'All houses are haunted. All persons are haunted. Throngs of spirits follow us everywhere. We are never alone'. – Barney Sarecky

What frightens you? Is there something in particular that scares you more than anything else? Perhaps it may be something along the lines of coming across a swarm of insects of the likes we would call creepy crawlies that may unnerve you, or maybe it is spiders, horrid eight-legged creatures however big or small they may be. Maybe the sight of a rodent whether that be just a field mouse or something more along the lines of a sewer rat, numerous sewer rats rummaging through rubbish that would have you running away screaming?

How about things that go bump in the night? Do you believe in such things? Maybe you are a skeptic, someone who does not believe in the supernatural or paranormal, if so, do you ever have moments where you question yourself as to the what if's? What if what you thought you have just seen out of the corner of your eye is something that cannot be easily explained as being a moment of tiredness, or a moment of letting your mind wander?

What if there really is something strange or weird nearby? And what if that something strange or weird is not at all friendly? What if that something close by at one time or another was something friendly, but has now returned as something else ... to seek vengeance and you just so happen to be unlucky enough to be in its way?

Maybe you are one of those people who, while being home alone, hears a strange noise or hears the sound of movement either upstairs or off in some other room, when you know you should be alone, only to get up to go after it and investigate? I am sure that at some time or another, you have watched a movie whereby someone has done just that, gone to investigate a noise, while you watch the movie are wondering as to why they are doing so ... knowing full well of what they are about to walk into.

What are your thoughts on luck? Are you a lucky person? Do you think that luck is something that evens itself out throughout a lifewtime? That you get as much good luck as you do bad luck over the course of your entire life? Or do you think you make your own luck? Or are you more one way than the other either being really lucky or unlucky?

If you are mostly one way or the other in this life as in being either lucky or unlucky, do you think that this may be compensated for in the next life?

Two boys in their mid-teens walk together down a street. It is early evening, and darkness has begun to take over the sky. About one in every four or so streetlamps have come on, the rest surely will follow before too long. Most of the housing on this street has turned on some sort of lighting too, but not all have, the stand out of which is the house at the very end of the street and this is the part of the street the boys need to get to – for there is a laneway between the second last and the last house which will take them to where the need to go a lot quicker than taking the long way round.

Yeah, an evening sky is settling in, so it is best they do not dally in getting themselves home. That house at the end is always dark, even in pure daylight it is dark, but in the here and now there is something extra ominous about it. They approach that laneway and one of the boys stops. The other soon does too having move on a couple of feet or so.

'Hey, what ya doin, c'mon, will ya?'

'What's wrong with you? Ya scared or sumtin?'

'We don't have time to mess around, have to get home ...'

'I'm right, aren't I? You're scared ... that's alright though, we are right by the only haunted house in town ...'

'Stop it Joe, c'mon, let's go ...'

'Ya know, my dad told me that no one has lived in there the whole time I've been alive ...'

'I'll go on home without you then ...'

'Don't be such a wuss ...'

There usually is a light about halfway down that laneway and it always comes on when it gets anyway dark, and Patrick has already taken notice of the fact that is not on at this point in time. Patrick moves back and up alongside Joe to grab one of his arms and hopefully coax him into going home. Just as he does this, it starts to rain. It is only a light rain but rain, nonetheless.

'C'mon ya eejit ...'

As he does this, Patrick briefly looks towards that house then takes a step away but stops himself almost immediately to take a little longer of a look at that house.

'What's wrong with you now?' Joe asks for it seems that Patrick has become frozen to the spot with which he stands.

'T-t – tha ...'

'You what?'

'There is someone in there ...'

'Ah yeah, try to turn the scare back on me, nice effort ...'

'No, no ... I'm being serious ... I saw someone in the window.'

'Well then, I guess we're just gonna have to go in and find out, won't we?'

'No Joe ... don't.'

Too late, Joe is already on his way to the front door of the house. The falling rain has darkened the sky all the more, and Patrick doesn't like this, any of this. Joe pushes open that door, it had not been locked, and he disappears inside.

'Ah hell ...' Patrick says to himself and it more than seems to be getting darker here by the second ...

1.

Early evening on Friday the 15th of October 1993 and the Castletown charity rally road race is nearing a conclusion. This is the fifteenth successive incarnation of the yearly event. With weather conditions worsening rapidly, race leader Quinton Taylor radios his team.

'Visibility is not great. The rain is seriously coming down and it is only getting worse.'

'Not far to the finish line so we should see this race out. Hang in there. The gap to second place is just under thirty seconds so you have room to manoeuvre but not enough to get complacent.'

A loud clapping boom hits out in the darkening sky, a sky which seemed to get so much darker all of a sudden.

'Did you hear that? There is some thunder out this evening.'

A flash of lightning strikes, briefly lighting up the sky and it makes Quinton swerve slightly. He does well to keep from having an accident considering the speed he is travelling at. It also soon becomes apparent that the lightning or the storm in general is interfering with his radio. He no longer has contact of any sort with his team.

'What the hell?' Quinton speaks out loud. This would be a thought or statement which would come at least twice more in quick succession for him.

In his inside rear-view mirror, Quinton for a split second is sure he can see a young woman sitting in the back seat of the vehicle. She looked like death itself, seemingly consisting only in colours of black and grey. He turns quickly to find that there is no one there at all. This was the second of three times where he would speak a 'what the hell?' out loud.

He slows his speed but not by much. At this moment he notices that there are two playing cards lying face down on the passenger seat, next to him. Quinton did not put them there and they were not there just moments earlier either.

'What the hell?' speaks Quinton for that third and final time.

He reaches for the cards and turns them, right before he crashes full on into a red brick wall. He had not been aware that he had been so close to any wall of any sort. It stood tall and wide, and Quinton only saw it in the split second before he hit it. If anything, his vehicle had turned slightly to go off road. Steering had not drifted, and Quinton had not turned, at least not intentionally.

Leading a lengthy race along with the evening's darkness, the storm and the strange events which had been taking place in his car and maybe elsewhere too, all had come together to seemingly alter his perceptions.

The second placed car in the race soon passes Quinton's car and comes to a halt upon what the driver sees. The driver makes his way over to Quinton's car to find that Quinton was not breathing. Help arrives though despite the attempts; Quinton could not be revived.

On the passenger seat of the well-known and well-liked drivers' car rests two playing cards lying face up. They were a King of hearts and a Jack of hearts. Two more playing cards lay face up on the back seat, a Queen of hearts and an Ace of hearts. Quinton's official cause of death would later be given as being that of a heart attack.

It only came in a year later within Castletown, that all rally cars during town events should have two occupants, a driver, and a navigator. Unfortunately, this does nothing for Quinton other than the event be celebrated in his name.