Author: TGW

Fictional Stories from The Ghostly World. Tales to Chill and Scare, best read during the hours of darkness.

The Soul Collectors

by John Riley

A manic dash, driven hard at the closeness of a death rattle, this black polished carriage, horse drawn by black plume crested stallions clattering down marble hallways lined with damask wall coverings upon which are suspended portraits of the dead that now haunt these rooms.

At giddy speeds, we are approaching, hollering and screaming our intent, echoing far to those who can hear that cold slap-back reverberation.

Tossed hither and thither in the wake of this thunderous carriage. Time to suspend and look down the stairwell at mournful figures around a figure inverted upon the stone steps with head beneath still water, arms stretched out to the sides and broken body upon the staircase.

At breakneck speed, carriage wheels bounce and strike each step’s edge as devil’s horses bear down upon the mortals below. Thrown are we that remain trapped on our journey, tossed from side to side, tipping at every rise and fall, violently flung are we at each right angle quarter turn descending further down to our prize.

An old piano, abandoned by that near-drowned soul, still playing its adagio to a trapped mad mortal, bedridden, in a room given over to waiting shadows. He’s not for the devil, but that broken figure, attempting to take his own life, teeters towards its damned soul ending life too soon.

Let not those mourners resuscitate from limbo before we’ve had time to collect. Death is approaching fast, for we are soul collectors for all those ending mortal life before their allotted time.

At the passing of the hour, a life is saved from us, and if it remembers by some haunted nightmarish dream the soul collectors were with a death rattle’s breath to snatch it away to eternal damnation, be warned, all you, that it is never an answer.

-end-

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May 14, 2018 Add Comment

The Ghostly World Journal

by John Riley

A HAUNTING CURIOSITY NEVER MORE then a moment away from you, ebbing and flowing until at last reaching out to steal your life that I may continue in this living damnation. Would you not, if I were to ever give you the chance to, sink that rising hope of intention deep beneath and send me to oblivion?

The pull always comes from the tagline, some wasted heart on display and this shadow out prowling again might be a half remembered stranger.

A fog sends the lost into a new dawning week laden with greyness and threatening outside steel sharp showers gathering while eternal life is like a winter feeling locked without a key.

Some may say a Peeping Tom, maybe once, safely cruising alone those old haunts in a sea awash with pollution and the fallen may be desperate seeking solace from a broken lost belief.

Well it may be waste to parade a life laid bare astride an old ash tree born twisted and a wreck under waves of rain while a bone coloured luminary slips between sheets of cloud and love comes in a loud scream nailed hard against the wood.

It’s time to close down secrets for there are greater ones in here and time to see out the winters in murky laden bars fighting a good fight for heart and mind against those half-forgotten prayers your kin told you against a dark phantom of the night.

I seek a moment’s grace for my time ended and leave you to seek out your own truths.

-end-

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May 10, 2018 Add Comment

William Wolfenden

by John Riley

I watch a werewolf moon rise, and somewhere from the back of beyond, I feel sure it is a dog hollering mournfully?

Is that a night chill or something else rising in the flesh?

Those deep and dark pine forests, spikey tall along the edge of craggy mountainous ridges, hide things best not thought about.

Back over the way, not wishing to linger over things distant, the belfry bats take flight, devouring the night air with their screeching during the tolling of the passing bell. I tell you, from where I wait, in the shadows, something is moving, away there to my left.

My gawd! Grim and mournful are six hunched figures. Walking dead slow until eventually and under much strain, they lower a chained iron bolted coffin deep down six on this chilled November night.

Intent set firm and sealed, I, to witness it so, and might I add, the six determined to stop what inside from ever getting out.

There isn’t much to stop this gathering from staying longer than necessary. I bet hastily to leave with a promise of ale. I’ll wager money on it, for sure.

A storm lantern is raised at arm’s length and waved to indicate the signal. The unkempt gravediggers stir from their rest, preparing to spade in heaps of topsoil.

The signal comes again, a nod from the lantern bearer. The six men heave spade loads into the grave without so much of a break to wipe the brow.

In minutes, the undead entombed.

The six turn to catch the flame. Haunted lined faces, cut deep, sworn they were to deliver the ritual, and now each one, head bowed, skulk off into the darkness.

We remain in hushed silence that all is safe. We wait under that single moonbeam.

How can it be?

The unhallowed ground looks to be rising and turning. A clawing, then the hand, reaching with another to make way for the head, then next to the body. My God, from the grave, free, this creature of filth gasping at the night air.

Yes, William Wolfenden, what a man, escapologist from Barnum Flowers Circus of Human Oddity Acts, taking his bow before the assembled audience.

-end-

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May 3, 2018 Add Comment

The Ghostly World Journal

by John Riley

Sometimes a situation happens upon one, refusing to remain buried. It haunts both day and night.

I’m sure when awakening during the early hours of the new day and it still dark, I’m sure someone knocked on my front door. The essence of the disturbance remains long after the reverberation faded. I’d say I’m waking up just after the measured knock upon the wood, but I never hear it, just know that it has happened.

This is a recent manifestation.

You see I’ve had need to walk a lane at night. A lane very quiet, spooky and certainly dark along its length.

I’ve made the journey for over ten days now, the first week uneventful but the last few nights, felt quite a different experience.

I have the awareness of someone walking alongside me when I am returning home. I should say walking silently and to the left of me. Close enough that in my state of increasing nervous anxiety, I have to look. I’m ready for someone to appear, not that there is anybody with me. My stride quickening when the realisation upon me, and the atmosphere noticeably sharpens at this point, an inner voice urgent in its insistence to return home and safety.

I’m rather regretting the favour asked of me. You see the householders, requesting my time, are attending to some business out of town. It a strange wish, but knowing me as they do, I understand why they asked.

They wanted me to keep a vigil over a closed coffin in their house. A relative unable to recover from a recent illness had sadly passed away. I did know of him, only briefly. We use to swap the latest moan before I’d be on my way up the hill. He came across as a well travelled man and someone knowing things that perhaps we cared not to know about, certainly a man harbouring secrets.

My routine over these last days is to arrive just before nine in the evening and on the last occasion; I felt such sadness in the place that I’d taken fresh flowers to lighten the mood of the room. As I am the only one with a key, I usually quickly check around the place. There’s nobody else with access to the house so I consider it prudent to make sure all is secure.

In the silence, I sit at the side of the coffin and read a short hand written piece that he liked and had penned himself. It was amongst his writings, much as he left them and I always return the piece of parchment to his desk.

I even asked if he was walking me back down the lane. After all, he never wanted to be alone, hence the request. Even at the end he wanted the company of another to be with him. Perhaps if he was watching me home, maybe he could do so but not be so obvious.

There is one thing to mention. The other morning, after disturbed from the knocking on the door, I noticed an envelope had been pushed through the letterbox, hand delivered by the look of it. When I took out the parchment I recognised the writing, from the self-penned verse I read out aloud at the coffin. It was a simple handwritten note – Thank you for reading and watching over me. The flowers are lovely.

-end-

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April 19, 2018 Add Comment

The Ghostly World Journal

by John Riley

There are times my dear visitor, that I can’t help myself, imagining silly little scenarios and writing them out for the pages. So I take my leave as we draw a close to this month with a piece that painted a picture in my mind and had me spilling a goblet of the bulls blood all over a newly washed burial robe I happen to be wearing getting ready for bed.

A knitted onesie

Tina adores being with dead things visiting the National History Museum and on first name terms with Stephen the wildcat guide. She’s fixated now on inviting him home.

Stephen said if she wanted him to come on his day off, he’d have to be back for tea at five.

Tina’s obsessive about knitting wool wants a bigger project now. She needn’t worry, Stephen likes her collection of knitted Felis catus, he thinks they look great.

He didn’t want to say when the conversation went dead, but her house smells a bit. He thinks it might be cats gone feral ’cause he noticed reward posters on fences for missing ones.

What time do you have to get back? Five, he says suddenly recognising unmistakably a feline bone sticking out of a knitted Siamese.

Tina just grins as if she’s measuring him up. Stephen doesn’t want sex with her he thinks she smells.

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March 26, 2018 Add Comment

The Ghostly World Journal

by John Riley

Never seems to go away, you know, the thing about putting out the intention to the good old universe and then sitting back reaping the rewards when it pours pennies from heaven.

Here’s a rambling thought what if we are moving closer to some revelation about ourselves and that we are close to being able to influence our path through life, you know, attract those intended vibes towards us simply by putting in the right request.

And my dear reader, what if the grey suits of the world as we say, the movers and shakers, steering us towards a different agenda motivated by fear, are trying to stop that new awareness from ever materialising.

For would chaos rule the earth? Got a little micro piece for you on this theme. Here it be…

I know a secret

Well, c’mon, what father wouldn’t be burning up with excitement about a son ready to address the faithful this being his first gig an’ all. My, my, my wait ’til the crowd get a load of this revelation. Got a book to sell, available now, so you won’t miss out spreading the good word.

Mesmerising performance they’d worship the ground he walks on, how about that, eh. Tells them all that the moment contains everything that can happen, every potentiality. Tune yourself to your hearts desire and you’ll find yourself living the moment soon enough. You weren’t taught that when so green and susceptible being spoon-fed the paradigm. Isn’t that just magic, your awakening?

Chaos shall reign and your father Nick will be proud of such prophetic truths to challenge the falsehoods. Time that chain loosened and the pit opened and let your father have the time to play.

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March 22, 2018 Add Comment