7
During that first October spent living in the Cage, I experienced more paranormal activity then I could ever have thought possible. The pokers and brushes that hung from the mantelpiece above the fireplace would swing back and forth without any breeze to push them; often, the door at the bottom of the staircase would fly open and then slam violently shut, with no human force to move it; knives, forks, and spoons took to flying off the draining board in the kitchen all by themselves, and objects that had been left in the front room would often levitate up into the air, as though they had been picked up by some unseen hand.
The electrical equipment in the house was still going berserk, along with the lights, which switched themselves on and off at all hours of the day and night. The atmosphere got progressively thicker and darker—it seemed to me as if an energy or intelligence of some kind was now present in the house, one that was hell-bent on taking over and influencing the way in which Nicole and I lived our everyday lives.
The thick fog now arrived in the village practically every afternoon, as regular as clockwork, blanketing the ground before rising up slowly as afternoon gave way to the evening until finally, only the heads of the deer and stag could be seen in the deer park across the street from the Cage.
Cawing from the murders of black crows now echoed on the still evening air. The seasonal change was palpable, and as the mood and atmosphere in the ancient little village of St Osyth changed, so did the Cage.
All Hallows Eve had nearly arrived, and quite frankly, both of us were glad to see the back of what had been the worst month in the house yet. Tensions within the house were close to reaching breaking point. Nicole and I were both wound up so very tightly, a direct result of living constantly on a knife edge.
Finally, as a last-ditch effort to perk up our mood, we both had the somewhat inspired idea of throwing ourselves a Halloween party. Neither of us particularly wanted to spend Halloween in the house by ourselves, so it seemed as though the perfect solution was to surround ourselves with good friends, good music, and some good drink in the guise of a witches’ brew that was liberally laced with an entirely different type of spirits to those that we were getting used to living with inside the Cage.
All we wanted was to have a little fun, let our hair down, and simply get through the night without a major incident, forgetting our worries and cares for just one special evening. We decided that we would dress up as witches, complete with long black capes and tall, pointy black witches’ hats.
Early on that Halloween afternoon, Nicole and I decked out the house in fake spider webs, strategically positioned plastic skeletons, big black rats, and cockroaches all around the Cage, and then set to carving out pumpkins into all manner of spooky faces, before lighting candles inside them to make for some appropriate mood lighting. At around 5:30 pm, we both went upstairs to get showered and ready for our big party night.
A short while later, I was just about to open my bedroom door to head into the bathroom when I heard the sound of heavy feet clumping down the stairs. The footsteps were either both heavy and very forceful—the sort that a large man might make—or Nicole was really angry about something. That was unlikely, because she had been fine when I had seen her just a few minutes before.
Puzzled, I opened my bedroom door and stepped out onto the top landing. No sooner had I gone out there than I heard an almighty slam. It was the door at the bottom of the stairs—the slam was so loud that when I craned my neck to look, I saw the door physically shake in its frame with the force of impact.
I could feel my face flush with anger: the door is an original, made of very old wood that was no longer in the best of condition. It would damage easily when it was slammed that forcefully. Bloody hell, I thought to myself, what’s the matter with her! I stood at the top of the stairs for a moment, looking down the twisted flight of scuffed wooden steps, took a deep breath, and bellowed: “Jesus, Nicole, who’s pissed you off!?! Why are you slamming that door?”
It was a very bewildered Nicole that came up from behind me and asked what all the yelling was about. Fully believing that I was alone upstairs, I nearly jumped out of my skin when she emerged from her bedroom.
After I made a hasty apology for shouting at her, Nicole and I looked at one another with dawning horror when we realized that if it wasn’t either one of us that had stormed downstairs and slammed the door so violently, then who else was inside our home? Our minds were conjuring up images of armed intruders and psychopathic axe murderers, which wasn’t all that hard for us to believe on Halloween night.
Hesitantly we both crept downstairs, ready to solve this mystery and confront the intruder as a pair. After all, wasn’t there safety in numbers? We were getting angrier with every step we took. Any burglar would have a real challenge on his hands, forced to take on two enraged girls who he dared threaten in their own home.
When we reached the bottom of the staircase, Nicole and I found that the door that led out into Coffin Alley was securely locked; no early party guests had let themselves in, and no intruder was to be found anywhere inside the Cage after we had searched high and low. The old house was empty and quiet, apart from the occasional crackle and hiss coming from the kindling inside the wood burner.
In stunned bewilderment, we stood there in the middle of the front room, just staring at one another. We both heard the footsteps and the resultant slam. With the Cage being locked up tight, who else could have been responsible but one of the resident ghosts? And from the sound of it, this particular entity wasn’t in a friendly mood.
We both sat down on the sofa, pouring ourselves a large, fortifying glass of punch and tried to make sense of what had just happened—something that we failed spectacularly to do. Finally, we decided that the wisest course of action would be to go back upstairs and just carry on with what we were doing before we were so rudely interrupted.
“The show must go on,” I laughed, in a feeble attempt at lightening the mood. There didn’t seem any other option, so we both went back upstairs to continue getting ready. The first of the party guests would start arriving at any moment, and we still had to get washed and dressed up in our costumes. I went into the bathroom and stood by the sink, looking into the mirror and getting ready to run some hot water.
I sensed instantly that something was suddenly very wrong, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on exactly what it was. The bathroom light was on, and as I looked at my own reflection in the mirror, the reason for my new-found sense of fear was suddenly made clear.
Standing right behind me, reflected clearly just over my right shoulder, was the tall, dark figure of a man—another shadow figure, just like the one that had stopped to stare at me in the kitchen weeks before. Based upon its large, intimidating build (not to mention my own intuitive sense), I was sure that this was a man rather than a woman. The shadow man glared back at me with what appeared to be two deep, white holes where his eyes ought to have been. The entity was standing so close to me, lurking just inches behind my right shoulder, that I could actually feel an icy chill rippling across the skin of my neck … a very physical, completely tangible sign that the spirit was all too real.
The fear I felt in the pit of my stomach was growing with every passing moment. It paralyzed me, rooting me to the spot. This was my encounter with the shadow man in the kitchen all over again, but with one crucial difference: before, there had been the length of a room between the dark entity and myself. Now, he was practically pressed up against my back, trapping me within the confines of the small little bathroom.
I hardly dared to breathe; my limbs were locked solidly into place, refusing to move a muscle no matter how hard I willed them. I wanted nothing more than to turn and run, but the shadow man was standing between me and my only possible exit; maybe that’s why my feet remained rooted to the spot. All that I could do was stand there, bending slightly over the sink, whimpering quietly inside because of the stone cold fear that now held me tightly in its grip and stubbornly refused to let go.
And then, just when I thought that I couldn’t bear the tension for even a second longer, our stalemate ended: the dark man slowly became less solid, fading out until finally there was no trace of his ever having been there. It was as if he had just evaporated, but I knew better; although I could no longer see him, I was utterly certain that this malevolent spirit was still around and could still see me. The bathroom was thick with his presence.
I don’t know exactly how long our standoff had taken, because it felt as though time had actually stood still, as though the world all around us had just stopped. Now, the clocks seemed to be running normally again. I let out a breath that I hadn’t realized I had been holding. But I was never going to trust that bathroom again, not for as long as I lived. If I close my eyes, I can still feel that cold, unnatural breath on my body with perfect recall like it happened yesterday, even though it happened years ago.
This was the second time that the shadow man had stalked me in my own home, paralyzing me with fear and then disappearing into thin air. What was his game, I couldn’t help but wonder—what did he want, this dark spirit? Was it simply to cause fear and anxiety? If so, he was being more than successful. Perhaps the loud footsteps that Nicole and I had just heard were his, clomping their way down the stairs and then slamming the door so violently.
The bigger picture was also something that was very much on my mind. After all, what I had once believed to be the home of my dreams had somehow become a place ripped straight from the darkest of nightmares. Why was I being haunted by the spirits of the Cage? I was convinced that I had been chosen somehow, either by the house itself or by someone—or something—that lurked within it. There was no imaginable way that the reasons for that could be good … could they?
Running some cold water and splashing it across my face, I made every effort to pull myself together. The party itself was a great success and proved to be just what the doctor ordered; Nicole and I got the much-needed opportunity to spend our first Halloween in the Cage surrounded by our friends. The makeshift dance floor that we had set up in the front room was great, although I have to admit that it was a little surreal to dance the night away in a room filled with vampires, skeletons, witches, and all manner of other supernatural creatures, so soon after my terrifying encounter with the shadow man in the upstairs bathroom.
Finally, having blown off some steam and having imbibed just a little too much punch, we both flopped down into my bed at the end of the night, clinging to each other for comfort and security. We didn’t wake up until late the next morning, which was now All Saints’ Day.
We both suspected that the spirits of the Cage had more surprises to throw our way, and we weren’t to be disappointed.