Daily Ghost Anthology 12
This twelfth issue of the Daily Ghost magazine brings together seven ghost stories from 20-26 September 2020. Please share them widely if you enjoy them and encourage other people to subscribe.
The Daily Ghost is 7 months old this weekend. I’ve written over 210 ghost stories!
Like a lot of people, I’m trying to work out where the last year of my life went. Back in July 2020, I started a little project to write a daily ghost story. Then I set up a patreon page to see if it could raise a bunch of money (ha-ha, nope, I was wrong about that) and decided I would run with it for a few months then wrap it up once Lockdown ended and schools reopened (turns out I was wrong about that too).
Daily Ghost kept going, mostly because new stories just kept popping into my head and I thought, hey, if there’s no shortage of ideas, why not write them anyway? The stories in this anthology date from last September, which means they were written last August, and I look back on them as a bit of a high water mark in terms of optimism and ambition. I started doing audiobooks every week and getting friends to step in and read some of them. I wondered if perhaps the stories would find an enthusiastic fan base (wrong) and I promised myself that if they didn’t I’d stop doing them at Christmas (wrong again) because life would be back to normal and I wouldn’t have the time with all the celebrating and socialising we’d be doing in 2021 (ha-ha-ha, wrong, so wrong).
All of which sounds pretty bleak and disillusioned, but I think that’s just the soundtrack of February 2021 in my ears. Let’s go back to the end of last summer for a taste of optimism and excitement instead!
Reading back over what I just put to paper, I want to take myself to task. I think my writing has gotten better since last year and the stories more inventive. There is a fan base for these stories, it’s just small and quirky but it’s there. Next month I should be able to cash in my patreon cheque and make a whopping donation to the First Story charity, which will feel pretty good!
And maybe better things lie ahead. Writing has kept me creative and focused during a time of bleak isolation and, now that I think of it, I reckon these stories have brought some pleasure to a few people struggling through the exact same difficult times.
I think maybe a themed week of upbeat, life-affirming ghost stories is required! Stories of courage and triumph and hope and rebirth, rather than the grim stuff about madness and murder and grief.
Ghost stories can be about redemption, consolation and rescue. They can be funny and uplifting. Not all ghosts are symbols of death - they can represent the conquest of death.
Yes: first week of March, seven optimistic ghost stories!
Now there’s a challenge!
Banshee
A banshee is a spirit from Irish and Scottish folklore that keens (a wail of lament) when a member of the family they haunt is about to die. The trick with any banshee story is to find a way NOT to set it in Scotland or Ireland …
“They’re inside the house,” I told Lindiwe and she burst into tears. She knew what a South African gang does to people. “It’s OK, we’ll be safe in here,” I reassured her, sliding the metal security door shut. “Where’s the key?”
Her beautiful face creased with fear.
“It’s on my dresser,” she said miserably.
I took a deep breath.
“I’m going to get the key,” I whispered over her protests. “You’ll be safe, I’ll be safe. Remember why?”
She sniffed back tears and nodded.
“The Banshee.”
“Aye lassie,” I said, exaggerating my accent. “And if a Macrae of Clan Macrae dies, that Banshee will have to come all the way from her Scottish bog and announce it with a scream. Do you hear any screaming?”
She shook her head. I kissed her.
Creeping through the darkened house, I could hear four men downstairs. From the balcony I could see one. Jesus, he was carrying a light machinegun, a Vickers 7.62mm by the look.
Two tours in Afghanistan then six years security in Joburg and Rob Macrae shouldn’t be intimidated by a few Township boys. But Rob Macrae had changed. Lindiwe had changed me. I had a reason to live now.
Never mind the Glock-17 in the study. No need for a gun if you’ve got a safe-room.
I retreated and the floorboard creaked under me.
I heard the distinctive sound of the slide on a 9mm being cocked. There was a fifth burglar, up here with me.
Barefoot, I ran to the bedroom. Behind me, someone shouted. I snatched the safe-room key from Lindi’s dresser. Sounds of men. Oh God, they were coming upstairs. Lindiwe was just at the end of the corridor.
I ran for it. The gun barked and the plaster ripped from the wall by my head. In every Helmand firefight, I told my squad that my Banshee hadn’t screamed yet. I repeated that now.
Another retort. Shattering pain. My leg buckled and I slid across the floor of the safe-room.
“Lindi,” I croaked, and threw the key to her. It skidded to her feet. “Lock the door.”
There were figures in the hallway. Pounding footsteps.
“Lindi! The key!”
She didn’t move.
“Lock the door Lindi!”
She turned her unfamiliar face towards me, grinning in triumph. She raised her arm to point right at me and started to scream.
A Toss of the Coin
Osiris and Sutekh (more commonly Set or Seth but I like the name Sutekh because it alludes to a classic Doctor Who story) were Egyptian gods locked in conflict.
The artist Richard Dadd (1817-1886) returned from a trip to the Middle East in 1843 quite mad: he murdered his father and attempted to kill a passenger on the train on which he escaped. He wasn't actually a 'serial killer' (though not for want of trying) but it is fascinating to suppose a supernatural cause for his madness.
There’s a reading of this story on the Daily Ghost YouTube channel.
“The coin was minted around 300BC for the Pharaoh Ptolemy Soter. The obverse shows Ptolemy in the role of Osiris, the reverse as the dark god Sutekh.”
The audience of the Numismatic Club squinted at the ancient coin.
“In modern times, the coin belonged to the artist Richard Dadd. After his return from the Middle East in 1843, a string of murders led to his incarceration at Broadmoor.”
The slide of the Victorian serial killer drew gasps. I was complimented on a “stimulating” presentation. While packing away, a whim prompted me to toss and catch the ancient coin.
Heads – Osiris – meant home to bed; tails – Sutekh – meant a nightcap in a nearby bar.
In the bar, Osiris proposed a shandy, Sutekh a scotch.
Six whiskies later, a group in a nearby booth, including a pretty young woman, caught my eye. I trusted Dadd’s coin for one last spin: heads I go home, tails I talk to the young woman.
Her name was Alicja, Polish, very friendly. Going on to a club was not my scene at all. I swapped authority: now Sutekh meant home, Osiris followed Alicja and her friends.
In the club, Osiris urged me to dance with Alicja, which was delightful, and kiss her, which was better. In the toilets, a dealer offered me Speed: heads or tails? Grinning Sutekh landed on my palm and the night took on a new urgency. More dancing, Alicja half-undressed in the taxi, then undressing in my bedroom while I stood in the kitchen, staring at the coin in my palm.
Heads and I made love to Alicja; tails, a cold shower instead.
Sutekh’s face scowled at this feeble option. Not exciting enough. Sex or rough sex? Sex or …
My eye fell on the steak knife by the sink.
Sex or death.
I flipped the coin. Sutekh and the knife.
Ridiculous. I was not going to murder Alicja.
Flipped again. Sutekh.
Again. Sutekh.
Laughing, I changed authority: Sutekh meant sex with a beautiful woman; Osiris meant death.
I flipped. Osiris.
This was madness. Again. Osiris. Again. Osiris. Osiris. Osiris.
Sobbing, I grabbed the knife. Death then, but whose? Heads, Osiris, and I kill the girl. Tails, Sutekh, and I kill myself.
I flipped. The coin turned in the air, reflecting the light with the blinding glare of a desert sun
Dearest Dorothy (III)
Dearest Dorothy (18 July) introduced an uncanny doll that took control of whoever handled it. Dearest Dorothy II (18 August) revealed some backstory: the doll belonged to a young girl who died along with other trafficked women in a refrigerated lorry and compels owners to avenge these deaths. This story completes the ‘Dorothy’ trilogy, as the doll makes its way to the gangster in charge of the trafficking for revenge served ice cold.
Gjergj Dushku retreated to the safe room when the shooting started. Poor Afrodita thought she was coming too. Her blue eyes swelled with surprise when he slapped away her manicured fingers and slammed the door on her tears and curses. It was a good door: steel core, deadbolt locks, ballistic sheeting: secure against a small army. The gunshots dimmed to muffled thumps. He poured a glass of raki, then texted messages that would bring his Hellbanianz coke-fiends running to help.
Except there was no signal. Dead space. Nothing to do but pour another drink and wait it out.
A final burst of gunfire and then silence. The guards would signal once it was safe.
Instead, the deadbolts slid back, one by one.
Afrodita staggered in, face white as milk, hair wild, dress smeared in blood. In one hand, a guard’s Škorpion machine pistol; in the other, a little doll.
Gjergj stepped towards her but she gestured with the gun for him to sit.
She looked around. “I've not seen in here before, Gjergj. Is nice. Out there, is very ...” Her disappointed gesture encompassed the gun, her bloody dress, the cordite in the air and the shrieks of the dying from further away in the house.
“Afrodita, të dua ...!”
“Hush.”
With tender care, she placed the doll on the drinks cabinet.
“Më e dashur Doroti. This is Dearest Dorothy.”
Gjergj's erupted with threats which died away when the gun pointed into his face.
“Dearest Dorothy has come long way,” Afrodita explained, “in one of your refrigerated lorries, Gjergj. From Aegean coast. With many young women. Immigrants. Innocents. And one little girl.”
Gjergj remembered that unfortunate business. “That was the driver’s fault!” he protested. “He forgot the ventilation. Nobody wanted those girls to die! Least of all me!”
Afrodita turned away: she kissed the doll on the head, then paused in the door to say, “Tell them that yourself, Gjergj.”
The door slammed shut. Gjergj struggled, but the deadbolts were immovable. He stabbed at his phone, then smashed it to the floor in frustration. He noticed the air tasted thin, stale: it burned his lungs. Frost crept across the steel shutters. His shallow breaths misted. He staggered to the door, hammering and shouting.
On the cabinet, the doll smiled up at him with eyes as wide and innocent as the blue Aegean Sea.
Verity’s Flowers
Here is a story I felt needed developing, so subscribers received a longer version that explored the protagonist’s courtship of Verity in more detail. You will notice the Lockdown features as a key part of the plot. There’s a dilemma here. I wonder, will stories like this seem baffling in a few years’ time? Let’s hope so!
During lockdown, I paid more attention to my neighbours. Somehow, I missed the old lady moving out of the house opposite, but I saw the new woman in the upstairs window, watering flowers. She was youngish, long dark hair, fond of floral dresses that all look the same. Sorrowful, as if she had no one in the world to love but those flowers.
I waved to her. She raised her fingers in shy reply.
It became our thing. Me with my mug of coffee, she with her little watering can. I would wave. She would duck behind her fringe, but still the little wave of the fingers. Then one day she pulled her hair back and smiled and I realised she was very beautiful.
I held up a big piece of paper: I’m David – you?
She held up a blackboard with her name in chalk: Verity.
Verity? One of those so-old-it’s-trendy names.
I wrote my number and made the thumb-and-pinky phone gesture. She shrugged helplessly. No phone? Seriously?
We improvised. I showed her objects from my house: art, electronics, my tie collection. She showed me quilting, dried flowers, baking trays, books.
Books became our new thing. She messaged: Wuthering Heights? We read it together, sitting in our windows, turning the pages, stealing glances across at each other. How she scolded when she caught me skipping ahead. Cathy and Heathcliff get buried together. No shock ending.
I wrote: Can’t wait for lockdown to end.
Her reply: Why?
Because I’m in love with you.
She covered her mouth with her hands. Her eyes brimmed. She nodded.
Yes, and I, with you, so so much.
The summer days lengthened and Verity’s flowers brightened her window. Then the Government relaxed the lockdown: a bubble with one other household. I only wanted one person in my bubble.
She wrote: Use the back door.
Her back garden was a riot of untended flowers. The door was unlocked and I called her name into the clammy darkness inside, then entered. Old fashioned kitchen, a loaf of bread blue with mould, flies.
“Verity?”
A rail on the stairs and a terrible smell from above. No answer to my calls.
The sweet stink of death sickened the bedroom. Flies crawled across the old lady’s faded floral dress. In her blackened fingers, a familiar watering can.
On the window sill, Verity’s flowers bloomed, impossibly, with vibrant colours.
Deeping St Jude Welcomes Careful Drivers
This was the first of the macabre stories set in and around Deeping St Jude. The East Anglian Fens are full of villages with these double-barrelled names, ending in the local church. St Jude, or Judas Thaddaeus, is the patron saint of lost causes - but I wonder if the church in Deeping St Jude isn't named after the other, more notorious Judas...
The shadows lengthened across the fens. Not a soul moved on the street. The windows were all dark.
Jesus, Courtney! Where are you?
“I’ll check inside,” I remembered her saying, finding the door to the Sedge Hotel open. “Someone will know directions.”
Women. Always so keen to ask for directions. We had fallen out over it, driving in furious silence, with me cursing the satnav. Then, suddenly, we were in Deeping St Jude, with a nearly empty tank and no phone signal. Not on any map, but sagging brick cottages, a dilapidated hotel and a church steeple like a preacher’s hectoring finger.
Still no Courtney. How long has it been?
I saw a pale girl in a dirty frock leave the old almshouse.
I lowered the window and called out.
“Which direction is the B1454?” No answer, so: “King’s Lynn? Anywhere?”
She approached the car and I noticed her leathery cheeks and bruised lips. No beauties in rural East Anglia.
“Take me with you,” she said – no, hissed.
“I don’t think your mother would like that.”
“She’s not coming back, your woman. Take me instead!”
Her little hand grabbed my collar. I struggled, but her grip was too tight. I flicked the switch and the window rose, pinning her thin wrist. Terror made me pitiless. I drove forward, with the horrible imp running beside, her fingers trapped in the door.
That’s when I saw them: faces, in every window; eyes like cold lamps, unkind and covetous.
I put my foot down. The girl fell away and Deeping St Jude disappeared from my rear view mirror.
When the car sputtered to a halt, I walked through the evening until I found a proper road. A pickup truck stopped for me and I insisted the old driver search for my girlfriend. We trundled back down the lane until it emerged near Burnham Market. We returned, to my waiting car. No village.
“Do you recall the name,” asked the old man “of your missing lady friend?”
But I couldn’t remember who or what I’d been looking for.
He hooked a chain to tow my car.
“I don’t like to be on these lanes at night,” he grumbled, as we pulled away. “Too close to Deeping St Jude for my liking.”
I nodded, reflecting on the odd names they give these funny little places, while I calculated the size of my breakdown bill.
Friday Detention
I’m a school teacher so it was only a matter of time before we had a story about a heroic teacher using the register to exorcise an unhappy ghost. I wonder, though, if maybe I’m more like the old-timer Bagshott than the idealistic protagonist of this tale.
“You saw our ghost, eh?” said Mr Bagshott, with a heartless guffaw.
Bagshott was the longest-serving member of staff. His tweed jacket reeked of old cigarettes.
“It was in Friday Detention,” I began.
“Yes, in the Old Library,” he interrupted. “Ye Gods, if those shelves could talk.”
“I counted heads, but there was an extra student, not on the register.”
“The lad cut his own throat out of shame,” Bagshott dropped his voice in an uncharacteristic moment of sensitivity, ruined by drawing his finger across his hairy neck, “couldn’t bear for Mater and Pater to learn he’d received a Detention.”
“What do you do?” I asked, thinking of that shadowy figure at the back of the room.
“In Friday Detention? Usually the Times Crossword!”
The next Friday in the Old Library, I registered the sullen students and tried to ignore the awareness of an extra presence. When they surged outside an hour later, there was no one left.
“If the wretched ghost doesn’t do anything, just ignore it,” suggested Tanya, offering me a glass of wine. “Newly qualified teachers have enough to worry about,” and she pointed at 9L’s homework stacked on the dining room table.
The next Friday Detention was unusually full, the result, according to Bagshott, of high winds and a full moon. The count showed us surplus by one student.
“Who is being punished,” I asked them, “for something they know they did wrong?”
A few reluctant hands.
“Well done for your honesty. You’re dismissed.”
A pleasant commotion as teenagers spilled into the corridor.
“Who is being punished for something they didn’t do?”
Many hands.
“You’re dismissed too.”
Four students left, but only three names on the register.
“Who doesn’t know why they’re here?”
Three hands.
“Dismissed. Come back when you’ve found out.”
One figure remained at the back of the room. There was no name on the register.
“You ...” I began, but my teeth chattered strangely. Dread seized my tongue.
“You,” I persevered, “have served your Detention.”
My muscles tensed. I longed to escape.
I stammered, “You ... are dismissed.”
The room lightened. The door slammed. The Old Library was empty.
I sighed heavily. On Monday morning, the Head would demand to know why I’d dismissed everyone from Detention. But something more important had to be done first.
I took the first of 9L’s exercise books from the top of the stack and opened it.
At First Sight
Here’s a cryptic tale. Is the woman some sort of witch or a succubus, preying on men's sexual incontinence? Or the ghost of a badly-treated lover? Or just a spirit of vengeance? Is it a dream and will the narrator wake up, chastened and wiser? A fuller treatment of the story would explore a particular interpretation, but I like this short version that leaves all options open.
At first sight, I knew she was the one: a girl on her own, eye contact, strangely familiar. I followed her through the crowded club.
I said, “Do I know you?”
She said, “Does it matter?”
We went to my place. The sex was great– better: amazing.
I awoke to see her pale shoulder and tangle of hair on the pillow beside me. Now, the priority was to get rid of her.
She stretched like a languid cat and said, “I need to wash.”
She slipped out of the bed, a blur of glorious nakedness.
I contemplated her teeth marks on my shoulder, the scratches on my arms and back. I felt a hangover brewing, though I didn’t remember drinking last night. When I opened my eyes again, she was dressing: a kiss on my cheek and gone.
Good: you need to get a woman out of your house before breakfast, otherwise she starts imagining your future together. Meanwhile, I could start my day.
But I slept again and awoke feeling worse: aching, bloated, weak. The door clicked and she was back, with coffee and muffins from Costa.
“You need a good breakfast,” she said, placing a cool hand on my forehead.
I ate gratefully. She slipped under the sheets and we made love again, no scratching or biting, just intimate.
Afterwards, I examined the backs of my hands. How wrinkled they were. Those splotches looked like liver spots. My hip ached, but when I tried to get out of bed, my lower back screamed in agony.
She massaged me, firmly.
She said, “You work too hard. You need to slow down.”
It felt good to doze to the sound of her pottering around the house. She brought me soup and chatted about her day. My fingers shook holding the spoon, making a mess on the sheet, and she tutted like a scolding hen.
The afternoon passed. I was bedridden and she looked after me. She gathered each tooth as it fell out and combed my thinning hair. In the evening, this lovely young woman sat beside the bed and read to me.
I asked, “Are you my nurse?”
She said, “Does it matter?”
It didn’t. I knew I loved her but my memory had grown so bad I couldn’t remember her name.
“I’m going to sleep now,” I said.
She kissed me goodnight for the last time.