For the purposes of this story, its main characters, Tasha/Robbie; Jade/Nick and Martha/Jack have been made the same age and at high school together.
Chapter 1
One night...one terrifying night...Something or someone or some creature gripped her hand...
"Haunted! No waaay!" Nick Smith declared, once he'd stopped laughing enough to recover breath.
Robbie Hunter pushed his glasses back up his nose and gave a tight little smile. "I didn't expect any of you to believe me..."
"I believe you, Rob." Tasha whispered, gazing wide-eyed at the isolated caravan on the edge of Summer Bay Caravan Park.
Robbie sighed and wished Tasha would believe in him just a little more and turn those beautiful large eyes his way.
Number 27 though! What a bummer!
It should have been No 13. Robbie liked things to be how they should. Thirteen carried weight. People feared thirteens. In the UK, rows of streets with odd-numbered houses merrily skipped from 11 to 11A before settling cosily back down at No 15. In the United States, many tall buildings didn't have floors numbered thirteen so nobody could step out on to them and trip or find themselves in some parallel universe. (In all the best sci fi shows floor thirteen existed in some parallel universe.) There was even a word in the dictionary for it: Triskaidekaphobia: An abnormal fear of the number thirteen. Oh, Robbie, being a natural born geek and computer hogger, had done his homework alright! In Italy, seventeen was considered unlucky; in some Asian countries it was four...but twenty-seven? Twenty-seven had nothing going for it in the fear department. Twenty-seven was a huge disappointment. Except...
The caravan owners had tried to hush up the rumours, but no holidaymaker ever stayed more than one night in Caravan 27. Shivering and afraid, each told similar stories. Things not of this earth. Things we would prefer to banish to the darkest region of our mind till some deep primal fear resurfaces and we are no more than frightened children again seeking comfort in familiar surroundings.
They said shadows flitted past at the edge of their vision...
Small wonder Caravan 27 had been ostracised and moved far away from the main site ready to be towed away to a scrap heap the day after tomorrow, where its fate was to be flattened and destroyed forever!
A sudden high-pitched scream made Tasha catch hold of Robbie's arm in fright. Now this was how things should be, he thought happily, as she snuggled closer, and watched Martha Stewart, source of the scream, with those big beautiful eyes.
Martha Stewart turned the scream into a squeal of half laughter, half annoyance and thumped her boyfriend Jack Holden so smartly that he rubbed his shoulder ruefully.
"Owww! That hurt!"
"It was meant to. Don't you dare scare me like that again!"
"There was an insect on your neck..."
"Yeh, yeh."
Jack grinned back at her. "Okay, there wasn't. All you have to do is lick your finger and, hey presto, ice cold finger on the back of the neck. Gets the girls screaming for you every time."
"Idiot!"
Martha slapped him again, but gently, and didn't object when he drew her to him for a kiss.
"Guys, guys! I need to know. Are we in on or not?" Robbie did his utmost to bring them back to the reason they'd come down to the Summer Bay Caravan Park in the first place.
"I'm not sure..." Jade Sutherland flicked back her long blonde hair, looking nervous. Unlike the others, she had stood a little way away from the old caravan. Even Tasha had been brave enough to peer in through its grimy windows though nothing could be seen.
"Aw, come on, Jade. Remember watching Most Haunted on satellite TV? All you have to do is shout Is anyone there? and then run around screaming like Derek Acorah and his gang do. And I'll look after you."
"I know you will." Jade smiled.
For all his jokes and love of theatricals, she knew Nick Smith cared about her deeply. They had been an item now for six months. Summer Bay High's most enduring couple. Other couples broke up all the time. Martha and Jack broke up and reunited on an almost weekly basis: Jack had an eye for a pretty girl and Martha had a quick temper. Tasha and Robbie were simply good friends though Robbie would have preferred a more romantic attachment. Even Jade's twin, Kirsty, had never fallen truly, madly and deeply in love though there'd been a couple of close encounters. But not Nick and Jade.
When it hit, it hit like a bolt from the blue, their eyes meeting accidentally across the crowded classroom, Jade's in sympathy, Nick's in resigned amusement when hot-tempered Kirsty had cut all ties and stormed off for the final time over something Nick had said in joke.
It must have been love at first sight, Jade happily told Kirsty much later, when she was hugging her diary to her, having just written about a blond-haired, blue-eyed guy who set her pulse racing. Strange how in the stormy few weeks when Kirsty and Nick had been together, Jade had never thought of him as anything other than someone who passed by only on the fringes of her own life.
"You don't mind me dating Nick, do you?" She had asked anxiously, the day she'd confessed to Kirsty that Nick, finally accepting it was over, had asked her out.
Kirsty was the bold, confident twin while Jade was the shy, quiet, thoughtful one, liking to think things through whereas Kirsty would act on impulse and think about consequences later. But big-hearted too. Strangely, in many ways, Kirsty was exactly like Nick, but a clash of far too similar personalities had made for a fiery, spark-fuelled relationship.
"Truthfully, I don't think Nick and me were ever going anywhere," Kirsty admitted, grinning. It was funny, she said, but when Jade told her she had expected to be jealous, but instead it was as though everything had suddenly fallen into place.
"Like it's meant to be. Like...I dunno... there's someone else out there and he's my soulmate." Kirsty gazed out of their bedroom window at the twinkling stars in the inky black sky and the distant silver-tipped waves. "I'm a dag!" She added, laughing at herself. She wasn't usually given to flights of fancy. Jade was the romantic.
"No, you're not. And I'm glad you're okay about me and Nick."
The sisters hugged one another warmly.
"I'm happy for you, Jade," Kirsty said. "Go the dreams!"
Jade laughed. She had told Kirsty all about her dream of the future, about she and Nick talking about choosing an engagement ring. But she had other dreams too. Dreams that weren't so happy. Nightmares.
Vague images, figures reaching out to her. Shadows calling her name. They whispered to her when night was at its darkest and an eerie icy coldness crept into the air. They fled when sunlight and birdsong woke or when, in fear, she shouted across the room to her twin, breaking into Kirsty's rhythmic breathing of deep, untroubled sleep. For Kirsty never once saw or heard Jade's ghosts.
One night...one terrifying night...Something or someone or some creature gripped her hand.
So tightly that when she finally broke the grip and slowly managed to uncurl her fingers, she winced in pain. Lamplight flooded the room and she and Kirsty studied the red marks dug into her hand and wrist.
"You must have grabbed hold of your own hand in your sleep! We all do weird stuff when we're dreaming. Who knows what goes on in our heads?" Kirsty said gently, sitting on the bed and pushing back Jade's hair. "No more cheese or choccie just before bed, hey?" Always the logical one. Always so calm and reassuring. Always making everything seem alright again.
While Jade was the dreamer. Always the dreamer.
"Jade! Are you in?" Robbie's question drew her back to the present.
Golden sun and azure sky. A lazy heat shimmering over the turquoise sea and holidaymakers strolling down to the sun-kissed beach, towels slung over shoulders and sun hats pulled down over eyes. Normality. Time once and for all to kill the demons that haunted by night. To realise only an over-active imagination was responsible. After all, she had laughed along with Nick at the UK show that visited supposedly haunted hot-spots and challenged restless spirits to make themselves known with raps and moving tables.
"Because that isn't the way it happens," whispered Jade's inner voice. She silenced it quickly and swallowed.
"I'm in!" She announced, ignoring the rapid pattering of her heart.
And so on that sultry afternoon beside Caravan 27 six Summer Bay High students made their pact, laughing as they raised arms and locked fingers together. Six Summer Bay High students with nothing better to do in the long summer holiday than while away their time, believing torchlight and cynicism and each other would be enough to protect them when they returned by midnight.
The foolish ones.
To be Continued...