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The Haunting of Annie Nicol Copyright Š 2012 by AJ Kirby All rights reserved. No part of this story (eBook) may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or book reviews. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidences are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Published by TWB Press Edited by Terry Wright Cover Art by Terry Wright ISBN 978-1-936991-39-6
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By AJ Kirby
I It never hurt to have a dream. Something to aim for. Something to hope for...even when life dished out its darkest hours. John Paul Nicol had a dream. He held it close to his chest like a poker hand. And he came here to revisit that dream, parked in his Ford Mondeo at the top end of the Newton-Mills Estate road, halfway up the steep incline past the old servants’ quarters where the blacktop became potholed and rutted. Many times he’d promised himself he wouldn’t return, wouldn’t subject himself to the torture of being so close to a dream that could never come true. And he’d promised his wife, Michelle, he would come home directly from work, yet here he was, dreaming again. The car radio hummed, low and muffled. Windscreen wipers slashed back and forth beating away a late afternoon drizzle. His Sat Nav kept squawking in its monotone voice: “Turn around where
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possible.” John Paul leaned his head against the side window and watched droplets of rainwater race down the edge of the windscreen glass. He made a betting game, a challenge of sorts, a predictor of things to come. When two drops snail-trailed at the same time, he quick-picked which one would reach the bottom first. The stakes: if the right drop won, there’d be no disaster waiting for him at home. Left drop: he was in for another bad night. The right-hand drop fell so fast he raised the stakes and bet Michelle would be in the mood for love and not another argument. Another fight. Another night of misery. But as soon as he’d upped the ante, the right drop started to move back up the window, against all natural law, a gust of wind perhaps, and the left drop performed a triumphant skid down to the finish line. Shit! Michelle was going to be blottoed and in a funk, for sure. Two weeks ago, she’d changed, become a stranger. He turned up the volume on the radio to drown out the slam of his heartbeat, the dissenting voices in his head, those which told him he shouldn’t bet on stupid things. Immediately he heard another voice, this one from the radio, a voice he recognised, his boss reciting his latest commercial on the sports network: “Our Rowley and Son copy machines produce the finest duplicates with no degeneration in quality. Our copies will satisfy even the eaglest
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of eagle eyes. Come see for yourself at our showroom on—” John Paul jammed his thumb on the OFF button and shuddered. Nobody needed those big cumbersome machines anymore. Desktop copiers were all the rage. And John Paul’s declining commission checks were proof of his own personal recession. A big score is what they needed: he, Michelle, and their three-yearold daughter, Annie. They had to get out of their nondescript lives in the renovated old servant’s house his father let him live in rent-free, like he was the family’s charity case. John Paul Nicol, black sheep of the Nicol empire, a washed up copier salesman, always indebted to his real-estate-developer dad and hot-shot-lawyer-brother, Christopher. But that would soon change. He pulled the betting slip from his pocket, felt the firm crinkle of the paper, his ticket to financial freedom. The Doncaster Floodlight Stakes horse race and his dream... He looked out the side window. His gaze traversed the road shoulder overgrown with weeds and strewn with litter: rotting newspapers, plastic takeaway trays, balled betting slips which he’d tossed out that very window, and up to an imposing, though rusty, palisade fence. Every few feet along the fence hung cable-tied signs with large print that shined in the rain. PRIVATE PROPERTY! KEEP OUT! ALL TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED! Gaps between the metal fence stakes revealed the object of the warnings.
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A house. A castle. John Paul’s dream home. He didn’t feel like a trespasser up here. Just a dreamer. The house was once the estate’s manor home designed Victorian style as if to intimidate the poor inhabitants of the servants’ quarters below and the townspeople beyond. A real eyesore now. The gray stone walls stood oily black from the fire and crumbled in places; the roof was tumbledown. Through a quarter century of disuse and acts of God, not to mention the original pyromania, the manor house looked as though it had been a battleground in the 1455 War of the Roses. The house, which overlooked the boxy servant residences below, now called Newton-Mills Manor Estate, was built by the Newton Family and later sold to the Mills family. It wasn’t in any guidebook to historical monuments. Nor was it being looked after by English Heritage. It had been left to moulder and decay. To be reclaimed by nature. A large tree had punched a limb through the gaping maw where the front door had once welcomed the wealthy and elite. Now crows roosted in the parapets. Cobwebs upon cobwebs ticker-taped down the guttering. After the fire, the Mills family couldn’t afford to rebuild, so they sold the property to a real estate developer, none other than John Paul’s
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father, Nicol Sr. He’d renovated the boxy servants’ houses, built some new tri-level homes and a shopping mall, but the manor house he’d left to rot. He’d said it was haunted or cursed, nonsense was all, to keep it off the market, even to his own son. John Paul had performed some calculations on how much it would cost him to save his dream house from total ruin, assuming one day he could actually afford to buy it. Shelling out for the missing roof tiles alone meant, in real terms, that he’d have to sell a photocopier for each one. He’d have to close a deal on an entire fleet of copy machines for a new national account to patch the crumbling wall. For the rest, he’d have to rely on his own sweat and blood...and a little luck. He glanced at the clock on the dash. He’d been lost in his reverie well past the start of The Doncaster Stakes. His finger hovered over the radio ON button. He felt an overwhelming sense of impending victory. He’d picked Castellan in the six o’ clock, purely on account of the horse’s name. A castellan was the governor of a castle. He would be governor of this castle, the manor house. Yes, Castellan’s run, in this race, on this day, had been a stroke of fate. A stroke of luck. A stroke of divine brilliance. “Thank you, God.” He breathed and depressed the ON button. “A good start from Castellan on the left, followed by Angel Wings and stable-mate Magpie’s Eye. Coming up just behind them is the gray mare Mary Mary, and chasing fast is Quick Fix…” John Paul gritted his teeth. “Come on, Castellan.”
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“And Castellan is looking good. Barely breaking a sweat.” In the background, the crowd cheered the horses on. “Castellan makes the first fence in pole position.” “Come on, my beauty,” John Paul said and clenched his betting slip. “Ride hard.” “At the long bend, midway in the race, we have Castellan neckand-neck with Angel Wings, jumping fences. Closing fast is Quick Fix, followed by Mary Mary and Mr. Happy. Magpie’s Eye is fading fast.” John Paul drummed his fingers on his knees, mimicking horses pounding around the track, his heart a thunder of hooves. “Castellan is streaking clear of Angel Wings over the fifth fence. Yes, it’s Castellan in the lead.” John Paul clenched the betting slip in his fist. “Now there’s a lot of grass between the leader Castellan and the chasing pack, but still, they chase. This race is gonna be a sweep, and the smart money’s now riding on the leader, Castellan...” Another roar from the crowd. Excitement clapped through John Paul’s stomach. The smart money was his! The winning slip was in his hand, and Castellan was in the lead. He could have told them so: the doubters. At a fifty-to-one long-shot, he’d have the money— “What’s this? A stumble from Castellan. Yes, a stumble! And Castellan has fallen at the last. Angel Wings streaks home. It’s Angel Wings! Angel Wings wins the Doncaster Stakes...”
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The bottom fell out of John Paul’s stomach. Of all the rotten luck. If it weren’t for bad luck, he’d have no luck at all. He turned down the radio and killed the infernal cheering when there was nothing to cheer about. The betting slip became slick with sweat in his palm. From hope eternal to litter in an instant, in a stumble, in a fall... He crumpled the paper in his fist, the worthless... But then a sudden doubt struck him. Surely he’d heard it wrong. Surely there was some mistake. He turned up the radio. “Very sad when a horse has an accident like that. Castellan came so close to winning...” Numb, he turned off the radio, wound down the window, and tossed the wadded betting slip away with the other rubbish. “Next time—” He caught sight of himself in the rear-view mirror: bloodshot eyes, red vessels of lost hope, a twitch in his jaw, the muscle kicking in rage against another setback to his dream. Now he’d have to face his wife empty handed. He tried on a ‘Honey I’m home’ smile, but it looked all wrong. Ghoulish. A failure. A loser. And suddenly he could no longer look at himself. He gunned the engine and sped away. Dusk was settling. The house of his dreams began to seep into the darkness of his rear-view mirror. He needed to get away from there, from the gloaming, from the place where hopes and dreams decayed, got overtaken by weeds and KEEP OUT signs.
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Heading toward home, a crackerbox at the bottom of the hill, he felt like he was going the wrong direction, but where else did a loser like him belong? He turned onto his road. All the lights were ablaze in every window of his house. He pulled up in the drive and set the handbrake. His mobile buzzed in his pocket like an angry wasp. It would be Michelle in a rage, or his bookmaker wanting payment. John Paul didn’t know which conversation would be more depressing. Wearily, he pulled out the phone and flipped it open. The display revealed an unfamiliar number. “Hello.” “Johnny?” The voice was familiar, though, a salty voice that came with unwelcome memories. Christopher Nicol. Daddy’s boy, prodigy son, hot-shot lawyer and shit-head for a brother. “What do you want?” “It’s been a while, Johnny.” Christopher ran the legal side of the Nicol family business, and he wasn’t happy about the ‘free rent’ arrangement John Paul had with their father. Christopher had argued that his brother was well past overdue to stand on his own two feet. “Got a minute?” “I’m just home now and I want to go in.” “It’s Dad,” Christopher said. “He’s dead.” John Paul opened and closed his mouth, unable to speak. He squeezed the phone, tried to find the right words to relay his shock, but at that moment, he couldn’t express himself, not with his heart in his
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throat. “In case you were wondering, he passed in his sleep.” Dad never had a sick day in his life. “I’m on my way over,” John Paul managed. He would wrench Michelle from her wine, roust Annie from her bed, make the two hour drive to— “No need to come, Johnny. He died two weeks ago.” “Two weeks ago?” A rage boiled inside John Paul’s chest. “Why didn’t you call me?” “His will was read today. You should know he left you something.” “Something?” John Paul swallowed. Money? Did the big score come at his dad’s expense? Cost him his life—? “Something that rightfully belongs to me.” John Paul wanted to reach through the phone and choke him. “You would always have everything, Christopher, if you could.” “Not the old manor house, though. He left it to you.” John Paul swallowed. His dream house? His? Finally? Anger melted into glee, then pride, then thankfulness, and then worry, a kaleidoscope of emotions tumbling around inside. So what if he owned the house; it still needed the repairs. How could he afford new roof tiles and fix the crumbled wall and smashed open front door? Unless: “Did he leave me any money?” “Just the house.”
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“How am I going to fix it up without any money?” “The solution is simple, no-mark. Just sign the deed over to me. In exchange, I’ll give you that crackerbox you’re living in. Fair and square. If not, you have thirty days to get out of my house.” “You can’t kick me out.” “Daddy’s not here to protect you anymore.” “But the manor house isn’t liveable. I can’t move my family in there.” “You can live on the streets for all I care.” “What would you do with the house?” “I can afford to fix it up, make it into a luxury boarding resort for the vacationing elite, sell timeshares, make a fortune.” “Money is all that’s important to you.” “What else?” “How about the lost grandeur of the house, its history?” “That’s for sissies and losers like you, JP, so what’ll it be, the crackerbox or the streets. You chose.” John Paul slumped in the car seat. The home of his dreams and homelessness, as fast as a horse could fall, or the crackerbox house and his brother winning again, it was a decision that sucked the breath from his lungs. The answer came in a toxic brew of spite and adrenaline. For once in his life, John Paul had something Christopher wanted, but this time he would not get his way. Anger returned in a firestorm of revenge. John
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Paul inhaled a determined breath. “No way, brother. I’ll pitch a tent in the stateroom before I let you have my house.” He snapped the phone shut, sure as the lid on his coffin when Michelle got wind of what he’d done.
To purchase this story go to: www.twbpress.com/thehauntingofannien.html where you’ll find all the links to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other fine online booksellers.
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About the Author
A J, Andy, Kirby is the award-winning published author of three novels and over forty short stories. He is a sportswriter for the Professional Footballer's Association and a reviewer for The New York Journal of Books and The Short Review. Andy's work has been described as “vivid and intense,” “deeply disturbing,” and “intriguing.” He writes about the darker side of the street: that place people hurry past without quite knowing why. He revels in creating unease in the reader. After entering his world, “you may want to run up and down stairs just to calm down,” as one reviewer put it. He lives in Leeds, UK with his girlfriend, Heidi, and his incredibly noisy, but lucky cat, Eric. A season ticket holder at Manchester United Football Club, he follows the Red Devils across Europe when he's flush. Otherwise he is an avid reader. He enjoys travel, film and theatre, and he would love to be better at chess. He'd also like to learn about palaeontology and dreams of a perfect world when he no longer has to work at a day-job. To find out more, visit Andy's website: www.andykirbythewriter.20m.com.
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