GRAVEYARD TALES - S1/E2 - THE HAUNTING OF FRANKIE'S DAD

It was exactly one year after our first spooky encounter that the second one happened. Our mate Frankie's dad had been ill with cancer for quite a while. Docters were always telling him that he could get better if he just got the treatment. Frankie's dad refused to pay out millions for treatment, preferring to wait until it was free on the NHS. Well, of course it never came free, and one morning, Frankie took in a cup of coffee for his father, only to find he'd died in his sleep.
My twin brother Sean, Our good friend Charlotte and I all attended the funeral. Afterwards, we all traipsed back to Frankie's house for the wake and the reading of Frankie's dad's will.
In the will, his dad had left him the house and what was left of the savings in the bank. The lawyer who was reading the will informed Frankie that this was at least four grand, which seemed like a reasonable amount of money to Frankie.
After the lawyer had left, Sean, Charlotte and I stayed at the house, Frankie felt he needed his mates round him at this time.
"So, does this mean you're staying round here then, Frankie?" Sean asked.
Frankie, Charlotte and I knew what he was talking about. Frankie had told us that one day, he was going to leave this dump of a town and look for a better place.
"No," he answered. "I've decided that I'm going to sell up and still go and look for a better place than this dump."
"But Frankie," Charlotte protested. "What about us three? You need us."
"No, Charlotte, I do not. I've decided that it would be better if I was on my own from now on."
We all heaved a heavy sigh. We'd heard this one before as well. Frankie had told us once or twice that there were certain things he wanted to do, certain things he wanted to try, but we three were forever holding him back, and that one day, he was just going to pack and leave on his own.
There was a sort of tense moment between us. I tried to relieve the situation by saying: "I'm going to make a cup of tea. Who wants one?"
The other three mumbled yes.
I went into the kitchen and picked up the kettle. It was a yellow jug-like thing, easy to just pick up out of it's cradle and hold under the tap. I carried it to the sink, and turned the blue tap on the right anti-clockwise. But the tap seemed to be stuck! No matter how hard I tried to twist it, it wouldn't budge. I tried the red tap on the left, but that too, was stuck.
"Frankie!" I called out. "Frankie! Your taps don't seem to be working."
Frankie came running in, followed by Charlotte and my brother. They all, in turn, tried to budge the taps, but they wouldn't work for them either.
"Oh, Dean, what have you done?" Asked Sean. "You're such a klutz."
"It wasn't me," I retorted. "Why do I always get the blame?"
"Oh, well, we'll just have to leave the tea for now," said Frankie. He wandered over to the fridge and took out three cans of beer. He chucked two of them at me and Dean.
"There's a bottle of wine in the cupboard," Frankie told Charlotte.
"Urgh, I hate wine!" She declared. "I now I may be a girl, but give us a beer, eh, Frankie?"
Frankie sighed, then very reluctantly took out another can of beer and passed it to Charlotte.
Before he opened his, Frankie held it up to the ceiling. "Here's to my father," he announced. "And the good life he once had." Then he pulled back the ring on the can. Immediately, a sort of brown foamy stuff came spurting out all over Frankie. In a matter of seconds, Frankie was dripping from head to toe.
Sean, Charloote and I pulled back the rings on our cans. The same thing happened to us! All four of us were dripping from head to toe in brown, foamy stuff. It seemed like someoner had skaken up the cans and put them back in the fridge to wait for us to open them.
Frankie seemed to be thinking along the same lines, because he stared accusingly at the rest of us. "Who's shaken these up?" He asked.
Sean and Charlotte shook their heads, and I answered, "not me."
Frankie looked as he was about to say something else but thought better of it. He turned and strode out of the kitchen. The rest of us followed him back into the living-room, ewhere the fire was turned and giving off a glorious heat.
Frankie stared at the fire for a few seconds, then turned to us.
"Did any of you turn that fire on?" He inquired.
Again, my brother and Charlotte shook their heads no, and I answered, "no."
"I thought you'd turned it on," Sean said.
"No, it was off when we went into the kitchen, after Dean broke the taps."
"I didn't break the taps!" I retorted.
"Oh, sure, and you didn't shake up the cans so they'd foam all over us?"
"No," I protested. "I may play practical jokes, but I wouldn't do anything that stupid."
"Leave it, Frankie," Charlotte ordered, as Frankie opened his mouth to say something else. He took heed and decided to walk over to his video cabinet instead. On the top shelf, there was a photo of Frankie in the garden with his dad. It was taken a couple of summers ago. Frankie and his dad had been helping each other build the summerhouse, and they had taken a break when Sean and I had come over to visit. It was taken just before the cancer had really kicked in, when Frankie's dad was still fit and healthy. In the photo, Frankie was beaming up at his dad, a sure sign that he had loved him.
"Ow!" He yelled out now, dropping the photo. The silver frame it was concealed in smashed into a thousand pieces.
"What's wrong?" Charlotte asked.
"I don't know, it just suddenly felt as if something or someone had dug their fingers into my hand!"
I looked down at the floor at the now dead photo frame. Then I looked again. It wasn't just the photo that had fluttered from the frame. I noticed a second piece of paper. I bent down to pick it up, and looked at it.
"Hey, what is that?" Frankie asked. "Read it out, Dean."
"It looks like a legal document," I handed it over to Frankie.
He read it. "It's the second part of the will," he said.
"I didn't know there was a second part of the will," Sean said. "What doers it say, Frankie?"
"It says that this house was inherited to my father to my father from his father. It's been in the family for years. It's also this contract thingy saying I can't sell the house."
He looked at all of us. "Well, I know what I've got to do," he said. He went over to the chest of drawers that the TV was standing on, opened the top drawer and took out a lighter. It was a hand-crafted job. One that Frankie's dad had made himself, and he'd treasured it. I remember one time, Sean and I were looking at it, and he'd hovered in the background, wringing his hands and telling us to be careful.
Frankie held the contract up to the ceiling; flicked the switch on the lighter.
"What are you going to do, Frankie?" Sean asked.
"I'm going to burn this contract. Then that way, I can pretend it doesn't, or never has existed. Then I can carry on, and sell this house and get the Hell out of here!"
But a strange thing happened. The little blue flame was flickering straight up. Then, suddenly, It flickered to the right, as if something or someone had blown it lightly, burning Frankie's hand in the process.
"Aah!" He screazmed. "I'm on fire!"
Charlotte raced to the kitchen. I heard the rush of water and thought it lucky that the taps had decided to work now. Chalotte came back with a glass brimming of water, and tipped it on Frankie's hand.
"Thanks, Charlie," he said, gratefully.
I breathed a sigh of relief. Normally, Frankie hates it when we tip water on him, but calling Charlotte 'Charlie' was an obvious sign he was happy with her for saving his life.
"No problem," she said, setting the glass down.
Frankie picked up the lighter where he'd dropped it to the ground, and started trying to make the flame flicker again.
"Oh, Frankie, don't," my brother said.
"I've got to Sean. If anyone finds this contract, I'm never going to be able to sell this house."
"Look, Frankie, I don't mean to be a wet blanket," I sdaid. "But I don't think your father wants you to sell this house."
Frankie laughed. "How would he know? He's dead!"
"I don't know," I answered. "But all that stuff in the kitchen. The taps not turning on, the cans being shaken. And then there was the fire turbning itself on. And you getting burnt."
"What are you getting at?"
"Well, I don't mean to freak you out, but just before you got burnt, it looked like the flame had been blown towards your hand."
"But nobody did it!"
"Exactly. I think somehow your father's here in spirit, to make sure you don't sell the house."
We never did find out if that was exactly the case, but Frankie decided to keep the contract rather than get rid of it. He showed it to his lawyer the next day, who told him that strangely enough, she'd had a dream the night before, where his father had visited her and told her there was a hidden contract in the house, and that his son had found it, and would bring it to her tomorrow. She had looked at the contract and found it legally binding, and to this day, Frankie is still knocking about the house. On his own. Sometimes, he says, he swears that he can hear floorboards creaking at night. He also swears that this may be his father, keeping an eye on him...

Look out for the next episode - Episode Three, The Walk In The Woods - sometime in the near future...