Eleven New Ghost Stories (10 page)

The only thing he said was that
he thought it best that I was sent back to school early. I was only
in town one more night, which I spent at the inn because I refused
absolutely to go back into the shop. Guillam saw me again in the
morning; he was tired and worried-looking and gave me the money for
my train ticket.

That was the last I ever saw of
him. The next time a holiday came around and my parents were away,
I spent it with a wealthy family my father had befriended. When I
asked about Uncle Guillam, I was simply told that he was unwell. It
was years before they admitted to me that he had died; I didn’t
know when.

I tried to forget everything
about that day, and my parents never asked about it or discussed it
with me. But they knew; they knew something. If I ever mentioned
Guillam, the subject was swiftly changed.

Years later I went back to
Egham. I was working nearby, so I thought I should have a look. The
shop was no longer there, the buildings were all new. I had thought
them bombed in the war, and rebuilt – but I revisited the inn where
I recognised a few faces, though much older of course. I asked them
about the old clock shop, without revealing who I was. They all
knew – it had burnt down. A great fire had broken out and spread to
several other shops, destroying them all.

The owner had died, apparently
the only casualty. They described him as a queer, odd little fellow
who had always been a bit strange. Apparently there had been a
dreadful accident in there just a few days before – a man was
flogged to within an inch of his life and no one knew how it had
happened.

So the legend goes. I can only
testify to what I saw. And of course that was many, many years
ago.

WHEN IT RAINS…

Those were the best days – I
was at the top of my game. I had everything a guy could want:
money, girls, a new fucking Jag XF. I was living it up. Man, the
money was good. 32 and I’d already earned more than my dad had made
in his whole lifetime.

It was time to move out of the
backwater and get a place in central. I was a team leader now, and
the pressure was on; I’d need to be able to get in and out of the
city fast as. Work hard, play hard. Got myself a penthouse suite,
half-mile from Angel tube. Beautiful – two bedrooms, both ensuite,
one with a skylight and a door to the balcony. It had a huge
balcony, went all the way around; had them big patio doors – one
big window from the living room all the way around to the kitchen.
Had this stone table, with little leather stools next to a barbecue
– I was going to have amazing parties there, awesome parties.

It was open plan: hall, living
room, kitchen. Could’ve been bigger, but you pay for the location,
and the location could not have been better. Service on the front
door, basement parking for the Jag. And Islington, that was the
place to be! Got all my shit moved in; it was all perfect, just
perfect.

But there was this one thing.
Yeah, this thing: I kept hearing the taps dripping, like, all the
time. I’d be asleep, lying in bed – I chose the room with the
skylight, obviously – and I’d hear it from the bathroom, this drip,
drip, drip.

So I’d go into the bathroom and
turn the taps off. Nothing to it. But they didn’t stop. I woke up
in the morning and they were still dripping. I went back to the
bathroom, turned them extra tight. They stopped.

But then I was in bed the next
night and they were dripping again. So I went and turned them taps
tight, tight as I could. But after a few more hours, I woke up and
I could hear them again. I went back into the bathroom, and the
sink was dry. So I went into the kitchen and those taps were
dripping now. So I turned them off tight, even though I was sure,
dead sure, they weren’t dripping before I went bed.

The next night was Friday I
think. Yeah, Friday. The guys at work bailed on me, left for home
early. So I was enjoying a few cans at home, still tidying things
up and unpacking my shit, when I heard the taps dripping again.
Drip, drip, drip. It was getting on my nerves. I turned them taps
so tight – I am telling you – I turned them so tight. And I checked
the ones in both bathrooms too, because this was starting to piss
me off.

So I went to bed and I lay
awake; couldn’t get to sleep because all I could hear was this
dripping. It was like a headache, in my head: the sound of drip,
drip, drip driving me up the walls. I got up and I checked the
bathroom, the kitchen – those taps were not dripping and the sinks
were dry. I went into the other bedroom to check the taps in the
bathroom there. The sink in there was bone dry. Dry in the shower,
dry in the bath. I checked the shower and the bath in my bathroom
too – there was no dripping.

I could not find where it was
coming from. I went out to the balcony. I looked at all the drains
and pipes; couldn’t see any dripping, and it hadn’t rained for
days, honestly. I didn’t like this; if it wasn’t dripping from the
taps it might be dripping from somewhere in the walls or in the
roof. So I went down next day and talked to the man on the door and
he said he could call me in a plumber.

So they got this guy in. I was
at work; I came home and found a note saying there was nothing
wrong, that there was no leak. I thought, what the fuck? I called
them up and I told them I could hear dripping; I could hear
dripping all the time. They said they’d checked the whole place and
had found nothing. He’d the fucking nerve to say that I was making
it up, that it was all in my head. I said: “Fuck you, fuck you
ass-hole!”

But I admit it, yeah, I did
start to doubt myself. There wasn’t any sound of dripping, not for
a couple of days. I relaxed the whole thing. Finished my unpacking,
decorated the place. Got it looking spic and span.

Thought it was time to flaunt my
pad. We had this new girl at the office; new temp, Polish, name was
Agatha, or Anouska, or something. And I got to her first. She was
fit as…

We got her out after work; the
other guys had their try, but in the end, there was no contest.
After a few drinks, she was putty in my hand.

Got her back to mine, showed her
my pad, got her on the sofa. And we’re going at it, full-throttle,
when I start to hear it again. In my ear; I can’t get it out of my
head. Drip, drip, drip, drip, drip. Nagging at me, distracting
me.

I say to her “Can you hear
that?” She says, “What?” I say “The dripping, the fucking
dripping”. She still can’t hear it. I tell her to shut up and
listen, but she still can’t hear it. I tell her, I tell her about
how it doesn’t come from any of the taps, but it’s always there. I
show her the taps in the kitchen and my bathroom. But she still
can’t hear it.

I ask her, “Are you fucking
deaf?” Then she starts getting all mouthy with me, calling me
crazy. I try to say sorry, calm her down, but she insists on
leaving.

Fuck her, you know?

I was still fuming when I went
to bed. I can still hear the dripping, but I’m ignoring it. I don’t
know where it’s coming from, but I’m just going to ignore it.

I get to sleep but I’m tossing
and turning. Drifting in and out; waking up, going back to
sleep.

I wake sometime early morning
and it’s light outside and I’m lying on top of the sheets. I’m
looking up at the ceiling and I can see this spot, this dark spot;
about the size of a tennis ball. I’m staring at it and it starts to
get bigger. And bigger and bigger. It grows to the size of a
football, a beachball, and it keeps going. Within seconds the
spot’s as big as the bed and the ceiling’s starting to bulge and
the surface starts to ripple. Then the whole patch explodes, bursts
– and this wall of water comes down, raining, pouring down on
me.

I wake up again, suddenly; big
jolt. I’ve been dreaming, but I’m soaked with sweat. It’s
four-thirty am on a Saturday, but I had to get up. Couldn’t sleep
any more. Had to get out of that room, place is doing my head
in.

I felt like shit. Rough as. But
later, when I’m feeling better, I go back in there. I dragged a
chair in and I felt the ceiling and it was bone dry. I thought
maybe, just maybe, the water was getting trapped behind the
skylight and getting into the ceiling somehow. But I couldn’t see
anything.

Wasn’t myself at all that day.
Couldn’t chill. Spent a few hours on the PlayStation, watched the
football with a few beers, but I couldn’t get that image out of my
head. The image of the ceiling splitting and bursting and the water
raining down. Because the more I thought about it, the more I
replayed it, the more I thought there was someone there. That when
the water broke, someone had been up there. That there was like
this figure, that they fell through the ceiling and brought the
water down with them.

I couldn’t see them; it was just
this dark shape of a person. A shadow of a body; I didn’t see their
face or what they looked like. It was just a dream, but I could not
get it out of my head.

I had to get out of there, I was
driving myself crazy. I did my shopping, had a walk about town, but
still I could not get that image out of my mind. I decided to go to
the cinema; nothing wrong with going by yourself once in a while.
Saw that western with Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon, they’re
protecting some girl. It was ok, but as soon as it was over, my
mind was back on my dream.

When I got home, I couldn’t
sleep in my own room. It didn’t feel right any more. After an hour
or two of trying, I switched to the other room. Threw my pillows
and duvet on the bare mattress and tried to sleep. I did manage it
for a little while.

I started dreaming I was out in
my car, my Jag. First day out. Ripping up the countryside. Wind
running through my hair. But it starts to rain; water’s running
down the windscreen. I put the windows up. The wipers are going
crazy, but they can’t get it off. It comes running down so thick I
can’t see anything. The whole view of the road had gone; there was
just this wall of water.

Then I open my eyes, and I sit
up. For a second I forgot I was sleeping in the other bedroom. The
bathroom is right opposite the bed in this bedroom, and I was
looking right at the door. I could hear them, the taps. But they
were not dripping, they were pouring.

The shower, the bath, the sink –
it sounded like everything was running. I could hear the rush of
the water.

What the fuck was going on? I
didn’t put them on. Was someone in there? The light was on; I could
see light from the gap under the door.

The bathroom must be flooding;
water was coming from under the door and running down on the
carpet. The carpet was soaked with it. The damp patch was creeping
towards me. Slowly coming down towards the bed.

I got up and started walking
slowly. My flat was like, flooding, but I was too
freaked-the-hell-out to go quick. I walked slowly to the door, my
feet squelching on the soaked carpet. I put my hand on the door
handle and turned it slowly.

The bathroom was full of steam.
All the hot water taps were on and the shower too. The bath was
overflowing, the sink as well.

As the steam started to clear I
turned off the sink tap. The mirror was all fogged up. I wiped my
hand across it; it cleared the view for just a second before it
steamed right back up again.

I went to the bath tub, pushing
the shower curtain aside. I leant down and reached for the hot tap
and turned it off. But when I turned it I saw, out the corner of my
eye, the bathtub wasn’t empty. There was someone in the bath,
hiding beneath the water. I barely saw them for a second: I only
got to turn my head just slightly – but they were dressed, fully
clothed.

The surface of the water broke.
This arm, dripping wet, reached out and grabbed my hair. It dug its
fingers in and pulled me down. My feet slipped on the floor. I was
going down. I was going down and my head was going to hit the side
of the bathtub – boom!

And then I woke up – it was
another dream.

I was up, bolt upright in my
bed, gasping for air. Just like they do in movies; full on
nightmare. I was breathing so heavy; my heart beating hard.

I was facing the bathroom. The
door was half open, light off. All just a dream.

I tried to calm down. Relax. But
then, just as my heart starts to go and beat like normal, I hear
something. I get up and walk back to the bathroom, slowly.

The carpet was dry now. So was
the bathroom floor. But the hot water tap was running in the sink.
The water running straight down the drain.

Slept the rest of the night on
the sofa. But didn’t sleep much. I thought I must’ve left the tap
on. The rest was just a dream and dreams can’t hurt you. Even if…
even if there was this pain, this throbbing pain, on the side of my
head. I had to be imagining it because I hadn’t hit my head, not in
reality.

I couldn’t face staying there
all day again. The place was messing with my head. But just as I
was leaving. Just as I was about to go out, I noticed there was
this dark patch on the wall. The wallpaper was messed up and out of
shape. It was coming off the wall. Just close to the ceiling, near
the bedroom I’d slept in that last night.

I knew it. I knew something was
up with that place. The fucking plumber. There was water leaking in
the walls. I was right, right all along.

I went to the office. I couldn’t
take being at home. I tried to take my mind off the place, but it
wasn’t working. It started to rain and I could see the water
pouring down the glass windows. And out of the corners of my eyes,
I kept thinking I could see something. Someone standing there,
watching me. I tried to focus on my targets, getting my quarterly
figures. But even going to the toilet, the sound of the water
dripping in the urinals; it gave me the shivers. Made me sick in my
stomach.