Most Haunted

I love ghosts however i'm not sure i believe in them. Despite this i have decided its a cool idea to explore, this is a prologue to a novel but is one of several ideas i have bubbling away so nothing may come of it for quite a long time. Incidentally the title is directly ripped off from the TV show that inspired this piece.

You can’t help but love those rare British summer evenings when the air is just warm enough to sit outside without a jumper and you can sit outside and soak up the fading sun and talk smugly about how the rain forecast by the met office never came.

It was just such an evening when I was hanging about on the terrace. Unfortunately when you die you lose allot of sense like touch, taste and smell, though I’m sure some would say loss of the latter is probably not such a bad thing considering we ghostly types tend to frequent dilapidated buildings and moldering old mansions. That being said a friend of mine is a poltergeist at the Ritz in London.

Smug over the rain that never fell and marveling at the clouds stained crimson by the setting sun I heard the squeak of the iron gates that barred the driveway. I had guests. The old manor I now inhabit was abandoned after the Second World War, it had served some intelligence unit trying to jam Luftwaffe radios and there was a fair bit of old wartime memorabilia lying around. It was a broad and boxy red brick building with white marble under the windows and eaves. Ivy clung to parts of the wall and an majestic oak tree sprouted from the middle of the wide gravel driveway. The old stables occupied the east wing and the terrace swept around the south west side of the house.

I rushed through the house so see who my visitors where and discovered that for the next few days I would be joined by a TV documentary crew. The crew comprised of a spirit reader, a team of three ‘ghost hunters’ and a crew of about fifteen accompanied by a dizzying array of remote cameras, motion detectors, thermometers and other devices to detect the after life.

When I have visitors unlike some of the other ghosts in the house I like to put on a bit of a performance, shadows in windows, rattling sounds, door slamming, tap running and switching things on and off. I could be a poltergeist except my local area is rather too sparsely populated for it to be worth my while.

As I made my way up the stairs I passed Gladys, a kindly old woman who had died in 1800’s of simple old age. A kind hearted and gentle soul, the TV crew would probably label her benevolent spirit except she prefers to avoid the fuss made by TV crews. Gladys gave me a smile and a wave as our paths crossed and she stepped noiselessly across the floor towards the front door, as her front foot touched the threshold the air around her shimmered and she vanished. I watched as the crewmembers shivered slightly as they stepped through the door and through the cold spot that Gladys had left.

I thought I would maybe do some creaking floorboards, shadows and cold spots of my own while the crew was setting up, whet their appetites and then stop everything as soon as they press record. The funny part is when their imaginations take over and suddenly wind coming through a cracked window pane is the screams of a murdered wife.

I stride along the landing looking down into the atrium as two burly crew members wrestle a box of lighting equipment over the uneven tiled floor, a particular tile kicks the back of the box around at a funny angle and they jump back nervously. They are already skittish, this is going to be hilarious.

The door to the master bedroom is half open and I squeeze through the gap, I briefly consider slamming the door but I fear that’s letting on too much to early. I content myself with casting a shadow on one of the front windows, a pretty woman with blonde hair wearing jeans and a blouse catches a glimpse of me. I think she’s the presenter. The says something to the leather jacketed man next to her and raises a finger to point at me. I tantalize the pair by standing boldly at the window for a second or two before stepping to the side and disappearing from their view.

With nothing else to do but wait for the crew to unload all of their kit I spread my arms and begin to spin.  My limbs feel fluid and I can see my hands turning to smoke. I continue to turn until the door bursts open and blonde hair and leather jacket burst in frantically. I smile at the cold spot I’m about to leave and let my body sink into the floor. As my connection to the human world fades I hear them chattering about how cold it in the room and checking that all the windows are shut, maybe I should of slammed that door.