Eleven New Ghost Stories (32 page)

Lightning struck, thunder rolled
amongst the clouds.

“I give you one chance to redeem
yourself,” roared the boy in the well. “The life you chose for me
has been agony. It has been lonely, it has been cold, it has been
full of pain; but you can help me now Father. You can redeem
yourself by giving yourself to me. Come into my world; join me in
my unhappy home in the well so that we can be together forever…

Or else I take the boy. I will
not be alone any longer.”

The vicar was speechless. He
looked to the ground open-mouthed.

“No. No!” he roared, as he rose
to his feet. He pulled his cross from beneath his clothing; he
raised the silver icon out in front of him: “I will fight you evil
spirit, be gone! I cast you out, be gone!”

The boy merely laughed at him.
Struggling to go forward, the vicar began to chant, “Our Father” –
he struggled to be heard against the wind – “who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name...” He tried so hard to shout out the words
that he did not even notice Benjamin’s father come up behind him
and grab him by the back of his cassock. He dragged him forward and
flung him towards the stone wall, with the vicar landing just a few
feet from it.

Before he could get back on his
feet, Mr Morris had grabbed him once again and forced him up
against the wall, his chest and head now hanging over the darkness
within.

The vicar screamed; as
Benjamin’s father tried to force him over, he could see his son,
hanging over them, lifeless and limp, as if with the slightest
movement he would topple down into the abyss.

The vicar got his grip on the
wall and pushed himself up, forcing Mr Morris off him. Benjamin’s
father fought back; as the vicar turned to move away he charged him
back against the stones again, the two now face to face in their
struggle. Benjamin’s father raised his fist and hit him once,
twice, three times. The vicar’s feet scraped against the ground; he
was losing his footing. Mr Morris grabbed his cassock with one hand
and reached down with the other, hoping to sweep the vicar’s legs
from under him and push him over.

The vicar cried out; trying to
strike back at him. Benjamin’s father roared; he swept up the
vicar’s legs. The vicar screamed as he felt his centre of gravity
tip – he grabbed desperately at Mr Morris’ shirt sleeve, pulling
Morris towards him and against the wall. But it wasn’t enough to
save him. He felt himself slip and fall.

The sleeve tore. With an
almighty scream, the vicar disappeared into the darkness of the
well; his screams echoing until ceasing, abruptly, leaving only
silence. A sound of impact was never heard. He just
disappeared.

Benjamin’s father fell on his
back, gasping for air.

“You should not have done that,”
said the boy, with almost a hint of regret. “I would have had him
give himself to me.”

“You got what you wanted,” cried
Mr Morris, rising back to his feet. “Now give me back my son.”

“I wish you had been my father,”
the boy said. “You were the only innocent amongst them. But I would
have had him give himself to me of his own free will; now you too
have sinned.”

“I just want my son,” Benjamin’s
father was in tears. “Take whatever you want, just please, don’t
take my son!”

The wind roared and the boy was
silent.

“I have no wish to harm the
innocent. But there will be a price to pay.”

There was a flash of thunder.
Benjamin fell. His father cried out…

…But he did not fall – he leapt!
His father caught him as flew from one side of the well to the
other.

Mr Morris fell to the ground
with his boy in his arms. With the wind so fierce, they were forced
down the hillside, falling and rolling down the grass. The roar was
incessant; Mr Morris could not get to his feet. Yet amongst the
noise, he managed to hear, for one last time, the voice of the boy
in the well.

And it said: “Father, I’m coming
for you. Time to play…”

There was the most tremendous
crash of thunder. Benjamin’s father held his son to his chest,
afraid to move.

They waited there, on the
hillside, hidden in the long grass, waiting for the maelstrom to
pass.

But as fast as it had come on,
so did it go away.

It seemed after only a few
moments, Mr Morris was able to lift his head and found that the sky
was clearing. That there was little or no wind, and most
importantly, that the sun was beginning to shine on the hillside
again.

Benjamin was out cold. His
father felt his pulse, placed his hand on his forehead, felt his
breath. He was alive, but unresponsive. His father spoke to him and
shook him a little; he stirred but he did not wake up.

He was about to race down the
hillside, get away from there and find help as soon as possible,
when he suddenly thought to look back. He scanned his eyes over the
landscape. Where the well had once stood was now just a pile of
stone. The walls had caved in; the well was now sealed.

He started off down towards the
woods, moving as quickly as his battered body would allow. Benjamin
seemed unharmed, but he would not feel safe until he was back
within the walls of his home.

He was dripping with sweat when
he finally made it back home. The front door was lying open as he
had left it. He struggled upstairs and placed his son down softly
on the bed and pulled his blankets over him

Exhausted, his father let out an
almighty sigh of relief. Despite the most extraordinary of
circumstances his son was going to be all right.

“Emily,” he cried.

There was no answer.

He walked slowly into their
bedroom, expecting to see her still lying in a drug-induced sleep.
She was not there. Suddenly he panicked – the writing on the wall.
It was still there, what if she had seen it!

“Emily,” he shouted, dashing
down the stairs and into the living room, where the message
remained.

He cried for her again and
dashed into the kitchen where he found the back door wide open.

He ran out into the garden – and
that’s where he found her. Strung up and hung, from the old apple
tree.

…
Sounds wild doesn’t it? When
I tell people the story, they don’t believe it. Why would they?
Yet, when they see the police report, the transcripts from the
inquests, the photograph of the writing on the wall – yes there’s a
photograph
–
then suddenly it doesn’t seem quite so
crazy.

The reports that do survive,
they make for interesting reading. The authorities were
dumbfounded; they didn’t believe the man’s story, yet where was the
vicar? What about the words on the wall? The cuts on Benjamin’s
arms and the baby… yes, with some investigation they found out the
truth; that Emily Morris did indeed have another child. It could
well have been a real scandal, perfect food for the growing
tabloids. But it was kept quiet, probably because of the
involvement of the vicar. I daresay even my ancestor did what he
could to keep it quiet, for a time at least.

So they see the proof and then
people ask me, well how do you know how this happened or that
happened? They question the detail. What they forget is that
Benjamin Morris did not die that day and neither did his father.
They both lived many years more and they both told the tale more
than once, Benjamin especially.

They left Bullham Brook –
understandably. His father died working at the docks in Bristol,
trying to start a new life. As for Benjamin, we believe he grew up
into a rogue, a drunk and a thief. He spent time in prison for
theft, public disturbance and vagrancy. But he also tried to profit
from his misfortune; he began to tell the story of what happened
that day for profit, performing on-stage recitals of the terrifying
tale. That’s where the legend comes from, his performances, his
scripts and notes, and the words passed from one person to another
over the years.

It was never a popular act,
people didn’t believe him or worse, they ostracised him for the
inclusion of a man from the cloth and the acts of murder and
incest. The people of Bullham Brook didn’t take much kindly from it
either – he never performed it in the village. In the end he would
tell it just for coins in the street or just for a pint. He was
last known to be in Portsmouth, arrested for vagrancy about the
time the war broke out. Perhaps he died in the war, no one knows.
Such an unfortunate boy; fate was forever cruel to him.

WRONG NUMBER

I moved because she left me.
Modest two bedroom place in Croydon, only a mile and a half from my
new surgery. I wasn’t sad to leave Shoreditch; it was no surprise
to find that my friends were really her friends. Can’t say as I
liked many of them anyway; unexceptional people trying so
desperately to seem exceptional.

I knew it wouldn’t last. She a
guitarist: “What do you do mate?”; “I’m a vet”; “Oh right,” and
then move on. If you’re not part of their world, you’re no one. She
was more beautiful and talented than I had any right to be with.
Should’ve stuck with the slightly chubby girls. The smiling
round-faced lasses; the ones who spend most of their life behind
counters, at front desks or bars; who crave the Sex and the City
life while stuffing their faces with pizza and chocolate.

My girlfriend, my ex, ended up
fucking a singer from another band; a pretentious prick with no
ideas of his own, but oh my, what a really interesting haircut he
had.

Whatever; if someone surrounds
themself with twats, you can only expect them to adapt.

So I moved into the upstairs of
a converted house and paid £675 (bit of a bargain) to Mr and Mrs
Sodha each month. I shifted all my stuff in and discovered how
little I owned. So I went out and bought a new TV, stereo, Blu-ray
and some other stuff. I couldn’t afford it, but I didn’t really
care. My salary as a new vet wasn’t great, but it would do. And at
least I didn’t have to commute.

There wasn’t much decent to look
at there, but I did my best to leer at the occasional young mum
with a wounded puppy, or college student with a sick bunny rabbit.
I was not very good at it, at least not without a couple of pints
down me.

I got the place hooked up with a
phone line and the net pretty quick; about a week after I moved in
I think. It happened the very first time after that. Eight-thirty
Thursday night, I was sat on my sofa, pizza on my lap, can in my
hand, when the phone rang. I put everything down and got up to
answer it. When I picked up, I couldn’t hear much except
static:

“Hello,” I repeated.

Out of all the fuzz and buzzing
came a voice. “Hello,” it said. “Mum?”

“What?” I shouted. I could
barely hear. It was a girl’s voice, youngish I guessed.

“Mum, I need you to pick me
up.”

It sounded like she was holding
the phone a few feet from her face. What I could tell was that she
was upset. She had the cracked, dry tone of someone who’d been
crying.

“I think you’ve got the wrong
number,” I said. Felt a bit cruel, but what could I do for her?

“I can’t do it anymore Mum,” she
went on.

“Hello?” I said loudly. “Can –
you – hear – me?”

“You were right, he’s a lost
cause,” – she broke into tears.

“You’ve got the wrong number,
love!” I shouted.

“I only wanted to help him...”
She was definitely crying. “Come get me please, I’m on the corner
of Saxon.”

Then the line went dead.

It shook me a little bit, but
she obviously couldn’t hear me. So there wasn’t exactly anything I
could do about it.

I went on with my happy little
life as usual. Working during the day, drinking alone at night. I
didn’t give the call any more thought, but then, a few nights
later, at around half-past eight, the phone went again.

I had no clue it would be the
same call again, so I just picked it up expecting it to be a survey
call, or my mum, the only other person I had given the number
to.

“Hello,” said the same girl’s
voice, from way far-off, like before, half-covered by static.

My first thought was that
somehow, she had the wrong number programmed into her phone. Or
that maybe my number was really close to her mum’s number.

But that wasn’t what was so
strange about it. What was so strange was that it was exactly the
same message:

“I can’t do it any more Mum.” I
was becoming a bit freaked out. I said again: “I think you’ve got
the wrong number.”

There was a pause, a moment of
silence.

“You were right, he’s a lost
cause. I only wanted to help him.”

She wasn’t ignoring me; she was
having a conversation with someone else. It was like a recording,
but a conversation I could only hear one side of.

I put the phone down. I was a
bit unnerved, maybe a bit unsettled, but I just thought of it as
one of those strange things, some kind of bug in the phone network.
It was just weird.

So I just went on with things as
normal. Got up, went to work, had some lunch, went back again, and
then either home or down the pub for a drink or two. Or more if I
felt like it, which at the time, I usually did. I’d put some
distance between myself and my friends, the ones that cared at
least, not that I appreciated it at the time. I was looking back at
my whole life with disappointment and wasn’t interested in seeing
anyone or really doing anything.

Of course, most of my existing
friends lived in or around London, so the world had to revolve
around them. Always must go into London, no chance of them straying
from their precious city life. So I thought, fuck ’em, and couldn’t
be arsed going to see them when they couldn’t be arsed to come see
me.

And then a few nights later, the
phone rang again. I had just got home from doing some shopping, so
it wasn’t until I was just about to pick up did I realise it was
eight-thirty again. And there was the sound of the crackling and
the static, and the far-off voice again, calling for her
mother.