EFLshorts

‘Whatever it is, it is up there,’ I said. ‘The question is, who is going up?’

George put his candle on the floor and stepped onto the ladder. It cracked beneath his weight. He stopped.

‘Come down,’ I said, ‘it will not hold you. I shall have to go.’

I had never been so frightened. I slowly climbed the ladder and pushed open the trap door. No sooner than I had opened the trap door than something fell – literally fell – on me from the darkness above. It kicked and spat and tore at me as I stood clinging onto the ladder. It lasted only a moment, but in that moment I lived a lifetime of terror. The ladder cracked and swayed below me and I fell with the thing gripping my throat like a vice. In the next instant, George had stunned it with a blow from the poker and dragged it off me. It lay upon its back on the floor – a ragged, hideous shape. And the mystery was solved.’

‘But you haven’t really told us what it was,’ said one of the listeners.

The doctor smiled.

‘It was the owner of the house,’ he replied. ‘He had not gone abroad. He had gone to a private lunatic asylum. A fortnight after this, he had escaped. After making his way to his former home, he had hid himself in the loft. It is only surprising that he did not kill someone before he was caught.’

I took George by the arm and led him out of the room.

‘George,’ I said to him. ‘We must find out the reason for this at once. I am certain that I felt someone go past me on the stairs. Do those stairs lead to another place, apart from our rooms?’

George thought for a moment.

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘There is a door at the end of the passageway. It leads up to another room.’

‘Then we must explore it,’ I said. ‘I can’t go back to sleep until I get to the bottom of this. Get the butler to bring a light.’

Soon the butler arrived with a lantern. He looked as nervous as I felt. We began, the three of us. First, we searched the rooms above, where George and I slept. We found nothing unusual. Then we went down to the door at the end of the corridor. I pushed it open. A crazy looking staircase led up into the darkness. Slowly, we climbed the stairs. I went first, with the candle; then George, and last of all, the butler with the lantern. At the top of the stairs, we stepped into a large, low room. Our lights threw strange shadows but there was nothing to find: just a few large boxes, a roll of carpet, and some broken chairs. But in the far corner of the room, we saw an old ladder that led up to a trap door. Just then, I heard the half-groan, half-sigh again. We stood and looked at each other. We all heard the sound.

I tore the curtains apart and rushed into the next room. It was empty. The lamp was on and the door was open, just as George had left it. In the corridor outside, all was quiet. I came back into the study and found George was running his fingers through his hair with anxiety.

‘There is one person too many in the house. I think we should search the house and find out who it is,’ I said.

‘Alright,’ said George picking up the poker from the fireplace. ‘If it is anything made from flesh and blood then we will need this…’

Suddenly, an awful scream filled the house. I had never heard anything like it before and never want to hear anything like it again. For a moment, we stood staring at each other. Then George Carson ran out the room and down the corridor to the stairs. I followed him.

In the darkness, we ran down the stairs. But before I reached the landing below, where Miss Stonor’s room was, something brushed past me, just like the night before. I turned and made a grab for it as I ran. But my hand only gripped empty air. I was about to turn back and follow it when a cry from George stopped me. I looked down and saw him standing over the body of Miss Stonor. She was lying on the floor. I could see from the moonlight from her room window that she lay in her nightdress. The whole house was woken by her scream. We picked her up and got her into her bed. All the while, she was whispering the same words, over and over: ‘Oh, the face, the face!’

I turned the handle gently and opened my bedroom door. There was nothing to see in the corridor. But across the corridor, a door was open and I could see George’s head peeping out from behind it.

‘Hello,’ he said.

‘Hello,’ I replied.

‘Were you walking in the corridor just now?’ he asked.

‘No,’ I answered. ‘I thought it was you.’

‘Then who was it?’ he said. ‘I am sure I heard someone.’

We were silent for a moment; then he spoke again. ‘Come over here for a minute, I want to speak to you.’ I walked across the corridor and into the little study that joined his bedroom.

Inside George’s study, George poked the fire. ‘Do you think something strange is happening here in this house?’ he asked.

I said nothing.

George continued. ‘Every night, I hear footsteps out on the stairs…You have heard them, haven’t you?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I have.’

George’s voice shook when he spoke. ‘A couple of nights ago, I saw a horrible face staring at me from between those curtains behind you. It was gone in a second, but I definitely saw it.’

‘Did you look in your bedroom or in the corridor?’

`Yes – right away,’ he replied. ‘There was nothing there, but twice later I heard footsteps…’ He suddenly stopped talking and sat up straight in his chair, staring straight over my shoulder. His face was bloodless.

‘What is it?’ I asked. ‘What’s the matter?’ I turned around in my chair to look at the curtains just as they dropped back into place.

‘I saw it again – the same face – staring at me from between the curtains!’ George stammered.

I must admit, I was in a bit of a panic. It must have shown in my face.

‘What’s the matter?’ George asked, as I almost fell into his study.

‘Oh, nothing,’ I answered. ‘I dropped my candle and lost my way.’

‘But who were you talking to? ’

‘I was only cursing out loud because I dropped my candle, ‘ I lied.

‘Oh, I thought perhaps you had seen…somebody,’ replied George.

For some reason, I didn’t want to tell him the truth. I did not want him to laugh me. But I was determined to stay and have a complete rest.

That night, I woke up several times with the feeling of that cold hand under my own – a clammy hand which writhed its fingers under my own as my fingers closed upon it.

The next morning after breakfast, I was in the billiard room again practicing some shots and George Carson was over at the stables. The door opened and Miss Stonor looked in.

‘Come in,’ I said. ‘George will be back from the stables in a few minutes.’

‘I wanted to speak to you, ‘ she said.

She was looking very tired and ill and began to think I should not have had this holiday at all.

‘Do you believe in ghosts?’ she asked, closing the door and coming towards the billiard table. She stood leaning with both her hands upon it.

‘No,’ I replied, missing an easy shot as I remembered my experience on the stairs last night.

‘And, supposing that a person did believe in them and saw them, ‘ Miss Stonor paused, ‘Is there any cure?’

‘What do you mean, Miss Stonor?’ I asked, looking at her with some surprise. `Do you mean that you… ‘ I stopped because Miss Stonor turned away, sat down in one of the chairs, and burst into tears.

‘Oh, please help me,’ she cried. `I believe I am going mad!’

The second night after my arrival – I remember, the rest of the family had all gone to bed – George and I retired to the study for a drink and a chat before bed. The study was upstairs and next to his bedroom. We sat down and I remembered that I had left my pipe in the billiard room. The house was now in darkness, so I lit a candle and made my way down through the house. The house looked weird in the flickering light of the candle and the stairs creaked in an awful way as I made my way down them. It sounded like someone was following me down them. I found my pipe where I had left it in the billiard room. I returned upstairs in more of a hurry than was needed and I stumbled on the stairs and dropped my candle. It went out. After a few moments, I found it, but I had no matches and I had to make my way along by feeling the cold wooden banister of the stair. It was so dark that I could not see my own hand. As I made my way slowly up the stairs, with my hand sliding along the cold smooth wood, it suddenly slid over something cold and clammy. I stopped dead and closed my fingers around it. It was another hand, a thin, bony hand that pulled itself slowly away from the grip of my own. And although I could see and hear nothing, I could feel something going past me on the stairs.

‘What’s that? Who are you?’ I called.

There was no answer.

“The house was called ‘Woodcote’ and it was a nice place to look at. It was out in the country but not too far from the train station. It was quiet but not remote. The Carsons had been lucky. It was a very good house, bought at a good price. George had told me that the owner had taken unwell and he had moved abroad because of his poor health.

Over the years, the house had been repaired and other rooms had been added. A billiard room had been built out at the back of the house. This was very handy when the weather was bad and you could not go out. Attending that New Year at the house was George, his mum and dad, young Ms Carson and Miss Stonor, who now, of course, is Mrs Carson, and lastly, myself.

Now Miss Stonor should have been happy. George Carson was, apart from being a very nice fellow, wealthy and ambitious. But, it appeared to me that there was something on her mind because she looked nervous and restless. I saw that George had noticed this. He looked puzzled, and a couple of times I caught him watching Miss Stonor anxiously. But, there was no doctor there and I was not a doctor, so it was no business of mine. But I was to discover the reason for Miss Stonor’s anxiety before I left Woodcote. “

‘No, I have never believed in ghosts,’ said the doctor, `but I have always been afraid of them.’

‘Have you ever seen one?’ asked one of the other men.

The doctor took the cigar from his mouth and looked at it for a moment before replying. `I have had some rather strange and surprising experiences,’ he said. `Do you want to hear about one of them? It gives me the shivers just speaking about it.’

We all nodded. The doctor took a sip of his drink, shook his shoulders, and began:

`Do you remember George Carson who played for the University some years ago; a big chap with a light moustache? Well, I saw a lot of him before he got married. It was just after he got engaged to Miss Stonor, who is now Miss Carson, and he asked me to go down to a place that his people owned in the country. Miss Stonor was going to be there and I was to meet her. I could not go down on Christmas day because I wanted to be with my own family that day. However, I wanted a bit of a rest, and some time in the country sounded good, so I decided to go and see George for a couple of days around New Year.’