If you were to believe Hollywood, living in a haunted house would be a nightmare. They portray it as a constant battle with unseen malevolent spirits, with children being possessed and pets being murdered left, right and centre. In reality, it’s not that bad. Okay, maybe we got lucky. Only the first floor of our place is haunted, and the ground floor has plenty of space for all six of us.

The other mitigating factor is that the spirits, if that’s what they are, seem perfectly happy upstairs. They don’t even seem to mind our occasional visits up there.

When my girlfriend Kim, with her siblings Keeva and Kevin, inherited the house from their Aunt Kathleen, it made perfect sense for them to move in. Its once-countryside location has now been subsumed into the commuter belt, but even still, it would be near-impossible to sell or rent the place. They, however, were used to the upstairs neighbours, having spent most childhood summers in the place. The problem lay in convincing me, Keeva’s boyfriend Alan, and Kevin’s girlfriend Camilla, that a possessed building was somewhere we could call home.

So before we committed, we were given a grand tour of the upper floor. And it was fine. There were no sudden jumpscares, no poltergeist throwing pottery past our heads, not even a headless horseman galloping down the hallway. It was a bit of a disappointment, if anything. Sure, a bubbling stream of blood ran down the bathroom door and disappeared into nothingness, and the two small bedrooms to the rear seemed to be playing a kind of ethereal ping-pong against each other, with a goat’s head as the ball, but we all got the feeling that this is what would be happening even if we weren’t here to observe it.

What can get annoying is when they decide to return the favour and come down to visit us. It’s always preceded by a loud rumble through the floorboards, as if they’re moaning about being bored, and then we know we’ll soon have a lot of cleaning up to do. The incident last summer was particularly annoying. I think they thought they were being funny. Me and the lads were watching a documentary about wild boars, when what should appear from behind the sofa but some sort of demon pig. One of its long, curved horns was piercing its only eye, causing a constant flow of dark green blood to flow from its face as it ran around the living room, vomiting a stinking, translucent goo all over the carpet and squealing like . . . well, like a blinded demon pig. We’ve replaced the carpet with tiles and rugs since. Easier to clean.

The kitchen was already fully wipe-downable, after the first incident. Poor Kevin, who has never been the best in the kitchen, was so proud of the roast chicken he’d made us. Then he sliced into the breast and Boom! A million tiny eyeballs, coated in a kind of purple frog spawn, explode all over the kitchen, coating every surface. We were still finding little eyes looking out at us from underneath some appliance or other over a year later.

Mostly though, it’s fine. Yes, our IKEA hatstand has been sentient since its temporary re-location upstairs during the redecoration process, but he’s still at his happiest when holding our coats and hats. And he doesn’t eat much, just the occasional pair of gloves.

So last Thursday, when we heard screaming from the kitchen, we assumed the house was just playing another of its messy-but-harmless pranks. We’d all just returned from our salsa class in the local community college – all of us bar Camilla and Alan, who claimed a lack of rhythm – and were relaxing in front of the TV while the non-dancers prepared dinner. A knowing look passed around the room as we heard the rumbling from upstairs, followed by a clattering, crashing and shrieking from the kitchen.

Imagine our surprise when, having all trudged in to help with the cleaning up, we were presented with two large bowls on the kitchen island, each filled with diced tomato, chillies, garlic, coriander, and the decapitated heads of our housemates.

Amid the screaming, wailing and crying, I noticed that placed neatly in front of the bowls were Alan and Camilla’s phones. Freeing one of my arms from the hopefully-comforting embrace I was holding Kim in, I grabbed the nearest phone and took a peek at the screen. It was unlocked and opened on a messaging app. The texts showed messages between Al and Cam, both anticipating and analysing their regular Thursday evening sexual affair, conducted while their partners were out at salsa class. That explained the bowls of salsa their heads were now resting in, the house proving it had a sense of humour even as it doled out the ultimate punishment for their infidelity.

So as the surviving four of us were dealing with our grief in all the ways that can be imagined: tears, anger, disbelief and, due to the nature of their death, a fair amount of nausea, I had a few questions going through my mind. Firstly, how long had Camilla and Alan been in a secret relationship? Secondly, was I entitled to feel annoyed with Camilla? I had assumed I was the only person she was having an affair with, when we both finished work earlier than the others every Friday. Thirdly, as we were also conducting this liaison within the house, would I be next to feel the spirits’ vengeance?

I was to have my answer immediately. I sensed a familiar, warming sensation around my neck. The feeling of comfort turned to panic when I realised that, although it was definitely my cashmere scarf I could feel, it was wrapped a lot tighter than was ideal. Glancing at my reflection in the kitchen window, I immediately spotted the reason; our hatstand was attempting to strangle me. Kevin, being the first to spot my predicament, ran to help, struggling with the animate furniture briefly before snapping one of the scarf-bearing hooks and freeing me from its clutches. Kevin held the hatstand to the ground as I stumbled out of the kitchen, struggling to regain my breath. The girls caught up with me as I opened the door into the hallway. I was presented with the sight of their Aunt Kathleen’s grandfather clock, its side panels now functioning arms, swinging its pendulum towards me like a samurai sword. I instinctively ducked out of the way, hearing as I did a dull thud followed by a scream. It was Kim doing the screaming, and Keeva’s head which accounted for the dull thud. The house had now beheaded 50% of us.

The clock, as visibly annoyed at decapitating the wrong person as it’s possible for a clock to be, now prepared to swing its weapon again. I ran in the only direction open to me; up the stairs, the pendulum smashing into the first step just as I made it to the second. Looking over my shoulder I saw that I’d lost the grandfather clock, its stubby legs unable for the steps. I heard a creaking from the wood beneath me and made it to the top step just as the stairs converted into a wooden slide that would have brought me right back into the bloodthirsty timepiece’s range.

Running through the first door I came to, I found myself in a completely empty front-facing room. I made straight for the window, but wasn’t quick enough. The entire aperture instantly contracted into a manhole-sized opening, spraying me with shattering glass as the window frame splintered, cracked and exploded. I felt myself being sucked inwards towards the back of the room as a great rush of air squeezed itself through the former window, as if the building was taking a giant in-breath. Then, with a short, loud, blowing sound, every bit of that air was expelled rapidly through the opening, bringing me with it. The next few seconds were both thrilling and terrifying, as I flew through the air faster than I thought possible. I seemed to gain altitude at first, soaring over the front garden and the road in front of it, before just about clearing the house opposite. Continuing to rise over the church and graveyard, I seemed to level off just over the train station a quarter of a mile away, before beginning my descent. Thankfully, the land on the other side of the station is mostly still rural, and well before I landed I could tell I was going to have a relatively soft landing in a ploughed field.

There, my memory cuts out, resuming here, in my hospital bed. After a few hours of lying here, trying to figure out just how many bones I’ve broken and losing count every time, the door opens and in walks Kim. She seems pleased to see I’m finally awake. However, as she begins to talk, it’s quickly apparent that’s the only thing she’s pleased about. As was to be expected, the house left proof of my infidelity for her to find. She tells me where to find all of my belongings; in a charred pile next to Alan and Camilla’s similarly-incinerated worldly goods. Kim informs me that they’ve said nothing to the police so far, hiding behind a diagnosis of severe shock, and gives me two options. The first is that she and Kevin say that they have no idea who committed the murders, and give me an alibi, allowing me to “complete my recovery” at home. The second is that they finally make a statement confirming the police’s theory that I murdered my three former housemates and sustained my injuries while trying to escape the wrath of the remaining two. I ask why I shouldn’t just tell the police the truth. She informs me the upstairs neighbours have been a lot quieter recently, with the accidental death of Keeva – which Kim makes clear she blames on me – seeming to have driven them into a dark depression, and a complete cessation of all paranormal activities. Except for a loud, angry rumbling from upstairs whenever my name is mentioned. So even if I could get somebody to believe my story, investigations into the house wouldn’t find anything to back it up.

I get as comfortable as is possible in my array of casts, splints and bandages and assess the choices I’ve been presented with. Option one would mean a no-doubt gruesome death at the hands of the spirits upstairs. Option two, life imprisonment. There is a third option, of course. Through the door I see a sign pointing the way to roof access. From memory, this hospital is quite a tall building. I think back to the thrill of the wind rushing past me on my recent flight over the town. Maybe, once my legs are able for the journey upstairs, another flight, albeit a brief and vertical one, may be in order.