The Mammoth Book of Modern Ghost Stories

He jumped up and dropped the remote control. The picture faded at once, and the last thing David saw was Martin’s face, wet with sweat.

They were in darkness.

No one moved.

David heard Martin gulping and breathing heavily. He felt sick with fear and shame.

The strange boy said, “It ain’t finished.”

“Shut up!” said Martin fiercely. “Get out!”

“I can’t till it’s finished. I always see the end.”

“What you want to watch it for?”

“I always watch it. That’s the only time I see her. I like seeing my mum.”

In the darkness his voice sounded more than ever distant, and cold, and strange. David’s skin was crawling. Everything was horrible. It had been horrible all day, but this was worse than anything. He thought of his own mum, and nearly sobbed out loud, but stifled it just in time.

“And the baby.” The strange boy spoke again. “It’s a nice baby, ain’t it? It looks nice. It must be nice being picked up like that, like what she does. I wish I could remember.”

“What d’you mean?” said Martin hoarsely.

The boy’s voice was even quieter now: hardly more than dead leaves falling.

“They killed her and then they set fire to the house. It all burnt up, the baby and all. That was me, that was, that baby. I burnt up all with my mum. But I didn’t stop growing up, getting older, like. It must be the video. Sort of kept me going. I seen it hundreds of times. The best bit is where she picks me up. I reckon she must have loved me a lot. That’s all I do, watch that video. There ain’t nothing else . . .”

He stopped.

Martin stumbled to the door and felt for the light-switch. The room sprang into being around them, all solid and bright, but there was no-one else there. Only a sharp, distant smell remained, and that dwindled after a moment and then vanished completely as if it had never existed. The boy was gone.

My Beautiful House

Louis de Berniéres

Location:  Abbots Notwithstanding, Surrey.

Time:  December, 2004.

Eyewitness Account:“The house is alive. It watches over me always, and it’s watching me now as I sit here, not feeling the cold, looking at it from the end of the garden . . .”

Author:  Louis de Bernières (1954–) has been named one of the most outstanding British novelists of his generation and the international success of his novel, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (1994), has transformed his life. Born in London, he joined the Army but dropped out of the 2nd Queen’s Dragoon Guards and led something of a hippie lifestyle in countless jobs – including mechanic, motorcycle messenger and gaucho in Argentina – before succeeding as a writer. Supplementing his income restoring old guitars and mandolins, he hit on the idea of writing about the German and Italian occupying forces on the Greek island of Cephalonia. The story of the troubled captain was the result and apart from generating huge sales, was made into a movie and turned the island into a tourist hot spot. With each of his subsequent works, de Bernieres has set himself a new challenge: most recently delving into the ghost story genre with “Mrs Mac” (1997) and “My Beautiful House” written for The Times in December 2004. It is a wonderfully evocative, beautifully crafted and chilling tale in the very best supernatural tradition and proves, if any such proof is necessary, that the ghost story is alive and well and certain to hold its interest for readers as successfully in the 21st century as it has done in the past one. No doubt developing, entertaining and surprising us all, too.

I love it at Christmas. I just sit here at the end of the garden on top of Ithe rockery, like a garden gnome. I don’t find the stones uncomfortable. I sit here and look at the house. It’s very beautiful, I always did think so. I grew up here, and I am still here now, although I spend much of my time out in the garden just looking.