Ron closed his eyes. The dizzying spin spiralled him higher. Opening his eyes again he saw the oak tree’s big branch whizzing by his head. The upstairs window came closer. Ron covered his face with both hands. He knew there was no avoiding a collision. With a crash he sailed through it, glass flying everywhere.
He didn’t know how long he had lain on the floor of the bedroom: seconds, minutes? He touched his face, looked down on his hands. The glass should have cut him, he should be bleeding. Like a miracle, he couldn’t find anything wrong. A bit shaky, Ron got to his feet. Emily’s bedroom. Except for the bedding nothing had been disturbed since her death five years ago. Again he remembered how she had died, how he had filled her last glass of milk with a cocktail of painkillers and sleeping pills. The suicide note, which he had drafted, had convinced everyone.
The last five years had finally been peaceful for Ron without Emily’s nagging, complaining and demanding voice in the background. So, what strange power had thrown him into her bedroom? Then Ron remembered: Today was the anniversary of Emily’s death. Was her ghost coming back to haunt him? Why did she wait five years? Ah, Ron thought, judging her character, she wanted to lull him into complacency.
Enough of this, he told himself. He turned the doorknob. It didn’t move. “Darn, I kept it locked all these years,” Ron grumbled. The door was too heavy to break down.
The window was the only way out. Imagining what could be out there sent a shiver down his spine. What other choice did he have? Ron wrapped his hand in an old towel he found under the bed and broke the remaining glass slivers out of the window frame. He looked out. Good, the oak tree’s branch was close enough to get a hold of and to inch himself along. From there he could climb down, as long as the wind wasn’t going to throw him around again. Ron hoisted himself onto the windowsill. Breathing hard from the effort he finally found himself sitting on a sturdy branch. He searched for a good foothold to get down. So far all was quiet.
As he looked up at the bedroom window he saw something swirling like smoke, grey, filmy, changing into . . .a face? Ron held his breath. The face moved, the eyes smiled, strands looking like hair floated around the apparition. Emily? But she had been dead for five years. Then Ron noticed a hand with a finger wagging at him. He heard a sound, at first like a whisper, then louder, turning into a hollow laughter.
By this time Ron had scrambled some ways down the oak tree when something – or someone – shook him hard. The face appeared above him and two hands were grabbing for him. He screamed and dug his fingernails into the tree’s bark to hold on. A violent blast of wind made him slip. He felt his fingernails give way. He heard a crack and saw the pointed end of the oak tree’s branch breaking and rocketing towards him.
When neighbours found him the next morning, they stared and wondered aloud, “We thought, only Vampires were killed this way, with a wooden stake through their hearts.”
