Chapter 12 - Back From The Dead

Back From The Dead

A Novel

By Paul McCann

Chapter 12

A Night On The Dump Hills

People used to live on the Bone as it was called, in a place called Savage Row which had been an area of half houses built for the factory workers to live in . Most of the houses had a steel tub that was hung from a nail hammered into a wooden frame behind the wall . There was a small parlour with a fireplace and a tiny bedroom beside . On a Friday the steel tub would normally come down from the wall on bath night . The bath water was shared by many . Families lived downstairs in the half houses while other families lived upstairs .

 As the years went by those houses were renovated and others knocked down for  new modern ones to be built . There was something very unique and sad about the place they called The Bone and the people who lived there in hard times .

Tommy was one of those who lived there on the Bone and loved to play snooker on a table he made . He had a good friend called Tony who also like to play snooker on the table Tommy made . Some of the games they had were brilliant .

Tommy and Tony hung around together a lot on the cinder pitch at the bottom of the dump hills and sometimes at twilight they would share ghost stories that they knew about the sightings people said they had experienced in Savage Row and before they went home they felt frightened enough to run all the way just in case the headless horseman from the dumps paid them a visit   .

Some nights Tommy and Tony stayed a little longer that they should have done and this was one of those nights . The two of them sat in the dark on the dump hills just to see who would be frightened most , They continued to tell scary stories they had heard about the old houses and the people who once lived there and how people often heard footsteps on their stairs at night when everyone was in bed .

There were other stories about the beggar child who was seen outside the poor Clare’s convent with an empty basket and when people would approach her she would disappear . Then there was the story about Jimmy Tanner who was run over by a truck and was sometimes seen at night standing there on that very spot holding an old paraffin lantern that was never lit .

Other stories they shared was about the orphan boy who had once chased a man

he thought was his father and then he stabbed him with a knife but when the police investigated the incident the description of the boy was the same as a young scoundrel who once occupied one of the half houses on Savage Row however it didn’t make any sense because he died in the fire that destroyed the home where he was living which then started [people talking about the orphan boys ghost .

As tommy and Tony were both pretending hard not to be frightened it got colder and darker and all the more they felt uneasy about being there on the dumps .

That was the night a  large dog came and sat with them for company and they kind of felt as if they were being protected but at the same moment there was an awful smell of dead flowers and burnt linen all around them . The next thing they saw was the distant shape of a horse approaching with a rider on top , As the sound of the hooves got louder , Tony looked at Thomas who looked even more frightened than Tony was feeling at both of them screamed out at the same time .

‘It the headless horseman  , ‘Galloper Thompson. Run for your life “

Some say Galloper Thomas was beheaded in a work accident , but there were others  who said he was killed in retaliation for the way he treated his workers . No one really knows, but from then on I was hoping that he wouldn’t be returning to tell me the truth of what had happened to him .

The two lads ran hard and fast with their feet hardly touching the ground as they raced down the dump hills and without looking back they continued running until they were both out of breath .

Thomas said to Tony  ‘

 “Don’t you ever tell anybody that we were chased by the headless horseman and we were scared because if you do he’ll definitely come after us to do us harm and that will be the last time we’ll ever be able to sit on the dump hills at night . “

Tony nodded as they both shook hands and went separate ways home .

The next day on the cinder pitch the head of a large dog was found along side some prints of a horse’s hooves  that went around and around  

As the years passed new houses were built where the cinder pitch used to be and I often wonder if anyone in those houses had ever heard the sound of a horse galloping past at night .

Tony and Thomas grew up and had children of their own but never told them the story of the nigh they were chased by the headless horseman in case he might pay them a visit .

End chapter 12