At three in the morning, Steven woke up — somebody had jerked his leg. It wasn't Fiona. She was fast asleep on his back. Still, he had felt somebody's hand coiled around his ankle. It startled him, and he sat up.
Outside in the hallway, he could hear somebody walking around, speaking to himself. It frightened him.
'Give it a minute, and it will go away.' But that was fantasy.
As of late, this was the main theme around the house, the old man, walking around at night.
Did he never sleep? No, he was up all day and banging all night.
Sometimes the noises would be mild, creeping on the staircase, the living room door closing, somebody turning the bathroom lights on, using the toilet. That was on a good night. On other nights, they were more unsettling. A woman could be heard pleading for somebody to stop, and a man's voice would jump in. Angry and raging.
'I teach you to behave, you fucking whore; I teach you to be good.'
And something would suddenly crack. The air became filled with a violent whooshing sound, repeating over and over again.
'No, please stop, I'll be good, I'll be good.'
Other times, it would be a baby crying, fingers tapping on the bedroom window. Voices, speaking.
Here — at the moment, there was only the old man walking around, and Steven hoped he would go away.
He did eventually, and Steven looked at his mobile phone. It was ten minutes past three.
'Jesus, I'm so tired.'
What he wouldn't give for a good night's sleep — his right arm — if that was the case.
He couldn't remember the last time; he had a goodnight's sleep.
Was it a week, a month? Longer. He was too tired to come up with the answer. He just knew the ghost issue had to stop.
Not for his sake — but for the person sleeping next to him, the girls next door. 'Please, let it end.'
How much he wanted that to happen. For his family to feel safe again. Secure, but the old man living in his house wasn't going anywhere.
Why, only last night, Fiona had seen that old man pissing in the corner of the bedroom like somebody taking a slash in a bush.
And the old man, according to Fiona, had looked over his shoulder. His movement - slow, deliberate, the neck creaking, a hideous grin curled on his lips.
Fiona had fled from the room. Telling Steven what she had seen, and Steven had gone upstairs to investigate, seeing the damp patch on the carpet. Piss vomit from the old man.
Hard to forget — and Steven still sat up — noticed the window was wide open and a cold breeze swaying into the room.
Getting out of bed, he closed the window and hurried back into bed. There he tried to warm himself up - but he still felt a draught.
'Where is that coming from?'
With the house safer to explore, Steven threw the bedsheets away from himself, got out of bed, and went searching for the cold air.
Out in the hallway, it didn't take long to know why there was a chill — lurking around. The window there was opened as well. An unpleasant chill seeping in.
'Jesus Christ.' He spoke under his breath, shivering, blowing warm air into his cup hands.
Closing the window, he glanced over his shoulder and saw at the bottom of the staircase - the front door open as well.
Shaking his head in disbelief, he closed the door, thinking as he did - who had opened the hallway window and the front door?
The old man, no doubt - he had been walking around the house.
Going into the kitchen, he turned on the light and found no windows opened. What he saw instead was Katrina fast asleep.
'Katrina?' He asked softly, bending down next to her
Katrina - hearing her dad's voice - opened her eyes and looked around the kitchen. Confused by how she ended up being in the kitchen when the last thing she remembered was being in her own bed.
'Dad?' she spoke, her voice drowsy. 'What I'm I doing here?'
'You must have sleepwalked?'
'I don't know. I can't remember; I just remember waking up, hearing somebody call my name.'
'Who?' Steven asked, intrigued.
'I don't know. He kept telling me to come downstairs, so we could play.'
'Was it a young voice?'
'I think so, yeah.'
Although the hour was late, gone three in the morning, the early birds chirping outside. Steven had a vague idea - who that voice belonged to. The old man. But he kept that thought to himself. Katrina was tired; he could hear it in her voice.
'Do you want me to carry you upstairs to bed?'
'Yeah.'
'Come on then, let's get you up.'
Picking Katrina up into his arms, her weight surprised him. 'You're getting heavy, you know that.'
'You must be getting weaker if you can't carry a small kid upstairs.'
It was a brief moment of humour between a father and his daughter, and they both smiled.
'Carry on, and you'll be walking upstairs.'
It was a fun threat; it didn't mean anything and going up the stairs, Steven had to watch his step. Not only that, the room space on the stairs, there wasn't much of it. And Steven had to be extra cautious when he got to the corner.
Making it, at last, to the girl's bedroom, Steven managed to open the door and went into the room. The hallway light flooded the room, and straight off the bat, Steven saw Harmony on the floor; she was lying on her stomach.
Either she had fallen out of bed, or the old man had dragged her out of bed. One or two, he didn't like to mull over which one. And he spat the thought out like a bad taste in his mouth.
'Why is Harmony on the floor? Did she fall out of bed?' Katrina wanted to know.
'Probably, but right now, let's get you in bed.' And that's what Steven did. The same with Harmony.
Going back to bed, Steven fell into a deep sleep, and the next morning, he and Fiona would find it odd; the girls weren't in the house. And they would look everywhere and not a peek.
'They haven't gone out; the front door is still bolted, and so is the backdoor.' Fiona would say.
After twenty-minute of searching high and low, Fiona and Steven would eventually find the girls.
Both sleeping on the road outside, where anything might have happened to them.
Anything
Now, we come here to this part of the story where for almost seven days, there had been nothing from the ghost hunters. No phone call or anything, except one text message; that came from Lisa's mobile number. Chris was unwell. It wasn't the best news to read, but at least there was a reason why Chris had been staying away. Not because he was scared — but because he had fallen ill.
That naturally had ground the investigation to a halt, not that it made any difference to the old man. The terror went on, lurking around every corner of the house. It didn't matter if it was mid-afternoon or the early hours. The ghost demon always played with his toys.
The latest chapters in the house were proof of that.
Fiona being slapped in the face. Steven waking up to feel somebody's hand curled around his ankles. And the girls found at the bottom of the street, despite the house being locked up. The situation was getting worse by the minute.
One thing after another, never any rest from the old man, and on February 2nd, this happened.
Steven had gone to bed early because his toothache was unbearable. He had tried everything to make the pain go away. Orajel, cloveroil, Ibuprofen and paracetamol. But nothing worked.
So, he had gone to bed early, hoping a good night's sleep would fix his toothache. And it did, slumber coming over to him like a friend. Until he heard it, the girls —screaming.
'Mum! Dad!'
There was panic in their voices, akin to a woman being attacked.
'What's going on? What now?'
He couldn't get out of bed fast enough; the girls were in danger, he could hear them. And he ran out into the hallway.
'What is it? What's happening?'
The question was aimed at Fiona, who was already outside the girl's bedroom.
Before, she had been busy downstairs, catching up with some ironing, when all hell broke loose. The girls —screaming, and a man — yelling.
'COME HERE NOW! DO IT!'
A loud thumping sound had come from the ceiling, and she thought the fluorescent light was about to come crashing down. It had rattled that much.
The same as Steven, she couldn't move fast enough, and she was there before he was.
She looked at Steven as he farted his questions out. She said nothing; only her eyes did. Full of terror.
'Well, don't just stand there, do something.' Steven snapped. Something he didn't mean to do, but the girl's screams terrified him.
Not only that, there was a ruckus coming from their bedroom. Footsteps running around the room, the girls, no doubt, trying to escape from something.
The old man, of course — who else?
Pushing Fiona away from the door, another thing he didn't mean to do. Steven went into the room, and immediately the girls came racing over. Straight into his arms.
Looking down at their faces, Steven could see they were terrified. Their eyes were wide open, and they couldn't stop looking over their shoulders.
'Dad! Dad!' They both spoke together.
'You're okay; you're okay.' It was Fiona who said those words. Looking at Steven, her eyes bursting with fear.
But the girls weren't. Their voices were being strangled by their own sobbing sounds.
'We don't want to live here anymore. Please say we can move out, please, please.'
Fiona couldn't make heads or tails of what the girls were saying. Something had scared them real bad, and it was Steven; who came out on top, settling the girls on the bed.
'What happened? Just take your time.'
It was Harmony — who spoke, doing so in short interludes between her sobbing sounds.
'We were sitting on the floor doing each other nails, and these hands came out of the wardrobe. They were running up and down the walls and touching us.'
For a second, Steven looked over at Fiona. Both had the same question on their minds.
'These hands you saw. Did they belong to anyone?'
Harmony shook her head. 'They were just hands.'
'Just hands.' Fiona said, getting her phone out.
'What are you doing?' Steven asked.
'What does it look like I'm doing? We can't go on like this. I'm phoning Chris up. I don't give a fuck if he's unwell. We need him here, pronto!'
Steven thought of taking the phone away from Fiona's grip, but she was right. They couldn't go on like this.
Not when five minutes into the girl's bedroom, Katrina suddenly fell to the floor, holding her stomach.
'Somebody just kicked me!'
'Where? Are you hurt?' Fiona asked, dropping to her knees.
It was a stupid question to ask. She could see Katrina lying on the floor. Her knees; were drawn up to her face, and her face was squirming in agony. She was holding her belly. Holding it tightly.
'My stomach.'
The poor kid was trying to hold her voice steady, but the pain - boiling in her stomach made her weep.
Fiona, seeing the tears rushing down Katrina's face, held her.
'Ouch, my stomach, my stomach.'
The words spoken by Katrina were heartbreaking, full of pain, causing Fiona to look over at Steven.
'That bastard, that fucking old bastard! How could he?' she screamed. Anger in her voice.
Steven, in a catch twenty-two, didn't want to leave Harmony's side, yet he could see Fiona getting upset as she held Katrina.
The child — sobbing, her little arms clinging to her mum's neck.
He really wanted to go over and hold them both, hold them all.
'We need to get out of here.'
A good notion that, and Fiona was already one step ahead, lifting Katrina away from the floor, telling her it would be okay as she took the kid downstairs to the front room.