Paranormal Story Archives
January 2002 – Page 9

The Screaming Ghost
by Sharon L.

I live in a village in the south eastern corner of England, not far from what is known as "the most haunted village in the world" - Pluckley! My village is called West Malling, and has been in existence for about 2000 years. In fact, we have ghosts of Roman Legionaries, airmen, Norman knights and many, many others to boot! I believe that one of the last counts ended with about 24 ghosts in our village. I am a police officer in the Kent County constabulary. Up until very recently, we had an old police station in the town centre; unfortunately, because of financial constraints it has now been closed. The station itself was not that old, dating from the 18th century, but the land upon which it stood belonged to the local priory, which has been there since the 1100s. In fact, the Mother Superior of the priory still retains the right under common law to try villains of the parish, should they offend within the boundary. We believe that the land was part of ecclesiastical life in the village up to the dissolution of the monasteries in the 1530s. In Georgian and Victorian times, it served as a "workhouse" for the local poor, and later as a magistrates court. Prior to its closure, duty at the station was solitary and deathly quiet. An officer would sit out his or her duty there alone well into the wee hours. It was not so bad, because they had the large, rambling two story, 30-odd roomed building to themselves - complete with TV room, billiard room and, as I later found out to my surprise, a ghost!

I had heard the usual rumors of something being "not quite right" with the old place, but didn't place much store in the tales. It was one bitterly cold winter's night, that I was spending a lonely vigil downstairs in the control room, when an eerie sensation came over me. It was as if, suddenly, I was aware that I was not alone in the building. This was in spite of the fact that it was two o'clock in the morning, the station was closed to members of the public, no one could get in without going past me, and I had checked the building upon arrival. The hackles on the back of my neck immediately began to rise, but there was no logical explanation for my sudden change in awareness, and what distinctly appeared to be a change in the temperature. As with most of our civic buildings the heat is turned up to maximum in the winter period, and is often stifling. Presently, within the span of no more than one minute, the surrounding atmosphere seemed icy cold. As I sat there trying, in vain, to rationalize the sequence of events, the situation took another dramatic turn.

Above me, in a room I knew to be used for storage, I heard a terrible commotion. Two or possibly three males were shouting and struggling, causing a tremendous din. It was if a full scale fight had broken out on the first floor. I could not make out the majority of the dialogue, just a snatch here and there of words and phrases such as "No, no!" in a loud piteous scream. It was all very fast and furious, and a little bit scary. My initial assessment was that it may have been wayward burglars, or some of the local lads up to mischief, but I then remembered that they would have to have got past me first. And they had not! After some minutes, I ventured to the bottom of the narrow stairway leading to the bare wooden floors of the corridor leading to where I had heard the noises emanate. The lights along that particular stretch had gone, so I had to resort to the trusty old Maglite, and of course my metal truncheon. I ventured up the stairwell. The noises continued, although now the voices seemed more blurred than before. And, although less distinct, they seemed somehow more chillingly urgent than hitherto. Louder, colder and more frantic. As I approached the room, I took hold of the door handle and charged into the room. It was empty, and nothing had been disturbed. I eventually found a light switch, turned it on, and found no sign of the uproar I had heard. In fact, the dust on the floor and on the stacked chairs had not been disturbed. I hurriedly checked the whole of the upper floor for any cause of the noise, but none was to be found. After spending a rather uncomfortable time on the remainder of my shift, the next morning, I related to a couple of my colleagues the events of the previous night. Neither were surprised, each had had some kind of supernatural experience in the building at one time or another. One of them did tell me that it was rumored to be the shade of an unfortunate soul who was condemned to hang in the old courts many many years ago. Since that evening I have discovered that many more people have experienced similar events in the old station, and to some it became commonplace. I have many other experiences if you are interested.

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