Scary Stories - Twist in the Tale Series

Some Time later

Harold thought itodd when he walked through the door. The door was closed at thetime. Up until then it was just another day.

He remembered experiencing an intense pain in his chest just ashe was on his way out of the house. The pain had passed howeverand, apart from feeling somehow lighter than usual, everythingseemed to be all right. So he had carried on his way. It had justfelt natural not to bother opening the door.

It was only when he got outside that he realised things weredifferent. He had no clothes on for one thing. He distinctlyrecalled getting dressed; he always took particular care over hisappearance. As he stood confusedly looking from the solid woodendoor to his nakedness he became aware of the sound of theelectric lawnmower. Abruptly conscious of the penalties forexposure he cast a sheepish and apologetic look in the directionof the sound.

Next door a man was mowing the lawn. This was curious in itself.The man didn't have a mower. He was walking back and forth withhis arms outstretched while from his lips there issued the veryrealistic impression of the high-pitched whine of the aforesaidimplement. The man was also naked.

Glancing up from his mowing the man looked across at Harold andsaid, "Hello, new are you?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Just got here, haven't you? I can always tell. You've justdone the door thing, and you're trying to work it out. Don'tworry; it throws everybody the first time. You'll soon get usedto it. Why we have to walk through doors I don't know. I supposeit's expected of us."

"I'm sorry, I don't understand."

The man reached down and turned off his imaginary mower.Completely oblivious of his state of undress he strolled over andcasually leaned on the fence. Harold, not wanting to appearunsociable, took a few steps towards him then abruptly paused ashe recalled his own revealing condition.

"Oh, you don't have to be embarrassed; nobody can see you.Nobody living, anyway. Well, that is - a few can, but you needn'tworry about that just now."

Feeling even more confused but yet desperate for an explanation,Harold cast a furtive glance around and, seeing no one about,bashfully went to the fence. The lawnmower man held out his handover the wooden barrier and said, "Good to meet you. I'mPhil."

Harold automatically took the proffered hand and tried to shakeit. It was like grasping fresh air.

"Weird, isn't it?" said Phil. "You have to sort ofimagine you can feel things, even though you can't." Hewatched with kindly amusement as Harold's quickly retracted handpassed through a fence post. "Same with the fence. If youjust bear in mind where things are in relation to your body youcan treat them almost the same as you used to." Phil resumedhis relaxed posture, his arms again resting on the top rail;though Harold couldn't help noticing they were slightly embeddedin the wood.

"This is really all too much," said Harold, lookingnervously at the fence. "Can you please tell me what onearth is going on?"

"Oh, that's easy. Now, what's the simplest way of tellingyou?" Phil looked at Harold's bemused expression, thought amoment, shrugged, and said, "You've popped your clogs, mate.You're dead."

"What!"

"I'm sorry. I always find it's best to be blunt; there's nonice way of putting it. The thing is, you've snuffed it, passedover. You're now on the other side, the afterlife, the vale oftears and all that stuff."

"Oh come on, there's some kind of mistake."

"It's true. Think back a bit. What's just happened to you?"

"Well... I was just leaving the house to do some shoppingwhen I felt this pain in my chest. The next thing I know I'mwalking through doors in the nude."

"Sounds like a heart attack to me," said Phil expertly."Tell you what, if you don't believe me there's one sure wayof finding out. Go back into the house and see for yourself."

"You mean..?"

"Yes, go and have a look."

Forebodingly, Harold turned and reluctantly walked back to thehouse, much less concerned about his state of undress now. At hisfront door he paused. The green-painted wood looked just asimpenetrable as ever. He took a deep breath and took a stepforward. His right leg and his head passed through the door; therest of him remained outside. He gasped and stepped back. "Goon, you can do it. Go for it," said Phil's voice from thenext garden. It was all right for him to talk, thought Harold.The first time he had done this he hadn't been thinking about it;now he was fully aware that it is generally required for one toopen a door before going through it.

This time he took a larger step and was relieved to find that,except for one leg, he was entirely at the other side of the door.Hastily reuniting his remaining limb with the rest of himself, hestood tremulously in his hallway. A few feet in front of him,stretched out on the floor, fully clothed and wearing an agonisedexpression was his body. Harold wasn't well versed in medicalmatters, but he didn't need a doctor to tell him he was lookingat a corpse. What he did need was someone to explain to him howit was he was standing there looking at it.

Stepping nervously forward, he knelt over himself. Feelinguncomfortably like he was trespassing upon something that didn'tbelong to him anymore, he reached out tentatively to touch thatwhich a short while ago he had been moving about in. His handsank into the chest of the thing on the floor. With a strangledsqueak he pulled back his hand and jumped to his feet. Without asecond thought about the correct way to exit a door he raced backout of the house.

Still leaning on, or in, the fence - Harold wasn't sure anymore -and with an I-told-you-so expression on his face stood Phil."Well?" he asked.

"I'm dead!"

"Didn't I say? Bit of a downer, isn't it? I hope for yoursake someone finds your body soon. If you think it looks bad now,wait till it starts going off. Not a pleasant sight. Welcome toeternity."

"You mean this is it? This is life after death?"

"If you can call it that. What were you expecting, pearlygates and choirs of angels? Sorry to disappoint you, but this isyour lot."

"But I'm still here - that's my house and this is my garden.Do you mean to tell me that you don't go on to somewhere else -that you just stay here?"

"That's about the size of it. Course, things are differentnow. Your surroundings might not have changed, but you have.You're nowhere near the man you were. I mean, you're dead, aren'tyou? So obviously you no longer exist."
"But I do. I'm standing here talking to you; I can see andtouch myself. I must still be here."

At this point they were interrupted by a creaking sound. Analarmingly spotty youth had opened Harold's gate and was walkingup his path. Over his shoulder the spotty youth carried a bag; hewhistled tunelessly as he went towards the house. He wascompletely oblivious of the pair at the fence.

"Hey!" cried Harold. "Hey, over here. Can't yousee me?"

The spotty youth reached Harold's front door and fumbled in hisbag. From it he extracted an advertising flyer of some sort,which he folded and prepared to put through the letterbox. Haroldcould not conceive how he was unable to see or hear him. "Hey!"he shouted again, waving his arms and striding towards theunconscious youth. "Hey, here on the lawn. I'm here. Whydon't you see me?"

Still entirely unaware of anyone but himself, with a resentfulglare at Harold's viciously sprung letter flap the spotty youthturned to set off back down the path. Desperately Harold lungedforward in front of the youth, his arms outspread with theintention of blocking his passage. Harold would have been thefirst to admit that he wasn't the most prepossessing orsignificant kind of person; he was quite used to not beingnoticed. However, no one had ever walked straight through him asif he wasn't there before. This is exactly what the youth did,bag of flyers, spots, whistle and all.

It was the indignity of it that stung Harold. Being ignored isone thing; being walked through is quite another. Angrily heturned and rushed after the spotty youth who had now reached hisgate, still blithely whistling. With a fair approximation of arugby tackle he dived for the young man's legs.

"Where do you think you are, Twickenham?" Harold lookedup at Phil who had come to join him, presumably by walkingthrough the fence. "I'd get up if I were you, old chap, youlook rather silly lying there with your arms clutching fresh air."

Shamefacedly Harold got to his feet. "You're finding it hardadjusting to being dead, aren't you?" said Phil. "Thatlad wouldn't have seen you if you were wearing a sheet, carryingyour head under your arm, rattling chains and waving a bannerwith 'I am a ghost' written on it in foot-high letters," heindicated the retreating back of the whistling youth. "Muchtoo insensitive, that one."

"Ghost?" said Harold. "Are you saying I'm a ghost?"

"That's about the size of it."

"But it's broad-daylight."

"So? What do you think: that ghosts just do night shifts;that they go to sleep during the day? It's true that the livingassociates us with the night, but that's when they tend to see usmost. We're a little more solid then, and that's when they expectus to be around - you don't get many ghost stories set in daytime."Phil somehow contrived to prop himself up against Harold'sgatepost; something Harold was reluctant to try. "No, thisis the real afterworld. We're here twenty-four hours-a-day, dayin, day out," he continued in a dull voice. "You canforget about sleeping too; you won't be getting tired anymore -not physically, anyway. You won't be getting anything anymore,come to that. Death is very tedious, I'm afraid. But you'll getused to it - eventually."

"But what are we supposed to do all the time?"

"Do? Well, not a lot. Just haunt the place where we died."

"Haunt? How do you go about haunting?"

"You just sort of hang around basically. There's nothing toit. If you're lucky you might get a live one that can see you,then you can have a bit of fun frightening the living daylightsout of them. But not many people believe in ghosts these days, sothey just don't see you anymore." A reflective smile came toPhil's face as he recalled: "Now a couple of years ago I hadsome real entertainment. There was this postman who used todeliver in this street. Now he was really sensitive - he couldsee me even with the sun blazing down. I did wonders for hisdigestive system for a while; though I don't think he appreciatedit." Phil's face saddened, "I think he must have had anervous breakdown, though; he stopped coming after a couple ofweeks. Since then nobody's had a glimmer of me apart from the odddog. They can see you quite well. You never know, you might befortunate, someone responsive might move into your house. Thenyou can pass the time quite happily. Otherwise, it's boredomcity, mate."

"You mean to tell me that's all there is?"

"That's about it. You can go for a bit of a walkabout if youlike, but you're a bit limited."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you can only go a few hundred yards away from whereyou popped your clogs; any further and you tend to fade away. Youdon't want to experience that too often. It's not verycomfortable. Plus, you have to be around to re-enact your death."

Harold was just about to ask what this meant when Phil turned tothe street and said, "Hello there, Maggie, how's it going?"Walking along the pavement was a woman. She was well past thefirst blush of youth; however, age had been tolerant to her. Thiswas obvious by her nakedness.

"Hello, Phil. Can't stop, I'm late. See you around."The woman carried on walking by.

"There goes Maggie, off down to the corner. She will havebeen for a walk. A hit-and-run driver knocked her down when shewas crossing the road there. Made a bit of a mess, by allaccounts. Luckily, your ghost stays intact or you'd get to seesome real sights."

Phil noticed the way Harold was looking after Maggie, "Nicebody, hasn't she? You can forget about it, though. You can't doanything in that department. The pleasures of the flesh are a bitawkward when you don't have flesh anymore."

"But she doesn't have any clothes on!" Harold had moreor less forgotten his own and Phil's undressed condition amid allthe other questions in his mind.

"No, none of us do. What did you expect, that clothes haveghosts? No, you left those behind with your body. Naked you cameinto this life and all that. You soon get used to being in yourbuff, and you won't be feeling the cold - or anything else."

Now that the matter had been raised Harold wasn't certain he washappy about a life - or rather, a death - without clothing. Hehad always been a demure type and preferred to keep that kind ofthing to the privacy of his bathroom. Life - death - as a ghostwas beginning to seem an altogether unpleasant state. However,for the moment he had other concerns: "You started to tellme something about re-enacting my death. What does that entail?"

"Oh that. Well, every day at the exact time you shuffled offyou have to repeat your death in the way it happened."

"Every day? Why?"

"Don't ask me, mate. That's just the way it is. That's death."

"And how do you go about that?"

"Well, take me for instance. I copped my lot when I wasmowing the lawn. I ran over the cable and fried myself. Stupid ofme, I always was clumsy. I used to keep this lawn like a bowlinggreen - the people who live here now don't seem to bother muchwith it. Just look at the state of it."

"Is that why you were pretending to push a mower?"

"Yes, that's it. I like to add a bit of realism to things.Obviously the mower didn't come over with me, so I like toimprovise. It keeps me amused. It took me ages to perfect thesound - I do a good impression, don't I? Course, you don't needto be so elaborate; you only need go through the motions. It'sjust that you get desperate for ways of entertaining yourself.You'll meet Vernon from across the street before long; he likesto come for a chat. Now he topped himself by jumping off theviaduct. He'll be down there now with the other DIYers..."

"DIYers?"

"Suicides. They meet up to greet the new jumpers as theyarrive so they can tell them how they haven't really got awayfrom it all - that their problems have only just begun. It givesthem no end of amusement. Maggie's interest is collecting carregistration numbers; only she does it lying in the road whilethe cars pass over her. We all find our own ways of getting by."

"But this is hell!"

"Yes, now you come to mention it, I suppose it is."

Harold looked aghast. "Let me get this straight. I am nowdead and have become a ghost. As such I am incapable of strayingfar from the scene of my demise, as I have to haunt it. Now youtell me that every day I have to set off to go shopping and inthe process collapse in an untidy heap in the hall. Christ, Ionly wanted a pound of stewing steak and a newspaper!"

"Yes, it's unfortunate you didn't have a more colourfuldeath; you'll have a job on spicing that up. There's one thingthough: you don't need to worry about the stewing steak..."

"Don't tell me; I can guess - I won't be eating anymore."

"You're learning."

In life Harold had never been a forceful or determinedpersonality. Easygoing and placid would be the kindest way ofdescribing his manner. He had drifted through living withoutmaking waves and meekly accepted what came his way. Neither couldit be said that his existence had been exciting or adventurous.However, what little he had seen of death appeared to be oneunrelenting and unceasing round of boredom and tedium. Comparedto it his life had been a veritable cornucopia of fascination.Harold did something totally out of character. He made a bold andpurposeful decision.

He pulled himself up to his full, naked five-foot-six and said,"Right! That's it! I'm not having it."

"What do you mean?"

"If this is death, you can keep it." He turned fromPhil and began to walk up his path.

"What are you going to do..? Here, hang on - you can't!"

"Oh can't I? We'll just see about that."

Harold reached his front door, turned to Phil, and said, "Seeyou later. Much later."

With that he stepped through the door. His body was still on thefloor, looking much the same as it had previously. Harold walkedup to it and stood over it. In the full determination of hisnewfound resoluteness he steeled himself for what he was about todo. He then positioned himself over the recumbent corpse andslowly and carefully lay down. Ensuring that his ghost body wasperfectly aligned with his corporal body he absorbed himself intoit.

Nothing happened. Harold panicked for a moment then, musteringhis newly acquired will, he took a deep breath. His chest roseand air rushed into his lungs. Not quite accepting he hadaccomplished his objective so easily he lay looking at himself.His chest rose and fell just as it has always done. He raised ahand and pinched his nose. It hurt. He decided to go a stepfurther.

He stood up. He looked down. His body was no longer on the floor.Harold gave a whoop and danced a little jig. He was alive. Apartfrom a dull ache in his chest and a slight coldness he felt muchas he had before his encounter with the hereafter. He thumpedhimself: he was perfectly solid. What's more he was fully,gloriously clothed.

There was one final test. He walked to the door and reached out anervous hand. His fingers encountered reassuringly solid wood andwent no further. Humming to himself he grasped the knob andturned it. How delightful it was to pass through a door in theconventional manner.

Outside his house he gave a frightened start. From next doorthere issued the sound of an electric lawnmower. Harold turneddesperately to the source of the sound. He sighed a massive sigh.His present neighbour was mowing his lawn for the first time inweeks.

"Good morning," he said to the man with the mower,"Isn't it a lovely day?" Harold set off down his pathwith a jaunty stride and a grin that stretched the full width ofhis face.