MicroHorror

The recording was indistinct, like distant voices heard through static, but the words could just be made out: “Go away… please… just go…”

Claire Davies leaned forward, head on one side, listening intently. Could this really be the sound of children who had died more than a century ago?

“And these voices were recorded at…” she checked her notes. “How do you say this?”

“Yoolam Cottage.” Professor Landon switched off the tape. “Everyone has heard them. A malevolent bunch, by all accounts. They certainly seem intent on wrecking our investigation.”

“You’ve sent people in?”

“Yes, but they didn’t stay long.”

Claire looked at a monochrome photograph of a typical Victorian family. The father, tall and with a huge, bushy beard; the mother, plump and wearing a drab dress, her hair pinned up; and two children, a boy and a girl: this was George and Minnie Ewelme and their two children, Harry and Ethel, just arrived from New Zealand back in the eighteen-sixties. Seven years later they were all dead, gunned down during a violent robbery. Yet it would be another eighty years before any reports of paranormal activity were to emerge.

Claire placed the photograph back on the table and picked up a picture of Ewelme Cottage. It was picturesque, if a little rundown, and certainly didn’t look threatening. At least there would be no winding corridors or shadowy alcoves.

“I think I’d like to investigate it,” she said.

Later that evening she was sitting in the back of a van with Professor Landon and a young student. There was a full moon and it was a mild evening, always a good sign. She strapped on a headset, which held an infrared camera and a microphone, then picked up an electromagnetic voice recorder. She was now ready for a ghost hunt.

“Let’s do it,” she said, and got out of the van.

The cottage loomed ahead of her. As ever, her heart was beating just a little too quickly, but she approached the front door without a moment of hesitation.

“Voices can’t hurt you, Claire.” She placed a hand on the front door and pushed it open.

Empty as the living room was, the space still seemed impossibly small for a family of four; certainly, it was no bigger that a bed-sit she had once rented during her student days. As she started across the room the voices began (almost like a distant buzz of insects), and her skin began to crawl.

Ignore them; you’re not going to be here long.

She pushed open a second door and stood before the kitchen, hairs bristling on the back of her neck. Just voices, she told herself, keep going.

Stepping through the doorway, she could feel tiny hands pushing at her, ghostly attempts to impede her progress. She ignored them and pressed on, telling herself she could do it.

But her mouth was dry and it was an effort to move. “Come on, Claire; ghosts are people too, you know.”

As she stepped into the room, a hand struck her across the face, and had it been solid flesh her head would have rocked back.

This time a woman’s voice fairly screamed at her, “GET OUT OF MY HOUSE!”

Claire jumped back, really frightened for the first time in her life, losing her footing and falling heavily.

“Bitch! The bloody bitch!”

Claire got to her feet, furious. There was a rip in her skirt but the indignity was far worse; if this footage ever…

“I don’t stop for anything.”

She barged through the door, virtually stomping into the centre of the room.

The rotten floorboards shattered under her weight. She screamed, arms flailing as she fell into the mineshaft that Ewelme Cottage had been built over.

The Ghosts of Ewelme Cottage had been benevolent, rather than malevolent, warning off unwary trespassers; they had saved many lives.

Claire chose to ignore their warnings.

There is now one extra ghost at Ewelme Cottage!