The Haunting of Jack Thomas

THE HAUNTING OF JACK THOMAS

“ The Glass Hall is haunted,” I overheard a fifth year telling a younger boy who looked at the fifteen-year-old with wide eyes of awe and wonder. I had heard the story many times before but I will recite it for you: Pendragon Hall was once an old mansion with many secret passageways; one such was a tunnel that led from a courtyard to the outhouse. The courtyard was now enclosed by the new dorm building on one side and a glass Hallway that went from the new building to the old. Many years ago the young wife of Richard Pendragon was having an illicit affair with the ostler and the lord of the manor found out, he killed the Ostler in the tunnel beneath the Glass Hall so now the ghost of the Ostler haunts the glass Hall.
“ Wow, how do you know that?” the eleven year old replied excitement in his voice.
“ Mr. Toogood’s dogs all have refused to go through that hallway,” I added to the mix. The boy turned his head to me.
“ Come on Jack I was telling the story,” my classmate Rob whined.
“ Stop trying to scare my brother or I’ll give you something to be scared about,” I growled at Rob. He grumbled at me and I turned my head away looking out over the playground. On one side were classrooms but they were basically trailers while on the other side was the old building. The three of us were settled on concrete and wood seating.
“ So when does the ghost appear?” Bobby, my little brother, asked. I tuned him out. I never believed the old stories about ghosts, sure Pendragon Hall was ancient but it was about as haunted as my left pinkie.
“ Jackie, haven’t you got a medical appointment?” Rob reminded me.
“ I hate it when you call me Jackie,” I growled at him and looked up. Daylight was fading fast, during the winter nights came earlier in this part of the UK but the sky was beautiful. As the sun fell streaks of crimson, sapphire and indigo were arrayed across the sky, “ I’ll be back soon,”

I left them in the playground and followed the school building around entering the new part close to our housemaster’s office. Soon I found myself in a hallway, I passed stairs to the younger ones dorms then the door into the showers, a little past that was a door to the toilets and soon I pushed through a door but stopped dead: I was in the Glass Hall! It curved around, the right hand side connecting with the old building after a door to outside. The left hand side looked completely onto the shingled courtyard and a small statue. Something prickled my skin making the hair on the back of my neck shiver with anticipation, in that moment time seemed to slow down.

I felt the sweat slowly carve a path down my back as I looked around in wonderment at the array of colours being conducted before my very eyes. The sun was refracting of the glass splitting into a tiny rainbow, as the air seemed to shiver with heat. I walked forward in a daze until the glass met the building when I was abruptly rooted to the spot. As I watched the shimmering become more distinct then began to solidify into a figure of a man. All at once the smell of hay and horses was bought to my nostrils and I sneezed, when I finally opened watery eyes a shimmering man stood before me. I took a step back in shock and took in his appearance, he wore dark trousers and a white shirt rolled up at the sleeves, his features were indistinctive but I could tell he was certainly male.
“ C-can I help you?” I stammered. I did not expect a response and did not receive one. All at once a howl came from the man scaring me and as suddenly as the apparition appeared it disappeared leaving my standing like a lemon.

I took a deep breath and still felt like icy tentacles were walking up my spine. I shivered and moved on quickly passing into the old building I made my way through some corridors until I reached the Nurses office. No one was outside the office so I decided to just knock on the door. I stepped up to the white door and had my hand up to knock when abruptly the door was opened and I come face to face with the Nurse.
“ Jack!” surprise etched across her face.
“ I’ve come for my appointment,” I said to her, immediately her face changed from one of surprise to annoyance.
“ Well you’re extremely late, your appointment was twenty minutes ago,” She told me; this time it was my turn to be surprised.
“ But Miss. Calder I only left a few minutes ago,” she pursed her lips together and looked me over.
“ Come on then Mister Thomas, I’ll make an exception this once,”
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Please let me know what you think, this is my first story post on Literature Network Forums.

[QUOTE=Kitkat2114;1094817]THE HAUNTING OF JACK THOMAS

“ The Glass Hall is haunted,” I overheard a fifth year telling a younger boy who looked at the fifteen-year-old with wide eyes of awe and wonder are there three boys here or one? If not, say the fifth year boy twice to avoid confusion. line break and quotations for speech needed hereI had heard the story many times before, but I will recite it for you: Pendragon Hall was once an old mansion with many secret passageways; one such (passageway)was a tunnel that led from a courtyard to the outhouse. The courtyard was now enclosed by the new dorm building on one side and a glass Hallway that went from the new building to the old. Many years ago the young wife of Richard Pendragon was having an illicit archaic phrase-illicit means illegal. affair will do... affair with the ostler and the lord of the manor found out. full stop here rather than a comma He killed the Ostler in the tunnel beneath the Glass Hall, so now the ghost of the Ostler haunts the glass Hall.
new para for speech quotation “ Wow, how do you know that?” the eleven year old replied excitement in his voice.
“ Mr. Toogood’s dogs all have refused to go through that hallway,” I added to the mix. The boy turned his head to me.
“ Come on Jack I was telling the story,” my classmate Rob whined.
“ Stop trying to scare my brother or I’ll give you something to be scared about,” I growled at Rob. new para He grumbled at me and I turned my head away looking out over the playground. On one side were classrooms, but they were basically trailers while on the other side was the old building. The three of us were settled on concrete and wood seating.
“ So when does the ghost appear?” Bobby, my little brother, asked. I tuned him out. I never believed the old stories about ghosts, sure Pendragon Hall was ancient but it was about as haunted as my left pinkie.
“ Jackie, haven’t you got a medical appointment?” Rob reminded me.
“ I hate it when you call me Jackie,” I growled at him and looked up. Daylight was fading fast, during the winter nights came earlier in this part of the UK but the sky was beautiful. As the sun fell streaks of crimson, sapphire and indigo were arrayed across the sky, “ I’ll be back soon,”

I left them in the playground and followed the school building around entering the new part close to our housemaster’s office. Soon I found myself in a hallway. full stop rather than a comma as these are independent sentences I passed stairs to the younger ones dorms, sounds awkward then the door into the showers. full stop again-same reason as above a little past that was a door to the toilets and soon I pushed through a door but stopped dead: I was in the Glass Hall! It curved around, the right hand side connecting with the old building after a door to outside. The left hand side looked completely onto the shingled courtyard and a small statue. Something prickled my skin making the hair on the back of my neck shiver with anticipation cliched, in that moment time seemed to slow down.

I felt the sweat slowly carve a path down my back as I looked around in wonderment at the array of colours being conducted before my very eyes too many modifiers here e.g. very eyes, in wonderment etc. The sun was refracting of the glass splitting into a tiny rainbow, as the air seemed to shiver with heat. I walked forward in a daze until the glass met the building, comma when I was abruptly rooted to the spot. As I watched the shimmering become more distinct then began doesn't make sense to solidify into a figure of a man. All at once the smell of hay and horses was bought to my nostrils and I sneezed, when I finally opened watery eyes a shimmering man stood before me. I took a step back in shock and took in his appearance, he wore dark trousers and a white shirt rolled up at the sleeves, his features were indistinctive but I could tell he was certainly male.
“ C-can I help you?” I stammered. I did not expect a response and did not receive one. All at once a howl came from the man scaring me and as suddenly as the apparition appeared it disappeared leaving my standing like a lemon.

I took a deep breath and still felt like icy tentacles cliched were walking up my spine. I shivered and moved on quickly passing into the old building I made my way through some corridors until I reached the Nurses office. No one was outside the office so I decided to just knock on the door. I stepped up to the white door and had my hand up to knock when abruptly the door was opened and I come face to face with the Nurse.
“ Jack!” surprise etched across her face.
“ I’ve come for my appointment,” I said to her, immediately her face changed from one of surprise to annoyance.
“ Well you’re extremely late, your appointment was twenty minutes ago,” She told me; this time it was my turn to be surprised.
“ But Miss. Calder I only left a few minutes ago,” she pursed her lips together and looked me over.
“ Come on then Mister Thomas, I’ll make an exception this once,”

I stopped correcting this after a point as there are way too many grammar and punctuation errors to give it an honest reading.
The story itself is unoriginal as ghost stories go. It is a well hacked course, so you need to come up with something exceptional to catch the eye.
You have some imagination anyway, so I'm sure you can come up with something good.
You need to watch out for the run on sentences. These are sentences stand alone as independent, but are latched onto each beacuse the writer doesn't understand punctuation. Grammatical rules and punctuation serve a function you know: they keep writing intelligible.

Keep it simple until you get an intuitive feel for grammar and punctuation. Buy a good grammar book and master the basics, if you are anyway serious bout being a writer.

For a first posting it’s good, and one can overlook the punctuation mishaps prior to actual publication if one is considering what the writer is trying to say rather than just the mechanics.

It is a rather simple ghostly story but it has its merits. I like the setting – not quite Hogwarts but it’s a neat idea to set a horror story inside a contemporary school.

But I think the opening could do with a slight rewrite. The first sentence goes on a little too long. Describing the younger boy’s look isn’t really necessary – you should be getting on with giving us more information as to why it’s haunted. You can feed us bits of incidental description as the plot unravels - like you do when the younger boy speaks for the first time.
And your decision to step in, bypassing the two main characters and reciting the story yourself forces the reader to switch focus. It’s unsettling, especially when you then begin to interact with the plot again. And was it essential to give us what sounded like a little history lesson anyway since it has no relevance in the rest of the story? It might be better to just say that the dogs refuse to go down there because somebody was murdered there a long time ago. Keep things simple – and keep the readers guessing.

Discovering the youngster was the narrator’s brother also seemed rather odd – one would expect this bit of information to be shared with the reader a lot sooner but it’s as if you suddenly decided to make them related. Also Jack’s behaviour is strange – he seems to make an abrupt transition from being in league with Rob to threatening him if he continues telling a spooky story.

You describe the winter sky very effectively. But then you follow it up with a rather complicated step by step report of the route Jack’s takes to reach the toilets. It made the story hard to follow at this point. And it’s as if he didn’t realise he was heading into the Glass Hall until he was there – but how can that make sense?

We then get another fine description of the colours and sensations he experiences. Good imagery here.

But the piece of dialogue that followed wasn’t very realistic or indeed necessary – would someone in Jack’s position actually ask if he could help? He’d be more likely to turn and run, stand dumbstruck and frozen to the spot, or at best ask ‘Who are you?’

It’s quite an original plot but the plot structure needs tightening. Some of the scenes were a little confusing and didn’t drive the story forwards smoothly enough. For instance, having Rob tell Jack he has a medical appointment seemed contrived. And you could easily extend the twist at the end to something like twenty four hours rather than twenty minutes.

But thanks for sharing and keep writing.

H

Thank you for the great advice, I've always had problems with grammar so I will try to keep an eye on that.