Eleven New Ghost Stories Read Online Free PDF Page A

word of an expert; and any expert requires
that you get cleared by a psychiatrist first before they’ll even
consider anything you say to be true. Catching it on tape would’ve
shown anyone that I wasn’t lying!”
    His eyes were red and his face
pale – he looked desperate and terrified.
    “I went to sleep. Nothing was
happening, I just dozed off. Slept for a couple of hours and then
BANG! I don’t know what it was, but it was loud, like someone
hitting a steel container with a hammer. I jumped out of bed and
then it started. Rhythm of six: Tap-t-t-t-tap tap, faster and
faster, louder and louder until the floor started to shake. The
doors rattled on their hinges. The pictures began to fall to the
floor.”
    “It was insane; I couldn’t take
it, so I screamed: Stop it! Stop it! Please stop it! And it did.
Just for a moment there was no sound. Nothing at all. I walked out
into the hall. All the lights were on – you know what I’m like; I
never forget stuff like that.”
    “So I’m seriously freaked out.
I’m thinking, what the hell’s going on? I looked at the camera, set
up on the landing and suddenly it leaps three feet in the air, like
someone just kicked it. And then it happens behind me to the one in
the bedroom. And then the lights go out – they blow out one by
one.”
    “I run back into my bedroom. God
knows why, I swear to you, like a child, I tried to hide under the
bed. I don’t know why there; I just wanted to take cover. But then
everything was quiet again for a moment. Just a moment, before it
started up again: tap-t-t-t-tap tap, tap-t-t-t-tap tap.”
    “It was hurting my head. The
sound of it! But then after a moment, I realised something. That it
hurt my head because it was in my head. The rhythm of six was in my
head, beating away like a headache, throbbing in my mind. It wasn’t
in the flat any more, it was in my brain. I swear to God it was in
my head.”
    “I believe you…”
    “I couldn’t tell where it was
coming from – because it was in my mind.”
    “Craig, I believe you – you’re
doing it now!”
    His left hand was on the kitchen
table; while he was speaking he’d started to tap against it.
Without even thinking, his hand had been tapping away:
tap-t-t-t-tap tap.
    He lifted his left hand straight
away and put it in his right hand to examine it, almost as if it
was something foreign.
    “I was, wasn’t I?” He put both
hands over his mouth. “Jesus Christ, it’s in me. It’s inside of
me!”
    I went to him and put my hands
on his shoulders. “It’s all right, it’s all right. You can’t hear
it now can you?”
    “No, my head’s clear,” he was
almost in tears.
    The kettle had boiled. I walked
over to it and tried to think rationally.
    “What am I going to do? What am
I going to do?”
    “You can’t go back there. You
just can’t.” I made his tea and brought it over to him. He took it
with his hands shivering, like he’d been out in the cold for
hours.
    “We need to get you a
doctor.”
    “I’m not mad!”
    “You’re hearing things in your
head, never mind the state this has got you in. See a doctor; I
don’t think you’re crazy, but you’re not well are you?”
    After a moment’s silence, he
said: “Fine”. I don’t think he had the will to argue.
    I sat with him for half an hour
but I was keen to get him to sleep. He needed it and we needed to
calm down and think more sensibly about the problem. You have a
home you can’t go back to, what would you do? Assuming it was a
normal problem and not a fucking ghost.
    I put him to bed on the sofa,
next to a hot chocolate. I took the duvet from Milly’s room; she
wouldn’t like him sleeping in there, but probably wouldn’t mind him
using the duvet. Despite the stress he seemed to fall asleep quite
quickly – far quicker than I did. I remembered going to see him
part way through the night, just as the dark was starting to
brighten. He was sleeping but not soundly; he was wriggling