“Let’s go and stay at a pub tonight,” I suggested, “and come back in the morning.”
“Scaredy-cat,” replied James, but he turned as he did so and we headed back along the track towards the village.
I was, indeed, a little unnerved. There are those who expect ex-army majors to be pragmatists with little sensitivity in their bones. Actually army majors are as mixed in temperament and character as the rest of the population. There are those who have no imagination – no depths to their soul, so to speak – but I was not one of them. I had a very fertile mind and had owned a quixotic streak since childhood. The army needs both kinds of men: those who walk in straight lines and those who like to look around the corner first. Since Hong Kong, where I had met Chinese businessmen who I greatly admired, men who firmly believed in the supernatural, I was not always ready to discount an aberrant solution to a problem that did not appear to have a logical one.
So, yes, my little friend was right, I was scared. I had a healthy respect for the state of fear. You do not ignore it just because you want to look a bold, nerveless commander frightened of nothing. Too many of those types have led their men into terrible firefights and lost not only their own lives, but also the life of many a good ordinary soldier.
James and I found a goodly tavern, had a nice meal, then went to bed.
The following morning we returned to the house. In the light of day it didn’t look so forbidding. In fact it looked a little ludicrous, and I mentally chastised myself for the previous evening’s show of funk. This time we used the giant door key to enter a world of dried bats dangling from cotton threads, stuffed ravens, strangely-dressed mannequins, books on the occult including fiction by Bram Stoker and other predictable authors, hats and masks, puppets, weirdly-shaped objects that might have been anything or nothing, purple walls and doors, cobwebs real and unreal, spiders real and unreal, stuffed rats, instruments of torture and degradation, and a whole host of paraphernalia connected with the dark arts and gruesome magic. The musty smell almost knocked us over each time we entered a new room. Clearly Moretta had spent a lifetime collecting the black, dusty carrion of human endeavour, which must have been such a comfort to her in her loneliness and solitude.
James, in offering me his feelings on the place, also decided to go for irony.
“Nice and cosy,” he murmured. “There’s a very pleasant under-odour of alley cats. Lunch?”
We undid our packs and took out sandwiches, and standing by one of the filthy windows we munched away.
“So, who’s going to use the murder room tonight?” he asked.
“We’ll both sleep in there.”
“There’s only one bed. I don’t want to share it with a great hulk like you. You jerk around in your sleep.”
We had shared a two-man tent on Ben Nevis once, and, indeed, my dreams were usually fueled by old combats.
“I’ll use the armchair.”
“Fair enough.”
On reflection, it should have been me in the bed. James was half my size, a little frailer in his constitution, and anyway it was my job to find out what was happening in this house. The beds had been made up by the agency’s cleaner woman, but James was not eager to turn in, that much was true. When he did, he had managed to make himself so fatigued he fell asleep right away. I moved an armchair on the far side of the room and flopped in it, prepared for a wakeful, vigilant night on watch. Of course I fell asleep, probably not long after James himself did, being of tired mind and slightly whiskied.
I was woken by the noise of a furious storm, which had no doubt come in from the Atlantic. It raved and crashed over the cliffs. Thunder ripped across the night sky and forked lightning flashed dramatically, illuminating the windows. The old house seemed very vulnerable under such an attack. Surely it would crack apart?
However, it withstood the battering for at least half an hour, then it lowered in volume enough for me to hear the screams which must have been coming from James for some time.
Panicking, I grabbed for the torch in my pocket, but as I pulled it out it slipped from my grasp. I stood up in the blackness and felt for the wall behind me, trying to find the light switch. It took me a good minute or two. James’s screams had turned now to choked gasps. After turning on the light there was a distinct impression of having disturbed something. A shadow flitted past my light-blinded vision. However, my attention was all for James, who was clearly in deep trouble.
My friend was lying on his back, his arms outside the covers, struggling for each shallow breath.
On his bloodless face was a look of absolute terror.
“James! James!”
I rushed over to him, but he was obviously in agony, and was clearly in no condition to answer any questions. I didn’t dare touch him, in case I injured him further.
“Don’t worry, old chap,” I told him, soothingly, “I’ll get help immediately.”
I called emergency services on my mobile.
It was some while before I heard the sound of the ambulance outside and during that time James had done nothing but fight for each breath. And no wonder. The paramedics suggested that he might have one or two broken ribs. Possibly one had punctured his lung. They took him away on a stretcher. James was able to say a few words before they drove him off along that rugged cliffside track.
“I saw it,” he croaked, his eyes bulging. “When the lightning flashed – I saw it.”
The back of my neck bristled.
“Saw what? Who?”
But James was unable to elaborate.
Later, with a cup of coffee in my shaking hands, staring into that murderous bedroom, I pondered on his words. Nothing further had come from his poor tortured throat. I had to be content with knowing that I was not alone in the house. Since we had been the only people in the place, who was the company? Who had James seen, that was not present now? I stood and pondered on this question for quite a while and I could find no rational explanation. James had been attacked and severely injured by a seemingly invisible assailant.
Clearly he had still been under attack when I had turned on the light. Then the aggressor had fled, but so rapidly I had only caught a glimpse of something so flimsy and insubstantial it was less than a wisp. Unless there were people hiding behind the wainscot, the intruder had to be other than a human. What could possibly crush a man in his own bed? I did a very thorough square search of the house to ascertain that we had indeed been alone and found no evidence of another person in the dwelling.
It’s obviously not easy to accept the presence of malevolent supernatural beings. Although, as I said, I’m not a thoroughly pragmatic person, I’m not exactly psychic either, and like most people I’m sceptical when it comes to the paranormal. Ordinarily, I do not believe in ghosts, ghouls, spectres or any of those creatures of the night. But either there was devious human trickery going on – and my search had revealed no evidence of this – or this was something beyond normal, rational understanding. I couldn’t simply straighten my back and discount the idea that there was something in this house, something in Moretta’s bed, which had its origins in a place other than this world. My friend was lying in hospital. I had been with him in the room.
‘It’ had tried to kill James.
Looking round me at the dried bats and other stuffed wildlife, thinking about the dark nature and foul, unspeakable atmosphere of her weird residence, it seemed that Moretta might as well have invited ghouls to inhabit its confines. It beckoned to those beyond the grave to come and make their lair in some nook or cranny of this hideous dwelling. Now, having accepted that there was an unwelcome presence from beyond inhabiting the place, it seemed it was up to me to exorcise it. Since I was a complete amateur when it came to the spirit world, I had no idea how to carry this out, but for James’s sake I had to try.
Switching on all the lights, the first thing I did was inspect the walls for any hidden panels, just in case I had missed something on my earlier search. This exercise took me all day and h
alf the evening. Besides filth, I found very little, until I came to a small cupboard up on the landing. It was hidden behind a chest which, going by the dead spiders and dirt beneath, had not been moved in a long time. The little door was locked, so I forced it with the spike on my jack-knife that is supposed to be used by boy scouts for removing stones from horses’ hooves. Inside the cupboard was a stack of papers. I took the lot down to the living-room, and dumped them on the table next to a vase full of artificial black tulips, intending to go through them. Then there was a power cut. I was too exhausted to peer at papers by torchlight.
I took myself off to bed. Despite my trepidation, I intended to sleep in Moretta’s bed. What I had asked my friend to do, I had to do, otherwise I would have had to call myself a coward. I felt I had a moral duty to use myself as bait for this fiend, or whatever it was, that took human life so easily and without compunction. I was fully alert to the dangers I was subjecting myself to and had decided that the moment I felt anything unusual going on, I would vacate the bed with alacrity.
Was I scared? I was bloody petrified.
It doesn’t matter what you say you don’t believe in when you’re standing in the bright sunshine, amongst the company of friends. It doesn’t matter how much you extol the rational and logical, and scorn the mystical when you’re out and about in a sane and ordinary world. In a dark, creaking old house, amongst the clutter of a dabbler in the occult, your disbeliefs vanish at the going down of the sun.
I climbed the stairs with leaden feet and stood in the doorway of Moretta’s room, my torchlight on the bed. It looked innocent enough. What was it about this antique piece of furniture that attracted such violence from the otherworld? Apart from the fact that it was an ancient four-poster, it looked very ordinary. Where was the cabalistic magnet? In the ornate and handcarved woodwork? In the ropes that (‘’Night, ’night, sleep tight!’) served as springs? Who knew?
Conquering my terror, I undressed down to my underwear and crawled between the sheets. There I lay under the bedclothes, unwilling to switch off the torch. My heart was in a race against itself. My blood was pumping round my body in a torrent. There was a sharp, sickening pain over my right eye: the sort of headache I used to get before going into battle. I wanted to get up and run away, but I had to stay where I was and wait for whatever might be sent to haunt me. This was not an easy thing to do. It was like awaiting an enemy attack.
Gradually the torch battery ran down. The light became dimmer and dimmer until it was a faint glow reminiscent of one of my lit cigarette ends in the days when I used to smoke. Then it went out altogether. Midnight, and I was in complete darkness. The sweat ran cold and clammy down the channel of my spine.
I stared up into the blackness in the direction of the velvet ceiling, unable to sleep. I must have lain there for at least another two hours, then my eyes closed and finally I dropped off.
I woke suddenly, with a loud grunt of pain.
I couldn’t move my arms. They were pinned tightly to my sides. Under its loose coverlette it seemed the quilt had moulded itself around my body. I was mummified and the quilt was shrinking, squeezing the breath and life from my lungs. My knees, my ankles, my feet, all were jammed hard against each other, grinding the bones together. It was as if I were in a rope cocoon that was gradually tightening, tightening. You would think I could just break loose, but the strength of simple ordinary fabric is actually incredible and the force behind this action to crush me was unstoppable. It was as if I were in the grip of an anaconda snake which was trying to pulp me before devouring me.
“Help!” I gasped. “Somebody help me!”
Then to my horror I was suddenly aware of the weight of some stinking creature squatting on my chest, staring down into my face. Even though I couldn’t see it, I was sure it was grinning. Fuseli’s nightmare! The demon on the maiden’s breast. Though this monster had not just one, but several heads. I could feel only one form, but many disgusting exhalations on my face. I could feel boney haunches, digging into my ribs, and then my terror increased as coarse, hairy knuckles brushed my brow, as if I were being stroked into the realms of death.
It was not the demon who was crushing me, however, but an innocuous quilt. I felt sure the fiend was just there to watch, a curious witness to my helpless struggles against an ugly death.
The pain increased until I let out a scream that filled the room. The monster on my chest laughed, a deep gutteral sound that filled my head. My scream had taken all the breath out of my lungs and in that moment I knew I couldn’t fill them again. I was swiftly dying. My bonds were impossible to dislodge. I prayed in those few moments; I tried to invoke the power of good over evil. I called on God to help me. I pleaded for my fading life. My attempts failed. There were bright flashing lights in my brain which I knew to be portents of death. It was being starved of oxygen. My heart felt ready to explode. I was going, and the fear that had been gripping me suddenly evaporated. Only the agony remained, and soon that would leave me too. I was leaving this world, going on to the next. Only a step, no further. I managed to whisper a faint “Goodbye” to no one in particular.
Just as I finished that last feathery farewell, the electric light flashed on and the room was flooded with brightness. Whatever was squatting on my chest fled. A wisp of mist, he flew into the cracks and fissures of the walls. The quilt dropped away and was now loose and free. Light had conquered the forces of darkness. I blessed the brilliance that was blinding me and cleansing the room of evil.
For a long while I was forced to stay where I was, until regular breaths restored the use of my lungs. Gradually, gradually, I was able to get back to a normal rhythm. As soon as I was able, I got out of that bed, determined never to return to it. I had been saved not by God, nor by his son, but by the restoration of the electricity. The power cut had ended just when I needed it to most, the light being already switched on.
Then I remembered the old joke about the man who refused to be rescued three times, saying God would do it, and when he was drowned by the flood God told him, “I sent three rescue parties for you and you ignored them.” Maybe some deity had heard me after all?
I left the house and went to the hospital, where they let me have a bed next to my friend James. We exchanged similar experiences, then both slept like tops, though my dreams, at least, were fearful. In the morning, James and I left the hospital and went back to the house, to try to discover its terrible secret. We found it, amongst the papers and files that I had discovered in the hidden cupboard.
Indeed, Moretta had brought the haunting on herself.
We went reluctantly to Moretta’s bedroom and under a thin top coverlet we uncovered the blood quilt. There were brown marks still visible on some of its patches. They looked like maps of unknown regions. Not every patch had an old blood stain though, for there were those malefactors who had been hung, and not shot, and others who had suffered strangulation by the garrotte. Still, a good many bore the evidence of their former owners’ executions. Several still had their bullet holes, even now unstitched. Just one patch, from some country which had yet to reach a humane way of executing its murderers, had the jagged rent of a sharp instrument just below the position of the heart.
In her untiring search for ever more experiences of the macabre, Moretta had made a patchwork quilt. A friend of hers had written to her and told her that she was making a bedspread out of T-shirts purchased in cities around the world.
I love New York.
I love London.
I love Istanbul.
Moretta went one better. She made a quilt, not of love, but of hate. Moretta had researched and located the shirts and vests of executed murderers. She had then purchased these items from those who had removed them from the corpses, hoping to turn a profit. There are always people in this world who know the symbolic value of evil, to worshippers of religions like voodoo and other cults that follow Satan’s teachings.
Moretta’s blood quilt became more than a symbol.
She had fashioned an instrument of execution for the pernicious dead who wanted revenge on the living.
Elaine had the quilt burned on a bonfire. Then the house was boarded up and never again rented out to anyone. She called me two years later and told me that the sea had at last claimed yet another victim. A storm had eaten away a chunk of the cliff and Moretta’s house had joined the parts of the town that had fallen under the waves. James and I drove down to look at the spot, but there was nothing to see.
HORTUS CONCLUSUS
Chaz Brenchley
There’s a beautiful line in Chaz Brenchley’s story that really gets to the heart of the piece: “The dead don’t go away.” And that’s the thing about ghosts, because what they really are is the persistence of memory. In this tale of loss and grief, Brenchley explores how the dead continue to affect us, often hanging on long after we thought we had said goodbye for the last time.
Sometimes an idea is just bad from the beginning, a road that only goes one way.
Sometimes, a friend phones up with an invitation you really can’t refuse.
“Johnny. What are you doing, August?”
House of Fear Page 13
