Home Sweet Home

A Short Storyby

Adrian Sturgess

Copyright 2011 Adrian Sturgess

Smashwords Edition

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*****

Though the sun’s golden rayswere mellowed by the haze

of the dream mists,that rose up from the edge

of the chasm of night.

*****

It was a beautiful sunny day in early April and the Marigold family were on their way to view the house that was for sale on the outskirts of the small village where they had been renting a cottage for the past two months. Mr Marigold’s employer was footing the bill for the rented accommodation and there was pressure on the family to quickly buy their own home.

It was only a short walk through the centre and out to the edge of the village and under the vivid blue sky a row of terraced cottages that they passed took on the vibrancy of a child’s painting in pink, yellow and blue.

They were all in fine mood and their mood further improved when they spotted the house. It was a good-sized, detached, house with bay windows and a gabled front. Its fresh white paintwork fairly gleamed and sparkled at them in the spring sunshine.

They walked up the front path past wonderfully manicured borders and perfectly clipped shrubs to the big white front door, which promptly opened to reveal a middle-aged couple who beamed at them from the hallway. “So you must be Mr and Mrs Marigold, come to look at the house, well I’m Doreen Smith and this is my husband Jim and…. my oh my, what wonderful children and how old are you and what are your names?” She stooped down and flooded them with a radiant smile, only to be rewarded with a slightly diffident shuffle of the feet. Finally Jackie composed herself enough to respond. “I’m Jackie and I’m 14 and this is my brother Ben, he’s 13.”“Well, well what lovely names, now please do come in, no need to take off shoes, it hasn’t rained for days has it?”

The adults exchanged pleasantries whilst the children just stood looking around the hallway and across through the partially opened door towards rooms at the back of the house.“Well go ahead and take a good look about and Jim and I will be sitting out in the garden, so take your time and we’ll talk again in a little while”

The family wandered approvingly around the house and Mrs Marigold immediately fell in love with the kitchen, which looked out directly onto the rear garden.“Wow, look at this, we could have a dining table in here and just look at that lovely view out onto the rear lawn.”

Doreen and Jim could be seen sitting side by side in deckchairs facing down the garden and gesturing contentedly towards a group of sparrows that flitted to and fro nearby.

Mr Marigold murmured his approval at the size of the kitchen but the kids hardly heard him because they were already moving ahead excitedly to discover what surprises the rest of the house had to offer. They looked into the drawing room but found it a bit gloomy and not terribly interesting, before moving on to the sitting room, which was right at the front of the house and had a huge bay window and long white curtains that draped down and caressed the polished oak floor. Finally their parents caught up with them and ‘just adored’ the sitting room. As they turned to leave the room, the sun sunk behind a cloud and the room lost its warmth and colour and suddenly seemed so unappealing that Jackie had to suppress a shiver and scurried as quickly as she could out into the hall. But the moment quickly passed and the upstairs of the house was just perfect, containing as it did 4 good-sized bedrooms, a study and the required en-suite bathroom.

Finally the family stepped out into the sunshine to join the owners, who then took them on a tour of the grounds. Mrs Smith stopped by the high timber fence at the far end of the garden and explained that the lower road out of the village passed to the rear of the property but that very few cars used it and consequently it was no nuisance.

Meanwhile, Jackie and Ben had gravitated toward a large apple tree in the corner of the garden and looked up longingly at the massive gnarled branches, whilst day dreaming of climbing and of tree houses and apple pie and custard.“It’s a lovely tree isn’t it” Mrs Smith called over to them. “We get beautiful apples in the autumn, like nothing you’ve tasted in the supermarkets and I’m sure, if you asked him nicely your dad would hang you a swing off that low branch.” “Oh daddy would you?” They both called excitedly and then Ben, on a bit of an opportunistic roll continued “And daddy, would you build us a tree house too?”

Mr Marigold smiled politely and muttered a few non-committal words, whilst inwardly he was quite annoyed with Mrs Smith. She really had overstepped the mark in making such rash comments, because he knew from deep experience that once children got an idea fixed in their heads, they’d work on you remorselessly until you either went mad or gave in.

Mrs Smith showed no sign that she had noticed Mr Marigold’s irritation however and said “Yes, we’ll miss the apples when we’re gone from here” and then she gave a sigh which for the briefest of moments hinted at a valley of sadness that she normally kept hidden away behind her cheerful facade of bonhomie.

Finally they said their goodbyes and the family made their way back down the front path whilst the Smiths’ stood beaming and waving and looking for all the world like doting Grandparents.

On the way back, the children skipped and jostled together excitedly whilst their parents walked along more serenely, holding hands and discussing what they had just seen. They walked in almost

complete silence, their senses totally engaged in soaking up the picture-postcard qualities of the Village, which seemed so radiantly joyful in the bright spring sunshine.

As they approached their rented house Mrs Marigold broke the enchanted silence that had hung over them both for the previous few minutes.“Oh darling don’t you just feel that it’s the perfect house in the perfect village? It’s just made for us.” Her husband looked over at her with a grin that made him look ten years younger and said “Yes, it is perfect, we mustn’t lose that house.”

Later that afternoon after brief negotiations through the Estate Agent, a sale was agreed. They had finally bought their dream house and to mark the occasion, they celebrated with Champagne and the entire family toasted their future and their luck in finding such a wonderful home.

*****

Several weeks later Jackie and Ben were coming back from the playing fields a mile or so outside the village. They were kicking a ball along as they went, when Ben kicked the ball too high and it sailed straight over a fence at the side of the road. “That was stupid” said Jackie “How are we going to get it back?” Meanwhile Ben had been searching for a gap in the fence when he suddenly made a connection. “Wow, Jackie, this is the house we are buying, I’m sure it must be. I’ve never thought of it before but this is the lower road out of the village and the garden backed onto it and I definitely recognise that huge apple tree that we saw in the garden”

Jackie thought for a moment and then said “Well I suppose we can go round tomorrow and ask for our ball back.” But Ben wasn’t really listening. “Hey Jackie, these two panels are loose, I’m going to try and squeeze through and get the ball, I’m sure they wouldn’t mind anyway, even if they see me and I doubt if they will ‘cos it’s nearly dark”.

Jackie was apprehensive but bolstered a little by her brothers’ rock solid confidence she agreed to wait by the fence while he popped in and retrieved the ball. She watched as he prised the panels apart and slipped through and then all she could hear was a gentle swishing of leaves as he presumably forced his way through the shrubs at the end of the garden. Then all was silent and she gazed around, with heightened senses, across the open fields that lay just to the other side of the road from where she was standing. The evening had almost turned to night and under the overcast sky she could make out the silhouettes of trees way off in the distance and the occasional harsh caw of the, only just visible, wheeling crows, crashed against her fragile senses, sending butterflies shooting through her stomach. She looked back at the fence and thought “Where is he? It can’t take that long to find a ball, surely”

In truth he had only been gone a few minutes but in her strained state it seemed an age. Finally she pulled at the fence panels and pushing her head through the gap she hissed as loudly as she dared.“ Ben, Ben, where on earth are you? Come back, I’m scared”

There was a sudden noise and then something or somebody crashed solidly into her, knocking her backwards almost into the road and there was Ben standing over her panting and gasping and almost beside himself with terror. “Jackie come on we’ve got to run”

Then he came to his senses enough to see that he had sent her flying and that she was sitting on the ground nursing a blow to the head. “Jackie, are you OK? Here let me help you and then we must get moving” Slowly he hauled her to her feet and with one arm around her, half to comfort her and half to pull her along, they set off home at a trot.

On the way back he did his best to explain to Jackie what had happened and in between panting for breath and sobbing in terror, he laboriously got his story out.

He had quickly made his way through the shrubs and could see the ball right in the middle of the lawn. He paused between the shrubs and tried to get up courage for a quick sprint across the lawn and back to retrieve the ball, but his heart was pounding in his chest and his courage was waning. Then suddenly, just as someone standing at the side of a pool, desperately trying to summon up the courage to enter the cold water, reaches a point of decision and jumps, so Ben started to run. As he reached the ball and fumbled to pick it up in his panic stricken hands, he looked up at the house and saw at once that it wasn’t the house he knew. It appeared empty and abandoned. For some reason this calmed him and he walked a little closer. It must be very close to the house they were buying, maybe even next door, but he

hadn’t remembered seeing any such house on the day they had come to view. At this point Ben had almost returned to tell Jackie, but his curiosity made him go right up to the back of the house and even in the half-light it was clearly derelict. Window frames were empty of glass, a rear door was hanging from one hinge and even the bricks were loose in places. He thought of Jackie waiting and knew he mustn’t be too long but he seemed almost compelled to enter into the house. This actually proved quite easy, as he only had to swing the door slightly to one side and step through.

The house was in a completely dilapidated state and the floor was strewn with rubble, shattered glass and other nameless objects that lay just beyond resolution in the gloom. He felt he wouldn’t go much further, for in truth his courage was bow tight and ready to snap at any moment, but he crunched his way as carefully as he could to a door and promptly froze.

He could hear voices on the other side and a thin strip of light was visible through the cracks in the door. At this point his nerve finally snapped like a twig and he half tiptoed and half ran across the room to the broken door and exited the house at a gallop, coming through the shrubs to the hole in the fence so fast that he failed to hear or see his sister until he collided with her.

*****

The following day, after school, they took a walk out along the main village road to the house. It was a bright evening and the house looked as cheerful as ever. They had hoped that they could scoot past quickly without being seen, but Mrs Smith was weeding the front flowerbeds and she called across to them. They dutifully trudged across the road to her and after a brief chat Ben suddenly blurted out“Are any of the houses along here empty?”Mrs Smith didn’t give any sign that she thought it a strange question and just flicked her head left and right and said“No, they’re all fully occupied along here, after all, its such a lovely spot you wouldn’t have houses standing empty for long would you?”

They finally managed to escape by saying that they had to get back for their supper and as they walked, Ben scrutinised each house front carefully and just as Mrs Smith had said, each and every one looked properly cared for and lived in.

In the days that followed, the events of that night kept going round and round in Bens head like a nightmare that wouldn’t fade and he discussed it over and over with his sister, but she seemed to be more and more putting it down to an over active imagination. In fact secretly she felt that he had most likely made up the story just to try and scare her.

A Couple of weeks passed and Ben had finally had enough. Jackie clearly no longer believed him and his desperation to prove her wrong exceeded even his considerable trepidation at revisiting the scene of his terror and so one evening they set off together.

As they walked apprehensively along the lower village road towards their goal, a fine crescent moon hung low in the evening sky and smiled down on them. This briefly cheered them up, but the harsh sound of the crows circling high in the trees a couple of fields away sent shivers through them both and when a bat flitted past their faces they stopped altogether and almost turned back. Their well of courage was almost dry.

Jackie whispered “Come on, this is silly; let’s go back now. I’m really scared.” Ben wanted, with all his heart, to comply with her request but some stubbornness within him refused to give up. Perhaps it was the thought that he might never dredge up the courage to do this again and so he just had to go on with it, so he tried to console her. “I know it’s scary Jackie, but lets just carry on a bit. After all, we’ve come this far and we can give up anytime we want to, so lets go on a bit further and see what we can discover.”

After some reluctance, Jackie agreed and they got to the fence with the Apple Tree behind it. It only took a few seconds for Ben to find the loose boards and they both crept through and then crouched motionless behind the shrubs at the bottom of the garden. The air about them was completely still and the garden was thick with the fragrance of flowers. The rear of the house was ahead of them in the evening gloom and Ben was quite sure that this was the very same garden that they and their parents had visited some 6 weeks before. The large apple tree was unmistakable and the shape and layout were just as he remembered. He whispered right into his sister’s ear “This is the right house isn’t it?”

“Yes, I’m sure it is. Everything looks just the same.”This time, instead of heading straight across the lawn, they skirted the borders, stopping frequently,

hearts pounding, until they came close enough to see that the windows were empty of glass and the door was hanging off its hinges just as Ben remembered. Somehow this had a calming effect on him because it proved that he wasn’t mad and that Jackie would have to believe him now. For her own part, Jackie just wanted to flee back to the safety of the road on the other side of the fence, but by a collective force of will they crept forward and peered through a window. It was just as Ben had described it and looked unbearably spooky in the almost total darkness. “Lets go inside” said Ben. The words struggled to make it out of his dried out mouth. Jackie just shook her head and so Ben whispered “Wait there then while I go and have a look.”

She watched as he disappeared through the door and she could hear the sharp cracks of splintering glass as he crossed the room. She was certain the noise would be heard and that someone would come to investigate, so she kept her body primed to sprint straight across the lawn to safety. Through the narrow door opening she could see the silhouette of Ben and in a burst of shock she realised that he was standing in a pool of light. He had crouched right down and was looking though the partially opened door to the front room of the house. He briefly glanced back towards her and then, keeping low to the floor he crept forward into the room and out of her sight. A few seconds passed, during which every sense in her body strained to pick up the slightest movement, or sound, from within the crumbling walls of the house. Her entire body vibrated with the tension of the moment and then she heard Ben scream.

Jackie’s heart flew straight out of her breast and she sagged against the crumbling wall of the house in a dead faint. The next thing she was aware of was being half dragged across the lawn while she desperately tried to fend off her attacker with feeble motions of arms and legs - the most she could manage through the paralysis of her terror. Then she was lying still, gazing into darkness and a fuzzy shape appeared before her, which slowly coalesced into the frenzied features of Ben, her brother. “Jackie, Jackie” he sobbed, shaking her wildly “Please wake up, we’ve got to go”

But his voice stuttered to a stop and he was gazing up at something. Jackie slowly turned her head, and was dazzled by a piercingly bright light that was shining straight into her eyes. She partially shielded her face with her hand and with an audible gasp she finally made out the familiar shape of Mrs Smith.

Before either of them had time to react further, Mrs Smith stepped forward and walked between them, completely oblivious to their presence. They watched as the bobbing circle of light on the lawn passed away from them and then back towards the house, before disappearing altogether. “I can’t understand how she didn’t see us” whispered Jackie “She walked right past us and the torch was shining straight at me.”

There was no response from Ben and when Jackie turned to look at him, the sight of him shocked her. His face was bone white, his eyes wild and his lips were quivering silently. He was clearly in a worse state of shock than she was in herself and so she tugged at him and just said his name over and over “Ben, Ben, come on we have to get home now”.

Eventually he responded just enough that she could coax him along and slowly, together, they crawled to the fence, scrambled through the gap in the panels and started on their way home. As they walked along the lower village lane in almost total darkness, Jackie kept asking Ben what he had seen. Eventually he told her; one word at a time and each punctuated by a shuddering intake of breath, he gasped “I saw two bodies lying in the room.” “What do you mean?” was all she could say, but he continued regardless of her interruption. “I could tell they were dead. There was a young woman and she was really pretty and then there was a man holding her and his arms were wrapped right round her and they were kind of looking at each other but they were dead.” His voice choked on the final word. “How do you know they were dead, maybe they were just…”“I just knew they were. Anyway when I screamed they didn’t move at all. When I saw them, I couldn’t help myself screaming and I couldn’t bear to stay there, it felt so horrible. I just ran as fast as I could. Then Mrs Smith came out but she couldn’t see us, perhaps she’s a ghost.”“But how can she be a ghost? We saw her before and spoke to her and she seemed completely real to me.”“I don’t know, or maybe she has really bad eyesight?”

Jackie responded, “Yes, maybe she has bad night vision, that could be it.” But she didn’t really believe it.Both children then trudged on in silence for a while and then Ben said, “What are we going to do?”

Jackie replied “Well we’ve got to talk Mum and Dad out of buying that house for one thing.”“Yes” said Ben “but how can we tell them about it? They’ll never believe us.”

At last they arrived home exhausted, only to find themselves in huge trouble with their parents for being out so late and no amount of protestation did any good.

As Ben lay in bed waiting impatiently for the oblivion of sleep, all he could see in his minds eye was the waxen face of the young girl. She was very pretty he thought, very pretty, actually even quite beautiful. Her face was turned in his direction and he could make out every little feature in exquisite detail, from the long brown eyelashes to the width and shape of her cheekbones, the fineness of her nose and the gentle arc of each eyebrow. Finally, how had he not noticed it before? How dark and beguiling were her eyes and how inviting her smile. How could he have missed how very alive she was and that her smile was for him and for him alone?

When Ben awoke the next day, the exploits of the previous night seemed briefly to be nothing more than a bad dream, but then he remembered and his heart sank. He went and woke Jackie up and each confirmed to the other the reality of what had happened, although, of course, Jackie could only take Ben’s word that he had seen dead bodies in the house.

Finally they descended the stairs for Breakfast and found their parents sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee.“Hi Kids” said their mother “we’ve just had some fantastic news, the house belongs to us now and tomorrow we’re moving in. Isn’t it exciting?”

*****

The following day the removal van turned up bright and early and soon a constant procession of boxes and furniture were being ferried from house to van. To keep them out of the way, the children were stationed in their bedrooms and charged with boxing up the last remnants of their possessions. They carried out this duty with a palpable lack of enthusiasm. Most of the time they couldn’t even bring themselves to talk and so the hours passed in virtual silence, with just the odd coded glance at each other from time to time. Their parents were far too preoccupied to notice any of this and if they read anything into the children’s behaviour it was that they were tired and maybe feeling a little unsettled. It was, after all, quite understandable for children to take a little time to adapt to a change of circumstance.

Eventually the house was empty and they all took a ceremonial final walk around the house, which had been their home for the past few months and then slammed the front door shut for the final time, climbed into their car and followed the removal van up the road to their new house.

It looked just as fine as ever in the late afternoon light and the slanting rays of the sun lent to it a warm glow, whilst the well manicured flower beds set the house off to perfection.“Well children, here we are at last.” said their mother “We won’t fully unpack today. We’ll just get everything into the house and then we’ll all get an early night and sort it all out tomorrow.”

The removal van was emptied surprisingly quickly and at last they were alone in their new residence with heaps of labelled boxes and stacks of disarrayed furniture for company. They sat at the kitchen table and ate soup and bread in a silence that spoke of mental and physical exhaustion, for it had indeed been a long day. “Ok, children, you look absolutely done in” said their mother finally “Ben, I’m afraid you won’t be able to sleep in your bedroom tonight because we have had to use it as a temporary dumping ground for all the boxes that will be going up into the loft.”“So where am I sleeping then?”“Don’t worry; you’ll be perfectly comfortable. I’ve made you up a camp bed in the front room.” Ben just stared back at her, slack jawed and on the verge of tears. “But mum, I can’t; I just can’t sleep in there its, its….”But his mum was too tired to argue. “It’s only for one night Ben, now stop making such a fuss. We’re all going to have to make sacrifices until we get settled in.” That was the end of the matter as far as she was concerned.

Later that evening the parents sat up talking, for although they were tired, they were not yet quite ready for bed either.

Mrs Marigold suddenly exclaimed “You know darling, I had a little chat with the woman down at the village shop today when I went to pick up the bread and milk and she told me a fascinating story about this house. She said that about 20 years ago there was a fire and the house almost completely burnt down. It was quite tragic at the time because apparently the daughter of the owners was shortly to be married and it was only a few days before the wedding that the fire broke out. The young woman was alone in the house at the time and the fire brigade were desperately trying to tackle the fire when the young woman’s fiancé arrived at the house. The blaze was too intense for anyone to enter the house but, when he realised that she was still inside, he screamed her name and dashed inside before anybody could stop him. It was several hours before the fire was finally put out and anybody could enter the house, but when they did, they found two bodies charred beyond recognition, lying side by side on the floor.”

Mr Marigolds expression had grown ever more horrified as the tale went on. “Well that’s a bit of a grisly tale to be going to sleep on” he said “anyway its probably not true. You know what they’re like in villages like this, stories get passed around and distorted and embellished with each re-telling.”

“Maybe” said his wife “maybe, but I wouldn’t say anything to the children about it, I wouldn’t want to frighten them, and in any case, I haven’t finished yet. It seems that the house was eventually rebuilt and the young girl’s parents moved back in and lived in it for a number of years and it seemed that they had got their lives back together when suddenly, out of the blue, one night the woman took an overdose of sleeping pills and killed herself. When her husband discovered what she had done he was so distraught that he hanged himself, poor chap.”“Ok, ok”, laughed Mr Marigold “you’d better stop now before you give us both nightmares. Let’s go upstairs and try to get some sleep.”

As he lay on his camp bed in the gloomy darkness of the front room, Ben could just make out the sound of his parents voices droning away in the kitchen. It was comforting to know that they were near by, but he still felt scared. He had to spend an entire night in this, frankly terrifying room. He tried to rationalise his fear by persuading himself that he had only to shout out and his parents would come running to him. It helped, a little bit.

Ben had no idea what time it was. He must have fallen asleep and then awoken. He lay absolutely still and projected all his senses out around him into the darkness. He strained as hard as he could but there was no longer any sound of voices, so his parents must be in bed by now. At this realisation he felt his skin begin to crawl and he lay stock still, petrified and clammy with sweat. He decided that it must be the dead of night, maybe 3am, because the total absence of noise was so profound. It was like an unbearable weight of silence pushing down on him and slowly smothering him. He wanted to clear his throat just to make a sound, just to prove to himself that he could still hear and that noise was still possible in this enclosed little micro-universe of his. But he was too frightened to make a noise, in case it aroused unwelcome attention. He could hear nothing and yet he was certain there was something; something silent out there in the room. Whilst he had been lying in terror, his eyes had been slowly adapting to the darkness. He was torn between, on the one hand, pulling the blankets over his head and trying to get back to sleep and on the other, looking around the room and making sure that everything was as it should be. Bravery won out in the end and without moving a muscle he peered out across the room and tried to make sense of the vague shadowy shapes he could see. The room would have been scary at the best of times at this time of night, but now… well, his heart was pounding inside his chest so hard that he was convinced it was about to burst.

After a couple of minutes of intense scrutiny of the shadowy nether-world within which he lay, he felt reasonably certain that everything was as it should be and this calmed him, just a little. He dared to make a very small sound in his throat and the reassurance of the familiar noise settled him further. He had been lying on one side for so long that he was feeling quite cramped and uncomfortable so he flipped over onto his front and turning his head the other way, he immediately felt his scalp crawl and his body go clammy with cold sweat, but for several seconds he lay in almost total paralysis whilst his wide staring eyes gazed in horror upon the image of two bodies lying stretched out on the floor with another, half-seen figure crouching over them. Suddenly, with a piercing yell, Ben launched himself backwards away from the figures so violently that he capsized the camp-bed and in his blind panic he couldn’t coordinate his

movements and ended up thrashing about in his blankets helplessly, and with each passing second his dread built as he imagined the crouching figure rising and moving towards him and…. Finally he freed himself and with a cry of terror he made straight for the door without a backward glance, whilst just behind him, so he imagined, unseen and claw-like hands reached out towards him grotesquely and silently.

He ran, still screaming, from the room and made straight for his parents bedroom. At least such was his intention, but he came to a confused halt where the stairs should be, for there were no stairs and underfoot was nothing but rubble and broken glass. By now Ben was crying for help at the top of his voice and running pell-mell, crashing through shards of glass, through the door that hung from one hinge and out into the garden. He ran down the lawn away from the house and crouched in the bushes at the end of the garden sobbing in fear and without any clue as to what he should do.

The apple tree was a towering and sinister presence looming close by and seemingly growing larger and more frightening each time he looked at it, and all the time the image of what he had seen so recently was emblazoned on his mind. There had been two bodies lying side by side on the floor with the unmistakeable figure of Mrs Smith crouching over them. It had been dark, but he was nevertheless quite certain of what he had seen.

Ben crouched, shivering, at the end of the garden for an indeterminate length of time. He was exhausted, frightened and terribly lonely and he wasn’t entirely sure that this wasn’t all just a terrible dream. But, if it was, he had no idea when it would end, or how he should end it. He had never been in a situation before, where his parents couldn’t help him and he missed them terribly. He had an emptiness inside him that longed for the succour of his mothers smiling face and reassuring words.

In due course the suns’ first feeble tendrils cast upwards from the horizon and the inky night sky was slowly softened to a milky grey that failed to provide the least shred of comfort to the small boy as he lay huddled on the dew-sodden lawn, knees tucked tightly up into his chest and knuckles thrust painfully between his clenched teeth.

Ben had spent the night in a fitful and interminable state of semi–wakefulness. He was stiff with cold and lack of movement and had been staring for some time through half closed eyes at an object that, perhaps his eyes or mayhap his torpid brain, could not quite resolve. As the cold early morning hue turned by degrees to the warmer tones of incipient sunrise, so the image took on a clearer form. Slowly it moved, by mere inches, to and fro, to and fro. Metronomicaly, hypnotically it swung, whilst Ben’s sub-consciousness followed the rhythmic motion, poised, as it was, midway between wakefulness and sleep. Finally and with a great flourish, the sun entered its domain and piercing shards of light brought Ben to cruel and sudden wakefulness. At first he merely stared uncomprehendingly but then he jumped to his feet and gasped in horror, for the moving shape was none other than a large man swinging lazily by the neck up in the Apple tree. As the body swung, so it turned until there could be no further doubt; Ben found himself staring straight into the bloated and hideously distorted face of Mr Smith.

Instinctively Ben fell backwards, away from the dreadful apparition, and crashed through the shrubs at the rear of the garden and out through the gap in the fence onto the road behind. The accumulation of that night’s horrors had sent him mindless with terror and he ran back towards the village in great stumbling strides, his only coherent thought being to reunite himself with his parents and bring this relentless nightmare to a close.

After a couple of minutes he came to the junction of the lower road and the main road into the village. He stopped momentarily and stood gasping for breath, but he knew not what nameless horrors still pursued him and, though his legs would scarcely carry him, he turned left and continued his desperate run up the gentle incline of the road into the village, before careening sharply left up the garden path to the front door of the house, where he fell to his knees in exhaustion and hammered on the door with both fists, whilst screaming for his parents continuously at the top of his voice.

*****

Mrs Smith sat beneath the branches of her beloved Apple tree and gently swung herself backwards and forwards on the home made swing that her husband had made for their daughter Josie, twenty years before. The swing had been a feature of the garden for so long now; that it seemed it had always been

there. It had hung unused through the long cold winters only to be reawakened each spring by the shrieking laughter of Josie and her friends as they rediscovered the endless possibilities for play that the swing could provide.

Of course, as time passed and Josie grew up, the swing had seen less and less use and eventually it hung idly from its branch for most of the time.

Mrs Smith had such fond memories of this Garden. As she swung gently on the swing so she remembered the summer that Josie had arrived. She used to position Josie’s pram in the dappled shade beneath the Apple tree, whilst she went about her daily chores and sometimes she just sat contentedly beside her baby and gazed in wonder at the little miracle that brought her such unending pleasure.

Later on, when Josie was maybe two or three years old she began to help her mum to gather up the windfall apples before they rotted on the ground and when she was much older she helped her mother to harvest the apples from the tree itself, climbing the ladder and leaning across to reach apples that were almost out of her reach with an assurance that made her mothers heart swell with pride.

Mrs Smith had always wished for a fruit tree and when she and her husband had first set eyes on this house, with the apple tree in the garden, everything had seemed so perfect about it, that they bought it there and then and never even considered moving again. It was to be as it were, their ‘forever’ house.

She remembered the very first time that Josie had brought Archie back to the house. She had brought one or two casual boyfriends back previously and Mrs Smith had done her best to be open minded about them, but when she met Archie she had secretly hoped that he would turn out to be ‘the one’ and indeed this very quickly turned out to be the case. It had soon become clear that he and Josie were mutually besotted and in every way they seemed so well matched. They were both calm, considerate and level headed. He was an Architect with a career that was just beginning to take off and Josie; well Josie could be whatever she wanted to be. She was gifted in so many ways, but had yet to discover what she really wanted to do.

When the engagement was announced and the wedding date set, Mrs Smith was in her element. She took on the planning alongside Josie and together they organised the wedding that her little Josie deserved.

Mrs Smith’s expression had been wistful but now her eyes moistened and tears began to stream down her cheeks. She was choked with sadness; How had she thought that she could live without her dear, dear Josie. Her life was merely mechanical now. Her body carried on living as if it was some soulless robot, but inside, her spirit was dead. She needed her Jodie back. Somehow she had to find a way to reunite herself with her little Josie. There was a way, she felt sure, there was a way that they could be together and she could obliterate her torment once and for all.

Mrs Smith swallowed the little tablets one by one, seemingly not in any particular hurry. She then retrieved a half bottle of whisky from her coat pocket and shakily unscrewed the cap before raising the burning fluid to her lips and gulping it down as though it contained within it the power to restore her youth and happiness. For a few moments more, she sat gently rocking on the swing and then she mumbled almost incoherently “Josie my beloved, my perfect little Josie, Mummy is coming for you”. A few seconds later all consciousness seeped from her body and she tumbled backwards off the swing and lay silently on her back, eyes staring sightlessly up into the foliage of the tree that had been the focus of so many happy memories for her over so many years.

*****

Finally Ben’s Hammering blows on the front door were answered. He could hear the security bolt being pulled back and then the front door swung open and he staggered wearily to his feet, relief that his ordeal was at an end flooding through his body. He looked straight into the friendly and familiar face of his mother, he had missed her so profoundly and he so needed the comfort that only his mother could bring to him, that he began to sob hysterically and flung himself into her arms. But rather than receiving the warm hug that he so desperately needed, instead, he felt an overwhelming sense of panic and disorientation as he passed straight through the point at which she had just been standing without touching her at all.

His momentum sent him stumbling through into the hall where he lost his balance and fell heavily to

the floor. He lay completely still for several seconds, stunned by what had just happened, but then the immediacy of his predicament got him scrambling to his feet in a frenzy. The hallway was enveloped in a thick pall of smoke which had already descended to within a couple of feet of the floor and he could see that he had little time left to get out of the house. The front door was shut and he lunged at it in desperation, alternately kicking at it and tugging at it, until his breath finally gave out and he had to drop back to his knees in search of the small amount of breathable air still left at ground level.

He had no idea what to do next and so he crawled back a few feet along the hall until he found himself at the door to the front room. The door was open and as he peered into the room he could dimly see through the smoke, what appeared to be, a body lying motionless on the floor. He scrambled across the floor on hands and knees and through streaming eyes he made out the form of young woman laying on her side. Her face seemed unnaturally pale, her eyes were closed and her long dark hair cascaded across the carpet, giving more impression of life that any other part of her.

He shook her and shouted at her but he couldn’t rouse her. He held his face close to her mouth and tried to feel her breath on his cheek but to no avail. He needed to get her out of the house but he hadn’t the strength to move her. The smoke was so thick that he couldn’t see the walls of the room nor could he see the door. He didn’t even know in which direction the door lay any more. He was sure the girl was merely unconscious and he just had to wake her, it was unthinkable to leave her here to die in this burning house.

He remembered something that he had learnt at school and pinching her nostrils together, he blew firmly into her mouth and then he pressed down onto her chest. He repeated this many times, although he coughed and fought for each breath and in this way at least, she breathed.

He wouldn’t give up now, it was just a matter of time until she regained consciousness, he would just have to keep on going; there were no other choices. Meanwhile the thick and all engulfing smoke lay across them like a deadly blanket. It swirled and it settled, ever denser and ever closer, cloying and suffocating, hungry and hungering to bring to them the intimacy of its final embrace.

Then, in an instant, just as sunlight breaks from behind a cloud, her eyes opened and she smiled up at him. His former panic melted into a blissful calm. She was alive; he had known all along that she had just been sleeping. Her adoring smile dazzled him, left him quite breathless and dazed. He could sense the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest and feel the soft pulse of each breath against his face and it was clear to him that in saving her, he had also saved himself.

As she breathed, so each breath pushed gently against the dense smog that hung all about them. He watched mesmerised as, each time she exhaled, the pressure of her breath sent ripples cascading through the smoke, turning it away from them like an ebbing tide. In no time she had created a smoke free cocoon in which they could safely rest.

It was so exhilarating to be free of danger at last, he was just too weary to move, but it was no longer necessary to move, for he now knew what he would do. He would help the girl to keep the smoke at bay and in this way, by working together, they would remain safe.

With this final thought, he lay his head down contentedly at her side and synchronised his breathing with hers.

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