Old Wives Tale

Old Wives Tale

By Steve Laker

"She's said to have taken them all in their sleep. Only the boys mind.
They just disappeared." The landlord of the Red Lion looked
conspiratorially at David as he and Ellie left. About half a mile up
the lane was the house that they'd come to see.

"You can't get in there. You wouldn't want to. Been boarded up over
twenty years now", the landlord had said. "Some say they're still up
there and that on some nights, you can still hear the boys
screaming."

The landlord's words rang in David's head as he and Ellie set out for
Oak Cottage. They both carried a torch and held each other's free hand.
The pub was closing and the voices of the other patrons grew quieter as
they each made their way home in the opposite direction.

Earlier that day, David and Ellie had walked around the village that
the Red Lion seemed to be the social centre of. There was a village
shop that doubled as a Post Office, a small playground in a state of
disrepair, and then there was the Red Lion. There'd been a small group
of elderly ladies chatting among themselves in the shop and similar
sized group of old gents playing dominoes in the pub. It seemed a very
insular village, where everyone kept themselves to themselves and
didn't expect strangers to be passing through. The landlord had been
friendly enough but it occurred to Ellie as they walked up the lane
that he'd not thought to introduce himself. They'd get used to her and
David in time, she thought.

The lane was pitch dark, more like a tunnel with the canopy of trees
above, and barely wide enough for the two of them to walk side by side,
the trees seemingly having not been cut back for decades. The fine mist
that blew in the cold night air had penetrated the canopy but they were
protected from the freezing wind.

The landlord's story of the old woman that had lived in Oak Cottage
described a lonely spinster who took in children from the city and gave
them somewhere nicer than the streets to sleep. Her apparent inability
to marry had bred in her a hatred of men, and therefore boys and the
city streets provided her with a constant supply of the opposite sex to
wreak her revenge upon. Although flawed, it was a classic urban legend
and one that the landlord had no doubt recounted many times in order to
discourage newcomers.

Emerging from the natural tunnel, Ellie tripped on something solid. She
steadied herself and gripped David's hand tightly as they stood in an
open space. There were trees but no canopy. Rising up in front of them,
only twenty or so feet away, was Oak Cottage. They shone their torches
around and surveyed their surroundings. They were in the front garden
of the cottage. The trees behind them obscured the front of what
remained of the garden wall and continued around the sides, embracing
the building.

The two upstairs and two downstairs windows were boarded with planks,
the ground around their feet was scattered with broken pieces of slate
and the roof had holes where those same pieces of slate had once been
tiles. The green that was the lichen and moss that covered the front of
the cottage occasionally gave up the grey rag stone underneath, from
which the building was built. The front door was made of wood beneath
the mildew and the knocker and handle were rusted.

"Shall we go in?" David asked, raising the beam of his torch to
illuminate his face.

"Let's". Ellie copied David and held her torch under her chin. She was
smiling and breathing excitedly, the mist of her breath lit yellow by
the torch. David smiled back and as he fumbled in his pocket he
remembered the pub landlord's words: " You can't get in there. You
wouldn't want to." Well they could, because they had the keys. And they
did want to get into the house that was to be their first home. David
fished out the keys and they walked to the door.

Closing the door behind them and shining their torches around, they
could make out that they were in the living room. There was a stone
staircase leading up to their right and the living room looked as it
must have done all those years ago. Dust-covered sheets draped the
sparse furnishings and cobwebs spanned the ceiling. They looked like
fine silk sheets being thrown onto a bed as they undulated in the light
breeze that blew through the room from upstairs.

"Wow!" exclaimed Ellie as she took it all in.

"Let's go upstairs", said David, smiling.

"But we've only just got here!"

"Just for a look!" he said as he took hold of Ellie's hand and led the
way.

At the top of the stairs was a small, square landing with a doorway on
each side. David shone his torch through each in turn. In front of them
was a bedroom with four single beds, neatly made but covered in dust
and mildew, evenly spaced along the back wall beneath a boarded up
window. To their left was the bathroom, both the toilet and washbasin
were still in place. To the right was another bedroom, containing a
single bed, neatly made like the others and pushed against the
left-hand wall.

"It's cold up here. Let's go back down", said Ellie with a
shiver.

There was a draught coming from above them and as David shone his torch
up, he could make out the loft, empty as far as he could tell, through
the hole where once there was a trap door. A steady whistling noise
occasionally became a howl as the wind squeezed then rushed through the
holes in the roof. The sound was dissipated now and again as a drop of
rain hit bare floorboards. "Well, there's nothing up here to get
excited about", he said in agreement and led the way back
downstairs.

Back in the living room, the carpet was threadbare beneath a layer of
dust. The floorboards beneath it creaked as they walked across the room
and gave way to bare concrete through the doorway that led into the
kitchen. The kitchen was bare apart from a rusty sink and draining
board. The window above the sink, like the others at the front of the
house and upstairs, had no glass and was boarded up with planks of
wood, as was the space where the back door had been.

Returning to the living room, Ellie sheepishly lowered herself into the
chair. It creaked but it held her slight frame. The floorboards creaked
beneath David as he stooped down and shone his torch around the room.
"Well, it's got potential", he said, with more than a hint of
sarcasm.

"This could be so nice babe," Ellie enthused. "There's quite a lot to
be done but we can make it ours".

"Quite a lot? Now there's an understatement".

"But we can, can't we?"

"Well, once the trees are cleared, the roof's repaired, the place is
wired and plumbed, doors and windows replaced and the rot
treated?"

"But we'd be making it our home".

"?Re-carpeted, re-painted, decorated, move the furniture in". David
paused. "Shall we stay the night?"

"What?" He'd caught Ellie by surprise.

"Let's stay here tonight."

"You mean sleep here?"

"Well, yeah. Then tomorrow we can get started on clearing the place
up."

Just then, a noise came from the top of the stairs. A muffled,
squawking sound carried by the whistle of the wind. Ellie was startled
and looked to the bottom of the stairs behind David. "What was that?"
she said.

"It sounded like a bird. Don't worry about it."

"It sounded like a scream David." Ellie was blinking quickly.

"It was probably a crow or something."

Ellie frowned. "Can't we see if the Red Lion has a room and come back
in the morning?"

"It'll be closed." David paused and thought. "That daft old landlord
hasn't got you sold on his story has he? Ellie didn't reply. She was
looking down at the ground between her feet. "Ellie?" She shook her
head gently. "It's an old wives tale, an urban legend."

"I know."

"So what is it?" David put his hand on her knee.

"Nothing. It's just a bit, well, spooky".

"It's dark and it's cold but it's not spooky. Look, there's nowhere
else to go so let's push two of those old beds together and take our
minds off of things." He squeezed Ellie's knee and she looked up at him
and nodded, then smiled.

***

David lay behind Ellie as she slept and pulled her towards him, burying
his nose in her neck, the sweet smell of her perfume a respite from the
musty sheets. He went through a mental list of things that they needed
to do to the house, totting up the cost as he did so and assigning
press-ganged friends to help with various tasks. He kept losing his
tally of costs and started over and over again before giving up. It had
been a long day and he was tired. He squeezed Ellie gently in his arms
and slowly drifted off to join her in sleep.

***

David's nose was overwhelmed by the musty smell of the sheets. He tried
to push them off but he couldn't. It was as though they were stuck to
him. He could taste twenty-odd years of stagnation as the sheets
covered his mouth and he breathed in their mildew. Harder he pushed
against the unseen force bearing down on him until for a second it
gave. He managed to lift the sheet from his face, then froze.

Staring down at him from the side of the bed was an old lady, small but
sinewy and wearing just a sleeveless red pinafore dress. Her lips were
dry and tight and her eyes bloodshot. Her grey hair was matted and
stuck in clumps to her forehead. Her bony hand gripped the sheet below
David's chin and he grabbed her wrist. Her strength was overwhelming
though as she cupped the sheet in her hand over David's mouth and nose.
He caught the merest gasp of air as he shook his head from side to side
and found a gap at the side of his gag but the pressure bore down with
still greater force and pushed the back of his head deep into the
pillow. His head felt as though it was gripped in a vice. He began to
lose consciousness and blackness enveloped him.

***

David sat bolt upright in bed, gasping for breath. The sheet, gripped
tightly to his chest was soaked in his sweat. He looked around but
there was no one in the room apart from Ellie, still asleep beside him.
He loosened his grip on the sheet and pushed it aside before slowly
swinging his legs around to the edge of the bed and standing up.

He walked to the bathroom and was surprised that the tap worked. The
pipes ground and knocked and a splutter of sand spilled from the spout.
More creaking and then water flowed. He lowered his head and took a
drink.

"David"? He must have woken Ellie, who was calling from the
bedroom.

"I'm in the bathroom", he called back but there was no reply. With the
tap still running, he cupped his hands under it, filled them with water
and splashed it across his face.

"David?" Ellie was standing on the landing.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you."

"David?" She hadn't heard him and was calling more loudly.

"I'm here babe." He walked towards her. Still she didn't respond, even
though she was looking straight at him. Suddenly, as he got near her,
Ellie turned and ran down the stairs. What the hell's going on here, he
thought. Is she sleepwalking? He went to follow her but was suddenly
gripped by an overwhelming fear at the top of the stairs. He teetered
on the top step and couldn't move. He felt nauseous and had to step
back.

He leaned against the bedroom doorway as Ellie appeared again at the
bottom of the stairs, still calling his name as she ran up them. He
lunged forward as she reached the top and it was as though someone
placed their hands tightly over his ears as she passed through him and
he fell to the floor.

David screamed.

Ellie froze.

? Steve Laker, 2002.