A Christmas Tale

A Christmas Tale

Everyone knows that you don't go alone into Eastfield after dark.
A former country seat of an earl, it was commandeered during the war,
and sold afterwards to a boy's preparatory school for use as a
dormitory block.
As the sun declines and the shadows lengthen, the public lavatory brick
ambience of decayed urinals is replaced by an aura that can only be
described as sinister.
The porch, which by day has a certain floral charm, becomes two
snarling lips curled back to reveal the rat incisors that are the front
door. To either side the windows glint venom, hooded by the glowering
eyebrows of the eaves above them.
It was thus when Smith Minor, accompanied by his irritable mother, drew
to a halt in the family mini and debouched onto the gravel drive late
one Christmas Eve.
"Remember what I told you", said Smith Minor, a boy of some eleven
years of age whose reputation for chronic aphasia was thoroughly
deserved. Indeed it was this inability to retain information for more
than a few seconds that led to his presence that evening. Due to embark
upon a skiing holiday the next day on his grandfather's estate in the
Cairngorms, he discovered that his skiing boots were where he had left
them - on a shelf in one of the attic rooms at Eastfield. Avoiding
anything more dangerous than one or two well chosen epithets, he had
managed to persuade his mother that visiting physical violence upon his
person would be less productive than taking him to retrieve them. This
had the additional advantage of avoiding the calling down of his
father's much more dangerous wrath upon his head - be it Christmas or
no.
"Don't be silly, Bruce! I've had enough of your stupidity for one day.
You go in and get your boots. I'll stay here."
Although she spoke with asperity, it was more assumed than real. The
air of menace that emanated from the empty building was
undeniable.
"But Mum! The ghost! I can't! It'll get me on my own. You must come
too."
The panic in Smith's voice rang true. Rejecting a momentary impulse to
cuff her son into obedience, Mrs Smith relented and started towards the
door.
"All right! All right!", she capitulated, "you've got the torch. You
go first."
Together they scrunched their way up the path to the front door, the
gravel feeling encouragingly mundane under their feet. As they
approached, the torch beam picked out the inner recesses of the porch.
No longer did the front door appear dentine, but had assumed a
polyphemic visage of its own. The tight, cruel lips of the letter box
contorted in the torch's flickering beam. Above it the central eye of
the brass door knocker blinked malice.
Smith's hand slid nervously into his mother's.
Timidly Smith reached out to turn the brass door knob that lay
alongside the grinning malevolence of the letter box. As he did so the
directed beam fell upon it and lit the shining metal. Momentarily a
head of unimaginable evil peered out from within its polished
depths.
Smith leapt backwards with a scream. Mrs Smith, no less startled by her
son's shriek than he by the apparition, started backwards with blood
and adrenaline racing. Seeing no reason for her son's outburst she
collected herself and set about the vigorous upbraiding of its
perpetrator.
"Do that again and I shall take you straight home for a whacking! I've
had too much from you already without you pulling silly tricks like
that!"
"But Mum, there was a face in the knob, there really was", retorted
Smith.
"Well there isn't one now is there?", answered his mother with a
pronounced asperity in her tone.
Neither indeed was there. The returning torch beam revealed a door knob
as unexceptional as any that Smith minor had ever seen. To underline
her point Mrs Smith seized it, gave a quick three quarter turn and
pushed.
Nothing happened.
She tried again, then the other way. Sturdily the door resisted her
blandishments.
"I thought you said this door would be unlocked". Mrs Smith's voice
held more than a hint of disaffection in it. "If we've come all this
way for nothing I shall not be pleased".
Sensing his already tenuous hold upon his mother's goodwill weakening,
and remembering the last time that she had 'not been pleased' Smith
clasped the knob with both hands; but with no better result.
"I've had enough Bruce! We're leaving now." Although she would be
loathe to admit it, her peremptory abandonment of the mission was not
entirely due to pique. The atmosphere in the porch was decidedly
hostile.
At that moment, succumbing to a final heave, the heavy door flew open
and Smith staggered headlong into the hall.
His first thought was to re-establish contact with his mother. Glancing
behind him he saw a homely silhouette framed against the night sky in
the doorway. Gratefully he thrust his hand into the re-assuringly warm
hand proffered.
"This way Mum! Just follow me! It's up two flights of stairs and on the
right. Old Jacko always leaves it open in the holidays as there is
nothing worth stealing&;#8230;.."
Continuing this stream of sedative locquacity, he crossed the hall and
began to mount the stairs.
He was already on the first landing when he heard the car start and
his mother scream as she discovered that the thing that had crunched
its way back to the car, and was now climbing in with her, was not her
errant son.
At this moment, the hand that he held tightened its grip and turned to
bone.