughts of further exploration, though, were foreshortened as he heard the approaching sounds of sirens. Not keen to relieve his boredom with a night in the cells he hopped over the back well and into an adjacent alleyway, jogging home as light faded, trying to put on his best innocent face.
Eager to get back to explore the house the next day, Scott’s plans for a daytime visit were curtailed by his parents dragging their reluctant son along for a day shopping. By the time he was free – though with some much-needed check-ins now under his belt – it was early evening again. Sneaking out after a pleasant dinner of roast beef, giving his parents the excuse of meeting up with friends, Scott was back at the gates of the house with his torch in hand. He squeezed through the gate again and to the back of the house, where he made much easier work this time of going through the window, choosing to land more carefully on his feet.
The light of his torch bounced off the work surfaces as he passed from the kitchen to the hallway and then up the stairs. That’s when he caught a glimpse of something passing gracefully along the corridor upstairs. His eyes wide and his heart racing, he glided up the stairs and into the main bedroom, where a figure in grey stood, looking out of the window. “It’s the grey lady,” his brain screamed at him. “A real ghost.”
His hand shaking, he reached around his neck and grabbed his camera, shaking as he switched it on. He pointed it, adjusted the focus and took a shot. The flash clicked and went off, capturing the photo. At this, the grey lady turned and saw Scott, letting out a loud scream. This, naturally, took Scott by surprise and he stumbled backwards.
The grey lady stopped screaming and looked at Scott, smiling.
“You gave me the shock of my life” she said, pulling her grey top down as she smartened herself up. Scott lost the power of speech and could only mutter something about a grey lady.
“Sorry to spoil your adventure,” she said, smiling. “I’m not a ghost. The name’s Kat, Kathryn. I live down the road.”
Scott regained his composure.
“So what’s with the ghost get up?” he asked, standing up straight and trying his best to look nonchalant.
“Oh you know,” she said, walking casually towards Scott. “Summer holidays, no one around, a girl’s got to do something exciting. And what better way than making up your own ghost. Sure beats sitting around on bloody Twitter all day and becoming paler from staying in all day. You’ve seen the local paper?”
“Yeah. That’s why I’m here. Well, on both counts. I’ve been doing nothing but the internet all holiday.”
“Sounds like we have something in common. The ghost and the ghost hunter, both keen to get out a bit and try something different.”
“Yeah,” Scott mumbled, taking Kat in for the first time. She was quite attractive for a ghost.
“Fancy maybe doing something a little less Exorcist and more like the cinema?” Scott asked awkwardly. Kat smiled.
“I’d love to,” she replied, smiling cheekily, walking past Scott and giving him a quick peck on the cheek. “I’ll meet you back here tomorrow night.”
Scott smiled. Looks like summer wouldn’t be too boring after all.
0 comments:
Post a Comment