Spirit

[franklinmarsh]

“A flame appears above the grave. It is cold, not hot. It can be …. any one of several colours….blue….green….red….it signifies a recent passing on. I can attempt to communicate, but the recently deceased are often in a state of flux. They do not always appreciate their ….condition. We will try. That is all I can promise.”


Mrs. Shaftesbury studied the group. The weeping widow. The distraught sister-in-law. The sceptical brother – he might be a problem; he may well have imbibed before the meeting.

She lifted her skirts and led the way into the graveyard.

There weren’t many flames. Two or three. A faint blue flicker over on the left, by the wall. A diminutive orange candle fluorescence to their right – almost certainly a child. Mrs. Shaftesbury blinked and swallowed. Directly ahead was a roaring red inferno. A recently deceased adult who wasn’t at all happy. She led the party on.

Something was wrong, very wrong. She’d never seen flame this virulent, this expansive. Her footsteps faltered. She became aware of the whispering behind her.

“It’s a good act...”

“She’s sweating, those imaginary flames can’t be that cold…”

“When do we tell her it’s not this grave…?”

Breathing was becoming difficult. The sheer malevolence of the writhing, twisting crimson in front of her was squeezing her lungs and heart. She tottered forward involuntarily, to suppressed laughter from behind her. A shape was forming within the flames.

“No….”

“Mrs. Shaftesbury, this is beyond a joke. We’d been informed that you were a fraud and a charlatan, and we’ve now seen it for ourselves. This grave you are standing before is not that of Mr. Hardesty. In fact he doesn’t exist. I’ll have to ask you to…”

“NO!!!”

The flames enveloped her. Cold but sensual. Her senses released her. She fell forward.

The three mock mourners stared in disbelief.

“Harry…”

Morag’s hands clasped his arm. The brandy had worn off. Jane lay in a dead faint. Of Mrs. Shaftesbury there was no sign.

[Craig Herbertson]

Liked this - the eternal problem of the spiritualist

[Calenture]

This one seems to be so close to being just right. I think the details just need fitting in at certain points. As it is, when I reach the end and should be appreciating the irony of the immolated spiritualist, instead I'm wondering who Harry is and whether it matters.

[franklinmarsh]

Aug 4, 2013 19:31:28 GMT Calenture said:

This one seems to be so close to being just right. I think the details just need fitting in at certain points. As it is, when I reach the end and should be appreciating the irony of the immolated spiritualist, instead I'm wondering who Harry is and whether it matters.

Thanks for reading you fellows. Rog - there are four characters and only one is male.

Spirit – Second Sight

They never did find Mrs. Shaftesbury. She was my great great grandmother. My gran told me all about it. I used to spend a lot of time with my gran. My dad bunked off when I was little. Mum re-married quite quickly; she needed someone. My stepdad wasn’t a bad person – just too straight-laced and easy to wind up. When I reached my teens, he reached the end of his tether. He just couldn’t see that the odd pill or a bit of blow didn’t mean addiction. I wasn’t that stupid. I stayed with gran for a while then travelled with a like-minded group. Saw the country, and the inside of a few cells and squats. Did my bit for peace, light, lurve and drugs.
Things had settled down quite nicely recently. So nicely I’d decided to go and see mum. Stepdad was in a bad way, and mum was a full-time carer, still cold and with little time for an errant daughter. I didn’t stay long. I went to gran’s but the door was answered by a stranger who didn’t know anything about the previous occupier . Strange. Mum hadn’t said anything.

I’d felt a little down for a few days after that, but some friends were talking about a reunion rave and my partner said it might be good idea to go. Forget about the family stuff. Relive our wild youth. I acquiesced to get him off my back. People always mean well, don’t they?

It was being held in a large rundown warehouse on the periphery of a disused trading estate in a suburb of London. When we arrived the lights, the music, the sight of all of these aging hipsters desperately trying to relive their youth acted as a depressant. I refused drinks and recreational pharmaceuticals and as soon as the other half was jigging, I took a slow walk. I knew I shouldn’t have gone out on my own, but I couldn’t take that.

Something seemed to guide me off the estate, towards a semi-rural area. A charming little church nestled beside an over large graveyard. So much for religion. I experienced a vaguely warm, comforting feeling staring at the church, until with a shock I recalled a recent news item about an apocalyptic vicar who’d gunned down his congregation. The other half guffawed and mentioned Jim Jones in Britain. I had an unsettling flashback to an old Hammer horror – a church full of bloodied, slain victims.

Something compelled me to enter the graveyard. The gates were wide open. As I strolled along an overgrown gravel path, I became aware of three flickering lights in the distance.
A nervousness crept from my stomach to my mouth, but I kept on going.

In the middle of the graveyard was a large ornate headstone. The three small orange flames danced in front of it. My fear increased. I imagined I could hear voices and see faces in the flames. The one on the far right seemed to be my grandmother. I was unable to stop moving forward or to turn away.

Every nerve strained. I could still not make out the voices, but they seemed to be warning. All three flames contained terrified, shrieking faces.

“Gran?” I blurted out.

I was running toward them now, even though the faint screams seemed to abjure.

As I reached the headstone, a huge sheet of demonic red flame rose behind them, extinguishing them, and reaching for me.

[Calenture]

I was really getting into this one and would have been happy if it had gone on a while longer. It makes a nice bookend to the first piece. First person narrative is unusual for you, as far as I can remember. It strikes me you could try it more often. Like it!

[franklinmarsh]

Cheers Rog! Apologies - now for some dreadful self indulgence -

Spirit – Third Eye

Jardine sighed and sipped his tea. Not long until retirement. He was feeling his age. Didn’t get the same buzz from the job as he used to. He’d seen too much, and kept too much inside. He often wondered how he’d lasted this long. He glanced down at the file on his desk. Everything just screamed Missing Person. She’d been a traveller. Could have gone anywhere. Her partner was in a state. Probably because he’d been off his face for the evening and only realised the love of his life was gone when he woke up and she wasn’t there. Now guilt was making him kick up a fuss. There was certainly no evidence, unless you counted the bag found at the graveyard. The graveyard….

Jardine strolled through the open gates. He’d noted that the so-called ‘Massacre Church’ (Damn those tabloids!) was nearby. It was quiet. The sun was shining. No sound. No sound at all. He looked around and involuntarily shivered, despite the warmth of the sun’s rays. There was a very large headstone ahead. A tree overshadowed it. A tree completely bare of foliage. Perched upon a thin branch was a tatty looking crow. It glared at Jardine.

The policeman examined the headstone, conscious of the corvine surveillance. There was script carved into the stone but it was so faded he couldn’t make out any discernible wording. There was a feeling of malevolence emanating from the grave. Looking up, he saw the crow, still watching him. Its head moved as he moved.

Jardine walked back to the gates of the cemetery. The bag had been retrieved just inside. The were a couple of scribbled addresses in the purse. He’d visit them. He was aware of …..hate. He couldn’t put it any other way. Glancing back, the grave seemed innocuous enough. The crow, just a bird. The tree, just a dead tree. But something hated him.

The first address was a washout. The girl’s mother. Attending to her terminally ill husband who ‘forgave’ his stepdaughter – whatever that meant. Neither were interested. The second was more illuminating. A harassed young man filling a skip vented at the policeman about unwanted visitors. He retrieved a battered suitcase from the skip, informed Jardine that it may have belonged to the former occupant of his house, and thanked him to clear off.

Back at the office Jardine forced his way into the suitcase and spent a pleasant couple of hours building a picture of the missing girl, her grandmother, her great grandmother and….Mrs Shaftesbury. The vanishing medium. Victorian scandal. As Jardine read the scrapbooks, the diaries, the letters, glanced through the family albums, he was assailed by a heavy sadness, tinged with fear. He couldn’t understand the fear. There were mysteries and gaps, and tragedy and misfortune surrounding the four women. Mrs. Shaftesbury, the great great grandmother, had disappeared in front the grave he himself had been standing before that very morning. Disappeared into thin air. In front of witnesses. Two grief-stricken, one inebriated. Mrs. Shaftesbury’s daughter had also disappeared, although there were no details. Her own daughter seemed to have recently followed in the family tradition, and now the great great grand daughter, Jardine’s case. He wandered outside and lit his pipe. It had something to do with that grave. It had to.

The doorbell rang at midnight. Jardine awoke with a start and shuffled into the hallway. Peering through the security spyhole, he saw a bearded, beige man. He then found himself sat in an armchair, the man pouring some milky white-green concoction into a glass. It had no taste, but Jardine felt revivified, then sleepy. The man handed him a stout red metal cylinder topped by a black plastic funnel. He then launched into a long monologue. The policeman dozed, catching parts of it. He relived his own battles with the supernatural – the Wyvern, the killer penis, the Olympic werewolf…he saw four women, one man…almost in a trance, he queried the grave…evil in a Christian burial ground? The man explained that was how evil worked; from within good. Evil’s time was coming - the church massacre was a sign. The man leant forward and touched the centre of Jardine’s forehead.

Jardine woke with a start, alone. Had he dreamed it? An empty glass sat upon his coffee table. The red cylinder, black funnel device sat beside his chair. He looked out of the window. It was dark and cold.

Jardine entered the graveyard. He walked towards the huge gravestone toting the red cylinder. He jumped nervously as the crow cawed. Four orange flames fluttered before the headstone, which now crawled with living stone demons. He saw four women’s faces within the flames, laughing, goading him. They coalesced, rose up and turned scarlet. The copper brandished his own scarlet, and pointed the black funnel at the base of the roaring flame. A purifying white foam, flecked with green, gushed from the cylinder. The flames crackled, and….screamed. The headstone cracked and crumbled. The dead tree impossibly caught fire, an orange fire. It spread with astonishing speed, claiming the crow. As all crumbled before him, Jardine caught a glimpse of three shadowy figures – a cat, a svelte young woman whose black tresses streaked either side with white, seemed alive, and an imposing bald toad of a man. The white stream coughed to a halt, a few ineffectual spurts decorating the shattered stone and burnt wood. Jardine fell to his knees. He looked up and smiled at the four women who surrounded him. They thanked him, then faded. As did a vicar with a bullet hole in his head, and a throng of proseltysing Christians.

As unconsciousness claimed him, Jardine glanced back at the cemetery gates. The man from the night before, now clad in shimmering white raiment, stood beaming, a ball of mistletoe in one hand and a blood-stained golden sickle in the other.

[Craig Herbertson]

Well, I'm back but at the moment kind of shellshocked from travel so I'll need to have a look at what's been going on a bit later