The Man in Black: A Ghost Story Read online

  THE MAN IN BLACK

  A G H O S T S T O R Y

  JORDAN MASON

  Copyright © Jordan Mason 2016.

  Author photograph © Bethany Thompson 2016.

  All rights reserved.

  thejordanmason.com

  Contents

  A Note

  THE ROTTEN ROW

  THE DOG

  THE BOOTPRINTS

  THE WINDOW

  THE WIDOW

  THE MAN IN BLACK

  The Author

  A Note

  The village of Stoney Grange is not real, though it does bear resemblance and borrow influence from locales in and around the moorlands of Durham, most notably the terraced villages close by, and including, Stanley.

  The Grange Colliery and its disaster presented in this book is entirely a work of fiction, though its foundation is loosely based on a similar incident which took place back in the late July of 1973. In case of any upset, these historical incidents have remained, and will remain, confidential and nameless.

  As for the supernatural presented in this book, well, you can decide for yourself.

  THE ROTTEN ROW

  It happened during the winter of 1973, when evenings rang out stillborn from far across the weathered moorland, and snow fell hard and heavy and clung atop the peppered veins of nature’s tough bracken, all picture-postcard like. Colour was something I’d only ever see blossom in a dream or in a memory from what felt like years ago; tacked up red and merry come the time for Christmas, perhaps, or printed onto the front of a Kellogg’s cereal box in the form of a grin-ridden furry mascot, orange coat ablaze and wooden spoon in hand: manmade and joyless, unless you were ten years old. Skies loomed grey and fog poured in plenty, and though the snow fell white and glorious, it lay dirty and black, piled up either side of the Rotten Row and its ashen cobbled curbs, unable to properly thaw out, but only to thicken and turn to sludge.

  On weekends, the village, which was called Stoney Grange, smelled of damp washing and boiled vegetables in the mornings, as well as of coal dust and chimney smoke come the afternoons. Rows of red-brick terraces ran for what looked like an eternity in every direction, held to the sky in all of its industrial pride and glory, though now a mere ghost of the village it once must have been. By the time the children had been summoned back home for tea and their families had returned to comfort, day spilled into twilight and twilight into night, and the still wind lay lonesome upon the inky darkness, a-whislin’ its soundless tune.

  That was when He would watch me, amidst that silence of night, but I never even knew it.

  History had named my row the Rotten Row because it was simply just that, though vermin no longer roamed the yards and the huts and the coal sheds. The infestation had long since gone, but the tradition never faltered. The worst families lived on the Rotten Row. The noisiest thrived. Sometimes I’d hear screams through the walls, and sometimes the children wouldn’t leave for school on a morning, but instead stay home, stray to any decency. Beatings were harder back then.

  Whack, then the tears.

  I was living alone for the first time in my life, exiled to a matchbox flat on the bottom floor of a converted three-bed. I slept in the same room as the kitchen, but I didn’t mind. The house stood on the corner of the Rotten Row and overlooked the only remaining remnants of the Grange Colliery; a valley of pure brown, its hills bare of branch, all blanketed in white. Even in the summer when the sun shone a little more generously than it did that February, the fields beyond the cobbles lay dismal and plain. I’d sometimes see rabbits amongst the ferns, chasing the gentle wind, but never when it was cold. I suppose summertime kept me optimistic, but the winter sat bitter in my bones.

  The pit had closed down ten months earlier in the Spring of 1972, paving way for a new generation of the working class. The disaster hit the North hard: eighteen men lost their lives, and a further eleven had fallen injured. The papers made good money from it, but it affected us closer to home, too. I knew this through my dad’s side of the family, how my uncle Jim - the one I was never to mention - had been one of the eleven, and how my dad never did lend a hand in the way my uncle perhaps would have wanted him to. We had money then, but my uncle wasn’t entitled to it, and that was how it was. It was never really spoken of; borders between families, boundaries not to cross. I suppose, looking back on it now, my dad was wrong. I found my own place in poverty, and the struggle is real. My dad’s family didn’t help, but I never met them.

  My dad lost his life shortly after my uncle Jim’s accident. Pneumonia got to him. He was fifty, but by the time he’d become bedridden he looked more like seventy. We were living in a cottage just outside of Durham. My dad taught in a boarding school up in the village of Rothfield, Northumberland, whilst my mam stayed at home. I was eighteen when my dad came down with it. Nineteen when he passed.

  My mam left with the money; somewhere far down south, apparently. Despite an education and a fair understanding of what money meant, I was left to fend for myself. Everything I’d studied, everything I was entitled, gone. I found my place on the Rotten Row shortly after the abandonment, and that was where I learned how to live proper.

  As expected, the closure hit local amenities hard. Shopkeepers sold off their family names and families lived poorer than they ever had; men unable to find decent work, women unable to cook honest meals, children unable to eat. Although I’d been raised among generous wealth, the transition into the seventies was a hard one for homes like these. Even I knew it, growing up. But you never truly understand it until you’re living in the middle of it. Shops on the front of Stone Row were no longer owned locally, but by businessmen ten miles out in Durham. Though they still remained convenient, the aura of a genuine working village had been lost and a depression loomed in dire anticipation of the future. I had been lucky enough, however, to secure a weekday job down at the butchers a couple days after the move, handling change and wiping down worktops. The pay was bad and the work was lonesome, but it covered some of my rent and spared a little over each Friday for some of the essentials. The owner, William Roy, kept back some rashes of bacon at the end of each week and would slip me them after my day. Anything else went on the dogs out back or were otherwise minced together. I’d spend a little of my pay on milk and malt loaf at the shop on the corner, but even that had lost its locality. It was black owned. That was the thing: even the seventies weren’t safe from foreign influence. If anything it was a head start, communities being taken advantage of. Everyone thought it.

  I didn’t have many possessions. There was nothing in my flat that anyone would ever want. My bed was a mattress from my old room with a couple of thick blankets thrown over it; the thing doubled as a couch, but I’d usually just sit down at the dining table. The table and chairs were left behind in the rush of it all. I managed to keep some little mementos from my dad’s desk, some papers, photographs, things like that. He kept the old collar from our dog Red in the top drawer, and so I took that. Red was a Jack Russell cross. He died at the age of nine, shot down by a farmer whilst out on a run.

  My dad never forgot it. The farmer was shot down three weeks later.

  My kitchen housed the bare necessities. The pots and pans came with the place, as did most of the furniture. The walls were wallpapered green, though they were hued more yellow, and most of the paintwork had blackened with damp. The front door came straight off the street and into the sitting room, and through an archway to the right of the fireplace was the kitchen, the back window, and the back door. There was a stove in the kitchen, and next to that was my mattress and the dining table. The toilet was out through the back door and along a narrow alleyway. It was an outdoor loo, but I was
the only one who ever used it.

  The bathtub was under the stairs; the ones leading to the above flat from the yard. The water was always warm, but usually I’d just boil some in a bucket and wash in the kitchen. On weekdays, after my shift, I’d follow a ritual of sorts. Boots off. Socks off. Water boiled and feet steeped. It kept me on my toes. Shoes back then were cheap; they’d smell bad after a few days of wear, of damp and faux leather. My feet were always sore with the weather. Bad genes, my mam had said.

  I never did find any trace of the previous tenant. Not that I’d really want to; whoever they were made no difference to me. I thought they’d perhaps have gotten out and moved somewhere nice, somewhere colourful and prosperous. The furniture left behind had no real character about it. There was nothing you’d want to inherit from them, but that was all there was. I brought whatever I could with me in the van, the one I’d hired from James O’Neil to drive down to Stoney Grange in. James did it for nothing, and he even offered me some money to bide me over and get me through the first month or two. I didn’t take it. James was a friend of the family, and my dad always taught me not to be a charity unto myself. I had to make my own way.

  I think he was trying to tell me not to be like my mam, and that I couldn’t disagree with.

  I’d accepted my life on the Rotten Row, and that was all that I could do. Winters were colder there, and summers were brown and disheveled and lacking in nature. But even between all of that, beyond the poverty and the worry, nothing had prepared me for the haunting that was to follow.

  THE DOG

  If the horror had a beginning, then it began on the second weekend I moved in. It was Sunday, and the snow had fallen harder than usual. Outside, the morning sky was black and the smell of cooking was strong. Before then, I’d never seen the elderly couple who lived above me. I assumed they were of old age because of how quiet they’d been. I first saw them in the yard together, shoveling a pathway in the snow. They both had hair of the purest silver and wore matching brown cardigans. I decided to help. I put on my coat and my boots and pulled a scarf tight around my neck, grabbing a dustpan on the way out of the back door.

  The snow had made its way into the alleyway already. I scraped through the thick of it with the toe of my boot and met the back of the old couple outside. The sky was pregnant with more snowfall, and so I decided to cough up first, not missing an opportunity to get my greetings firmly over and done with.

  The old man turned around first.

  “Wey look at you, ‘ere,” he said, a smile on his face. “The young lass from upstairs, is it? You do look lovely.”

  “Alright there?” I asked, nervously.

  “Aye, aye.”

  The old woman next to him turned around a little slower, as if it took her longer to process. She smiled all the same.

  “Eee, howa’ you, pet?”

  “Not bad, thanks. I thought you needed a hand so I - ”

  “These old hands canny’ do a lot these days, sweetheart. Come ‘ere and give us a hand,” the man said.

  I started to shovel and heap up the snow with the dustpan. A cold sweat poured.

  “Hopefully we don’t get anymore, ey?” I said, breathless.

  “Wey, hopefully not. What’s your name?” the old man asked.

  “Anne,” I replied. “Anne Davies.”

  “Name’s John, and this is Violet,” he said, nodding to his wife.

  “You’re not from ‘round ‘ere are you? Far too well off for that,” John said. “Out from Durham, aye?”

  “Aye, but I’m not all that; I still call mam, mam, and I live ‘ere, so it’s not all good. Shouldn’t complain, though.”

  “Nar, shouldn’t complain,” he grunted.

  Violet stopped shoveling and threw down her spade.

  “Eee, the dog,” she said. “I’ll go get ‘is food out the pan.”

  She wandered off up the steps to the door above mine. There was no rail to hold onto, and so she grabbed the brickwork with her hands and made the best of it. Her hands looked cold; thin and bony, like tissue paper. They reminded me of my dad. how his hands had softened as he grew more tired and weary with illness.

  “She’s just off to get the bowl an’ the food for the old’un who comes,” John said, growing more and more tired of breath. “We do our best to keep the yard clear for ‘im.”

  “You have a dog?”

  “Nar, but one does come ‘ere.”

  “What’s its name?”

  “Don’t ‘av one, but you’re welcome to name ‘im.”

  I thought about Red, how his final moments had been ones of both catharsis as well as of fear. It took him a while to die, apparently. The gunshot wound hit deep, and I still remember seeing his bloodied white coat after his passing, his eyes tightly shut and his fur stinking. We buried Red in the back garden of our cottage, coffin and all. A circle of grey pebbles marked his resting place. My dad never wanted him replaced.

  “I had a dog once,” I said, John now resting against the yard wall. “He was called Red, shot down by a farmer.”

  John shook his head, disgusted.

  “No way to treat an animal, shoulda’ shot the farmer,” he said, looking up at the sky and its heavy belly.

  “My dad did,” I said. “Shot him later on, but no one knew.”

  He nodded his head and smiled, clamping his lips together. I wasn’t sure why I told him that. John made me feel comfortable, and I thought that perhaps it was his old age. The elderly have that way about them. In some ways he reminded me of my dad. A calmness surrounded him and Violet, like they’d seen too much to care anymore. I liked that.

  I kept on shoveling the last of the snow. Most of it was now just a heap at the bottom of the yard, dirty and grey.

  Violet came back down, a red bowl in one hand and a white plate in the other. The plate was heaped full of goodness, bits of fat and gristle, probably pork, potatoes and veg, and even gravy. Water splashed about in the bowl.

  “An’ ‘ere we go,” Violet said. “For the little boy an’ ‘is little belly.”

  She bent down and placed the food and the water down by the gate.

  “So he comes every day for it?” I asked.

  “Just Sunday’s,” John replied. “Without fail, every Sunday.”

  “He comes in through the hole,” Violet said, pointing at a small hole in the wall on the other side of the yard. “Little’un, a terrier.”

  “Where does he come from?” I enticed.

  “Just a stray,” John replied. He put his sleeve to his mouth and coughed.

  Violet looked over, concerned. She walked to him and patted his back a little, but he shrugged her off and calmed down.

  “He’s not that good these days,” she said. “A bita’ cold in ‘im.”

  “Am alright, lass, just abita’ cold, nothin’ some bacon wouldn’t harm.”

  I was going to mention my work down at the butchers, but -

  “None for you, an’ that’s it,” Violet said, a tone of insistence raw and pure in her tiring voice. “Stew’ll do.”

  John grunted.

  “Takes me back to me youth it does, good food an’ bacon ‘an that,” he said. “Me childhood was all that an’ nothin’ more, just honest food.”

  “Does you no good these days, love,” Violet said. “A warm belly of tea’ll do, now shut it up.”

  The pair laughed. I grinned and was about to wrap up our conversation when I heard a rustling behind me.

  There was the dog, small and thin and soaking wet. His little ears were down and his tail stood stiff in the air, shaking beneath the harshness of winter. He was hesitant before me, but John and Violet threw out their arms and enticed him close, bending down and patting their thighs.

  “Come on, you,” they both said, smiles as wide as I’d ever seen before.

  The terrier eased forward, his shaggy ginger coat brushed against the breeze. His tail wagged slightly as he approached and his nose hung upon the air, sniffing at the smell of f
ood. He spotted the bowls instantly, familiar of their place.

  “Water first,” Violet said. “Always water.”

  She was right. The dog lapped up the water first, almost drinking the whole bowl. Then he went for the food, swallowing it fast without biting. The poor lad was starving. His skin barely stretched over his protruding ribcage. Sores collected around his knees and his ears, crisp with dry blood. Mud clung to his tail.

  “We’d take ‘im in, but he doesn’t want to be upstairs,” John said. “He likes to be out, but he does sit outside your door sometimes.”

  “Does he not have a home? How old is he?” I asked.

  “No idea, lovely,” muttered up Violet. “We do our best.”

  The dog tucked his tail between his legs and finished up his food. He turned around to look at me, then peered behind me at the back door. His tongue flopped out and he panted, sitting back for a pet. I walked forward, fist out first, and stroked his little head, running my hands through his thick coat. He loved it, and even John and Violet stood back and smiled in admiration.

  He just wouldn’t stop staring at that door.

  “Shame you canny’ take ‘im in,” John laughed.

  “I can’t. I’m working through the week, and food is a bit expensive,” I said, feeling guilty. “If only, though.”

  They both accepted it, nodding.

  Once the dog had gotten his fuss over and done with he went off through the hole in the wall. His hind leg limped as he pranced off, I noticed. It was his left.

  I probably could’ve taken him in, but with his coat so dirty and his temperament so nervous I didn’t want to risk it. Plus, I didn’t have enough to look after his injuries, let alone feed him well. I felt ashamed, but if what John and Violet had said was true then he’d be back the following Sunday. What he got up to in between, I didn’t want to think about too much.