Unwanted Visitors

Lottie drew back the curtain and peered outside. The streetlight cast an eerie halo around the street where no one lived. Everyone had moved out weeks ago, but Lottie had stood firm, refusing all offers of compensation. She enjoyed being a thorn in the side of the developers – greedy bastards.

But tonight something unfamiliar had woken her. Something different from the usual nocturnal sounds of the drunks and drug dealers who had started to inhabit the vacant street during the hours of darkness. Something... what was it?

She stood for a while, watching the furtive and not-so-furtive comings and goings, amazed at how soon a place could change once no one lived there. They weren’t just nocturnal human visitors either. Lottie had seen foxes and, bats, and even an owl swooping on an unfortunate rat. Lottie wasn’t bothered about any of these new night-time neighbours. She just studied them with an interested curiosity.

Something was different tonight though, and she needed to find out what it was. Lottie turned the bedside light on and slipped her feet into the slip-on sandals she always wore, and headed down the stairs to the front door. She turned the latch and opened it, feeling the cold, clammy autumn air on her skin. Closing the door carefully behind her, and pulling her cardigan close under folded arms, Lottie crept, almost invisible in the shadows, along to the corner. There, she stood and waited. If she was going to find out, it would be here. From this corner Lottie could see in five different directions, could see anyone approaching her street. Since the developers had fenced off the far end, the only access to Oak Street was from the Fiveways Roundabout.

Lottie recognised her brother’s walk and could hear him dragging the usual stick along the fence, before he came fully into view from her left. The quick intake of breath caught in her throat and Lottie had to battle against the cough threatening to explode from her. She willed herself to stand very still and accept what was coming. She knew from past experience that running got you nowhere.

‘Hello, sis.’ Tom, who’d never moved past his tenth birthday, greeted the sixty-five-year-old Lottie as if he’d just got in from school. He threw the stick into the road.

Lottie swallowed and forced herself to answer. ‘Hello, Tom.’

‘Is that all you’ve got to say to your long-lost little brother? No hugs? Not even a kiss?’ Tom stepped forward, turning his head as if inviting a kiss.

‘Come on, Tom. What are you doing here?’

‘You look really old, Lottie, and you’ve shrunk. Look, we’re almost the same height now.’ Tom laughed the same old giggle. Mirth laced with malevolence.

‘Of course I’m old. I’m fifty-five years older than you! What do you want, Tom? Why now?’

‘I had to come back home to see Oak street and our old house one more time before it’s all knocked down. It will be, you know that, don’t you? Even though you’ve fought them, you won’t be able to stop it.’ There was a pause as Tom adjusted the belt on his gaberdine raincoat, and pulled his school cap forward as if to shield his eyes. ‘Well come on, then, what are we waiting for? I can’t wait to get home.’ Lottie felt his hand on her arm, guiding her firmly and inevitably back along the street.

Once they were in the kitchen, Tom sat in his usual place at the table. ‘I knew you wouldn’t have changed anything – you wouldn’t have dared, would you? I’m starving. How about some beans on toast? That’s what you usually make me when I get home from school.’

‘You can’t eat anything, Tom. You’re a ghost.’

‘I know, but I still want to watch you making it. In our kitchen – just one more time.’

Lottie obeyed and put some bread in the toaster. Anything to have something to do. Anything to avoid going upstairs with Tom.

The smell of toast and the heated baked beans on the plate in front of Tom hung, cloying, in the air. ‘I really enjoyed that. Thanks, sis.’ Tom leant back in the chair smacking his lips. Lottie shuddered at their greyish-blue pallor. ‘I know. Death doesn’t look good, does it, Lottie?’

He pushed the chair back, scraping it noisily along the floor as he stood. ‘Right-ho. Let’s have a look upstairs. Shall we start with your room? I’m guessing you’re in Mum and Dad’s old room, now. You always did like to have a window facing the front.’

Lottie, now feeling strangely calm, almost glad that the moment had some, stood and strode rapidly into the hall. ‘Come on, then, slow coach!’ She turned and spoke over her shoulder.

They mounted the stairs and Lottie was aware of Tom behind her, strangely silent. There were none of the familiar creaks. She felt goosebumps across her arms. ‘This is my room.’ Everything was as she’d left it – the bedside light on and the covers flung back.

‘I wonder what Mum and Dad think of you sleeping in their old bed? Don’t you think it’s a bit creepy, sis?’

Lottie didn’t answer, returning to the landing and closing the door firmly behind her as if Tom hadn’t been there. Nevertheless he reappeared at her side.

‘No need to be like that!’ Still just as moody as ever.

Lottie sighed. ‘Right, let’s get this over with shall we?’ She led the way to Tom’s room and opened the door.

‘Where are all my things?’

‘Tom, you’ve been dead for fifty-five years!’

‘You shouldn’t have got rid of my things.’ There was a note of menace in his voice now and Lottie felt a tingle of unease creep across her scalp.

Meetings with Tom had never gone well on the few occasions he had visited since his death. They had lived on in Lottie’s nightmares for months and years afterwards. But he had never wanted to come into the house before; he’d always found her on the street or in the park on one of her insomnia-fuelled walks. This time, things were different and Lottie had no idea how she would recover from Tom’s presence in the house.

‘You shouldn’t have got rid of my things!’ Lottie closed her eyes but could feel his deathly cold presence on her face as he came close to her.

‘You took my life and now you’ve taken my things.’

‘What good were they to you when you weren’t even here any more?’ As the words left her mouth, Lottie knew she’d said the wrong thing and sat on the stripped bed as her legs trembled and gave way.

‘You bitch! What did I ever do to deserve a sister like you?’ The words came in an icy hiss and Lottie felt her blood run cold.

‘What other boy had a sister who smothered him with a pillow? In... his... own... bed.’ Tom poked her arm with his index finger at each word, and she flinched each time even though she could feel nothing through her cardigan.

At this humiliation, anger returned to Lottie. The anger from all those years ago. ‘I hated you then, and I hate you now! You monster! You made my life a misery with your sly stories to Mum and Dad and my friends, and your little ‘pranks’. I had to check my bed and cupboards and drawers every night for creepy-crawlies or god-knows-what before I could sleep.’

‘What a laugh! You never could take a joke, sis. But maybe now it’s time to even the score.’

She stared at the door, knowing there was no escape.

‘You shouldn’t have done that to your brother, Charlotte.’ She heard her father’s voice. ‘Look at me when I’m talking to you!’ Lottie turned back to look at Tom.

‘You are a bad girl to do something like that to Tom, so you’ll have to be punished.’ This time her mother’s admonishing voice erupted from Tom’s mouth, his expression mirroring her mother’s familiar expression of displeasure.

Lottie, powerless against the force of her family curled herself into a ball on the bed as if she, like them, could disappear. But of course, she couldn’t. She didn’t have that power yet.

‘It’s okay, Miss Crawford. We’re here now. Don’t worry about a thing.’ Lottie opened her eyes to meet those of the green-clad paramedic who was holding her hand.

‘Where...? What...?’ She seemed to have lost the power of speech.

‘You’ve had a bit of a turn, so we’re just going to pop you to hospital to get you checked out.’

Lottie closed her eyes, trying to focus her thoughts. ‘How...?’

‘How did we know to come? Your brother rang to say he was worried that you didn’t sound yourself when he was on the phone. He thought you might have lost consciousness when you stopped speaking.’

‘My brother...?’

‘Your brother, Tom.’

By Sheena Billett

From: United Kingdom

Website: https://sheenabillettauthor.com

Twitter: sb_proofreading