Nurses Get Spooked

Here is a little ghost story I wrote the other day. Lots of love Circle

Now is the time for the Story.. It is written at midnight. It is written in a dark room as the candle flickers and dies......................

Norfolk is the place of swirling sea mists and howling winds, dark nights and strange myths. Its people offer up guarded comments about their supernatural connections. One eye on their pagan past and the other on the church. Hurry to the church at midnight my Norfolk folk! Hurry for sanctuary from the Black Shuck!! He snaps at the heels of your ancestors as you run towards the new religion.

My story starts in a simple way amongst straightforward folk many years ago. The year is 1971 in the sleepy old Norfolk market town of Aylsham. The good folk awake to another supposedly ordinary day. Only this day will never be ordinary! With shock the word goes around like fire that there has been a murder.Unheard of in this quiet rural community. No murder here surely? Market day on Tuesday; half closing day on Wednesday and on Thursday bell ringing at the Church. On Friday we eat our fish and on Saturday go down to The Black Boys for a pint. On Sunday we go to Church and sing our hyms and on Monday ..............Monday a teenage girl is found lying in a ditch - face down - viciously raped and strangled. Aylsham reels and Aylsham groans and Aylsham fears. In her midst is a murderer.
The bungling local police do their searches and are quickly replaced by the London slick-boys from Scotland Yard. "Get out of the way you country bumpkins here come the CID to do a proper Investigation". Only the Investigation starts in August, falters in September and by November turns up no new leads. All the good men of Aylsham have blood samples taken to eliminate them from the list of suspects. Wives; Sisters and Girlfriends ask the dreaded question - "can my Husband; Brother; Boyfriend be the murderer?" All the women look on all the men with suspicion. "Are you a murderer and rapist man scum?" 1971 is the year of feminism and this year the all men are filth.
In this general unease and suspicion I begin my story about the haunted house. Please bear in mind that my story is true and if you should be tempted to walk down lonely Norfolk lanes remember it well. Black Shuck could be behind your shoulder. But enough of him - the Devils Hound - let us try to concentrate on our House of Horrors. Our House or should I say the Railway Cottage. Many years ago - back in the Victorian Times - a railway line ran past this cottage. Our rural idyll with rose bushes and weeping willows. Thatched cottage with a herb garden and a little stone path that led down to the garden gate that adjoined the railway line. From there could often be seen the old steam locomotives and shunting wagons. Firesmoke and cinders and shrill loco whistles.
Now the cottage of 71 had seen the old railway line taken-up. The rose bushes had all but grown wild and the weeping willows weeped a little more with advancing old age and decay. Chances are that the little stone path was that overgrown and uncared for that there was no way to go down to the little wooden gate that used to overlook the track. So our fateful young friends found the Cottage in 71 and decided to move in. They were four student nurses. The Studious One; the Religious One; the Partygoer and the Dabbler. "Yes" they said to the landlord . I think it was the partygoer that said yes to him. She said yes to a lot of men I am told. The Studious One said it would be a good place to study - nice and quiet. Very quiet as the Cottage stood some way out of town. No neighbours here to disturb her studies. The Partygoer said she could get a lift with her boyfriend into town for some partying. The Religious One prayed for a blessing on the house. What she got was a curse but let us not talk of that yet. And the Dabbler, the investigator the tryer and the tinker what did she do?..........

..........The Dabbler dabbl

[edit on 5-6-2008 by Circle]

The Dabbler dabbled and she tried out her new toy. Almost the first night there in the Cottage she dabbled. The object of her curiosity was - the Ouija Board.( Oh Black Shuck I hear your howls for blood and for souls - for all good DABBLERS.) And so it started. Innocent fun for young teenage students in our solitary Cottage.And so the madness started.

First they thought it was a prank. Maybe the Partygoer was having a laugh. Always when the Religious or Studious Ones were alone. The old heavy cast iron and oak front door of the cottage would be opened. Never mind that it weighed a hundred-weight to move and creaked and groaned in the moving. Shut and latched no wind could move it. Solid. Only every evening the door was discovered opened. The Studious One even locked the door but still would find it ajar and the iron black key lying on the floor. Then the footsteps were heard. Yes, the footsteps could be heard coming from the door and moving up the long corridor that intersected the cottage. Each of the girls rooms led of this corridor. Religious One prayed that the footsteps would not stop at her door. She could see here breath clearly as the steps came closer and closer. Again and again this would happen. At last, one night, unable to bear any more torment, she burst open her to face the interloper. Nothing. Nothing.

Religious One packed her things, and left the Cottage, not to return. Now there was Three. This made the remaining girls more uneasy. Especially as there had been a recent murder in the area. They had no neighbours or phone or car. They were alone. There were accusations as to who the prankster could be. The PartyGoer - a friend of my eldest Sister who related this story to me many years later - swore that she was not pulling a prank. After yet another argument they all retired to their rooms for sleep or study. There was to be no sleep. More footsteps more noises - they all rushed out into the corridor. The door again ajar and what they could perceive outside in the darkness a slowly retreating fog. The most courageous of them - who herself was full of trepidation - hesitated towards the door.She strained her eyes out into the night and saw what she thought was a figure of a creature moving away to the railway line gate. Shrouded in mist, bent over and huddled, the creature slowly dissolved and vanished. Trick of the eyes?

Now the girls were spooked. The house played tricks on them. Familiar objects would disappear and reappear in unusual places. The Studious One thought she saw one of her books levitate and throw itself against a wall. Then it all stopped. It all stopped. No more footsteps. No more mists and levitations and dematerializations. It all went quiet. the Partygoer thought she would find a new place to live. Even the excitement of the haunting had now gone out of her life and Aylsham was too quiet for her. Now there was Two.

Only two was not enough. The girls did different shifts as nurses. That meant that they could find themselves alone in the Cottage and that was not satisfactory. Too creepy. So they advertised for another companion. Our friends vowed not to tell any perspective guest about the haunting or the Ouija Board. Why should they say anything? It had all stopped hadn't it? And so our new companion walked into the house and our two kept their guilty secret hidden from her. Life carried on.
Then after three months the Studious One left. That left the Dabbler and the other girl - who we will call Judith. Now Judith and our Dabbler decided to get out that Ouija Board again. Boredom I think. They asked it questions that the year before illicited no response. Except the response of unnatural noises and mists that is! Only this time there was a direct response on the Board. The Board said that there was a NOW a contact. (Dear reader my hair is starting to stand up with the re-telling of this part of the Story. Oh unhappy Story!) The Board said they were talking to Albert. Albert lived in the house and he liked watching the trains. Trains were his joy and they were his passion. "Chuff chuff" he said as he played being a train up and down and up and down the corridor of the Cottage. "Out of the door and down to the gate that overlooked the railway line". (The one that so many years ago had been uprooted). The girls decided to talk to Albert. The strange footsteps returned. The girls even started to call out "hello Albert is that you." Strange how they grew accustomed to their haunting.

The Dabbler confessed to Judith about the earlier visitations and I think there was friction between them because of the deception. Anyway they tried to patch things up and decided - together - to research the history of the Cottage. To do this they visited their local resource Library and found an old black and white photograph taken of the Cottage circa 1880. Outside was a bright shiny locomotive steaming past. Further research bore fruit of the bitter kind. Yes once upon a time there had been a man who lived at the Cottage. His name was Albert and from all accounts he was a man considered mentally retarded. A simpleton who was taken care of by an elderly relative even though Albert was in his forties. Albert loved trains and had the misfortune one day to stray out on to the track only to be crushed under the wheels of a locomotive. Out of guilt for not keeping an eye on Albert, his elderly relative committed suicide. This was achieved by strangulation, from one of the weeping willows, next to the house. The Vicar refused to conduct the christian rights at the funeral. "His soul is dammed" he said. Those were unenlightened times dear reader when suicides were considered fit for the fires of hell. Can you hear Black shuck howling now dear Reader?
Anyway with these disclosures the girls became even more agitated and enlisted the help of the local parish Priest to do an exorcism of the Cottage. Whatever was in the house was not Albert. Could "it" have been the Suicide coming back to take vengeance on a member of the clergy? Confusion that it was the one from 1880? We will never know. All I can say dear Reader is that the Priest barely managed to get out of the Cottage alive. Judith was found wandering days later wandering the lonely country lanes. Sweet Judith was so disturbed that she was committed to an asylum where I'm told she resided to the day of her death in 1984. The Dabbler dabbles no more I'm told and jumps in fear to every noise in the night. Even a dog barking will make her weep and get down on her knees to beg for forgiveness. Did she hear the bark and growl of Black Shuck?

Hoped you liked my story.

spooky story

Moving it over to the Short Stories Forum and giving you "Writer's" status

Originally posted by worldwatcher
spooky story

Moving it over to the Short Stories Forum and giving you "Writer's" status

Does Writer Status come with a pay cheque!?!