The Haunting Within by Michelle Burley Read Free Book Online Page A

estate agent and we’d arranged for someone to come tomorrow to value the house and bring the paper work. After I put the phone down I turned to go back in the kitchen and I…” she trailed off as she began to weep again.
    They gave her some time and when she had control of herself she carried on. “As I turned around I glanced up the stairs, I didn’t want to but felt I had to and there he was standing there glaring at me and for a second I…I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. Then he started walking down the stairs towards me…” Debbie broke off again to sip her whisky with shaky hands, the glass banging against her teeth.
    They sat in silence for a while until Lisa said “I think we should all stay together from now on.” But they knew it didn’t need saying; that was the way it was going to be. In a strange way, Lisa and Aiden knew that it was irrational to be thinking of ghosts and such, but after all their mother had told them and after what they had witnessed in this very house all those years ago it seemed there were such things as ghosts. At home the idea of things that go bump in the night could be dismissed, put down to over-active imaginations which is what they had been doing for as long as they could remember. But being in the house where it all happened, it wasn’t so easy to think like that. The fear that oozed from their mum crept over them like a swarm of tiny insects until it had them in its hold.
    The night was drawing in when Debbie looked up at them. “We’re going to have to stay here the night.” She had said their worst fears out loud and knew what their reactions would be.
    “Why are we?” asked Lisa unsure why her mum thought that and already feeling the panic rising in her chest. 
    “The estate agent can’t get anybody out here until tomorrow morning.”
    “Well what time in the morning because we might still have time to go home and be back here for then.” Lisa waited for her mum to reply, hoping they would have time to make the four-and-a-half hour journey back to their home, catch a bit of sleep - if they possibly could - and get back here in time for the estate agent arriving.
    “He didn’t give me a time love, just said sometime after eight o’clock. We won’t have time to go home. We’ve got no choice but to stay here tonight.” Debbie replied with a sigh, aware that she had just shattered her children’s hopes but not knowing any other way around this dilemma.
    “No way! I’m not staying here all night!” Aiden shouted, feeling close to tears which shocked him as he wasn’t one for crying and hadn’t done so since he was thirteen and their beloved dog Benji had to be put down because of his arthritis which was caused by old age the vet had said. Near the end the poor thing could hardly walk. They kept him as long as they could without being inhumane, but in the end they realised it just wasn’t fair to keep him suffering for their own selfishness. Aiden had often wondered if he was to blame. He used to play with Benji and get him to chase him and do tricks for hours on end. Surely that couldn’t have helped his arthritis. His mum always told him of course it wasn’t his fault but he had never been so sure. He questioned if maybe it would have been better to let Benji laze around all day doing nothing like old Mrs. Connel who lived next door to them did with Shep. Shep was a boring dog. Aiden tried every time he saw him to get him to play but he was never interested. The most Aiden ever saw him do was give a pathetic wag of his tail whenever he was petted. Even when they got Benji and he first met Shep, Shep barely even opened his eyes to look at him. Benji had wanted to play but the old lazy dog was having none of it. No, that wouldn’t have been any life for a dog. Aiden took solace in knowing Benji had a full and happy life.
    Debbie had driven him to the vets while he lay in the back seat with the children. They cried all the way there and back. It