There’s a quaint olde-worlde hotel at the edge of town close to where I live. It’s always had an air of mystery about it, a creepy kind of feel. Whenever I walked past it, especially at night, I would have to keep checking over my shoulder to make sure nothing followed me from the depths of the shadows.

I’m pretty sure it’s always been ‘haunted’, we kids were told to keep away from the place. Whether that was because it used to be derelict and dangerous, I’m not sure, but most of my friends heeded the warnings and stayed away – especially after the accident.

Danny and Neil were best of friends, the adults called them ‘The terrible twosome’ and I suppose they were right. There was nothing those two wouldn’t do for a dare.

The railway bridge walk was the scariest thing I’ve ever witnessed. They played it to absolute perfection, taking one agonising, deliberate step at a time, in synch. Thinking about it, I’ll guess that they practiced the ‘act’ long before the performance. Danny started at one end of the 18-inch-wide wall, and Neil started at the other end. They met in the dead-centre of the 50-foot-long wall and passed each other. Two dozen kids stood terrified, unwilling to look away, unable to stop them.

The drop over the wall, at the highest point, right in the middle was easily 75 feet. One or both could have been killed.

Neither fell to his death, they leaped off the wall at the opposite end to where they’d started to a cheer from their audience. The farmer living at the house at one end of the bridge came running out, waving his stick, shouting at us that we’d almost given him a heart-attack. He’d spotted the pair just as they approached dead-centre and beginning their passing manoeuvre. He was about to knock on the window to tell them off when his wife stopped him. She probably saved their lives.

Danny and Neil collected on their dare winnings – not that any of us had much in the way of money – chewing gum, a cigarette sniped from dad’s pocket, a couple of bob in change, a relative fortune!

Back to the hotel then. It was a three storey building, long past its prime, the outbuildings in ruins and the main structure heading the same way.

The rumour was that it had once been the country house of a wealthy banker. He’d committed suicide when his daughter embezzled his great wealth. He kept money, jewels and gold under his bed if tales are to be believed – not much faith in banks, perhaps he had insider information.

So, he committed suicide in the barn, sliced his throat right through to the spine, according to the grisly rumour-mill. I’m no doctor, but I would think it would take a great deal of strength to cut yourself to that extent – maybe I’m a little too analytical.

The daughter and her husband were suspected to start with, but they had an iron-clad alibi and they came back to live in the house themselves.

Maybe they hadn’t stolen the money, maybe it wasn’t such a massive fortune as rumour has it, or maybe they went through all the fortune in record time, but soon enough, they were poor as church mice and the husband ran off and left her alone and pregnant, servants dismissed because they could no longer afford them.

Someone took pity on the abandoned pregnant embezzler and when her time came for giving birth, someone was with her. Who that someone was, no one is ever clear about, but when the woman died in childbirth, the house was closed up and the baby taken away to live with relatives.

The house fell into disrepair quite quickly. Fixtures and fittings looted, perhaps to pay some back-wages.

The house stood for decades, each spring, it looked worse than the year before and finally, the council decided it needed to be demolished.

Us kids had never wanted to go near the place, which for a large group of unruly and mildly deprived kids in the 60s, that was testament to how very creepy the place was.

A man claiming to be descended from the banker came forward and he took control of renovations.

Negotiating with the council takes time and in that time between planning consent for change of use, back-handers and other arrangements, we kids had got a little courage from somewhere.

One kid (it may have been me) dared Danny and Neil to spend the night. They agreed simultaneously, but Danny had a twist to the agreement. “Only if you lot come with us for the first part of the night. When it’s time to go in, you can leave us, but you’ve got to be there to start with or you’ll never believe we did it.”

That made a lot of sense and we begrudgingly agreed.

We had to make plans fast, the workmen were due in after the weekend and security would be heightened.

Friday night a large group of us older kids trooped out toward the ‘haunted mansion’ as we’d christened it.

A couple dropped out even before we stepped onto the property but rather than cat-calling after them, we let them go as though we’d not noticed.

The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end as the door creaked open. That was a cool trick! I thought Danny or Neil had rigged it up.

We trooped through the door and took out torches. The search through one room off to the left had to be abandoned because there was no floor left and it really could be lethal to try exploring there. The stairs to the top floor was so rickety, exploring the attic was counted out too.

Rachel, one of the youngest, but also the cleverest made a statement that didn’t resonate with me until years later.

“There are four rooms downstairs, a kitchen and scullery, the living room and another living room I would think used to be the drawing room or parlour,” she said. Everyone stopped to listen to her, she usually had good information. “The first floor is a similar layout, but the second floor has five rooms, not four. That means the last room is room thirteen and I think that’s where Danny and Neil should spend the night.”

Outvoted and not at all happy with the group decision, Danny and Neil agreed at last. I suppose they thought they could always move into a different room once we’d gone home. Rachel had thought about that too.

“Just to make sure you don’t leg it home after we’ve gone, we’ll lock you in and let you out first thing tomorrow. It’s only fair, if I’m giving you all my savings, I want value for the dare,” she said.

“No one made you take the bet!” Danny said.

“That’s right, no one made me take it, but I took it anyway and if you don’t make the whole night, what do I get from you? As usual, nothing. This way, I get my money’s worth.”

Rachel stood her ground. She had her fists on her hips and looked as fierce as I’ve ever seen her – before or since.

Who would have believed there would still be a key in the lock of the door on room thirteen?

Danny and Neil wouldn’t have, that’s for sure.

Luck? Coincidence? We’ll never know.

Rachel locked the door once Danny and Neil had a fire going in the grate. We at least made sure the chimney wasn’t blocked, didn’t want them suffocating, did we? They had enough wood to keep the fire going all night and they had sleeping bags – well actually, they had eiderdowns from their beds. They’d be warm and snug, if a little terrified, we hoped.

We don’t know what happened that night and I guess we’ll never know. Danny and Neil can’t tell us. They weren’t in the room when we went back. The pile of wood was a little smaller, telling us the boys had used at least some of it, but their eiderdowns and supplies were gone and so were they.

We waited a day or so before finally telling an adult.

After a week-long search, their bodies were found under the railway bridge. That had been the first place we’d gone looking for them, but they weren’t there that morning, I can assure you.

The farmer living at the house close by said in his interview that he wasn’t surprised. They must have tried repeating their bridge walk dare at some point.

I wonder what forensic science would have told us if that accident had happened recently. Those boys didn’t look newly-dead. I saw them as the police found them. Their eyes had gone, they had the look and smell of rotten meat about them and I know that look and smell, I used to help out at the pig farm. The week-old carcass of a pig had a similar look and if I had been unlucky enough to manage to touch either Danny or Neil’s flesh, I’m sure it would have had the same texture. Those boys didn’t die the night before they were found and they didn’t fall from the bridge on their own, either.

After that, the group kinda split up. We didn’t have the same camaraderie we had before. Something was missing – Danny and Neil were the leaders and there was no one else that could fill their shoes.

When the workmen started working on the hotel, things went wrong for them from the start. I swear it wasn’t any of us kids, we kept well away from that horrible place. Tools went missing, windows were broken and accidents happened.

Some workmen walked off site and refused to go back. One poor bloke was paralysed.

The hotel opened and did quite well. They played up to the haunted hotel reputation and because of the beautiful setting and grounds, all was good.

Us kids grew up and moved on. Some came back to live in the village. I came back and brought my wife, Rachel – remember her?

The owner retired and sold the place. The hotel closed for renovations for a couple of months and when it re-opened all hell broke loose.

Knocking on doors and windows in the middle of the night, locked doors opening, lights switched on and off or bulbs blowing spectacularly.

When one family’s son was pushed down the stairs, breaking his leg, guests demanded their money back.

Finally, the new owner/manager decided to call in a medium.

One of the most respected mediums/exorcists that no one had ever heard of.

A doddery old lady with grey hair, a shawl around her shoulders, leaning heavily on a stick. We locals looked on in bemused curiosity, wondering what she was going to do if she encountered one of the spirits.

Giving him his due, the manager invited up any of us that wished to observe. I took a step forward but Rachel grabbed my arm and held me back.

“Not a good idea, I think,” she said.

What could I do? We always listened to Rachel, she had always been cleverest of us all.

We found out later, after the ambulance had taken the poor old lady away, that she was a relative of the previous owner and whatever it was that resides in the thirteenth room – remember, the extra room up on the second floor – well, it didn’t like the fact that the house had been knocked about. Before she collapsed, clutching her chest, she muttered a couple of words: Danny and Neil want payment for their dare.

None of us had gone up to watch, but I waited outside.

I’m not sure that was a good idea to be fair. I’ve had horrible nightmares since. They’re calming down a little now, but Danny and Neil are angry.