Haunted Lane

“You have not heard about it, Mister?”, the hawker asked me, quite surprised. 

“No one passes that lane. It is believed to be visited every night by the spirit of the cat. You’ll find no person there.”

The story was definitely new to me last week while I stood with the can of coke in my hand which I had just bought, and listened to the man in front of me.

“The cat was a pet to a man who lived there”, the man continued. “Crawforth, that was his name. He lived alone with his cat. The two went to take a stroll one evening but the man never returned. Later that night, his dead body was discovered lying on the farther end of that lane by the guard. There was blood on his shirt. No sign of the cat. No clue to how he died that night. After a week or so from his death, the cat was seen pacing the lane at night. The man who saw her went nearer but she disappeared. That’s what he said, and soon, many others were saying it. They all said that the cat was pacing from the right end to the left of the lane, staring straight towards them without a single sound. People started being afraid to go there at night. They stopped.”

He attended to a customer who arrived seconds ago, before continuing,

“Years later, when the houses on the lane were being demolished, the cat was seen again by a worker off-shift. He was scared to death when he got to know all about it. She paces that lane every night since her master’s death.”

The man sounded serious while speaking. His tone made me a little uncomfortable, but I don’t really believe in ghosts. Nonetheless, I found it intriguing. I opened my can of coke and took a long sip, as if to wash the story out of my brain, and started walking towards my new rooms around the corner of the road. 

I moved into this residency last week, just two days before the incident I stated which made me acquainted with a little history of this place. The place is not overpopulated, not too buzzing and quite pleasant to live in. Patently, I was unfamiliar with any object of locality. But the curious tale which I heard that day was nothing I had expected to become familiar with. I have heard rumours like this before and they were all just that, “rumours”. So today, I decided to take a look at the lane myself and maybe take a few steps along it. Mostly, I wanted to locate the house. I was driven by my curiosity, but when I reached there, the place was completely deserted. It did not appear eerily haunted, rather secluded. It was lit by the sun and there were streetlights standing, whether they worked or not was another question. The demolished house was visible from where I stood, some fifteen yards away. Three houses once stood on that lane, all a ramshackle pile now. I believe the farthest one to be where Mr. Crawforth had lived. 

There was no other thing to see as I perceived it, so I retraced my steps. My landlady, Mrs. Stevesson, I saw upon entering the house, had prepared a grand lunch. I smiled as I looked at dishes on the table, but mostly, I think I was relieved to be indoors in the scorching June heat. She saw me and asked me to hurry up so that I might enjoy the food while it’s still hot. It made me realise that I hadn’t really eaten anything from the morning.

“This is all very thoughtful, Mrs. Stevesson”, I said. 

I sat down to enjoy the meal that she, so laboriously, had prepared. She is a wonderful lady. She was humbling from the day I met her to talk about my tenancy. I have switched many houses over the years and met a number of landlords and landladies, most of whom wore an expression of sternness and uncouth. But Mrs. Stevesson was always welcoming. Through her, I have managed to know quite a many people living here within a short period of time. She also introduced the plumber and carpenter to me. The plumber was nice but the carpenter did not look happy to see me. I broke the collar off my cupboard and he came yesterday to fix it. While he was working, he suddenly asked, 

“Who told you about this place?”

“No one in particular. I was looking about for affordable options when this place came to my knowledge,” I said. 

“Do you know anyone here?”

“No. Why do you ask that?”

“Ah, nothing. I would not consider this an ideal place for staying.”

“Well, I’ll figure it out, I suppose.” 

He gave no reaction to that, did not even look up. He collected his things, got up and left. The collar was fixed.

I was awakened in the middle of the night. I could not fully understand what had caused me to wake up. I reached for my phone, it was 2 am. In the silence, I sat there. Then it came again, the sound of creaking floorboards. The same sound had caused me to wake up, but it is more prominent now that I am awake. It was no big deal. The flooring creaks in this house, Mrs. Stevesson must have woken up. I pulled over my sheets and fell flat on the bed again. I had not fallen asleep when another sound came. But it was different, a louder, more metallic sound. It was the sound of the grill door opening. 

I jumped up on my bed. Could it be a burglar? Whatever it was, my instinct was to go interrogate and that is what I did. I slipped off my bed to hurry outside, discreet in my movements so as to not cause any sound. Outside, I saw a figure walking away from the gate. I came out of it and looked carefully at the walking figure. It was a woman. I still had not moved when she turned around, and I saw my landlady. Luckily, she had not seen me, I stood under the tree guarding the house whose shadow covered me. She continued walking forward. I followed her in the moonlight, clueless of where she was going or why at this hour. Perhaps, only to answer my latter question I followed her. She took a turn ahead and a turn again, into the poorly lit streets. She was walking in calm composure, so passive it seemed to me that she might be gliding. She neither looked here or there, her head always pointed ahead of her. I should not have followed her but I kept going, something telling me to go behind her. I wanted to stop after a certain time, but I could not go back to the house, the thought was forbidden. The street we walked upon was only inhabited by us, there was no house to our sides. Only big trees, spreading their untrimmed branches, hovered upon me, like shadows. I was not sure what street I was walking on. 

I was sweating. It was June, but it was not hot. The street was narrow. It was becoming hard to keep her in sight. She was swift. It was familiar to her. I thought, maybe it is familiar to me. But I could not tell what place it was. I tried to keep up, but finally, she was gone. I looked around myself, she was nowhere. There was no place to hide. It was the end of the street. I stared, realising it was the lane I had visited earlier that day. 

Creek.

I turned and straight ahead was a slender black cat staring back at me, while pacing the lane from one side to the other.