Ghosts by Russell R B

Author:Russell, R B [Russell, R B]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Collection.Single Author, Short Fiction, Fiction.Horror
ISBN: 9780956658739
Google: MVFIlAEACAAJ
Publisher: Swan River Press
Published: 2016-01-16T00:00:00+00:00

Dispossessed

Everything went right for Jayne just as it appeared to be going wrong. Or, at least, that’s what she assumed. To begin with she lost her home and her job. For ten years she had looked after the house of an old lady in Chelsea, and it was an enviable position. Jayne had just come out of college and a family friend recommended her to the elderly woman when the previous housekeeper left to get married. Jayne didn’t think there could have been an easier job available, and for a decade all she had to do was make sure that the house was cared for. Her employer was looked after by nurses from an agency, and there was already a cook and a cleaner engaged. The old lady’s dog, a large, rough-haired Scottish deerhound, ancient and lumbering, was looked after by the cook. For everything else, and there was very little else, Jayne had been at liberty to hire gardeners or handymen as and when they were required, and she simply spent a great deal of her time reading, watching the television, or entertaining friends in the large living room into which the old lady never came because she was bedridden.

Jayne did not take many liberties, but because the old lady was also deaf, her employer did not notice when Jayne’s friends occasionally did. The wages were good, especially as Jayne was provided with board and lodging, and, in that way that one can be when young, it never occurred to her that anything had to change. But then the old lady died.

The family descended upon the house immediately, and to Jayne the old woman seemed to be buried with indecent haste. When the will was read immediately afterwards the house was divided up amongst a dozen different family members and they decided to put the building up for sale. Jayne was out of a job and had lost her home.

At the same time her relationship with Paul fell apart spectacularly. She was distraught that she only had a week to find somewhere else to live and her boyfriend, in front of all of their friends, made a callous joke at her expense. Jayne wasn’t in the mood and she took it badly. He compounded her humiliation with another joke and then she said a few things about him which were quite unpardonable. There must have been a dozen of their friends present and their jaws dropped simultaneously. Jayne left the party immediately, and when she got back to the house she sat by the phone and waited to see who would call her. But nobody did.

She was too angry to do anything useful for days. The house was emptied around her; first by relatives taking the nicer items, and then by auctioneers who stripped the place down to the floorboards. Jayne swore at the family members and was ignored, and she even threatened the men from the auction house, who told her that they would phone the police if she didn’t get out of their way.

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