Stonebridge
We had just returned from Tom’s funeral, and the air felt heavy with unspoken words and lingering sorrow. Linda, Carl, Mark, and I gathered in the corner of the reception room, the muffled chatter and clinking glasses of the wake providing a discordant backdrop to our private grief. Carl broke the silence, his voice tinged with an attempt at levity that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I thought we all gave him a good send-off. I hope my funeral will be as well-attended as Tom’s was, although I doubt it.” he said, his words barely masking the underlying sadness.
Linda, her face pale and drawn, let a single tear slip down her cheek. “I’m just glad it’s all over,” she said softly, her voice cracking. “I don’t think I will ever return to ghost-hunting.” Her eyes were lowered, fixed, as if searching for solace in the scuffed wooden floor.
Before anyone could respond, Tom’s mother approached us, her grief was obvious as she wiped away her tears. “I blame all of you,” she said, her voice a mixture of anguish and accusation. “Meddling in things that ought to be left alone. I think it better if you all left.”
I rose from my seat, my heart aching for the woman who had lost so much. “We are all very sorry for your loss,” I began, my voice sincere, but she cut me off before I could say more.
“I want you all to leave, please… now.” Her voice was firm, though the tears streaming down her face told a different story. She turned away, hastily wiping her eyes, leaving us with the weight of her words.
My expression was one of quiet resignation. “I think we should go back to my flat. We can have our own little remembrance there,” I suggested, my tone subdued.
“That’s a good idea,” Mark agreed, feeling the need to retreat.
“We should leave, we don’t want to cause any more grief.” Said Linda, desperately trying to fight back the tears.
We all nodded in agreement, and made our way out of the pub. As we drove to my flat, the weight of what had transpired in the asylum, and the unsettling way Tom had met his end, still hung heavily in our hearts. Once inside, I made us all a coffee, then we settled into the comfort of the armchairs. The room was dimly lit by a single table lamp, casting a soft glow that barely penetrated to the corners.
“We need to talk about what happened,” Carl said, breaking the silence as he stared into his drink. “Tom’s death wasn’t an accident; he was murdered by that… that thing. In all my days ghost-hunting and wanting to see and record some physical evidence, I never in my wildest dreams thought we would ever come across anything like that.”
Linda’s gaze, which had been fixed on the floor, shifted up to Carl. “I don’t think any of us did. The only person to get anything out of this was you, Steve.”
I took a deep breath, the sweet taste of the coffee blending with the bitterness of my memories. “Yes, I lost my scepticism and saw my sister again. But before that, I thought we were all going to die. The terror was unlike anything I’ve ever felt.”
A solitary fly buzzed around the room, its erratic flight punctuating the uneasy silence. Carl swatted at it with a grimace. “If I never see another fly again, it’ll be too soon. They should be wiped from the face of the earth,” he muttered, his irritation adding a touch of levity that felt oddly out of place amidst our current situation.
The table lamp flickered, casting uneasy shadows before plunging us briefly into darkness. Linda inhaled sharply, her eyes wide with apprehension. The light flickered back on, casting an unreliable glow across the room. Everyone instinctively looked around, as if the brief darkness might be hiding something sinister.
“Sorry about that,” I said, trying to offer a reassuring smile. “The lamp’s been acting up for days. I really need to change the bulb.”
Carl puffed out his cheeks, letting out a long sigh. “For a nasty moment there, I thought I was back in the asylum. It’s going to take a long time before we get over the effect it had on us.”
Linda nodded, her fingers nervously twisting a napkin in her lap. “I still have nightmares. I jump at the craziest things, every creak, every shadow. It’s as though the darkness from Ravenwood has seeped into my everyday life.”
I watched as Linda’s gaze drifted to the half-empty cup of coffee on the table, its steam curling lazily into the air. Her words struck a chord with me. The asylum had left scars deeper than any we could see, and the echoes of that place will linger for a long time to come.
“We need to focus,” Mark interjected quietly, his voice a low rumble that seemed to vibrate with underlying tension. “Whatever happened at Ravenwood isn’t just over because we’ve left. If anything, it feels like we’ve brought a piece of it back with us.”
Carl’s face tightened, his eyes darting to the shadows in the room. “You mean whatever was at Ravenwood has followed us here? I thought we left it all behind. We banished that thing and sent spirits back into the light.”
“I don’t know,” Mark said, rubbing his temples. “But ever since we left the asylum, there have been these... occurrences. Small things at first, odd noises, unexplained shadows. I thought they were just my mind playing tricks on me.”
Linda’s eyes widened, her hands trembling slightly as she spoke. “I’ve experienced similar things. At first, I thought it was just stress or fatigue. But now... I’m not so sure. There’s something that feels off, something I can’t quite explain.”
A shiver ran through the room as the implications of Linda’s words settled over us. The sense of safety we had hoped to find in the familiarity of our lives seemed increasingly elusive. It was as though the darkness we thought we had left behind had insinuated itself into our reality, waiting for the right moment to strike.
“I think we’re all still reeling from what we went through,” I said, trying to infuse a note of reassurance into my voice. “We’ll see shadows and hear unexplained noises. That doesn’t necessarily mean they come with ill intent. I think we’re all overreacting. As time goes on, we’ll get back to how we were before. Father Ambrose blessed us all with Holy Water. It’s probably just our imaginations playing tricks on us.”
Carl nodded, though his expression remained troubled. “I guess you’re right; we’ve all been through an horrific turn of events.”
“Exactly,” I said, trying to offer a comforting smile. “We need to remember that we’re here to honour Tom. At least he is now at peace.”
Linda shifted in her chair; her gaze distant as she looked past the flickering lamp. “I hope you’re right, Steve.
We spent the rest of that afternoon in a quieter mood, trying to find solace and laughter amidst the lingering shadows of our ordeal. Linda, Mark, and Carl took turns sharing stories about Tom, their voices carrying a mix of fondness and bittersweet nostalgia. The stories painted a picture of Tom as not just a colleague but a friend with a knack for mischief and a talent for lightening the mood, even in the darkest of times.
Linda began with a smile, her eyes crinkling at the corners. “Do you remember the time Tom tried to cook us all dinner during one of our late-night investigations? He’d never cooked a meal before, but he was determined to make us ‘spaghetti a la Tom.’”
Mark chuckled, his deep voice rumbling with amusement. “How could I forget? The kitchen was a disaster zone. We ended up with a pot of something that looked like it had been through a blender. We had to order takeout instead. Tom was so proud of his ‘creation,’ though, and he kept insisting that it was just an acquired taste.”
Carl laughed, shaking his head. “And then there was the time he convinced us that the best way to ward off spirits was to dance around the campfire wearing ridiculous costumes. I think he borrowed his sister’s old Halloween gear for that one. We were all out there, looking like a bunch of lunatics, while Tom led us in a ‘spirit-banishing’ dance.”
Linda’s laughter mingled with Carl’s, and for a moment, the heaviness of our recent experiences seemed to lift. The room felt warmer, the echoes of Tom’s laughter ringing through the stories. It was as though, for a few precious hours, we could hold onto the memory of our friend without the shadow of the asylum looming over us.
Mark’s face softened as he spoke. “Tom had a way of making everything seem less grim, even when things were at their darkest. His sense of humour was his armour against the things that frightened us. I think he’d want us to remember the good times, not the bad.”
Linda nodded, wiping a tear from her eye. “He always had this way of making us feel like everything would turn out alright, no matter how bad things seemed. I’m grateful for those memories. They remind us of who Tom was and what he brought into our lives.”
Carl leaned back in his chair, a thoughtful expression on his face. “It’s a shame that the darkness we faced took him from us. But remembering the way he lived, the way he brought laughter into our lives, is the best way to honour him.”
As the afternoon light began to wane, the room was filled with a sense of shared comfort and camaraderie. The stories had done their work, stitching together the fragments of our shattered sense of normality with the warmth of friendship and remembrance. We knew that the darkness of Ravenswood would still haunt us for quite some time, but for now, we took solace in the laughter and memories we shared. Tom’s presence, though no longer physical, was felt in the stories and the moments of levity he had left behind. As the evening drew in, we resolved to face whatever lay ahead with the same bravery and humour that Tom had embodied. His memory would be our strength, a reminder of the resilience and camaraderie that had brought us through the horrors of the asylum. We talked into the early evening, discussing the events leading up to Toms death and reliving our nightmares. It was time to call it a night, I was struggling to stay awake and so were the others. We all said our goodbyes, and I decided to have an early night hoping that sleep would claim me and I could remain asleep for once.
I woke up to a disorienting blur, a lingering haze that seemed to cling to the edges of my mind. My head throbbed, and my body felt heavier than it should. For a moment, I lay still, listening to the silence that filled my small flat. The events of the asylum still weighed heavily on me, casting its long shadows into every corner of my thoughts.
I blinked hard and opened my eyes wide, then sat up, the world tilting ever so slightly. My bedside table was cluttered with the remnants of restless nights: an empty glass, a half-read book, and a tangled cord from my headphones. I pushed the covers aside and swung my legs over the edge of the bed, planting my feet on the cold floor. A faint buzzing sound filled my ears, like an echo of a distant conversation I couldn’t quite place.
As I stood, my reflection in the wardrobe mirror caught my eye. The shadows under my eyes were dark, and my skin was pale, almost ghostly. I shook my head and turned away. It was all in my head, I told myself. Just stress and lack of sleep.
The flat felt colder than usual, a chill that seemed to seep from the walls themselves. I moved to the kitchen, intending to start my day with a strong cup of coffee. As I reached for the kettle, I noticed the cupboard door was slightly ajar. I was certain I had closed it last night. I pushed it shut with a small sigh, trying to shake off the feeling of unease that had settled in my stomach.
Things had been strange since I’d left the asylum behind, but I figured it was just my mind playing tricks on me. A creak in the floorboards, a flicker in the lights, the occasional faint buzzing sound, I could easily dismiss these as the ordinary quirks of an old building. After all, the events of Ravenswood were enough to make anyone jumpy.
With a mug of coffee in hand, I moved to the small window that overlooked the communal garden. The block of flats I lived in was an old, red-brick building, with ten units in total. It was a quiet place, mostly. The kind of place where everyone kept to themselves, but you knew enough about your neighbours to nod at them in passing.
I noticed Mrs. Thompson, the elderly lady from Flat 3, down in the garden, tending to the flower beds. She was out there most mornings, regardless of the weather, a small figure wrapped in a woollen cardigan, her silver hair tucked under a sunhat. She had a gentle smile, always ready with a kind word or a plate of homemade biscuits.
As I watched her, I heard a shuffle outside my door. The sound was faint, but distinct. I walked over and peered through the peephole, seeing Mr. Wilkins, the nosy tenant from Flat 5. He was pretending to adjust his shoelaces, but I knew better. He had a habit of listening at doors, always eager for gossip or a hint of scandal. I waited until he moved on before opening the door, stepping out into the hallway.
“Morning, Steve!” a cheerful voice called out, breaking the quiet of the corridor.
I turned to see Lisa and Ben from Flat 7, the young couple with a young child. They arrived here from Jamaica about 3 months ago, little Jamie in tow. Jamie was a bright-eyed 3 year old toddler, always clutching a stuffed rabbit that looked as worn out as the rest of us.