You stop calling the police after a while, d’yer know worrimean? What’s the point? Either they don’t come at all, or by the time they turn up, the bloody thing’s gone to ground.
They think we’re daft enough up here as it is, up at Longwood. Normal for Longwood – NFL. That’s what the doctors write on your clipboard at the hospital. It means they think you’re either mental, or thick.
So, yeah, you don’t call the police. You just learn to live with it. Well, you have to, don’t you, know worrimean? Life’s too short, intit?
In practice, that means, one, trying to get home before dark. If you can’t, get a cab to the door, and get in quick.
Two, keep your doors and windows shut and locked after dark – which is easier said than done with these summers we have nowadays, don’t get me started! And before you say it, yes, we’ve tried nets over the windows, which is how we lost two dogs and a toddler back in 2015. ‘Mystery disappearance’ my arse. We all knew what did it. We told them. But they don’t believe you, do they?
Oh, and three, you keep your curtains drawn, because it’ll look in, if it can, and that’s no good. Best case, it puts you right off your tea, with them bloody eyes. Literally, I mean. Bloody. The eyes. Worst case scenario, you end up sort of mesmerised. That’s what they say happened to old Graham Dodd. Saw it, he did, and stared at it, and then climbed out the window. From the second floor of Thorncombe House, mind, so, well, you don’t need me to describe it.
Right, four: don’t answer your door after dark, even if it’s someone you know. God knows how but it’s got a way of speaking to you. I heard it once and I’d have sworn blind our Darren was outside. Your first thought is, oh, shit, I’d better let him in before that bloody thing gets him. Then you think, hang on, Darren’s in Corfu this week. Then it stops knocking and starts scratching like it’s going to burrow right through the wood.
In the daytime it’s alright. You don’t see it, not a sign. Maybe the odd footprint. Maybe a big pile of shit. Maybe an upturned car. You ignore it, though. Well, you have to, don’t you? You just get on with your life.
They asked me once, the lads from the Railwayman’s Club, did I want to go on a hunt for it. I said, no thank you, bugger that for a game of soldiers. Well, they did it anyway, out with their air rifles and cricket bats until dawn. Nothing. Sod all. Except when Kev Parsonage got home, it had been all through his house and ripped the place to shreds.
Have I seen it? Many times. Oh yes. Many times. First time, I’d have been about fourteen, not long after we moved here from up country. Nobody warns you, because they know you won’t believe them. They just wait for you to catch on yourself. I was out kicking a ball around the green, wondering why all the other lads hadn’t come out again after tea. Then I looked straight down Longwood Avenue, and I couldn’t make any sense of it at all. There was too much of it, in one way, but not enough at the same time. Too many arms and legs, that’s what I thought, but I couldn’t quite count them. The way it moved… Now, hold on, how do I put this? It was as if it wasn’t taking steps so much as shifting between them. Like… Like… Like dirty water pouring from one container into another. Does that sound daft? And the eyes. They were like old bike lamps, which was fine, until the bastard blinked.
Last time I saw it was about a week ago. Forgot to put the bins out, decided to risk nipping down the path to the gate after dark. Got most of the way there when, boom, there it is, eating something from the gutter, down into the drain, with that… What would you call it, oh, my bloody memory, that, um, that sort of trunk it has.
I should have taken a picture, I suppose. Then you’d understand. Maybe you wouldn’t. I’ve seen other people’s photos and it just looks like… Well, it don’t look like nothing. There’s literally nothing to see. A load of old dead leaves in the gutter, a tarp caught on the brambles, streetlights in a puddle. Nothing. It’s as if it knows how to make sure you can’t see it.
Trust me, though, that’s what it was – that’s what’s done this to you. I probably scared it off before it had finished, driving through with my lights on full beam. I’d like to help you, I really would, but I should never have stopped. And, like I say, you stop calling the police after a while, because they don’t come. They don’t believe you.
I’d best be on my way, mate. Let it finish what it started.
It’s for the best all round.
If you enjoyed ‘The Newhamstead Goblin’ check out Intervals of Darkness, my most recent collection of weird stories, which is available as an eBook and paperback.
Precast Reinforced Concrete Heart 