The Haunting of the King's Head Read online

  Copyright 2019 Amy Cross

  All Rights Reserved

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, events, entities and places are either products of the author's imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual people, businesses, entities, events, pubs or breweries is entirely coincidental.

  Kindle edition

  First published: December 2019

  For several years now, The King's Head pub has stood empty. When Charley and her father take over, they're determined to turn the place into a success story, but they've reckoned without the pub's eerie history. They soon come to suspect that they're being watched by the spirit of former landlady Muriel Hyde.

  And Muriel Hyde is angry.

  More than one hundred years ago, Muriel was a woman in love. She also had to contend with powerful forces that were determined to push her out of the pub. Now, even in death, Muriel is determined to make sure that her suffering is avenged and she'll stop at nothing to get what she wants, even if that means hurting everyone who stands in her way. But did she really kill herself all those years ago? What happened to her corpse after it was found? And what secrets lurk in the pub's dark rooms late at night?

  The Haunting of the King's Head is a horror story about revenge and redemption, about one woman's determination to avenge her own murder, and about a town that refuses to acknowledge the sins of its past.

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Epilogue

  The Haunting of the King's Head

  Prologue

  As tears run from my eyes, I try again to break free, but I'm being held down too firmly. I can only watch in horror as my own blood soaks into Muriel's dry skin, and after a moment I look at her dead eyes. This whole situation is complete madness, but more and more members of the crowd are dropping to their knees, as if they genuinely believe that this circus is going to have any actual results.

  “Be patient!” Hayes shouts to the others. “This is not the work of a moment, she will come back and reclaim her soul! Wait and watch!”

  “Stop squirming,” one of the men says, still holding my shoulders firmly.

  Hayes comes back over to me and smirks for a moment, before turning to look back at Muriel Hyde's corpse. There's been no sign of movement, of course, but I can't escape a slow feeling of dread that's starting to spread through my chest and out into the rest of my body. Still silhouetted against the gray sky, Muriel's dead face stares down roughly in my direction, and I can feel an uncontrollable, explosive, totally irrational but absolutely inescapable fear starting to rush through my every bone and muscle.

  Please, I want to beg, let me go. But even if I didn't have this gag in my mouth, I think I'd be too terrified to say a word.

  And then, slowly, I see Muriel Hyde's dead eyes start to move.

  Chapter One

  Charley Lucas

  Today...

  “It looks dark and abandoned and...”

  For a moment, sitting in the car's passenger seat and peering out at the building on the corner, I try to think of a word other than 'creepy'.

  “Creepy?” Dad suggests finally.

  I turn to him.

  “You said it,” I point out.

  “Well, it is dark,” he replies, “and it was abandoned. The place hasn't been open in about two years now. And to be honest, arriving at midnight wasn't part of the plan. If the traffic hadn't been so bad, we'd have got here around four this afternoon, there'd have been sunshine, there'd have been people in the streets, the whole town would have seemed much nicer. As it is...”

  We sit in silence for a moment, both of us staring out at the pub.

  “Yeah,” he adds with a sigh, “it looks pretty creepy right now.”

  “And -”

  “But it's not creepy,” he says, unbuckling his seat-belt and opening the car door and climbing out. “Come on, Charley, let's get our bags inside and put some lights on. I don't know about you, but I'm knackered and I wanna hit the ground running in the morning. We'll have the place feeling like home in no time.”

  “Home's five hundred miles back the way we came,” I mutter as I continue to look at the building. “Home's where all my friends are.”

  The King's Head, as the pub is so gloriously named, is a three-storey building on the southern corner of a small square. We're in the northern quarter of Malmeston, a seaside town that by all accounts was once quite the tourist destination. Emphasis on the word 'once' there, because my online research suggests that the town is on its uppers right now. Still, I've got to admit that while the pub certainly looks dour and imposing right now, it also dominates the square pretty handily. Craning my neck, I look around and see dark houses everywhere I look. Sure, it's midnight, but I'd have thought that at least someone would be up. I guess the locals don't like late nights, and that's not entirely surprising. According to my research, the population of Malmeston skews heavily toward the older demographics.

  “Come on, Sunshine!” Dad says, banging the roof of the car. “These bags won't carry themselves in!”

  I am not going to be a typical whining teenager.

  I've been promising myself this ever since Dad announced we were moving to the very south of England. Sure, I'm fifteen years old and I'm leaving behind the only place I've ever called home, and leaving all my friends as well, but I refuse to use that as an excuse. Dad keeps saying that this move is an opportunity, and I'm determined to follow his lead. Besides, Dad needs a new challenge and we need money, and I also happen to think – although I haven't mentioned this to him – that Mum would really like the idea of us starting over. She'd be proud of us.

  Climbing out of the car, I immediately flinch as I feel the cold night air. Again, I refuse to bitch and moan, so instead I head around to the back and sta
rt hauling out some of the bags.

  “I'm sure it's gonna be great,” I tell Dad, hoping to bolster his enthusiasm. “There's no way it can be as grim as it looks.”

  ***

  “I'll have to find the fuse-box in the morning,” Dad mutters a short while later, standing in the pitch-black hallway and flicking the light-switch several more times. “There's definitely supposed to be power.”

  “It smells fusty,” I reply, looking toward the far end of the hallway but not quite managing to make anything out. “It's really cold in here.”

  “We'll soon warm up. That's why I packed extra duvets, I'll fetch them from the car in a minute.”

  Stepping forward, I feel a loose floorboard shift slightly beneath my left foot, accompanied by a faint creaking sound. I reach out and touch the rough plaster wall, and then as I turn I feel the fine threads of a spider's web against my face. Again, I resist the urge to complain, and I simply reach up in the darkness and brush the web away. At the same time, I can hear Dad heading deeper into the building, and a moment later I spot a square of light as he activates the flashlight on his phone.

  “There,” he says, “that's better.”

  He tilts the light until it's shining up against his face, casting long shadows that make him look monstrous.

  “What do you think?” he asks, affecting a scared tone of voice. “How many ghosts do you reckon there are in this place?”

  “Probably somewhere between zero and zero,” I say as I step over to the light-switch and give it a flick. It doesn't work, of course, but then I spot another switch hidden away in the corner. I reach over and turn it on, and sure enough an electric strip-light flickers to life above us.

  I turn to Dad.

  “Ta da!” I say helpfully.

  “My daughter the genius,” he replies, before turning and making his way to a nearby door marked 'Bar'. He pushes it open and leans through. “I've got to admit,” he continues, “the photos made it look... bigger.”

  “I can't believe you didn't actually come and check the place out in person first,” I tell him. “How much did you pay for taking this pub on, again?”

  “It was a bargain.”

  “And how many pubs have you run before?”

  “Zero, but the guy from the brewery said that can actually be an advantage.”

  “I bet he did,” I mutter. “I don't want to be negative, Dad, but did you know that on average two pubs shut down every day in this country?”

  Damn it, there I go, being majorly negative. I really need to learn when to shut up.

  “That's because they don't have me to get them going,” he says, as he disappears through the doorway. Sometimes I really envy his boundless optimism, even if I'm wary of relying on it too much. A moment later, another light comes on. “Check this out, Charley. It might not look like much now, but soon I'm gonna have this place heaving.”

  I want to believe him. Not only because he needs this, but also because I'm pretty sure he's all-in financially. If this pub thing doesn't work out, I genuinely don't know what we're gonna do.

  Heading over to the doorway, I look through and see the main part of the pub. It's L-shaped, as I saw from the plans online, with the bar itself facing one row of seats and then a side section that I guess is going to be the dining area. An old dartboard is on one of the walls, which are otherwise decorated with various framed pictures. Taking a step forward, I look down at the bar and see that it's covered in a thick layer of dust, and a moment later a large, spindly-legged spider scurries past as if it's horrified by the light; it quickly squeeze under the till and vanishes from sight.

  “I just love spiders,” I say under my breath.

  “Looks like the last tenants left a few drinks behind,” Dad points out, and I turn to see a few bottles of beer and soda on the side. “I doubt they're still any good.”

  “Who were the previous tenants?” I ask.

  “I don't know. The guy from the brewery told me something about them, but it all went in one ear and out the other. They weren't here for long, though. I guess they couldn't hack it.”

  “It'd still be good to know why they left,” I point out. “I dunno, maybe we could learn from their mistakes.”

  “I know it doesn't look like much right now,” Dad says as he comes over to join me, “but I think this place has real potential. I've got loads of ideas, and I think this part of town really needs a good boozer. Nothing fancy, none of that micro-pub stuff. Just good beer and good, simple food, at good prices. People over-complicate this kind of thing so much, when actually what you need to do is -”

  Before he can finish, there's a brief, loud bump upstairs. We both look up toward the ceiling, and then I turn to Dad.

  “I'm sure it's nothing,” he says after a moment, turning to me. “It's probably just rats.”

  “Rats aren't nothing,” I point out as he steps past me and goes back out into the hallway. “Rats are bad news. I don't like rats. I'd prefer ghosts.”

  “I'll go up and chase whatever it is away,” he replies, pushing open another door. A moment later he disappears from view, and as the door swings shut I hear his footsteps hurrying up to the first floor.

  Sighing, I turn and look around the bar area again. Maybe Dad's right, maybe this place could look pretty good if someone smartened it up a little. And I'm gonna help him, really I am. I've got the whole summer free from school, and I've got zero interest in doing all those typical teenager things like roaming around and going on bike rides and crashing parties and generally rebelling. Instead I'm going to work hard and I'm going to help Dad, and somehow – one way or another – we're going to get this pub up and running in no time.

  We just need a little luck to help us along, and if anyone's due some luck right now, it's Dad and me. It's time to banish all negative thoughts. We're survivors, and we're going to be fine. I won't let us not be fine.

  Chapter Two

  Muriel Hyde

  1910...

  Where is he? He's late.

  Standing at the window, I look out at the pitch-black square and wait for some sign of Jack. He promised, he swore, that tonight he'd come and see me, if only for a few minutes. He said he'd be working on the beach until midnight, but that then he'd be able to steal away and come to the pub. After the past few nights, when he promised the same and then failed to appear, he told me that this time he would let nothing stop him.

  He held my hands in his, he squeezed them tight, and he looked into my eyes as he spoke those words.

  “Muriel, I'll see you in the night,” he whispered. “No-one, no man nor beast, will stop me this time.”

  Now it's well past midnight, and the square is empty, and I fear that something terrible might have happened. Jack's work is dangerous, I've always know that, but he has a good head on his shoulders. In truth, I despise the world of smugglers, and I hate that Jack is involved with them. He promises that one day he'll make enough money to be able to walk away, but until then I must tolerate his involvement. Every night I pray that he will soon be able to walk away. Every night, I am disappointed.

  Turning away from the window, I realize that he is not coming. I have been stood here now for almost an hour, like a fool, and for that I can blame nobody but myself. I am not some weak-willed woman who dotes endlessly on an unreliable man; there are plenty such women in the world, but I most assuredly am not one of them. Yet as I step across the room, I am filled with a sudden fear that perhaps Jack will reach the square at any moment and – not seeing me at the window – think that I have retired for the night. That would crush his heart and mine, so I hurry back to the window and resume my silent vigil.

  The square is dark and empty, yet at any moment Jack's shadow could break from the shadows and come this way. I only need to see him for a moment, just long enough to know that he's alright and that he is perhaps a step closer to breaking from the smugglers. It would take only a minute or two for him to reassure me, and then I would be able to sleep soundl
y. So I shall wait here a while longer, just a very short time. No, I am not some helpless doting lover, I have too much self-respect for that. But I shall wait another half hour or so, just in case my Jack comes to see me.

  He will, I am sure of that. He might be late, but he will come. After all, he promised.

  Chapter Three

  Charley Lucas

  Today...

  “This one's going to be all yours,” Dad says, as we stand in an open doorway upstairs and look through into a surprisingly large room with pale green walls. “Obviously it's a little bare right now. I thought there were going to be a couple of beds left for us, but obviously...”

  His voice trails off for a moment, and then he pats me on the shoulder.

  “I'll get beds tomorrow,” he continues, “I promise. First priority. There must be a second-hand place somewhere nearby. Or maybe I'll check online.”

  “Beds are overrated anyway,” I reply. “I can manage just fine on the floor.”

  “Now you're trying just a little too hard. Shouldn't you be complaining about me bringing you down to this hell-hole? I thought teenagers were supposed to sulk all the time.”

  I turn to him and raise a skeptical eyebrow.

  “I know, I know,” he says with a sigh, “you don't want to be a cliché. Just so long as you tell me what you're really thinking, Charley. Don't bottle things up for my benefit.”

  “I won't,” I say as I step out across the room. Again, loose boards creak beneath my feet, and I look around in the hope that I'll find some positives. “There are no cracks on the wall,” I point out. “That's good. And no stains, either. That suggests that the, uh, foundations are solid, right?” I turn back to him. “That's a good sign!”

  “Your mother would be so proud of you.”

  I can't help but sigh.

  “I mean it,” he continues. “If she could see you now, facing this whole adventure with such -”

  “Can we not talk about this?” I ask.