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The candles had burned low by the time Underwood awoke. His sleep had been filled with troubling dreams which were now mercifully dissolving from his mind, so that now, mere seconds after waking up, he couldn’t remember specifics. That they had been unpleasant he was sure, a fact also supported by the sheen of cold perspiration that dampened his body. He checked his watch, it was now twenty minutes past midnight.
Rising from the chair, he stretched his limbs. It was then that he noticed it. A slight man-shaped outline on the bed where someone—or something—had been lying. After rubbing his tired eyes, he stared harder. There it was—a definite indented outline where some pressure had been put on the cover and the mattress. Had he, in his sleep, wandered over and slept there? Only to sleepwalk back to the chair afterwards. It seemed highly unlikely.
Closing his eyes, Underwood counted to ten, breathed deep, and looked again. The depression had gone! He was just about to head over to the bed for a closer look when he heard a dull clang as of metal on stone from outside the window.
The sound came again, only this time it was less of a clang, more a metallic rattle, like the winching of a length of thick-linked chain, the kind of thing that raised and lowered drawbridges.
Underwood tried to tell himself that it was only the landlord doing something or other in the yard, perhaps moving heavy, metal beer barrels or closing a gate. Curious, he walked over to the window and peered out.
All was dark. Raising the latch, he forced the window open, bringing in the cold, the wind, and the rain. There was nothing there. Then he heard something over to his left, a scraping sound. Just the sound an iron gibbet would make as it swung against a wall. Underwood stood for a moment, not daring to turn his head. Then he quickly glanced to the left. There was nothing there. He breathed out explosively. Just for a moment his heart had seemed to stop. Pulling his head back inside he laughed nervously; that ghost story had really got to him, he thought.
Looking around the room, he saw the candles were beginning to gutter and started to replenish them from the box left by the landlord. As he lit the third, the first two suddenly died. Frowning, Underwood took out another match and brought it towards a wick. It too blew out instantly and he felt a distinct breeze on his face. He had secured the window and the foul weather outside had died down, but there was a wind picking up in the room. As he spun round to see if the door had come open, all the candles went out at once and he was plunged into darkness. He struggled to contain a shout of alarm and his fingers fumbled for a match. Twice, the struck match failed to catch but on the third attempt it fired into life and he cupped his hands around it, sheltering the flame as he scanned the room, a growing feeling of panic threatening to overwhelm him. Turning to look at the bed, he saw for a moment a figure, indistinct but visible, lying on it. He had only the briefest glimpse of a blood-stained jacket and a badly bruised face before he ran for the door, frantically turning the key in the lock. To his relief it opened and he fell through into the corridor, gasping for breath and whimpering.
There was a low laugh from the room behind him as he slammed the door shut.
On legs that had turned to jelly, Underwood half-staggered down the short corridor. “Wake up! Wake up, damn you!” He hammered on the landlord’s bedroom door. He had found the light switch in the corridor and the flood of light helped to calm his nerves a little, but there was no way he would stay in that room the rest of the night.
The door opened and the landlord peered out blearily into the corridor. “What is it? What’s wrong?” he asked.
“That room…the ghost…I can’t stay there.” Underwood spoke incoherently.
“Eh? What are you on about?”
“That room is haunted. There’s something there. I’m going downstairs.”
Before the landlord could reply, Underwood made for the narrow stairs that led down into the bar area. He had to search for a moment or two in order to find the light switch. He flicked it on, instantly bathing the room in brightness. It was as he remembered it, but more importantly it was empty, ghost-free.
Quite suddenly he had the desire to get completely away from this place. He wished he had never set foot inside, and the need to flee out the door, into the night, to keep walking until he came to somewhere else, almost overwhelmed him. It was an urge that he managed to control and sitting down here, in the light, made him think, once more, that perhaps it had all been nothing more than his imagination. There was no doubt that dark stories engendered dark thoughts.
Nerves tingling, he jumped as he heard a door opening above him. Then came the creak of floorboards and the sound of footsteps coming down the stairs. A few seconds later, the landlord appeared and he let out a sigh of relief.
The landlord went behind the bar, poured a brandy and came over with it. Presenting it to Underwood he took a seat opposite. “I’ve got some apologising to do,” he said. “But first, get this down you. It’ll make you feel better.”
Underwood took a sip, grimacing somewhat as the raw liquor burnt his throat.
“I am sorry, sir, what with laying on that story about The Highwayman and all. It’s something I tell all new guests I get. It’s a load of rubbish, you see. A little bit of banter just to give me something to talk about and make this rundown, godforsaken place seem a bit more characterful and colourful than it really is.” The man removed his glasses and gave them a wipe. “There’s no ghost here. Nor was there ever any team of investigators. I just thought to myself one day that a place with a name like ‘The Devil’s Horseman’ should have a ghost, a bit of a reputation, so I made up the story.”
“You—you made it up?”
“Aye, as a joke. But I can see that it’s given you a nightmare, and for that I’m truly sorry. I’ve had dozens of folk stay in that room and none of them have ever seen anything.”
“But I saw something. There was something there.”
“No, sir. It’s just your imagination. But if you’d rather stay down here for the night, then that’s alright by me. I’ll get you some blankets and a pillow and—”
“That won’t be necessary,” said Underwood tersely. “I’m awake now and I don’t intend to go back to sleep.” He finished his brandy.
“As you please, but the offer’s there.” The landlord got to his feet. “Just remember that there are no ghosts here. I’ll see you in the morning.” He made his way back upstairs to his room.
Underwood eased himself into the comfort of his chair.
There was something here, something which if not truly evil was certainly close to it. It was not the evil of voodoo or of witchcraft, which was said to be practiced in the far distant jungles of Africa, and which were things a man could laugh at, so long as he didn’t believe in the weird superstitions of the natives. No, this was something utterly different, subtly more horrible, terrible in a manner that was hard to define. The sensation he had experienced when he had glimpsed the body on the bed had been like an electric shock coursing through him.
A riot of half-formed ideas were running through Underwood’s brain. To be told one thing and then to be told that it had all been nothing but a pack of lies. And yet, he had experienced something in that room. Or had he? Could it be, as the landlord had said, nothing but his own imagination, fuelled by the tale the other had related, which had projected such images and sounds on to his mind?
Everything should have been sane and normal now that the myth of The Highwayman had been exposed as fraudulent, nothing more than fiction created with the sole intent of scaring him. But instead, Underwood could feel the presence of unknown horrors ringing him around, pressing in on all sides, gathering about him in the same way darkness comes creeping out of the far corners of a room whenever a candle burns low.
He tried to shake himself free of whatever power or other was trying to possess him, to make him do things that no clear-thinking individual would dare contemplate. He felt as though he was succumbing to this siren’s song, this u
nearthly force that was now filling his mind with an inner madness.
Everything was very quiet. The storm had abated, and as he sat there, alone in the bar, he tried hard to shake away the eerie sights he had seen. He was of half a mind to go and pour himself a second brandy when that silence was broken by the sound of a baleful moan from over to his right. Shaking, he turned to look. There was a door, half-open, beyond which was a corridor which he assumed led to the kitchen.
A chill spread slowly over him as he stood staring, listening, his senses strained to the utmost. The shiver came back. His mind was now floundering like a swimmer caught out of their depths, struggling against a dark undertow of frightening possibilities that his rational, logical brain battled to constrain. Little beads of icy coldness ran down his forehead, as, for what seemed a timeless period, he stared transfixed at where the moan had come from.
Nothing emerged from the room beyond and he was about shift his vision when the groan came again, louder this time. What mad impulse made him get him to his feet and head over in order to discover the source of that ghastly sound he didn’t know but, upon throwing the corridor door wide, he saw nothing more alarming than a small, untidy kitchen over to his left and another door some ten feet directly in front of him.
It was the door to the cellar.
It slowly swung open.
Trembling, Underwood stood, eyes wide. His mind was a tumult of terrible thoughts, and fear was a bubbling sensation in his throat. Deliberately, he forced himself to think of something other than the door to the cellar—the cellar, where the landlord had told him The Highwayman had been bricked up alive. But that was just fabrication, he told himself, trying to get it out of his mind. The landlord had said so. So why was he still scared? Why did he remain unconvinced?
A strange compulsion dragged him forward.
Reaching the cellar door, he stood for a moment, peering down into the damp-smelling darkness. That rational part of his mind told him to step away, to go back into the well-lit bar and stay there till daybreak, keeping all of the lights on, having another drink, get plastered—anything but venture down there.
Obeying a power that he was no longer able to resist, Underwood flicked on the light switch and proceeded carefully downstairs. The boards creaked as he stood on them, his right hand trailing down the wall where paint and stained wallpaper peeled and sloughed off in patches like diseased skin. The reek of damp was mixed with the heady, slightly intoxicating smell of ale and cider.
The cellar was small, lit only by the one bare bulb. To his right was the ramp leading to the bolted outer door through which barrels were lowered. Many of those barrels were in front of him, various lines and lengths of tubing leading from them to the beer pumps in the bar. Several crates and boxes of unopened bottles lay heaped against the wall to his left.
Every sense strained to the utmost, Underwood stood there for what seemed an eternity, gazing around him. And then he heard it. A whimpering that came from behind the stacked crates. He screamed silently, inwardly, unable to articulate the terror that clutched at his soul. There was a dull, persistent throbbing in his ears and a stabbing at his temples that wouldn’t go away. And yet, whereas a sane individual would by now have fled, clambered back up the stairs and perhaps run screaming out of the public house, he found himself captivated by the sounds, unable to function rationally, unable to act as common sense dictated.
Crouching low, he moved towards the crates. The sound was getting louder.
Systematically, he began moving the boxes, piling them in the centre of the cellar. The wall space beyond was bare, ordinary.
Underwood stepped back, scanning the length of exposed brickwork.
There was a dark tugging at his brain, an external influence that took possession of him. Looking around for something—and yet he had no real idea what—he found himself going back upstairs and into the kitchen. Pulling open a drawer, he found a metal ladle, several knives, and half a dozen spoons. Gathering up the kitchen utensils, he then made his way back into the cellar.
He used the ladle first, scooping and chipping away at the surface. The first knife he used snapped, but the second proved harder and he scraped away at the mortar binding the bricks. It was relatively easygoing, far easier than he had anticipated, and he seemed to be working now with a certain mechanical efficiency, as though he had become but the tool for something far more driven. Using the handle of the ladle, he tapped one of the loosened bricks in. It fell away, revealing a dark cavity beyond.
Underwood was working hard now, feverishly chipping at the bricks, widening the aperture. The more he cleared, the easier it became. Within fifteen minutes he had created a gap wide enough to insert his head into.
He peered into the bricked-up room. At first he could see little, just the rubble-strewn floor and the dislodged bricks. Then, as his eyes became accustomed to the gloom, he could discern the outline of something lying on the ground in the far corner.
Eagerly, he began tearing at the wall, widening the breach. Still unable to clearly see whatever it was that lay in the corner, Underwood stepped back, reached up and took down the light-bulb on its length of cable. With this in hand, he went back to the hole.
The thing in the corner was a ragged, man-sized skeleton dressed in a tattered coat and wearing scuffed, leather riding boots. Around one ankle, attached to the wall by a short length of rusty chain, was a manacle.
It had to be the long-dead remains of The Highwayman, Robert Darcy.
An inner voice told Underwood to come closer, that there was nothing for him to fear. He obeyed, clambering into the long-forgotten secret room, the length of cable long enough to permit illuminating the interior. Crouching down, he set about gouging away the brickwork that secured the worn bracket to which the length of manacle had been bolted.
Not once did he stop to think what would happen if the landlord were to appear on the scene. Here, before his very eyes, was the physical evidence to prove the latter’s own belief. Just how did one explain or come to terms with that? Under different circumstances Underwood would have been dumbfounded, unable to accept any of this.
The knife he was using broke, its blade shattering. A shard slit his hand.
There was no blood!
Underwood stared. Of all the weirdness he had seen and experienced since arriving at The Devil’s Horseman, for some reason this was the most inexplicable. Grimacing, he pinched the sliver of metal between his thumb and forefinger of his left hand and plucked it out. Perhaps the wound hadn’t been deep enough to draw blood, he told himself.
The unspoken command returned, more urgently, dragging he attention back to the bracket. Using a spoon, he managed to loosen it and, with a tug, he snapped it free.
A green, ethereal mist gathered above the skeleton. It swirled and billowed, thickening, becoming a smoke which solidified into a man-shaped thing, a cruel-faced individual resplendent in a long dark coat and tricorne hat. Shoulder-length black hair, an eye-patch, and a roguish goatee beard completed his devilish, rugged good looks.
“Ye’ve freed me.” The spectre’s voice was cold and chilling.
Underwood was speechless. He stood in awe. Then he looked at the spoon in his hand. It was a poor weapon if things turned nasty. A thought crept into his mind as he tried to explain to himself just what this thing could be. Could it be that this ‘ghost’ had been given some form of semi-existence by the oft-repeated story related by the landlord? For if, as some believed, apparitions were but echoes of past events, trapped like photographic images on certain backgrounds, visible only to those receptive enough to see them, then it wasn’t too much of a stretch to theorise that ideas and beliefs could do likewise: thoughts made flesh, or ectoplasmic in this case. This didn’t quite explain the presence of the skeleton though. Could the landlord have somehow picked up a resonance of this ghost and unwittingly have based his story on forgotten fact?
“Well? Don’t ye speak?”
“You’re a ghost, are
n’t you? The ghost of The Highwayman, ‘Black Robert’.”
Something remotely resembling a smile creased the wraith’s mouth. “‘Black Robert’. Aye, that was my name. But tell me, who are ye? I don’t recognise yer attire. And what happened to yer head?”
“My head?” Underwood looked confused.
“Yer head.” The ghostly highwayman pointed to the other’s forehead.
Underwood touched the place in question, alarmed when he felt the dampness. Worried, he examined his fingertips and saw blood, black and wet. Had he banged his head in his desperate attempt to unearth and liberate the ghost? It was certainly possible.
“Were ye beaten too? Or did ye fall from a carriage?”
“I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
“How did ye die, man?”
“What!? I’m not dead.”
“Hah! And neither am I.” The ghost threw its head back and laughed. There was a certain malice in its mirth. “Of course ye’re dead, and nearing the end of yer time of influence. I was fortunate: another few minutes and ye couldn’t have freed me.”
“But.…” Underwood’s world crumbled away before him. In a dark flash of memory, he saw his hands frantically grasping at the car’s steering wheel as he battled to control it in the storm. The tyres screeched as he skidded, slamming on the brakes. Then came the shattering impact.
A nightmare. It was all a long, involved nightmare. Frantically, he crawled out of the bricked-up room and rushed out of the cellar. At the top, he paused, trying to muster the courage to check his wrist for signs of a pulse. He couldn’t bring himself to do it.
The Chaos of Chung-Fu Page 10
