Riverside Manor is home to four perfectly content ghosts spending their evening minding their own business and occassionally rattling the plumbing. Then three ghost hunters show up. Armed with a spirit box, night vision camera, and no common sense, the investigators are determined to prove the house is haunted. It's going to be an ... interesting ... night for everyone.
Trigger Warning:This story contains themes of strong language and death, which some readers may find distressing. Reader discretion is advised.
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John stared out of the second floor window of Riverside Manor; a ritual he had taken to every twilight hour since his passing. The natural light at this time had a supernatural air to it and he imagined that, if he were still alive, it would ripple goosebumps across his skin.
He was practicing his best melancholic face when a car crunched its way up the long gravel driveway eventually stopping in front of the house. John rolled his eyes as three people - two men, one of whom was holding a large camera, and a woman - clambered out.
'Fucking great,' he sighed. Then, turning back to the room, he shouted as loud of he could, 'Incoming.'
A collective groan echoed around the house from the other inhabitants.
He stood up from the threadbare window seat and headed down the grand staircase where the other ghosts were now gathered in the dust-dulled hallway. John sat down on the step third from the bottom before looking up at the ghost standing to his left.
'Right. George -'
The ghost's thick moustache bristled at being addressed with such informality. 'I really must insist you call me either 'sir' or by my title, young man.'
John rubbed his eyes with his index finger and thumb. 'We don't have time for the semantics argument again, George. I've been here for 25 years … I'm too dead to care, so move on already.'
George scowled at him with perfectly trimmed eyebrows and dark eyes but said nothing.
'Now that's sorted,' John continued, 'George, you are on poltergeist duty tonight, so I hope you've rested. Remember - this is your house, and you're angry they are here. Let's give them the scares they want, alright?'
'It is my house … my family home. None of you should be here.'
John gave George a thumbs up and a sarcastic grin. 'That's the spirit, old boy.'
'Ah, nous savons,' Frederik, the male ghost to John's right, groaned. 'Tu crois qu'on voulait passer l'éternité avec des gens comme toi?' He flitted his hand in George's direction as if he were swatting a fly.
John looked at him, then back at George. 'I don't know what the fuck he said, but it sounds like it might be similar to what I was thinking.'
He tutted in exasperation then rounded on Federik.
'You've been in England for about -' he did some mental arithmetic, '- 356 years and yet you still cant speak a word of English … at least you can understand it, I suppose. Anyway, you're in charge of making this group feel smothered, claustrophobic . Really creep them out.'
Frederik gave a nonchalant shrug of his shoulders before pulling out an old pipe he liked to draw on occassionally.
The last member of the group was 8-year-old Mae.
'What's my job this time, John?' she squeaked at him. A playful glee glistened in her dead eyes. She reminded him so much of his cousin.
'You, little one, are going to be in charge of communication - talk to them through their little voice boxes, play games with them - the living really eat that shit up.' He winked at her.
'Ooh, I love games,' Mae giggled.
Frederik cleared his throat as he put his pipe away. He ran his fingers across his oiled and styled goatee, then gestured at John. 'Et toi?'
John smiled and pointed at Frederik. 'Ah - I know that one. I will be interfering and generally being a nuisance. Playing to my strengths.'
'Remind me why you seem to be in charge again?' George scoffed. He pouted as if he had just been told his family had written him out of their will again.
'Because, I'm the only one modern enough to know how to orchestrate a decent ghost hunt.'
Footsteps approached the front door.
John leapt up at the sound. 'No time left to argue. Ghosts, to your battle stations, please.'
Mae squealed and ran two doors down on his right into the drawing room. Frederik sauntered into the dining room - the one before Mae's - while George trudge to John's left into the billiard room.
John stayed where he was on the staircase: a simple maestro waiting to conduct his orchestra. As much as the living were annoying, scaring them was the only real entertainment they had.
The latch of the wooden front door clicked as the handle moved and, as if directed, the door creaked open. It's juttered release echoed across the tiled floors and panelled walls.
John was instantly taken back to the time he had come to Riverside Manor, back in 1995, with his group of friends.
—
They had been celebrating someone's eighteenth birthday - he remembered being impatient for his own to come around - and somone had suggested 'hanging out in that creepy old house' so they could 'get high in peace and maybe see some ghosts' (cue the obligatory 'oooooh' sounds and waggling fingers). It had all sounded so fun at the time … and he did recall having fun.
There was drinking, smoking, snorting, and partying before they passed out in chairs, on the floor, atop the old pool table, slumped sideways on the stairs, wherever they were stood or sat. The punchline came when everyone woke up … except for him.
He had sat with his own body for four hours before his friends stopped laughing at themselves and realised he wasn't breathing.
Four long hours he had cried, staring at the blood and puke and frothy spit that coated his face. A vile film of horror and regret. He had watched his skin pale, his eyes dull, and his body shake until it couldn't anymore. His own death rattle would haunt his afterlife; a cruel irony that twisted into his soul like a cold knife.
At least his best friend had the decency to call his parents and the police rather than flee and cover it up like the others tried to do. His best friend even came to vist the place a few times. First to cry, then to talk, and eventually to say goodbye as he moved on with his life.
Soon, even the police tape outside had left, blown away one winter by a strong gust of wind. Now, nothing of his death remained … except for him.
—
His thoughts were interrupted by the blinding light of the living group's camera as they entered the building one-by-one.
'Whoa … get a load of this place,' the woman in the group gasped as she looked all around them taking in the cobwebbed decor. 'I bet it was stunning back in the day.'
'Are we here for the architecture or the supernatural, Emily?' A short, slim man at the back of the group rolled his eyes at her. John thought he looked rather gaunt, much like a ghoul.
Emily responded by raising her middle finger at him. 'Why can't it be both, dickhead? So uncultured …'
John liked her. Then, he remembered she was living and he wrinkled his nose as though he had smelt something unpleasant.
'Oh, guys - there's a freakin' bar,' the ghoulish man sprinted to the billiard room leaving the others in the cloud of dust he had unsettled.
Emily sighed as she followed him. The final man, who must have been just over 6 foot by John's reckoning, scanned the place with his night vision camera. His camera lens lingered on the space John occupied for longer than he liked but, just when he started to worry he was visible, the man shrugged and joined his companions.
If John could breathe, he imagined he would have just let out a very long breath of relief. He shook off the feeling and stalked the group, deliberately standing on the wooden floorboards of the billiard room that were prone to creaking. With each step the group's breath would quicken collectively, their eyes flitting back and forth trying to discern any spectral visitors joining them.
George was slouching behind the bar, his elbows resting on the counter and his head in his hands.
John raised his arms in frustration. 'George, what the fuck, man? Where is your gusto? Your angst? You're meant to be a poltergeist, not part of the furniture.'
'I'm too melancholy … do it yourself.'
'You mean you're feeling sorry for yourself again?' John scoffed. 'Why are you still so hung up on being written out of your family's will? You drank yourself to death long before they died so the point is fucking moot and they still buried you on the family land.'
George stood up straight. 'They buried me with the black sheep - the unmarried whores and disease-addled rakes, my cousin who murdered his wife, my divorced aunt - they gave me no respect.'
John smiled at the emotion spilling out of the man - he could get George to where he needed to be. 'Respect? How could they have respected a drunkard and gambler who used their cellar to aide and abet criminals?'
'Criminals?! Those men were my friends - the only ones I had.' George screamed. The chandelier in the middle of the room swung wildly and the floor vibrated.
'By George, I think we got it,' John said to himself.
'I deserved to be loved, and buried with the best of them.' George picked up the nearest glass and launched it at John's head.
The item when straight through his cheek. 'Hey, arsehole, if I was living that would have really hurt.'
Another glass was thrown.
A loud scream broke the silence - though not from Emily as John had expected, but from the ghoulish man he had seen earlier.
Then a third.
'Fucking shit on my face,' yelled the man with the camera. There was silence followed by abrupt laughter.
'What kinda reaction was that, Adam?' Emily wheezed.
A fourth glass was thrown.
Everyone, including John, hurried out the room. He closed the door behind them and the trio jumped once again as it slammed shut.
Emily grabbed the door knob and tried to twist it open but John's grip held fast. She soon gave up with a huff, 'I guess we're not welcome in there any more.'
As she moved away, her hand grazed John's abdomen and she stopped mid-step.
'Hey, guys,' she whispered, 'whose got the thermo reader? This spot is sooo cold right now.'
The small guy pulled out one of those digital thermometer's that scans a room or an area for a temperature reading. He held it up to where John was standing.
'Woah, you're right,' he said before plunging his free hand into John's stomach.
'Oi, do you guys mind?' He pushed past them, smiling as they wriggled in the discomfort of his touch. 'Kids these days … no sense of personal space.'
'The temperature has gone back up again. Damn it.'
John hurried on ahead to the dining room where Frederik was waiting.
'We good to go, Frenchie?'
'Branleur anglais, je suis français, on sait comment jouer.'
John raised an eyebrow, then smiled like a simpleton. 'I will take that as a 'yes'.'
Frederik swatted away imaginary flies again.
As if on cue, the group joined them.
'I'm telling you, I've got a good feeling about this one,' Adam said from behind his camera.
Frederik walked over to the group with strange leg-fully-extended strides. He provided the answer to a question John never thought he would ask: what a goose-stepping peacock might look like. He stifled a laugh.
To his credit, Frederik did as John had instructed. Once he was part of their group, he didn't leave their sides. He breathed on their necks, stroked their cheeks with the back of his hands, and he misaligned his steps to their own just enough to mess with their heads and pereption of sound.
The group were beginning to sweat - literally, he could smell it. Wouldn't be long now until they ran for the car and left them alone.
'M… maybe … we should try calling out?' Emily said. 'We haven't tried that yet.'
'David, get the EMF reader,' Adam said, his voice hoarse.
David, the shorter man, did as he was asked. He waited for the K2 to do its just-turned-on tests then moved the small black object around the room. It eventually settled on Frederik and the lights on its forward facing edge lit all the way up to red.
'Okay, good.' Adam said as he pointed his night vision camera in the same direction.
'If that's you making the light turn red … can you move away from it, so we can know for sure it's you?' Emily swallowed to wet her throat.
Frederik obliged.
The group gasped.
John rolled his eyes.
'Thank you,' Emily's voice picked up. 'Can you make the lights go red again if you are the ghost of the man whose family owned this house?'
Nothing happened.
'Okay … are you the guy who choked on his own vomit?' David sneered.
Emily jabbed him in the ribs. 'You gotta be nice to the dead. Lest they follow you home … idiot.'
John wished he could. Oh, the fun he would have.
Frederik tutted and tapped his polony heels. John watched the absurd floppy decorations bounce up and down with the movement.
'Are you the Frenchman that died on the grounds?'
'Ah,tu vois, je suis célèbre,' Frederik sighed as he lit up the K2. John could feel the ghost's sarcasm from across the room.
'What happened with the Frenchman?'
'Seriously, David? You didn't read the research I sent you?'
The man shook his head.
Adam banged his head gently on the frame of his camera in exasperation. 'The guy was in love with one of the serving girls who worked here back in like the 1600s . He died of a heartattack on the night they planned to elope.'
'Well, it wasn't just that,' Emily piped up. 'The lord of the manor though the Frenchman was after his daughter and that the serving girl was just a ruse, or being used by him, to get to his real target … there's a theory that he met the Frenchman while he was waiting for his love, strangled him, then paid off the officials to say it was a heart attack.'
John looked at Frederik who shrugged and replied, 'C'est vrai... que dire.'
'I guess we'll never know the truth,' Adam angled the camera down to ease the strain on his arm for a moment. 'We getting anything more?'
David scanned the room with his equipment.
Frederik looked out of the window towards the overgrown grounds. As he walked through the outer wall of the house he muttered, 'Quelle belle nuit pour me souvenir de mon amour et de ma mort tragique.'
'No, nothing. Well, there was a little blip over there -' he pointed in the direction of John, '- but nothing like before. Perhaps we spooked it off.'
Emily stomped back out into the hallway. 'Let's just try another room.'
John slipped through the ornate fireplace behind him into the drawing room. Mae was sitting cross-legged on a large leather armchair - part of a pair - positioned by one of the floor to ceiling windows overlooking the once grand - now dry, cracked, and lichen-ridden - fountain.
He waved at her as she peeked over the top of the chair at him.
Emily walked in ahead of the others and threw herself in the chair opposite Mae.
David followed a moment later pulling yet another device - this time a little radio box - out of his pockets.
Adam entered last, face still hidden behind his camera. John considered tripping him.
David walked with hunched shoulders over to the vast rug opposthat spanned half the floor. He slumped down onto it, sitting with his legs crossed, facing the window. Adam chose to look at the bookshelves - through his camera lens, of course - and the books that would not have been out of place at a museum.
Emily swung her legs over the arm of the chair, using the other arm to support her back, and looked at the cracked ceiling. 'Well, tonight has had some spooks, I suppose … I was really hoping we were going to get more.'
David cleared his through and gestured at the radio box he was still clutching in his hand. 'Why don't we try having a real conversation? See who comes to say hello.'
Adam came over to record the event. 'Who do we think we've spoken to so far? I mean we've had the Frenchman -'
'- and the poltergeist in the billiard room … not sure who that was though.' Emily shrugged.
'Could that have been the teenager? The one who died here in the '90s?'
'It's possible - he could be angry at dying so young. But, there was also that guy who died back in the 1700s. His family owned the place … bit of a bad egg from what I read about him.'
'Well, that only leaves one other really -'
David groaned. 'Give it a rest will you? Let's just see who turns up.'
Emily and Adam joined David on the rug, forming an odd triangle-circle around the radio box. David turned it on, letting out a roar of static interspersed with voices saying random words. He asked the first question.
'Is anyone here?'
John looked at Mae then nodded in the direction of the radio box. Mae saluted and crept over to the group. Although it was not her voice, her words juttered through the equipment.
Yes.
Emily gasped. 'Okay - who are you?'
Let's play … game.
'A game?' Adam frowned. 'Perhaps it's the little kid … the, erm, Victorian one.'
Yes.
'They're good at this,' the girl beamed up at John. He returned the smile.
'What's your name?' Adam called out.
Guess.
She giggled and silently played an imaginary game of 'duck, duck, goose' with the trio.
'Agatha?'
Mae wrinked her nose at that.
'Gemima?'
'What is she?A goose?'
Mae laughed.
'Mary.'
'Ooh, that guess was close, John.'
'Mildred.'
Mae stopped circling the living and looked up at John. The glint in her eyes had dulled. 'Why can't they guess my name, John?'
She sniffled as if she were capable of crying again. 'Have we been forgotten? I don't want to be forgotten …'
John took a step towards her. 'Perhaps we should stop the games.'
Emily slammed her hand down on the rug and coughed at the dust now rising into the air. 'This is impossible.'
'We're not getting any further responses now, ' David turned off the box. The house immediately felt a hundred times more quiet.
'How did she die?' Adam asked. At one look from Emily he added, 'I read the research - I just don't remember it.'
Emily looked around them as if Mae might materialise there are then. 'It was tragic really. The head servants here would beat her for any reason they could find. One day she found a small place to hide in and she got herself stuck. No one was able to find her, and they assumed she had run away. That was until the smell of her decomposing body led them right to her.'
'The fuck, man,' David breathed. 'That's dark.'
To John, Mae's reaction now made perfect sense. He had never asked her about her death before. It had never seemed right to do so.
He ran over to her, and picked her up, letting her sob into the crook of his neck. 'Don't worry, Mae. I will never forget you or let you be forgotten. Now, how about we go make the house extra creepy for the next stupid living that come along?'
'Okay', Mae said, her head still nestled into his neck.
Just then George appeared in the doorway. He gave a curt gesture at the living. John's eyes hardened and he gave his fellow ghost a confirmatory nod before carrying Mae out of the room.
Within minutes the living trio were screaming and running for their car; their night vision camera cracked and the spirit box left behind. John thought that was rather fitting when he saw it … after all, it was just like the living to be careless and forget.
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