The Nags Head one. A grave Tale

Some years ago i undertook a six week, creative writers course for beginners. After the third evening the lecturer asked us, as homework, to set a character, in a town or city and try to bring the place alive. Also we were requested to add some sort of scary element. This is the context of how this one thousand word story evolved.

The Nags Head Pub

Tommy Johnson stood at the bar of the Nags Head pub admiring his reflection in the bar room mirror. His thick black hair was parted at the centre and swept back, allowing it to cascade down onto his nineteen year old shoulders, giving every eligible female an unobstructed view of his Adonis like features. The fact that no one else in the world shared these sentiments hadn’t occurred to him, undaunted he slammed his empty pint glass down on the bar and made an announcement to the assembled crowd.

“Now listen here a minute you lot, not only am I going to win the ten pounds bet that you’ve generously clubbed together to provide, but on my triumphant return, I shall dance along the bar naked whilst emptying a bottle of the house’s finest whisky.”

After the cacophony of cat calls and abuse that followed had finally subsided, Mick Coombs made his way over to the bar, threw Tommy his trench coat and said;

“Come on Noddy, we tossed up to see who’d act as your witness and I lost.”

Together they made their way out of the crowded bar and headed up Pearson Street towards the town centre.

‘Why didn’t I keep my big trap shut,’ thought Tommy. Then I could have been enjoying an after hours drink sat around a cosy fire bollocking Brown Ale down my throat, instead of trying to act the big tough hero.’

The staccato sounds of their steel tipped boots, was in stark contrast to the silence of the near deserted back streets, where most of the inhabitants were tucked up in warm beds. They reached the top of the hill and entered the town’s main street. The relative quiet was abruptly disturbed by a noisy crowd spilling out of the local cinema, where ‘Zulu’ was in its second week. As the cinema doors closed the chip shop doors across the road opened, swallowing up some of the crowd, thus extending the duration of their Saturday night celebrations.

The rich smell of roast chestnuts drew them into the town square, with the red hot coals of old Jack Rowley’s fire, a welcome aid to help ward off the numbing cold.

“So what are you two young ones doing at this hour of the night?” Inquired Jack. “Up to no good I’ll bet.

“We’ve got to see a man about a dog.” Replied Mick, as they continued on their journey. The swirling wind that had sent old chip papers flapping about the square suddenly died and soft white snow flakes came tumbling out of the sky, transforming the dilapidated buildings and covering the grime that one hundred years of the industrial revolution had progressively caked on.

Tommy’s heart began to race as St Joseph’s church loomed up ahead. Mick wasn’t helping matters either by saying. “Anyway, the story goes that some time in the last century some lousy so-and-so dragged Emily Dench into the graveyard and bludgeoned her to death with a rusty cudgel. Although no one was ever charged, some people reckon it had all the hallmarks of Jack The Ripper.”

“What would you know about local history anyway, blockhead?” Snapped Tommy.

“Plenty if you must know, pin-head. Especially the fact that her ghost’s been seen on many a cold night wandering around the graveyard.”

“Well thanks very much for that information Mick, it’s just what I need to know at the moment” said Tommy as they passed by the Churchyard gates.

“That’s why the asylum’s had to put on extra staff Tommy, because half the town’s gone bonkers and if you offered me a”

“Ok, Ok, Mick, that’s enough from you, now wrap up and listen. I’ve gone past the main gates as the caretaker’s house is right opposite, so give me a bunk up on the side wall here.”

Mick locked hands and braced himself as he hoisted Tommy up.

“Now Tommy, you know what you have to do, don’t you?”

“Of course I do. You’ve spent the last three nights drilling it in to me. I know it back to front and inside out.”

Tommy paused on the stone wall, with the fear of failure and the obvious repercussions back at the pub delicately balanced against the task ahead.

Mick’s cries of, “go on then, get on with it you dummy,” tipped the scales and he jumped down off the wall, landing with a thud on the snow-covered grass below.

He crept forward; the crunching sound under foot magnified ten fold as he weaved his way through the head stones. He passed under the infamous Oak tree; it’s gnarled and twisted branches casting a gloomy pall over the snow-covered graves. He finally reached Emily Dench’s tomb in the far corner of the graveyard, her broken headstone straddling the grave. As instructed Tommy grasped the headstone and as the church clock struck midnight he slid it to one side and stared down into the dank soil below.

As his eyes began to focus in the dim light, the look of astonishment, which had spread across his face, was suddenly replaced by one of sheer terror. An explosive cocktail of adrenaline and fear erupted in the pit of his stomach and surged up through every sinew, transforming itself into a scream powerful enough to wake the living dead.

In more normal circumstances he would have noticed the four recently manufactured house bricks, which had helped prop up the broken headstone. Also, the row of heads peering over the north wall, for unbeknownst to him his mates had paid the graveyard an earlier visit, depositing in the grave a blood stained, horror encrusted head. But in Tommy’s confused state, this could only belong to one, Emily Dench.

It’s a wonder he didn’t died of shock there and then, instead of thirty seconds later as he belted out of the churchyard gates into the path of an on coming lorry.

The death certificate read ‘accidental death’ but his mates knew better, although the truth of the matter never went beyond the walls of the Nags Head pub.

If you enjoyed this, you may like to read The Nags Head two.