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Whistle and I’ll Come to You (from The Woman in Black)

During the night the wind rose. As I had lain reading I had become aware of the stronger gusts that blew every so often against the casements. But when I awoke abruptly in the early hours it had increased greatly in force. The house felt like a ship at sea, battered by the gale that came roaring across the open marsh. Windows were rattling everywhere and there was the sound of moaning down all the chimneys of the house and whistling through every nook and cranny.

At first I was alarmed. Then, as I lay still, gathering my wits, I reflected on how long Eel Marsh House had stood here, steady as a lighthouse, quite alone and exposed, bearing the brunt of winter after winter of gales and driving rain and sleet and spray. It was unlikely to blow away tonight. And then, those memories of childhood began to be stirred again and I dwelt nostalgically upon all those nights when I had lain in the warm and snug safety of my bed in the nursery at the top of our family house in Sussex, hearing the wind rage round like a lion, howling at the doors and beating upon the windows but powerless to reach me. I lay back and slipped into that pleasant, trance-like state somewhere between sleeping and waking, recalling the past and all its emotions and impressions vividly, until I felt I was a small boy again.

Then from somewhere, out of that howling darkness, a cry came to my ears, catapulting me back into the present and banishing all tranquillity. I listened hard. Nothing. The tumult of the wind, like a banshee, and the banging and rattling of the window in its old, ill-fitting frame. Then yes, again, a cry, that familiar cry of desperation and anguish, a cry for help from a child somewhere out on the marsh. There was no child. I knew that. How could there be? Yet how could I lie here and ignore even the crying of some long-dead ghost?

‘Rest in peace,’ I thought, but this poor one did not, could not.

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Qualtrics Survey | Qualtrics Experience Management

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The most powerful, simple and trusted way to gather experience data. Start your journey to experience management and try a free account today.

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Think of a time you were afraid.  If that fear were a ghost or monster, what would it look like? 

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Think of a time you were afraid.  If that fear were a ghost or monster, what would it look like? 

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Your shadow haunts my present,

The essence of you remained long after

Your presence was banished.

Fake smiling teeth, lips bare grimaced

sharp tongue pierces everyone

Hair transmorphs time and space

Would I recognise you now?

See myself reflected in your eyes?

Grasping shadows to your chest

You prowl the periphery

While I pretend not to see

Always glancing back to catch a trace of you

As you slip through my fingers again and again

Clothed in secrecy you slide through

The space I created between us

Out of sight but never quite out of mind

Stalking me like prey. To dominate. To conquer. To destroy.

A stereotype in story told to scare children

Into bed at night

But I am not a child. And I am not prey.

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It has no face, it goes backward, like a chasm, the Great Canyon submerged in darkness, at midnight. There is nothing and you could fall into this face, keep falling and falling, as if the nose and mouth and eyes caved in, hollowed out like a pumpkin, as if the cheeks were your homeland, a rug pulled out from under you to reveal that behind the bone structure there is only atoms and behind the atoms there is empty space and nothing, nothing at all, the face is the blank space in your memory, the empty after your feet slip on uneven ground

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It's a square. Not a square, a rectangle. A paper face with a clear pocket of teeth. It's cry the clack of the letterbox. It lurks, unopened, down the side of chairs and in pockets, taunting you to rip it open so it can devour your life one mouthful at a time. 

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It's a square. Not a square, a rectangle. A paper face with a clear pocket of teeth. It's cry the clack of the letterbox. It lurks, unopened, down the side of chairs and in pockets, taunting you to rip it open so it can devour your life one mouthful at a time. 

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New houses have their own noises and rhythms that take some time to get used to. My first night in a new house and crashes were heard from downstairs. I crept down with a bat in my hand fearful of what I might find. The window sill had been emptied but no-one was there. It was eerily quiet and I was spooked. Then I felt something soft on my leg and looked down to see a cat slinking past me stealthily before it bolted for the door and out of the room through the cat flap in my new back door. It was jet black with shining green eyes and glossy whiskers. Spooked beyond belief I locked the cat flap and went back to bed :)

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The haze grows darker, everything gets hot as I feel angrier. You're moving closer and closer. The nearer you get the faster it happens. My heart is racing. Everything is grey. You're everywhere. You're plumetting towards me. I'm being squashed by your presence as you get closer. My chest tightens. Even with my eyes shut you are here. Your presence not only physical but within me too. Consuming my brain.

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When I stepped out that day,

after weeks of being inside,

there you were, leaning casually

by a tree, swinging something,

what was it? A pocket watch?

I thought you were a werewolf,

or hoped, perhaps, you were

something knowable, something

from a fairy tale

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imagine they are moving towards you, how do they move? fast or slow for example?

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The chasm doesn't move like you do, it occupies a space where movement is not required, it seeps and mingles and permeates, it finds you on your birthday, on your first day of work, on a quiet Wednesday morning when you've just stepped out of the shower, it shakes you upside down and empties you, it chasms you, it doesn't know how to move because it is in you, it moves with you, it undulates with your every breath and it knows where you sleep, huddled and cold, foetal in your isolation, it moves with your words, speaks when you speak, it is the last thing unsaid, it spreads with that final word on the tip of your tongue.

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But I don't think he was a fairy tale type, not one I'd seen before, not prowling like the wolf in Red Riding Hood or jerky like Frankenstein's monster, but with a swagger and then a twirl as if he was about to break out into some musical number. Then he stopped and just stared and stared and stared, again swinging whatever it was in his hand - not now gold or familiar as a time piece but more tentacle like - sluggish and what at first appeared moved by this man, this creature, was moving by itself and it merged with other tentacles and not separate from the man but coming from under his jacket - part of his chest.

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It moves alongside me, or maybe inside me. You can't see it following you but it isn't going anywhere. A meal with friends, it's there. A walk in the park, it's there. One step behind or ahead. A whisper in your ear. A shadow out of the corner of your eye. The newspaper stand outside the shop. The ads in the bus, the chat in the canteen at work. It has a thousand mouthes and it will never leave you alone. 

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It moves alongside me, or maybe inside me. You can't see it following you but it isn't going anywhere. A meal with friends, it's there. A walk in the park, it's there. One step behind or ahead. A whisper in your ear. A shadow out of the corner of your eye. The newspaper stand outside the shop. The ads in the bus, the chat in the canteen at work. It has a thousand mouthes and it will never leave you alone. 

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It was clearly just as terrified as me omitting a foul odour as it passed like partially digested fish that had long since ceased to swim. Whose cat was it and why was it in my house? Why did it have to be black? My thoughts turned to childhood superstitions.

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unwashed teeth and thick clot of wine, the chasm has a mouth like a furnace, and it breathes out poison into the world, like a garbage fire, it is a black hole of menace, and what goes in never comes out, its breath is only the by-product of the things it stole from this world, repurposed, and spit out again soaked in bacteria from the gum line, it knows not what it does, only that it does, tobacco stained and washed with saliva

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It reminds me of those chemical smells that only exist in some public buildings and institutions, sort of plasticky or fake fruit, mingling with the smells it's trying to hide, like  bad breath and body odour. It's an overly sanitised smell that just doesn't work and you just wish it would go away.

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It reminds me of those chemical smells that only exist in some public buildings and institutions, sort of plasticky or fake fruit, mingling with the smells it's trying to hide, like  bad breath and body odour. It's an overly sanitised smell that just doesn't work and you just wish it would go away.

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closer still, twirling and twirling until face to face with me, there is no discernible hair, no longer anything like a werewolf, but standing or slithering and shifting before me as a sea creature or what you would imagine to survive in the ocean and with that un mistakable stink of salt and fish. And oh, the hole in his face, what some might call a mouth and others a black hole, spewing out the remnants of its stomach, black ink pooling the ground.

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My eyes are clamped shut. I can't look at you but I know you're there. I can feel you. I smell that familiar clinical hospital smell that makes me know you are here. You're haunting my brain and filling it with fear. It's clean but you do not feel clean. I am not clean. My mind doesn't feel clean. It's a big scribbly mess of all the thoughts and things you have done to me, of all the things you still have to do to me.

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what is the location?

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Walking home late at night through empty streets near covent garden. A normally bustling street which is now empty.

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Hospital car park/ grounds. In the dark. In the winter.

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A childhood home left to rot in an old seaside town

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My first thought was the dole office from about 10 years ago 

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My first thought was the dole office from about 10 years ago 

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Steps echoing nearby but no-one around. When I stop and turn there is an eery silence.

I begin to walk on and the noise resumes. I take out my phone to ring someone, to hear the voice that I feel might provide security.

I speed up and so too do the steps. Is it an echo? I feel hot breath on my neck and break in to a run.

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you are in the setting.  What can you hear?

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you are in the setting.  What can you hear?

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I know this song but I haven't thought about it for so many years. It should be comforting so why is my blood thudding so hard through my veins, why am I hot and cold and sick. There are no upsetting memories to this tune. What is happening?

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An old nursery rhyme is being slowly whistled. You can't quite place the tune but there is a locked away memory somewhere in the deepest recesses of your mind. Sometimes the song is so quiet it is barely there. Other times, it is so loud they could be stood right next to you. The wind carries the tin whistled sound across the fields, a beacon calling you to it. In the distance, a swing moves in the play area. Haunted by the wind or something more ominous. The metallic groaning of chain links begins to proclaim warning through the trees too, both so eerie that the hairs on the back of your neck stand to attention. Your nervous system is waiting, waiting, waiting for what will come next.

It reaches out and touches faith bringing with it memories locked up on dusty shelves in the archives since your teenage years. The song lyrics cascade through your brain and you realise that this is the nursery rhyme. The voice is whistling one of your favourite teen songs. Terror trickles down your spine, the realisation that the voice knows you only triggers a freeze response. You are paralysed. Feet rooted to the ground as they seek out water underneath the emerald grass beneath your shoes.

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The fair had finished days ago and most of the rides were packed away in giant lorries ready to be shipped off elsewhere. From somewhere behind a caravan, a ride operator emptying cold coffee from one of the windows, I could hear the the mechanical movement of the waltzer - the hum of its cars, faint music from the Wurlitzer. They've kept that ride until last, I thought, but I couldn't see anything.

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Crunch of gravel, creak of gate. The leaves of the blackberry bush rustle. The rowan tree shakes. Footsteps. The clink of glass. Something stumbles across the tiny gravel stones. My fear is drunk tonight. It's back from a night on the town. A night my mother didn't want it to go on. I can hear her from my bedroom, calling a neighbour to ask if my fear is there, asleep on their sofa. But my fear has long since left, to stumble up our path, and scrape the stones under its feet, to swamp everyone and everything around it with the sound of its unwanted return.

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I step out for air. I feel like I can't breathe inside. I need some time for me. Space. I hear the distant and oddly comforting sound of a machine, keeping someone alive. I take some deep breaths. I try to gain back some control of my thoughts and my fears. But then I hear someone shouting my name. I turn to look. But there is noone. Again I hear my name. The grey haze surrounds me. I see you standing by the door I just left through. You do not want me to leave. The haze gets darker. Your voice is louder. It's a deep sinister controlling voice. You know that I will do everything you say. Your voice full of confidence in yourself and the power you hold over me. I want to run. Your footsteps getting louder and closer. I can't move. My feet are glued to the floor.

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It touches my face but the cold is not in my face, it's from my chest and radiates to every part of my body. It's cold fear not the hot anger I mistook it for

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It touches my face but the cold is not in my face, it's from my chest and radiates to every part of my body. It's cold fear not the hot anger I mistook it for

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No sign of the waltzer or any other ride, but still I could hear the whir of cars and from somewhere I heard a voice. Hop on board! Hurry up, love! It's about to start! I thought it was the man from the caravan, but the window was now shut and I couldn't see anyone, just little terrier dog who has sidled up to me and was now sniffing my shoe.

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it touches me as light touches me, as a glow, a warmth that seeps under the skin, it matches my body temperature, it is a part of me always, a liver of me, a heart of me, the dirt under my nails, the soft hair behind my ears, the scratch of my name, it touches me when i brush my hair or take a lash out of my eye, the fear need never touch me because it is me