The Ghost of Gallows Inn (Chapter 1)

Chapter 1 (Ghosts)

The room was dark, but warm and with the faint smell of stale beer lingering in the air. One light illuminated the room. The dim bulb was fixed under a tatty, blue lampshade that hung just above the bar. It was just enough light for Dudley Fenner to see what he was doing as he scribbled in the old, tatty, leather-bound notepad in front him, occasionally stopping to scratch his cheek and grumble incoherently to himself.

He had locked up over an hour ago, but he himself was certainly not ready to head to bed yet. He had to try and work out his finances somehow. He had been struggling to make ends meet and the pub had taken a hit when the smoking ban had been brought in a few months earlier.

He himself was no longer a smoker; he had promised his late wife on her death bed ten years ago that he would never touch another cigarette again, but he had understood that it was good for trade. People liked to come to the pub and smoke. The masses may not have liked it, but pubs and cigarettes went hand in hand. It would be like fish without chips or salt without vinegar. It just wasn't right.

He realised his thoughts were drifting again and turned his eyes back down to the notepad. He frowned. Something was odd with the page. Slowly but surely the light illuminating the pages was shifting in a very gentle and very slight circular motion.

He frowned and looked up at the bulb above him. It was swinging in a circular fashion ever so slightly. He let out a huge sigh, his eyes glaring at the bulb as an owner would have glared at a disobedient dog.

"Not tonight," he said through gritted teeth. His face softened a little more. "Please..." He sounded more hopeful this time. Sure enough the lampshade stopped swinging and he let out a sigh of relief. He couldn't put up with another night of it. He barely slept most nights and tonight he was extremely tired.

"Do you often talk to light bulbs?" came a voice that almost made Dudley jump back and crash into the bottles lined up on the shelves.

He hadn't noticed the odd couple coming in through the still-unlocked door to the pub.

The man who spoke wore a brown jacket with a patterned scarf thrown around the collar. On his head was a straw hat and he wore the most garish jumper he had ever seen. Was that question marks knitted into it? he thought to himself. In his hand was a black umbrella with a red-handle that also looked like a question mark and he was wearing a pair of baggy, chequered trousers. He was smiling but his face didn't look like he was pleased. He could barely make out the mans eyes, they were so deep-set in under his dark eyebrows and he seemed to wear a permanent frown.

The woman also didn't look quite right. Her brown hair hung down and she wore a red top and black leggings. She looked to be about nineteen - maybe twenty - and she looked pretty if a little awkward, especially as she let an oversized bomber jacket adorned with badges ruin what was likely an attractive figure. She also clutched hold of a rucksack that was thrown over her shoulder. She had a very sweet, round face with big, dark eyes, but there seemed to be a fierceness buried in there somewhere.

"It's rude to stare," said the woman. It was a London accent.

"I beg your pardon?" said Dudley, still unsure of where these two had come from and at this late hour.

"The Professor asked you a question," said the woman.

"Professor?" said Dudley, looking at the man.

The man looked a little embarrassed and blinked slowly. "Doctor, actually." He extended his hand, but Dudley didn't take hold of it. "Mr Fenner, I presume?"

"How do you know my name? I haven't seen you here before," said Dudley.

"Your names above the door," said the man who had introduced himself as the Doctor, pointing his umbrella back towards the exit.

"You still haven't answered his question," said the woman, leaning on the bar and smiling at him.

"What? What question?" said Dudley, closing the notepad up.

"Do you often talk to light bulbs?" repeated the woman.

"No," said Dudley. "No of course not! I’m not talking to a light bulb," he said. "We are closed, you know?" said Dudley.

"I know," said the Doctor.

"So I can't serve you."

"I know that as well," said the Doctor. "We're not here to have a drink."

Dudley frowned. This was becoming stranger and stranger. These two didn't look like they could do any harm - she was probably his niece or something - but what else could they possibly be here for?

Unless...

"You've been having a few problems, haven't you, Mr Fenner?" said the man again. There was a hint of a Scottish accent in his voice.

"How do you know?" said Dudley, shifting backwards ever so slightly.

He tapped his nose and smiled. "I have my ways."

"So you're gonna need our help," said the woman.

"Yes," said the Doctor, pulling out a barstool and sitting down. "We're going to help you with your ghost."




Later the Doctor and Ace were sat beside a window, the curtains closed with a drink in their hands. Dudley had hastily gotten a drink and told them to sit in the corner whilst he finished his calculations in the notepad.

Ace looked around at the dimly lit surroundings. It was a typical, old fashioned pub. It looked to have been built sometime in the 17th century and had a dark wooden floor, white-washed walls and dark beams across the ceiling. The pub was effectively a square horse-shoe shape with a bar in the middle and the entrance facing directly opposite. To the left side was the main bar area with a jukebox and pool table and to the right was what had been, in the past, the lounge. Back in the day it would have had a doorway leading into it to make it a little more private. The remnants of the old wooden partition was still there, but it had long-since been taken down.

The decor was in keeping with its old style. Battered, wooden tables were dotted around. Ace glanced down at the table they were sat out. The words ‘Holly + Lilly’ and ’Briggsy 23/12/03 were crudely etched into it. A fireplace was at the end of the bar area and lined along the walls were various secluded booths with worn-down red leather material covering the seats.

The Doctor and Ace were sat in the left hand corner of the horse shoe.

"He can't be that spooked, Professor," said Ace, taking a sip of her lemonade. She had asked for a dash of vodka but the Doctor, annoyingly, had advised her not to. He had advised her, but it felt more like him telling her no, and she felt she couldn't argue against him. He had that kind of power of her. Sometimes she still felt like the student.

"How do you mean?" asked the Doctor, his chin resting on the back of his hands as he propped himself up on his elbows.

"Well look at him. He's carrying on as if he isn't even being haunted."

"I saw it in his eyes, though," said the Doctor, his own eyes narrowing. "As soon as we mentioned the word 'ghost', his pupils dilated. He was trembling."

"Seemed steady enough to me when he poured our drinks."

"I didn't say his body was trembling."

Ace sat back and sighed. "This place is a bit of a dump."

"You think so?" said the Doctor. "It's been standing here for nigh on 450 years."

"It looks like it hasn’t been decorated for 450 years as well! I don't see any ghosties though."

"Hmm, give them time and I'm sure they'll show up."

"So you think there's more than one?" said Ace, leaning in closer, her interest piqued.

"More than one what?"

"Ghost."

"I don't think Mr Fenner is being haunted by a ghost."

"But you said-"

"I told him that we would help him with his ghost because that's what Mr Fenner understands it as. I don't believe in them. Not the ghosts of fiction and ghost stories, that is."

"Then what is it?"

"I have no idea," said the Doctor, taking a sip of water, "but there's always a rational explanation for everything."

"Oh, come on," said Ace with a knowing smirk, "when do you ever turn up somewhere without already knowing the answer?"

Before the Doctor could answer, Ace jumped at the sound of Dudley slamming his notepad closed and throwing it under the bar. He popped his pen in his shirt pocket and then looked over at the Doctor and Ace.

"Would you care to join us, Mr Fenner?"

"It's my pub," said Dudley, "and I'll do as I please."

"Alright, mate," said Ace with a frown, "the Professor was just being friendly."

Dudley mumbled something under his breath, grabbed a chair and pulled it up to sit at the end of the table between the Doctor and Ace. He looked at both of them in turn. "Well?"

"How long have you had this...haunting, Mr Fenner?"

"How long have you known about it?" said Dudley. "And please, just call me Dudley."

"Well, Dudley, how long we have known about it could be a very complicated question and answer.”

"What the Professor wants to know is how it all started for you."

Dudley looked down at the table, closed his eyes and shook his head. "It started about five years ago. It was one winters evening and I was unloading the empty barrels when I spotted one of them rolling. A barrel that is."

"The wind perhaps?" suggested the Doctor.

"On an uneven, cobbled surface? I doubt it, mate. And when I saw it rolling I mean I saw it rolling. From one end of the yard to the other and back again. Even when I tried to stop it the bloody thing carried on moving."

"Show me," said the Doctor.

"What?" said Dudley, confused.

"You have CCTV camera's outside in the yard - and, yes, before you say anything, I've already had a look out there earlier today - so I'm assuming your cameras picked it up."

"It was five years ago. I don't keep pointless footage for that long."

"Don't be daft, Dudley," said the Doctor.

"I beg your pardon?" said Dudley.

"Stands to reason doesn‘t it?" said Ace, "If your cameras had recorded evidence of spooky goings on you wouldn't just chuck the footage out."

Dudley looked at Ace and then sighed. "Okay. So I kept the footage."

"So can we see it?" asked Ace, her eyes twinkling.




Dudley led the Doctor and Ace behind the bar and through the back, past the small kitchen, the stairs that led upstairs and to a tiny room, no bigger than a broom cupboard, where a small tape unit sat next to a keyboard and a monitor which showed night-vision images of the front of the pub, side of the pub and the delivery yard.

"Normally," said Dudley, sitting down in a chair at the desk, "I keep the footage for a week and then re-use the tapes, taping over what was on them before."

"You know technologies advanced further that tapes, yeah?" said Ace. "You can record all these digitally."

"I work with what I know," said Dudley. "We're not all kids of the new millennium."

"Neither am I," said Ace. "I'm a child of the 80's!"

Dudley frowned. She didn't look that old.

"The tape, Mr Fenner," said the Doctor impatiently.

"Yes," said Dudley opening a draw in the side of the desk and pulling out one single VHS tape, covered in dust. He blew the dust off the top, causing Ace to splutter and step back, and then slotted it into the tape deck.

After a few mechanical whirrs, the tape burst into life. Dudley changed the input on the monitor from live feed to playback and the screen flickered to a shot of the green-coloured yard.

On the screen Dudley could be seen rolling the barrels into the corner. He disappeared off screen and then all was still. Then, inexplicably, one of the barrels that was sat on it's side began to roll across the yard towards underneath the camera. It then stopped and rolled back. Dudley then appeared in the yard and watched as the barrel rolled back towards him again and then back to the corner. He put a hand on it to stop it, but it slipped from under his hand and continued to roll. Eventually Dudley grabbed the barrel, stood it upright and placed it in the corner. He slowly backed away from it and jumped when a large clang - as if someone had thumped the barrel - sounded out on the video.

"And nothing else happened that night?" said the Doctor, his eyes still transfixed on the screen.

"Not that night, no."

"How long does a tape like this last?"

"It's an E-180 on Long Play, so around six hours."

"And what time did this one start recording?"

"I don't know," said Dudley. "Doctor, it was five years ago."

"And you don't have the other tapes?"

"I told you I don't keep them!"

The Doctor tapped his chin with the handle of his umbrella. "Can you rewind this video to the very beginning?"

"If you want, but I don't see why," said Dudley. "There's nothing else on it."

"What are you getting at, Professor?" asked Ace, studying the screen as if expecting the answer to jump out at her

"I don't know."

Dudley rewound the video back to the start.

"Pause it," said the Doctor. "Is this system automatic?"

"Yes," said Dudley. "It's a 24 hour thing. The first tape starts at 6am then six hours later the second tape starts at 12noon, then the third at 6pm and then the final tape at midnight."

"And this tape?" said the Doctor.

"Was the Midnight to 6am tape."

"And this is the start of the tape?" said the Doctor.

Dudley looked like he was about to explode. "Yes!"

"In that case why does it say 1am on the tape count at the start?"

"What?" frowned Dudley. Sure enough the digital date and numbers in the corner of the footage stated that it was 4/11/2001 with the time being 01:00.

"The incidents happens at 01:15, fifteen minutes after the start of this footage."

"But that's impossible. It's an automatic system," said Dudley, staring closer at the screen willing for an answer to come to him.

"So," said Ace, "if the other tape finished at midnight and this one started at 1am, then that means there's an hour missing from somewhere."

"Exactly," said the Doctor. "And that's not the only thing."

"What do you mean?" asked Ace.

"Look at the screen."

Ace looked at the screen. "I don't see anything."

"Look harder towards the shadow of the corner where Mr Fenner will put the barrels."

Ace strained her eyes. And then her eyes widened. Standing there, almost shrouded in complete darkness was a very, very faint figure. The Doctor pushed in front of Dudley and edged the video on a few frames and slowly the figure disappeared.

To be continued...