HORROR Of The HOUSE On HAUNTED HILL...

Art by STEVE DITKO, copyright MARVEL COMICS

Seeing as how we're fast approaching Hallowe'en, I thought I'd share this true tale with you to put you in the mood.  Are you alone?  Are you sure you're alone?  Perhaps you'd better check first before we proceed.  Ready?  Good, then I'll begin.

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Not long after my family had moved into our new house back in 1972, a curious thing happened.  My brother came downstairs into the living-room one night and claimed he'd just seen an elderly lady in white on the stairway outside his room.  My parents pooh-poohed the notion, but, shortly after, my bed was moved from my front room on the grounds it was damp (the room, not the bed) into my brother's room, which we then shared for a few months (again, the room, not the bed).  I suspect it was more to do with my brother being scared to be alone than it was with the risk of me catching pneumonia, but I grant it could've been a combination of both.

Some indeterminate time afterwards (a year or two perhaps), my brother again came into the living-room with a concerned look on his face and called us upstairs, saying that someone was walking around in the attic.  We all trooped up to my brother's room and, sure enough, there was a sound of creaking boards - as though someone was walking from one end of the attic and back again.  My father got out the stepladder and tentatively poked the top of his head a few inches into the hatch opening, but he was in no mad rush (nor were we) to more thoroughly explore the vast confines of its black interiors, so we put the noise down to some not entirely convincing 'rational' explanation and retired downstairs again.  

Some years later, we moved house, and four years after that, we moved back again - with the exception of my brother, who'd acquired his own flat in the meantime.  Now, I don't believe in ghosts, but the couple with whom we exchanged houses in order to return to our former abode, told me that one night while lying in bed, a ghostly apparition had drifted through the wall from my brother's old room into theirs, then floated right over their bed and melted through the window on the other side.  They were a young couple and a bit flaky, so I put their 'experience' down to having partaken of a combination of too much alcohol and weed.

But here's where it gets strange (as you doubtless anticipated).  A few years after having moved back, I was lying in my bed one night in the small hours when I suddenly became aware of a wizened old woman in white shuffling towards my bedside.  She stopped and stooped, lowering her crinkled face towards mine as if scrutinizing it intently.  For a moment I was paralysed, but then, with a growl, I sat bolt upright in bed to confront the ancient figure, who immediately retreated (still facing me) into the far corner of the room before fading into nothingness.

I sat stunned for a moment, not quite sure what had happened.  Had I seen a ghost, the very one my brother had claimed to have seen so many years before?  Or had I only been dreaming and suddenly awoken - with the figure in my dream somehow still visible before me, like some swiftly-diminishing after-image?

Who can say for sure?  I still don't believe in ghosts, but that was certainly a moment which gave me pause for thought.  Anyone else got any similar experiences?  Feel free to share.  

SOME OLD NEIGHBOURS DIE, OTHERS SIMPLY FADE AWAY...

Art by BERNIE WRIGHTSON, copyright DC COMICS

A few doors along from me used to live a woman whose name (for the purpose of this tale) was Mrs. SMITH.  Mrs. Smith and her three daughters were living there when my family moved into the area in 1972 and had presumably lived there for a good number of years before we had ever thought to do so.  In the fullness of time, her daughters married and moved out and Mrs. Smith lived in the house by herself.

About fifteen years ago, I would occasionally see Mrs. Smith's teenage granddaughter visiting her, but her health had started to fail so I never saw much of Mrs. Smith herself, apart from the very odd occasion when she was sweeping her front porch.  Then, around six years back, I noticed that the now adult granddaughter and her boyfriend seemed to be visiting Mrs. Smith quite a lot, if their frequent comings and goings were anything to go by.

And then one day the proverbial penny dropped.  Mrs. Smith's granddaughter and boyfriend weren't visiting, but actually living there, Mrs. Smith having moved out of the house and in with another of her daughters some months before without me having noticed.  And so it had come to pass that another long-time familiar face had disappeared from my everyday life without me ever getting to bid her a last goodbye.  (Not that she'd be concerned with that.)

I've no idea if Mrs. Smith is still alive or not, but I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that she expired a few years back, so frail had she become.  In the caverns of my mind are many people who were once everyday participants in my day-to-day life who I haven't seen in years, and, like Mrs. Smith, I have no idea whether they yet inhabit this mortal plane or left for parts unknown a good while ago.  Alive, dead, flitted, emigrated?  Who knows?

(UPDATE: I later learned that 'Mrs. Smith' passed away on Friday, November 1st, 2013 - twelve days after I posted this.)

What strikes me as odd is that it can be many months, sometimes even years, before we realise that we haven't seen 'so and so' for ages, and that part of the backdrop of our lives has been altered by their absence.  I often think of folk who once perambulated past my window on a daily basis that I haven't seen in years, and wonder where they are and (if alive) what they're doing now.  (Just where is the guy with the ill-fitting toupee, who my teenage self used to see making his way to and from the local pub every night?  He must've been one helluva fighter to stop his drinking buddies continually ripping the p*ss out of him, that's for sure.)

I remember sitting in a cafe in Southsea one day, back around 1985, and noticing an elderly gentleman with a pale film over one eye and a distinctly Karloffian-type face (as BERNIE WRIGHTSON would draw it), dressed in 1950s style clothes under a black overcoat. I only ever saw him once, maybe twice, but every now and again, my mind jumps backwards and I wonder what became of him, simply because I associate him with Southsea and have fond memories of my time living there, nearly thirty years ago.  

When I'm gone, I wonder if anyone will one day ever wonder what happened to the guy with his German Shepherd dog, who faithfully traversed the neighbourhood in all weathers, and, without ever having known me, sort of miss me in the same way that they miss their childhood - simply because I was once a familiar (from afar), everyday part of it.

It would be nice to think so, but somehow I doubt it.