The New House

Introducing Dr David Hammond

This is a short story from David’s early days, when he was still unused to the idea that the thoughts and images that flashed through his mind were not entirely his imagination. He was still working as an industrial chemist, a job he hated. It was a job he would one day give up to become a presenter on a new television programme, a job he would hate even more than being an industrial chemist, but at least it would set him up in the career that he would eventually enjoy.

For a while.

The New House

David parked the car in the same place as when they had visited this house eight months ago. That had been in February, a cold and damp day that would freeze to ice as soon as the low winter sun disappeared.

Pumpkins now stood outside the front door, and the windows were decorated with cobwebs, witches' hats, and more pumpkins. Many of the identical houses on this new estate had identical decorations. The ancient rituals of the season of death and decay being kept alive for the amusement of children.

The door of the car parked in front of them opened, and he recognised Gemma as she got out.

‘Why is she sitting in the car?’ David asked.

‘Maybe she just got home?’ Janet suggested.

They both opened their doors and left the warmth of their car for the bitter afternoon air.

‘Hi,’ David said, not getting close enough for any sort of greeting ritual.

‘Hello David, thanks for coming over.’ Gemma huddled into her hoodie.

Eight months earlier, Gemma had greeted them on the other side of the street in their new home. She and her husband had only lived there for two months. A tiny brand new house with a tiny brand new garden on a housing estate that had been spreading across farmland for years on the outskirts of Bristol.

It had become their hobby to visit supposedly haunted locations, but this was the first time David had been invited to visit somebody’s home. His job as an industrial chemist, with a fancy title that required his PhD rarely interested him these days, so he threw his energy into investigating the curious world of ghost stories and their histories. He was interested to see if there were any grains of truth to be found behind the often unbelievable stories?

This however was no story. This was somebody’s home, and so new that it had no history at all. He could not see how there could possibly be anything to find here, but it sounded interesting, and they had nothing better to do on a winter afternoon.

Gemma knew somebody who knew somebody who knew Janet, who had heard about their hobby, and David’s supposed ability to see and hear some of the things people call ghosts. And so they found themselves on this unfinished street, with little idea why, because David had asked to be told nothing about what he was supposed to find. One thing he had learned as he explored this new hobby, was that knowing what you were supposed to find took all the fun out of it. He pressed the doorbell, as new and as unused as the house.

‘Hi, I’m David,’ he said as Gemma opened the door, ‘and this is Janet.’

They were invited in, and as soon as David passed through the door he could tell this was not going to be a waste of time. He wouldn’t have noticed the children, not immediately anyway. He was still quite new to this and would just assume he could tell that there were children in the house, presumably Gemma’s children. Nor would he have noticed the man in the house, except he was not the same man who was now looking at him from the kitchen doorway. What he immediately noticed was the woman who undoubtedly lived in this house, and that woman was not Gemma.

Oh yes. There was definitely a story here.

Polite introductions were made, but David could tell Gemma’s husband, Tom, was far from enthusiastic about their visit. He offered a polite handshake, but then took no part in what followed. David also saw no evidence of children anywhere.

‘Did you write down everything you can remember?’ David asked.

‘I don’t have to remember,’ Gemma picked up a notepad. ‘I see them almost every day.’

‘Please, don’t tell me anything, not yet.’ David looked away, as if even seeing Gemma’s notepad from a distance would reveal what she had jotted down. ‘If it’s okay with you, I will just sit somewhere and describe what I see to Janet, and it would be better if you were in another room so I can’t see your reactions to what I say.’

David could sense Tom shifting uneasily. His body language was clear. Their visitor was a fraud, a charlatan, and he couldn’t wait to tell his wife that as soon as this farce was over with and they had gone.

After the ritual of providing their visitors with coffee had been performed, David and Janet were left alone in the kitchen dining room while Gemma and her doubtful husband sought temporary refuge in the living room. Janet set the digital recorder running, the newest toy in their growing collection of ‘investigation tools’, then she jotted down every detail as David described what he could see. On this occasion, it was just seeing. There were no words or thoughts, just visions of a very ordinary family; mother, father, and two daughters, but it was a very ordinary family that was not supposed to be in this house.

When David was sure there was nothing more he should see, he went to find Gemma. ‘Before we compare notes, could you just check you have written down everything you can about hair and skin colour please?’

‘Oh, okay.’ Gemma picked up her notepad. ‘I think I already have, but I will check.’

‘And shoes as well, please?’

‘Shoes?’ Gemma looked puzzled.

‘Yes, just shoes, hair, and skin colour, and obviously a rough idea of build, ages, anything unusual, but I am sure you will have all that written down already.’

David returned to the table where Janet was still busy summarising David's jumbled thoughts into descriptions of the four people he had seen.

‘Should I come in?’ Gemma asked, clutching her notepad as if nervous about what it might contain.

‘Yes please, we’re all finished.’ It was the first time David felt there was something not right about giving someone permission to enter a room in their own home, a feeling he would never lose when he would later make a career out of this strange hobby.

‘What happens now then?’ Gemma asked as David indicated she had his permission to sit at her own table.

‘I will describe what I have seen, then we can compare notes with what you have seen. And that is something else I need to ask. Have you ever heard sounds or what you might call thoughts that have anything to do with this?’

‘No, just these images, visions, whatever you want to call them, like I am seeing them moving around in the house.’

‘And how would you describe them? Like ghosts? Sort of see-through?’

‘No, nothing like that. It’s like they are real people, actually here in the room with me, and then suddenly they are gone again.’

‘Good.’ David stared blankly ahead for a moment while he thought about what to say next.

Gemma did not look as if she thought it was good. She looked like she thought it was distinctly not good.

‘Sometimes you get words, but not like somebody speaking,’ David explained. ‘It’s more like you are able to read somebody’s thoughts, but I haven’t found any of that here.’

If Gemma was supposed to look relieved upon hearing that news, she didn’t show it. ‘Why did you ask about their shoes?’

David felt the conversation slipping out of his control. He would have to reel it back in. ‘We’re getting ahead of ourselves here.’

‘Sorry.’ Gemma sat back and avoided looking David in the eye, a submissive gesture according to the book on psychology that he was currently reading.

‘That’s okay. Why do you think I asked about shoes?’

‘I don’t know.’ Gemma looked uncomfortable, as if it were a trick question, which in a way, it was. ‘I never see them wearing shoes. They are always in bare feet or wearing socks.’

David reached across the table for Janet’s pad and opened it, flicking through to find the right page. ‘That’s why I asked.’ He pointed to Janet’s note which said they were always seen in bare feet or wearing socks.

Gemma’s face transformed as she read those few words. ‘So you definitely see them too?’ A smile brightened her eyes as she spoke.

‘As I said, we were getting a bit ahead of ourselves, so firstly, let’s talk about who we are dealing with here. I see a very ordinary and up-to-date family of mother, father, and two daughters. Would you agree?’

Now Gemma could hardly contain her delight as David spoke. ‘That’s exactly who I see.’ She even clapped her hands together, relieved to have somebody confirm that what she was seeing was not just her own madness.

‘Now you see why I asked you to leave the room while I described what I can see here. I can tell from your reaction when I say the right things, and that is what fake mediums feed on. They can read the tiniest signs that give away your thoughts, and from that they work out the right things to say to build a convincing performance.’

‘How do we know you’re not faking this?’ Tom was leaning against the sink, distancing himself from the proceedings.

‘You don’t.’ David picked up the digital recorder. ‘We will let you listen to this recording before we go, which details everything I have said, and it is still recording as you can see, so you know it is not something prepared. And you can look through these notes.’ He tapped Janet’s notebook.

‘Okay.’ Tom still didn’t look convinced. ‘Sorry if that seemed rude.’

‘No, not at all,’ David said. ‘Feel free to question anything you like as we go along.’

It took no more than ten minutes for David to describe the family, the two girls with their distinctive red hair, glowing ginger and curled in a way that looked almost crimped. They had the unusually pale skin that is often found with such strong coloured hair, unlike both parents, who looked tanned. Their hair colour must come from their father, although that was a guess because he had a shaved head to hide his baldness. Their mother had almost black hair and olive coloured skin that suggested Mediterranean ancestry. Both David and Gemma agreed that despite appearances, these were the natural parents of the girls, although neither could say why they knew that.

David quickly skipped over details of the clothing he had seen them wearing. It was meaningless, because they were seen in so many different clothes, but there were some that both David and Gemma had noted down, such as the Snoopy nightdresses that both girls often wore, and the father’s favourite tee shirts.

When David had finished and there were no more details to compare, he stopped the recording. ‘I can probably send you a copy of this if I work out how to use the thing.’

‘Let me see.’ Tom reached across for the recorder, examined it, and within a few minutes he had found the right cable to connect it to his laptop and had copied the correct file over.

‘The only thing left to ask is who these people might be,’ David said while Tom busied himself with the recorder. ‘The only logical explanation is that they must be people you know.’

Both Gemma and Tom agreed they had no idea who these people could be, and the identity of this family would have to remain a mystery despite their best efforts to make any sort of connection.

After apologising that there was nothing he could do to stop Gemma from seeing these people in her house, it was time to leave. Gemma seemed grateful that at least she was not going mad, and somebody else could confirm those people were really there, even if they were not. At least she wasn’t the only one who could see these people going about their everyday lives in her house.

It was David’s first study of what appeared to be a haunted house, and his mind kept returning to the question of who those people could be, and why they would be seen in a brand new house? Even many months later, some thought or other would return his mind to the bizarre sighting of what was obviously a real family, but somehow in the wrong house.

When David received a phone call from Gemma on a dark October night, his memory quickly recalled what he had seen eight months earlier. He assumed there must have been some sort of development, but Gemma sounded tired, depressed, and in no mood to elaborate. It was arranged that they would call round on the following Saturday morning, but nothing more was said.

‘Is everything alright?’ David asked as he locked the car, already suspecting that it wasn’t.

Gemma made no move towards the house, as if reluctant to go there. ‘Well, it is now. We moved out two weeks ago.’

Now, something that had been scratching at the back of David’s mind started to make sense. He knew Gemma and Tom had no children, and they did not seem the type of people who would cover their tidy house in Halloween tat.

‘Was it…’ David didn’t know how to put into words what he was thinking, not diplomatically anyway. ‘Was it the visions you saw that made you leave?’

‘Honestly, I couldn’t stand another day of it.’ Gemma shrugged even deeper into her hoodie, as if she might find comfort there. ‘It was all the time. Every bloody day. I thought I was going mad. Tom wasn’t happy. He couldn’t see what the problem was because he couldn’t see…’ She shivered, a nervous shiver that went right through her. ‘He couldn’t see… them.’ Her eyes flickered towards the house.

‘Okay, so why have you asked us to come here?’

‘I’m just collecting any post that has arrived. The new owners called to say there was some to pick up.’

That did not answer David’s question. She clearly wanted David to have another look at the house, even if she did not explain why, so he just went with the flow. He followed her across the road as she walked to the front door and rang the doorbell. Janet tagged along behind with no idea of what was going on either.

The door opened, and the smiling new owner held the door open. ‘Hi Gemma. Come on in,’ she said cheerfully. The smiling new owner who had black hair and olive coloured skin. The smiling new owner whom both Gemma and David had seen before, now noticed David and Janet. She kept up the smile, but her eyes were now full of questions.

‘Hi Cara. This is David,’ Gemma explained, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to come and collect her post with two strangers in tow. ‘He’s working on a history project with me, and I thought it would help if he saw where we used to live. And this is Janet.’ She indicated where Janet was standing, just in case Cara, who now looked more than a little suspicious, hadn’t noticed her standing there.

‘Hope you don’t mind,’ Gemma added, as some sort of apology for the situation.

‘No, of course not,’ Cara said, looking very much like she did mind.

A man appeared in the kitchen doorway, drying something hidden within a tea towel. A man with a tanned face and a shaved head. There was a flurry of noise, and two girls appeared next to him, both with long red hair that looked almost crimped, both wearing Snoopy nightdresses. Their cheerful faces were alive with curiosity as their visitors entered the house.

‘How are you settling in?’ Gemma asked as she walked in, her eyes taking in anything that had changed.

‘We love it,’ Cara said. ‘It may sound silly, but it feels like we were always meant to live here. Oh, Before we forget, here’s your post.’ Still smiling, she reached behind the door for a bundle of envelopes.

David allowed Janet to go through ahead of him, then as he stepped through the door he sensed the presences in the house again. He heard nothing of the conversation around him as he closed the front door, then followed the others to the kitchen. As he grew accustomed to the house as he had seen it before, he saw that some aspects of it had changed. He tried to focus on the father of the two children first, but he was distracted, because these were not the same children.

A boy and a girl, much younger, and clearly not happy. They were squabbling about something, then the father seemed to be shouting at them, but David heard no sounds. Then he saw the father properly, with dark hair, and a pale face that spoke of long days spent in an office. He was dressed with a white shirt, dark suit trousers, and he was pulling on a tie while trying to separate two fighting children.

David’s attention returned to the kitchen as he realised he was being spoken to.

‘Are you alright David?’ Cara was asking.

David realised he must have been staring blankly towards the ceiling for some time, towards the bedroom upstairs where a small boy and girl were arguing over something while their father tried to get ready for work.

‘Sorry, I was miles away.’

‘He’ll be thinking about work,’ Janet said quickly, trying to act as if this was something perfectly normal.

‘What do you do?’ Cara asked while filling the kettle.

David was thrown off balance for a moment. What was he supposed to say? I’m a ghost hunter, and did you realise your house is properly weird? ‘I’m an industrial chemist,’ he said, going for the normal option. ‘It’s as dull as it sounds.’

‘I know nothing about chemistry,’ Cara said. ‘Sciences weren’t my thing at school.’

‘What were you saying, Graham?’ Janet asked Cara’s husband, who was apparently called Graham. David must have been out of it all through the introductions.

‘As I said, it’s probably nothing.’ Graham obviously didn’t want to say any more about whatever it had been.

‘No, it sounds interesting,’ Janet insisted.

‘He thinks he keeps seeing people in the house,’ Cara explained, in a manner that left no doubt that her husband must be imagining the whole thing. ‘We call them Daddy’s ghosts.’

‘I see them too,’ the younger of the two girls said quickly, not wanting to be left out.

‘Alright Christina. No need for you to join in too.’

‘But I do, Mummy. A boy and a girl, and they are always arguing.’

---

Other David Hammond stories on Substack:

Selected Memories

Last Orders at the Bar

Emma’s Secret

You can read about the full collection at www.nigelcode.co.uk where you will find my research project, and my thoughts about why not everything that is claimed to be paranormal is nonsense.

If you are not already subscribed to my occasional thoughts on here, you may wish to do so. It’s free.

Thank you for reading.