Secret Oktober

Norman walked right up to the front door of five Marshall Avenue. It was the house where Debbie Bates lived. The door frame had been made out of thick white plastic. Even though it was almost eleven o’clock at night, he could still see that the door had become discoloured after a few years of direct sunshine had discoloured its surface. It had a semi-circle of glass panels at the top, which allowed a small amount of light into the hallway. Years ago, this house had a wooden door. It was much more homely looking back then. The plastic doorbell to the right of the door was also discoloured. He never used the doorbells. Norman paused for a second before thinking about knocking on the door handle, and then the door opened up unexpectedly anyway.

The woman who opened the door looked a little surprised by his appearance. She was in her late thirties, with dark bags under both of her eyes. It was evident that she was exhausted. The colour of her skin looked a little yellow in appearance. It was odd-looking, just like the discolouration of the front door. She was drinking far too heavily, but that was hardly a surprise. She had needed to find an escape from her nightmares, and alcohol was readily available. She would drink every night until she passed out in the living room. She hadn't slept in her bedroom for as long as she could remember.

“Sorry, thank you for coming. I thought that you would be older. Please step inside, Mr Tobin.” The woman said, and then she held the door wide open. Norman accepted her invitation, and he walked straight in.

Inside the house, there was a mess everywhere, and Norman shook his head, disgusted at the state of the place. Debbie turned around unexpectedly, and she witnessed him shaking his head. Immediately Debbie felt embarrassed, and her face turned bright red. She started to move a few random objects and magazines into piles to make the place look a little bit more respectable.

“I’m so sorry. I have been struggling to do anything much just lately.” She offered. “I haven't slept in my bed for a long time. I have no one else that I can stay with close by either. I shouldn't have to live like this, but no matter how much I’ve tried, no one else will help me.”

“I would have thought that you would have left a long time ago.” Norman was staring straight at her in a way that made her feel guilty and a little uncomfortable at the same time.

“The council won’t even consider re-housing me.”

“Why did they put you here, in this house?”

“It had been empty for such a long time. I felt so happy to have a room over my head that I accepted it straight away. There are so few houses available now that I snapped it up straight away. I thought that my luck had come in. Then after just one night here, it felt like I wasn't alone in the house.”

Norman had listened patiently to Debbie's plea. She seemed distraught and close to the edge. He would have to be careful about how he approached this problem. Then without him saying another word, she began to tell him all about what she had been going through.

“During my second night in the house, I was sleeping in my bedroom when I heard a loud shout in my ear. It was a female voice, and she shouted, ‘Get out of here!’ at me loudly. I jumped up on the bed, expecting to find someone else in the room. I turned on the bedside light, but there was no one else there. Then I climbed out of bed and walked into the hallway. It was just gone three in the morning, and it was pitch black outside.

I made my way down the stairs and checked in every room, but they were all empty. I took a look outside of the front room window, but even with the street lights turned off, I could see that the streets were deserted. Then as I was just about to go back up to the bedroom, I looked up the stairs, and I was sure that I saw a woman walking along the landing. I knew it was impossible, as I had checked every room. I slept on the sofa that night, but the next day I thought that I must have imagined the whole thing, so I went to bed as usual, and I fell straight asleep. At just gone three in the morning, I felt tiny fingers rubbing my face. At first, I thought it was just a pleasant dream, but then I realised that someone was touching me.

I was afraid to open up my eyes, but slowly I lifted my eyelids to see a young girl no more than six years old. She was gently stroking my cheek, and I was so afraid that I began to shiver.

The girl felt me shivering, and she leant over to whisper into my ear. I closed my eyes as I felt her icy cold breath touch my skin.

‘Let me warm you up.’ she said.

At that very moment, I felt intense heat, and as I opened up my eyes again, I saw flames engulf the little girl. She screamed a high pitched scream, and I watched on in horror as the flesh started to melt on her face. The stench of burning flesh filled my nostrils, and I bolted out of that bedroom as fast as I could. I sprinted down the stairs, and I ran out of the front door as fast as I could. I ran to the far end of the street before I dared to take a look back at my house. I expected the top floor to be in flames, but the place looked calm and still.

I stopped right there and turned around; then I collapsed into a heap on the road. I started to cry, and I just sat there in the middle of the road in my nightshirt. I was staring at the house in front of me. If it had been a nightmare, then it was the most horrific one I had ever endured. I would have probably sat there until daylight, but a milk float pulled up behind me, and a kindly old gentleman named Matt climbed out to make sure that I was alright.

Matt listened to my story, and I agreed to let him walk back into the house to see if there were any signs of a fire. He stepped inside and checked every room of that house, and when he came back out, he looked bewildered. There was no child, no fire and nothing looked out of the ordinary. He walked through the house by my side. Then he sat with me for a short while before he told me that he had to go and carry on with his round. I drank a cup of tea as I sat on the sofa, shivering. I would not be able to go back to sleep that night at all.”

Debbie looked up and stared into Norman’s eyes. They looked a little empty and unsympathetic towards her. She had hoped that calling in a paranormal investigator might help her to find some answers. She had tried asking the church for help and had watched a priest try to cast out the spirits from her house, but that had failed. If anything, things had become even worse since that point.

“On the fourth night, I was afraid to sleep in my bed in case I had another nightmare, so I decided to sleep on the sofa in the living room. At just past three, I was disturbed by a weird noise. I woke up to discover that the television had been turned on. I sat upright on the sofa, confused as to what was going on. When I had fallen asleep, the remote control had been on the coffee table in front of me, and the television was turned off. The remote control was now on the arm of the chair across the other side of the room. There was a deep indentation in the cushion as if someone was sitting in the chair.

By this point, I had decided that I just wanted to close my eyes and make the whole thing go away. I pulled the covers back over my head and covered up my ears. I was desperate for all of this to stop, but after a few minutes, I felt the duvet move, and then a large hand started moving up my leg. Someone was underneath the covers with me, and I had no choice but to look down to see what was touching my leg. My hands were shaking as I lifted the covers, and as I looked under the duvet, I saw a pair of eyes staring back at me from under the covers.

I screamed as I jumped up from the sofa, and I ran out into the kitchen to grab a knife from the wooden block. I waved the knife around wildly in front of me, lashing out in the darkness, screaming and crying out in anger and frustration that someone had placed there hands on me. I felt dirty and defiled. Then there was a loud repeated banging on the front door, and I was afraid that it was going to fall off of its hinges. Then I saw a shadow move across the front room window, and I recognised my neighbour. I ran out of that front door as fast as I could, narrowly missing his arm with the knife as I stumbled over the doorstep.”

That more of the story that Norman heard, the more frustrated he looked. Debbie was afraid that he didn’t believe a word that she was saying to him.

“Do you want me to take you through the house?” She asked. There was more than a hint of anger in her voice. This guy was more than happy to take her money, but so far, he had done nothing to assure her. He had not even said anything that might explain what she had been going through. Norman started to walk towards the stairwell. Debbie let him lead the way.

As they reached the top of the stairs, Debbie was right behind him. She thought she might smell a hint of his aftershave, or maybe deodorant, but there was a strange smell coming from him. It smelled like freshly-baked bread, with a touch of almonds. It was odd. Norman opened up the door to the master bedroom, and he stepped inside. Debbie followed him into the bedroom, and the door closed behind her as if it was drawn back by an invisible hand.

“So what did you do next and why?” Norman asked her.

Night after night, I kept being woken up around three in the morning. Each night, it was something different. Sometimes it was the sound of a child playing ball in the hallway. Other nights I would hear the sound of a woman screaming out in pain. I started sleeping during the day and going out for long walks at night, and I would come home to find everything tipped out of the kitchen drawers, cupboards opened, and kettles were boiling away. These strange occurrences went on for weeks, and then in desperation, I went to speak to the vicar at my local church.” She told him.

“Are you religious?” Norman asked her.

“No, not in the slightest. By this point, I was so desperate for a good night’s sleep. The vicar agreed to come to the house, and he blessed the living room. The very moment that he completed the blessing, he doubled over. The front door slammed behind him, and he was sick all over the floor. He told me that he had felt something pass straight through him, and he hurried out of the house. He promised me that he would return and bless the rest of the house, but that was a week ago, and I haven’t seen or heard from him since. That’s why I decided to call you in.”

As Debbie looked into Norman’s eyes, she thought he looked a little angry or upset. It was his idea for him to come late at night, so she was sure that it wasn’t the time that was troubling him, so she wondered if she had said something wrong. Then he began to speak, and it made her forget all about the look on his face.

“This house was occupied by a family in nineteen eighty-four. They had a young girl named Karen, who was six years old. In October of that year, somehow, Karen managed to find a box of matches, and she took them up to her bedroom. That night, she lit a small fire in the corner of her room to keep her warm. She watched in amazement as the flames started to spread upwards, and then she realised that the heat was becoming unbearable, so she tried to put out the fire by throwing a glass of water on the fire. The fire continued to spread, so she ran into her mother’s room to try and wake her.

Her mother Tina was a very heavy sleeper, and by the time she had woken up, the flames had spread along the hallway. They became trapped in this bedroom, where both of them burned to death. Their father was sleeping in his chair downstairs, with an empty glass of vodka in his hand and the television playing away to itself. The three of them remained here in this house in limbo, watching family after family move into their home, and quickly they moved back out again. They wanted to live here in peace, and then you came along.”

If Debbie had thought that Norman had sounded angry earlier, she felt that he looked livid now. At least he had looked into the background of the house and its history. Perhaps now he would be able to find a way to remove the spirits from her home, and then she could find some respite from all of her torture.

“So what can You do to help me to remove them from the house? “She asked. Norman smiled at her.

“We can fix this quite easily.” He told her. “Let’s get out of this room. It holds a lot of bad memories.”

Debbie walked to the top of the stairs, and she was just about to ask another question when she felt a hand at the top of her back, and Norman pushed her hard. She fell headfirst down to the bottom of the stairs, and as she landed, her neck cracked. Norman had wanted to scare her enough that she would leave the house for good, but now she was dead. He didn’t care.

“ You can come out now.” He said, and then a woman and a young child came out from the master bedroom. Both had badly fire-charred skin and clothes.

“Daddy, you are home again!” Karen cried out excitedly as she ran forward and held on to his leg. His wife held his hand in hers and squeezed it tightly.

“Where have you been?” She asked him. “I’ve missed you.”

“I'm sorry, Tina. It was the vicar. He cast me out. She invited me back in.” He explained, and then they embraced each other.

It was around twelve-thirty at night when the investigator knocked on the door. Norman opened it and smiled.

“I'm so sorry that I’m late. My watch stopped at eleven, and I had no idea of the time. The first time that it has ever let me down.” He apologised.

“Welcome. Come into my house.” He said. Chris Cresswell stepped inside. He was surprised to see a young girl sat on the sofa next to her mother. Both were watching the television, despite it being the early hours of the morning. Norman could see the look of surprise on his face.

“She doesn’t sleep. We are night owls anyway.” Chris just smiled. It was none of his business.

“I must have spoken to your wife on the phone. Can you tell me a little more about what’s going on?”

“I can show you. She is on the stairway right now.” On hearing this, Terry became excited, and he gathered his instruments in his hands. Norman held out his hand and pointed over towards the stairwell.

As Chris placed his foot on the first step, it creaked slightly underneath him. Then he looked up and saw the ghostly figure of a young woman sitting on the top of the stairs. She rocked backwards and forwards on the stairs. Tears were rolling down her cheeks. She was repeating the same words over and over again.

“I just want to go to sleep. I just want to go to sleep.” She said.

“My God. That’s one of the clearest apparitions that I have ever seen.” Chris remarked.

“We just want her out of our house. Can you help us please?” Norman said. He was now sat in his chair watching the television with his wife, and his daughter sat comfortably opposite him. All three of them were now smiling at him.

“Don’t worry. I will get the spirit out of the house for you. I promise.” Terry reassured her.

For Norman, Margaret, Nick and Mandy.