The Patchwork House Read online

  The only sounds were the creaking steps beneath our feet and the hiss of the camping lamp. I should have gone to get my phone from the charger so I could use the flashlight app. Or I should have picked up one of the torches from the supply bag. Instead I had no light source of my own and I could only see by the light of Derek’s lamp, which cast eerie shadows along the walls and safety rail as we neared the top of the staircase.

  “Tell me about the ghosts in this house?” he whispered as he stepped onto the landing.

  “There are three of them, the groundskeeper says. The noisy one is the grandfather of the last occupant, apparently. He died in one of the bedrooms and likes to throw stuff around.”

  “Which room is above the kitchen?”

  “There’s an apartment at the back of the house. That door at the back of the kitchen leads up to it. But the bang came from the library. I’ll show you.”

  “Is that where the old man died?”

  “Nope. Maybe he’s just an avid reader.”

  These were the friendliest words Derek and I had shared since he’d arrived. It felt like we were teenagers again, sneaking off to go ghost hunting in Gibbet Lane late in the evening, in the village Derek grew up in. I came to that village as a twelve-year-old after moving from place to place all my life. Hafferty was the first place that felt like home, and Derek was the first friend I kept for longer than a few months.

  Now here we were, chasing a ghost in an old, creaky house.

  I was scared, my stomach was threatening to eject my dinner all over the carpet, and I had to fight the urge to run back downstairs. But I loved it.

  I could tell Derek was finally enjoying himself too. We advanced down the long corridor like a pair of spies on a mission. The lamp was making our immediate surroundings very bright, but it abandoned the rest of the upper floor to total darkness.

  “Why not turn the lamp off?” I suggested.

  Derek did so. We waited while our eyes adjusted, and sure enough there was still enough ambient light to see a little further than the lamp had allowed, once our eyes adjusted. In a way it was less scary up here without the lamp, although there were plenty of darkened areas along the corridor in which shadows could thrive.

  I moved past Derek to the library door.

  “In here,” I said, somewhat unnecessarily, and stepped inside.

  Derek was right behind me.

  The room was empty. No movement, no ghosts, nothing weird at all.

  “Whatever it was didn’t come from in here,” Derek said.

  Indeed, everything was how it used to be.

  Except it wasn’t. Not even slightly. Something really fundamental had changed. Disbelief gripped my senses. My hair stood on end and my hands started to shake.

  I raised a trembling finger to point to the bookcase.

  “What is it?” he asked, firing up the lamp again. The light chased the shadows into the corners and lit up the most astonishing sight that defied explanation. To Derek, who had not been in here before, everything looked totally normal. But not to me.

  “When I was up here, before dinner, the bookcase…” I couldn’t finish what I was saying.

  “What? Tell me!”

  “The bookcase was over there.”

  I pointed to the right side of the room. The space where the bookcase used to be was empty. Now, impossibly, it stood on the other side of the room, directly in front of the book shelves on the wall.

  “Are you sure it moved?” Derek’s incredulity was obvious.

  “Of course I’m sure.”

  I moved closer. I didn’t want to go anywhere near the bookcase, so instead I went to the place it had been standing earlier in the day. Sure enough, the carpet showed four deep indentations where the heavy piece of furniture once rested.

  “That doesn’t prove anything. Maybe it was moved before we arrived.”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “You think I’m lying?”

  “I think you might be playing one of your oh-so-hilarious pranks, Jim.”

  I stared at him for a good long minute. “Try and lift it,” I said eventually.

  “What?”

  “Try and lift the bookcase.”

  “Okay.” Derek placed the lamp on the reading table in the middle of the room and crossed to the bookcase. He tested it by using both hands to try to lift one end, and of course it didn’t move. Then he wrapped his arms around it and placed his hands under the top shelves. He heaved. It didn’t shift so much as a millimeter.

  “So it’s bloody heavy,” Derek said. “Maybe it was moved before we arrived.”

  “Moved by whom?” I stammered. “And why?”

  “I don’t know. You tell me.”

  I was really starting to get pissed off with him now. I’d invited him here, given him a chance to salvage his weekend away from the kids for the first time in forever, I’d got him out of the doghouse with his wife and I’d done it entirely of my own volition. I had done a good thing for my old friend and he was essentially calling me a liar.

  Suddenly I realized something. “I can prove it.”

  “How?”

  “Back downstairs.”

  I ran from the room, back to the stairs and hurried down. I heard Derek following me at a slower pace, his swinging lamp making my shadow lurch across the wall as I descended. I burst into the kitchen so suddenly it made the girls jump.

  “So, what was it?” Chloe asked.

  I didn’t answer. Instead I went straight for my camera, opening it up and hitting rewind.

  Derek entered behind me, his lamp increasing the ambient brightness in the kitchen.

  “Jim thinks a piece of furniture moved,” he said.

  “And that caused the bang?” Beth asked.

  “Jim thinks so.”

  I shook my head, my eyes locked on the camera’s LCD screen, watching the images flick by in reverse. “Not just a piece of furniture,” I said, glancing up at Beth. “A fucking heavy bookcase that would take a team of people to lift—ah ha!”

  I stabbed the play button and thrust the camera at Derek triumphantly. He peered at it. The girls gathered around, unsure of what they were looking for.

  “Well I’ll be…” Derek said, the colour draining from his face.

  “See, the bookcase was on the other side of the room!”

  “Holy shit.”

  “What? I can’t see,” Chloe complained.

  “Then come upstairs.”

  “I don’t want to.” Chloe looked visibly upset now.

  “Please, I want to be sure we’re not crazy.”

  Beth agreed to come with us. I think Chloe came too because she didn’t want to be left downstairs alone. All four of us went out into the hall. I grabbed a lamp and ducked into the drawing room before we went upstairs. I took my now fully charged smartphone from its cradle and picked up two torches. Rejoining the others, I gave Chloe my lamp and switched on my torch, passing the other to Beth. Now we all had a way to see in the dark, and we needed it because the natural light was all gone.

  The sun had set on Binsham House and I was now convinced that something was in here with us.

  We shuffled upstairs to the library. It reminded me of an old Berenstein Bears book I read as a kid. It was about three bears investigating a spooky old tree. It was one of the first books I ever remember reading to myself. I loved that book. The three bears, one with a light, one with a stick, and one with the shivers.

  But we were four, we were adults, and by God half the reason we’d come here was to see a ghost.

  I showed the girls the bookcase, the indentations in the carpet, and the footage on the camera again.

  We stood in the library in stunned silence.

  “I can’t explain it,” Beth said.

  “Do you have a bunch of people hiding here?” Derek accused me. “Will they all pop out and say boo any minute? Did you invite some other old friends to meet us here? Are Ben and Nick going to show up at the front door and say hi as if th
ey’ve just arrived?”

  “I swear we’re the only people in the house. And if I did set something up, surely I wouldn’t wait this long to spring the surprise. I’d have scared you all hours ago. Besides, it would take at least six people with lifting gear to move this bookcase. I mean look.” I went over to the place the bookcase used to be and shone my torch on the floor. “The fucking floorboards are bowed where it used to stand. The wood is less faded. That bookcase hasn’t moved for years.”

  Derek still didn’t look convinced. What the hell was his problem? I wasn’t making this shit up. This wasn’t some elaborate ruse designed to freak everybody out.

  We went back downstairs to the kitchen and tried to finish our food. Nobody was hungry anymore. We were all a bit shell-shocked. Nobody spoke. I could tell their brains were busy doing the same thing mine was: trying to work out what could have picked up something that heavy and moved it clear across the room.

  The next bang was nearly too much for Chloe. She shrieked and dropped the glass she was holding. It didn’t fall far and it didn’t shatter, but the sound it made as it hit the table made us jump again. The bang had come from the library again. I wondered if the bookcase had moved back to its original position, or somewhere else entirely.

  “I don’t like this,” Chloe said. “I think we’ve pissed something off.”

  I could see my weekend plans disintegrating before my eyes.

  “Chloe, it’s fine,” I assured her. I wasn’t ready to leave and I knew that would be her next suggestion. “It’s weird but it’s fine. I mean how cool is this? A real ghost.”

  “I guess.” She gave a brave smile. “But it sounds angry to me. Derek, what do you think?”

  “I think we should try and get it on camera.”

  I grinned. “Now you’re talking.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. We’ve got a video camera, a still camera, we’ve got night vision lenses, we’ve got a tripod…

  “We have a laptop with a huge hard drive,” I added.

  “So, let’s set up a camera at the top of the stairs, and another in the library.”

  But Chloe was still not convinced. She was clearly looking to her husband to agree with her unspoken intentions.

  “You want to stay?” she said, in a tone of voice that made it clear this was the wrong decision.

  “I want to see what this thing is.”

  “Is anyone going to ask my opinion?” Beth said.

  I slid off my chair and put my arm around her. “You’re not scared, right Beth?”

  “I’m scared, I don’t mind admitting it. But I’m curious too. I want to see if it will do anything else.”

  “Sorry, hon,” Derek said, aware that his wife was outvoted and likely to take it out on him. “But how often do we get an opportunity like this?”

  Chloe sighed. “All right then, we’ll stay.”

  “But promise me this, Jim,” Beth said.

  “Sure, name it.”

  “If this thing, whatever it is, if it gets violent with us, if it threatens us or puts us in danger, we leave. Okay?”

  I looked at Derek and he nodded. “Okay,” I said. “First sign it’s hostile towards us, we jump in the car and I will drive you wherever you want to go.”

  “Not many options,” Chloe grumbled.

  It was settled. I suddenly felt really excited. This was our chance to capture real paranormal activity on camera!

  “Okay,” I said. “Here’s the rules. Nobody goes anywhere alone. We even go in pairs to the toilet. We’ve all seen enough scary movies to know what happens when folks are separated. Everyone carries a spare torch even if they have a lamp. Derek and I will set up the cameras upstairs. Why don’t you two clear up in here and then setup the drawing room for us to sleep tonight?”

  “Sure, leave us to do the women’s work,” Beth said.

  Derek ignored her. “How much free space you have on the camera?”

  “Oh I’ll plug it into the laptop and download the recording directly to the hard drive. I have extra-sized battery packs for the camera and the laptop—Dad went to town on batteries because he knew we’d have no power. I can setup the digital camera in the hallway to take a picture every ten seconds, and have the video camera rolling constantly in the library. I’ll have to turn the quality down a bit to save space, but it should be able to last all night.”

  “If only everything would last all night,” Beth said.

  “Ha ha.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Ten minutes later, Derek and I were working to set up our equipment at the top of the stairs. I attached the night vision lens to the DSLR camera and then configured it to go off every ten seconds with no flash. Then I handed it to Derek, who held it while I descended a few steps and then reached through the wooden bars to take it from him. I tried placing it in various positions until I was satisfied the camera had the best view of the landing, pointing towards the library. Derek took masking tape and wrapped it around the camera and the railing several times, being careful not to obscure the lens or the controls.

  I checked to make sure it was taking pictures and then we moved to the library.

  “Turn off the lamp a moment.”

  Derek did as I asked and the hissing ceased. Then I turned off my torch.

  It was quite astonishing how dark it was. It wasn’t just a case of our eyes having to get used to the gloom. We literally couldn’t see a thing. I held a hand in front of my face and wiggled my fingers. I saw nothing.

  I broke the silence. “Now that’s dark.”

  Both of us lived in the city. It was virtually impossible to shut out the light. At night, streetlamps illuminated our apartments through curtains or shutters. Electronics cast an eerie glow with their standby lights. But here, in this room, with our lamps off and the video camera powered down, even though there was nothing covering the window, we stood in pitch darkness.

  “Wow,” I said. “You still there?”

  “Yep,” said Derek. “I don’t remember being anywhere so dark before.”

  I looked towards the window. It must have been an overcast night because we couldn’t see stars or the moon.

  “You could shut yourself in a meat locker with the light off, I suppose,” I said.

  “Not my idea of fun. If you turn off all the lights in my flat and go in the bathroom with the door closed, it might get this dark.”

  I chuckled. “Is that something you do a lot?”

  “I think we should turn the lights on now.”

  “Scared?”

  “Not yet. Getting there.”

  The gas lamp hissed into life again. We blinked and shielded our eyes from the sudden intrusion. Once my eyes had adjusted, I glanced around the room. Nothing had moved this time. Derek placed the lamp on the centre table.

  He worked on the tripod while I powered up the video camera and laptop and connected them together. Both had extra-capacity battery packs with a full charge, so in theory they should last throughout the night. I checked my iPhone. The time was 9pm. It felt like the middle of the night already.

  The camera was rolling and I checked the images were going straight to the laptop hard drive. Then I paused it and mounted it on the tripod.

  “We should try to cover as much of the room as we can,” Derek said.

  “Over here should do it.” I picked up the tripod and moved to the corner next to the window, away from the wall shelves. Derek followed carrying the laptop, keeping the connecting cables slack. I stood the tripod up and checked the test image on the laptop Derek was holding. I shifted the camera to take in the impossible bookcase, the area where the bookcase used to be, and the covered table and chairs in the centre of the room. Derek was still holding the laptop, so I went over and grabbed him a small side table, removing the plant on it first.

  As I adjusted the camera position, Derek picked up the lamp from the centre table.

  “So I guess you weren’t that keen on coming,” I said. I had to bring it
up at some point. If he was pissed at me, I wanted to know why and I didn’t want Chloe answering for him.

  “No, mate, it’s fine, really. It’s good to see you.” That was obviously a lie. “Pass me the tape would you? I want to make sure nothing knocks this tripod over.” I handed him the tape but I wouldn’t let him change the subject.

  “If it was up to you and not Chloe, would you have come?”

  “Well I had to make it up to her so I couldn’t say no.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  He let out a deep breath. “What do you want me to say, Jim? You want me to say no? Okay no, I probably wouldn’t have.”

  “Why? Is it me?”

  “Jesus… You don’t give up, do you? We’ve hardly spoken in years. We have different lives now. It was like a stranger calling me up out of the blue to ask if I’d like to spend the weekend in his big scary house. Things are so different now. We’re not the same people. Plus there’s the whole charity thing of you helping us out, and while I appreciate the sentiment I fucking loathe being treated like we’re in need of handouts.”

  “I can understand that.”

  Still he wasn’t telling me the full story. He was holding something back.

  We were pretty much done so I dropped it for now. At least he was talking to me and we had a common goal to pursue. That took some of the awkwardness away. Satisfied that the equipment wasn’t going to shut down automatically, run out of batteries or just fall over, we went back downstairs.

  In the drawing room, with the door and window shutters closed, it almost seemed cozy. The dust covers were gone revealing comfortable leather furniture. The carpet was old and a bit worn, but it was clean. This was by far the warmest room in the house so we didn’t need to roll out our sleeping bags just yet. We would all be sleeping in here tonight. Our original plan was to give Derek and Chloe their privacy (and Beth and I, ours) but after what had happened we all agreed to stick together. We were all tired, but nobody wanted to turn in so early in the evening. None of us was sure we could even sleep.

  Chloe announced that she needed to pee, so we suggested she use one of the downstairs toilets, a small room under the stairs accessible from the hallway. Derek and Chloe went together. While they were gone, I had my first chance to talk alone with Beth since they’d arrived.