In October the Friends of Harrogate Library launched a competition for a Yorkshire ghost story in 800 words. I re-wrote a longer previous piece to fit the word count and made it about a Harrogate pub. I am not presuming an Aussie will be considered but the story did retain it's shiver factor despite being reduced from well over 2000 words. NEWSFLASH!!! It got selected as one in the top 10, judging for top 3, Dec 8th.
Undesirable Patron.
He wasn’t anyone I knew, just a bloke who spent most nights lingering over his scotch watching the regulars come and go. His name was Nick, always wore the same tattered old coat and he owned the pub's battered old table tucked behind the porch door . The smoke-stained ceiling hung low there casting a shadow. The spot sort of suited him, his grey face, stained beard and his ruined teeth. The cold darkness of the alcove did not tempt you to join him, even if you'd wanted to.
Sitting where he did put Nick in easy earshot of pub chat but he never joined in or passed comment. I did see him sometimes smiling grimly but in effect he was like a piece of the furniture really, always there, never noticed.
Anyway, today's the anniversary of the MoD telling me Dad was ‘missing in action’. I was ten at the time but I've never got over the emptiness of those words. Tonight I was again telling the lads everything I knew about Dad’s last mission and they let me talk it out.
As I was leaving, Nick grabbed my arm and said, “I know about your dad”.
The surprise at being gripped so firmly stopped me dead. “Sit down with me , I want to tell you things I know”. His steely grey eyes drilled me into submission.
Nick started to tell me events from my Dad’s mission that only I knew, and he gave bits that were missing from my research. I couldn’t believe how much Nick knew and I demanded to be told.
“I don’t just know about what your dad did, I know that he was not killed, and I know his whereabouts.”
I sat there looking at this dirty creased old man. He was not smiling, not pretending. He was going to tell me about my father.
I wanted to refuse to accept that Dad was alive. But. Of course I wanted to see him. I was angry, I was incredulous, struck dumb, I wanted to reject everything Nick was saying.
I stared back blankly into the steely eyes.
“What do you mean? You know where he's buried?” It was the only rational question my brain would allow.
“No Dave.. I know where he is. Right now”
“I don’t believe you.”
“What would it take for you to believe me?” His pupils coal black and intense.
“I , I don’t know. How can you prove that it’s my dad?”
“Your dad will know of things you did together, things you talked of that only the two of you will remember. It will take no time for you to be certain”
This was crazy. Scary. If dad was alive, why would he have stayed away, left my mum, abandoned us kids? What man who loved his family could do that? Why had Nick never said?
“Your dad was given no choice in his actions; he could not make contact with you. But now, today, I can arrange for you two to meet” I saw a weak smile crack his face, an unnerving, gruesome gape.
“How?”
“Never mind how. What would you do if I could guarantee you could meet your dad again?”
I just stared blankly, silently back at him.
“I need to know how important it is to you and if it is worth my arranging it. The window of opportunity is small, it will pass. I need to know if it is important to you”
“Well of course it’s important, if my dad’s alive. Of course I want to meet him”
“So, what would you do if I could guarantee such a meeting?’ he held that eerie grin.
“I’d do anything” I spat out.
“Great!” He said leaning back and straightening up. He looked much less feeble. “Follow me!”
In a sort of trance I trailed behind him out into the swirling rain beside the heaving traffic on Skipton Road.
Nick’s eyes were sparkling “Come on, just across ‘ road to t‘ social club.”
The traffic careened past in a solid stream of headlights and spray. No sooner had I joined him than with a vice-like hand he pushed me impossibly hard into the path of the speeding bus.
I looked back in horror to see a floating spectral skull with a yawing yellow-toothed grimace where Nick had stood.
“You wanted to meet your maker!” it screeched in hideous laughter at me.
I tried to scramble clear but, even in the slow roll of my demise, the speeding wall of metal would not be escaped.
A world-shattering explosion of pain enveloped my scream of burst existence. I was tumbling, flailing, agony piercing through every part of me.
Then nothing.
Then the merest hint of a tiny spark of light.
Then nothing.
Nick still sits unnoticed at that table in the Skipton, and occasionally people go missing.
No comments:
Post a Comment