A Good Friday Walk
"I do not believe in ghosts"
— wertperch
This really is a true story.
I really do not believe in ghosts. However, I do believe in insomnia, and it was insomnia that started the whole mess. Thursday night had been beer and darts with the lads, and the local rugby team were celebrating something, so there had been much consumption of Old and Nasty, with many plates of pickled winkles or somesuch vile thing. After all of that I honestly thought I'd sleep until late, but it was not to be so. After rolling myself into my pit I'd tossed and turned, but sleep was always hiding behind reverie, and whilst I may have dozed, it was at best fleeting. By three o'clock I was tired of even trying to sleep, and so I made myself a cup of tea and decided to go for a walk. It would be twilight in a couple of hours and I fancied that getting out would blow away the mental detritus and allow me to see Spring starting.
The walk into Cromer was surprisingly delightful, streets devoid of the metal monsters and the bulbs in the gardens beginning to show their colours. At the corner of Sandy Lane, in the streetlight's spill I stopped to peek at the flowers and stroke the first of the pussy willow. The quiet was almost scary, streets accustomed to traffic bustle and noise are suddenly bank holiday still, the denizens dreaming their dreams of the start of the year. For the first time I saw the houses, cottages set back behind chaotic front gardens, the new suburban boxes with cloned lawns and garden gnomes. Suddenly they seemed to have their own beauty as I strolled past.
I remember the owl, Silent as death and as intent, sweeping the streets in search of whatever small prey was to be out in the interlight. I remember the cat, legs twinkling as it ran on its own unknown feline mission of mischief. I remember the lone police car at the corner by the station, the occupants upnodding to me as I passed. I remember the flint walls of the local houses and businesses. I peered into the window of each business as I passed, flicked a v-sign at the Bank and thought, Hey, I don't have to come in today. All the little shops were trembling with anticipation for the upcoming tourist season. The first of the grockles would be here this weekend, the penny arcades and the bars would be full of the incurious, smelling of crab, fish-and-chips and cheap gassy beer. I continued down Church Street and decided to walk along the cliffs to Overstrand, get some sea air into me.
Fifteen minutes later I walked past the last of the houses. The woods to my left would lead to the cliffs, and the temptation was strong. But the dawn was still the colour of a church roof, heavy and leaden with clouds; I did not fancy stunbling over roots in the half light. The safer path, I thought as I put my feet down and down and down. I recalled the line of Bilbo Baggins that "stepping out of your door is a dangerous business", and continued along the footpath. Five minutes later and I was happy I had. The clouds were lowering from the north and there were a few fat drops of rain in the wind. I tucked my scarf into my jacket, pulled my hat over my eyes and followed the footpath as I headed into the coming dawn. The rain grew more insistent.
I was probably half a mile outside the village when I saw the dog ahead, running through the puddles down the side of the road, perhaps fifty yards ahead. I stopped, ever suspicious in my chill fear of dogs, ready to leap through the hedge if need be. As it came closer I saw intent, the intent I lacked in my wandering. Eyes fixed forward, feet flying, grey in the grey light. Standing aside to let it pass, I was surprised it neither paused in its flight nor glanced at me. I looked after it until it vanished into the gloom, and continued my walk.
Ten minutes later and I was at the village. The flint tower of Saint Martins, that dull silver pillar, was quite welcoming, and so I pushed open the gate to have a seat in the churchyard porch and watch the rain. I was happy here amidst the yew, holly and ivy with the small rustlings of the crepuscluar creatures on their own dangerous little missions. As the clouds began to clear I looked up at the tower, just starting to show the pink-orange of the predawn light. For a moment I thought of all the other lives I'd crossed that morning and reflected that only once had I been acknowledged. The animals had each their own lives that did not really intersect with mine, and the coppers were only interested enough to check that I wasn't carrying a "SWAG" bag. I was in awe of the independence of cats, the silent flight of owls. The dog had its own mind, and whilst they are never far from returning to wolf mentality, dogs have human thinking and are mostly subervient. I jolted back to reality as I realised I was hungry. Perhaps the Clifftop Café would be open. Perhaps there'd be tea and a sandwich. I closed the gate behind me. Keep the animals and ghosts in, I thought.
I stood and walked toward the rising sun, through the severe modern bungalows that the occupants called cottages, red brick glowing in the dawn that was now here. Down the road to the back of the village proper, back to the real cottages with their flint walls and the wild encroaching ivy, through the winding lane up toward the cliffs and the sea.
The Clifftop Café was unexpectedly open, which is to say that the owners were milling around. The paving outdoors had been scrubbed, the tables power-washed and as I walked over they were just bringing out the umbrellas. I called out over the fence to ask if they were open for service. Ruby yelled back that they weren't, but she'd be making tea in a few minutes if I cared to wait. I walked across. "I could help, maybe?".
Ruby looked at me, then at her husband, who nodded. "You could bring the rest of the chairs out. They're stacked in the back of the kitchen".
I complied, carrying the massive cast iron chairs two by two onto the patio. By the time I'd done, so were they, and the rain had begun again. We trooped inside for Ruby's rich, dark tea while Barry (? I forget) brought out Scotch eggs and we sat and nattered. We talked about the prospect of business in the tourist season, chattered about their kids (one at University, one in the Royal Navy. We looked out at the sea and talked about the weather. Slowly a few of the locals made their way in, the little social crowd. Here a group of knitters, there a few lads to talk football. A scattering of families enjoying the start of the long weekend. Some of them I knew, as they were occasional visitors to the Red Lion. I was just getting ready to head out when one of the darts lads wandered over.
"Orright bor, you be early!" (I wish I could properly convey the Norfolk accent, maybe I'll translate.)
"Yup, couldn't sleep so I walked over", I responded.
"You get caught in the rain?"
"Oh yes, I had to take shelter in the churchyard!"
"You see any ghosts?"
I laughed, and shook my head. "Nothing in the graveyard and otherwise just some coppers in Cromer, a cat hunting, and owl and a dog."
"Where was the dog?" He surprised me with this question, as I'd actually paid it little heed.
"A few minutes before I got to the church. Why?"
He looked at me. "What colour was it?"
"Well, it was dark, but…it wasn't a dark colour, but everything looks grey in that light. Why do you ask?"
He suddenly looked serious. "It might have been the Black Dog of Runton. It's a curse to see it."
I laughed and shook my head. "It wasn't black. Besides, it was just a dog."
He muttered something I didn't quite hear and the subject changed. Soon afterward a taxi was called and I returned to Cromer to indulge in the more traditional Good Friday practice of lounging around at home with a good book.
Of course, if that was all that happened, this wouldn't be much of a ghost story. The rest happened a few days later, and it happened of course, in the Red Lion Hotel bar.
It was a snooker night and several of the locals had gathered for a few frames. Talk included the usual sports, weather and the crab season prospects. Nothing too unusual until one of the fishermen walked over to me. Like so many Norfolk people, I was only really on nodding terms with him, so it was a surprise when he started talking to me, and even more so was his introduction.
"I hear you saw the Black Dog."
I recall being somewhat stunned by this, but I did managed a "Yes. Well I saw a dog on the way to Overstrand".
"Which way was it running?"
"Out of the village. It was just before the church." I was somewhat unnerved by the directness of his question, and by the sudden attention I was getting from the oldsters.
"So tell me what you saw", he said, and I retold the tale, interrupted by several questions from the crowd (what colour were its eyes, did I see splashes from the puddles, did the dog look at me?), and there was much murmuring as I reached the point where the dog passed me.
"I take it there's a story about this dog?"
There was a brief silence, and then a mass low muttering, like the stage performance rhubarb, rhubarb. My inquisitor turned back to me. "Oh yes, there's a story."
The sense of discomfort rose as he began to tell me the tale. Apparently, some time ago (many suggestions were proffered, from one to three hundred years ago) a local landowner who lived outside Overstrand had travelled to Sheringham, where he died. His dog, left behind at home, knew his master had died and ran toward Sheringham, but was killed in an altercation with a horse (or a carriage, or deer, or was struck by lightning, you get the picture). The interruptions, corrections and additions caused some argument. As with many oral legends, there were as many variants of each element as there were onlookers. On one thing though, they all agreed.
"…so anyway, it's said that the ghost of the dog runs along the road in search of his dead master, and if anyone sees the dog…", he paused and looked me straight in the eye, "…they die. A year and a day later."
Now the whole tale was told, the punchline was delivered. The younger folk were smiling, the older were grim of face. I looked from one to another of the crowd, uncertain if I, the one outsider, was being trolled. Then I chuckled. Then I laughed. There was more murmuring, before one bewhiskered patriarch, the very stereotype of the grizzled old crab fisherman, stepped forward.
"It don't matter if you believe it or not, it will come to pass!" And that was that. For the nonce.
Until a few years later, I was home for Christmas and met some old school chums in a local pub. After a few beers, someone suggested we tell ghost stories, and after hearing a couple, I offered this one. There were the usual shaken heads and chuckles before someone asked me the question I was hoping for.
"How long ago was this?"
"About three years."
"So you should be dead!" to some laughter.
I looked over her shoulder, just past her ear, and set my gaze as though I'd just seen something, then looked back into her eyes and leaned forward while reaching for her face.
"What makes you think I'm not?" I asked in my deepest, spookiest voice.
They say "dead men tell no tales", but they are wrong. So wrong.
For Libera te Tutemet ex Inferis: The 2023 Halloween Horrorquest
It's hard to know how to tag this. The story is quite true, other than my being dead, but calling it a "factual" seems wrong.
$ xclip -o | wc -w
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