Whispers From Behind The Cellar Door , livre ebook

Andrews UK - Alex Woolf

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71 pages

English

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Tales to send chills down your spine, raise goosebumps and stand your hair on end. Tales to terrify and disturb, to intrigue and unsettle. Fans of horror and the supernatural will relish this collection of original stories, featuring among much else...- a haunted swimming pool- something horrible in a garden shed- a doppelganger husband- a zombie mother-in-law- a ghostly sender of emails- and an embalming that goes very wrong indeed...

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Short story

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Publié par	Andrews UK
Date de parution	27 mai 2014
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781849897686
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0100€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Whispers from Behind the Cellar Door

Twelve Terrifying Tales to Take You Into the Night

Publisher Information

Whispers from behind the Cellar Door
Published in 2011 by Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published, and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

The characters and situations in this book are entirely imaginary and bear no relation to any real person or actual happening.

Copyright © Alex Woolf

The right of Alex Woolf to be identified as author of this book has been asserted in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyrights Designs and Patents Act 1988.

The Swimming Pool

Soft light reflecting from the dark blue surface of the pool danced and swayed on the glass-and-wrought-iron ceiling and on the shiny leaves of the giant pot plants that lined the water’s edge. The room, though dominated by the swimming pool, was also a conservatory, and the proximity of lush, colourful vegetation to the curving, irregular edge of the water called to my mind a rainforest pond. Or a luxuriant fantasy of one – the water was, after all, chlorinated, and surrounded by a good three feet of travertine tiling. The low wicker table and matching chairs in the alcove to my right further softened the initial impression of a jungle watering hole, making it seem closer to a colonial retreat.
I turned to my host. ‘Ferdy, this is lovely – the best room in the house. I want to strip off and get in there right now.’
‘You’ll have to wait,’ he smiled. ‘Supper’s being served in the dining room in ten minutes.’
I almost laughed to hear him say that - Ferdy Stokes, who grew up on a council estate in East London. He probably never dreamed he’d one day have supper served to him in his own dining room, let alone have his own pool. Wealth suited him, though. As did marriage to Susie. I’d never seen him happier. Or fatter.
Susie was on top form at supper. Her liveliness and sparkle kindled a spiritedness in Ferdy that I hadn’t known since the very earliest days of our friendship. You’d have thought that such a normally taciturn chap would have been overwhelmed into silence by her, but no – Susie was forever coaxing contributions out of him: she wasn’t satisfied to let her husband ride on her own conversational coat-tails.
‘Tell Philip about our neighbour, Ferdy,’ she would urge. ‘You know, Old long-hair. What’s his name? Go on – about the time he asked us if he could use our pool.’
So Ferdy would obligingly relate the story of how this chap, Richard somebody-or-other, came to their door one day soon after they’d bought the place and announced that the previous owners had let him use the pool on a regular basis, and would Ferdy be so kind as to continue the arrangement. Ferdy had been taken aback by the fellow’s twinkling eyes and humble demeanour and had agreed without really thinking. And now this Richard had become a bi-weekly visitor.
If anyone was coasting at that table it was me. The maple-glazed lamb burgers filled with goat’s cheese, garlic and rosemary, served up by their lovely Italian au pair, Fiametta, were astoundingly tasty, and the Chateau Latour 1982 gave the whole meal the quality of something very rich and dreamy.
It was therefore with some abruptness that I was brought back down to earth when, over black coffee and tiramasu, Susie persuaded her husband to recount a sad story concerning the previous owners. He knew very few details, but was given to understand that part of the reason for their haste in selling the property – and the relatively low price for which Ferdy was able to secure it – was a personal tragedy that had permanently soured their attitude to the house: their daughter had, apparently, drowned in the swimming pool.
In the silence that followed this revelation, broken only by the clink of teaspoons on china, I thought again about that tropical haven and the play of light on the glass and the glossy green leaves. The scene now felt less appealing than earlier. Those large hibisci, bougainvillaea and alocasias now appeared, in my memory, overbearing, crowding the space and casting deep shadows on the water, blocking out the cries of a struggling girl.
Some of my earlier mood was restored when Ferdy and I removed ourselves to the lounge to partake of some of his VSOP Hennessy cognac. Susie declined to join us, citing the desire for an early night, what with her ceramics exhibition opening in a few days-time. She knew we wished to talk of old times, bachelor days, and it was typical of her thoughtfulness not to intrude. The lounge was more akin to a medieval hall, with its hammerbeam roof, rug-covered stone floor and enormous hearth, where Ferdy soon had a fire crackling away.
We sat there in opposing armchairs on either side of the fire, which warmed our faces (as the brandy warmed our insides) and cast deep, flickering shadows around the room. We covered well-worn paths of reminiscence: school days, old friends, Saturday afternoons watching the football, early business ventures. I was never envious of Ferdy’s success as an internet entrepreneur. I hadn’t done badly myself, though I wasn’t anywhere near his league. Ferdy topped up my brandy, then we talked on about other mutual interests. Eventually, he rose and stretched his substantial frame. ‘Well, if it’s okay with you, old friend,’ he declared, ‘I’m going to turn in. But you take your time. Finish your drink. You know where your room is, I take it?’
‘Susie’s shown me where everything is,’ I reassured him. ‘I’ll be fine. You go to bed.’
When Ferdy had departed, I put another log on the fire. I was feeling mellow, yet wide awake – certainly not ready for bed. I found a dog-eared tome on an occasional table: a history of the locality, full of grainy black-and-whites showing horses and carts and people in flat caps. I was soon engrossed, as much by the pictures as the text. I was impressed by the dedication, the love, that had motivated the writer to explore in such detail the history of this small suburban backwater. Why travel the world, he seemed to imply, when you can find these riches in your own neighbourhood. So rapt was I that I failed to notice that I was no longer alone.
‘Good evening,’ said the stranger in a deep baritone, nearly causing me to drop my balloon glass.
He was standing on the far side of the room, close to the doorway that led to the swimming pool. His large brown head was cocked slightly as he looked at me. Long, slightly wet grey hair hung around his shoulders. He was so still, he could have been standing there for ten minutes and I wouldn’t have known it.
‘Good evening,’ I replied uncertainly.

‘I’m Richard. From next door.’ So this was the mysterious water-loving neighbour Ferdy had mentioned earlier. ‘Mind if I join you?’ He pushed his head forward as he said this and clasped his hands, as though I would be doing him a great honour.
‘Of course,’ I said, putting down the book and gesturing to the vacant chair.
‘Thank-you. Thank-you. I need to warm my bones.’
Richard was a tall man of about sixty, with pale grey eyes and a thoughtful demeanour. A small, irregular twitch disturbed his gaunt brown cheek. His knees rose up as he sat on the low chair.
‘Did you have a good swim?’
He didn’t reply. I noticed he had no towel or bag with him. Perhaps he kept his kit here. His red shirt had dark patches on it: he hadn’t dried himself very well. The man didn’t appear inclined to chat – perhaps it was warmth, not company, he wanted. I returned my attention to the book.
‘The world is very big,’ he suddenly said. ‘You can only ever know a small part of it.’
‘You’re right about that,’ I said. ‘In fact I was just thinking a very similar thought myself.’ I began to tell him about the book I was reading, but he cut through my words.
‘– And even the small part that you know,’ he declared, ‘you can never know completely.’
‘Quite,’ I murmered, wondering what on earth the man was getting at.
‘Think for a minute,’ he persisted, ‘of all those quiet spaces: the corner of a field in Sussex; a windblown acre of Russian steppe; a barren Antipodean hill; a clearing in a Brazilian forest.’
‘What of them?’ I asked.
‘So many uninhabited spaces all over this planet. What happens to them, in them, when people aren’t around? Do they just … exist…? Even here in our home town – we think we know it. But we only ever know the smallest part of it. There are spaces even in our own homes that we don’t visit much, if ever. But they go on existing, unobserved.’ His breath caught slightly on the intake, like a small sob. ‘This thought … it troubles me.’
‘I guess the world just goes on,’ I shrugged. ‘Most of it’s pretty uneventful.’
‘It actually seems wasteful,’ he added. ‘For what is the point of something if no conscious being observes it?’
‘None,’ I agreed, ‘from a human perspective at least. But by that reckoning, the entire cosmos, apart from Earth, is pretty much a waste.’
‘If …’ he whispered, ‘you believe that nothing ever happens in those so-called empty spaces.’
I swallowed the remains of my cognac. ‘And you, I take it, don’t.’
His eyes remained fixed on me. ‘There’s a corner of the swimming pool,’ he said. ‘On the far side - the deep end.’
‘What of it?’ I asked.
‘It’s one of those quiet, uninhabited spaces we were speaking of,’ he said. ‘No reason ever