November 2011
The rough oak door in the corner of the parlour looked, to all intents and purposes, to be a perfectly ordinary door, and it blended in perfectly with the Spartan appearance of the rest of the small room; but to Benjamin, that door was far from ordinary, it was a portal into another dimension, a world beyond the grave, behind which lay horrors beyond his comprehension.
He stared at the dreadful door, his knees quivering in his terror, his gaily painted floral chamber pot shaking slightly in one hand and a pewter candlestick vibrating gently in the other. Behind him, his mother, her eyes raised momentarily from her crochet work, tried to reason with him, 'Benjamin, sweet Benjamin, we have been through this so many times before, haven't we? You are a big boy now – too big to still believe in ghosts.'
'But, mama . . .'
'But, mama nothing! Now, off you go to bed and be sure to say your prayers; I will be up to tuck you in presently.'
'But, mama . . .'
His father looked up from his newspaper positioned beneath the warm glow of the gas mantle, 'Do as your mother says, Benjamin.' The unequivocal words ended the exchange and Benjamin's eyes began to water; his head sank in defeat. Lighting a taper from the fire, his mother touched it to the top of his candle; the tiny yellow flame that crept into life seemed scant protection against the creatures from the underworld, but obediently he walked the long mile to the door and turned the handle.
'I'll shut it.' his mother called out as, both hands occupied, he tentatively moved onto the bottom step. The narrow staircase stretched out above him, an infinity of absolute blackness, the flickering flame of his candle too dim to reach more than a third of the way into the yawning void. When he heard the door shut behind him he didn't look back – he couldn't look back, because the loss of the reassuring glow from the gas lamp drew the dreadful shadows closer in around him; terrifying shadows, hovering just at the limit of his vision, grotesque creatures morphing through the jungle created from the lumps and bumps and cracks of the failing plaster walls.
Behind him was the sanctuary of the oak door and the thin promise of light that escaped around its edges. 'Good night, Benjamin!' his father's voice, even through the thickness of the wood was uncompromising; the terrified boy turned and began to scale the stairs, his bare feet drawing an ominous creaking from the bare wooden steps. As he moved upwards, the monsters insinuated their way before him, always managing to keep just beyond the reach of the flickering yellow light.
Halfway up, off the small landing was the large door to his parent's bedroom; he stopped beside this potential refuge for a few moments, gathering the courage to ascend the final flight to the small door which gave way into his attic room. But on the opposite wall a small window admitted the weak silver moonlight and the dancing shadows of the Avenue trees across the rectangular beading on the door and Benjamin shuddered and fled up the remaining stairs.
He was torn between leaving the door open to maintain a connection with his family, the fire and the light downstairs, and shutting it against the horrors that lurked in that dismal staircase; the horrors won and, reluctantly, he pushed the door shut behind him, isolating the monsters beyond that feeble barrier.
Benjamin set down the candle on the small table and poured a little water from the floral patterned jug into his bowl and washed his face and brushed his teeth. Pulling up his nightshirt, he lowered himself onto his pot, which he had strategically positioned right in the corner so that the whole room was in his view and nothing could creep behind him while he squatted. When he had finished, he remained seated while he put his hands together and dutifully said his prayers, his eyes only half closed – he no longer felt safe kneeling beside his bed as he had before. After the usual, '. . . God bless Mummy and daddy.' he mumbled the new lines, which had been added to the liturgy immediately after it had happened last week, '. . . and please, God, please keep the monster from my door.'
His devotions over, Benjamin didn't move an inch, he stayed within the sanctity of the corner while he strained his ears for the sound of his mother approaching – only then would he risk exposing his legs to whatever might be lurking in the dark recesses beneath his bed; his mother did not believe in ghosts and things that prey on the frail and weak in the quiet of the night, but he felt sure that if it came to it she was strong enough to overcome anything which might threaten her offspring.
But his mother was longer than usual, she had obviously reached a complicated part of her crochet work, and Benjamin could feel his eyes closing wearily while he waited. Time after time he snapped his eyes open, dragging himself up from the miasma to concentrate once more. Finally he was rewarded by the sound of the bottom door opening and clicking shut. He rose, preparing himself to hurl himself past the demons and into his bed at the very last minute before his mother arrived, but froze when he realised that the familiar sound of his mothers slippered feet treading the wooden stairs was scarily absent. In its place was the dull thud of some unmentionable creature, curiously muffled, ascending fast up towards his room.
Trapped between the devil and the deep blue sea, he was suspended, hovering above his pot, his attention focussed on the terrible sound approaching. With trembling fingers he held out the candlestick in front of him, the only talisman he could raise against the advancing evil. After what seemed a lifetime of waiting, the footsteps halted outside the door and he held his breath. The door handle creaked down, the door groaned inwards . . .
In the doorway, silhouetted against a halo of incandescent light stood a dark figure, a youth much his own age, but dressed in strange clothing. He tried to scream out to his mother, but the breath he had been holding tight against the horror was a solid brick wall in his throat and no sound could escape.
Nigel Harrington, on the other hand had no such difficulty and screamed out at the top of his voice, dropped his Nintendo Game Boy and fled down the stairs shouting, 'Mummy! Mummy! . . . that ghosty boy is in my room again . . .!'