Another story I wrote ages ago

Fact Versus Fiction

The house stood on the hill.  No one had lived in it for many years.  Until now.  Jerry and Alice were self titled investigators, who liked to think of themselves as the English Mulder and Scully.  Everyone else thought they were mad.  The ironic thing was that Jerry and Alice didn’t actually believe in the supernatural at all.  They believed that everything unusual on this earth could be proved by science.  Their friends all told them they had their work cut out for them this time though.  Constable House had recently been rated the scariest house in Britain by a magazine poll, however Jerry and Alice were completely undeterred.

Tonight was a particularly murky night, with no stars and no moon.  Jerry and Alice had arrived at the house for the first time.  They were going to stay in the house for two weeks to see if they could uncover the real reasons for the strange happenings in Constable House.  Jerry had picked up the one old spindly key for the house from the local solicitor.  He reflected on the odd conversation he had had with the man.  The solicitor had not said much at first.  Jerry had joked about the possibility of ghosts in the house.  The man had laughed awkwardly, then mumbled something indistinctly.  Jerry stopped abruptly. 

‘What’s the matter?’ he’d asked.  The solicitor looked scared. 

‘It’s just that no one who lives here ever jokes about the house,’ he replied, looking very much as though he wanted to change the subject. 

‘Why not?’  Jerry looked puzzled. 

‘Oh, it doesn’t matter.’  There ended the conversation.

Now, staring thoughtfully at the house, Jerry’s thoughts were broken suddenly by Alice yelling in his ear. 

‘Come on!  Hurry up.  We haven’t got all day.’ 

Jerry shoved her gently away.  Alice had been his best friend for the last ten years, but he still hadn’t managed to get used to the loudness of her voice on occasions that required a softer approach.  He picked up his rucksack, which seemed to be getting heavier by the minute. 

‘Oh, get on with it you lazy man!’ Alice was already striding up the hill towards the house. 

‘Don’t forget I’ve got the key,’ he shouted after her.  She turned back to him.  ‘You’ve got the key?’ she asked, surprised.  ‘I thought I’d got it.’ 

Jerry stopped his long slog up the hill. 

‘What do you mean?’ he replied.  ‘There’s only one key and I’ve got it!’ 

Alice was taken aback.  She started to walk slowly towards him, one hand on her hip, the other holding her rucksack in place on her shoulder. 

‘This is getting silly Jerry,’ she said. 

Jerry looked exasperated. 

‘There’s only one key,’ he repeated ‘and I got it from the local solicitor.’ 

This was starting to get ridiculous, he thought impatiently. 

‘Well there must be two then, because I was told by a source that a woman who lives in the town is the only person who has the key.’ 

It was Jerry’s turn to look surprised. 

‘What do you mean by ‘source’?’ 

‘I mean someone whose name I can’t reveal because they asked me not to,’ Alice replied mysteriously.  Jerry was starting to get cold. 

‘Let’s carry on up the hill,’ he suggested. 

Alice continued her charge up the hill.  Jerry shook his head.  He despaired of her ever slowing down.  She always had to do everything in a hurry, except for her investigative skills.  That was a whole different thing.  Then she was slow and methodical.  But this was odd, the way she wouldn’t reveal the name of her source.  She always shared everything with him ordinarily.  They were partners, in the strictly professional sense.  Jerry hurried on up the hill after Alice.  By the time he got to the top, Alice had reached the door and was opening it. 

‘Don’t wait for me then,’ he said breathlessly. 

‘Don’t worry, I won’t,’ she laughed. 

Of course, the house was pitch black, but they hadn’t forgotten their powerful torches, whose light filled the room with an orange glow.  The hallway looked Victorian, a threadbare carpet on the centre of the wooden floorboards.  The wallpaper had once been a deep red, but had now faded somewhat.  There was even an old grandfather clock.  It looked intact.  It was late now and all Jerry wanted to do was find somewhere to sleep, but he knew he couldn’t tonight.  They had decided that they would stay up every night until two in the morning to see if they could detect any anomalies in the house.  It had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now he wasn’t so sure…Alice nudged him as he let loose an enormous yawn, unable to suppress it any longer. 

‘Let’s go and find somewhere to put our stuff,’ she said, dragging him through a creaky door. 

He followed her through it, wanting to ask her more about how she acquired the key but feeling too exhausted.

The next room they went into appeared to be what had once been a drawing room.  There was furniture covered with dusty white sheets, which had a kind of strange brightness to it in the light of their torches.  If they had been people who scared easily, they might have been frightened when they heard a sudden screech.  Not Alice and Jerry though.  They didn’t bat an eyelid, although they did look instinctively behind them. 

‘Owl,’ Jerry said, yawning. 

‘Right,’ Alice laughed.  They noticed a fireplace.  It was stone; it looked almost as if it could have been marble.  Jerry immediately thought of making a fire and was about to say as much to Alice, when a blast of air banged the door they had just come through sharply shut. 

‘What on earth was that?’  Alice asked, more puzzled than scared. 

‘Just the wind,’ Jerry replied, remembering that it had been fairly breezy outside.  Alice began to chuckle slowly. 

‘What?’  Jerry asked. 

She paused for a moment before answering. 

‘It’s just that the old lady who gave me the key warned me about strange blasts of air through the house.  Of course she was convinced it was the ghosts.’ 

Jerry was thoughtful.

 ‘If you’re not going to tell me about your source, will you at least tell me about what the old woman said?’ 

Alice sighed. 

‘OK, but there’s nothing much to tell.  She was your average old dear who used to be a servant here once in the days when they still had servants.  All she told me was that the house was built in the early Victorian era and that since the bankrupt family abandoned it in the 1940’s, there have been reported sightings of ghosts.  She told me about the blasts of air through the house, said that she had felt them herself when she worked here and told me to be careful.’

‘How come no one knows about the other key?’

‘I’m not sure…I mean I can’t say without revealing too much about my source.’

It was Jerry’s turn to sigh.  He turned again to the fire.  Just as he was wondering if there was any wood outside he could use, he spotted some by the fireplace.  Alice had spotted it too, and was examining it closely.

‘It’s not that interesting Alice.’

‘Yes it is.  I’m wondering where it’s from, as no one’s been in here for ten years and this wood looks like it was chopped yesterday.’

‘Well maybe you’re wrong.  Maybe people have been in here more recently than you think.  Alice, I’m tired.  Now let’s use the wood that some kind person has put here and make a fire.  I’m freezing.’

‘The trouble with you Jerry is that you’ve got no imagination.  You make a crap investigator,’ she said, shoving him gently.

‘Thanks a lot,’ he replied shoving her back.

**************

Jerry woke up suddenly, in a cold sweat.  The dream he had just had came back to him.  He never usually had nightmares; he couldn’t even remember the last one he’d had.  This one had been particularly strange.  He could still see in his minds eye the dim candle burning in the dark room, feeling the fear he had felt in the dream when it had blown out by itself, as a voice said softly,

‘Your time is up.’ 

He pulled up his sleeve and looked at his watch, pushing the button to make the face glow.  Nearly two in the morning.  It must have been the slightly nervous state he was in, because normally he would never have jumped out of his skin as Alice tugged on his sleeping bag.

‘This wasn’t supposed to happen,’ she said sleepily.

‘What?’ he asked, shivering for the first time since they’d got there.  ‘Alice do you have to…’  His voice trailed off.  He didn’t want her to think he was scared.  But Alice didn’t seem to have noticed the second part of what he said.  She continued. 

‘We weren’t supposed to fall asleep,’ she said emphatically.  ‘I wanted us to stay awake so we could take some notes of whatever we see or hear.’

‘You wanted, you wanted,’ Jerry muttered grumpily.  Alice ignored him.

‘Anyway, I just had the strangest dream.’

‘Oh yeah?’  Jerry was suddenly all interest.

‘Yeah, I dreamt I was in this room which was dark except for a dimly glowing candle.  Then…’

‘Someone or something whispered “Your time is up”,’ Jerry added excitedly.

Alice was quiet for a moment.  For the first time in a long time, she looked scared.  ‘Why have you had the same dream as me Jerry?’ she asked slowly. 

‘I don’t know, do I?’ 

He thought back to their previous experiences in so called ‘haunted’ houses.  Each time they had been able to prove fairly easily that there was another explanation for the sightings.  He realised they were going to have their work cut out for them this time.  If they managed to stay that long.

His thoughts were broken for the second time that night, as he felt a cold breeze on his face. 

‘What’s that?’ he whispered, looking round to see where Alice was. 

She had disappeared.  He told himself to calm down and not panic.  She had probably gone somewhere to pee or something like that.  For someone who didn’t scare easily, Jerry was faintly aware of his fear.  He got up, fumbling for his torch.  Alice, you would choose now to go off wouldn’t you, he thought, annoyed.  He flipped the switch on his torch to turn it on.  Nothing happened.  What was going on now, he wondered, feeling again that scared feeling.  Then he noticed that Alice had left her torch.  Thinking how strange that was, he tried to switch her torch on.  Nothing happened.  He sighed.  He was going to have to look for Alice in the dark, which was going to be difficult, as the fire had now gone out completely, he had no torchlight and it was pitch black in the room.  Walking slowly towards where he thought the door was, he felt in front of him.  Suddenly a strong, cold wind whipped round him, making his face feel freezing.  This is getting stupid, he thought.  There must be an explanation for it.  His next thought was to find Alice and see if they could set up any of their experiments.

With this thought in his mind, Jerry continued towards the door.  Once he found it, he grabbed hold of the handle hard.  Whatever the anomaly was, it was not going to beat him, he decided.  He pulled firmly on the door.  It seemed to be resisting him, but he told himself not to be so stupid and continued to pull until it flew open, nearly knocking him over.  Outside in the hallway, he could hear banging from the rooms upstairs.  It must be Alice.  It had to be Alice.  Trying to throw off his fear as he might a coat, he continued up the creaky stairs. 

‘Alice,’ he called tentatively.  ‘Alice, where are you?’ 

What he saw next puzzled him more than anything he had seen yet.  He had thought it was pitch black in the house but on the stairs, coming towards him was a thin shadow.  Thinking it must be Alice, he was about to say, ‘There you are, I was looking for you,’ when the shadow appeared to pass through him, and on past him down the stairs.  Jerry felt even more determined now to find out exactly what was going on.  He had it in his mind that it was just some pranksters trying to stop them from analysing what was going on.  And yet…What had the solicitor said about no one who lived in the town joking about the house?  He was beginning to feel the same way.  Whatever was going on in the house, it was getting past a joke.

He had to keep going, though.  The need to find Alice was getting stronger by the minute.  It took all his courage to carry on up the stairs.  The banging was getting louder now.  He thought he could hear Alice’s voice, but then the sound of what he thought was her voice faded again.  The dust on the landing once he reached the top was overpowering.  He let out a huge sneeze. 

‘Jerry?’ came a muffled voice. 

It was still very dark, so Jerry walked slowly along the stairs, every step creaking on the old floorboards. 

‘Alice?’ he called.  The voice grew louder.  

‘Jerry!  Over here, in the cupboard.’  Alice’s voice was unmistakable. 

‘Are you O.K.?’ he asked, relief washing over him.

‘Fine,’ she replied in a rather exasperated tone.  ‘Some idiot thought it would be a

good idea to lock me in here.’

Seeing the key was in the lock, Jerry opened the door.  The moon lit up the cupboard and, to his immense shock, he saw not Alice but a woman dressed in late Victorian clothes.  He opened his mouth to shout or scream but no sound came out.  Instead he turned and ran through the hallway and down the stairs.  Panting he turned to look back and in the moonlight stood Alice with a shocked expression on her face.

‘What on earth’s the matter Jerry?’ she asked.

Jerry was too shocked to speak.  Alice came down the stairs towards him.  He wanted to run away but was rooted to the spot.  She repeated the question, with a sense of urgency in her voice.  Jerry forced himself to speak. 

‘You…you weren’t you,’ he said in a small voice. 

Alice was looking very confused. 

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said. 

‘I didn’t see you, I saw a Victorian woman.’  Jerry felt exhausted just talking about it.  Alice was now the one to look shocked.  But this was only for a fleeting moment before she said emphatically,

‘You’re hallucinating.’

Jerry felt angry with her for the first time he could remember. 

‘I was not hallucinating Alice,’ he said impatiently.  ‘I know what I saw.’

Alice looked at him seriously. 

‘Maybe you’re no longer cut out for this kind of work Jerry,’ she said slowly.

Jerry felt his anger rising. 

‘How dare you say that to me Alice?  After all the work we’ve done together?’  He ran his hand through his hair.  ‘I just think this is a particularly tough case.  Remember those dreams we both had.  Whatever it is here, it’s not going to be that easily solved.’

Alice sighed. 

‘It’s certainly very strange.’  She paused and then continued.  ‘O.K., so maybe you did see something.  But I’m still certain that it can be explained somehow.’ 

She put her hand on his shoulder. 

‘We’ve seen some strange things in our time, haven’t we Jerry?  Yet we’ve always been able to explain them.’

‘Maybe this one will have to be left unexplained,’ he replied.  ‘Let’s go and see if we can find our torches.’

**********************

The moon had gone in now, and the house was pitch black again.  Jerry and Alice groped their way along the hall.  Reaching the door into the room where they thought their sleeping bags were, they tried to push it open.  For a while it wouldn’t budge.  Jerry began to think they’d never get it open when it suddenly flew wide open, throwing them onto the dusty floor. 

‘Right, that’s it,’ Alice said angrily.

‘What?’

‘Jerry, we’ve got to beat this thing, whatever it is.  We can’t let it get away with this.’

Jerry laughed cynically. 

‘I don’t think it’s going to be told somehow.’

Alice grunted as she pushed herself up off the floor.

‘I’m not going to be beaten by an invisible force,’ she said. 

Jerry found their sleeping bags.  He was frozen, so decided to climb into his.  He breathed in sharply.

‘Oh, that’s cold!’ he said, rubbing his hands together for warmth.

He could hear Alice climbing into her bag next to him.

‘We’re going to have to think of everything we’ve seen and heard so far.  Compile a kind of list,’ she said, shivering.

‘That will help us how?’ he asked sarcastically.

‘Look Jerry, there’s no need to be like that.  We’ve got to look at this from a scientific perspective.’

He sighed. 

‘O.K.’ 

Alice continued. 

‘You’ve seen a Victorian looking woman.  At least you think you have…’

Jerry interrupted. 

‘How did you get locked in a cupboard anyway?’

‘Well I didn’t lock myself in there, if that’s what you think,’ she replied huffily.  ‘There was a huge blast of air which kind of blew me inside and then the door banged shut.  When I tried to open it I couldn’t, it was locked.  Then I heard you coming up the stairs and you let me out.’

Jerry looked thoughtful. 

‘So it was definitely you I heard banging about?’

There was a long pause.

‘I fiddled about with the door knob for a bit, but I wasn’t banging at it.’ 

Jerry felt his fear wash over him, but suppressed it. 

‘This is getting complicated Alice,’ he said slowly.  ‘We’ve heard blasts of air which bang doors shut, there are strange movements in the house, a ghostly apparition of a Victorian woman in the cupboard, we’ve both had dreams which don’t make sense and there’s another thing.’

‘What?’

He told her about the shadow.  Alice shrugged. 

‘Probably just your imagination.’

Jerry was angry. 

‘Can you stop telling me I’m imagining things?’

‘O.K., maybe you did see something.  But what we need to remember is that all of it can be explained scientifically.  Like we’ve done every time before.’

Jerry was unconvinced but was determined not to show it.  He felt stumped as to what to do next.

‘Where do we go from here?’ he asked. 

Alice usually had good ideas when they got to a particularly difficult patch in their cases.  It took a while for her to reply this time, though.  He could almost hear the cogs whirring in her brain. 

‘Well,’ she began slowly, ‘I think we need to stay here for the moment and this time keep watch rather than fall asleep.’

‘That’s obvious.’

‘Let me finish.  We need to make notes of all that we have seen and heard.  Then we need to…’

She was interrupted suddenly by the door slamming.  Jerry felt even colder, as though the cold was enveloping him in a freezing embrace.  He also felt they were no longer alone.  The floorboards creaked. 

‘Alice?  Is that you?’

‘No,’ came the almost inaudible whisper.

He began to feel his fear creep over him again.  Then something nudged him.  He yelled. 

‘What the hell is that?’ 

The moon lit up the room, showing Alice’s frightened face. 

‘Jerry, we need to get over this…this fear.  It’s holding us back.’

‘Easier said than done Alice.’

He knew it this time.  Knew for certain they weren’t alone.  Knew he had to get away from there.  But even that was easier said than done when you had a keen-to-the-point-of-being-mad colleague who would not give up on a case that was impossible.  The frustrating thing was Alice was obviously as scared as he was, but just refused to admit it.

‘Alice, I think we’re going to have to give up on this one.’

‘NO!!’ she almost screamed in reply.

‘Why not?’ 

Seeing the terror in her eyes, he felt confused.  Why, if she was so scared, wouldn’t she leave it and get the hell out of there?  He continued.

‘There’s no shame in leaving, you know.  Most people won’t come near this place.  Won’t touch it with a barge pole.  We’ve done far more than most would ever dream of doing.’

There was a slightly strangled sob. 

‘I can’t do it.  I can’t leave without proving there’s nothing here.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because of my source.’

Jerry felt even more confused now.  Alice seemed to sense this, and continued,

‘I owe it to them, my source, to find out what’s really going on here and stop it.’

‘Alice, we have never set out to stop anything we discovered,’ he said gently.  ‘We always knew that we couldn’t.  Usually, we just found out what the anomaly was without trying to change it.  That was enough, wasn’t it?’

She didn’t even try to hide her sobs this time.

‘We haven’t even done that, Jerry.  That’s why I feel so awful.’

For the millionth time that night, he felt puzzled.  Why was it such a big deal that this one time they hadn’t discovered what was wrong?  He didn’t know what to say next, feeling more scared than when he’d broken his leg and been told he might not be able to walk on it again.  After another long pause, he said,

‘Why don’t you tell me what your source said and maybe I can help?’

The moon suddenly disappeared behind a cloud and all was dark.  Jerry could no longer see Alice’s face, couldn’t tell what she was feeling.  He heard her take a deep breath before replying.

‘My source was a woman.  A young woman, about my age.  She said she wanted to tell me something she had never told anyone before.’

Another pause before she continued. 

‘Her name was…well I don’t want to reveal her name so let’s call her Janice.  Anyway, Janice is the granddaughter of the old woman who gave me the key.  Janice’s mother spent part of her childhood growing up in this house…’

‘As the daughter of one of the servants?’

‘Yes.  Anyway, eventually Janice’s mother grew up and married Janice’s father.  She had Janice when she was about twenty-two.  And then it all happened.’

Jerry was frightened at the thought of what Alice was going to say next.

‘Around the age of twenty-five, Janice’s mother, Evelyn, started to get very interested in Constable House.  By then, of course, it was empty.  Evelyn was fascinated by the stories her mother Mavis would tell of the strange happenings in this house.  Evelyn, for some reason, had not experienced any of the anomalies for herself.  She, like us, decided to spend some time up here at night, when it was said that most of the unexplained events happened.  She took with her the local solicitor…’

‘Not the guy I met?’

‘No, his father.  I’ve heard reports that they were having an affair but Janice denies it categorically.  They came up here one night, leaving Janice and her father at home.  Evelyn was never seen again.’

‘What happened?’

‘Bob, the solicitor who went with her, insisted that some kind of poltergeist was in the house and it made away with her.  He said that she had gone off in the middle of the night to look for some signs of “abnormal activity”.  Five minutes later he heard screams and the sound of a door slamming.  He went to look for her, but he never found anything, apart from…’

‘Apart from what?’

‘Scrawled in the dust on the floor were the words ‘Your time is up.’  He turned and ran, wimp that he was.  Afterwards the police did a massive search for her.  It was all over the news, everywhere.  But she was never found.  And no one would believe Bob’s story about the slamming doors and winds and other strange goings-on.  Said he was mad.  It’s a shame what happened to him.  People said he paid for leaving Evelyn like that.  His marriage ended and he lives as a virtual recluse at the bottom end of town.’

Jerry rubbed his face vigorously.  If they were to get out of there alive, they needed to leave right away. 

‘Alice, we’ve got to go.  We can’t stay here and allow it to happen…what happened to Evelyn.  We owe it to Janice to get out of here and tell her what we’ve seen.  That we know the rumours are true.’

The moon came out from behind the clouds, lighting up the room in an eerie glow.  Alice nodded slowly. 

‘OK.  You’re right.’

They both got up and started to gather their things together.  But just as Jerry was shoving his sleeping bag inside his rucksack, there was a howl.  It was a human voice.

‘Alice!  Are you O.K.?’  Jerry felt petrified, but tried not to sound it.

‘I’m fine Jerry,’ she replied. 

Her voice sounded wobbly.  She grabbed hold of his arm. 

‘Let’s go now.  I’m ready.  Are you?’

‘Yes.  Let’s get out of here.’

Linking arms, for comfort more than anything else, they ran towards the door.  They yanked on it to pull it open.  It wouldn’t budge.  They carried on pulling on it with all the strength they had left, but it still wouldn’t move.  Something breathed in Jerry’s ear.  He wanted to believe it was the wind, but he couldn’t be sure.  Then the faintest of voices said,

‘Your time is up.’

He wanted to scream, but couldn’t.  Alice screamed instead. 

‘Jerry, what are we going to do?’ 

Before he could reply the door suddenly opened, throwing them both across the room.  Jerry felt himself land heavily, but pushed himself up off the floor, and heard Alice do the same.  They both lunged for the door, rushing out of it as quickly as possible, into the hallway, skidding across the floorboards.  The whisper came again in their ears, but they ignored it, running now towards the front door.  The moon was shining through the windowpane and a pale shiver of light came through the crack in the door as it creaked ajar. 

They’re not going to hurt us, they just want us to leave was Jerry last thought before they nearly pulled the door off its hinges in their effort to get out.  Finally, they were free, but they didn’t stop running until they reached the bottom of the hill.  When they got there, they stopped, both bent double, hugging themselves and panting.

‘Never again,’ they said.