Restless Dead (Harry Grimm Book 5) David Gatward (reading strategies book txt) 📖

Dan was at the window, had snapped the curtains open.

‘Right, you bastards!’ he shouted. ‘Think you’re funny, do you? Well, you’re not!’

Then Aunty Patricia was up out of her chair as well and she was raging, jabbing a pointed finger at Beverly, screaming at her, right in her face, spittle on her lips.

‘How dare you come into our house and do this and play cheap tricks on us! How dare you! And whoever that is out there throwing stones at the glass? Friends of yours, are they? Thought you could come over here and have some cheap fun, am I right? Well, it’s over! This is over! You are over, you mad bitch!’

Anthony couldn’t believe what he was seeing, what he was hearing.

Dan was back from the windows now and Patricia was still screaming.

‘I’m going outside,’ Dan said. ‘I tell you, if I had a shotgun, I’d send a couple of barrels off just to scare the crap out of whoever that is out there! That would teach them a lesson!’

Dan marched out and Anthony watched his aunt chase after him. A moment later, a torch beam sliced through the night outside. Then Anthony looked over at his mum and his granddad. They were both quiet, tears in their eyes.

‘It was her, I know it,’ James said, still holding Ruth’s hand. ‘I want her back. I just want her back . . .’

Anthony looked up at Beverley. She had relaxed a little, but that wasn’t saying much, he thought, because right now she just looked plain terrified, her face drained of colour and clammy.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

Beverley didn’t respond straight away, but when she did, she turned wide eyes to look down at him, and Anthony was sure that in them he saw real fear.

‘What was that?’ he asked. ‘You did something with your voice. And the tapping at the window. How?’

Beverley was still staring, and Anthony didn’t like it at all. It was freaking him out.

‘Look, I get it,’ he said, ‘all of this, the weird creepiness, but you can stop, okay?’

Beverley shook her head as though trying to dislodge something.

‘I . . . I . . .’

Anthony stood up. ‘I’ll show you out.’

‘This wasn’t supposed to happen,’ Beverley said. ‘I’m so sorry.’

Beverly pushed herself to her feet and walked over to the window where the tapping had sounded from. Anthony watched her reach up to the latch then she dropped her hand and rested her head against the glass, wringing her hands together in front of her stomach.

Dan and Patricia stormed back into the room, crashing through the door, slamming it into the wall. A picture crashed to the floor, the glass bursting from its frame in deadly slivers.

Beverly turned to face them.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I . . . this isn’t . . .’

‘Sorry?’ Patricia said, cutting in with a mean laugh crisping up the edge of her voice. ‘You’re sorry? Look at my dad! Look at him! He’s a blubbering mess, because of you! Why the hell any of us agreed to this, I just don’t know! But it’s done! It’s over!’

‘We’ll be reporting this,’ Dan said. ‘You have my word on that, you bloody charlatan!’

Beverley glanced down at Anthony, then across to Ruth and James.

‘I don’t know what that was, that voice,’ she said. ‘Really, I don’t. What did I say? What happened?’

‘Right, enough of this tosh,’ Dan said, then pointed at the lounge door. ‘Out! Now! Before I kick you out!’

Beverley stepped out of the circle of chairs, stumbling a little and Anthony followed.

‘Yes, that’s it, Anthony,’ Patricia said. ‘Make sure she is off our property!’

In the hall, Anthony followed Beverley along the hall and to the door. He jogged past her and opened it. Beverley stepped out into the cold night air.

‘You said something about a bright light,’ Anthony said.

‘What?’

Beverley looked round at Anthony and he saw in her eyes that fear again.

‘Back then, before . . . You asked what you said. And what you said, well, it was something about a bright light. So, I’m guessing that was Heaven, right? That’s what you were talking about, to help Granddad? Make him think Nana is there now?’

Beverley stared at Anthony.

‘This has never happened before.’

‘It doesn’t matter if it was fake,’ Anthony said. ‘I don’t know how you did it, the tapping, the voice, but I get why you did it, why you do this. To help people deal with stuff.’

‘But the light,’ Beverley said. ‘The knocking, yes, I know about that, but what I said . . . the voice . . . I don’t understand! It wasn’t . . .’

‘It was Heaven, right?’ Anthony said. ‘That’s why you said it, so that Grandad would think Nana was in Heaven now.’

From behind him in the house, a shout chased along the hallway, the voice of his aunt as cold as steel.

‘That mad bitch had better not still be here, Anthony! I want her out!’

Beverley turned to leave, but stopped, and looked back at Anthony.

‘It wasn’t Heaven,’ Beverly said then. ‘The light, that’s not what I saw. It’s not what I was being shown, it was something else. Helen was showing me another light . . .’

Anthony was confused now. What the hell was this woman saying?

‘What?’ he said. ‘But you said you saw a bright light and I’ve seen this stuff on TV. And it’s Heaven! It’s always Heaven, isn’t it? And then the spirit or soul or whatever it is, drifts off down this tunnel of light and at the end of it there are relatives waiting to welcome you—’

‘It was a bright light, yes,’ Beverley said, interrupting. ‘But that’s not all it was.’

‘Then what was it?’ Anthony asked. ‘What was it you saw? What were you talking about?’

Beverly stared at him then and Anthony couldn’t help but shiver a little under her gaze.

‘It was a bright light, yes,’ she said. ‘But it wasn’t Heaven or a tunnel of light. It was just this bright light shining out onto