A selection of ghost stories set in and around the county of East Yorkshire England.
If you think that ghost stories are all set in gothic castles then think again, many are from the here and now...
The short tale, A Long Awaited Landing was read out on BBC Radio Humberside as the Peoples Choice winner of the Making Waves Competition. "It sent a shiver down my spine" Lara King, BBC Radio presenter.
Don't read this at bedtime.
Excerpt:
Raymond Vincent was a quiet, reserved and private man. It was not surprising after the life he had led. He kept his emotional barriers constantly in place and not letting anyone see his innermost feelings or indeed share his private thoughts was paramount to him.
At the vulnerable age of seventeen he had lost his elderly father to liver failure. He had been a man who had lived life to the extreme, work hard, play hard was his motto. He had drunk heavily most of his life and then at sixty he had paid the ultimate price. A kind and loving father always, Raymond had missed his guiding hand in life.
This event had changed Raymond’s life indescribably and from the moment of his father’s death, his life was no longer his own. His time was divided between his work as a computer aided design engineer and the welfare of his ageing mother. Any spare time he had was dedicated to her and the running of the house.
All the usual trappings of youth never caught hold of him; as far as he was concerned they never existed. Ten years later following the death of his mother he made the biggest and hardest decision of his life and moved into a house closer to his place of work. Leaving his old home behind, he began a new life in his new abode.
Life for him did not change as much as he had expected. His working life was back into the normal routine, starting at seven thirty in the morning and leaving at five thirty in the evening. Home life was also in a familiar cycle. Monday and Tuesday were dedicated to washing and ironing while Wednesday night was housework night. He had normally finished his domestic chores by nine o’clock so the rest of the night was his own. The evening meal was normally a simple affair; pasta, a selection of vegetables all covered in some kind of cook-in sauce. Recently though he had paused at the freezer section of his local supermarket and made a remarkable discovery, microwave meals. Starting with a cheese and pasta dish, not wanting to be too adventurous, he took it home and put it in the microwave eagerly anticipating trying the meal that was now slowly turning in the cardboard tray.
Sitting with a tray on his knee he tried the piping hot meal. Why had he been cooking with pans for all these years when he could just press a couple of buttons? The next week in the supermarket he realised that a whole new world had been opened up to him. Piling his trolley high with curries, chillies and a whole Sunday dinner he made his way to the till.
Raymond’s nights consisted of a little television and a lot of reading. He was not a fan of soap operas or reality shows, so generally he turned off the set around seven thirty.
Ray sat in his living room reading; the clocks had gone back several weeks previously and the nights were drawing in fast; what’s more Christmas was looming. This would be the first without either of his parents and the thought of spending the festive season alone had not crossed his mind until now. As an attempt to try to enter into the spirit of the season he decided to read the Dickens novel ‘A Christmas Carol.’
He was soon engrossed in the tale of the miserly old man. As he read of scrooge and his meeting with the ghosts of his old partners, Ray had the uneasy feeling that he was being watched. The feeling was so intense that he dare not look up from his book until the feeling had passed.