Story-a-day #6: The hanging house.

Colin Jackson knew there was something of a history to the house. So much history, in fact, that he sometimes received (unremarkable) letters asking if he’d seen or heard anything since his occupation. He always wrote back, of course, and always claimed the same thing: no, he had never seen so much as a mouse in or around the house, and, he finished in a rather curt, straight to the point, tone, nor did he ever expect to do so.

            But there was one man who persisted more than most.

            “Are you quite sure you’ve not heard anything ... nothing at all?” Bowler, Colin’s occasional drinking partner from three doors up, asked with a single white, cocked, eyebrow.

            “Quite sure.”

            “Remarkable.” Steve replied. “You know she died in this room, don’t you? She was seven years old. Her eyes were plucked out, her throat cut, and her body defiled in the most terrifying manor imaginable. Then she was hung,” he pointed towards a single wooden beam that ran the width of the room, “from that very beam.”

            “Oh,” Colin said, indifferent.

            “Legend would also have it – in case you didn’t know – that if you say her name three times in the bedroom mirror she will present herself to you in all her grisly gory.”

            Bowler chuckled to himself at that and drained the dregs of Scotch from his glass.

            Colin looked at Bowler warily for a moment, then drained the last of his own drink. He winced as it burnt its way down. After a moment of heavy silence, he sniffed, wiped the cuff of his shirt across his nose, and smiled.

            “I wouldn’t know her name anyway,” he said. “I never was very good with history. It never interested me.”

            Bowler lit a cigarette and smiled sharply behind the haze of grey/white smoke. “Mary,” he said coolly. “Her name was Mary.”

            Colin made his way across the room, towards the ornate mirror hung above the open hearth of the fireplace, and studied it. He had always hated it. He would have had it removed months ago if he’d been able to find something to replace the haunting void it would leave.

            He studied Bowler’s face through the mirror and wondered what made men as smart as Bowler believe in such obvious and outlandish nonsense. His mother had been the same, full of superstition and angst, and he had never been able to understand it back then. Superstition, he always believed, made fools of perfectly good people.

            “Mary,” Colin said slowly.

            “Hey, now you be careful.” Bowler blustered.

            “Mary,” Colin said again. This time his voice had dropped a little to a near whisper. He smiled at Bowler through the mirror.

            “Please,” Bowler said sharply. “Don’t be stupid man. You’ve no idea what you’re doing.”

            “Mary.”

            The colour drained from Bowlers face immediately. The former pinkish hue to his complexion now reduced to a rising ashy grey. As he put the tumbler on the small dresser beside the door, Colin noticed his hands were shaking.

            “Superstition makes fools of everyone,” Colin whispered, still smiling into the mirror. “See, there’s nothing to fear. We’re both still alive. And, look, no sign of any ghostly apparitions anywhere.”

            But Bowler didn’t look either convinced or at ease.

            He was almost to the stairs when Colin when after him the way one would have been expected to go after a frightened child when a prank suddenly goes awry.

            “You’re not seriously leaving, are you?” Colin asked. “It was a joke, Bowler. A silly joke.”

            Bowler paused on the stairs, looked back, and said, “Jokes, Colin, are supposed to be both amusing and entertaining. That was neither.”

            “Oh, come on, stay and have another drink. I apologise.”

            “It’s too late,” he snapped. “Goodnight.”

            Colin grunted and watched him leave. There was little point in chasing the fool; his decision was made. Maybe tomorrow, having allowed Bowler the chance to cool his heels, he would have the chance to make amends.

            Then he thought, Fuck him, the silly old goat. Let him have his superstitions, he’ll realise soon enough he’s done nothing more than make a damned fool of himself all these years believing in such twaddle.

            He turned back to the bedroom. The door hung slightly ajar, swaying slightly on well-oiled hinges, as if blown by a breath of cool evening air. And for one brief moment, stupidly, he found himself wondering if it wasn’t someone swinging the door ever so slightly.

            He smiled and laughed away the notion. No, it was just a breeze, nothing more or less.

            He moved away from the stairs and back in the direction of the bedroom. There was no need for open doors tonight, especially if a wind was starting to brew. And certainly no point wasting good money on heating if all he was going to do was let it go straight out of the goddamn window.

            He was almost to the door, the door still swaying a little, when a sound snagged his attention, startling him, and the silence was gone.

            Colin knew the sound. He had served on a fishing trawler as a younger man for almost three years before finding a wife and siring a child (both of which had little to do with him these days) and ruining any hope he’d had of captaining his own boat, but he had never forgot the sound a heavily burdened rope made when it swung in the breeze.

            He peered into the room, gingerly.

            She died in this very room, wasn’t that what Bowler had said? Yes, or something very much like it. Hung from that very beam.

            He swallowed hard and felt his pulse race a little. He couldn’t see anything in the gloom of the room, but he could definitely hear it. Ominous.

            If you say her name three times in that bedroom mirror –

            “Enough!” He said to himself, not really wanting to believe that a small part of his mind – a growing part of his mind, actually – had taken more than a passing acceptance of clear and stupid superstition.

            Despite this however, a tendril of unease began to snake through his mind. What if? What if? WHAT IF?

            Suddenly, the sound of creaking rope began to consume the silence around him.

            Beneath that, resting against the very fringes of heard lay the sound of padding feet on a well trodden carpet.

            The lights flicked for a moment, and he yelped.

            Colin moved away from the door, still unwilling to accept his unease, and made for the stairwell. The lights flickered again, this time the gaps between darkness and light expanded with each peel, and within each moment of darkness the thud of padding feet grew closer still.

            Deciding he had lingered long enough, Colin turned and managed to make only one step forward before the lights blinked out completely. And still the maddening sound of padding feet swept through the darkness.

            Then, silence.

The sound of rope and footfalls had gone.

            After a long while, the lights came back on and Colin found himself staring into the eyeless face of seven year old Mary Moore

            She smiled at him only once, her bloodied mouth peppered with the broken stumps of teeth, and the world once again faded to black.