The Ghost Behind the Wall

  4

  Getting Bad

  As soon as David tumbled out onto the carpet he jumped back up and began tidying up before his dad came home. He wiped the dirt marks off the floor and the wall where he’d fallen out; he put the grille back on. All the time he could feel his legs shaking underneath him and a thin fizz of pure terror tingling in every vein.

  Ghosts! He’d never really believed in them, but now he’d seen one. The grille in the wall led from home to the secret haunting place. There were secrets in the wandering metal tubes that ran all around Mahogany Villas.

  “What’s up with you tonight?” his dad kept asking him, but David just shook his head. Terry wondered if he was being picked on at school again for being small, and he bit his lip. He hated to think of his son being bullied, but since David would never admit to it unless he got caught fighting, there was nothing anyone could do about it.

  David went to bed that night shivering with fear. And yet … The strange thing was, after seeing what he’d seen and hearing what he’d heard, he was already beginning to disbelieve it all. He’d been scared. He’d panicked, that was all. He’d just imagined that there was something there. The pale face and the slight figure hurrying and banging and growing so huge, even though there was no room for it to get huge … that long face staring down at him with its mouth wide open as if it was shouting, but the old man’s voice coming from far away … It was impossible! It was just his imagination, surely?

  The ducts opened up into every room in the apartment and that night David lay in his bed and stared at the square darkness of the grille on his bedroom wall. What was in there? Could it come out to find him in the night?

  “You big baby!” he told himself. But the mere thought of going into the ducts at night made his whole skin sparkle with fear.

  Oh, David was scared; he was scared silly. But being David, being scared just made him want to do more.

  “Is there anyone in there?” he called softly. From the ducts, there was no reply. All he had to do to prove it was creep across the room and look in.

  At night? In the dark?

  Of course, it was always nighttime in the ducts, but that didn’t stop the night dark from being worse than the day dark. Even so, a moment later David got out of bed, took his chair over to the wall, and stood up on it so that his head was just on a level with the grille. He could feel the cool air moving from inside on his cheek.

  David held his breath and listened. From far, far away, he could hear the soft sound of someone crying. A boy. It didn’t sound at all dangerous; it sounded sad, so very sad. He stood there for a whole minute, listening to the noise, trying to convince himself that it was some child in one of the other apartments who was weeping. Georgie, perhaps.

  “Who’s there?” he called softly. At once, the crying stopped. A thrill of horror ran through him. If it was a child in a room, surely he wouldn’t have heard him. Whoever—whatever—was doing the weeping, it had to be in the ducts.

  “It’s all right, don’t cry,” said David. There was no more sound. A second later he lost his nerve and ran back to bed.

  * * *

  The next day at school it was as if none of it had happened. Weeping ghosts, boys screaming in old men’s voices—that wasn’t real life. Catching the bus, doing lessons, fighting back at the kids who were calling him Clockwork—that was real life. The ducts were like that. They took him over when he was inside, but in the daylight it all seemed impossible, far away, like a dream or a movie you’d watched in the multiplex weeks ago.

  On the way home David stopped in the entrance to Mahogany Villas and read down the long lists of names by the doorbells. Fifth floor. He counted along. The old man had been in the apartment above his, next one along. He couldn’t quite work out which bell was which, though, and he had to ride up on the elevator to find the number and then look it up.

  Number 501. Mr. Robert Alveston.

  “Do you know Mr. Alveston?” he asked his dad while they were eating dinner.

  “The old man on the floor above ours?” asked his dad.

  “Yes.”

  “What do you know about him?” his dad wanted to know, but David was ready with a lie.

  “He just started talking to me in the lobby yesterday,” he said with a little shrug, as if it didn’t matter at all.

  “They’re always talking about him during residents’ meetings,” said his dad. “Asking people to keep an eye on him and visit him and things. He’s gone a bit crazy. A touch of Alzheimer’s.”

  “What?”

  “A bit senile. The social services are keeping an eye on him. He gets lost, can’t find his way back to his apartment. Talks to people when there’s no one there, that sort of thing. His eyesight’s not so good; his hearing’s on the blink. Falling to bits, really, but he’s as sharp as anything on a good day. He ought to be in a home but hates the idea, poor old guy.”

  “What about his family—why don’t they look after him?”

  “Well, he says there’s grandchildren somewhere, but no one’s ever seen them.”

  “Has he got a son?” asked David, wondering who Jonathon was. But Terry couldn’t remember.

  * * *

  That night David stuck a poster over the grille even though he knew a poster couldn’t stop anything. He drew a cross with a felt tip pen on the poster and rubbed it with garlic to keep off vampires. He thought about going to the church to steal some holy water, but then he thought stolen holy water probably wouldn’t work.

  The next Thursday, he went wandering off with Tyne again, and this time they stayed friends. Tyne showed him an old run-down house that they went into and explored together. It was great. They bought some doughnuts and Tyne apologized for calling him Clockwork.

  He got back after his dad and got into more trouble for being late. He didn’t care. When his dad heard that he’d made friends with Tyne, he forgave him. David thought about telling his dad about the ghost, but decided it was impossible. Terry didn’t believe in ghosts either. All he’d want to know about was why David had been sneaking about inside the building and spying on people.

  The days ticked by. Then it was Tuesday; his dad was working late again. David had almost stopped thinking about the ducts, but to his own horror, as soon as he was at home on his own with a few hours to spare, he went straight back inside. It was amazing how quickly it happened. He just came back from school, got changed, and, without even thinking about it, pushed the sofa to the wall and climbed in. It was like he had no choice in the matter. He was sitting on the board, looking up along his flashlight beam with his heart hammering away inside him, before it even occurred to him that he didn’t have to go in if he didn’t want to.

  He did Mary Turner’s apartment first. It was a mess again. She’d been eating chips and drinking beer, and it looked as though she’d had a chip fight with someone. There were beer cans and crushed chips everywhere.

  “What on earth does she get up to?” David wondered.

  He slid the grille off and climbed down into the apartment.

  Inside, he wandered about, poking inside drawers and cupboards, looking for anything private. He drank some juice out of her fridge and finished off a bag of half-eaten chips that was lying on the floor. There was a pair of long brown boots, one on each side of the settee, with long rows of eyes for the laces up the sides. David took the left one back into the duct when he left. He thought that was hilarious. He kept giggling at the thought of Mary Turner wandering about for hours, searching for her lost boot. She’d never find it! He was still laughing when he reached the big upright duct outside his apartment, but when he heard an answering giggle coming down from over his head, he shut up.

  An echo? Or a ghost …

  He shone his beam up there. Nothing. The laugh must have been an echo. After waiting a long, long time in the silence, David climbed up to the fifth floor. Here he sat on the edge of the big duct for another long time, waiting for the slightest hint of movement or noise, b
ut there was nothing, except of course for the oddness of being in there in the first place. On the dust he could see the marks he had made crawling backward and forward before. The laugh he had heard must have been an echo. There were all sorts of odd noises and echoes in a place like this, coming in from the various apartments through the grilles and creeping like spooks around the ducts.

  David began to creep along the ducts. When he got to the offshoot that led to Mr. Alveston’s apartment, he lay out of sight just around the corner, listening.

  Voices. It might be the TV, but he couldn’t be sure. He peeped around the corner. The grille was still off, but he couldn’t see anything. Then there was a click. It was the TV being turned off. But one of the voices carried on. It was the old man. He’d been talking to the people on the TV—the silly old fool!

  David listened as hard as he could, but he couldn’t make out what the old man was saying to himself. He wanted to go closer, but he didn’t dare in case he got seen. It would take the old man just a moment to get up on the chair, and he’d be stuck like a rat in a trap.

  It was very frustrating. Quite suddenly, fed up with not being able to do what he wanted to do, David decided he’d had enough of this game. Just as it looked as if there was something really good about it, it turned out you couldn’t do it after all. What was the point? What was the point of the old man being blind, deaf, and daft if you couldn’t do anything? David decided that he’d never bother coming back into the ducts again. This was going to be his last trip—and at the same time, that meant he could do absolutely anything he wanted. Without even thinking any more about it, he put his hands to his mouth and said in a low, hooting voice,

  “Heeellooo, Mr. Robert Aaaaaalveston. This is Jonathon, Jonathon speeeeakiiiing. Ooooooo, ooooo…”

  At once the muttering voice stopped. David started sniggering desperately. It was so funny—he was the ghost behind the walls! He put his hands over his mouth and spluttered.

  “Who’s there?” called the old voice anxiously.

  “Ohhhh, Mr. Alveston, ohhh, beware, bewaaaaare, I am the ghost of Jonathon, whooooo!” David burst out chortling. It was so gloriously bad! He didn’t even try covering up his laughter. The old man would never know who was playing this trick on him. He must be scared silly! For the first time David wished he had someone with him to share this great joke with.

  “Whooo, Jonathon, ooooooo. I am Jonathon,” boomed David in a loud voice, and he cracked up laughing to himself.

  And then from the duct in front of him came another voice floating down.

  “Jonathon … Jonathon, woooo, oooo, woooo, beware, Jonathon…”

  That was no echo! David looked up—and there was the ghost. He was in the ducts two or three apartments ahead, lying on his stomach in exactly the same position as David. He was copying him. He had his hands to his mouth in the same way and he was saying the same thing. He was killing himself laughing.

  David yelled out in fright. He jumped up and banged his head, and the other boy started laughing at that, too. What made David feel sick was the way he could see straight through him. It made him shudder all over. Then the boy began crawling forward toward David. He was using his hands, one in front of the other, but he was sliding forward as if he was on rollers, as if he was only pretending that he moved in the same way as a person did.

  “Go away! Just stay away! Leave me alone!” It was the old man shouting. The boy pulled a strange face—David didn’t know if he was laughing or crying—and then he howled, “Wooo, beware. You silly old foooool!” he wailed.

  David shouted, “Stay away! Stay away!” and began to crawl backward. But the boy kept on crawling toward him faster than ever. His face seemed to be going faster than the rest of him. It was reaching beyond his body and coming toward David as if it was on a stick in the most horrible manner, still half grinning, half crying, and wailing, “Silly old foooooooool!”

  “No!” screamed David in terror, but the boy came on. In another second David could feel the edge of the duct on his ankles. With one last desperate push backward, he hurled himself down.

  “No! Please!” wailed the boy.

  “Go away!” bellowed the old man. Without waiting another second, David shoved himself violently backward and popped out of the hole in the wall into his apartment. He came out so fast that he missed the sofa altogether and fell heavily on his shoulder onto the floor.

  “Don’t go! Play with me!” screeched the boy.

  “Leave me alone!” wailed the old man. David was certain that both of them were coming after him. Jumping up, he fitted the grille back into place and then stood there, pressing it to the wall and staring at the darkness he had just imprisoned. Just for a second he saw something there—the pale, terrified face of the ghost boy staring back out at him. David snatched his hands away. Then the face disappeared so suddenly, it looked as if it had been snatched away or blown off in a gale. A slight sprinkle of dust fell from the bars of the grille.

  For almost ten minutes David stayed glued to that grille, staring like a mad dog into the space behind the walls, too scared to move in case the ghost came back. Then he sighed deeply, put his hands to his face, and said, “Man, that was bad, that was really bad.” He felt like crying, but he didn’t have time. He had to clean up and get everything sorted out for when his dad came home.

  * * *

  Back in apartment 501, Robert Alveston was sitting in his armchair with his head in his hands, his heart beating fearfully in his chest.

  It was getting worse!

  It had started with him just forgetting where he put things—teaspoons and cups, his keys, his wallet. It was so frustrating; he always used to have a memory like a jewel. Next he’d started not recognizing things. It wasn’t just faces or people. It was everyday things. The first time it happened in a big way, it had been with a teapot. He saw it on the stove and he just hadn’t got a clue what it was. “Whatever is that thing? What on earth is it for?” he muttered to himself. He thought it looked hilarious, with its fat body and its funny, bendy, spouty thing sticking out. He had to keep going into the kitchen to have another look at it and laugh. “What a stupid-looking thing!” he said with a giggle. Hilarious! Then he forgot that he didn’t know what it was for and made himself a cup of tea, and it wasn’t until the next day that he suddenly remembered that he’d forgotten what it was for three whole hours.

  In one way it was quite funny. He’d enjoyed not knowing what a teapot was; it had been good fun. You saw things so freshly. But it was a very worrying thing nonetheless.

  The next thing was, he’d started finding himself with no memory at all of what he had been doing for the past hours or minutes. The other day he had found himself with a pair of scissors in his hands, busy cutting his trousers in half. He had a vague, fleeting memory that someone had hidden treasure in the pockets—but what for, or why that meant he had to cut them in half, he had no idea.

  It was as if his dreams had taken over his life. It made him scared he’d have a nightmare. And now look! He’d started to imagine things.

  The first time it had happened, he was sitting quietly in his room, daydreaming about something that had happened to him as a child.

  It was early summer. He was a boy, eleven years old. He could smell the hot roads and the horses that pulled the coaches and carriages up and down the streets, and the stink of the occasional automobile that went chugging past. He was out with a friend of his, a boy called Jonathon Price. They were sneaking into some farm plots in Kentish Town, hoping to steal some new carrots or find pods of green peas. They’d walked along the tall rows of beans, watched the potato flowers bobble about under the weight of the bees and hoverflies.

  For Mr. Alveston this wasn’t just a memory; he was there. He could smell the earth. He could hear the bees buzzing in the flowers. If he’d touched one, it would have stung him. At his side, his friend Jonathon walked along, pulling baby beans off the plants and eating them.

  They turned a corn
er and ran into a man weeding with a hoe. Jonathon thought they’d been caught and ran off, but Robert knew the man: it was Mr. Jonston, a neighbor of his. He had quite a job convincing Jonathon to stay. Mr. Jonston let them pull a couple of carrots out of the ground and wiped the dirt off for them, and then he invited them to help him dig up the early potatoes. That was good! They levered the trowels up in the black earth, and there were the spuds hidden in the ground, spilling out like cool, earthy treasure. Robert speared one on the trowel, and the neighbor said, “Try and dig a bit farther away from the plant; that one’s no good now.”

  Robert looked up at the man and smiled … and at that very moment he heard the rattle in the ventilation shaft over his head. He looked up, an old man dozing in his chair once more, and saw the boy ducking out of sight. At the same time, on the ground at his feet, there was another boy. It was a boy he knew, he was sure he knew him; he knew him as well as he knew himself, but at that moment he had no idea who exactly it was. The boy looked at him, and in a single bound, like something in a movie, like a cat or some kind of imp, he had leapt up into the ventilation shaft and was gone.

  Hurriedly Mr. Alveston pulled a chair over to the wall, climbed up, and peered in, just in time to see the first boy backing off around the corner in the ductwork. The switch from the past, which was so vivid, to the present, which was so strange, happened so quickly that he wasn’t able to work out what was then and what was now. That was why he called out, “Jonathon!” after the boy; he thought for a moment that it was his friend going down the shaft.

  The first boy turned the corner and went crashing off. As the old man watched, the second boy came back into view. There was a glimpse of a bony young face glaring down the duct at him. Then the boy was off, chasing after the other one as fast as he could.

  “Come back—don’t go!” cried the old man, certain that he knew this second boy from somewhere, if only he could remember where. But the boy was gone. All he could do was stand there and call uselessly after them.