“We can’t,” whispered Luke.
“Yes we can.” I corrected him, firmly.
“We’ll have a curse or something put on us.” Luke mumbled. He was nervous; you could hear the slight croak in that otherwise feminine voice of his.
“You really believe in that rubbish?” I rolled my eyes. “C’mon, we can find out if those stupid stories are really true.” I slipped through the hole in the hedge. I wasn’t daunted… yet. I was eager to know. I needed to know.
With a drag of the cold autumn air that enveloped our mortal bodies, I looked up to the night sky. The perfectly rounded moon glowed above the century-year old manor, thick grey clouds causing a starless night. There was no turning back.

I and Luke were in the same year at school, both 13 years old, both fascinated in graveyards and the widely questioned ‘paranormal’. I had told my parents I was going to sleep at Luke’s, and he had told his the same. Our houses were adjacent in Reaper Avenue – the street name we had often talked about when we was younger – this very street being our source of wonder for the ‘spirit realm’ and the abilities and limits of the lost souls of dead.
The manor sat precariously on the corner of the street, gazing out over the opposite meadow which usually inhabited a few horses. Even in the summer sunshine it seemed to emit an aura of gloom and sadness.

I stood up, now at the edge of the garden, leaning down to drag Luke (who was, not surprisingly, struggling to get through the hole) through the rest of the bush.
“Hurry up, idiot.” My orders allowed me to commandeer the fear which festered at the back of my throat.
Brushing the debris from us, a low noise came growling fourth, rumbling deeply at my back. I turned, my eyes widening and lips falling agape in shock.
A shadowy figure shaped in the form of a dog was poised, ready to strike, snarling in our direction. The threatening noise curdled like gargled blood, twisting unsettlingly into a whine of pain as wispy trails blew from the beast’s body, fading into the night.
The glowing yellow orbs of its eyes blinked into thin air.
The breath I had held was released. I spun around to find Luke stood beside me, frozen with fear, like one of the statues within this very garden. Their eyes seemed to follow your every move.
All of a sudden, I felt an overwhelming sense of thrill.
“Get that camera out, this is gold!”
Luke did as he was told, and we quietly made our way towards the back of the house.
We were ghost hunting.

The rotting wooden door creaked as I pushed against it, the pupils of my eyes straining in attempt to see through the darkness.
“I need the torch, Luke.” Luke rummaged through the backpack I had earlier prepared, and passed the torch over. I flicked the switch, and flashed the dull beam over the old, dusty furniture.

A man. His figure was slightly disfigured, the dim moonlight filtering through the mould infested windows causing difficulty in trying to make out his features, making it impossible to register what sinister expression he could have donned. He sat upon the severely worn armchair, like a wax figure sculpted for a museum, like a statue looking over a cemetery courtyard. I seemed to weigh as much as a lead weight as he turned his head into my direction, the wax figure, the statuesque creature, animating.
It wasn’t an imitation any more. I feared this wasn’t just some young boys’ adventure… it became real.

“Luke,” I managed to force his name, breathed from chilled lungs.
He didn’t reply. His shock was apparent in his bloodless face, my eyes darting over the look of utter fear which had manifested upon his oh-so innocent face. I figured he had seen the man too, and as I turned back, the apparition had disappeared. Slipped away without warning, into thin air – and from this thin air did I feel a gentle stroke down my arm? It couldn’t have been Luke’s touch, for if he had reached out, his grasp would be more harsh, more stricken with panic and desperation. But no, it was soft, calm… almost angelic like.
I screamed. Luke began shouting too, and we fled in retreat through the hallway, slamming into the front door, dropping into a heap at it’s base.
“It’s locked!” I yelled through gasping breaths, twisting and yanking the handle.
“I don’t care if it’s locked, please, for God’s sake, get it open!” His pleading voice was stricken with fear and panic, and when I turned around I could see clearly why.
The bloodied carving knife in her hand glinted within the moonlight which beamed through the door’s stained glass windows. The blurred vision of a bedraggled woman stepped slowly towards where we sat, deep crimson blood dripping from the open wounds upon her wrists and neck. Her oddly feminine groans vibrated through the whole house: the ground below us seeming to shake, the paint and plaster on the walls around us peeling and crumbling the longer we sat there.
This door was tight shut, there was no chance of getting it open now, so I made a move and dragged Luke into the kitchen. We stumbled, falling in a heap near the back wall, and held our breaths.
The silence seemed to make my face tingle, the cold hanging in the air biting at the tips of my fingers. I released my breath, a stream of warm air forming at my mouth before dispersing into the frosty air.

“We’ve gotta’ get out of here, Luke.” I voiced beneath my breath, actually scared that whatever was in here heard me.
“Oh, you’ll listen to me now the damage is don-” I didn’t hesitate to clasp my hand over his mouth, glaring into his own eyes as a silent demand to keep his voice down. Luke was raging, but you could hear the desperation in his voice, the pleading in his eyes to get out of this wretched place.

The torchlight flickered out. The sudden substitution from light to dark caused a moment of pitch black all that felt as though it had engulfed us, before my eyes finally adjusted to the shadows; stealing what little light from the moon that shone through the grubby kitchen windows. The moonlight fell upon a square section of the room, lighting it up with a sad blue tone.
A creak moaned from the ceiling, and the whole thing gave way. Something crashed to the floor right before our eyes, settling to lay still.

A body? What was left of one, at least.
Gaping abysses sat where eyeballs once did, the bone and skin of its lower jaw torn away, leaving a grey tongue hanging free.
Flesh over its protruding ribs had been sliced and ripped, blood spilling over the wooden floor from a gaping wound at its stomach.
I covered my mouth, refraining from throwing up.

I forced myself to stand, running past the corpse, down the hallway and right through the ghastly figure of the suicidal lady. I stumbled from the chilling feeling the apparition held host to, but determination urged me forward. Gathering my balance and fleeing through to the living room, the seated man was back where he sat before, but this time his am lifted and his hand reached out to grab my own.

I felt it. The chill surged like wildfire up the length of my arm; the feeling of a lost, trapped soul. The feeling dispersed like a dog fleeing with it’s tail between it’s legs, as his non-existent, translucent fingers travelled right through my hand.
Stumbling over the leg of a nearby armchair, I looked back. He was gone, but the indent where he sat upon the couch was all that was left of his physical being. Was he still there? Was he scared to advance further in reaching out to me? Either way, my head suddenly throbbed with the instinct to run.

Scrambling to my feet and crashing through the backdoor from which we came in, I sprinted to the hole in the hedge. My breathing was heavy, my chest fluctuating with each deep intake of the manor’s surrounding air. It tasted like stone, like frozen metal. My heart raced as it attempted to pump blood and oxygen faster around my body.

A scream. It was desperate, wailing – broken away with a choke, as though something had grabbed the composer by the neck.
The voice was unmistakable. It was Luke.

As I reached the hedge, a bark caught my attention. It wasn’t a sinister bark, but instead laced with joy and glee; as though the dog was happy, as though in play with its master or another of its canine friends. The scene that I turned my head to view was what I had perceived, in a much more horrific way.
There it sat; aligned with the now closed back door I had before entered in a child’s curiosity, and just now fled back through in pure fear. I followed its wispy tail as it wagged side to side behind its neatly seated rump, my eyes crawling up the black dog’s body - only to settle upon its face.
Within the dog’s seemingly smiling jaws was held pretty an ever familiar human arm, and then I realized - where was Luke?
I froze in terror. Although my legs trembled and were near breaking point to collapse, I felt like a lead weight and couldn’t bring myself to move.
I watched on helplessly as the shadowy canine gently dropped the mutilated limb to the dirt, and with another of its chiming barks, the apparition was blown away by an icy gust of wind into the still midnight air.