A Spookies Compendium Page 8

  He pressed on. He was sure that at some stage, he would encounter a wall, and when he found it, he would stick to it, follow it until it brought him back to the steps, the electricity switch, or both.

  Disturbed thoughts jumped into his mind. Didn’t Anthony Perkins keep his mother in the cellar in Psycho? He recalled watching it on late-night TV one night when his parents were out, and how scared he was when Vera Miles turned the decaying old woman round and the cameras gazed into the hollow eyes, fastened on the festering, unrecognizable skin and...

  Once more he closed his mind to the images. That was fiction. People didn’t do things like that in real life... did they?

  Frantically, he searched his anxious mind for the good things that happened in cellars. To his terrified dismay, he could not think of any. Everything that happened in cellars was bad, dark or dirty, including the delivery of coal in the dim and distant past. When Buffy got into a fight, it was always in some subterranean crypt or vault, and Christopher Lee had spent half his working life in these places before he moved on to cutting people’s arms off with his light sabre and sending orcs to waylay them.

  Kevin pressed on, almost tiptoeing so his footfalls would not disturb the phantoms in that black hole.

  From somewhere in the distance came a scrabbling. Convinced that it was a figment of his imagination, Kevin stopped and held his breath, ears pricked, listening, listening. There it was again. That was no auditory hallucination; he knew enough about the strange sounds that sometimes emanated from headphones and microphones to know the difference, and this was for real. A scratching, scraping sound, and it was not far away. His aural sense of direction was poor, thanks, he maintained, to all those times when the school had compelled him to sit by the speakers during morning assembly. He couldn’t locate the direction from which the sound came, but there was no mistaking it. A scratch-scratch, scrabble-scrabble, as if something was trying to get in (or out) out of its coffin.

  Then came the tiniest of squeaks, leaping into the darkness, and that was enough for Kevin. He ran. Heart thumping painfully, he hared blindly along the narrow aisles between racks, flashlight waving erratically in front of him. He tripped, rattled heavily into a rack, heard a crash, wondered vaguely if the wine bottles were coming to life to pursue him, and accelerated just in case.

  He turned right, ran some more, turned right, ran some more, turned right, ran some more and finally had to stop to catch his breath, the years of smoking and crummy diet catching up to him, denying him the strength to get out of that dark, forbidding vault. He gained some control over his heaving chest and listened. There it was again. Squeak, squeak, scratch, scratch. Something clawing its way towards him. He looked at the torch.

  “Maybe the light’s attracting it,” he whispered to himself.

  He flicked off the lamp... and promptly flicked it back on again. Less than a second of utter darkness produced terrifying visions far worse than anything he had ever seen in the movies, much more terrifying than the notion of a vampire trying to give him a love bite.

  He ran again. Where were those rotten steps? Sod the electricity. Pete could come down and switch it on. He was bigger than Dracula anyway. Bigger and stronger. And so thick-skinned, the vampires would need a hammer drill to get through his neck, never mind fangs.

  Ahead, he made out the whitewashed walls that he knew lay near the steps where he had first come down. He was moving so fast he almost crashed into the wall. He flashed the torch right and left and still couldn’t see the steps. All he could see was more whitewashed wall, running off in both directions. The scrabbling was coming closer. Consumed by panic, he tried to decide which way. Eeni-meeni-myni-mo. He turned left and hurried along. Ten metres away, another wall sat at right angles to the one along which he was tearing. He reached it, turned left again and …

  Suddenly the entire cellar was flooded with light and there, straight ahead of him, was the tall, gaunt figure of a man.

  He let out a terrified scream.

  *****

  Up above, Pete had found the mains switch in a cupboard, just inside the double doors at the entrance, and flipped it on. Seconds later, he heard Kevin’s cry.

  Pete looked urgently at Sceptre. “What the hell...?”

  Sceptre ran for the cafeteria. Hurrying after her, Pete called out, “Sceptre! Wait!”

  “Kevin’s in trouble,” she called over her shoulder.

  Pete caught up, grabbed her arm and stopped her. “Leave this to me.”

  Sceptre shrugged her arm free. “He may need help.”

  She turned away, determined to go on, but he caught her arm once more. “You don’t know who or what is down there.”

  Sceptre scowled defiantly. “I’m not afraid. Fishwick is with me.”

  “I never suggested you were,” Pete told her, “but even if I believed in Fishwick, I wouldn’t trust him further than I could throw Kev.” Sceptre struggled to free herself of his grip. “Sceptre, this is my thing. The car’s unloaded. You only have to unpack the gear. I’ll get Kev.”

  Sceptre nodded reluctantly and Pete hurried off, running through the cafeteria, to the cellar and down the steps. Looking into the maze of wine racks, he could see nothing of his chum, but from the far side of the catacombs came the sound of running feet.

  “Kev? Can you hear me, Kev?”

  From a location to his left came Kevin’s weak and frightened whine. “Pete, there’s someone down here.”

  “Yes. Me and you.”

  “No, you donk. Someone else. He was coming for me. A vampire.”

  Pete’s noticed that Kevin’s voice was steadier now. “Your terror’s evaporated faster than a car thief hearing a police siren. Now, keep talking so I can work out where you are.”

  “He’s round here somewhere, Pete. Big evil git, wearing an overcoat and hat. Watch he don’t sneak up on... aargh!” Kevin cried out a second time as he ran into Pete around the end of one of the wine racks.

  “Kev, what’s going on?”

  Kevin shook with terror as he replied. “I heard him getting out of his coffin, so I ran for it, and then I saw him. Standing by the wall somewhere back there.” He waved a frantic hand toward the depths of the cellar. “He’s a vampire.”

  “There’s no such thing, you soft tart.”

  “Yes, there is,” Kevin insisted. “I meanersay, who else scratches his way out of a coffin?”

  Pete snorted. “You’ve been watching too much Sci-Fi Channel.”

  “Pete, I …”

  “Shh.” Pete cut him off and they both fell silent, listening intently to the scratching and scrabbling, louder now than when Kevin had first heard it.

  Kevin’s voice was a frightened whisper. “See. Now his mates are getting up.”

  “Those are mice and rats looking for food, you idiot.” He made to head butt Kevin, but stopped centimetres short of his forehead. “Now where’s this bloody burglar?”

  “He’s not a burglar, Pete. I’m... aargh!”

  “This way,” said Pete, grabbing Kevin by the ear and dragging him deeper into the cellars.

  As they made their way through the maze, they came upon the red pool spread across the flagged floor. Kevin shrank nervously back from it. “Blood.”

  Pete crouched down, dabbed his finger it and sniffed. “It’s wine, you dipstick.” He looked to the right and located the shattered bottle beneath the rack. Pulling the fragments forward, he examined the label. “Marvellous. Just marvellous. Chateau Mouton Rothschild ’82.”

  “Supermarket plonk, huh?” Kevin was more hopeful than confident.

  “Only about fifteen hundred bills a bottle,” said Pete with a sad shake of the head. “I hope our insurance will cover it.”

  “What insurance?” Kevin commented. When Pete frowned at him, he asked, “What’s it got to do with us?”

  “You must have broken it.” Pete stood up. “It’s freshly broken and since we’re the only ones in the house and you’re the only one down here, it has to
be you.”

  “I don’t remember,” Kevin declared, adopting his usual position when caught out doing something he should not have been doing. More honestly, he murmured, “Mind you, I was pretty scared. I wouldn’t have noticed if I’d knocked over a pallet of champagne.” He gave a nervous titter. “Could we not blame it on Sir Henry? Tell everyone he was chucking the bottles about again, like he did at that party Sceptre told us about?”

  Pete glared. “Come on. We’d better find this guy. I left Sceptre alone near the doors, and I don’t want him hassling her on his way out.”

  It took almost five minutes for them to find the stranger, in the far corner of the cellars from the steps, and when they did, all Kevin could do was stare sheepishly at the stone floor.

  Hanging on a hook on the wall were a dark overcoat and hat.

  *****

  While Pete and Kevin were busy in the cellar, Sceptre moved the cartons into the cafeteria and began to unpack their equipment. Having Pete along was a godsend. Kevin, a computer wizard, was a talker, a persuader, but Pete was a doer, a man of action who would not hesitate to walk into Hell if he had to. Despite her half-lies to Kevin, she knew there were those spirits who sought to vent their evil on the living, and Pete would be better able to deal with such occurrences. The speed with which he had gone to Kevin’s assistance, the determination that it was his place to do so, spoke of a man who cherished old-fashioned values, and those values said walking into danger was no job for a woman. Sceptre was certain that his courage would be tested tonight. He did not believe in the supernatural, so whatever happened, he would seek the rational explanation, such as intruders, and she knew he would probably be prepared to wander the house alone in search of them.

  Kevin’s cry from the cellar confirmed for her the reality of entities within the house. Pete had gone to help a friend, but she was sure they would find no earthly presence down there. As Pete disappeared down the cellar steps, she called for Fishwick, only to receive silence in response.

  She knew her butler would return when it was convenient, and while she waited, she busied herself unpacking the EMF sensors and bundles of cables, carefully laying them out on the laminated cafeteria tables. Kevin had pulled off a real coup with his contact, and secured no fewer than eight video cameras. Those, too, needed to be placed. Sceptre passed the time consulting the plan of the house, deciding where and how they would be deployed.

  “You called for me, Your Ladyship?” Fishwick’s voice came into her head.

  “Ah. Fishwick. Pete and Kevin are down in the cellar. Kevin has apparently been frightened by something. Is there anything down there they need to worry about?”

  “No, Madam. As I said before, there are a number of spirits attached to this house and the grounds, but none haunts the cellars.”

  “Thank you, Fishwick.”

  Left alone again, her confidence took a dip. If there were not spirits in the cellar, what had Kevin encountered? Tramps or teenagers hanging out in the hall who had perhaps rushed for the cellar when they heard her and her friends enter?

  “Impossible,” she said to herself. “The doors were locked and the alarms had not been disturbed.”

  She cocked an ear, listening to the hall. She could hear the wind and rain, but she could hear nothing of Kevin or Pete. They must be in trouble!

  She was about to ask Fishwick to check it out when she heard the sound of their footsteps on the cellar stairs, and of Kevin’s voice. True to form, he was arguing with Pete.

  *****

  Emerging from the cellars ahead of Pete, Kevin was considerably calmer now that he was out of the frightening darkness. “But who switched the lights on?” he wanted to know.

  Pete grinned. “I did. We found the main switch in a cupboard inside the main entrance.”

  Kevin’s features assumed a look of indignant thunder. “So you sent me down there for nothing?”

  Sceptre shook her head in amusement as she attached a heavy-duty battery to a CB radio. “Well, at least it’s exposed you to the vagaries of your imagination.”

  Pete sniffed the air. “Judging by the smell, it’s exposed his underpants to the vagaries of his gastric system, too. Kev, have you ever thought of bottling all that gas and selling it? I’m sure you’d make a fortune.”

  Kevin stuck out his tongue. “If I did, I wouldn’t give you a cut of the profits.”

  “Right,” said Sceptre, cutting off their banter and becoming more businesslike. “The rules of the night. First off, mobile phones. Switch them off. We can’t afford to have any distractions here tonight.”

  Kevin was aghast. “Switch off my moby? I’d rather cut off my right arm.”

  “Kevin, I do not want the night ruined by your cell phone receiving a text message during a manifestation. Switch it off.” She held up one of the handsets. “CB radios. When we split up, make sure you take one with you. We’re on channel one, so don’t change the channel, and make sure that it’s switched on at all times when we’re apart.”

  Pete was clearly amused. “You think these ghosts may be mob-handed?”

  “Peter, we’ve just had Kevin scared out of his wits in the cellar…”

  “By nothing more than a few rodents, and a hat and coat hung on a hook,” Pete interrupted. “Get real, Sceptre. There are about as many ghosts in this place as there are football supporters at a cricket match. In other words, none.”

  Sceptre maintained her stance. “Fishwick informs me that there are several unhappy spirits here, some of them, er, displeased if not actually malevolent. We can’t afford to take chances, and besides,” she pressed on as Pete opened his mouth to interrupt again, “it doesn’t matter whether what scares us is real or imaginary, it still has the potential to give us a heart attack. If we have the CB radios, we can call to each other, can’t we?” She smiled sweetly, challenging him to overturn her logic. “So when we split up, we carry a radio. Okay?”

  Both men murmured muted agreement, and that satisfied Sceptre. “Right. Shall we take a walk around the house before it gets properly dark?”

  Kevin groaned. “Must we?”

  “Sceptre’s right, Kev,” Pete confirmed. “We need to suss out the place before dark in case we have to move quickly later in the night.”

  “Listen,” said Kevin, following them out of the cafeteria, “the only quick direction for me will be back to your car for the drive home.”

  “Trust me,” Pete insisted, “I’ve been on this kind of stakeout before, and when you’re fumbling in the dark, it’s easy to trip over coffee tables.”

  “It depends who you’re fumbling,” Kevin muttered.

  They ambled out of the cafeteria, into the main entrance hall, now lit by one bulb in three, which gave sufficient illumination to pick out the sombre reds and greys in portraits and furnishings; when they entered the Long Gallery, they could study the exhibits in display cases and the light was still sufficient to let them read small, printed signs explaining the contents.

  While they wandered around the vast room, Sceptre cast an approving gaze over the paintings decorating the walls. “A lot of money in those,” she remarked, then indicated another set of double doors at the far end of the gallery. “That exit will lead us to the rear courtyard and the stables. It’s the only part of the original Tudor building that survived the Great Fire.”

  She passed a digital thermometer from side to side ahead of her as they walked the long gallery; it read a constant 7o C.

  Following her, Pete, too, studied the paintings on the walls: horses, people, a watercolour of the house and surrounding lands rich in purple and ochre, a lavish Stubbs original of a magnificent stallion, several watercolours in the style of Turner and one by the painter himself.

  Kevin chuckled. “This reminds me of when we were kids at Durban Street School. Remember? We used to do finger painting and the best ones were pinned up on the walls in the corridor.”

  Pete waved a protesting hand at a watercolour of the Thames at low tide. �
�Kev, that’s a Turner original.”

  “Is it?” Kevin sounded impressed. “I didn’t know she could paint.”

  Pete cocked his eyebrows. “She? Turner was a man.”

  It was Kevin’s turn to be surprised. “Well, you could have fooled me. She’s not the best-looking chick in the world, but she’s all woman.”

  “Are we talking about the same Turner?” Pete asked.

  “Aren’t we?” Kevin echoed. “I was on about Tina.”

  “Look at this.” Sceptre’s excited voice drew their attention. She stood close to the rear doors, through which they could see a cobbled courtyard hemmed by low outbuildings. Sceptre passed her thermometer from side to side. As it passed the double doors, the temperature dropped quickly from 7o to 5o. “I think we’re onto something here.”

  Pete checked the doors. They were composed of large panes of glass set into wooden frames, and when he bent to examine them more closely, he found sufficient space between the frames to flash his light through. “Yes. I think we’re onto needing a carpenter.”

  A glint of mild annoyance came to Sceptre’s eyes. “Pete, a drop in temperature may mean we’ve located a paranormal entity.”

  He smiled, her irritation heightened and he laughed. “You may be right,” he agreed. “And it may also mean we’ve located a door that’s so warped it doesn’t meet the other one properly and lets in a blast of wind that could freeze Hell.” Once more, he shone his light at the five-millimetre gap and illuminated the worn inner frames of the two doors. “Give me the keys.”

  Sheepishly, Sceptre handed them over, and he spent some moments finding the right one before opening the door and leading the way out into the courtyard.

  The cobbles were uneven and treacherous, partly overgrown with grass and moss. Ten metres away were the outbuildings, and at the far end were large, wooden, double gates, open so the moors were visible beyond and leading out onto a dirt path surrounding the house.

  At a nod from Pete, Kevin walked to them, and peered out onto the wild moors, across a patch of mossy grass to Melmerby Woods fifty metres away, a copse of tall trees and ground-level thickets. For a brief moment, he thought he saw a shadowy figure disappear into the woods. His heart leapt. Hadn’t Sceptre warned them that the farmhands haunted the woods? He opened his mouth to call out, but then he remembered the embarrassing incident in the cellar and thought better of it. Sceptre already had him earmarked as a coward, and Pete’s patience would not last forever.