The Shadows Call Read online

  It was gritty underfoot, and motes of dust danced in our phone beams, but there was no hint of the clutter that had found its way down the coal chute. But for the discolouration of the walls and flooring, you’d swear that the room hadn’t been touched for decades. But that wasn’t the biggest surprise. I had expected that the basement had been left as it had looked back in the 1980s, but I was out by about one hundred years.

  ‘It’s like a scene out of Downton Abbey,’ Sarah said with burgeoning awe.

  I’d never watched the TV period drama she referred to, but knew enough about it to agree. The room was like a set from the show, but one that had been left to the damp and must for decades.

  ‘Look at the cooking range!’ Sarah had forgotten her fear now. She released my hand so that she could play the torch light over the expansive range that dominated most of the wall on our left. It was huge, with two cast iron ovens, an open hearth at the center, and hot plates to either end. The entire thing was netted by dusty spider webs. Cupboards above the hearth on both sides were also formed of cast metal. They were probably once employed to keep prepared dishes warm, utilising the heat from the ovens below. Over the hearth were hooks and rods where pans still hung, ready for the return of the cook. Behind the fire, the wall was decorated with original glazed tiles, and even someone who was unfamiliar with their reclamation value could recognise their monetary worth. In fact the entire range was probably worth a fortune. Sarah oohed and aahed as she inspected it.

  I allowed her to enjoy the find while I extended our treasure hunt, sweeping the glow from my phone over a table in the middle of the ancient scullery. It was a “butcher’s block”, a huge, sturdy thing. More pots and crockery sat on the table, dusty and spotted with fly crap. At the edge of my light, I saw a pot sink, ancient cupboards, and a welsh dresser, again stacked with grimy dishes. The floor was formed of Lakeland slate tiles, but beneath the table was an inlaid glazed tile mosaic. I couldn’t be positive but I felt the pattern reflected the design of the stained glass window above the bathroom entrance upstairs.

  I turned away, checking for new delights. There was another door to my right. I left Sarah to it, and moved for the door. I pulled it open and found a pantry. Inside was the old mattress the cop had mentioned. It was ancient, almost rotted through, stained and damp, and there was a scattering of trash on top of it, empty beer cans and liquor bottles. The scene was at odds with the ancient scullery and I shoved the door to in disgust. At a right angle to the pantry was another door. It was partially open, from when the young cop had investigated the basement. I opened it and stared into a wedge-shaped space that extended beneath the actual pavement and part of the road outside.

  I took a step but faltered, and eased back.

  The solid darkness was menacing.

  Something scraped, like a heavy boot on paving.

  Chewing my lip, I thought about closing the door, and forgetting all about the room. But I knew what Sarah would say.

  I leaned, aiming the light. It didn’t extend all the way to the far wall. Something monstrous could be lurking just beyond sight, about to lunge out and snap its teeth into my throat. I reared back again.

  Jesus, Jack, the noise was probably just a mouse. Yeah, a fucking mouse wearing hobnail boots! I steeled myself, this time convincing myself that a pedestrian on the pavement above had made the noise.

  Stepping inside, a cold chill descended over me. I could even taste the dampness in the atmosphere, and I spat it out. There could be poisonous black mold spores floating around. I pulled my sweatshirt up over my nose as I peered into the blue-tinged gloom. It was like a hidden dungeon, the domain of a sadistic torturer or serial killer. I pictured wraith-like victims hung to bleed out as knives and hot irons were applied, fleecing their skin from their bones. It was actually an old cold storage pantry, evidence of which was a long trestle counter to one side and a line of meat hooks on the opposite wall. Despite my unease the place fascinated me. I moved along, touching my fingertips to each meat hook. They were tarnished, spotted with rust in places, but the points were still sharp. At the narrow point of the wedge, I found the source of the dampness and cold. Rainwater had leaked in through a crack in the ceiling. The wall was slick and green with algae, or moss. I had the urge to poke my fingers into the filth but a shiver of revulsion trickled down my spine. I retreated, expecting the growth to suddenly leap at me, smother me, drowning me in its cloying embrace. Where I’d been shocked or disturbed by the previous unusual events in the house, now I experienced a level of disgust that fed a deeper nausea than any scare I’d had. My stomach twinged, and saliva flooded my mouth, a precursor to purging my guts.

  Turning round, I grabbed at the trestle table for support as my gut heaved painfully. I fought down vomit. Sweat popped out along my hairline and poured down my face, pooling in my eye sockets.

  ‘To hell with this!’ I wanted out. I rushed for the exit, gagging down bile. The phone’s blue glow blinked out, but light leaked from the Victorian kitchen where Sarah’s torch app danced.

  I picked up my pace, desperately wanting to reach that light.

  But something moved faster.

  A coal-black figure hurtled from behind me and through the open door. I stumbled to a halt. What the fuck?

  The urge to throw up was gone, now clamped down by the contracting of my throat and chest. My legs turned to water. Instead of being sick I might have soiled my trousers, except I didn’t get the chance.

  A larger shadow zipped past me in the same direction, and I cried out. It was madness, but I made a defensive swipe at it. My hand passed through the inky black form, and my fingers tingled, as if I’d just touched an electrical charge. Then the numbness began, an icy coldness creeping up my fingers towards my wrist. I gawped, but only until I saw where the second shadow was running to. I croaked a warning to Sarah. Terrified, I lurched after the figure, chasing to stop it before it reached her.

  I banged out of the doorway, my sore knee taking the brunt against the doorframe, and I shouted in pain. Sarah was in the far right corner, cringing at my unexpected yell. Her hands were at her throat, and the light of her torch scored unnatural highlights on her face.

  ‘Look out!’ I barked as the shadow figure raced directly for her. Ignoring it, Sarah stared at me, her eyes wide, her teeth clamped. She reared back against the closet door, as if I was the dangerous one. The figure loomed over her, blocking her from my sight, made a swiping grab for her.

  The smaller shadow appeared, diving under the larger figure’s outstretched arms, speeding past the cooking range for the exit door. The big one went after it. Both were screaming – one voice was raised in terror, the other malicious fury. I took a couple of steps after them before Sarah shrieked and collapsed in the corner.

  10

  Unattainable

  Years before I met Catriona, and we had our two children, I was in another relationship. My first lover was called Naomi Woodall. We met in our final year of secondary school and were together almost seven years before things ended. It didn’t end well. Despite trying hard to wipe that fateful night from my memory our final minutes together often intruded in my dreams, and left me calling out in regret, sometimes in sheer horror. Naomi was an attractive girl, still in the flush of youth, but in those last few minutes her face had taken on a different look all together, and it wasn’t pretty.

  Looking down at Sarah huddled on the basement floor, she wore a similar expression to the one Naomi had back then. Her mouth was contorted, and her eyes went from wide-open one second to screwed up tightly the next. Her arms thrust at me, shoving and pushing. She made little animal noises, whines and squeaks.

  ‘Sarah? Sarah! Are you all right?’

  ‘Get away from me!’

  ‘What’s wrong? Did it hurt you?’

  ‘Get away, Jack!’

  At a loss, I stepped away, my gaze going for the door the two shadows had disappeared through. I couldn’t see or hear them now. Sarah scuffled around
, looking for something. As she fell she dropped her iPhone. We were in almost darkness. I nudged the phone with my foot, bent and picked it up. I held it to Sarah and she snatched it out of my hand, fumbling with it until she got the beam going again. She shone it directly in my eyes. I averted my gaze, hissing, half-blinded.

  Her demand came out of left field. ‘What the hell were you playing at?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Frightening the shit out of me like that! Do you think it was bloody funny?’ Sarah struggled up. I offered a hand but she pushed it away. ‘Get off me.’

  ‘What do you mean I frightened you? It wasn’t me…’

  ‘You screamed like a little girl,’ Sarah snapped, ‘then came flying out of that room as if it was on fire. I almost had a bloody heart attack.’

  I screamed?

  Maybe I did but it wasn’t to frighten her, it was to warn her.

  ‘I, uh, I…’

  Sarah scrubbed at a knee. Wiping off dust. She looked up from under her disarranged hair, then shook her head. ‘Good one, Jacko,’ she muttered. But then she saw the humour of the moment and let out an unsteady laugh. ‘You got me good there, you idiot.’

  ‘I wasn’t trying to scare you,’ I said, ‘I was, uh…’

  She shoved me, but it was playful this time. ‘So what was all the screaming for? I thought you were being murdered.’

  ‘Didn’t you see them?’ I asked, and I bent to scan the darkness through the open door to the stairs.

  ‘See who? I thought you were right and there was an intruder the copper missed. I half expected a mad axe man to come running out behind you.’ Sarah followed my gaze and shone the torch that way. ‘What are you looking at?’

  ‘Those two shadows,’ I explained, ‘they shot past me towards you. That’s what I was shouting for.’

  ‘You saw him again?’ Give Sarah her due, she was such a believer in the weird and whacky that she didn’t question their existence. This time even I didn’t question myself. I knew what I’d seen. The first shadow was running in terror, chased by the second.

  ‘There were two of them this time. A big one chasing a smaller one.’

  ‘A child?’

  ‘No, it was more like a woman. She was smaller, the other was about my size.’

  ‘I warned you what would happen if you opened this bloody place.’ Sarah was now bent at the waist, aiming her torch between the cold pantry and the exit passage. ‘Something must’ve happened here, Jack. Something horrible. I’ve heard of stuff like this before. It’s called a residual haunt.’

  I’d never heard of the term. Still looking for evidence, Sarah went on. ‘Some mediums and paranormal investigators have this theory that during a traumatic incident the negative energy can become trapped in the environment, and when the atmospheric conditions are right it can be replayed. It’s like old videotape replaying the same scene over and over again. You just witnessed something that happened years and years ago. It could be why the basement was boarded up afterwards. Or maybe the previous tenants witnessed the same event and they shut the place up as a result. What did these shadows look like?’

  ‘Shadows,’ I said. ‘Black.’

  ‘But what about features, clothing, anything specific like that?’

  ‘It happened too fast,’ I explained. ‘I didn’t get a look at any detail. But I know what you’re getting at and the answer’s no. I couldn’t make out what the figures actually looked like, they were just solid black shapes.’

  She gnawed at her bottom lip, her tongue dancing in and out. Sarah had regained some of her composure, but one emotion had replaced the other. Her previous fear had morphed into excitement. Partly I was relieved, because she’d forgotten her anger – her fear – of me. On the other hand I felt extremely uncomfortable, because I was only adding credence to something I’d always argued against.

  ‘Are you suggesting that I actually saw a couple of spirits?’ I said, layering on a tone of doubt I didn’t genuinely feel. ‘And you find that exciting? I…I don’t know what to think. Real spirits?’

  ‘No. They’re not spirits. It’s like I said, they’re just a replay. They’re not sentient, have no intelligence. They’re not actually there in the sense that they are real forms. Imagine them as a recording only, being replayed like a film projected on to a screen. They’re no different than a mirage, but cast into the present from the past. It’s just the same traumatic scene reenacted time and again. They can’t hurt you, Jack, because they’re not really there.’

  I thought of the static charge as my hand passed through the larger shadow, how my fingers had tingled as an unearthly chill had crept up my fingers, all of which contradicted Sarah’s explanation. But I kept those details to myself. ‘I thought that ghosts were supposed to be the spirits of dead people.’

  ‘That’s why so many people find ghosts so hard to believe in,’ Sarah gripped my arm. ‘Come on, as much as I’m interested in the paranormal, I’m not enjoying this creepy place. Let’s go upstairs where it’s light and I’ll explain.’

  She led me up the stairs. As we progressed I couldn’t help glancing around, checking that the two spooks weren’t going to come hurtling up the steps behind us. When we stepped into the vestibule again, I exhaled noisily.

  ‘You’re rattled,’ Sarah said.

  ‘Just a bit.’

  ‘I think it’s fantastic!’ Sarah’s toffee eyes flashed. ‘I wish I’d seen what you did.’

  ‘You didn’t see anything of them?’

  ‘No,’ she said, heading for the kitchen and, I assumed, a replenishment of her wine glass. ‘Tell me again what you saw.’

  I narrated the scene as I followed her to where we’d left our glasses, telling how the smaller figure had raced past, followed by the other moments later. As I’d come out of the cold pantry I thought the bigger one was going for Sarah, but apparently he was after the one hiding behind her. ‘I thought he was grabbing at you, that’s why I hollered.’

  ‘But she was hiding from him in the closet?’

  ‘That’s what it looked like. But she came out right through the door and ran off, with him giving chase up the stairs.’

  ‘That’s why I think it was a residual haunt. “Spirits”,’ she said, making double quotation marks with her fingers, ‘can manipulate the environment. They can open and close doors. Residual haunts don’t need to. In her day the closet door was maybe open, and that’s why it just looked like she passed directly through the physical one now. It wasn’t closed then, so it wasn’t closed to her in the replay.’

  I frowned.

  Sarah took my moment of confusion as a good point to tip the rest of the first bottle of wine into her glass. She didn’t offer me any. That was fine. My stomach was soured from the incident and I wasn’t sure I could keep it down. She leaned her hips against the worktop surface. ‘Spirits-’ again she gestured but this time in a wave that said she was doubtful ‘-if they do exist are supposed to be the life essence of a person who has died. They have left their bodies and are trapped in limbo between this plane and the afterlife. Sometimes they don’t know they are dead, sometimes they do. They think, they can move around, they can, as I said, manipulate their environment. You’ve heard of poltergeists?’

  ‘Yeah. The name translates as ‘noisy ghosts’, right?’

  Sarah offered a wicked smile. ‘You’re not as daft as you sometimes make out, Jack.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I think.’

  She nudged me with her elbow, and it was only then I noticed how close we were standing. At least she wasn’t holding the fright I’d given her against me. I smiled, and nuzzled in a fraction closer, and she didn’t move away.

  ‘I know you’ve never given this much credence before,’ Sarah went on, ‘and having given it little thought probably do what everyone else does. You lump all mention of ghosts in one pot. Because some stories you hear are a bit “out there” it’s easy to say it’s all a load of old rubbish, and to be fair I can’t
blame you. Some of the stuff people present as evidence is easily debunked, but because of that people with little knowledge of the subject think that means that everything has been debunked. That’s not the case.’

  ‘Nothing I’ve ever seen has convinced me,’ I said, with the hidden caveat that my beliefs were being severely tested since moving into this house.

  ‘Until now?’

  ‘Well.’ I squirmed, but got a half-inch closer. I could feel the warmth coming off her, got another waft of her clean soapy smell. ‘I’m still not convinced. It could be my medication.’ I briefly explained how the pills I was taking for my knee had stripped my stomach lining to a point my own digestive acids were attacking me. I had to take a second course of pills to halt the production of acids, but it was giving me added problems with indigestion, and disturbed sleep patterns.

  ‘Some of the sceptics blame ghost sightings on sleep deprivation and sleep paralysis.’ She was thoughtful. ‘But then again they also blame sleep disorders for supposed alien abduction cases, Old Hag, the succubus and incubus phenomena and a whole host of other stuff. It’s too easy a get out, if you ask me. It might explain seeing shadows out of the corner of your eye, we all have experiences of that, where you mistake a floating mote or even a natural shadow for something else. But the experience only lasts a split second. In my opinion it doesn’t fit when you see something head-on.’

  Nor did it explain how two figures could have run from behind me. To me that sounded more like a full on hallucination – maybe I was coming down with something, a bug or fever. I touched my forehead, checking my temperature and I was a little hot: but that could have been as much from my proximity to Sarah as anything. Apart from feeling queasy, I was otherwise OK.