I am a writer of fiction. I am comfortable with creating the fantastic in my head. I am also, by trade, a journalist, steeped in that profession's culture of cynicism, used to operating in that grey, mundane world where everything has a rational explanation. So when I first encountered the Rich family and Heol Fanog, their picturesque house deep in the Welsh countryside, I approached their tale with a healthy scepticism. Yes, strange, inexplicable things did happen in the world. But their story was too unbelievable - too terrifying - to be true. The truly horrifying, on a spiritual level, only happens in novels.
What you are about to read is not fiction. It is fact. Then again, we are told there are no facts - just different perspectives of the same view, subjective, coloured by personal beliefs, doubts, fears. Yet when two of those perspectives are aligned, we start to get closer to the heart of the matter. When three, four or five are in tune we can be pretty sure we have got as close as we can to the truth of an event.
A dozen people of varying degrees of credulity, differing ages, sex and religious persuasion are convinced something beyond the bounds of reason happened at Heol Fanog between November 1989 and June 1995. Something supernatural. Something Evil.
This wasn't a simple haunting. This was human lives pushed to the limit by a malignant force which exhibited a terrifying sentience. A battle not only for the sanity of Heol Fanog's bewildered, incresingly distressed residents, but ultimately for their very souls.
I was drawn to the story of the Rich family by an article which appeared in The Independent, a newspaper not renowned for fantastic supposition. It told of a house where strange things happened. Where electricity was drained from the system for no reason. It also hinted at other, darker things which it decided, in its wisdom, to leave well alone. I, not being particularly wise, wanted to know more. I rang the Richs and chatted to them about their experiences, ostensibly to write an article for a magazine, but also because my curiosity was piqued. You see, I've always wanted to know if there was something more. As a journalist, talking to people all the time, you realise most folk are inherently truthful when talking about their experiences; they don't fabricate. So on a human level you come to realise that all those who claim a brush with the supernatural can't be lying. There must be something there. Why aren't there more investigations?
As Bill Rich and I talked, I realised The Independent had only scratched the surface of what had happened in that house. There was an interesting story to tell on many levels, if I could cope with the chills that were crawling all over my skin.
A story not just of the supernatural, but of raw human emotions as ordinary people struggled to cope in the face of madness. Of how lives can be unbalanced by the real world and those who claim to be spiritual saviours. And I was angered by how these two people could be treated by the arrogance of those who refused to believe - called liars or fools because they dared to talk about an experience at odds with the scientific rationale.
But at its heart it is a story of the supernatural. Heol Fanog could be the most haunted house in Britain. That would be frightening enough, but there is more. Much more. The people who give their testimonies in this book will unveil one of the most startling cases of the paranormal ever to be documented, a case which starts with a haunting and carries on into the shadows. Its final destination is somewhere very dark and terrible.
Remember: it is a true story.
If you believe the grey world of banks, furniture shops and supermarkets is all there is, read on. If you have even the slightest notion there might be something which lies beyond, pause now. By the end of this book, you will never sleep peacefully again.
