Scary Short Stories

[scaryshortstories]

The House

The old, battered house on the corner of Upland Drive and West Street, at the edge of the village I grew up in, always had a grim fascination for the children in the neighbourhood. There were all kinds of playground rumours about the nature of its occupants, from a family of cannibals who plucked unsuspecting victims from the street after midnight, to a lonely old man who had a crazed look about him and who could be seen peering from the upstairs windows on occasion, terrifying passers by with his unblinking stare.

Of course, the temptation to terrify your peers was too much to resist, and so my friends and I would, on occasion, be forced, on fear of humiliation, to sneak up to the front door, ring the doorbell, and stand on the front doorstep for as long as we dared before running off. I think the longest I managed was about 10 seconds before the indescribable noises growing louder from within the house became too terrifying to bear.

Another story that was passed around by the youth (and some of the parents, who frankly should have known better) was that poor Tom Brand, a timid child only a year younger than I was, who had died of some rare incurable childhood disease, was actually snatched by whomever occupied the creepy old building and was never seen again. Nobody really gave any credence to this theory, but it certainly added a frisson to the dares and challenges that occupied so many of the locals in the days before you could scare the shit out of your mates with a YouTube video.

Many years later, for reasons which aren't important now, I found myself back in the village, which was now more of a town, and while the creepy house was still there, and still seemingly occupied, it was no longer on the edge, and was overlooked by an estate that had appeared on what used to be fields on the other side of the road. The building had a charm about it that was accentuated by its condition - maintenance work had clearly been carried out throughout the years, so there were boards nailed over gaps in the tile roof to maintain a semblance of weather proofing, and broken window panes had chipboard stapled to the frame from within. There were still plenty of weeds in the garden, and no real lawn to speak of, yet it wasn't totally out of control.

I decided I would photograph the building, out of a combination of curiosity and nostalgia. I suspected many of my friends from the time we all lived here would be grimly fascinated to see how little it had changed in the intervening years. I took my phone out of my pocket and grabbed a quick eye level snapshot. Looking at the photo, I noticed a face in one of the upper windows. I'm not the sort of person who believes in ghost stories, so I looked up and, sure enough, there was someone watching me from upstairs. He looked like a frail old man, with wispy grey hair, watery eyes and thin lips, but there was a keen sense of intellect behind his face. He didn't look the least bit creepy; quite the opposite in fact, and gestured to me to wait where I was before disappearing back inside.

A few moments later the front door opened, and he appeared, grinning. 'Nick, isn't it?' he asked. "I remember you well - always out photographing things that nobody else noticed. I can just about forgive you for those doorbell pranks; I was young too once, hard as it is to believe, looking at me now." He waved his walking stick to emphasise the point. "You've hardly changed a bit!"

It was a while before I recognised him. "Mr... Anderson?" I offered.

He grinned. "Yes! Well remembered! Seems I haven't changed that much either!"

Mr Anderson had worked at the primary school I went to. He wasn't a caretaker as such, but he was quite handy with tools so would often help out with maintenance work where needed. From what I understood he volunteered his time for free - it gave him something to do in his retirement, and saved the school some money through not having to hire contractors to do the work. Looking at his house, and the state it was in, I was surprised to find that its occupant was someone who really ought to have been able to take more care of it.

He must have read my face and guessed what I was thinking. "I know, I know, I really should take more pride, right? But I have my reasons... hey, why don't I put on the kettle, and I can tell you what's been happening since you and your family left?"

I checked the time on my phone, hesitated for a few seconds, then thought, what the hell? Opportunities like this don't present themselves every day, and the chance to get to the bottom of all those unsavoury rumours and put them to bed was hard to turn down. I nodded, and walked in.

He showed me to an armchair in his front room. The interior of the house was pretty much what I expected from the outside - it was showing its age, but functional, with the minimum effort expended on every piece of repair work. Peeling wallpaper had been ignored, but socket in the wall had a screw missing but had been gaffer-taped in place. A hole in the wall where the light switch used to be had been covered by a piece of cardboard, and there was no bulb in the bare light fitting, suggesting that this room was not used much, if at all. The chair I was sat in had a distinct smell of age, and several holes in the upholstery had been darned up, but it served its function and was surprisingly comfortable.

I could hear the noises of Mr Anderson preparing drinks from the kitchen at the back of the house. "Tea or coffee?" he shouted back. I chose tea; I'd usually prefer coffee but didn't want to gamble on his choice of instant.

After a while he came back through with two cups, a pot of tea and a plate of Custard Creams. He poured the tea and placed the biscuits on a table in front of me - "Help yourself," he said, "I know they were your favourite!" When he saw the question on my face, he grinned and added: "Oh they were everyone's favourite back then!" That was a fair comment, so I helped myself to a couple. They were a bit soft, and had an odd metallic aftertaste, that I put down to age.

The tea was good, as was the conversation. Mr Anderson (it turned out his first name was Jens; he was Swedish by birth but had lived in England for as long as he could remember) told me all about the pranks he had had to endure back when we lived in the village. Doorbell ringing in the middle of the night, groups of children standing outside his house then screaming dramatically and running off when he went to the window to look. He would often receive unpleasant packages through the letterbox, and I started to feel a bit sorry for him. He had done a lot of good work for the school, and how had the children repaid him? When I mentioned this to him he was philosophical: “oh, you were just kids, and you needed to have your fun. If it wasn’t me it would have been someone else, and I’d rather it were someone who could handle it.”

I asked him how come his house was so unkempt when he was so good with his hands. He stared at me and I worried I’d overstepped the mark. Then he laughed, “Ha! I’d ask the same question! You see, the thing is…” 

I blinked hard, more than once. My head was starting to spin, and his voice was beginning to sound distant. He didn’t seem to notice my discomfort and carried on talking, gesticulating around the room as he spoke. Eventually I lost all the strength from my muscles, the teacup fell from my hand and my head started to drop. As my eyes began to close, I was aware of Mr Anderson looking at me intently, before standing up and walking towards me. Then the night descended.

I woke from a dreamless sleep. Moonlight was streaming in through a hole in the wooden board that was stapled over the window. I was lying down in what seemed like a bed, but with no pillow, so my head was tilted down against the mattress at an awkward angle, but it wasn’t painful like it should have been. I had no awareness of my body, and couldn't detect the position of my arms or legs. In my peripheral vision I could see a blanket that seemed to be covering me up to my neck,

I couldn’t move, and all I could see in front of me was the silhouette of what looked like a child’s head, no more than a few inches away from my face. The hair was patchy, backlit by the moon, but the face was hidden by the darkness. I closed my eyes again and fell back into unconsciousness.

I woke again a few hours later - I knew this because the moonlight had moved across the wall slightly. It must have been striking a mirror as it was reflecting onto the face of the figure opposite me. I couldn’t see much, but immediately I recognised the features of Tom Brand, the boy who had been taken from us so cruelly young. His face hadn’t aged at all. Were the stories true? I remembered his funeral - did they have an empty casket? Questions started to buzz around my head like flies around a corpse.

The thing that looked like Tom opened its eyes and I would have cried out but was silenced by what else happened. My eyesight seemed to shift so that instead of just seeing what was in front of me, I had a fully three-dimensional awareness of the entire room. I wasn’t seeing from a single viewpoint, but was somehow seeing through both Tom’s eyes at the same time as my own. Fear rippled down my body; what was happening? How was this possible? Was I still dreaming?

The door opened and the light was switched on. Mr Anderson looked at me. “Now you can find out what I do that keeps me from my household chores!” he said cheerfully. He lifted the blanket covering both me and Tom from the bed. I didn't even have to move my head - our four eyes could take in the full horror of what was now lying on the bed.

My naked torso had been fused at the waist to Tom’s, which was covered in scars and wounds. Our four legs emerged at unnatural angles from below our hips. As Tom regained consciousness I became aware that I was sharing his thoughts and memories and could now remember, as though it had happened to me, the day Tom had been playing Doorbell Dare on his own and had waited just a few seconds too long on the doorstep. Mr Anderson had opened the door, yelled “you fucking kids!” and knocked Tom clean to the floor with a cricket bat. Memories of unspeakable experiments with the human anatomy blurred into each other as Tom’s brain had tried to block out the horror. And now he finally had some company. 

My mouth opened in a scream, but no sound came out. “Oh, no use trying to make any noise,’ said the old man. He held up something in his hand, a jar with some form of human body parts inside. “I’ve gone to the trouble of removing your vocal cords.”

Tom and I watched, with all our three dimensional awareness, as Mr Anderson placed the jar with my voice trapped inside it on a bookshelf alongside other jars of body parts. He walked over to the abomination that Tom and I had become, checked my pulse, flashed a torch into my eyes, nodded to himself, wrote in a notebook, then left, turning the light off and returning us to our eternal night. 

[scaryshortstories]

The Dancers of Bath

During the day, Bath gets very busy, as one would expect. The world famous Roman baths, the honey-coloured buildings, and its status as a world heritage site mean people come from all around, all year round, augmenting the foot traffic of the local population. It's very easy to be anonymous at the busiest times, which suits someone like me.

At 3am however, it's a different story. We photographers like to visit places at unsociable hours, as while people can make interesting subjects, sometimes they just get in the way. Wandering the deserted streets, an autumnal nip in the air, with my breath forming small clouds, it's hard to contemplate just how crowded this city can be during the daylight hours.

The abandoned streets cause footsteps to echo in unusual ways, and at several times I thought I was being followed. So convincing was the effect, that every now and then I had to stop and look behind me to confirm that I was, as I had believed, still alone. The more I had to do this, however, the more I became convinced I was sharing these ancient Georgian pavements with someone — or something — else.

It was as I was composing a shot of the magnificent Abbey, towering over the Abbey Churchyard, that I became aware of a red glow coming from around the corner of the baths to my right. I assumed it was a vehicle braking; a taxi, perhaps, taking some late night revellers back to their hotel, but the glow persisted, and began to pulsate slowly, like a beating heart. Knowing it would affect the shot I was trying to capture, I went to investigate. I followed the source of the illumination into a square that during the day plays host to amateur musicians and other entertainers, desperate to squeeze what small change they could from the thronging tourists. But the light disappeared, too quickly for me to ascertain exactly where it had come from.

As I was about to turn back to my photography, I caught a faint hint of red from somewhere down a street that I knew led to Abbey Green, a small enclosed square with an enormous sycamore tree growing at its centre. Under normal circumstances I would have ignored it, but something about this light drew me towards it, and I don't even remember if I bothered to pick up my photographic equipment before setting off to see what could be causing this eerie, unearthly light.

This time, the glow did not disappear — if anything, it got more intense as I approached, and for a moment I felt as though it were warning me off, and my steps faltered. For a while I stood still, the urge to investigate fighting the nagging feeling that I should turn back, but my curiosity won out and I continued, slowly, gingerly, towards the light.

As I entered the square, I gasped. Bright red, will-o-the-wisps of light were circling the ancient tree in a grotesque dance, emerging from the soil at its roots, before circling it in an anticlockwise direction, then fading out to nothing among what remained of its leaves. As I've described it, it sounds like it should have been a beautiful sight, but something in the hue of the dancing sprites, coupled with the way they moved, made my skin crawl. Yet I was mesmerised, and though I knew this was not something that mortal eyes were meant to witness, I could not turn away.

Almost without myself being aware of it, I took a step towards the ghastly spectacle, followed by another. It wasn't until one of the glowing apparitions passed inches from my nose that I became aware I was now standing right beneath the branches of the tree. As the light flew past me, I heard a faint whispering, that could have come from inside it, but it was too brief for me to be certain. Another flew past my left ear, and this time I was certain that these things were somehow alive. The knowledge was far from reassuring — it just made me feel even more strongly that I was intruding on something, and the desire to turn back and head home grew within me again.

Yet as I was about to go, one of the red sparks flew into my left temple and entered my skull. All at once the world seemed to explode around me. My head was filled with the same whispering I had heard, only infinitely louder. I couldn't discern any words, but I could tell that the sound carried a fierce longing, a desperate sadness, that would have been impossible to convey in mere language. My sight was filled with red, and hints of shadows of entities — I hesitate to use the word 'people' as there was nothing familiar about the forms — danced across my vision, moving to the same rhythm as the pulsating light I had witnessed earlier.

I realised that these beings were in mourning, and performing a ritual to commemorate the loss of something dear to them. The red glow, the movement of the figures, the whispering and the feeling of loss all merged, no longer separate sensations, but part of an all-encompassing whole.

All of a sudden, I was back in the square. The swirl of red lights had vanished, the whispering had ceased, and I was alone. Yet I felt not just alone in the city, though I knew that there would be houses and hotels nearby full of people dreaming. I felt alone in the universe, as though I were the only human left, the feeling of loss brought on by the mysterious dance of the red lights having tainted my very soul, and I knew there and then that I would never be free of it.

[scaryshortstories]

150 Feet

(A bit more violent than the others. Proceed with caution.) The lady in the seat near me laughed. "Oh, stop it," she said, as though she were chiding a friend sat opposite her. Along with almost everyone else in the carriage, I glanced in her direction, but she was looking down at her hands, which were clasped together in her lap. She had short, close-cropped blond hair, yet the freckled complexion of a redhead. She was dressed very smartly, in a tailored tweed jacket and long leather boots, looking as though she might work in retail for a high end fashion brand. However it was apparent to everyone that she was talking to herself. We were 150 feet below the streets of London on a Northern Line carriage, so there was no signal for a hands free telephone conversation. Embarrassed, lest she catch my eye, I looked away. She continued talking, mostly under her breath, but every now and then she would raise her voice, mostly seemingly in protest at some perceived flattery, but after a short while see seemed to get more and more upset with whatever she imagined she was being told. At one point she almost cried out, "of COURSE they'd notice! I can't do that!" and again most people in the carriage glanced at her. By now she was looking around her – not, apparently, aware of the attention she was receiving, but seemingly in at attempt to reinforce her point. She laughed again. "You really think so?" She had a shy grin on her face at this point, clearly not used to the level of flattery she appeared to be receiving. She giggled, quietly at first, but louder and louder until she was laughing so loud that even people in the adjacent carriage were peering through the window to see what was happening. Then without warning, she jumped up from her seat, and grabbed the head of the person standing right in front of her, a slim, casually dressed man in his twenties. She slammed it repeatedly against the handrail in the centre of the carriage, showing remarkable strength for someone of her build. People started screaming, and someone pulled the emergency brake, causing everyone to lurch forwards as the train ground to a halt. The man who had been attacked lay lifeless on the floor, slumped between briefcases and shopping bags, blood pouring from his head. The woman who had attacked him was now staring at him, a look of sheer terror on her face, mouthing 'no, no, no' in a silent scream. She backed away towards the end of the car, wide eyes darting to and fro, her hand clasped over her mouth. By now most of the occupants had fled to another part of the carriage, and one man was trying to prise open the doors in panic. People sobbed, held each other, scarcely able to believe what had happened. I just stood over the dead man, breathing heavily, in shock. After a while the driver passed through the train and arrived at the scene of carnage. She was very professional and stayed calm, explaining that she would call ahead to alert the police and the train would move on to the next station. Without thinking, in a daze, I sat down in the seat nearest me, which happened to be the one the attacker had occupied. I knew I had made a terrible mistake as soon as I heard the voice. Not just because I heard it at all, a voice that filled my skull and sent icy shivers down my back. But I knew now why the woman had done what she did, and could only wonder what was in store for me. "Oh that WAS fun, wasn't it?"

[scaryshortstories]

Ghost train

I remember being told about the parliamentary trains a few months ago. These are services that are run, usually once or twice a day, as relics of an old Act of Parliament that required certain routes to operate to allow less well-off passengers to travel relatively cheaply. Since it costs money to close a route down permanently, several of them still operate around the UK's rail network.

Fascinated, I thought I'd catch one purely out of interest. The nearest service to me is the Metropolitan line service from Watford to Rickmansworth, which departs at half past midnight on Mondays (well, technically Tuesday, but that's how it works). I arrived at the station last Monday with minutes to spare, yet as expected, there was nobody else on the train. A member of staff warned me as I got on that it wasn't going into London. He seemed particularly keen for me not to board, as even when I explained that I knew it was a parliamentary train, he still looked as though he were searching for a good reason for me not to get on. As the train departed, his eyes followed me, filled with - what? Concern? Dread? I couldn't really tell.

As the train pulled in to Croxley station, and the doors opened, I heard what sounded like footsteps in the carriage behind me as though someone else were boarding, but I couldn't see whomever it was when I craned my neck around to look. I assumed they must just have sat somewhere out of sight, and if they were anything like me, the last thing they would have wanted would have been to engage in conversation with a stranger, so I left them be.

Between Croxley and Rickmansworth is a junction in the tracks, where the train usually heads east and joins the main branch of the Metropolitan line before heading to Moor Park and on into London. The track that goes to Rickmansworth, off to the west, is one that I had often wondered about, as I used to catch the Met line from Harrow to Rickmansworth in the days after I left university and had my first job there. Finding out about the parliamentary train helped explain why there was this seemingly unused section of track.

Anyway, even as a full grown man I felt a thrill as the train headed right and into uncharted territory, for me at least. The high banks on either side of the cutting and the late hour meant that I could see nothing in the windows but my own reflection, and only knew where we were from the jerk as the train crossed the points and shifted direction. The lights flickered off and on as the electrical contacts on the bottom of the train skipped over the rails to rejoin the powered rails on the new branch, and for a brief moment I got the distinct impression of a train packed with passengers in the reflection of the windows. It wasn't that I actually saw anyone, but I suddenly felt as though I were no longer alone, for just the briefest moment between the short seconds of darkness.

I looked around again, back to the carriage where I heard someone board at Croxley, but still couldn't see anyone. Slightly perturbed, I shifted uncomfortably in my seat, and fixed my stare back on the window.

The lights flickered again, more erratically this time, then the entire train went dark. The sound of the rails and the juddering movement of the carriage also stopped, as though the train were now suspended in mid air. I heard murmuring around me, and a chill travelled down my spine. The lights flicked on and off again briefly, several times, but coloured an eerie red this time, and in the unearthly glow I saw the shapes of people all around me, some sat in the seats, some standing, singly or in groups as though deep in conversation. I could make out no clothing or facial features - just shadows, as though cast by an otherworldly light. The seeming ordinariness of their shapes jarred with their mysterious appearance. But the lights did not stay on long enough for me to get a good look, and once again I was left in darkness, now not daring to move.

After a few minutes, far too soon for us to be at Rickmansworth, the train smoothly glid to a halt. I felt the deceleration, though as before there was no impression of being on any rails, and the doors opened. A flickering red light from somewhere outside the train illuminated the carriage dimly, and I saw the shadow people moving to alight from the train. There were others standing on the platform (I assumed there was a platform) outside the train too, but none of them moved to board, to my relief, though I got the impression that some of them were staring at me, as disturbed by my appearance as I was by theirs.

Once all the mysterious figures had disembarked, the train doors closed, but there was no warning signal. I realised too that there had been no station announcement as we arrived at this mysterious place - it had all happened in total silence. The train smoothly accelerated away, and after a few more brief flickers of red from the lights, there was a jolt and the lights lit up their usual white, and the rails made their presence felt again. Out of the window I saw the shadows of trees above me at the top of the cutting, then the silhouette of a bridge, before we emerged back onto the main line from London on our way to Rickmansworth, where I hurriedly disembarked.

With the comforting glow of the station surrounding me, I was extremely relieved to be back in familiar surroundings. I walked towards the front of the train to see if I could spot the driver, but before I could, the lights on the train were switched off, and it pulled away smoothly from the station. I watched it start to disappear around the bend in the tracks, and as it did I could have sworn I saw the lights inside flicker briefly that strange, unnerving red colour once more, before the two red lights at the back of the train, glaring back at me, finally disappeared.

[scaryshortstories]

The shadow

So I had a photography job in London tonight, last-minute, covering a conference for economists, investors and the sort, around the theme of investing in South America. My background in IT for the financial industry meant that I understood some of what was going on, but not enough to make it of great interest, though photographically the light was good enough and the building - a beautiful, Art Deco masterpiece from 1934 - interesting enough to keep me from sliding towards ennui

However something strange has happened, as I now copy the photos from my memory cards onto my computer at home. In all the photographs there is an odd shadow in the top right corner of each image. It's barely noticeable in the first few images, but becomes more and more apparent in the images from later in the event. What's particularly unsettling is that it's in all the images, from both cameras, so doesn't appear to be a technical problem with one of the lenses.

If I adjust the exposure controls in my editing software, particularly the Shadows slider, I can recover some detail, but that only makes things worse, in that I can make out what looks like some form of arcane script hiding in the shadows. It reminds me of an episode of Doctor Who where an enemy that was never named, but was generally assumed to be Satan, caused strange tattoos to appear on one of the characters' skin.

Anyway, staring at the sigils or glyphs or whatever they are makes me feel uneasy, as though something terrible is about to happen but I've forgotten what, like the lingering dread you feel before an exam for which you haven't revised properly, or an unexpected phone call from HMRC. And now I notice a shadow in the top right corner of my eyesight, lurking in my peripheral vision, but most definitely there, making its presence felt even when I close my eyes.

And now I can hear whispering, quieter than the background hum of the television but yet still distinctly audible, and even though I don't understand the words, they fill me with dread.

And the sigils are starting to glow an unholy red...

[scaryshortstories]

The secret

After meeting a friend for lunch, I was heading home along Oxford Street, at the time of day when the streets are crammed with people who have finished working, shopping or sightseeing and all decide en masse to go home, or back to their hotel.

I heard some sort of commotion ahead of me, where it gets really busy by the entrances to Oxford Circus station, and could have sworn I heard a cry of “freak!”. From what I could tell, someone was trying to climb up the steps, against the flow of shoppers and tourists who wanted to go into the station, and they were not making themselves popular.

As I approached, the shouting died down, and people seemed to be entering the station unimpeded again. From the crowd ahead emerged a man, probably in his fifties, but there was something about his face that caused me to stare at him. Individually his features - eyes, nose, ears, eyebrows, hair - all seemed normal, but together they gave a disturbing impression of not belonging together, almost as if some force within his skull was trying to force them all apart. It was impossible to say exactly what it was that made him look so unusual, but the feeling of strangeness was so strong that I couldn’t think about anything else.

It was a good few seconds before I realised he was also looking at me intently, and I looked away, mortified. Eye contact in London is considered by some to be a worse crime than physical assault. As he walked towards me, I averted my gaze and tried to change my direction so as to put more people between me and him, but he was determined to approach me and started pushing people out of his way. Now I was in no doubt as to who had caused the disturbance at the station a few moments ago.

When he finally reached me, I stiffened, prepared to put into practice my limited martial arts techniques, but he didn’t strike me. He didn’t even look particularly angry, he just placed a hand on my shoulder and whispered into my ear.

The words he spoke made the world start to spin around me. It was a while before I could recover my balance, and as I looked around me to ask what he could possibly mean, I realised he was gone. Not just back into the crowds, but actually, physically, gone - moved on to what I can only assume was some other plane of existence, where the words he had spoken to me actually made some sort of sense.

The words repeated themselves over and over in my head. I dared not speak them aloud, for I knew that anyone who heard them would go mad. The truth that they implied was just too terrifying. I could feel it inside my head, thrashing about like a caged animal, this inevitable, undeniable truth, that undermined everything I thought I knew about our world.

As I staggered onwards towards the station entrance, I noticed in my peripheral vision that people were staring at me as I passed them; but none of them would meet my gaze, instead turning away quickly as I looked towards them. Was my internal turmoil so clearly written on my face? Is that why the strange man had looked so odd to me? Did I now look like him?

I caught a train north to Euston, safe in the knowledge that on an underground carriage, the unwritten rules of “no eye-contact, no conversation” would ensure I didn’t have to endure the stares of others, yet I still could hear whispers, even now and then the word ‘freak’, as people passed me. All the while the truth inside my mind struggled ever more strongly against its imprisonment. I had to fight the words from escaping, and a sudden awareness of the metallic taste of blood made me realise I was biting my lips to keep myself from speaking aloud.

Once through the ticket barriers at Euston, I felt an overwhelming urge to escape the confined spaces below the main concourse. The queues of people ahead of me meant that it would take far too long to wait for an escalator, so I ran towards the down escalator and charged up it, falling and grazing my shin on the sharp edges of the steps as I struggled to keep my balance. The whispered insults had become shouts, the stares were no longer concealed, and I knew that I had to share this terrible truth with someone to escape the unfolding nightmare. I ran out into the plaza, with its crowds of smokers, and looked around. People stopped to stare at me, their faces filled with varying degrees of concern and disgust.

I looked at the faces, and realised I could hold on no longer. I lunged at the person nearest to me, a red-faced man in a suit, grabbed his shoulder and revealed my secret. I saw his eyes widen as I spoke, his hand reaching out to steady himself against a nearby wall, and then I felt myself drifting. The pressure inside my head was replaced with a sensation of lightness, and the world around me started to disappear in a direction I had not been aware of until now. Not up, not down, nor to any side, but into and out of itself at the same time. I heard what sounded like a scream, but it faded into silence, and I realised that the terrible secret was terrible no more.