The Circle Line Read Online Free PDF Page B

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    He went there now and stretched his legs out ahead of him across the planks, his back against the smooth thick grey-brown trunk, relieved to be alone at last. He could feel the cold of the damp wood underneath him along the backs of his legs. He pulled his scarf around his neck and let his mind wander. Perhaps here he could get some peace away from other people. He felt as though no-one really understood how he felt, although a small part of him worried that that was just the usual youthful perception of the world.
    As he sat there, on the edge of being too cold, he thought about his future. He had just inherited a house. The thought of the house made him wrinkle his nose. He really didn’t know what to think about inheriting that place. He had always found it a strange building, sure there were restless spirits walking its hallways and stairs. He wasn't sure that he would be able to spend time there without the warmth of his grandfather's personality to push back the darkness into the corners. And knowing that his grandfather had died there. Sam shivered. He could sell it, he supposed, and buy somewhere else, but that felt like a betrayal of Adam Hain. His grandfather had always lived there, as far as Sam knew. Where Sam had felt nervous about the spookiness his grandfather had seemed to revel in it, often praising the location and delighting in its quirkiness. Sam remembered broaching the issue of ghosts but his grandfather had given him a strange look and waved away his fears. ‘Sam,’ he had said, ‘There are no such things as ghosts. One day you'll realise.’ He seemed to want to say more but Sam had ended the conversation. The only time he ever felt uncomfortable around his grandfather was when Adam got serious like that. Sometimes Adam Hain's mind seemed to wander during these sorts of conversations and he would tell Sam stories of other places and strange creatures and dangerous men in dark cloaks. As a child Sam had listened intently to these tales of other worlds, caught up in the enchantment of it all and often both thrilled a little scared, but as he had got older Sam had found it difficult to hear his grandfather speak so earnestly about things which were so clearly nonsense. He was too old for such stupid stories although, he had to admit,  that these stories were perhaps no stranger that believing in ghosts. Belief. Was that what it was? He had once, when he was quite young, awoken in the night needing badly to go to the bathroom. He had crept from his bedroom and onto the stairs. As he had looked down into the hallway downstairs he had had a momentary vision of a small figure turning the corner and disappearing. He had known instantly that the person had not been real. Terrified he had dashed back into his room and, much to his shame, had had to relieve himself in a bottle that he had found. The next day he had smuggled it out of his room and flushed the contents down the toilet. The whole thing had seemed like a dream but Sam was sure of what he had seen.
    Adam Hain had had his own strange beliefs, of magic and paranormal phenomena and people who had presence, whatever that meant. All Sam knew was that the house, ‘The End of the Line’ his grandfather had named it, was haunted. He had done some research into ghosts and hauntings on days when the summer sun shone through the windows and the terrors of the night seemed far away. He had read that some thought that certain places contained an undefined energy which affected the human perception at some undiscovered level. He had read that the buzz of electricity coursing through overhead cables could cause the human ear to do strange things and hear things which were not there. But at night when darkness fell upon the house and the lights struggled to push it back, such scientific theories did not hold much comfort for Sam. Other things had happened which could not be explained in such a way, physical things. Sudden changes in temperature and the