Don't Turn Around.

I wouldn't say I'm easily scared.
I mean I can go out at night on my own and not have to look over my
shoulder all the time fearful that I am being followed, but I have
never been as scared as I am right now. I am no longer alone I know
that now but whatever is here is not something I care to meet
personally. The crying started at about 2.30 am this morning, echoing
up the stairway and waking me from my sleep, it has continued ever
since. It is now 5.15 as I sit before my computer writing this. It is a
woman's voice, and it sounds in so much pain. If it was just the crying
maybe I could go back to sleep but about an hour after I awoke the
laughter began. Not riotous laughter, but the soft gentle melody of
children. It surrounds me, like a blanket but there is a lost sadness
to it, I guess it is the sound of memories long gone. I fear the two
are connected the children and the weeping woman, maybe they are her
own precious infants. Did they die? Is that why she cries, she is
grieving for her lost children? I cannot know, it is the past and it is
inaccessible to me now. I do not seem to be disturbing them even though
they disturb me greatly. Yet still they make their sounds as if trying
to convey to me a moment from there own lives, a fragment from lives
long ended.
The crying seems to have stopped but the laughter is still here,
although it too has altered slightly, the joy seems to have gone from
it and it now sounds almost nervous. And another thing, it sounds
closer, before it was all around me but now it's like it's right next
to me. I want to turn but I'm afraid that someone might be there. I
don't want to see anything. Hearing is one thing seeing is a whole
other kettle of fish. I have imagined scenarios like this thousands of
times, too many in fact it has turned my brain into a 'expect the very
worst' factory. That's what you get for having a vivid imagination.
Then again I couldn't write if I didn't have one, and I don't think I
could live if I couldn't write so I put up with always thinking the
creaking in the night to be someone creeping in the shadows, the
tapping on the window some lifeless creature trying to gain entrance to
my room, it couldn't possibly be a loose floorboard or an old tree. My
mind is predictable in it's ability to stray from the simple into the
unnatural at times it can be a gift but now, now it's a curse, I would
give anything to not be thinking what I'm thinking right now.
If I turn around I'm gonna see the owner of the phantom voice.
I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna turn and look, I have to I can't sit here
pondering it. I'll look there'll be no one there and I can rest again
maybe even start breathing again.
There is movement behind me.
A soft rustling, like the sound of fabrics moving against each other
and the crying has returned. The two sounds are together and I know
that she is behind me. The weeping woman. I know as sure as I know my
own name.
Adam Jakob Vincent there is a dead women behind you!
I feel warmth on the back of my neck, as if someone were caressing it
with their breath. I must turn. I must face my fears as my mother used
to say.
Maybe if I say something. Hell, I just want to hear the sound of my own
voice to know I'm still here.
"Hello, is someone there?"
Of course there's someone there, isn't that what I've been saying all
along. What a stupid thing to say, yet they always say it, 'hello is
there someone there?' then they go into the dark basement and get an
axe in the head.
I don't want an axe in the head.
There is something on my shoulder. I think it may be a hand.
I have a ghosts hand on my shoulder, or maybe it's a severed hand like
Thing from The Addams Family, I'm gonna turn and look.
Dammit Adam just turn and look for god's sake and get it over
with.
The rustling fabric is back and with it comes an end to the sobbing and
now I think my heart has actually stopped because I can feel breathing
right by my ear.
I wish I had one of those portable zapper things. Clear, POW! One pulse
no waiting.
With the breathing comes a voice, soft and feminine and chilling in
it's lifelessness.
"Don't turn around."
Thank God.
I don't think I could've had I tried. I am literally frozen in place,
frozen in time like whoever's behind me. What if I'm mistaken? What if
it's not a ghost but is actually a thief trying to distract me with
recordings of phantom sobs and giggles while they take my V.C.R and my
microwave. Maybe I should turn around.
But if it's actually some long dead woman do I wanna see her? I mean
she might be all rotted flesh and maggots.
Damn my imagination!
The rustling is closer now, I can feel something on my back.
The voice is whispering again.
"Don't turn around."
Don't worry honey I don't intend to.
Why am I still writing? Because if I stop then it's just me and her and
that is so far away from where I want to be that it's not even funny so
keep typing no matter what you type. Sometimes when I'm lost in deep
thought especially when I'm writing strange things creep into my head,
like the other day I was in the middle of this great sentence when I
suddenly thought. I don't own any coloured socks, seriously all the
socks I own are black, grey or brown. I just thought about that because
another weird one has crept into my overactive brain. The lamp in my
study has had the same bulb in it since I bought it six years ago, I
don't recall ever changing it yet it still works. So why don't I have
it on? I could just reach over and switch it on and the room would be
flooded with it's warm yellow light. But if I reached out my arm would
be exposed. It could grab it and spin me around forcing me to look into
it's dried out dead eyes.
Shut up brain or I'll stab you with a cue tip.
Where have I heard that before? Homer Simpson. One of life's great
observers, 'Green m 'n' m red m 'n' m they all wind up the same
colour!!' He, he that guy kills me. I complain about my socks Homer's
worn the same white shirt and blue pants since the very beginning. They
all have.
I'm cold. I've only just noticed that. I'm sitting here in nothing but
my old Beatles T-shirt and my shorts and I'm freezing, I mean I may be
shaking out of fear but it doesn't change the fact that it's bloody
cold in here. Then again doesn't the temperature always plummet in the
presence of spirits? I'm sure I read that somewhere. My fingers are
getting stiff, they feel as if they're freezing as in turning to ice.
What time is it?
6.02 am
It will be getting light soon, then I can turn around, ghosts only come
out in the dark right? They sure can pick their moments can't they, I
mean you never hear of a spirit popping out on a nice summer afternoon
during a picnic, it's always the middle of the night and usually in
stormy weather in some big old house. Well it's not raining and this is
an apartment on the fourth floor and yet here I am afraid to turn
around in my own study for fear of seeing a ghost. I'm thirty-seven
years old and I want my mommy, hell I would love anyone living to show
up right now and switch on the light.
Can ghosts read?
What if she's reading this over my shoulder and gets offended?
Come on A.J. your being stupid now. Even if she can read she didn't
come all the way from the other side to be nosy now did she?
Yes? No? who knows, I don't and to be honest I don't wanna find out. I
just want her to leave let me finish this rant and when the sun comes
up I'll get up and go to bed, I'm extremely tired.
Oh no the sobbing has returned, this time it's a child's voice.
I want this to be over, yesterday my biggest problem was whether or not
to have mustard in my sandwich and the world of the dead and the living
only met in cemeteries now look at me. That seems like so long ago now,
so far away like it was in another lifetime when ghosts didn't exist
and I was sane.
6.11
Time flies when you're having fun, well I'm not having fun and time's
moving like a funeral precession, no offence. I wish I had a ham and
mustard sandwich now, I'm suddenly very hungry.
Something is going on behind me, there is whispering, but not directed
at me, whoever is there they're whispering amongst themselves. That
can't be good or maybe it can, maybe they are reliving some incident
and soon it will be over and I can restart my heart.
You're rambling again.
Damn right I am I'm doing whatever it takes to make the time pass until
this whole thing is over.
Now you're arguing with yourself.
Well there's no one else here to argue with! No one living anyways. I
feel like the cowardly lion in The Wizard of Oz, standing in the wood
repeating the line 'I do believe in ghosts, I do believe in ghosts I do
I do I do I do believe in ghosts!'
Someone, something is blowing on the nape of my neck. It's close I can
almost feel their lips against my skin.
They're playing with me. They know I'm scared shitless and they're
milking it. That's what the laughter was, it wasn't children it was
them laughing at how childish you're being. Well so be it. Let them
have their fun. As soon as it's light I'm leaving this apartment and
I'm not coming back until, well, until something is done, hell I'll
move if I have to. Maybe I'll invite the Sightings team to come on over
and inspect the place. Like they'd find anything, no respectable spook
comes out for the cameras everyone knows that.
There is soft feminine laughter right behind me.
Yeah they're definitely playing with me.
Well I hope they get their jollies, this'll be their last chance to use
me as a butt for their haunting pranks.
But if this is a joke then what about the crying?
It's still there I can hear it, distant and mellifluous, a young child
weeping for some lost toy perhaps. More like--- OH SHUT UP! IT'S A
CHILD CRYING FOR A LOST TOY ALRIGHT NOTHING STRANGE AND SCARY.
Okay.
Why do only ever hear the dripping tap at night when I'm trying to
sleep? In the daylight hours I never hear it, never even think about it
but the moment I lay my head on the pillow there it is drip, drip,
drip. Does it know?
Now you're giving inanimate objects thoughts!
Hey I'll talk to the walls if it means being rid of this feeling of
complete terror that is swallowing me more and more the longer I sit
here in my underwear and my T-shirt.
Oh no!
My minds gone blank, I can't think of anything to
type................................................song lyrics,
they'll keep you occupied, um, okay, why do you build me up buttercup
baby just to let me down, mess me around and then worst of all you
never call baby when you say you will but I love you still I need you
more than anyone darling you know that I have from the start so build
me up buttercup don't break my heart.
The voice is back.
"You can turn around now if you wish."
Shit.
I have to answer.
"Ahem,"
My throat is dry.
"No thanks I'm fine"
Great response A.J.
"Pleeeease"
The voice prolongs the word and I feel it on the back of my neck.
"No really I'm alright here thank-you"
I'm laughing like an idiot, a nervous I-so-don't-want-to-be-here- kind
of laugh.
The voice has changed and now I think I'm gonna wet myself.
"Turn around!"
I'm going to cry.
"Turn around"
I'm going to cry like a baby.
"Turn around"
The voice doesn't even sound female anymore, it doesn't even sound
human.
"Turn around."
I'm going to die.
"Turn around."
I'm going to die in my underwear and an old Beatles T-shirt.
"Turn around."
"Okay, okay, I'm turning around."
Oh God help me, I know we don't talk much but I'll be forever grateful
if you could help me out of this one. Thanks. Your faithful from now on
friend Adam.
The voice again.
"Wait."
Relief like you wouldn't believe.
I'm crying though, my cheeks are wet.
Small price to pay.
"You don't want to see"
Was that a question?
"Ah, no not really....sorry"
Maybe I should've lied.
"Very well."
Honesty always the best policy.
"Who are you?"
Words out before I could stop them, damn brain always in the wrong
room.
"Does it matter?"
The voice is further away now, more distant.
Yes.
"Not really I guess."
Dammit.
"I died here long ago, I return every now and then to...."
"Scare people?"
"Sometimes."
"Congratulations you succeeded, I'm terrified."
"YOU SHOULD BE!"
My heart has actually literally stopped for real this time. The voice
was loud, more like a scream that a spoken one, and the room has filled
with wind. I'm not gonna turn but I don't need to I can see her
reflected in my monitor. Ghosts shouldn't have reflections, no wait
that's vampires. I am a grown man that has just peed in his pants. She
is like a mass of bone sheathed in withered flesh that in almost
transparent in it's paleness. She is laughing and holding out one bony
finger, pointing it at me.
"Write me well Adam Jakob Vincent,"
I think I did.