Eleven New Ghost Stories Read Online Free PDF Page B

he wailed. A figure
was stood before him, grey and long, arch-backed. Its long-fingered
hand grabbed him by the shirt collar and forced him flat on the
ground as it bent down over him. With the other hand, it stroked
its fingers across his cheek.
    I can still remember the shape
of its face, grinning, stretched and narrow; its broken and brittle
teeth like shards of glass. It wrapped its arms around him in a
disgusting embrace and lay down on top of him.
    That’s when I passed out.
     
     
    A broken wrist and a sprained
ankle – all things considered, I got off lucky. I woke up probably
just a few minutes later, as they were pushing me on a gurney into
an ambulance. I cried out for Craig, but they didn’t want to tell
me anything at the time. It was an hour or so later when I learned
that he was dead.
    I didn’t know what to tell the
police. Of course they were called; his flat smashed up, all the
bulbs broken. I couldn’t tell them the truth, the truth was
ridiculous. I edited it down to say that last night he had come to
mine complaining of words in his head. And that then I had found
him at his home in a state. They didn’t believe me, but it didn’t
matter since heart failure is considered a natural death; it’s only
suspicious in men of his age. Apparently his heart just
stopped.
    I felt terrible about not
telling the truth, especially to his parents. But what good would
this story do them? That’s why I’ve put it all down in writing, so
that I can tell the truth, just once. Tell it just how it was,
without a single lie.
    But now I think this will have
to be my epitaph too. I can hear him. Hear him in the walls tapping
away, playing his little game. You see, I know what he is now –
he’s a hunter. A man who likes to stalk and torment his prey,
before making his move, springing his trap.
    It started straight after the
funeral, just a little tapping in the distance. Barely noticeable,
but noticed. He likes to play games. I’m going to have to try and
out-run him. He’s not in my head yet. I’m going to leave here and
see how fast he can travel, how far he can go.
    I feel bad for Milly. Maybe
he’ll wait here for her. But I don’t think so. I think once he’s
found his mark, I don’t think he lets go.
    Then I’ll be number eight. You
see, I know exactly how many he’s killed. Because now he makes a
rhythm of seven, instead of six.

 
     
    KNOCK DOWN GINGER

     
     
    Nan was a difficult person;
always complaining, always moaning. I’ll be honest and say that I
never really liked her very much. That might sound harsh, and I
wouldn’t want to speak ill of the dead, but Dad would probably
agree. He was upset when she died, but he was relieved too. I
remember her being awkward and uptight growing up, but since
Grandpa died, she’d gotten worse.
    On the night before her funeral,
Dad was telling me how he thought she had gone mad. She hadn’t
changed her life at all after Grandpa died. She did all the things
that she’d done when he was alive, she didn’t make any changes.
Sometimes she’d even wait or call for him, forgetting that he was
gone. But if you asked her about it, she’d deny having done it.
    She just got more difficult;
becoming more obsessive about her routines and insisting everything
be done just right or else she’d complain, shout, grumble, get
angry… Nothing was allowed to disrupt her routines.
    That was why I hardly ever saw
her in those last few years. It was difficult to talk to her; she
never had the time. If you called her, you were always interrupting
her. She couldn’t cope with spontaneity. If you phoned her, out of
the blue… She couldn’t understand that impulse. She’d always ask
“What have you called for?”; you couldn’t just feel like it, there
had to be a reason why you were interrupting her precious routine.
She wouldn’t talk to you then, she’d tell you that she was too busy
to talk and get all agitated, tell you to call back later but she
wouldn’t be