I pushed the door open and wrapped my arms around myself at the cold blast of air that hit me.

“Mum! Mum, I think you left the air conditioning on!” She laughed a tinkling laugh and shook her head. “It’s freezing in here!”

“Oh shush! Just put a jumper on or something...” She said, still carrying boxes in through the door and depositing them in the hallway, leaving me standing there, holding the door open.

Put a jumper on? What? Did she not realise that it dropped about ten degrees as you walked in the door? It was October, for God’s sake; it should have been cold outside.

I sighed and carried on moving boxes, hoping that I’d warm up as long as I pulled heavy boxes up and down the hallways, putting them in rooms I guessed we would use.

The new house was old, if that made any sense at all, a Victorian mansion that we’d inherited... I laughed as I thought about it. Such a supernatural setting, I half expected things to start jumping out at me when I opened a door.

Pathetic. You can’t get a girlfriend, but you can imagine spirit-people. Get a flipping life, Liam.

I kicked a door in frustration, and half-expected my mother to appear up the stairs and box my ears for my insolence... or at least yell at me, because it made a huge noise, but there was no sound from downstairs. There was a creak on the stair, and then silence, and I turned to see if it was mum, coming to yell at me.

There was nothing, and I rolled my eyes for being so moronic. There would be nothing, because I was hearing things. I waited for a second, silence filling the room I was stood in, then, as I turned to leave the room, a very small, totally insignificant thing happened.

The photo of my dad, the one that I’d stuck on the shelf, lying flat because my hands had been full when I put it down, slipped. It fell to the floor with a thunk, and the glass in the front of it shattered.

                It fell.

                It fell.

                Right?

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Author guidance for This story

Essentially, this is an Entry for Tales of Terror, the halloween contest.

It's between two users - Lostmidtranslation (me) and 17abbi ... (sorry to close off collaboration, but we've been working on this together for ages)

Telling the Story From Liam's point of view... as a teenager who moves into a Victorian Mansion with his mother, and starts... seeing and hearing things.

Weird things

Firmly disbelieving all of this, it culminates in a Halloween alone, trying to convince himself that he's "just being silly"...

Of course... Silly never met unexplained...

Enjoy! Rate! Comment!

updated Oct 28 '09 by lostmidtranslation