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FILE 011: FEAR OF THE DARK
Why does the dark scare us so much? Why are we so afraid of it? Most ghost stories are usually told under the cover of darkness. Told at night around campfires or around the glow of a fire. When we watch a horror film we turn the lights off. We draw the curtains. We try our best to keep the sun away so we can feel the fear of the dark. We enjoy being scared of the dark. But that night at the vicarage in Little Ashbury...all I wanted was the sun to rise.
And I believe that the night is a living thing. It has so much control over us all. Over our emotions and how we act. Burglars break into your house during the night. Robberies are committed during the night. It's a cloak. A disguise. A shroud that evil uses and operates under.
And it's also something that the thing that claimed to be my daughter used on us.
You'll be happy to know that I've found myself on a caravan park. Paid cash in hand and I'm now all cosy with some proper coffee, a bit of toast and some old comedies playing on the TV. It's not home, but it feels a little closer to it, although I'm not safe. I mustn't be lulled into a false sense of security, but I needed somewhere that felt safe while I recounted this one to you.
So the verger, Miss Johnston, had wished us a goodnight. Stark had given me a brandy to help me get to sleep. I'd pressed her as much as I dare. There was something there, I knew it. I straight out asked her if she knew what Horizon was.
She said she knew enough and would only tell me that they were an organisation that she tried best to stay away from. The woods that Stark watched over in between sermons at the church were on their radar, but they left her alone. Mostly. I pressed for more information, but she told me it was best not to pry any further and that I should get some sleep. With a clear head we'd be able to discuss further.
So I slept. On the floor beside the double bed in the spare room. The room that Eleanor had been put up in.
It had been around three or four in the morning when I'd awoken. There was a streetlight not far from the window of the spare bedroom. I'd noted it because when I went to sleep it had cast the room in an eerie, pale light. But now the room was enveloped in nothing but ink-black darkness. Instinctively I went to my phone and switched on the torch light, sitting up to check on Eleanor.
She wasn't there.
Naturally I started to panic, threw back the covers, and scrambled around the bed to look for any sign of her. She had gone. And my fears slipped back to losing her once again. I'd only just found her. I couldn't lose her again. It was then that I felt something I had never felt before and prayed I would never feel again. The sense of something in the room. A creeping, slithering feeling of dread climbed up my spine and wrapped its arms around me in the worlds most disturbing hug. I could feel something breathing on my neck. A shallow, rasping. On every exhale it let out a rattling whine. Whatever it was, it wasn't Eleanor.
And then I heard her laugh. I heard my little girl laugh. And the laugh was coming from the same place as the breathing. With a deep breath I closed my eyes and turned around to face whatever was in the room with us.
Okay. I need something stronger. Something stiffer. This is messed up. I'll be back.
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Copyright © 2022 by Jim Allenby
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