HAUNTED WIRRAL: The unknown guest

In this latest tale, Tom explores the spooky story behind the unknown guest...

On the Thursday evening of 31 October 2002, a Halloween Masque Ball was held at a large gothic house overlooking Birkenhead Park.

The ball was the idea of a lady from a rather well-to-do family.

Her name was Penny and she was aged 22 and had recently started her own e-commerce business which would sell vintage and home-made items (a little like the Etsy website would do three years later).

Penny had bought the Victorian house with a little help from her father, and had decided to have the Halloween Masque Ball as a glorified house-warming party.

Over 130 guests turned up, all friends of Penny and her partner Giles, a 27-year-old dentist, and most of the guests had come in fancy dress with masks but some didn’t bother with the party dress code.

Penny had always loved Halloween and ghost stories and so there were strings of multicoloured jack o’lantern lights running across the walls, carved pumpkins with candles in them, apple-bobbing tanks, holographic ghost decorations, orange and black balloons featuring witches, skulls, bats and spider’s webs, a dry ice fog generator, and of course, a cornucopia of food and drink, and besides the usual champagne, wine and beer, there were novelty imitation blood bags filled with red coloured alco-pop beverages and there was even a huge cauldron of punch being mixed by someone dressed as Dracula.

The cupcakes were all Halloween themed, some in the shapes of skulls and witches hats, and there were gingerbread figures of mummies and skeletons on offer.

The DJ played all of the usual stock hits associated with Halloween, including the theme to Ghostbusters, Michael Jackson’s Thriller, The Banana Boat Song from the movie Beetlejuice and so on.

Penny went as a 1930s lady and she even had her blonde hair done in the style of that period.

She wore an authentic 1930s red crepe Evelyn dress and a red Lone Ranger style mask, and Giles was dressed as Pennywise the Clown from the original 1990 It TV series.

The party started at 8pm and was in full swing by 11pm.

Giles seemed to be under the spell of a beautiful curvaceous witch who called herself 'Wicked', and Penny hadn’t a clue who she was.

She asked a few of her friends who Wicked was, and the general consensus was that she was a gate-crasher, as no one seemed to know her.

"Giles, come and dance with me," Penny said to her fiancée – but he seemed literally entranced by the girl in the witch costume.

"I will now, love," he said, as he danced with Wicked.

Penny felt so hurt. She’d had a few drinks and felt quite down.

She looked around at the party she’d spent a lot of money on, and she saw people laughing, dancing, singing, drinking and eating.

She went to the top of the staircase and stood on the balcony, looking down at the revellers.

Now the DJ was playing an ancient 78 recording of The Very Thought of You by Al Bowlly.

Everyone down on the floor embraced and started dancing slowly, ballroom style, to this song.

Penny felt so alone in the midst of this huge party, and someone tapped her on the shoulder.

It was a debonair-looking man of about fifty in an immaculate tuxedo, and he wore the same type of mask Penny had on – a domino mask – the type worn by Batman’s side-kick, Robin.

"May I have the pleasure of dancing with you?" the unknown guest asked in a perfectly modulated well-spoken voice.

Penny smiled and took his hand as he moved towards her.

She had no idea how to dance the way he wanted her to and yet he guided her about on the balcony and they turned and did all of the right steps in time to the music.

The stranger wore a cologne that had a very masculine smell and Penny saw that his eyes were dark and heavy-lidded behind that mask. Up to this point in her life, Penny thought all of the stories she had read of men overpowering ladies with their manly charms were just fabrications of juvenile fiction, but this man literally swept her off her feet.

He whispered sweet nothings into her ear, kissed her, held her tight, and told her he had admired her from afar since the day he had first set eyes upon her.

"I’m engaged," she told him, and he squeezed her hand and said, "A ring is just a piece of metal and a promise is just words – and words are but wind! This heart beating in my chest tells me that you are mine, Penny!"

"I better be getting back to the party downstairs," she said, trying to wrestle from his embrace, but he wouldn’t let her go.

"The new love drives out the old love!" he said, close to her ear, breathing down her neck, and then he kissed that neck.

"I am that prince you have waited for - for so long ," he said, and darkness enveloped them.

She found herself in a ballroom with masked people dressed in 1920s or 1930s attire, and they cheered when they saw Penny.

She ran off, sensing something was wrong, and everyone chased her.

She ran screaming down the stairs – and found herself back in 2002 among the revellers.

A month later, Penny found an old photograph in the attic of the house.

It was undoubtedly that unknown guest, minus his mask.

She later found out he had owned the house and had died in 1939.

Haunted Liverpool 32 is out now on Amazon.