HAUNTED WIRRAL: The Succubus of Clive Road

In this latest tale, Tom explores the spooky story behind the The Succubus of Clive Road ...

IN January 1976, Bryan and Danielle, a couple in their early thirties from the Egerton Park area, moved into a house on Clive Road, Birkenhead with their 13-month-old baby daughter Clara.

The couple had lost their last child to what was then known as cot death syndrome (now called Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) four years back and Danielle lived in constant fear of losing Clara, even though Bryan reassured her that cot death was very rare.

One Saturday afternoon in the springtime, Bryan went for a leisurely browse in a bookshop called The Brazen Head on Woodchurch Road - which was literally just around the corner from his home - and he came across a bunch of Mills and Boon romance books of the type Danielle avidly read.

Danielle was elated with the paperbacks, and one in particular called Pale Dawn, Dark Sunset which she had accidentally left on a bus after getting to chapter five.

Bryan also gave his wife a box of mint-flavoured chocolate Matchmakers and a few little bottles of Babycham.

Danielle put her feet up and opened the copy of Pale Dawn, Dark Sunset – and came across something quite odd. Around ten pages into the paperback there were pages of another book – a book of handwritten words and strange diagrams. Danielle showed the book within a book to her husband.

"How bizarre," he said, flipping through the pages, "why would anyone do that? Whoever it was, their handwriting is in perfect copperplate – and what do these symbols mean?"

Danielle looked through the other paperbacks but there was nothing amiss in any of them – just the one she had wanted to read.

She tried to read the handwritten text, and eventually she realised that the words were actually various spells and incantations – as if some witch had penned them.

Danielle paid a visit to her friend Kim Nightingale – a woman who read tea leaves, cards and knew everything about the occult.

Kim read the hidden book and hardly spoke for a quarter of an hour as she scanned the pages with her huge brown eyes.

"Whoever wrote all this – and I get the feeling it's a woman – they were into the Kabbalah and seemed to have been a member of the Golden Dawn at some point.

"The person was experimenting with the opening of passages in the ether so they could travel through them to other realms."

"Will the person who wrote all this want it back?" Danielle asked with a worried look.

"No, you daft thing – look at that date" Kim pointed to the numerals 1901 among the calligraphy.

"If he or she is not dead now they must be in their eighties at least.

"Someone else must have hidden all the text in the Mills and Boon book for some reason.

"Witches often hide their books of shadows – their personal notes on spells – between the covers of everyday books to keep them out of the sight of prying eyes."

"Do you want to keep it, Kim?"

Danielle asked her friend with a tremor in her voice.

Kim nodded and smiled, then said: "Oh dear, see that word there? Wait a mo. I'd better cover half of it!"

Kim showed her friend a strange word written in faded crimson ink which began with ‘Shem –‘ but the rest of the word was purposely obscured by Kim’s index finger.

In a low grave-sounding voice, Kim said: "If you were to read that word out or even whisper it, it could summon things from a world beyond this one.

"It's a good job you brought this book to me."

"Oh! Take it away then!"

Danielle turned her face away from the page.

She was only too glad to get back home, and she told Bryan about the word in red ink which could allegedly summon "things" and straight away he said, "Oh you mean “Shemhamforash”? I saw that word - it stood out.’

"No," Danielle gasped, her eyes bulging at him, "you shouldn't have said that."

"What are you on about?" asked a puzzled Bryan, and he saw his anxious-looking wife take deep breaths.

She told her husband what Kim had said about the mere uttering of the word bringing forth things from beyond our world, and he gave a false laugh and said, "Oh grow up, it’s all baloney."

That night, just after twelve, as a wind howled at the window of the couple’s bedroom, Danielle felt something climb onto the bed.

It reminded her of the way her dog Bruce used to sneak onto her bed when she was a kid, but when she looked to the bottom of the bed she saw a silhouette of a figure with no hair.

It was on all fours on the bed, and as soon as she screamed the thing was gone.

Bryan said she'd been dreaming.

At 2am, Danielle got up to go the toilet – but as she crossed the hall she heard sounds in the nursery; sounds of someone talking.

She rushed into the nursery, and by the light shining into the room from the landing she saw a ghastly naked being, leaning on the baby's cot.

It looked vaguely female, very old, and had an enormous mouth which was fully open.

As Danielle looked on in shock the thing made a loud, laryngitic inhaling sound, and what looked like faint blue luminous smoke came up from baby Clara into the thing's mouth - as if the entity was sucking out the infant's very life.

Danielle ran to the cot, grabbed a sleeping Clara, and fled to the bedroom.

Something then trashed the cot, and Bryan saw the entity peep out from the nursery doorway.

The couple left that morning, and never returned to the house on Clive Road.

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